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

[razredge]

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.

Because without the possibility of evil, there can be no real good. That’s the basic response to the problem of moral evil.

And the eternality of this evil arises from the eternal nature of the soul and angelic beings.

So I don’t see this as any kind of problem.

 

[Julia_Mae]

Free will already exists in God without creatures.

Niot the point. God makes creatures, He gives at least one of them will and pretty much stays out of the way of their choices. I didn’t say he needed to make something for freewill to exist.

But the point is that the goodness of creation as a state of affairs cannot be better than the state of affairs without creation,

And I am saying your belief in your own thought process is a mistake because you are wrong.

State A: God + nothingness
State B: God + Creation

Creation eliminates nothingness.

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.

Who told you that? “He just gave it to us to give back to Him?”

Also: not correct. Now, assume you are wrong and go find out from the Church what your vocation is. Then you will know why you have been given what you have been given.

Here’s a hint. At the end:

C. God + Us

 

[Julia_Mae]

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 think presuming the charitable high ground with me is not your best tactic, as you know nothing about me.

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…

Wow, do you really not know the difference between symbolic and literal? Are all stories told as object lessons translated by you literally?

The original assertion was that no one would choose suffering in hell over salvation by God because people hate pain and will always choose not-pain. This is obviously untrue. The story illustrates this from a real life incident. BUT - it also is a good representation of how people get them selves to hell by their choices.

This has nothing whatsoever to do with street people. Who went to hell? The beggar at Lazarus door or Lazarus who refused to offer him any help at all and ignored him?

One of the things about Fred and George, is that George had choices and plenty of them. He chose his path and, when he was offered help (and you can try to paint Fred as a villain but he is a kind and generous person), George chose hate and blame (he was blaming, not Fred) over different choices.

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

The fact is that God’s understanding and mercy are Infinite. No one understands better how we mess up our lives. All we have to do is ask Him for help, want to find a way to the Light, regret the choices we made. And no matter how compelling the reasons, we did make them and we can make different ones.

I never blamed anything on anyone. I described something. That is all. The only person in this conversation hurling blame, is you. You want to blame me, you want to blame Fred, you want to blame some unknown events you imagine happened to George to force him to choose drugs and theft and violence and dissipation?

You don’t get to do anything you want at the expense of everyone else and at the end demand heaven as a reward by blaming your life on someone else. Because you won’t get there and then you might go marching off to hell and spend eternity blaming God for all your suffering and refusing to ask for help.

That would not be a good thing.

 

[FurtherSuntime]

I think presuming the charitable high ground with me is not your best tactic, as you know nothing about me.

Wow, do you really not know the difference between symbolic and literal? Are all stories told as object lessons translated by you literally?

The original assertion was that no one would choose suffering in hell over salvation by God because people hate pain and will always choose not-pain. This is obviously untrue. The story illustrates this from a real life incident. BUT - it also is a good representation of how people get them selves to hell by their choices.

This has nothing whatsoever to do with street people. Who went to hell? The beggar at Lazarus door or Lazarus who refused to offer him any help at all and ignored him?

One of the things about Fred and George, is that George had choices and plenty of them. He chose his path and, when he was offered help (and you can try to paint Fred as a villain but he is a kind and generous person), George chose hate and blame (he was blaming, not Fred) over different choices.

The fact is that God’s understanding and mercy are Infinite. No one understands better how we mess up our lives. All we have to do is ask Him for help, want to find a way to the Light, regret the choices we made. And no matter how compelling the reasons, we did make them and we can make different ones.

I never blamed anything on anyone. I described something. That is all. The only person in this conversation hurling blame, is you. You want to blame me, you want to blame Fred, you want to blame some unknown events you imagine happened to George to force him to choose drugs and theft and violence and dissipation?

You don’t get to do anything you want at the expense of everyone else and at the end demand heaven as a reward by blaming your life on someone else. Because you won’t get there and then you might go marching off to hell and spend eternity blaming God for all your suffering and refusing to ask for help.

That would not be a good thing.

Unbelievable…Why can’t you answer the question…

How do you think people become addicts, self destructive, hopeless, ect ect ect …How & Why ?

