Why God didn't desire a universe without evil?

[Vera_Ljuba]

Again, this statement does not assume that God exists. Or perhaps I’m missing something - could you explain where you found that assumption here?

“God the first principle and last end of all things, can be known with certainty from the created world by the natural light of human reason.”

It assumes that the “world was created”. It does not start with the pure observation: “the world exists”.

I am aware that there are a few attempts (Aquinas et al.) to establish that the world “needs” a creator. First, the church does not endorse either one of them as an official philosophy. Second, there is NO official philosophy at all. Only a hodgepodge of some writings made by Aristotle, Plato, Aquinas, Molina, etc. Third, even if one of the attempts of the philosophers would be successful (and they are all wrong for some reason or another) the only end result would be a faceless first cause, or sustaining cause, or some other “beginner”.

So, I stick to my guns. The catechism’s famous sentence that you quoted is an unsubstantiated assumption, which needs to be supported. Where is it?

 

[goout]

We don’t praise God “for torture”. That is not the Christian outlook.

Suggestion: take a look around you. Show us a person who does not suffer. Show us a person who will not die.
Go ahead. Look around. We’ll wait.

Ok, I will make an assumption that you will find no one who will not suffer, and no one who will not die. Everyone without exception will experience the fullness of life including suffering and death. It’s part of being fully human.

What you will find are people who can be thankful for ALL OF life, “good and bad”. It’s not easy, but that’s the point of life: to accept it all graciously and find meaning in it. Life is not meaningless or pointless, including suffering.

There is thread after thread trying to hold God accountable for bad things, but failing to account God for “good”. Who’s responsible for the good??
That strikes me as whining. (hey, we all do it, it’s ok).

Yes, we know that Stockholm Syndrome is a thing. But the answer to the question “was it right for our captor to put us in this prison?” does not depend on whether or not we’ve fallen in love.

Not sure how your reply address my post. Was it meant for someone else?
Stockholm Syndrome?

 

[reggieM]

I’ve provided a video which defends our ability to judge from an a-theistic viewpoint against common objections.

youtube.com/watch?v=SiJnCQuPiuo

I took some time to check out the video and please correct me if I’m wrong but it seems that Shelly Kagan’s argument comes down to “things just are the way they are”.
But this doesn’t answer why or get to the origins of these things.

He says “I’ve suggested don’t harm do help”, as the reason and basis for atheist morality.

Then he explains, “there may be nothing at all deeper to be said about what makes those rules the rule of all – it’s just an objective fact about reality that there are these categorical reasons to behave in certain ways and not others”.

He then sites the law of non-contradiction and says the same thing: “it’s just fundamentally irrational to contradict yourself. I don’t see any reason to conclude from that that there is a cosmic magician laying down that law”.

These are assertions, but as I explained, materialism cannot simply create laws of logic from blind, unintelligent movements of molecules.
There are no categories for true or false.
Kagan places rationality as a higher value than irrationality but does not explain why. He’s borrowing from the theistic worldview even to engage the topic.

If the world is ultimately irrational, then human irrationality would be more consistent with reality than logic or reasoning.

 

[reggieM]

It assumes that the “world was created”. It does not start with the pure observation: “the world exists”.

Ok, you’re misreading that.

The word created is used as means of defining what they’re talking about, but the term could be dropped and simply “the world” used and the meaning is the same. As here:

“God the first principle and last end of all things, can be known with certainty from the world by the natural light of human reason.”

I am aware that there are a few attempts (Aquinas et al.) to establish that the world “needs” a creator. First, the church does not endorse either one of them as an official philosophy.

Yes, that’s true. The statement in question is just refering to any number of arguments that show that God, the first principle and last end can be known from observations of the world and reasoning - and key point we were discussing, “with certainty”.

So, I stick to my guns. The catechism’s famous sentence that you quoted is an unsubstantiated assumption, which needs to be supported. Where is it?

peterkreeft.com/topics-more/20_arguments-gods-existence.htm

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

Ok, you’re misreading that.

If accepting the words of the catechism is “misreading” it, that would make the catechism useless.

The word created is used as means of defining what they’re talking about, but the term could be dropped and simply “the world” used and the meaning is the same. As here:

“God the first principle and last end of all things, can be known with certainty from the world by the natural light of human reason.”

No, it cannot be dropped. If you change the exact wording of the catechism, you only present you own opinion, not that of the church. And, of course the church does not give any arguments for the assertion about the “natural light of human reason”. If you drop the word “created”, you castrate the whole argument.

