Why don't the ends justify the means but God can permit evil to draw out a greater good?

[Memaw]

Whats really strange is in clearly evil acts, like incest, rape or other such acts, is when the female gets pregnant!! I find it troubling God would see fit to breathe life into a fetus stemming from such evil…especially when most of these babies are aborted, and God would most definitely know this beforehand too, so why would be breathe life into the fetus, knowing full well, the circumstances and that the female will abort the baby due to the evil act?

The only thing I can find to explain this, is that creating a baby does not really require any action of God, but we were taught ANYTHING, whether its a honeybee to a human fetus, absolutely requires God to breathe life into it so it can be born…So, is this wrong, or?

Read my Post #4. If God stopped all evil before it could happen, he would almost have to send another flood. And he promised HE would never do that. Creating a baby does require an action from God, after the action of the parents. Thats the way it is, sin or no sin. Just remember, while abortion is a grave evil, we are sure those babies will never suffer the pains of Hell. We’re not sure we can say the same for one or both of the parents. We pray for the conversion of all. God Bless, Memaw

 

[Bradski]

These type of discussions always seem to go on for a while. The conversation veers off at a tangent now and then, people get a chance to blow off steam and make esoteric points about ethics, morality (maths!) etc and get to score a few debating points.

For an atheist, there is no answer to why God can do this and not do that because, obviously, we don’t believe there’s a God in the first place. So the question is really: How do you, a Christian, explain how God can do this and not do that.

And the answer is invariably hanging around in the background, glimpsed sometimes lurking between posts. You catch it out of the corner of your eye sometimes and then it’s gone again. It rarely makes a full frontal appearance and I’m not sure why. And that answer is:

I haven’t got a %$#&*$ clue.

Which is a more colloquial way of saying: Who can know the mind of God. It seems to me to be an entirely valid answer, but most Christians seem to want to defend what they seem as ‘their position’ when they don’t have a position to defend.

That’s not to say that it’s an admission of defeat. I don’t think any reasonable atheist is going to fist-pump the air and scream ‘Gotcha!’ at the screen if you are honest enough to post it. It no more means that there is no God to admit that you don’t know how to explain the problem of evil than it means that there is a God when I admit I don’t know how life started.

 

[Peter_Plato]

These type of discussions always seem to go on for a while. The conversation veers off at a tangent now and then, people get a chance to blow off steam and make esoteric points about ethics, morality (maths!) etc and get to score a few debating points.

For an atheist, there is no answer to why God can do this and not do that because, obviously, we don’t believe there’s a God in the first place. So the question is really: How do you, a Christian, explain how God can do this and not do that.

And the answer is invariably hanging around in the background, glimpsed sometimes lurking between posts. You catch it out of the corner of your eye sometimes and then it’s gone again. It rarely makes a full frontal appearance and I’m not sure why. And that answer is:

I haven’t got a %$#&*$ clue.

Sure, but the razor cuts both ways, as when a claim is made that omnipotence and omniscience necessarily entail no evil, no inconvenience and the immediate fulfillment of any and all human desires. How would anyone have a clue about that?

Which is a more colloquial way of saying: Who can know the mind of God. It seems to me to be an entirely valid answer, but most Christians seem to want to defend what they seem as ‘their position’ when they don’t have a position to defend.

That’s not to say that it’s an admission of defeat. I don’t think any reasonable atheist is going to fist-pump the air and scream ‘Gotcha!’ at the screen if you are honest enough to post it. It no more means that there is no God to admit that you don’t know how to explain the problem of evil than it means that there is a God when I admit I don’t know how life started.

The problem here is more one of a “reinterpretation” of positions merely because the other guy is using words that have associated meanings “we” don’t like. So, for example, even if by convention such discussions simply no longer resorted to using “God” as a placeholder for “the ultimate explanation for why reality is the way it is” the question would still come up regarding what could legitimately be proposed as an adequate explanation and how would we know that it was indeed adequate. It seems to me that admitting “we haven’t got a clue” and leaving it there is merely taking a position that we shouldn’t bother with the question at all because it isn’t worth the effort to know.

 

[mikekle]

its ridiculous to say that if a son goes out and kills someone that the parents are responsible, whether they knew that the son would do it or not. Their knowledge could never have prevented the son from committing murder.

Actually, IF a parent KNEW their child was for a fact going to kill or some other major crime, and the parents KNEW who he was going to kill, KNEW the exact time and location is was going to happen, and they did nothing to prevent it, I believe they would be help responsible for such non-action, (if all of the above could be proven in a courtroom that is).

