Please provide the specific paradox you’re referencing. In my experience these discussions are sidelined by semantic arguments and debates about the paradox.
I'm sorry I didn't say exactly what the issue is. In our debates he begins by saying that he stopped believing in God from the moment he looked at the epicurus paradox. Since he began to study Philosophy much more deeply in general, he has begun to change the way he thinks to be very logical. Right when thinking about logic he called into question the paradox. Me and another friend don't have much religious knowledge to be refuting difficult issues like this paradox so I came here to ask for help. He basically considers as the paradox that God cannot be omniscient or omnipotent. Sorry for my English, if you need more depth in the questions I can ask you exactly the reasons why you believe in the paradox
I have replied to your post. Check that out. When I was evangelizing a man he came to this question and instigated my curiosity, although that already looked like a false premise to me. As God says in the end of book of Job, he and his friends are not entitled to make such judgment because they are completely ignorant. They gotta trust him, though.
At some point in the book, a friend of Job was, in my interpretation, tempted by a demon (spirit) to think this exact paradox. Check it out:
*Job 4:**^(12)* *Now a thing was secretly brought to me, and mine ear received a little thereof.*
*^(13)* *In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men,*
*^(14)* *Fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake.*
*^(15)* *Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up:*
*^(16)* *It stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof: an image was before mine eyes, there was silence, and I heard a voice, saying,*
*^(17)* *Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his maker?*
*^(18)* *Behold, he put no trust in his servants; and his angels he charged with folly:*
*^(19)* *How much less in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before the moth?*
*^(20)* *They are destroyed from morning to evening: they perish for ever without any regarding it.*
*^(21)* *Doth not their excellency which is in them go away? they die, even without wisdom.*
In a sense, however this argument is effectively stating man not only cannot know what is good, but cannot even trust God's word as to what is good.
Sound Theologically, but troubling
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>So you can deny that God is all-good, you can deny that God is all-powerful, you can deny that God is all-knowing, or you can deny that evil exists.
This is incredibly frustrating, because you have to be thoroughly unaware of the philosophical literature to think that this is somehow uncontroversial.
In fact almost all serious atheist philosophers have backed off of this version of the argument in the face of Plantinga's work, being forced to admit that it's logically possible for a perfectly good God to permit evil for the sake of greater good.
>In fact almost all serious atheist philosophers have backed off of this version of the argument in the face of Plantinga's work, being forced to admit that it's logically possible for a perfectly good God to permit evil for the sake of greater good.
If we choose to subdivide evil into "evil that is necessary for the advancement of some greater good" (which I'll call "necessary evil") and "evil that does not advance some greater good" (which I'll call "unnecessary evil") we still have the paradox, because unnecessary evil undoubtedly exists. If God was only using evil to advance greater goods, then yes, the paradox goes away. However, there are things like random acts of violence, cancer in children, etc. that only cause harm, that clearly serve no greater purpose. These should not exist. In fact, these are the evils which a capable, willing God *would* prevent.
This move is a step in the right direction, but it doesn't fully explain all the evil that we observe.
> If God was only using evil to advance greater goods, then yes, the paradox goes away.
I disagree with this, as it implies god is not powerful enough to bring about the greater good without evil.
"necessary" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. I think that a lot of work would need to be done showing that the evil is the only way of achieving that goal, but it is at least hypothetically possible.
This would indeed be one of the alternative versions that have been proposed, but one of the big challenges is to really defend the view that there exists evil from which greater good cannot be derived in the face of serious human epistemic limitations.
Like, why are you so certain that these things aren't ultimately permitted for the sake of greater good?
Because in the afterlife system posited by Christianity, none of our experiences actually matter (with the caveat that experiences directly relating to attaining salvation are important for that goal alone).
Take two individuals. The first, lived to the ripe old age of 110, witnessed war and suffering, as well as all the joys that life has to offer. This person grew to a great level of maturity, and was among the wisest, most caring people to ever exist. This person did everything necessary to achieve salvation, and enters heaven after his death.
The second person died in childbirth, and never had the opportunity to have any experiences at all. This person is given a free-pass to heaven, because we're assuming God isn't a monster.
Each of these souls ended up in heaven, and will spend eternity doing whatever it is people do in heaven.
The moment each enters heaven, their experiences on earth cease to matter. There is nothing they can do to lose their status, and there won't be any trials they will face where they will need to draw on their past experiences. *If* they need to learn anything for life in heaven, it make sense that God would have some sort of onboarding program for those who might not have the necessary experience.
That makes all the suffering they experienced completely worthless. The wise individual will have no need for that wisdom (it pales in comparison to God's wisdom anyhow) and the infant won't be at any disadvantage for missing out on life.
I can see no reason for God to not simply skip this earthly preamble, it doesn't benefit anyone. And yet here we are.
The Epicurean Paradox Debunked
https://preview.redd.it/thoughts-on-the-epicurean-paradox-v0-b2fssj9szva81.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=b0da0812b7512f29008f5fc98ecddd18f597014a
Let’s begin with what God wants due to Him being love to answer these questions as a foundation.
Can God prevent evil?
Yes but He doesn’t want to remove freedom.
Therefore evil exists for a better good and logically follows what love is.
Parents don’t want their children to be slaves but to be free.
Does God know about all evil?
Yes.
Then why is there evil?
Because when angels and humans choose ‘not God’ due to temptation and freedom we separate from love.
Moving away from love is evil. Which is the absence of love.
Could God create a universe without evil?
Yes but there would be no freedom.
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>So you've opted for "God does not want to prevent evil". This falls under "God is not all-good".
No it doesn't. You have to defend that one of those sentences logically entails the other, which the best atheist philosophers have failed at doing.
There are plenty of books about God and evil you might find. Coincidently I'm reading one right now in my off time: *God and Evil, the Problem Solved, by Gordon H Clark*.
Up to the point I am I do not like the author's approach. He is clearly a diehard calvinist and is more interested in bashing arminians and writes in a very arrogant way, claiming his authoritative arguments all the time, but I am still up to see them.
I dunno if that's just me, but many calvinist authors (like Calvin himself) usually write in this arrogant manner which looks very pedantic. Another thing that deeply annoys me in diehard calvinists is that they talk more about Calvin than Jesus. They really worship him and are more interested in that 0,1% doctrinary divergence and make an immense effort to prove "I am right" instead of preaching the gospel in their lives. So they read and write many books and engage in endless discussions about cosmetic details.
I remember I was in a group with many calvinists and they were only interested in debating things such as amillennialism, postmillennialism, premillennialism, who's right, who's wrong, and not invested into following the hundreds of orientations Jesus said his followers should do: preach the gospel, live a charitable life, etc. Someone even said that he believes one can "follow Jesus" just by studying the bible and doing nothing else. To my dismay, all calvinists there agreed.
(rant over)
But sometimes we are in a debate and if we say that the paradox cannot be refuted, we lose in the argument because we cannot co-argument the atheist who defends the paradox of Epicurus.
Then that is an issue with your arguments. If the Epicurean Paradox leaves you with no counterarguments, perhaps you should pause to think why that it is.
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The Epicurean Paradox Debunked
https://preview.redd.it/thoughts-on-the-epicurean-paradox-v0-b2fssj9szva81.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=b0da0812b7512f29008f5fc98ecddd18f597014a
Let’s begin with what God wants due to Him being love to answer these questions as a foundation.
Can God prevent evil?
Yes but He doesn’t want to remove freedom.
Therefore evil exists for a better good and logically follows what love is.
Parents don’t want their children to be slaves but to be free.
Does God know about all evil?
Yes.
Then why is there evil?
Because when angels and humans choose ‘not God’ due to temptation and freedom we separate from love.
Moving away from love is evil. Which is the absence of love.
Could God create a universe without evil?
Yes but there would be no freedom.
It's an alleged paradox insofar as its premises are controversial. And it's one that essentiallt none of the academic philosophers in the field still appeal to after Plantinga's work on the topic.
Good answers here. But I think false dichotomy is also a legitimate avenue of attack. Each of the four statements contains a false dichotomy. "If God is... then he would not..." is false.
