Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to. If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked. If God can abolish evil, and God really wants to do it, why is there evil in the world?Why indeed?
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Problem of Evil
I made a post a couple days ago dealing with the problem of evil, but I seem not to have made my point the way I wanted. I'll just post Epicurus' version of the problem of evil, since he was the first to formalize it and his millennia old argument still has not been satisfactorily discredited by religious apologists.
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God made people with free will. To make an inference that God should also eliminate evil would eliminate the possibility of free will. That is less logical than Epicurus' statement. Epicurus determined that he had to find illogic in the existence of God, therefore, his argument was constructed with the end in mind. I totally reject Epi's statement, just as you reject C.S. Lewis's question of Lord, liar or lunatic.
God is GOD. Don't you think that in his infinite wisdom and power, he could come up with a way to have his cake and eat it too?
That being said, the doctrines of an omniscient God and free will are incompatible.
If God is omniscient, he knows everything, past present and future. He knows what each human will do in each situation, so the future is predetermined and man is powerless to change it. If there is free will, then God cannot possibly know exactly what humans will do in a given situation, so God is not omniscient.
If you want to believe in free will, you can't believe in an omniscient being, and vice versa.
God exists outside of time, so everything is now. By trying to confine God to time, you are trying to make Him think and act like you. He is God. Philosophers try to make a completely holy being fit their way of thinking which is filtered through their life experience and study. They try to make God be what they want him to be, not what He is.
The most benevolent thing that God could have done was to give us free will. The most patient thing he could do with us is allow us to exercise free will, even if he knows what we are going to do. We will never do anything that surprises Him. He chooses to allow us to make our own decisions including whether or not to worship Him. If God forced us to worship Him, instead of allowing us to choose him, then everything you say would probably be valid.
But He doesn't operate that way. Just because He knows what we are going to do, does not cause us to be powerless or bring Him down to the level of the minds of this earth. His ways are higher than anything of men. You cannot possibly understand His ways because they are not of a human mind.
So, by pushing God beyond the realm of human speculation and understanding, you have effectively shown yourself to be an agnostic.
However, you can't just retreat into "God is God, he operates beyond our understanding so stop asking questions." The fact remains that Christian doctrine teaches that God is omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and that he has given his creations free will. As humans, we have to give these words meanings, which are very specific. Given these accepted meanings it is, in fact, impossible to ascribe these contradictory positions to God.
If you wish to say that God is beyond our knowledge, then you must stop attempting to describe him in ways such as loving, omniscient, and willing to give his creations free will. It is useless to use words like these to describe God if you say they don't mean the same things for God as they do for us. You can't use yellow to describe shape, and ou can't call something yellow while stipulating that it's not yellow as we know it, but in another way we'll never comprehend. We're no longer talking about yellow, but a nonsensical concept which humans will never be able to grasp.
As far as humans can comprehend, it can be proven that God can't be omniscient and at the same time give his creations free will. To say that he is omniscient and still gives his followers free will while maintaining that God's onmiscience is incomprehensible to man is utter nonsense. You may as well describe God as "flargly" or "persnicketydoodlish," and go on to say that it's obviously not incompatible with free will.
If you can't (indeed, it's impossible) prove that omniscience and free will are compatible concepts without merely retreating into agnosticism, then there is nothing more we can discuss.
It can't be proven that omniscience and free will don't coexist. You can make a logical argument, but you are not PROVING anything - you are simply playing with man-made rules of debate.
Just because I say that we can't understand God's Godness (not sure if that is the right word), does not mean that we can't know Him. If I can't describe him as loving, etc, you can't describe him using your arguments either.
It's not a retreat to say that God is God. I am smart enough to know that my human brain cannot comprehend the most powerful thing in this universe or any other, this is simply being honest, not trying to delude myself by playing with human made "rules" as designed by philosophers and other smart thinkers.
Your argument attempts to limit God according to your rules. Just because you don't like the fact that free will does exist in the presence of an all powerful God, does not make it a false statement. It just means that you don't like the reality of a God who does allow people to have free will. Evil exists because people have chosen not to do good - yes evil applies to people, it does not apply to thinks like storms, etc or animals - lions eating zebras. That is a simple fact. God did not create evil, he created people and chooses to allow them to exercise their free will and choose evil or good.
It can be, and has been, proven that omniscience and free will cannot coexist. Yes, it was proven using man's knowledge, but that's the only knowledge that we have. I'm not playing with "man-made rules of debate," I am employing the only rules of debate that can be said to exist in any appreciable manner.
And when you say we can't know God's Godness, but can know God, what are you saying? We can't know what cosmic being A actually is, but we can claim to know that cosmic being A is? What does that mean? You may as well say you know that a "blargle" exists, but it is impossible to explain what a "blargle" is or what a "blargle" is like.
Furthermore, how did you arrive at this conclusion that God exists? Did you see, hear, feel, touch, or smell God? Perhaps there's another sense that allows humans to obtain knowledge of an unknowable God. How does it work? You claim knowledge that God exists, but can't explain him in a comprehensible way, and can't explain how you acquired this knowledge.
You describe yourself as being honest by believing in a God you admittedly can't explain. How a belief with no basis in any of the accepted methods of human knowledge acquisition be considered honest? Let's say that I know with complete certainty that a man will present me with a diamond the size of a watermelon next month, but I can't tell you how I acquired this knowledge, but merely assert that it is true. Am I being honest, or am I being delusional?