But when it comes to God, there is nothing that must be proven, everyone already knows God is all knowing about everything, the past, present and future, there is nothing he does not know.

This reminds me of the recent interview with Adam Lanzas dad, (the sandy hook shooter), he claimed he wished his son had never been born! Of course he said this because he is upset about what his son did, and Im POSITIVE, if this dad knew what his son was going to do, he would have gone out of his way to stop it, and probably did anything to stop it, including killing his son if it came to that.

As a loving parent, sometimes it is required for a parent to step in and stop their child from committing such acts, I dont know ANY parent that would do nothing if they knew for a fact what their child was going to do in the future! ANY parent would do all they could to prevent such things from happening, but when it comes to humans, we dont have the luxury of knowing things before they happen…ONLY God has this ability.

 

[Estevao]

These type of discussions always seem to go on for a while. The conversation veers off at a tangent now and then, people get a chance to blow off steam and make esoteric points about ethics, morality (maths!) etc and get to score a few debating points.

For an atheist, there is no answer to why God can do this and not do that because, obviously, we don’t believe there’s a God in the first place. So the question is really: How do you, a Christian, explain how God can do this and not do that.

And the answer is invariably hanging around in the background, glimpsed sometimes lurking between posts. You catch it out of the corner of your eye sometimes and then it’s gone again. It rarely makes a full frontal appearance and I’m not sure why. And that answer is:

I haven’t got a %$#&*$ clue.

Which is a more colloquial way of saying: Who can know the mind of God. It seems to me to be an entirely valid answer, but most Christians seem to want to defend what they seem as ‘their position’ when they don’t have a position to defend.

That’s not to say that it’s an admission of defeat. I don’t think any reasonable atheist is going to fist-pump the air and scream ‘Gotcha!’ at the screen if you are honest enough to post it. It no more means that there is no God to admit that you don’t know how to explain the problem of evil than it means that there is a God when I admit I don’t know how life started.
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Yep, I really agree with your first paragraph there.

Honestly I haven’t read through this thread entirely beyond the first page or so, but I don’t really care to get into a discussion of the problem of evil. The logical problem of evil has been dead for decades now in philosophical circles, and moreover it’s an atheist argument where the atheist should be the one who has to shoulder the burden of proof, so I don’t really care to discuss things with people who 1. think they know more than professional philosophers, or 2. try without fail to foist the burden of proof onto the Christian. It’s the same reason why I don’t get into discussions with internet folks about the supposed “dark” ages, or the Galileo affair, Christianity and Nazi Germany etc, because here again you’re usually dealing with people who don’t care what professional historians say, but will try to keep up their defense mechanisms about what they think the past was really about, or what the problem of evil means to them.

Anyways thanks guys for showing me the false dichotomy.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Actually, IF a parent KNEW their child was for a fact going to kill or some other major crime, and the parents KNEW who he was going to kill, KNEW the exact time and location is was going to happen, and they did nothing to prevent it, I believe they would be help responsible for such non-action, (if all of the above could be proven in a courtroom that is).

But when it comes to God, there is nothing that must be proven, everyone already knows God is all knowing about everything, the past, present and future, there is nothing he does not know.

This reminds me of the recent interview with Adam Lanzas dad, (the sandy hook shooter), he claimed he wished his son had never been born! Of course he said this because he is upset about what his son did, and Im POSITIVE, if this dad knew what his son was going to do, he would have gone out of his way to stop it, and probably did anything to stop it, including killing his son if it came to that.

As a loving parent, sometimes it is required for a parent to step in and stop their child from committing such acts, I dont know ANY parent that would do nothing if they knew for a fact what their child was going to do in the future! ANY parent would do all they could to prevent such things from happening, but when it comes to humans, we dont have the luxury of knowing things before they happen…ONLY God has this ability.

Yes, but the part you are forgetting is that God also knows the implications of all acts of every person down through all the ages to the end of time. This means God uses omniscience to manage events not merely in an immediate sense (a father stopping his child from killing) but rather in relation to all future events.

We don’t know, for example, that someone dying of a disease may not actually have been God intervening to prevent some great future evil at the hands of that person. Neither do we know that God is warranted in allowing an immediate evil act because of some great good that will transpire in the future. The point being, that we are in no position to judge what God could or should do based upon what a near sighted (morally speaking) human agent should do. We ought to follow “rules” as they pertain to us in relation to consequences that are reasonably certain to follow from our choices and with our current knowledge. This moral myopia does not necessarily confine God and the choices he makes to being exactly those a human agent based on limited knowledge would be obligated to.