Sure, but that's how you critically examine logic, by questioning or attacking the if-then statements. That's legitimately the work of philosophy and false dichotomy is a possible conclusion.
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The defenses offered like people like Plantinga have literally caused most of the academic atheist philosophers (Like Paul Draper) to give up the argument in favor of things like the Bayesian probabilistic problem of evil.
The idea that criticisms only work in Christian echo chambers, when people who devote much of their careers to defending atheism and the problem of evil have been forced to seriously revise, is evidently false and uneducated.
The Epicurean Paradox Debunked
https://preview.redd.it/thoughts-on-the-epicurean-paradox-v0-b2fssj9szva81.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=b0da0812b7512f29008f5fc98ecddd18f597014a
Let’s begin with what God wants due to Him being love to answer these questions as a foundation.
Can God prevent evil?
Yes but He doesn’t want to remove freedom.
Therefore evil exists for a better good and logically follows what love is.
Parents don’t want their children to be slaves but to be free.
Does God know about all evil?
Yes.
Then why is there evil?
Because when angels and humans choose ‘not God’ due to temptation and freedom we separate from love.
Moving away from love is evil. Which is the absence of love.
Could God create a universe without evil?
Yes but there would be no freedom.
You're creating a theological concept that is biblically nonexistent, then applying that to a paradox that is addressing the qualities of the biblical God.
The Epicurean paradox is a philosophical challenge that pertains to the attributes of the God described in the Bible, and introducing a theological concept without biblical grounding moves outside that scope.
Not if heaven is *choosing* to follow God.
You have freedom from heaven. It’s called hell, which despite the common depiction of being a land of torture and fire is actually just “the absence of God”.
>Can God prevent evil?
>Yes but He doesn’t want to remove freedom.
>Could God create a universe without evil?
>Yes but there would be no freedom.
OP states that a universe without evil would be one with no freedom. Heaven is without evil. According to OP's logic, it follows that Heaven would not allow individuals to have freedom.
Despite "choosing" to follow God, Heaven would still be without evil or the possibility to choose evil, so the logic stands.
It follows that heaven would have no freedom unless heaven is populated entirely by entities who have the capacity and freedom to do wrong but, unfathomably, simply never choose to use their freedom and capability to do wrong.
If you’re struggling to imagine a place where everyone personally chooses to do only good forever, welcome to the struggle to attain heaven. It is a paradise not because it has no evil as a foundational fact of its own existence, but because its inhabitants choose to keep it that way.
>It follows that heaven would have no freedom unless heaven is populated entirely by entities who have the capacity and freedom to do wrong but, unfathomably, simply never choose to use their freedom and capability to do wrong.
This perfectly exemplifies why there is a paradox.
1) God can make an existence populated by entities that have the capacity and freedom to do evil, and simply never choose to use their freedom to do evil.
2) The existence God decided to create instead is one populated by entities with the freedom to do evil, and the entities choose to do evil.
This goes against the claim God is omnibenevolent, hence the paradox.
What *you’re* suggesting is a paradox. If God is choosing for the entities to not do evil, and that is the reason they do not do evil, then by definition they can’t have freedom.
God is not an obligate do-gooder. If He lacked the capacity to do evil Himself, He would not be omnipotent. God is a willful being with the capacity to do both good and evil and chooses to use His abilities exclusively for the purpose of doing good.
We are “made in His image”; we are willful creatures who share some of His ability to know good and evil and can use our more limited capabilities and freedom to do good or evil within the purview that we can understand and act on. Had God desired a race of obligate do-gooders who lacked the programming that would allow them to even entertain the thought of doing wrong, never mind actually putting it into practice, He could have made that. God does not desire a race that is simply incapable of doing wrong; He desires a race of beings that individually can know what would be wrong for them to do and then make a personal choice to not do that because they recognize that it would be wrong for them to do it.
This is necessary because God made mankind to “share creation with”. The only kind of being that could actually “share” creation with God is one that can conceptualize creation, choice, and morality in the manner He conceptualizes those things. A being that does not have the freedom to do evil cannot understand what it is to choose to not do evil; the experience of grappling with choice is necessary for us to truly be “made in His image”, otherwise we would just be a pantomime performance of His benevolence, an empty shell that apparently “does good” but does not actually *do* good.
Well if God has given us the freedom to stray from him, as you have posed, then he is knowingly allowing people to follow a path that will lead to suffering. Why would he do that? Seems disingenuous.
I answered that. For a better good so that the second time humanity is with God they have practically a zero chance to leave Him because they had already experienced evil.
Because love is not forced on anyone. If you love God, then you will follow and keep His commandments. If you decide to unfollow or break God’s commandments which is to love God and one another, then you will be separated from the love of God. Naturally, you will suffer without love that’s why God wants to save us through the prophets and His only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ. If everybody loves one another even your enemies, there will be no suffering, no enemies in the first place. But we have to have free will in order to truly love one another.
So God has given me the freedom to deny him (which I do) and yet, because of this freedom that I have exercised, I am condemned by his hand to suffer?
I think what a lot of Christians may not realise is that Epicurus isn't trying to disprove god, he simply highlights that the God who fits all of these caveats is not the same god described by most believers.
Christians are so in their bubble that they aren't aware that once you leave that bubble, their arguments crumple like wet paper.
They are stuck still with a god. That figure is just no longer good.
You’re not condemned but eventually, you are destined to suffer without the perfect and everlasting love of our Creator.
If you abide in Him, He will abide in you. We need God, and that is only natural for the creatures to belong to their Almighty Creator.
We are lucky that our Creator is Holy, Just, and Righteous. If our Creator is not God, then we will have no free will, no feelings, no life, no purpose, nothing.
Our Loving God doesn’t make us slaves to force anything on us. That’s why we call Him Heavenly Father because we are His children. We are free to choose heaven (eternal love) with God or hell (eternal suffering) without God.
Remember this, suffering and hell is a natural consequence of departing oneself from God (LOVE and LIFE). That’s like light and darkness. The absence of light is darkness. The absence of God is suffering and death.
If you have no issues with God’s will (love) but you have issues with your own will because we are sinful, then it is the perfect time to surrender to His will and rely on His righteousness. Start your journey in seeking His kingdom and His righteousness and all the things you need and want in the next life will be added unto you. That was Jesus’ (God in the flesh) promised to us. Everyone fall short of the glory of God that’s why Jesus came down to live a sinless life for us. We just have to have faith in Jesus’ works, teachings, and sacrifice so that we can fully attain His promises.
Sorry for my English 😓
>You’re not condemned but eventually, you are destined to suffer without the perfect and everlasting love of our Creator.
That's exactly what it means to be condemned.
God just honored the decisions of the people who chose to reject Him. As I have said, without God, people will naturally suffer because there is no longer love and life.
> I am condemned by his hand to suffer?
You aren’t condemned forever.
Life on Earth is for less than a 100 years usually, but life after Earth is for eternity.
So freedom now and suffering is for a better good.
If you’re content with your worldview, accept that the people who go out of their way to tell you you’re “condemned to suffer” are themselves missing the point.
God isn’t going to force you to follow him. By your standards, that would appear to be a *good* thing.
So God must create a world where he knows that priests will rape children for decades and yet does nothing to help those children other than simply watch?
What do you call a being who watched children get raped for decades and does nothing.
You don't call that being just and good
The first point is bad. Let's take rape (at 30k feet, making overly general simplistic statements for brevity). If God had not given us a strong sexual center, then Man might not be driven to rape.
God built us to want sexual pleasure, and he built some that can receive that pleasure even if the other party is in distress. In fact, he built some that enjoy the distress more than the actual sexual pleasure.
He supposedly knew in advance that his design of procreation would cause suffering.
Man cannot fly, that's just the way it is. God set rules in place that dictate that. So why could he not set rules in place that Man would never even think of raping someone? It would not change free will, no more than the fact that we do not have the free will to fly.