And why do you take the accusatory route instead of the compassionate directive and then skirt around an answer?
Where does it say in the catheism that Catholics are to point the finger at those who need help
including potencial readers in a public forum? How can you suggest human beings are in hell by their choice?
Do you not have any idea how your non-sense can be read by others?

 

[FurtherSuntime]

I’m not coming back to these chats. This forum is incredibly depressing in views put forward
(The fellow Catholics)

 

[belorg]

Because without the possibility of evil, there can be no real good. That’s the basic response to the problem of moral evil.

And the eternality of this evil arises from the eternal nature of the soul and angelic beings.

So I don’t see this as any kind of problem.

The problem with this is that God is possibly evil.

 

[PJM]

=Luke K;8245200]Well frankly, it doesn’t seem like we have free will either way. What kind of choice is it to serve God or suffer in utter despair and torment for eternity? I think, being totally honest with myself, I would like to see or maybe even experience hell for a moment if it guaranteed that I would be persuaded not choose it, considering how awful it is. It doesn’t take a person’s free will away if they freely ask God to give them a “true and full guided tour of hell” as some saints supposedly have experienced.

Luke PLEASE READ Isaian 43 verses 7 and 21. The PRECISE reason we are Created by God is to prove or DENY our Love of and for Him. While you may not “like” the options; they represent the “Untimate Possibe Good” and the Untimate Possible Evil." … God places before us to choose “life or Choose death” and BEGS us to "choose life"

Well my concern isn’t specifically God’s freedom. It’s the fact that a world with free creatures cannot be greater than one without them, as long as God is in both worlds. Therefore, since free creatures do not make a world any better than without them, the only thing they can offer is the possibility of eternal evil.

Luke, my friend that is the mosr pesstimestic outlook on life that I have ever encountered. Humanity can and OFTEN DO make the World Better by and through LOVE.

What do you think the morally sufficient reason could be for a world with the possibility of evil that cannot be achieved without the possibility of evil? If the possibility of evil is required for a goodness that did not exist in God, then God is not the perfect fulfillment of goodness. Remember how Jesus said that God alone is good (Matthew 19:17)? Any goodness in creation is already present in God, and comes from God.

***It would be “sureal.” Such an existence would them negate the Possibility of LOVE. WHY? and How?

In order to LOVE we must have a mind, intellect and freewill [which are FYI permnately connected to our Souls]…ALL Soiritual things that cannot die or be killed.***

God Bless,
LOVE and Prayers,
Pat

 

[PJM]

=Luke K;8249912]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.

So then Everytime a man and a women have unprotected sex; the result is a pregnancy

BIRTH ISSUES

**Genesis 4:1 **The man had intercourse with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain. ‘I have acquired a man with the help of Yahweh,’ she said.

Birth is Controlled by God

John.1 Verses 12 to 14: “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. “

Gen.38: 6-10 “And Judah took a wife for Er his first-born, and her name was Tamar. But Er, Judah’s first-born, was wicked in the sight of the LORD; and the LORD slew him. Then Judah [the Father of both sons] said to Onan, “Go in to your brother’s wife, and perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her, and raise up offspring for your brother.” But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so when he went in to his brother’s wife he spilled the semen on the ground, lest he should give offspring to his brother. And what he did was displeasing in the sight of the LORD, and he slew him also.

AGAPE BIBLE STUDY: www.agapebiblestudy.com

Question: How many Old Testament women can you recall who were barren but later, by the will of God, gave birth to men who had an important impact on salvation history? Name the women and their sons

Answer:
Sarah was barren prior to the birth of Isaac (Gen 11:30; 21:1-3).
Rebekah was barren prior to the birth of Jacob/Israel (Gen 25:21-26).
Rachel was barren prior to the birth of Joseph (Gen 29:31; 30:22-23).
Manoah’s wife was barren prior to the birth of the Judge Samson (Judg 13:1-7, 24).
Hannah was barren prior to the birth of the Prophet Samuel (1 Sam 1:1-5, 19-21).