Yes, that’s true. The statement in question is just refering to any number of arguments that show that God, the first principle and last end can be known from observations of the world and reasoning - and key point we were discussing, “with certainty”.

peterkreeft.com/topics-more/20_arguments-gods-existence.htm

Not Kreeft! He is even worse than Aquinas. Instead of 5 incorrect arguments, he presents 20. As the old saying goes: if an illness has 20 different “cures”, then none of them “works”.

The point is that the catechism only has an unsubstantiated assertion about the “created world”, and not one piece of argument to support it.

 

[reggieM]

No, it cannot be dropped. If you change the exact wording of the catechism, you only present you own opinion, not that of the church. And, of course the church does not give any arguments for the assertion about the “natural light of human reason”. If you drop the word “created”, you castrate the whole argument.

Sorry, I can’t go along with you here, but I appreciate your point of view.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

Not sure how your reply address my post. Was it meant for someone else?
Stockholm Syndrome?

That there exist some people who can be thankful for “all of life” does not matter for the problem of evil. If it was wrong for God to put us in a world with evil, the fact that some people like the world-with-evil doesn’t change anything. In the same way, someone who unjustly imprisons someone doesn’t get a pass just because the person they imprisoned fell in love with them.

 

[goout]

That there exist some people who can be thankful for “all of life” does not matter for the problem of evil. If it was wrong for God to put us in a world with evil, the fact that some people like the world-with-evil doesn’t change anything. In the same way, someone who unjustly imprisons someone doesn’t get a pass just because the person they imprisoned fell in love with them.

What about the problem of good? You are attempting to hold God (who you do not believe in anyway ) accountable for half of life. Is God accountable for everything or is he not? This puts you in a tough and contradictory position.
If God is responsible for things, why is he not responsible for your good?

And you also do not account for free will. The God we believe in allows people freedom to choose for the good or not for the good. Christianity is about relationship, which is a good. In relationship we choose to do good or not to do good.

Maybe you know of some other God who does not allow free will. Which god is that? Maybe you could discuss that god.

Do you believe people have free will or not?

 

[tonyrey]

That there exist some people who can be thankful for “all of life” does not matter for the problem of evil. If it was wrong for God to put us in a world with evil, the fact that some people like the world-with-evil doesn’t change anything.

A proposition with a conditional clause does not lead to a categorical conclusion.

In the same way, someone who unjustly imprisons someone doesn’t get a pass just because the person they imprisoned fell in love with them.

The assumption that the analogy is valid requires justification. What evidence is there that a “world-with-evil” is unnecessary?

Nor does it answer the question “Why God didn’t desire a universe without evil?”

 

[tonyrey]

I took some time to check out the video and please correct me if I’m wrong but it seems that Shelly Kagan’s argument comes down to “things just are the way they are”.
But this doesn’t answer why or get to the origins of these things.

He says “I’ve suggested don’t harm do help”, as the reason and basis for atheist morality.

Then he explains, “there may be nothing at all deeper to be said about what makes those rules the rule of all – it’s just an objective fact about reality that there are these categorical reasons to behave in certain ways and not others”.

He then sites the law of non-contradiction and says the same thing: “it’s just fundamentally irrational to contradict yourself. I don’t see any reason to conclude from that that there is a cosmic magician laying down that law”.

These are assertions, but as I explained, materialism cannot simply create laws of logic from blind, unintelligent movements of molecules.
There are no categories for true or false.
Kagan places rationality as a higher value than irrationality but does not explain why. He’s borrowing from the theistic worldview even to engage the topic.

If the world is ultimately irrational, then human irrationality would be more consistent with reality than logic or reasoning.

Irrefutable! It is a case of getting something for nothing…

 

[tonyrey]

What about the problem of good? You are attempting to hold God (who you do not believe in anyway ) accountable for half of life. Is God accountable for everything or is he not? This puts you in a tough and contradictory position.
If God is responsible for things, why is he not responsible for your good?

And you also do not account for free will. The God we believe in allows people freedom to choose for the good or not for the good. Christianity is about relationship, which is a good. In relationship we choose to do good or not to do good.

Maybe you know of some other God who does not allow free will. Which god is that? Maybe you could discuss that god.

Do you believe people have free will or not?

A question to which atheists rarely reply because it leads to commitment and the need for an adequate explanation!

 

[JapaneseKappa]

What about the problem of good? You are attempting to hold God (who you do not believe in anyway ) accountable for half of life. Is God accountable for everything or is he not? This puts you in a tough and contradictory position.
If God is responsible for things, why is he not responsible for your good?

I am saying something very specific: In order for you to make sense, YOUR God should desire a universe without YOUR definition of evil.

