God created evil

[An_Imaginary_Man]

drummerdudext,
you beat me to it. The “creation” of evil is not an issue as evil is not a thing, but rather a lack of a thing. It is interesting that Genesis gives an account where God creates Light, Heat (i am inferring this from the creation of light and suns/stars etc), Life. The non-things of Dark, Cold, and Death are not mentioned as being created. Perhaps there was some realization even in ancient times that these are non-things, i.e. not created things, but instead merely a lack of some created thing.

With regards to the free will defense though, I think the best one out there is in Alvin Plantinga’s God, Freedom, and Evil. Here is a short summary (read the full text to really understand his arguments as i will most likely do an unjustice to them). Plantinga here is arguing against Mackie’s claim that Set A is contradictory:
Set A:
(1) God is omnipotent.
(2) God is wholly good.
(3) Evil exists.

Mackie Argues that 1 and 2 cannot exist together with 3. He adds two propositions to help his argument:
(19) A good thing always eliminates evil as far as it can.
(20) There are no limits to what an omnipotent being can do.

Plantinga sees 20 as necessarily true so long as there are no nonlogical limits to what an omnipotent being can do.

Plantinga then goes onto 19 and says that 19 isn’t necessarily true. So he adds a few nuances and makes:
(19a) Every good thing always eliminates every evil that it knows about and can eliminate
Finding exceptions to this, Plantinga makes:
(19b) A good being eliminates every evil E that it knows about and that it can eliminate without either bringing about a greater evil or eliminating a good state of affairs that outweighs E.

This notion is then defined as “properly eliminating”.
With this definition, Plantinga accepts the necessity of the statement:
(19c) An omnipotent and omniscient good being eliminates every evil that it can properly eliminate.

The new set created, A’ is:
(1) God is omnipotent.
(2) God is wholly good.
(2’) God is omniscient.
(3) Evil exists.
(19c) An omnipotent and omniscient good being eliminates every evil that it can properly eliminate.
(20) There are no nonlogical limits to what an omnipotent being can do.

Plantinga argues that this set is not contradictory unless a new proposition (21) is added:
If God is omniscient and omnipotent, then God can properly eliminate every evil state of affairs.

However proposition 21 is not necessarily true, and thus Set A’ is not contradictory. Plantinga accepts the possibility that there is another proposition which is necessarily true and which combined with Set A’ makes it contradictory, but he has yet to find such a thing.

Plantinga then goes on to explaining why there is no contradiction within Set A’ itself. He attempts to defend the idea that since God desires his creations to be significantly free (free with respect to an action which would be either wrong to refrain from or wrong to do), then it is not possible that God could not have created a universe containing moral good without creating one that also contained moral evil.

First Plantinga argues that:
“A world containing creatures who are significantly free (and freely perform more good than evil actions) is more valuable, all else being equal, than a world containing no free creatures.” Thus, to create a more valuable world, God must create creatures who are significantly free. This means that to create creatures capable of moral good, they must also be capable of moral evil. Plantinga then goes into the concept of transworld depravity to the possibility that every essence could be inflicted with a transworld depravity which would mean that it “would always perform at least some wrong actions” [note: i am really mangling this part]

While I probably didn’t explain the argument very well, I encourage you to read the work (God, Freedom, and Evil) if you are interested in this question. Even atheistic philosophers have admitted that Plantinga argument has shown that it is not logically inconsistent to believe in a Omniscient, Omnipotent, All Good God and the presence of evil in the world. Of course this is not meant as a proof that there is a God or even meant to show that this is plausible, it is simply a refutation of the idea that the notion of the Christian God is inconsistent with the world as it is (i.e. containing evil).

[Future_Man]

deciding that to “live together in a cohesive socety” to be morality is still a completely human decision and thus arbitrary

but the design of the universe made it so that this course of action is the most beneficial. god made a planet with guys who walk around and are self sufficient. but once the population rises too high, teamwork allows people to be more than the sum of their parts, and it allows large numbers of people to live in smaller areas.

more people + same size planet = you have to work together eventually. thats gods undeniable message to us.