I'll ignore the rest of your claims, because they all presuppose knowledge of a God that is unknowable through any appreciable method.
As to your first statement, saying that a logical argument isn't PROVING anything reveals a lack of knowledge about how logic works.
Every rule of logic is derived (proved) from three basic Laws of Logic. These are not man-made rules of debate. They are not even laws in the scientific sense, because scientific laws can conceivably be changed if enough evidence warranted it. These laws are absolutely essential to our understanding of the universe, and any attempt to undermine them as "man-made rules" is utter nonsense.
Here are the three rules, taken from Logic: An Introduction by Lionel Ruby:
1. The Law of Identity: For things, the law asserts that “A is A,” or “anything is
itself.” For propositions: “If a proposition is true, then it is true.”
2. The Law of Excluded Middle: For things: “Anything is either A or not-A.” For
propositions: “A proposition, such as P, is either true or false.”
3. The Law of Contradiction: For things: “Nothing can be both A and not-A.” For
propositions: “A proposition, P, cannot be both true and false.
Any attempt to discredit these laws runs into trouble, because they are absolutely essential for all concepts, thoughts and communication. To say that The Law of Identity is false, i.e. A is not A, is absurd. The same can be said of any attempt to disprove the other two Laws. When you say that I haven't proved anything, you're simply wrong. Indeed, the only way to prove anything is through logic, because the three Laws of Logic are necessary for proof to exist at all.
I surrender. I'm not convinced. You reject a sound statement that free will can exist at the same time with an omniscient God, even when presented with proof. I reject the "logical" argument presented by Epicuris as a being a convenient way to support a pre-determined conclusion.
I see atheists trying to make a Holy God fit their human ideas of right and wrong. I understand the attempt, but think it is misguided and will simply result in endless, "Oh Yeah, well what about...?" debates and angry exchanges. Apparently the mere thought of a Holy God, with an unchanging standard is simply too threatening, so therefore, we must torture human thought into submission.
If what you see is atheists trying to make a Holy God fit their human ideas of right and wrong, then you're not looking hard enough.
I'm not trying to make a Holy God fit my ideas. I know that this is impossible. I have been trying to point out to you why this is impossible, but you time and time again redefine words and talk in circles. It is the Christian who tries to make an incomprehensible God fit his ideals by ever ascribing to him qualities like "loving" and "omniscient" in the first place. The atheist points out that some of the qualities the Christian gives to his God are incompatible with each other, and the Christian gets offended that a human mind would ever try to fathom in mysteries of the divine. The Christian seems to forget that he is the one who gave human qualities to an inhuman God in the first place.
My issue is not with God. I know God isn't real. My issue is with the convoluted mess of illogical nonsense with which the Christian has surrounded God.
I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree, because we each seem to think we've proved our case beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Sorry, but I am looking dead on to atheists trying to make God fit their worldview. You, I mean you, are trying desperately to make God fit with your predetermined notion that a Holy God cannot exist with your view of evil. You do not and cannot know the mind of God, you can only know the mind of other people. I don't claim to know the mind of God. I only attempt to read the words as recorded in the Bible and try to make sense of it. You try to ascribe attributes to God that simply do not exist. God is not bound by the logic of man. Man is bound by the logic of man and so feel arrogant enough to say that he is smarter than God.
I don't understand why you don't understand what I'm trying to say.
I am not putting limits on God. Christians put limits on God. I am trying to point out, that the qualities commonly ascribed to God absolutely cannot coexist. I could care less about the mind of God. I admit that even if God did exist, humans wouldn't be able to comprehend and describe him, yet that's exactly what Christians try to do.
I am not trying to make God fit a predetermined view. I am saying that God does not and can not fit with the predetermined view of God which Christians commonly hold.
Please point out to me where I ascribed to God a quality that cannot be found in the Catholic Encyclopedia. I started my reasoning with omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence. I didn't say God had those, Christians did. I proceeded to show that one being couldn't possibly hold these contradictory attributes given the existence of evil in the world, and you proceeded to deny the very foundations of human thought.
Yes, if God exists, he exists outside of the framework of our knowledge. I am not denying that. I am denying Christians the opportunity to have their cake and eat it too. An incomprehensible God can not and should not be described with human qualities. Doing so invariably entails contradictions.
I do not ascribe attributes that don't exist, Christians ascribe attributes to God that simply can't work when applied to God.
I don't know how many more times I'll have to repeat myself. Probably quite a few.
Back to Epi - his argument hinges upon a presupposition that God wants to abolish evil. That is a massive assumption - a human assumption. Humans - me included, wish that evil does not exist. This is a major problem with epi's statement. I don;t believe that God is bound by a 300 b.c. philosopher who decided that God had to chose one of these paths. Any thinking person would agree that God will not be bound by man, unless that man would put himself above God and deign to know the mind of God.
@Ross' dad: I think what Ross is arguing is this,
"To claim that god is incomprehensible is to say that one’s concept of god is unintelligible, which
is to confess that one does not know what one is talking about. The theist who is called upon to
explain the content of his belief—and who then introduces the “unknowable” as a supposed
characteristic of the concept itself—is saying, in effect: “I will explain the concept of god by
pointing out that it cannot be explained.”" - George Smith
If this line of argument is taken, then your only route is rotational.
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