Why would God create a universe with even the possibility of eternal evil?

[Luke_K]

Don’t you think that free souls united to God and enjoying eternal happiness is a morally sufficient reason for creating a world with the possibility of evil? If such souls are not free to reject God (and hence do evil), then they are not really free to choose him, and hence not able to be freely united to Him. They would be mere automata.

I have a hard time completely following the rest of your post. It doesn’t seem to me that your counter-factual follows. God is the very paradigm and source of perfect moral goodness. This doesn’t change because he creates creatures with free will, since free will is an over-riding good or else a morally sufficient reason for allowing the existence of evil. This doesn’t make God less good in any way. He still remains morally perfect and the paradigm of moral goodness. Any good in creation does ultimately come from God, either because He made it good, or else gave his creatures free will who do good themselves. The evil is not from God, but from abuse of free will.

What I’m saying is that a world with God and free creatures cannot be any better in terms of goodness than a world with God and *without *free creatures. The only thing free creatures introduce in terms of good and evil is the possibility of eternal evil.

Only God is good. Any goodness that we produce ultimately comes from him and already existed in him. Any evil can only come from us. So creating us seems like something an all-good God wouldn’t do. I don’t think your proposed morally sufficient reason passes because there is no fulfillment of goodness in creatures being in heaven that isn’t fulfilled in God himself. Otherwise God would necessarily create because he must fulfill all goodness possible. He would HAVE to create a free creature because goodness could only be fulfilled with a creature being in heaven! And I suppose he would have to create an infinite number of creatures who would end up in heaven, because two people in heaven is better than only one in heaven, right?

I’m going to drop the discussion about free will and hell because it’s not what I made this thread for.

 

[fhansen]

God is perfectly good in and of himself. How then is it compatible with God’s perfect goodness to create a universe with a significant probability of eternal evil? The eternal evil I speak of is that of Satan, demons, and damned humans.

Think of it the comparison between these two worlds:

1. Only God exists. This world has infinite goodness and no possibility for evil.
2. God and free creatures exist. This world has infinite goodness but also the possibility for eternal damnation and evil.

No more goodness can be attained by creating. Only the possibility of evil is added.

But more goodness is attained by creating. Our existence is probably an inarguable “good” to begin with. Love, by its nature, endeavors to share its goodness. Beings-us-are given the opportunity to be absolutely enthralled by the power and goodness of this virtue, of this reality. We, ourselves, are meant to be transformed into that very goodness-becoming love, in a sense, in that God, Himself, is love. Our wills make us capable of this-and also give us the freedom to oppose it. Our wills are the prize, so to speak. Does that make free will bad? Is creation not worth it? If existence and love are the options-and undeniably good options- can God be faulted for expecting us to embrace both?

 

[Julia_Mae]

Ah …ha ha ha…never mind my bode and try to keep focused:thumbsup:

What I am focused on, on the Catholic Answers Forum, is the teaching of Christ’s Church on earth. You seem to be focused on some personal fantasy you are having about how things work.

1033 We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves: “He who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.” Our Lord warns us that we shall be separated from him if we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are his brethren. To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called "hell."

311 Angels and men, as intelligent and free creatures, have to journey toward their ultimate destinies by their free choice and preferential love. They can therefore go astray. Indeed, they have sinned. Thus has moral evil, incommensurably more harmful than physical evil, entered the world. God is in no way, directly or indirectly, the cause of moral evil.176 He permits it, however, because he respects the freedom of his creatures and, mysteriously, knows how to derive good from it:

For almighty God. . ., because he is supremely good, would never allow any evil whatsoever to exist in his works if he were not so all-powerful and good as to cause good to emerge from evil itself.177

312 In time we can discover that God in his almighty providence can bring a good from the consequences of an evil, even a moral evil, caused by his creatures: “It was not you”, said Joseph to his brothers, "who sent me here, but God. . . You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive."178 From the greatest moral evil ever committed - the rejection and murder of God’s only Son, caused by the sins of all men - God, by his grace that “abounded all the more”,179 brought the greatest of goods: the glorification of Christ and our redemption. But for all that, evil never becomes a good.