An Imaginary Man: exactly.

i will rephrase so that our atheist friends can surely understand: “who said evil is bad in all of its metaphysical manifestations? nobody.”

who said there are no metaphysical manifestations that pertain to us? only atheists. so assuming atheism leads you to conclude atheism. big surprise.

[w_enslin]

but the design of the universe made it so that this course of action is the most beneficial.

Who is deciding what is benificial and what is not? Well you are. Just because this is the way it is doesn’t necessarly imply this is the way it is supposed to be.

The “creation” of evil is not an issue as evil is not a thing, but rather a lack of a thing.

This is just another way of describing evil as the opposite of good. But it doesn’t work I don’t look at the sky as an evil thing yet in my mind it holds no good but it holds no evil either (this doesn’t work as a definition of evil). Be that as it may if evil is the absence of God then God having definition is responsible for evil there would be no absence of God if there no way to know what is God in the first place (abscent of what?). There would be no good if there were no abscence of good. If it were all good there would be no good at all. If we all win nobody wins. Get rid of the one end of the opposite and you at the same time get rid of the other end. But I am not convinced that good is a thing or evil is a thing or lack of a thing, they are human judgements. You create the judgement and what follows is an example of that judgedment you made. The authority by virtue of being the authority is also therefore the author.

[Future_Man]

enslin when you say the word judgement, it seems like a subjective thing that varies from person to person. chop your penis off and tell me that anybody else in the world is going to be ok with choppnig theirs off.

they wont be, likewise, they wont be happy if you steal from them. god gave us a universe such that being robbed of things you love and having your dick chopped off unequivocally feel “bad” without any exception.

sure humans are the only ones who would call it bad, but GOD GAVE US the machine in our heads that ambiguously refers to these things as “bad”. therefore, the creator of our brains wants us to do the things that our brain ambiguously and “subjectively” tells us to do, like work in harmony so that a society can be greater than the sum of its parts.

[scythekain]

Impossible? Are you sure you don’t want to try for unlikely? ‘Unlikely’ is a lot easier than ‘impossible’, you know. Here, let me show you why:

no not anymore, god is impossible.

but if you want I’ll reword it. God is unlikely possible.

Suppose God is all-powerful and all good. Suppose further, that there are certain things which are impossible to create without some suffering occuring. Suppose still further that these special things are SO GOOD that the suffering required in their creation is out-weighed enough that a perfectly good God would permit these evils to occur for this ultimate end.

the old, the ends justifies the means? Being that he is perfect how can I possibly counter that he doesn’t know greater than I, that the ends justify the means.

we can continue to believe such ludicrous things that god has good things in store for all our human suffering. OR, we can do something about stopping human suffering ourselves.

which sounds like a better solution to you?

and any god that would permit evil to occur for his own means, is not a god I’d want to spend eternity with.

The ends NEVER justify the means. (because the ends are always the basest most evil qualities about mankind.)

In a case like that, it would be possible for an all-good, all powerful, free God to exist in a world that contains suffering.

ok so you’ve made a god that’s all good but can’t act because he’ll screw up his means. Just what are his means that he thinks they justify so much human suffering?

we could just as easily say that God justified hitlers actions because he felt the ends justified the means.

You may find the above situation ludicrously unlikely, and that’s fine! For you see strictly speaking, the above scenario doesn’t even have to be true, it just has to be possible, in order to demonstrate that God isn’t impossible in a world of suffering. In order to maintain your impossibility claim, you’d need to show how the above scenario is itself impossible. Even if you do, which would be monstrously difficult, I’ll simply come up with some other scenario, and send you back to square one.

See how tough ‘impossible’ is?

ok so we’ve determined that the ends NEVER justifies the means, an infinitely good and all powerful god would know this, and thus your back to square one.