Then ADD to this list the Birth of John the Baptizer to very aged parents anf the Conception of Mary by the Holy Spirit.

 

[Luke_K]

And I am saying your belief in your own thought process is a mistake because you are wrong.

State A: God + nothingness
State B: God + Creation

Creation eliminates nothingness.

This is not philosophically sound. You can’t treat nothing as if it has a substance (which you appear to do by calling it nothingness). I could just as well say that God + creation + nothingness exists now. Creation eliminated nothing.

The word “nothing” is, unfortunately, riddled with problems of semantics.

Who told you that? “He just gave it to us to give back to Him?”

Also: not correct. Now, assume you are wrong and go find out from the Church what your vocation is. Then you will know why you have been given what you have been given.

Here’s a hint. At the end:

C. God + Us

Our very existence is a gift from God. There’s nothing we have that wasn’t given to us, because we were created from nothing but God’s will. So anything we have to give him was already given to us from him. I am reminded of one of the prayers from Mass where the priest says, “Even our desire to praise you is itself your gift…” and “All life, all holiness comes from you…” And Jesus himself said that God alone is good (Mark 10:18).

My vocation is marriage. (Unless you’re talking about vocation in the grander and more general sense.)

 

[Luke_K]

Because without the possibility of evil, there can be no real good. That’s the basic response to the problem of moral evil.

And the eternality of this evil arises from the eternal nature of the soul and angelic beings.

So I don’t see this as any kind of problem.

This just does not fit with Christian theology. God, by himself, is good without the possibility for evil. God is goodness itself and therefore whatever he is or does is defined as good.

 

[Luke_K]

Luke PLEASE READ Isaian 43 verses 7 and 21. The PRECISE reason we are Created by God is to prove or DENY our Love of and for Him. While you may not “like” the options; they represent the “Untimate Possibe Good” and the Untimate Possible Evil." … God places before us to choose “life or Choose death” and BEGS us to "choose life"

I abandoned that discussion about free will and hell because it’s not relevant to my concerns.

Luke, my friend that is the mosr pesstimestic outlook on life that I have ever encountered. Humanity can and OFTEN DO make the World Better by and through LOVE.

I’m not saying that Mother Theresa caring for a poor Indian boy doesn’t make the world a better place. But that is because she is removing an evil from the world- that of a suffering and abandoned child, and therefore the world is now better than it was with that evil. But any action of love we perform is only because we are sharing in the goodness and love of the Holy Spirit. We don’t create a new goodness that didn’t already exist in God.

 

[danserr]

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.

Why don’t you tell me where you have a problem with this answer:

1. God is morally perfect; He is the paradigm of moral goodness, without moral defect, and the source of moral goodness.
2. There is a distinction between moral value and moral duty. The simple fact that something is good, does not automatically obligate one to do it. (For example, it is good for me to join the peace corps, but it does not follow that I am obligated to join the peace corps.
3. It is good to create, but God was under no obligation to create.
4. If God did not create it would imply no defect or lacking on his part (point 1 would still hold).
5. The creation of free creatures eternally united to God is a very good thing.
   6, In its final cause this good, like all good, is from God because He created them and is the source of all goodness.
6. Free creatures eternally united to God is a good that would not have existed if God did not create them.
7. But God was under no obligation to create them. (from 2,3)
8. The creation of free creatures eternally united to God is a morally sufficient reason to risk evil from the abuse of free will.

Now what part of this do you see wanting. (I intend this less as a syllogism and more as a serious of points that seem to cover your concerns).

• Now this means that creation was a good that would not have existed if God did not create, but God was under no obligation to create. Whether he creates or not, God is still morally perfect and the source of all goodness.

 

[Luke_K]

danserr,
I think that answer more or less suffices, but with an additional point that needs to be made: a free creature is willed for its own sake. The goodness of being in heaven is for our own sake, not God’s alone.