 

[Oreoracle]

We don’t know, for example, that someone dying of a disease may not actually have been God intervening to prevent some great future evil at the hands of that person. Neither do we know that God is warranted in allowing an immediate evil act because of some great good that will transpire in the future.

The irony here is that you’re the one placing human constraints on God here. You argue that the evil God allows might be justified because of some greater good it produces or greater evil it prevents. In other words, you’re saying God allows necessary evils. It’s true that we, as humans, sometimes accept the existence of necessary evils because there are simply no other options. But there are always other options for an omnipotent being. No evil is necessary. Whatever good God wishes to bring about could be attained by him simply snapping his fingers and making it so. No intermediary evil is required.

 

[Bradski]

Sure, but the razor cuts both ways, as when a claim is made that omnipotence and omniscience necessarily entail no evil, no inconvenience and the immediate fulfillment of any and all human desires. How would anyone have a clue about that?

it doesn’t cut both ways becuase the question regarding the problem of evil is not applicable to an atheist. i think you are misinterpreting what an atheist is saying when he makes a statement about omni this and omni that. He’s not actually saying: ‘this makes no sense to me’. He’s actually saying: ‘if this is what you believe then it leads to conclusions that make no sense to me’.

And I’m pretty certain, from very many discussions of this type, that it makes no sense to most Christians either. But saying: ‘I have no idea’ doesn’t seem to be an option. which leads to very convoluted arguments indeed.

It seems to me that admitting “we haven’t got a clue” and leaving it there is merely taking a position that we shouldn’t bother with the question at all because it isn’t worth the effort to know.

Admitting that you don’t have a clue does not lead to simply leaving it at that. In fact, it should lead to a greater search for answers. Unfortunately for you, your belief entails accepting questions for which there will never be an answer. A cross you have to bear, one might say.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Admitting that you don’t have a clue does not lead to simply leaving it at that. In fact, it should lead to a greater search for answers. Unfortunately for you, your belief entails accepting questions for which there will never be an answer. A cross you have to bear, one might say.

Well, no my beliefs entail that there WILL be an answer at some point. YOUR beliefs entail there will never be an answer.

 

[Amandil]

Well, no my beliefs entail that there WILL be an answer at some point. YOUR beliefs entail there will never be an answer.

<—is wondering how “Bradski” would explain that if his house was broken into and all of his things stolen on what principle would he expect to get his belongings restored to him?

Because if “good” and “evil” are merely subjective constructs, then they are really non-existent from a materialist perspective.

And then so is that thing called “justice”.

 

[tonyrey]

A “coincidence” is a term we humans use because we can’t foresee all outcomes. But God can if he’s omniscient–there are surely no coincidences from his point of view.

Coincidences don’t cease to be coincidences because they are foreseen. The point is that they are inevitable in an immensely complex universe.

 

[Peter_Plato]

The irony here is that you’re the one placing human constraints on God here. You argue that the evil God allows might be justified because of some greater good it produces or greater evil it prevents. In other words, you’re saying God allows necessary evils. It’s true that we, as humans, sometimes accept the existence of necessary evils because there are simply no other options. But there are always other options for an omnipotent being. No evil is necessary. Whatever good God wishes to bring about could be attained by him simply snapping his fingers and making it so. No intermediary evil is required.

Again, it is not me, personally, putting restraints on God. It is the existence of human free will that does because God respects that which he has created since he views it, ultimately, as a good that supercedes causally determining end results. Apparently, he willingly takes on free will as a constraint such that the mere “magical” snapping of fingers is not his principle MO. In fact, God himself appears to have the “personal freedom” to not act deterministically - imagine that! Omnipotence is not constrained to behaving in a causally determined way such that he can create and support human behaviour that is not deterministic, either. Who would have thought it? It is in support of the greater good of human free agency and personal subjective identity that a measure of evil is allowed by God to enter into the situation because he has the 3omni attributes that will allow him to bring greater good out of the situation he currently allows.

What you insist is that this evil can never be warranted, in principle. Your point might hold if the universe was merely a causal “machine” the defects for which God would bear full responsibility. Unfortunately, for you, there is every reason to think human agency is not deterministic in nature but something far more elegant and profound. It appears that God views human free agency as a quality to be permitted and nurtured because of its integral value. You might disagree, but if God’s 3omni qualities are decidedly in support of human free agency, then you are certainly ‘free’ to hold your views (that is an aspect of the package,) but your assessment would be yours alone and God would not be constrained by your views even though you are free to entertain them. In fact, you are free to entertain them precisely because God is NOT constrained by them.