Let’s take another thing, like parasites and viruses, to what end do they justify that they warranted being created?

what you can’t know god’s will? Well being that he created (According to the religious) everything, what purpose do the parasitic creations on earth serve to feed on the flesh of the living.

To devour us from the inside out.

is that a justified end?

[Future_Man]

god is impossible.

that chaps my hide. skythe i hope you understand my theory by now, its just so annoying to keep reading you argue with christians. i just want to jump in and explain why what you are saying has nothing to do with god. if you would just use my theory to explain that the christian version of god doesnt make sense, i think theyd listen more.

we can continue to believe such ludicrous things that god has good things in store for all our human suffering. OR, we can do something about stopping human suffering ourselves.

god created a place that allowed for selfless acts and also forcefully created people who do the opposite. if it werent for the latter, there would be no former. the former would not exist or make any sense at all

the purpose of the universe is to put all souls into the shoes of one of those people who lead lives dedicated to helping neighbors. the actions done by these people are what god feeds on or they are what god chooses to create and continue creating for all of human civilization so far, and possibly forever, even after human utopia is achieved. thats how it makes perfect sense, and it doesnt make sense any other way.

and any god that would permit evil to occur for his own means, is not a god I’d want to spend eternity with.

thats an attitude youll throw away pretty quick when your at the pearly gates, i guarantee. i mean if you agree that we should help humans, no god will punish you for not eating bread. i hope you dont think that the majority of brain-using humans would say otherwise. (these special humans of course dont make up the majority)

The ends NEVER justify the means. (because the ends are always the basest most evil qualities about mankind.)

which ends? human equality?

ok so you’ve made a god that’s all good but can’t act because he’ll screw up his means. Just what are his means that he thinks they justify so much human suffering?

we could just as easily say that God justified hitlers actions because he felt the ends justified the means.

not if his end is “equal happiness for all souls in the universe”

ok so we’ve determined that the ends NEVER justifies the means, an infinitely good and all powerful god would know this, and thus your back to square one.

the end i just mentioned absolutely justifies the sacrifice of diamond statues for higher wages. there are people who are rich and who take advantage of others simply because they can. the “means” is these people sacrificing their unfairly gained advantages and doing all they can to not put people below the average line of human happiness. its not hard and it feels good. and you also already agree that this is what humans should do.

Let’s take another thing, like parasites and viruses, to what end do they justify that they warranted being created?

they allow for skepticism. if it wasnt for non-believers, and the only human sadness came from human evil, it would be very obvious that the key to happiness is to kill selfish people. it would be very obvious that the mission is equal happiness for all and it would be very obvious that this mission is obtainable.

god doesnt care if we are happy, he cares if we do selfless actions. this is the only way the universe makes sense, therefore it is the way the universe is. you could say that is possibly makes sense without god, but then id hate to die.

[scythekain]

that chaps my hide. skythe i hope you understand my theory by now, its just so annoying to keep reading you argue with christians. i just want to jump in and explain why what you are saying has nothing to do with god. if you would just use my theory to explain that the christian version of god doesnt make sense, i think theyd listen more.

WHY, does it chap your hide?

I mean wether or not I think god is impossible does it make god impossible to you? no.

And apparently your on the side of the christians anyways, (it’s not just christians I’ve argued your “omnisoul” it’s totally ridiculous.)

thats an attitude youll throw away pretty quick when your at the pearly gates, i guarantee.

not if his end is “equal happiness for all souls in the universe”

how does that equate to virus creation or children dying from cancer?

they allow for skepticism.

so god made a system to allow for skepticism. Fantastic it shows how much he really cares about us.

Or you could say, parasitic organisms evolved in a co-mutual arrangement with their hosts. Without us, (or other animals) there would be no parasites.