If the universe were ruled by some other god, or no god at all, then we might expect a universe with a hodgepodge of moral goodness and badness. But with the Catholic God, we would expect no evil.

And you also do not account for free will. The God we believe in allows people freedom to choose for the good or not for the good. Christianity is about relationship, which is a good. In relationship we choose to do good or not to do good.

Maybe you know of some other God who does not allow free will. Which god is that? Maybe you could discuss that god.

Do you believe people have free will or not?

Having free will is a finite good, but suffering in hell is an infinite evil. People only go to hell in a universe that has evil. Therefore, to give someone free will who will go to hell is to desire infinite evil for them.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

A proposition with a conditional clause does not lead to a categorical conclusion.

Then let me assert my point more clearly: The fact that some people like a world with evil in it is a red herring.

The assumption that the analogy is valid requires justification. What evidence is there that a “world-with-evil” is unnecessary?

That would certainly be an interesting argument to make, but I don’t think you will like the implications.

For example, let us suppose that this universe is the only logically possible universe. If that were the case, then there is no need for God to serve as the “necessary being.” All we would need to do to establish “sufficient cause” for the universe is to establish that a state where nothing exists is impossible. The argument would go like this

1. Why does something exist instead of nothing existing?
2. Because “Nothing existing” is impossible.
3. Why this universe instead of any other universe?
4. All other universes are logically impossible.

Done. There was no need for an appeal to God to explain the existence of the world.

Now you might have meant “necessary” in a different sense. That is to say, you might mean “God needed to allow evil into the world to accomplish some other goal.” But this is also quite troublesome. It means that God has other goals that are equally-if-not-more-important than our well-being (even though he is supposed to be perfectly loving.) It means that evil also serves God’s will (because without it, he would have been unable to accomplish his other goal.)

 

[Vico]

I am saying something very specific: In order for you to make sense, YOUR God should desire a universe without YOUR definition of evil.

If the universe were ruled by some other god, or no god at all, then we might expect a universe with a hodgepodge of moral goodness and badness. But with the Catholic God, we would expect no evil. Having free will is a finite good, but suffering in hell is an infinite evil. People only go to hell in a universe that has evil. Therefore, to give someone free will who will go to hell is to desire infinite evil for them.

Someone only has free will in a universe with both moral evil and moral good. Heaven is an infinite good result, and Hell and infinite bad result, so having free will can result in either. God does will that humans and angels can have free will to choose either result, but there is not one without the other.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

Someone only has free will in a universe with both moral evil and moral good.

This is simply untrue. To see why, consider this thought experiment:
God creates a universe containing exactly one free-will-having person. God lets that person make exactly one free-will decision, then ends the universe. Depending on what that person chose, the universe would have either had moral evil or moral good, but not both.

According to your “needs both” view, that person could not have actually had free will. And so if he had chosen evil, it wouldn’t have been a free-will choice.

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

What about the problem of good?

The “problem of good” would only arise, if God would be assumed to be all-powerful and all-MALEvolent.

The existence of evil is contradictory to a benevolent God. The existence of good would be contradictory to a malevolent God. But since you consider God to be benevolent, only the first problem exists.

And we do NOT hold responsible God for anything, neither the good, nor the bad. We simply point out your hypocrisy to praise God for the good, and NOT blame God for the bad.

 

[Vonsalza]

The “problem of good” would only arise, if God would be assumed to be all-powerful and all-MALEvolent.

What?

The existence of evil is contradictory to a benevolent God.

Not to a benevolent God the also desires free moral agency for His creation - as we’ve mentioned ad nauseam.

And we do NOT hold responsible God for anything, neither the good, nor the bad. We simply point out your hypocrisy to praise God for the good, and NOT blame God for the bad.

Because “the bad” is the result of that creation’s exercise of its free moral agency - again, as we’ve mentioned ad nauseam.

 

[buffalo]

God is all good, no evil whatsoever. Everything else is not God, and therefore could not be without evil, otherwise they would be God.

 

[CHRISTINE77]

God is all good, no evil whatsoever. Everything else is not God, and therefore could not be without evil, otherwise they would be God.

Amen. Religion 101.

 

[Vico]

This is simply untrue. To see why, consider this thought experiment:
God creates a universe containing exactly one free-will-having person. God lets that person make exactly one free-will decision, then ends the universe. Depending on what that person chose, the universe would have either had moral evil or moral good, but not both.

According to your “needs both” view, that person could not have actually had free will. And so if he had chosen evil, it wouldn’t have been a free-will choice.

You assume an instance must exist of the good or evil. Existence of free will itself requires also the existence of the idea of moral good and of moral evil.