 

[Peter_Plato]

<—is wondering how “Bradski” would explain that if his house was broken into and all of his things stolen on what principle would he expect to get his belongings restored to him?

Because if “good” and “evil” are merely subjective constructs, then they are really non-existent from a materialist perspective.

And then so is that thing called “justice”.

I remember watching a debate between Lewis Wolpert and W.L.Craig a few years ago. Wolpert (although others like Peter Atkins and Neil deGrasse Tyson also espouse this view) claimed that theism is “lazy” because it offloads the need for explanation onto God. Thus, “God did it” is tantamount to saying, “We don’t need to pursue this further.”

What is interesting is that atheistic philosophers and scientists are somewhat prone to accept the idea of “brute facts,” that things at a very basic level just are the way they are and don’t need any further explanation.

It is interesting that the theistic view is labelled as a “science stopper” whereas the brute facts view is not. The crucial point being missed, and I think it is being missed by Bradski as well, is that the theistic view is anything but a “science stopper” and this was recognized by many early scientists like Newton, Kepler, Copernicus along with many, many other natural philosophers from ancient times through to the Middle Ages.

The assumption that “God did it” is an assumption that what God did is **ultimately intelligible **and can be fully understood given enough time and knowledge. It positively endorses scientific pursuit because the things “God does” are, at base, intelligible. Absent God, we have no reason to think anything is intelligible and everything could, ultimately, be “brute facts” completely devoid of explanation. Therefore, to accept a priori that God does not exist is to accept that science has a built in stopper, that things ultimately are unintelligible and we’ve just been fortuitously lucky in layering over our explanations onto what at base need make no sense at all. It seems to me that atheism is the “lazy” alternative since it is all too ready to assume reality need not be intelligible at some level whereas theism assumes completely the opposite, that everything is intelligible because its source is Intelligence itself.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Following from my last post, the reason I disagree with Oreoracle’s view is precisely because s/he appears to operate from a “mechanistic” view of God and “the good” rather than from an intentional one.

From that perspective omnibenevolence MUST give rise to “only good things” in the same way that “widgets of type x” are manufactured by the machine that is limited to producing type x widgets.

The problem here, I think, is in giving too much to the “nature” of God and not enough to the fact that his nature is not of the kind that we find in natural things. Contingent things are what they are and cannot make themselves different. A rock has no power to make itself into a tree, it is constrained to being a rock. The “nature” of God is not of this type at all. He is “Pure Act” and is fullness of Being, the power to bring into existence anything he wills. That entails that his nature is not constrained. Omnipotence, omnibenevolence and omniscience are not constraints but rather define the fact that his “nature” does not limit his intentionality (as it does with rocks, for example) but rather that his intentionality is “unrestrained” and that lack of any constraint is what defines his omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence.

It is not “what” he is that is the ground of all Being, it is “Who” he is. Being, at ground, is not a “what,” but rather, “Who.” “I AM Who AM.”

 

[mikekle]

Read my Post #4. If God stopped all evil before it could happen, he would almost have to send another flood. And he promised HE would never do that. Creating a baby does require an action from God, after the action of the parents. Thats the way it is, sin or no sin. Just remember, while abortion is a grave evil, we are sure those babies will never suffer the pains of Hell. We’re not sure we can say the same for one or both of the parents. We pray for the conversion of all. God Bless, Memaw

I was always taught that God MUST breathe life into EVERY life that is born into this world…so, is this not true?

Saying that none of the aborted babies will experience hell is similar to saying none of the aborted babies will ever get the chance to grow up and contribute to society, maybe one of the aborted babies over the years was going to find the cure for cancer, or develop free energy or something similar that would significantly make the earth a better place.

 

[tonyrey]

I remember watching a debate between Lewis Wolpert and W.L.Craig a few years ago. Wolpert (although others like Peter Atkins and Neil deGrasse Tyson also espouse this view) claimed that theism is “lazy” because it offloads the need for explanation onto God. Thus, “God did it” is tantamount to saying, “We don’t need to pursue this further.”

What is interesting is that atheistic philosophers and scientists are somewhat prone to accept the idea of “brute facts,” that things at a very basic level just are the way they are and don’t need any further explanation.