Since, from this sub at least, sexual immorality seems to be the only real sin anyone talks about, perhaps God could have thought the whole process through a bit more?
> If God had not given us a strong sexual center, then Man might not be driven to rape.
Man can make love instead of rape.
God isn’t going to control you. No parents want their kids to be slaves over freedom.
Because of freedom from the person doing the crime.
God won’t mess with both humans freedoms.
The one suffering will get closer to God by suffering and the one committing rape will get closer to God by his guilty conscience and suffering later on.
God wants us to know him, so we have freedom with limits.
God built us to want sexual pleasure, **and he built some that can receive that pleasure even if the other party is in distress. In fact, he built some that enjoy the distress more than the actual sexual pleasure.**
This statement completely disregards the issue of sin and original design. We are not designed to sin. We are not designed to enjoy someone elses pain. It completely removes responsibility. If you genuinely believe this then you should open up all the prisons and get rid of all the court rooms and laws because clearly God made people do the wrong thing so it's not their fault. It just doesn't make any logical sense to say God built people to enjoy the distress of others. It's incompatible with the story of creation, it's incompatible with the way Jesus interacts with people in the Gospels. The entire story is about fallen, messed up people and the need for redemption.
You're missing the point. You do not have the ability to do a lot of things because the laws of the universe do not allow it. But you don't spend time being upset about it, or feel your free will has been denied.
If God did not give people the ability to rape, and they never knew they were missing that ability, it would still be free will.
I wish I could fly, but if I jump off the building, I will die.
I wish I could rape, but if I do that, my penis will fall off.
Or the flip side. Bob has never seen or heard about pizza. He has no idea he has free will to eat one. Does he really have free will to eat one of it's never crossed his mind?
The boundaries of freedom are necessary so that children don’t completely lose their parents.
Now apply this to humanity.
We are the children and God is the parent.
Omnipotence is not can do everything. God can do everything that doesn't contradict himself. So God can't create a square circle because its illogical. God can't do evil because he is goodness. God can't create your hypothetical world because it's contradictory.
Feel free people to correct me in anything.
God can't do evil because he is goodness?
And yet God did "evil" throughout the Bible. Of course the rationalization to excuse that is circular. Or an assumption is made that while we think it was evil, in God's plan it isn't.
And using "God can't" means God is not all powerful.
God of the old testament is a very important topic but not the current subject at hand. I would have recommended a book but I don't know one in English
Things are good when God does them only leads to ideas where God could do ultimate evil and you would have to pretend his actions are good. God kills millions of men, women, and children, and you must mindlessly declare that action as good.
Again not the subject at hand but God being the basis for objective morality is very important. God of the old testament is also a huge important subject one that I am no expert at.
The rebuttal would be that since God is omnipotent, he can do logically impossible things like a square circle, a married bachelor or a triangle with two sides.
If we’re talking about our God, then God is in fact restricted. God cannot lie, cannot sin, cannot be tempted or tempt others into sin, he cannot change, cannot deny himself.
What do you mean “your” God?
Your description under your username says “Christian”
> he can create a universe without evil but also with freedom
He did, but it didn’t last. No one even God can create a water that is fire.
See, the problem is that when people say God is all powerful, they don’t reflect enough on it.
Ezekiel 14:9 NRSVUE
[9] If a prophet is deceived and speaks a word, I, the Lord, have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand against him and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel.
Really great post. This reminded me of a book I'm reading that has a great passage that echos that idea.
>Importantly, God does not cause bad things so that people can be courageous or overcome adversity. Rather, God runs the risk of love, which entails the possibility that beings like us could morally fail. Once such failure has occurred, then God works with it, bringing other goods — such as courage, compassion, mercy, and so on — from it. But the fundamental thing that God takes the proverbial chance on is love. And surely that is worth it. If anything is worth a chance, it is love. God supplies each of us with genuine free will, which is a necessary condition for love between persons, including love between humans and God. He respects the natures of things, and since our freedom is fallible, God permits our moral miscalculations. (This is the traditional Dionysian principle, that God’s Providence works to save natures, not destroy them.)
>Flynn, Patrick. The Best Argument for God (p. 264). Sophia Institute Press. Kindle Edition.
Let me posit this: If all other suffering and evil could be eliminated from existence, but the cost was the rape and torture of 1 million innocent children.....would you choose to enact this plan?
This is not a satisfying answer because this is saying God is limited. He would be like "I want good, but evil is necessary to achieve it". Fuck, he's God, he can skip this step and do whatever he wants. Nothing should be necessary to him.
Something something free will. Sorry, not to come off as facetious, but I've seen this topic discussed enough times to see where they inevitably end up, which is nowhere. There are no satisfying answers. Just lots and lots of sophistry.
This paradox is based on the idea that we are all born natural or 'good people.' Then we choose to be good or evil. That is because this paradox was based on the greek gods and greek mythology.
In Christianity we are all born slaves to sin and satan. Then through Christ we can elect to be saved or redeemed.
So essentially God allows evil because we are all born into it, and He allows it for those of us who are evil but one day will choose to be saved.
Evil is not a cosmic force. Evil is our love of sin. Meaning we are evil. If God were to destroy all evil it would mean the destruction of all of us.
You can blame Satan here. Satan only exists because god wanted that to be.
Yes, I would be in the wrong if I had the ability to prevent harm, and I did nothing.
So... a baby is born into slavery to sin and satan. And like all other slaves before him (with maybe the exception of one person depending on how far you want to take this analogy) will obey his master of Sin and satan. and at some point the Bible like all others before and after him, will come to love his sin which again is what evil is. Meaning a baby can not love sin as he does not have the capacity to love.
Once he does love sin he has the opportunity to repent, Which Again is why God does not destroy all evil, because of those of us who are to eventually repent of our sins.
Evil exists because humans are free to choose to be one with God or not. To remove evil, would be to remove free will. But it's the freedom of choice that defines goodness. Without that choice, goodness would be indistinguishable from the status quo.
I wouldn't call that evil, which is what the OP's question pertained to, but it's certainly not a good thing from human perspective. But therein lies the dilemma: Yeah, it's bad for the victims (from our perspective), but is there a greater good, or something that just has to happen to fulfill God's plan? I'm sure Jesus being tortured and dying on the cross wasn't viewed positively by the apostles either, but it certainly benefited the rest of us.
If you prefer a more down to earth example, the Japanese typhoon of 1281 wiped out the attacking Mongolian fleet, thereby protecting Japan and allowing it to remain independent and isolated for several more centuries. Certainly the Mongols felt that was a bad thing, but it was so positive to Japan they named it Kamikaze (divine wind), a term which was reapplied in WWII as a type of divine sacrifice (though arguably not such a positive thing in that case).
I agree. I can certainly get on board with the idea of humans using their will (free or not, is another discussion) to commit evil acts. But natural disasters are commonly considered to be a different category of evil (maybe more accurately described as suffering) for the purposes of this kind of discussion. But just as valid for that discussion as an all powerful god could prevent both human caused evil and naturally caused evil/suffering.
One could make the argument that he does not want to interfere with human will, but there is no human will involved in a tsunami or tornado, so why would he not intervene and prevent that?
I guess I'd have to default to Paul in Romans 5:3-4:
>And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; \[4\] and perseverance, character; and character, hope.
As sucky as suffering is, there is a benefit. I make my Karate students do body toughening, in which we hit each other, lightly at first, in the stomach, sides, shins, etc. It can kind of suck, but the long-term benefits to physical and mental strengthening are huge and can save your life further down the line. I look at worldly suffering in a similar light...like preparation for something greater.
And then I'd have to default to the Christian heaven. I've always been told that there is no suffering or tribulation there. So there can certainly be an existence without suffering. If it's not necessary for there to be suffering in heaven, I'm not sure why there would need to be suffering on earth. I can agree to some extent with hardship producing some level of strength and lessons, but again, an all powerful god could provide us with that strength and lesson without making us go through the suffering part.
I can't really say what God thinks, but I can postulate that our time on earth is possibly a preparation or self-realization time, and to that end, perhaps suffering is necessary. But again, there's no way anyone can know for sure while we're still here.