 

[Luke_K]

But more goodness is attained by creating. Our existence is probably an inarguable “good” to begin with. Love, by its nature, endeavors to share its goodness. Beings-us-are given the opportunity to be absolutely enthralled by the power and goodness of this virtue, of this reality. We, ourselves, are meant to be transformed into that very goodness-becoming love, in a sense, in that God, Himself, is love. Our wills make us capable of this-and also give us the freedom to oppose it. Our wills are the prize, so to speak. Does that make free will bad? Is creation not worth it? If existence and love are the options-and undeniably good options- can God be faulted for expecting us to embrace both?

No more goodness is attained by creating. Love is already perfectly fulfilled in the Father begetting the Son, returning the gift of self to the Father, with this giving being the Holy Spirit. Creation cannot enhance the goodness of God in any way, who by definition is already perfect and the source of all goodness.

 

[Luke_K]

I’ll coalesce my ideas into an argument:

1. God is all-good. He is the perfect and complete fulfillment of all goodness. There is no goodness possible that is not already present in him.
2. An all-good God would not perform an action that would produce the possibility of eternal evil but not increase goodness.
3. Free creatures can produce eternal evil, as evidenced by fallen angels and damned humans. But from 1, they cannot increase goodness.
4. From 1, 2, and 3, God would not create free creatures. But Christianity holds that he did. Therefore, the Christian God cannot exist. (?)

 

[fhansen]

No more goodness is attained by creating. Love is already perfectly fulfilled in the Father begetting the Son, returning the gift of self to the Father, with this giving being the Holy Spirit.

I don’t know that this is true. Love desires to express itself, to share itself, to benefit others. I don’t know that it can be argued that it was unwise to create other beings and give to them the opportunity to experience and share in this same endeavor.

We’re an extension, so to speak, of God; lesser gods, with lesser-or less perfect- wisdom. That this necessarily makes moral evil a potentiality does not mean that moral evil necessarily becomes an actuality-moral evil still only exists as a choice-that we make.

 

[FurtherSuntime]

You guys are going to have to make up your minds whether the source of creation is a positive
force relative to progress in reason, or a negative.

So I suppose.man comes along and cause’s God to consider the negative or evil for progress in reason ?

If answer yes to above, man controls the manner of Gods existence.

In order to comprehend evil, one must be subject in potentiality to the effort of evil. It is logical

God does not and cannot comprehend evil. God is available acceptance only.

The theist cannot argue opposite ends of a tug a war rope. Dilly dalling around poor
logic and non-sense winds up promoting confusion to self and all.

God cannot comprehend evil which would offer consideration to evil anymore than a rolling wheel can come to a dead STOP before it considers rolling backward

The recieved effect of non-participation in available acceptence only.

The hatred in the initiative of evil doings (for example the holocost) cannot be explained to a little toddler who is comprised of full joy and hope
All that can be explained is the absense of reason, not the comprehension of evil itself.

 

[Julia_Mae]

I’m going to drop the discussion about free will and hell because it’s not what I made this thread for…

You cannot begin to grasp the mystery of what we call evil without understanding the Total Grace of free will. I left some Catechism quotes in another post, I hope you will read them.

What I’m saying is that a world with God and free creatures cannot be any better in terms of goodness than a world with God and *without *free creatures. The only thing free creatures introduce in terms of good and evil is the possibility of eternal evil.

Only God is good. Any goodness that we produce ultimately comes from him and already existed in him. Any evil can only come from us.

But you are forgetting something - maybe the most important thing: you aren’t a dog. You are a beautiful and beloved child of God, born with a spark of the Holy Spirit so that you are naturally drawn to Light and Godliness. If you were not, if being here without free will didn’t matter, if all we can do is introduce evil, then you couldn’t be close enough to the Light for evil to bother you.

You choose God. You choose love, peace, sacrifice. That choice, your actions every time you put yourself second and someone else first, every second you devote to prayer for the benefit of others, by these powerful actions you bring Light to the world. You are Christ in the world.

What we are taught is that through what we call evil, God brings goodness. He does that by the martyrdom and suffering of victims, by the forgiveness by victims of their perpetrators.

Why is it even possible to choose evil? Because without that we have no free choice.

Remember that God brought Time into existence from nothingness. Everything in you that is material, is nothingness. You transform that nothingness into Light by denying materiality and choosing Love (God.) Evil is the manifestation of that nothingness through action of choosing **not-**God.