It is interesting that the theistic view is labelled as a “science stopper” whereas the brute facts view is not. The crucial point being missed, and I think it is being missed by Bradski as well, is that the theistic view is anything but a “science stopper” and this was recognized by many early scientists like Newton, Kepler, Copernicus along with many, many other natural philosophers from ancient times through to the Middle Ages.

The assumption that “God did it” is an assumption that what God did is **ultimately intelligible **and can be fully understood given enough time and knowledge. It positively endorses scientific pursuit because the things “God does” are, at base, intelligible. Absent God, we have no reason to think anything is intelligible and everything could, ultimately, be “brute facts” completely devoid of explanation. Therefore, to accept a priori that God does not exist is to accept that science has a built in stopper, that things ultimately are unintelligible and we’ve just been fortuitously lucky in layering over our explanations onto what at base need make no sense at all. It seems to me that atheism is the “lazy” alternative since it is all too ready to assume reality need not be intelligible at some level whereas theism assumes completely the opposite, that everything is intelligible because its source is Intelligence itself.

:clapping: Irrefutable! Materialism is a metaphysical conjuring trick, the absurdity of which is exceeded only by the hypothesis that everything has come from nothing.

 

[Bradski]

Well, no my beliefs entail that there WILL be an answer at some point. YOUR beliefs entail there will never be an answer.

So you are saying that it IS possible to know the mind of God.

 

[Peter_Plato]

So you are saying that it IS possible to know the mind of God.

Paul suggests that “knowing” the mind of God is not a possibility except insofar as the mind of Christ is “given” or “revealed” by the Spirit of God. In other words, not attainable by human intellect, endeavor or act of will, but a “gift” from God to “those who love him.”

Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to perish. But we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written,

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the human heart conceived,
what God has prepared for those who love him”—
these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. **For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God. **Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. And we speak of these things in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual.

Those who are unspiritual do not receive the gifts of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to them, and they are unable to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. Those who are spiritual discern all things, and they are themselves subject to no one else’s scrutiny.

“For who has known the mind of the Lord
so as to instruct him?”
But we have the mind of Christ. (1 Cor 2:6-16)

 

[Bradski]

Which is a more colloquial way of saying: Who can know the mind of God.It no more means that there is no God to admit that you don’t know how to explain the problem of evil than it means that there is a God when I admit I don’t know how life started.

It seems to me that admitting “we haven’t got a clue” and leaving it there is merely taking a position that we shouldn’t bother with the question at all because it isn’t worth the effort to know.

Unfortunately for you, your belief entails accepting questions for which there will never be an answer.

Well, no my beliefs entail that there WILL be an answer at some point. YOUR beliefs entail there will never be an answer.

But if you knew the answer, then you’d be in a position to know why God did something.

The point being, that we are in no position to judge what God could or should do based upon what a near sighted (morally speaking) human agent should do.

If God decides to do something, for whatever reason, then it must be good. God cannot do evil. There’s be no requirement to judge Him if you knew His reasons.

Paul suggests that “knowing” the mind of God is not a possibility except insofar as the mind of Christ is “given” or “revealed” by the Spirit of God. In other words, not attainable by human intellect, endeavor or act of will, but a “gift” from God to “those who love him.”

So do some people get ‘gifted’ the knowledge of why what we perceive as evil must exist? Does God reveal this to anyone? I can’t recall anyone claiming this. So if knowing the mind of God ‘is not a possibility’ then…

…your belief entails accepting questions for which there will never be an answer.

 

[Peter_Plato]

But if you knew the answer, then you’d be in a position to know why God did something.

If God decides to do something, for whatever reason, then it must be good. God cannot do evil. There’s be no requirement to judge Him if you knew His reasons.

So do some people get ‘gifted’ the knowledge of why what we perceive as evil must exist? Does God reveal this to anyone? I can’t recall anyone claiming this. So if knowing the mind of God ‘is not a possibility’ then…

You do understand Bradski, that you and I might be surrounded by minds that know everything they need to to answer every perplexing question ever thought of. In fact, my cat might know more than I do but just doesn’t let on that he does. For that matter, if God exists he could in one great flash of insight reveal all knowledge and the explanation for every evil or good event ever to have occurred to both of us instantaneously. Any or all of these are possible if God exists.

On the other hand, if the universe is merely matter with no intentionality, no intelligence and events are merely brute facts, well, then, there is no knowledge to be had and evil won’t be explained because it has no explanation.