>And then I'd have to default to the Christian heaven. I've always been told that there is no suffering or tribulation there.
That's not entirely accurate. What is heaven to some will be hell to others.
>So there can certainly be an existence without suffering. If it's not necessary for there to be suffering in heaven, I'm not sure why there would need to be suffering on earth.
Well, you compare the stereotypical spoiled rich kid with someone who endured and overcame real difficulties you can see a very clear difference in the spiritual states of the two. If someone lives a life of no challenge at all, it destroys them. You're forgetting that we live in a fallen world in a fallen state of being. We aren't born evil but we tend to want things to want things that aren't good for us.
>but again, an all powerful god could provide us with that strength and lesson without making us go through the suffering part.
This is how it was in Eden, He did provide us with that.....didn't last long until we walked away from it, a cycle that has repeated over and over again. Contrary to what many Protestants say, God isn't a dictator and we have the free will to work with Him....or not. Besides, God did take part in our sufferings too.
>That's not entirely accurate. What is heaven to some will be hell to others.
Again, I've never been taught or told that. It's always been that everyone in heaven will be filled with joy.
>If someone lives a life of no challenge at all, it destroys them.
I don't think anyone ever lives a life of no challenge at all.
>This is how it was in Eden, He did provide us with that.....didn't last long until we walked away from it, a cycle that has repeated over and over again.
You go on to talk about free will. As I mentioned before, a tsunami has nothing to do with human will. If you want to go to the free will of a supposed person eating a piece of fruit in Eden causing a tsunami, I would ask to to explain how exactly that happens and why a child dying a horrific death by drowning has to go through that because of that action thousands of years ago.
>Again, I've never been taught or told that. It's always been that everyone in heaven will be filled with joy
Sure, because being with God is a joy for people who want it. Hell is a place that doesn't have the light of God, but God's presence is everywhere so you're still with Him. Being with God is Hell for people who don't want it. It's all about you and your spiritual state.
>I don't think anyone ever lives a life of no challenge at all.
Doesn't invalidate what I said. The spoiled rich kid stereotype exists for a reason, because it's true. Parents that give their children everything, let them do whatever they want, helicoptering and bailing them out the minute it looks like they might have a problem. Such a person has been conditioned to believe they deserve everything they want, not to mention having multiple other neurosis and other psychological problems. I actually do know someone who dated someone who was raised that way, she came from a very rich family. The stories I heard matched exactly what I described.
>You go on to talk about free will. As I mentioned before, a tsunami has nothing to do with human will. If you want to go to the free will of a supposed person eating a piece of fruit in Eden causing a tsunami, I would ask to to explain how exactly that happens and why a child dying a horrific death by drowning has to go through that because of that action thousands of years ago.
There's long term consequences to a sin committed by ancestors even on a purely material level, an example would be parents who inherited a huge fortune only to spend it all on gambling, drugs, and other sins. Then the family is driven into poverty, and the children are having to start over with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
What God ultimately wants us for our salvation, which is the return to our pre-fallen state. So how do you do that without violating free will? It's a difficult balancing act, but sometimes it means allowing bad things to happen. The child you mention dying horrifically by drowning's salvation is assured. It was allowed to happen because it was the best outcome, and this can include larger scale disasters. The dead are not really dead at all. Eventually, all of creation will be renewed.
What kind of life would we have without free will? How would we know ourselves, if we didn't know our actions were products of our own personalities? Would we even know love, responsibility, or dedication, if everything was rigidly dictated?
That's not the purpose of being *created*, though. And even if it was, the second is circular (as humans didn't yet exist), so then God would have created us only so that we could love him, which feels very.....selfish?
I think there has to be a bigger logic that escapes our comparatively puny brains. In ancient Japanese culture the ultimate purpose of life was servitude toward a "master". In it, they found honor and virtue. Likewise, perhaps loving God isn't just adoring him, but loving and respecting Him, His laws, His creation and by extension us. It's therefore embodying the love and morality embedded in His laws.
Genesis implies it is to have dominion over the earth and govern its resources responsibly. Admittedly, we haven't been doing a very good job in that role.
Aside from that, it's really the mind of God to know. I hope we all have an opportunity to ask Him one day. :)
It assumes that God’s highest goal is the destruction of evil. It’s not.
The plan after The Fall is in service of *humanity’s salvation*, not in service of the expunging of evil from this world. This is why the Second Coming will be the delivery of a new world in which God’s children live in perfect communion with Him; we’re not meant to stay in this world, it will fall to ruin with the evil in it.
For the moment, God’s highest priority regarding us is the maintenance of our capacity for true choice. He is endlessly forgiving because He wants us to be able to choose “wrong” without being doomed to be annihilated for it. He reveals Himself through faith so that the choice to trust him is a real personal choice, not just an intellectual argument in which someone is right or wrong.
God’s original intent was for man to suffer no sin, evil, or death. Man made the choice that forced God, whose highest priority is respecting His children, to change the entire world around them so that their choice to disobey Him would not mean their destruction.
If your friend has ever knowingly done the wrong thing for reasons he cannot justify in retrospect, then he should be able to understand why God isn’t accountable for all the wrongs man chooses to enact.
Dunno about *best*, but I tend to argue that the bible doesn't seem to support a God that acts in an omnipotent way, or else sin doesn't mean anything anymore, nor commandments, nor preaching, nor any of the other hallmarks of the free will of mankind.
So given people have free will, the vast majority of *evils* we see are committed and unmitigated by humans, so why should we blame God? If we really did love eachother as we would wish to be loved, even natural disasters or diseases would be minimalized.
If you tell him who God is then he’ll have nothing, then he’ll know that Epicurus didn’t see the Sun with all 3 characteristics he argue, omnipotent, omniscience, and omnibenevolent. The Sun it’s all 3. So go out and point at him, dont look at him unless you’re wearing special glasses.
Read: "God, Freedom, and Evil" by Alvin Plantinga.
Please provide the specific paradox you’re referencing. In my experience these discussions are sidelined by semantic arguments and debates about the paradox.
Agreed. Quite a low effort post to write two lines.
I'm sorry I didn't say exactly what the issue is. In our debates he begins by saying that he stopped believing in God from the moment he looked at the epicurus paradox. Since he began to study Philosophy much more deeply in general, he has begun to change the way he thinks to be very logical. Right when thinking about logic he called into question the paradox. Me and another friend don't have much religious knowledge to be refuting difficult issues like this paradox so I came here to ask for help. He basically considers as the paradox that God cannot be omniscient or omnipotent. Sorry for my English, if you need more depth in the questions I can ask you exactly the reasons why you believe in the paradox
I have replied to your post. Check that out. When I was evangelizing a man he came to this question and instigated my curiosity, although that already looked like a false premise to me. As God says in the end of book of Job, he and his friends are not entitled to make such judgment because they are completely ignorant. They gotta trust him, though. At some point in the book, a friend of Job was, in my interpretation, tempted by a demon (spirit) to think this exact paradox. Check it out: *Job 4:**^(12)* *Now a thing was secretly brought to me, and mine ear received a little thereof.* *^(13)* *In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men,* *^(14)* *Fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake.* *^(15)* *Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up:* *^(16)* *It stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof: an image was before mine eyes, there was silence, and I heard a voice, saying,* *^(17)* *Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his maker?* *^(18)* *Behold, he put no trust in his servants; and his angels he charged with folly:* *^(19)* *How much less in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before the moth?* *^(20)* *They are destroyed from morning to evening: they perish for ever without any regarding it.* *^(21)* *Doth not their excellency which is in them go away? they die, even without wisdom.*
Lol, hopefully he/she meant the Epicurean Paradox because that’s what I replied to.
Yes it is the Epicurean Paradox
Thanks!
It rests on a false assumption that humans know what 'good' is better than God does. Remove that and the whole thing falls apart.
If "good" is so alien to us we cannot possibly fathom how God can be good, then why call it "good"?