But evil, no matter how terrible it looks to us, is essentially weak. It’s a stone dropped into a wave at the shore. If we only look at the small space where it’s dropped, the ripples look significant. But when we stand back and look at the whole ocean and the wave, it appears as what it is: nothingness.

Evil affecting one person, one animal, one of anything looks powerful and incredibly destructive. Life in Time is a split second in terms of Eternity, hardly that even. But the power in a single life to convert darkness to Light is huge.

Material existence is what it is. We call some of that “evil.” But all evil really is, is the way the nothingness tries to resist being transformed into Light. It’s just the way things work. Our interpretation is relative. The way things work is absolute reality.

 

[PJM]

=Luke K;8241058]No goodness is obtained from eternal damnation. And evil cannot bring about a greater good than that which already existed. Otherwise evil would be necessary for the fulfillment of goodness.

First point: Eternal Damnation is not an “evil” rather it is a “good,” the product of self-determanation and the “PERFECT- fruit” of Divine Justice.

Second point: While what you calim about evil bring a “greater good” may be factual? Good can nevertheless be most clearly evident in the reflected events and consequences of evil. …We can not know with certaintly if in fact a greater good has been caused, simply because we are unaware of ALL of the after effects of an evil act. Certainly it is NOT beyond a Just God’s Power to cuase such to take place.

God Bless,
Pat

 

[danserr]

Only God is good. Any goodness that we produce ultimately comes from him and already existed in him. Any evil can only come from us. So creating us seems like something an all-good God wouldn’t do. I don’t think your proposed morally sufficient reason passes because there is no fulfillment of goodness in creatures being in heaven that isn’t fulfilled in God himself. Otherwise God would necessarily create because he must fulfill all goodness possible. He would HAVE to create a free creature because goodness could only be fulfilled with a creature being in heaven! And I suppose he would have to create an infinite number of creatures who would end up in heaven, because two people in heaven is better than only one in heaven, right?

I think an answer I gave previously helps with this. You must distinguish between moral values and moral duties. The fact that something is morally good does not immediately obligate one to do it. For instance, it is good for a man to become a teacher or a doctor, but it does not follow from this that he is obligated to do both. The fact that it is good to create does not obligate God to create.

The goodness of frees creatures in heaven is indeed a good that exists apart from God in the sense of pantheism is clearly wrong and those creatures have their own existence separate from God, but God is still the source of their goodness.

I still think you would be more at ease if you stopped insisting on thinking of God’s goodness as being goodness in terms of quantity rather than quality. You are troubled because God is “infinite” goodness, so the thought of adding to already infinite goodness troubles you. But God’s goodness is qualitative, He is morally perfect and the paradigm of moral goodness. Creatures with free will are thus do not add qualitatively to God’s goodness (because their goodness in this sense is from God). Nor is God less good if he does not create them because he was already morally perfect and the paradigm of moral goodness. Yet, in creating them God does create a good that would not have existed if He did not create.

I’ll coalesce my ideas into an argument:

1. God is all-good. He is the perfect and complete fulfillment of all goodness. There is no goodness possible that is not already present in him.
2. An all-good God would not perform an action that would produce the possibility of eternal evil but not increase goodness.
3. Free creatures can produce eternal evil, as evidenced by fallen angels and damned humans. But from 1, they cannot increase goodness.
4. From 1, 2, and 3, God would not create free creatures. But Christianity holds that he did. Therefore, the Christian God cannot exist. (?)

So I agree with premise 2, but disagree with 3, largely because I think premise 1 is too vague, especially the statement “there is no goodness possible not already present in him.” Now, I have above suggested a way that creation is a good not present if God did not create, but I have also suggested that this is compatible with 1). God still being morally perfect and complete goodness whether He creates or not, and 2). God was not obligated to create.

 

[Luke_K]

danserr,

If we don’t talk in quantitative terms then the argument is just as strong. The point is that a world with free creatures is no better than one without. The quality of goodness already exists in God and can only come from God, and creation can only be a source of the quality of evil. Do you think that creatures can fulfill a goodness that is not already fulfilled in God?

But you seem to be talking quantitatively. You say that creating a creature presents a goodness that did not exist before. In other words, 1 new goodness is introduced.