293 Scripture and Tradition never cease to teach and celebrate this fundamental truth: "The world was made for the glory of God."134 St. Bonaventure explains that God created all things “not to increase his glory, but to show it forth and to communicate it”,135 for God has no other reason for creating than his love and goodness: "Creatures came into existence when the key of love opened his hand."136 The First Vatican Council explains:

This one, true God, of his own goodness and "almighty power", **not for increasing his own beatitude, nor for attaining his perfection, but in order to manifest this perfection through the benefits which he bestows on creatures **, with absolute freedom of counsel "and from the beginning of time, made out of nothing both orders of creatures, the spiritual and the corporeal. . ."137

356 Of all visible creatures only man is “able to know and love his creator”. He is “the only creature on earth that God has willed for its own sake”, and he alone is called to share, by knowledge and love, in God’s own life. It was for this end that he was created, and this is the fundamental reason for his dignity:

What made you establish man in so great a dignity? Certainly the incalculable love by which you have looked on your creature in yourself! You are taken with love for her; for by love indeed you created her, by love you have given her a being capable of tasting your eternal Good.

In other words, I don’t think there is any new goodness in creation, since God is already all good. But it’s the fact that there is a new “self” to experience that goodness, who exists for his own sake, that matters.

 

[Julia_Mae]

Unbelievable…Why can’t you answer the question…

How do you think people become addicts, self destructive, hopeless, ect ect ect …How & Why ?

And why do you take the accusatory route instead of the compassionate directive and then skirt around an answer?
Where does it say in the catheism that Catholics are to point the finger at those who need help
including potencial readers in a public forum? How can you suggest human beings are in hell by their choice?
Do you not have any idea how your non-sense can be read by others?

I don’t answer the questions because they have nothing to do with anything I said or with me.

 

[Julia_Mae]

The problem with this is that God is possibly evil.

No, God is not possibly evil. Evil is, by some definitions, the absence of God.

 

[Julia_Mae]

This is not philosophically sound.

It is perfectly sound, both metaphysically (part of philosophy) and theologically and scientifically.

You can’t treat nothing as if it has a substance

It is what it is: God made the universe from nothingness. If you analyze all things in Time, you end up with: nothing.

Have you read Thomas Aquinas?

The word “nothing” is, unfortunately, riddled with problems of semantics.

Only for you.

Our very existence is a gift from God. There’s nothing we have that wasn’t given to us, because we were created from nothing but God’s will.

Physically, we were created from nothing by God’s will.

So anything we have to give him was already given to us from him.

What was given to us is holiness and that spark of the Holy Spirit in us all that allows us to transform the nothingness into the substance of love and give that back to God. It’s a synergistic process.

I am reminded of one of the prayers from Mass where the priest says, “Even our desire to praise you is itself your gift…” and “All life, all holiness comes from you…” And Jesus himself said that God alone is good (Mark 10:18).

So, what do you make of all this, exactly?

My vocation is marriage. (Unless you’re talking about vocation in the grander and more general sense.)

CCC:

1877 The vocation of humanity is to show forth the image of God and to be transformed into the image of the Father’s only Son. This vocation takes a personal form since each of us is called to enter into the divine beatitude; it also concerns the human community as a whole.

 

[Julia_Mae]

In other words, I don’t think there is any new goodness in creation

God looked at everything he had made, and found it very good.

Including us.

The fact of creation, the fact of us, the very existence of reality is good.

Define “evil.”

 

[razredge]

The problem with this is that God is possibly evil.

God by definition is good.

This just does not fit with Christian theology. God, by himself, is good without the possibility for evil. God is goodness itself and therefore whatever he is or does is defined as good.

That does not logically follow. How does God allowing free processes and free will to operate in the world make him evil?

 

[Orleans_Attny]

. . . . Does not make sense at all. Especially since the argument that without evil there would be no “free will” is nonsensical (and I am certain that some nincompoop will bring it up - eventually . . .

Despite being wrong, that’s not very nice.

Interestingly, though God is good and pure, there is no evil without his existence. For without God, there is merely a preference for current behavior. Evil is that absence of God, and it is that choice that gives rise to it.

Pax,
OA

 

[belorg]

God by definition is good.

Now, that’s a relief.
And who, might I aks, invented that definition?

That does not logically follow. How does God allowing free processes and free will to operate in the world make him evil?

You should read Luke’s entire post. He explains it.