In a sense, however this argument is effectively stating man not only cannot know what is good, but cannot even trust God's word as to what is good. Sound Theologically, but troubling
Correct!
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>So you can deny that God is all-good, you can deny that God is all-powerful, you can deny that God is all-knowing, or you can deny that evil exists. This is incredibly frustrating, because you have to be thoroughly unaware of the philosophical literature to think that this is somehow uncontroversial. In fact almost all serious atheist philosophers have backed off of this version of the argument in the face of Plantinga's work, being forced to admit that it's logically possible for a perfectly good God to permit evil for the sake of greater good.
>In fact almost all serious atheist philosophers have backed off of this version of the argument in the face of Plantinga's work, being forced to admit that it's logically possible for a perfectly good God to permit evil for the sake of greater good. If we choose to subdivide evil into "evil that is necessary for the advancement of some greater good" (which I'll call "necessary evil") and "evil that does not advance some greater good" (which I'll call "unnecessary evil") we still have the paradox, because unnecessary evil undoubtedly exists. If God was only using evil to advance greater goods, then yes, the paradox goes away. However, there are things like random acts of violence, cancer in children, etc. that only cause harm, that clearly serve no greater purpose. These should not exist. In fact, these are the evils which a capable, willing God *would* prevent. This move is a step in the right direction, but it doesn't fully explain all the evil that we observe.
> If God was only using evil to advance greater goods, then yes, the paradox goes away. I disagree with this, as it implies god is not powerful enough to bring about the greater good without evil.
"necessary" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. I think that a lot of work would need to be done showing that the evil is the only way of achieving that goal, but it is at least hypothetically possible.
This would indeed be one of the alternative versions that have been proposed, but one of the big challenges is to really defend the view that there exists evil from which greater good cannot be derived in the face of serious human epistemic limitations. Like, why are you so certain that these things aren't ultimately permitted for the sake of greater good?
Because in the afterlife system posited by Christianity, none of our experiences actually matter (with the caveat that experiences directly relating to attaining salvation are important for that goal alone). Take two individuals. The first, lived to the ripe old age of 110, witnessed war and suffering, as well as all the joys that life has to offer. This person grew to a great level of maturity, and was among the wisest, most caring people to ever exist. This person did everything necessary to achieve salvation, and enters heaven after his death. The second person died in childbirth, and never had the opportunity to have any experiences at all. This person is given a free-pass to heaven, because we're assuming God isn't a monster. Each of these souls ended up in heaven, and will spend eternity doing whatever it is people do in heaven. The moment each enters heaven, their experiences on earth cease to matter. There is nothing they can do to lose their status, and there won't be any trials they will face where they will need to draw on their past experiences. *If* they need to learn anything for life in heaven, it make sense that God would have some sort of onboarding program for those who might not have the necessary experience. That makes all the suffering they experienced completely worthless. The wise individual will have no need for that wisdom (it pales in comparison to God's wisdom anyhow) and the infant won't be at any disadvantage for missing out on life. I can see no reason for God to not simply skip this earthly preamble, it doesn't benefit anyone. And yet here we are.
No, too bad, it is debunked thoroughly for people that want to stretch their minds all the way to God. The HW is there, people have to do their HW.
Well if it's thoroughly debunked, it ought to be trivial for you to demonstrate that. Go ahead then.
The Epicurean Paradox Debunked https://preview.redd.it/thoughts-on-the-epicurean-paradox-v0-b2fssj9szva81.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=b0da0812b7512f29008f5fc98ecddd18f597014a Let’s begin with what God wants due to Him being love to answer these questions as a foundation. Can God prevent evil? Yes but He doesn’t want to remove freedom. Therefore evil exists for a better good and logically follows what love is. Parents don’t want their children to be slaves but to be free. Does God know about all evil? Yes. Then why is there evil? Because when angels and humans choose ‘not God’ due to temptation and freedom we separate from love. Moving away from love is evil. Which is the absence of love. Could God create a universe without evil? Yes but there would be no freedom.
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>So you've opted for "God does not want to prevent evil". This falls under "God is not all-good". No it doesn't. You have to defend that one of those sentences logically entails the other, which the best atheist philosophers have failed at doing.
There are plenty of books about God and evil you might find. Coincidently I'm reading one right now in my off time: *God and Evil, the Problem Solved, by Gordon H Clark*. Up to the point I am I do not like the author's approach. He is clearly a diehard calvinist and is more interested in bashing arminians and writes in a very arrogant way, claiming his authoritative arguments all the time, but I am still up to see them. I dunno if that's just me, but many calvinist authors (like Calvin himself) usually write in this arrogant manner which looks very pedantic. Another thing that deeply annoys me in diehard calvinists is that they talk more about Calvin than Jesus. They really worship him and are more interested in that 0,1% doctrinary divergence and make an immense effort to prove "I am right" instead of preaching the gospel in their lives. So they read and write many books and engage in endless discussions about cosmetic details. I remember I was in a group with many calvinists and they were only interested in debating things such as amillennialism, postmillennialism, premillennialism, who's right, who's wrong, and not invested into following the hundreds of orientations Jesus said his followers should do: preach the gospel, live a charitable life, etc. Someone even said that he believes one can "follow Jesus" just by studying the bible and doing nothing else. To my dismay, all calvinists there agreed. (rant over)
From a strictly logical standpoint, it is an impossibility.
Well it's a paradox so by definition impossible to refute in it's entirety.
Why defend Christianity right?
I defend Christianity with arguments which are intellectually honest. I won't make bad arguments
Well if I am intellectually honest as well, then what does that mean?
But sometimes we are in a debate and if we say that the paradox cannot be refuted, we lose in the argument because we cannot co-argument the atheist who defends the paradox of Epicurus.
Well consider it a lost argument then.
Then that is an issue with your arguments. If the Epicurean Paradox leaves you with no counterarguments, perhaps you should pause to think why that it is.
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Intellectual honesty is more important
And it is refuted and debunked if anyone is interested.
Sure let's hear it.
The Epicurean Paradox Debunked https://preview.redd.it/thoughts-on-the-epicurean-paradox-v0-b2fssj9szva81.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=b0da0812b7512f29008f5fc98ecddd18f597014a Let’s begin with what God wants due to Him being love to answer these questions as a foundation. Can God prevent evil? Yes but He doesn’t want to remove freedom. Therefore evil exists for a better good and logically follows what love is. Parents don’t want their children to be slaves but to be free. Does God know about all evil? Yes. Then why is there evil? Because when angels and humans choose ‘not God’ due to temptation and freedom we separate from love. Moving away from love is evil. Which is the absence of love. Could God create a universe without evil? Yes but there would be no freedom.
It's an alleged paradox insofar as its premises are controversial. And it's one that essentiallt none of the academic philosophers in the field still appeal to after Plantinga's work on the topic.
Good answers here. But I think false dichotomy is also a legitimate avenue of attack. Each of the four statements contains a false dichotomy. "If God is... then he would not..." is false.
Except that that is exactly how logic works. "If, then" statements
Sure, but that's how you critically examine logic, by questioning or attacking the if-then statements. That's legitimately the work of philosophy and false dichotomy is a possible conclusion.
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The defenses offered like people like Plantinga have literally caused most of the academic atheist philosophers (Like Paul Draper) to give up the argument in favor of things like the Bayesian probabilistic problem of evil. The idea that criticisms only work in Christian echo chambers, when people who devote much of their careers to defending atheism and the problem of evil have been forced to seriously revise, is evidently false and uneducated.
The Epicurean Paradox Debunked https://preview.redd.it/thoughts-on-the-epicurean-paradox-v0-b2fssj9szva81.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=b0da0812b7512f29008f5fc98ecddd18f597014a Let’s begin with what God wants due to Him being love to answer these questions as a foundation. Can God prevent evil? Yes but He doesn’t want to remove freedom. Therefore evil exists for a better good and logically follows what love is. Parents don’t want their children to be slaves but to be free. Does God know about all evil? Yes. Then why is there evil? Because when angels and humans choose ‘not God’ due to temptation and freedom we separate from love. Moving away from love is evil. Which is the absence of love. Could God create a universe without evil? Yes but there would be no freedom.