 

[Julia_Mae]

The point is that a world with free creatures is no better than one without.

I already explained why this is incorrect.

The point is that without free will, nothing would exist because there would be no purpose for Creation.

 

[RosaryFan]

God created man for the same reason people have children. People have children and want children even though they know it is a life of joy mixed with sorrow.

 

[FurtherSuntime]

danserr,

If we don’t talk in quantitative terms then the argument is just as strong. The point is that a world with free creatures is no better than one without. The quality of goodness already exists in God and can only come from God, and creation can only be a source of the quality of evil. Do you think that creatures can fulfill a goodness that is not already fulfilled in God?

But you seem to be talking quantitatively. You say that creating a creature presents a goodness that did not exist before. In other words, 1 new goodness is introduced.

Unbelievable…

 

[Luke_K]

I already explained why this is incorrect.

The point is that without free will, nothing would exist because there would be no purpose for Creation.

Free will already exists in God without creatures. Creation is not needed for the fulfillment of free will through love. Self-giving, life-giving, sacrificial love is already perfected in the Trinity.

I’m not saying that creation is evil. Creation is good. But the point is that the goodness of creation as a state of affairs cannot be better than the state of affairs without creation, because God is already the perfect and complete fulfillment of goodness in and of himself. All goodness, all life, all holiness comes from him. Not us. Any goodness we “give” to him was already present in him, but he just gave it to us to give back to him.

 

[Luke_K]

God created man for the same reason people have children. People have children and want children even though they know it is a life of joy mixed with sorrow.

It is true that if God does something the purpose is love. But God creating is quite different from husband and wife having children. Husband and wife have a child because that is their nature, and their communion with each other is completed by having a child. But God’s communal nature is completed in his Trinity of persons. Creation doesn’t add anything to that.

 

[FurtherSuntime]

Free will already exists in God without creatures. Creation is not needed for the fulfillment of free will through love. Self-giving, life-giving, sacrificial love is already perfected in the Trinity.

I’m not saying that creation is evil. Creation is good. But the point is that the goodness of creation is a state of affairs that cannot be better than the state of affairs without creation, because God is already the perfect and complete fulfillment of goodness in and of himself. All goodness, all life, all holiness comes from him. Not us. Any goodness we “give” to him was already present in him, but he just gave it to us to give back to him.

Interesting…How can free will exist in God if he can do no other than be perfect?

How can the state of affairs in the goodness of creation relative to God without creation NOT
disclose an expression of Gods goodness, therebye expressing a perfect God in expressed
goodness?
Its not a matter of Gods state of affairs, its a matter of what an active God…IS

 

[jsaldar]

God gave us free will to choose. God is so good that he doesn’t destroy evil which is pretty deserving of being destroyed. Satan, demons and evil souls were created by our loving God, he gave them a chance to choose and will not destroy them out of existance.

 

[FurtherSuntime]

What I am focused on, on the Catholic Answers Forum, is the teaching of Christ’s Church on earth. You seem to be focused on some personal fantasy you are having about how things work.

F Suntime

Have you ever done charity with the addicted, abused, self destructive delusional, poor,
out casted, ect ect ect? ( how do you think they became that way)

I would like to see where in the catechism it tells us to accuse the above group and tell them they are in hell…and by their own choosing., making accusations in order to puff the ego up.

Ive heard of situations where some poor soul like George winds up standing on a roof top only to hear the screams from the street yelling

Jump, Jump you imbecile … the sadness in the day will be yours… for it will not be mine!

How is your approach accusing and blaming in the fantasy of your translation different than yelling jump?

Blame is all you have to offer, this is not Christian by any means imaginable

 

[RobWriter]

The more I think about your refutation the more I think that my post was closer to the truth than you might want to believe. Yes, God in Trinity is already family in Himself, as you suggest. But that does not refute the suggestion that He might have the “urge to procreate,” just as we do. Moreover, since He created Adam in His own image that might imply that one of the attributes that He imparted to Adam was this very “urge to procreate” that He has in His Triune Self. Also, just as God is family in Himself, so is Adam, from whose side Eve was taken. Adam-Eve, created in the image of God, was already a family-couple even before they procreated, just as their Creator. So, though I do not accept your refutation, I warmly invite you to make another try.