That would not appear to be correct, then.
You left out the “love is not force and only exists in freedom” part.
I wonder what does “free will” mean to you? A bunch of people said that free will a binary phenomenon: we are either “robots” or have “unlimited freedom”. Do you share this distinction? Or is you understanding more nuanced?
Admit? What a strange word in this context. Whether we have free will or not is unknown and unknowable. (There is no experiment to decide it) I believe that we have a certain amount of freedom. In some aspects too much, in other ones not enough.
According to my understanding of the Christian God, His nature IS love, and he cannot act against his nature (e.g. see St Anselm.)You left out the “love is not force and only exists in freedom” part.
You either do not understand the Christian God or insist on a straw man.
If the idea of good and evil exists then the universe has good and evil.
Suppose God never created anything. Would God have the idea of good and evil? If so, would that mean evil exists in the universe where only God exists?
God’s understanding is free from all succession which means, using our time terms, simultaneously understanding. If God creates nothing then there is no universe and no good and evil therein.
Right. I apologize for equivocating on “universe.” In the second case I meant for universe to represent “everything that exists including God” where it is typically used to mean “everything that exists excluding God.”
No. The potential for evil exists. But evil cannot exist unless someone commits an evil act, or takes active measures to commit an evil act.
Here, I largely second the gentleman from Sydney.
Right.
Seriously, if you don’t understand what is meant by free will at this point it’s on you to do some reading and learning before discussing further.
Certainly: according to real actual Catholic theology, it is impossible for God to not love us, and so your characterization of my point as a straw man is inaccurate. Second, since you were the one who brought up love in the first place, why don’t YOU explain whether or not your now-corrected understanding of God’s love was relevant to my point at all.Right.
Can you apply what you know to the discussion? (Assuming you understand what you know)
By that rule good also applies in converse to good. But evil is considered negatively as the deprivation or absence of good, but one must have the idea of both together.
This is an important starting point. A created world is contingent and therefore is deprived of some level of perfection.
Oh, what a haughty attitude. There are several different ways to define free will. I use the concept of libertarian free will. I just don’t know what YOU mean by it. I even asked the specific question about it. But if you cannot tell me, what YOU mean by free will, then what is the point? It was YOU who used “free will” as a defense, when asked about the problem of evil.
Not at all. Evil is a volitional action which causes unnecessary, gratuitous harm to someone with a nervous system, and the one who commits this act is aware of the harm and intends to cause it. It is not synonymous with “harm”, or “hurt” or “bad”. It is not synonymous with “pain” or “suffering”. Not even with causing pain or suffering. The “volitional” and “knowing parts” are integral parts of “evil”.
Evil is of three kinds, (physical, moral, and metaphysical). Is moral evil excluded from this discussion? For the other two:
This is a misconception. Necessity is not the same thing as “not created.” Necessity means that something could not have been otherwise. So, for example, if it were impossible for God to not create the world, then the world is both created and necessary.