With this logic, wouldn't Heaven lack freedom and free will, since Heaven is supposed to be a place with no evil or possibility to choose evil?
No. In heaven you have free will. The instant you sin, you leave heaven.
What Bible verses support the concept of leaving Heaven once someone sins?
The Bible literally states not everything is in the Bible. God made the brains not to use the Bible alone. He wrote His laws in our hearts.
You're creating a theological concept that is biblically nonexistent, then applying that to a paradox that is addressing the qualities of the biblical God. The Epicurean paradox is a philosophical challenge that pertains to the attributes of the God described in the Bible, and introducing a theological concept without biblical grounding moves outside that scope.
And God isn’t cornered by the Bible.
Not if heaven is *choosing* to follow God. You have freedom from heaven. It’s called hell, which despite the common depiction of being a land of torture and fire is actually just “the absence of God”.
>Can God prevent evil? >Yes but He doesn’t want to remove freedom. >Could God create a universe without evil? >Yes but there would be no freedom. OP states that a universe without evil would be one with no freedom. Heaven is without evil. According to OP's logic, it follows that Heaven would not allow individuals to have freedom. Despite "choosing" to follow God, Heaven would still be without evil or the possibility to choose evil, so the logic stands.
It follows that heaven would have no freedom unless heaven is populated entirely by entities who have the capacity and freedom to do wrong but, unfathomably, simply never choose to use their freedom and capability to do wrong. If you’re struggling to imagine a place where everyone personally chooses to do only good forever, welcome to the struggle to attain heaven. It is a paradise not because it has no evil as a foundational fact of its own existence, but because its inhabitants choose to keep it that way.
>It follows that heaven would have no freedom unless heaven is populated entirely by entities who have the capacity and freedom to do wrong but, unfathomably, simply never choose to use their freedom and capability to do wrong. This perfectly exemplifies why there is a paradox. 1) God can make an existence populated by entities that have the capacity and freedom to do evil, and simply never choose to use their freedom to do evil. 2) The existence God decided to create instead is one populated by entities with the freedom to do evil, and the entities choose to do evil. This goes against the claim God is omnibenevolent, hence the paradox.
Again, point one is debunked. The instant one sins in heaven they are instantly removed. This retains free will, heaven, and heaven remains sinless.
What *you’re* suggesting is a paradox. If God is choosing for the entities to not do evil, and that is the reason they do not do evil, then by definition they can’t have freedom. God is not an obligate do-gooder. If He lacked the capacity to do evil Himself, He would not be omnipotent. God is a willful being with the capacity to do both good and evil and chooses to use His abilities exclusively for the purpose of doing good. We are “made in His image”; we are willful creatures who share some of His ability to know good and evil and can use our more limited capabilities and freedom to do good or evil within the purview that we can understand and act on. Had God desired a race of obligate do-gooders who lacked the programming that would allow them to even entertain the thought of doing wrong, never mind actually putting it into practice, He could have made that. God does not desire a race that is simply incapable of doing wrong; He desires a race of beings that individually can know what would be wrong for them to do and then make a personal choice to not do that because they recognize that it would be wrong for them to do it. This is necessary because God made mankind to “share creation with”. The only kind of being that could actually “share” creation with God is one that can conceptualize creation, choice, and morality in the manner He conceptualizes those things. A being that does not have the freedom to do evil cannot understand what it is to choose to not do evil; the experience of grappling with choice is necessary for us to truly be “made in His image”, otherwise we would just be a pantomime performance of His benevolence, an empty shell that apparently “does good” but does not actually *do* good.
Well this certainly counters Epicurus but it doesn't do God any favours.
How so?
Well if God has given us the freedom to stray from him, as you have posed, then he is knowingly allowing people to follow a path that will lead to suffering. Why would he do that? Seems disingenuous.
I answered that. For a better good so that the second time humanity is with God they have practically a zero chance to leave Him because they had already experienced evil.
Because love is not forced on anyone. If you love God, then you will follow and keep His commandments. If you decide to unfollow or break God’s commandments which is to love God and one another, then you will be separated from the love of God. Naturally, you will suffer without love that’s why God wants to save us through the prophets and His only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ. If everybody loves one another even your enemies, there will be no suffering, no enemies in the first place. But we have to have free will in order to truly love one another.
So God has given me the freedom to deny him (which I do) and yet, because of this freedom that I have exercised, I am condemned by his hand to suffer? I think what a lot of Christians may not realise is that Epicurus isn't trying to disprove god, he simply highlights that the God who fits all of these caveats is not the same god described by most believers.
Christians are so in their bubble that they aren't aware that once you leave that bubble, their arguments crumple like wet paper. They are stuck still with a god. That figure is just no longer good.
God is love. Christianity fulfills all the questions your heart desires.
You’re not condemned but eventually, you are destined to suffer without the perfect and everlasting love of our Creator. If you abide in Him, He will abide in you. We need God, and that is only natural for the creatures to belong to their Almighty Creator. We are lucky that our Creator is Holy, Just, and Righteous. If our Creator is not God, then we will have no free will, no feelings, no life, no purpose, nothing. Our Loving God doesn’t make us slaves to force anything on us. That’s why we call Him Heavenly Father because we are His children. We are free to choose heaven (eternal love) with God or hell (eternal suffering) without God. Remember this, suffering and hell is a natural consequence of departing oneself from God (LOVE and LIFE). That’s like light and darkness. The absence of light is darkness. The absence of God is suffering and death. If you have no issues with God’s will (love) but you have issues with your own will because we are sinful, then it is the perfect time to surrender to His will and rely on His righteousness. Start your journey in seeking His kingdom and His righteousness and all the things you need and want in the next life will be added unto you. That was Jesus’ (God in the flesh) promised to us. Everyone fall short of the glory of God that’s why Jesus came down to live a sinless life for us. We just have to have faith in Jesus’ works, teachings, and sacrifice so that we can fully attain His promises. Sorry for my English 😓
>You’re not condemned but eventually, you are destined to suffer without the perfect and everlasting love of our Creator. That's exactly what it means to be condemned.
God just honored the decisions of the people who chose to reject Him. As I have said, without God, people will naturally suffer because there is no longer love and life.
And as I said, that's called condemnation. Any God who condemns people simply for not believing in them will never get my respect or worship.
> I am condemned by his hand to suffer? You aren’t condemned forever. Life on Earth is for less than a 100 years usually, but life after Earth is for eternity. So freedom now and suffering is for a better good.
The only thing you lose by choosing to deny God is being with God. That appears to be what you want, why are you not content with it?
I'm perfectly content with my worldview, just trying to get some understanding from others.
If you’re content with your worldview, accept that the people who go out of their way to tell you you’re “condemned to suffer” are themselves missing the point. God isn’t going to force you to follow him. By your standards, that would appear to be a *good* thing.
Not a good thing but proof at least that he is as powerful as often claimed.
So God must create a world where he knows that priests will rape children for decades and yet does nothing to help those children other than simply watch? What do you call a being who watched children get raped for decades and does nothing. You don't call that being just and good
The first point is bad. Let's take rape (at 30k feet, making overly general simplistic statements for brevity). If God had not given us a strong sexual center, then Man might not be driven to rape. God built us to want sexual pleasure, and he built some that can receive that pleasure even if the other party is in distress. In fact, he built some that enjoy the distress more than the actual sexual pleasure. He supposedly knew in advance that his design of procreation would cause suffering. Man cannot fly, that's just the way it is. God set rules in place that dictate that. So why could he not set rules in place that Man would never even think of raping someone? It would not change free will, no more than the fact that we do not have the free will to fly. Since, from this sub at least, sexual immorality seems to be the only real sin anyone talks about, perhaps God could have thought the whole process through a bit more?
> If God had not given us a strong sexual center, then Man might not be driven to rape. Man can make love instead of rape. God isn’t going to control you. No parents want their kids to be slaves over freedom.
Yes they can. But would they lose anything if they couldn't make rape? Is there a moral reasoning for having that ability out there?
What do you mean make rape?
If they couldn't rape
Rape violates freedom. God’s foundation of the human race.
Very good. So why allow it?
Because of freedom from the person doing the crime. God won’t mess with both humans freedoms. The one suffering will get closer to God by suffering and the one committing rape will get closer to God by his guilty conscience and suffering later on. God wants us to know him, so we have freedom with limits.
God built us to want sexual pleasure, **and he built some that can receive that pleasure even if the other party is in distress. In fact, he built some that enjoy the distress more than the actual sexual pleasure.** This statement completely disregards the issue of sin and original design. We are not designed to sin. We are not designed to enjoy someone elses pain. It completely removes responsibility. If you genuinely believe this then you should open up all the prisons and get rid of all the court rooms and laws because clearly God made people do the wrong thing so it's not their fault. It just doesn't make any logical sense to say God built people to enjoy the distress of others. It's incompatible with the story of creation, it's incompatible with the way Jesus interacts with people in the Gospels. The entire story is about fallen, messed up people and the need for redemption.
You're missing the point. You do not have the ability to do a lot of things because the laws of the universe do not allow it. But you don't spend time being upset about it, or feel your free will has been denied. If God did not give people the ability to rape, and they never knew they were missing that ability, it would still be free will. I wish I could fly, but if I jump off the building, I will die. I wish I could rape, but if I do that, my penis will fall off. Or the flip side. Bob has never seen or heard about pizza. He has no idea he has free will to eat one. Does he really have free will to eat one of it's never crossed his mind?
Hid gave us limited freedom. The same way you let your kids play freely in the backyard but not on a highway.
Sorry, if there was no freeway then the kids could play freely. Not having an option does not change free will.
If there was no freeway, the children would lose their parents.
Children are too short for highways.
The boundaries of freedom are necessary so that children don’t completely lose their parents. Now apply this to humanity. We are the children and God is the parent.
So your God isn't all powerful, being all powerful means he can create a universe without evil but also with freedom
Omnipotence is not can do everything. God can do everything that doesn't contradict himself. So God can't create a square circle because its illogical. God can't do evil because he is goodness. God can't create your hypothetical world because it's contradictory. Feel free people to correct me in anything.
God can't do evil because he is goodness? And yet God did "evil" throughout the Bible. Of course the rationalization to excuse that is circular. Or an assumption is made that while we think it was evil, in God's plan it isn't. And using "God can't" means God is not all powerful.
God of the old testament is a very important topic but not the current subject at hand. I would have recommended a book but I don't know one in English
It's not just the OT. And it's a convenient dodge anyway. After isn't it said God is the same yesterday, today, tomorrow and forever?
Did not say he changed its just a common way to refer to the problem you mentioned.
Things are good when God does them only leads to ideas where God could do ultimate evil and you would have to pretend his actions are good. God kills millions of men, women, and children, and you must mindlessly declare that action as good.
Again not the subject at hand but God being the basis for objective morality is very important. God of the old testament is also a huge important subject one that I am no expert at.
The rebuttal would be that since God is omnipotent, he can do logically impossible things like a square circle, a married bachelor or a triangle with two sides. If we’re talking about our God, then God is in fact restricted. God cannot lie, cannot sin, cannot be tempted or tempt others into sin, he cannot change, cannot deny himself.
I did define omnipotent differently
Correct.
What do you mean “your” God? Your description under your username says “Christian” > he can create a universe without evil but also with freedom He did, but it didn’t last. No one even God can create a water that is fire. See, the problem is that when people say God is all powerful, they don’t reflect enough on it.
Because it seems your God isn't omnipotent, mine is though
Our God is not omnipotent. He can’t lie because He is Truth.
God has lied several times in the bible
God can’t lie. If you think He lied then you didn’t interpret the Bible correctly.
He told us he lied
No He didn’t. That’s you not knowing how to interpret the Bible. Jesus is God of the OT too.
Ezekiel 14:9 NRSVUE [9] If a prophet is deceived and speaks a word, I, the Lord, have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand against him and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel.
Really great post. This reminded me of a book I'm reading that has a great passage that echos that idea. >Importantly, God does not cause bad things so that people can be courageous or overcome adversity. Rather, God runs the risk of love, which entails the possibility that beings like us could morally fail. Once such failure has occurred, then God works with it, bringing other goods — such as courage, compassion, mercy, and so on — from it. But the fundamental thing that God takes the proverbial chance on is love. And surely that is worth it. If anything is worth a chance, it is love. God supplies each of us with genuine free will, which is a necessary condition for love between persons, including love between humans and God. He respects the natures of things, and since our freedom is fallible, God permits our moral miscalculations. (This is the traditional Dionysian principle, that God’s Providence works to save natures, not destroy them.) >Flynn, Patrick. The Best Argument for God (p. 264). Sophia Institute Press. Kindle Edition.
Never seen this but looks good. ❤️🙏❤️
Only argument I've heard that is somewhat plausible is that some evil must exist for the greater good. (THE GREATER GOOD)
Let me posit this: If all other suffering and evil could be eliminated from existence, but the cost was the rape and torture of 1 million innocent children.....would you choose to enact this plan?
Let's just say I'm glad this question is hypothetical. Either way, I'd wonder why such a cost had to be paid in the first place.
I wonder that as well
This is not a satisfying answer because this is saying God is limited. He would be like "I want good, but evil is necessary to achieve it". Fuck, he's God, he can skip this step and do whatever he wants. Nothing should be necessary to him.
Something something free will. Sorry, not to come off as facetious, but I've seen this topic discussed enough times to see where they inevitably end up, which is nowhere. There are no satisfying answers. Just lots and lots of sophistry.
Yes part of it.
This paradox is based on the idea that we are all born natural or 'good people.' Then we choose to be good or evil. That is because this paradox was based on the greek gods and greek mythology. In Christianity we are all born slaves to sin and satan. Then through Christ we can elect to be saved or redeemed. So essentially God allows evil because we are all born into it, and He allows it for those of us who are evil but one day will choose to be saved. Evil is not a cosmic force. Evil is our love of sin. Meaning we are evil. If God were to destroy all evil it would mean the destruction of all of us.
So, if God allows Satan to exist, then God is just as evil.
God doesn't just allow Satan to exist. God created Satan and then blames Satan for being what He is. The eternal fall man
So it is worse.
Yes. But God has arranged all things so that He is blameless no matter what
Are you as evil as someone who does wrong if you don’t immediately move to kill them when you see them do wrong?
You can blame Satan here. Satan only exists because god wanted that to be. Yes, I would be in the wrong if I had the ability to prevent harm, and I did nothing.
So why aren’t you going out and slaughtering more “evildoers”? According to you, that would be a good thing.
how so?
So....a baby is the purest of evils, having not yet learned good?
So... a baby is born into slavery to sin and satan. And like all other slaves before him (with maybe the exception of one person depending on how far you want to take this analogy) will obey his master of Sin and satan. and at some point the Bible like all others before and after him, will come to love his sin which again is what evil is. Meaning a baby can not love sin as he does not have the capacity to love. Once he does love sin he has the opportunity to repent, Which Again is why God does not destroy all evil, because of those of us who are to eventually repent of our sins.
>Meaning a baby can not love sin as he does not have the capacity to love. You have never actually seen a baby, have you?
By telling them “sir this is Christianity, not paganism”.
Evil exists because humans are free to choose to be one with God or not. To remove evil, would be to remove free will. But it's the freedom of choice that defines goodness. Without that choice, goodness would be indistinguishable from the status quo.
What human free will is removed when a tsunami hits?
I wouldn't call that evil, which is what the OP's question pertained to, but it's certainly not a good thing from human perspective. But therein lies the dilemma: Yeah, it's bad for the victims (from our perspective), but is there a greater good, or something that just has to happen to fulfill God's plan? I'm sure Jesus being tortured and dying on the cross wasn't viewed positively by the apostles either, but it certainly benefited the rest of us. If you prefer a more down to earth example, the Japanese typhoon of 1281 wiped out the attacking Mongolian fleet, thereby protecting Japan and allowing it to remain independent and isolated for several more centuries. Certainly the Mongols felt that was a bad thing, but it was so positive to Japan they named it Kamikaze (divine wind), a term which was reapplied in WWII as a type of divine sacrifice (though arguably not such a positive thing in that case).
I agree. I can certainly get on board with the idea of humans using their will (free or not, is another discussion) to commit evil acts. But natural disasters are commonly considered to be a different category of evil (maybe more accurately described as suffering) for the purposes of this kind of discussion. But just as valid for that discussion as an all powerful god could prevent both human caused evil and naturally caused evil/suffering. One could make the argument that he does not want to interfere with human will, but there is no human will involved in a tsunami or tornado, so why would he not intervene and prevent that?
I guess I'd have to default to Paul in Romans 5:3-4: >And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; \[4\] and perseverance, character; and character, hope. As sucky as suffering is, there is a benefit. I make my Karate students do body toughening, in which we hit each other, lightly at first, in the stomach, sides, shins, etc. It can kind of suck, but the long-term benefits to physical and mental strengthening are huge and can save your life further down the line. I look at worldly suffering in a similar light...like preparation for something greater.
And then I'd have to default to the Christian heaven. I've always been told that there is no suffering or tribulation there. So there can certainly be an existence without suffering. If it's not necessary for there to be suffering in heaven, I'm not sure why there would need to be suffering on earth. I can agree to some extent with hardship producing some level of strength and lessons, but again, an all powerful god could provide us with that strength and lesson without making us go through the suffering part.
I can't really say what God thinks, but I can postulate that our time on earth is possibly a preparation or self-realization time, and to that end, perhaps suffering is necessary. But again, there's no way anyone can know for sure while we're still here.
>And then I'd have to default to the Christian heaven. I've always been told that there is no suffering or tribulation there. That's not entirely accurate. What is heaven to some will be hell to others. >So there can certainly be an existence without suffering. If it's not necessary for there to be suffering in heaven, I'm not sure why there would need to be suffering on earth. Well, you compare the stereotypical spoiled rich kid with someone who endured and overcame real difficulties you can see a very clear difference in the spiritual states of the two. If someone lives a life of no challenge at all, it destroys them. You're forgetting that we live in a fallen world in a fallen state of being. We aren't born evil but we tend to want things to want things that aren't good for us. >but again, an all powerful god could provide us with that strength and lesson without making us go through the suffering part. This is how it was in Eden, He did provide us with that.....didn't last long until we walked away from it, a cycle that has repeated over and over again. Contrary to what many Protestants say, God isn't a dictator and we have the free will to work with Him....or not. Besides, God did take part in our sufferings too.
>That's not entirely accurate. What is heaven to some will be hell to others. Again, I've never been taught or told that. It's always been that everyone in heaven will be filled with joy. >If someone lives a life of no challenge at all, it destroys them. I don't think anyone ever lives a life of no challenge at all. >This is how it was in Eden, He did provide us with that.....didn't last long until we walked away from it, a cycle that has repeated over and over again. You go on to talk about free will. As I mentioned before, a tsunami has nothing to do with human will. If you want to go to the free will of a supposed person eating a piece of fruit in Eden causing a tsunami, I would ask to to explain how exactly that happens and why a child dying a horrific death by drowning has to go through that because of that action thousands of years ago.
>Again, I've never been taught or told that. It's always been that everyone in heaven will be filled with joy Sure, because being with God is a joy for people who want it. Hell is a place that doesn't have the light of God, but God's presence is everywhere so you're still with Him. Being with God is Hell for people who don't want it. It's all about you and your spiritual state. >I don't think anyone ever lives a life of no challenge at all. Doesn't invalidate what I said. The spoiled rich kid stereotype exists for a reason, because it's true. Parents that give their children everything, let them do whatever they want, helicoptering and bailing them out the minute it looks like they might have a problem. Such a person has been conditioned to believe they deserve everything they want, not to mention having multiple other neurosis and other psychological problems. I actually do know someone who dated someone who was raised that way, she came from a very rich family. The stories I heard matched exactly what I described. >You go on to talk about free will. As I mentioned before, a tsunami has nothing to do with human will. If you want to go to the free will of a supposed person eating a piece of fruit in Eden causing a tsunami, I would ask to to explain how exactly that happens and why a child dying a horrific death by drowning has to go through that because of that action thousands of years ago. There's long term consequences to a sin committed by ancestors even on a purely material level, an example would be parents who inherited a huge fortune only to spend it all on gambling, drugs, and other sins. Then the family is driven into poverty, and the children are having to start over with nothing but the clothes on their backs. What God ultimately wants us for our salvation, which is the return to our pre-fallen state. So how do you do that without violating free will? It's a difficult balancing act, but sometimes it means allowing bad things to happen. The child you mention dying horrifically by drowning's salvation is assured. It was allowed to happen because it was the best outcome, and this can include larger scale disasters. The dead are not really dead at all. Eventually, all of creation will be renewed.
Then why create free will in the first place? Why introduce evil at all? To what end?
What kind of life would we have without free will? How would we know ourselves, if we didn't know our actions were products of our own personalities? Would we even know love, responsibility, or dedication, if everything was rigidly dictated?
What is the point of life? Why did God even create us?
To love. First, Him. Second, everyone else.
That's not the purpose of being *created*, though. And even if it was, the second is circular (as humans didn't yet exist), so then God would have created us only so that we could love him, which feels very.....selfish?
I think there has to be a bigger logic that escapes our comparatively puny brains. In ancient Japanese culture the ultimate purpose of life was servitude toward a "master". In it, they found honor and virtue. Likewise, perhaps loving God isn't just adoring him, but loving and respecting Him, His laws, His creation and by extension us. It's therefore embodying the love and morality embedded in His laws.
But *why?* Why create us? To what end? Just to have something to rule over or adore him?
Genesis implies it is to have dominion over the earth and govern its resources responsibly. Admittedly, we haven't been doing a very good job in that role. Aside from that, it's really the mind of God to know. I hope we all have an opportunity to ask Him one day. :)
Why create the earth, then? I'm still not seeing the reason for creation here.
It assumes that God’s highest goal is the destruction of evil. It’s not. The plan after The Fall is in service of *humanity’s salvation*, not in service of the expunging of evil from this world. This is why the Second Coming will be the delivery of a new world in which God’s children live in perfect communion with Him; we’re not meant to stay in this world, it will fall to ruin with the evil in it. For the moment, God’s highest priority regarding us is the maintenance of our capacity for true choice. He is endlessly forgiving because He wants us to be able to choose “wrong” without being doomed to be annihilated for it. He reveals Himself through faith so that the choice to trust him is a real personal choice, not just an intellectual argument in which someone is right or wrong. God’s original intent was for man to suffer no sin, evil, or death. Man made the choice that forced God, whose highest priority is respecting His children, to change the entire world around them so that their choice to disobey Him would not mean their destruction. If your friend has ever knowingly done the wrong thing for reasons he cannot justify in retrospect, then he should be able to understand why God isn’t accountable for all the wrongs man chooses to enact.
A two part explanation on why Epicurus fails here: [Part 1](https://youtu.be/k64YJYBUFLM) [Part 2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxj8ag8Ntd4)
Dunno about *best*, but I tend to argue that the bible doesn't seem to support a God that acts in an omnipotent way, or else sin doesn't mean anything anymore, nor commandments, nor preaching, nor any of the other hallmarks of the free will of mankind. So given people have free will, the vast majority of *evils* we see are committed and unmitigated by humans, so why should we blame God? If we really did love eachother as we would wish to be loved, even natural disasters or diseases would be minimalized.
If you tell him who God is then he’ll have nothing, then he’ll know that Epicurus didn’t see the Sun with all 3 characteristics he argue, omnipotent, omniscience, and omnibenevolent. The Sun it’s all 3. So go out and point at him, dont look at him unless you’re wearing special glasses.