[Future_Man]

WHY, does it chap your hide? …And apparently your on the side of the christians anyways, (it’s not just christians I’ve argued your “omnisoul” it’s totally ridiculous.)

because i dont even remember you posting on the omnisoul thread.i mean you just definetely didnt show me how it is the slightest bit unlikely, or id probably remember. and i want to know exactly why you think god is “impossible no matter how it has been described here”

Quote:
not if his end is “equal happiness for all souls in the universe”

how does that equate to virus creation or children dying from cancer?

i mispoke, what i meant was that for humans, clearly the goal for us to aim at is human equality, equal happiness for all humans [you can argue that this is hard but thats another thread]. at this point in time, and at all points after eating the tree of knowledge, the only way to go about accomplishing this goal has been for those of us who have selfishly taken more than we deserve at the expense of giving people less than they deserve, all thats required is that people stop doing that.

a rich person sacrificing his extra money and time is selfless. it hurts you and it feels good. i believe this is the greatest thing a person can do. it will eventually result in a harmonious society, which is what any human born in this universe wants. and therefore the creator of this universe wants us to do that. the creator tricks us into acting selflessly by making it actually have a lofty, distant goal that wont directly affect us or our family, but that apparently is good anyway.

if all other people besides me were evil or incoherent, i wouldnt help them. if they were all good i wouldnt need to help them. if no random bad things happened in the universe, there would be no bad people. ‘random bad things’ includes bad things inflicted upon innocent people by corrupted evil people. remove diseases and hurricanes, there is no first evil guy who got screwed over and wants to take it out on the world. or if he is created from nothing, from a miracle and evil creates from there, then today you would have no social darwinists who say ‘survival of the fittest is natures way so you dont deserve to not starve’

take away random evil, there are no selfless acts for long. the only reason why evil exists is because god harvests the meta-goo of selflessness.

i desperately hopefully cling on to the idea that there is a purpose for humanity, and this is the only one that the universe appears to be engineered to create.

it totally appears to be engineered for this purpose if you assume it was engineered for a purpose. and it totally cannot be proven that this is not the purpose. what is certain is that you have not given any evidence that says my theory is unlikely let alone impossible.

Without us, (or other animals) there would be no parasites.

yeah and without evil theres no good. theres happiness yeah of course. but the opposite of selfish evil is not masturbation, its selfess donation. god harvests good deeds, not happiness.

and the paragraph about evolution that came from, if evolution is completely defined as a chemical interaction that completely follows the laws of physics, who invented those laws? the controversy over life has no bearing on the big question: “why is everything that humans will ever see?”

[Avocet]

God created everything.
Evil exists.
Therefore God created evil.

Maybe evil is just a human concept. Even Hitler didn’t think he was evil. Misery, however, certainly exists. Therefore God created misery. Does God say ‘Ah, but I love him’ as a child gets his leg blown off? Or a blind, deformed baby is born.

The benevolent, all loving God of many religions cannot possibly exist. The most that can possibly be said is that god is an interested by-stander.

The only possible explanation for all the worlds wrongs, if they are part of a ‘divine’ pattern is that they occur to teach the unfortunates to whom they befall the error of some past action, committed in some other life, state or existence. If this other state exists, when we are in it, we may well be in the same state as god, invisible, undetected observers. We may be gods.

Maybe we created this universe to satisfy our curiosity as to what it would be like to occupy a sensory creature. Maybe we just found these creatures, wondered what it would be like to be one of them and found a way to enter them for a lifetime, then finding the ‘baser’ urges leading us into big, big trouble.

Or maybe nothing beyond our immediate comprehension exists at all. The one thing that seems to me to be certain is that if god created everything he sure wasn’t the one described by the mainstream Western religions.

[w_enslin]

Hi Future man, I have heard of a person who willingly cut off his own penis as a way to be free of his sinful thoughts, when asked later why he said he was happy to do it, and his life is more calm and peaceful. I know of some people personally who really don’t mind it either way if they are robbed or not. I also know of a person who was abused physically and sexualy and said that she was glad for it to happen as it was the best way to learn such ultimate forgiveness, she wouldn’t want to repeat it but it ended up being a really good thing. So no I don’t agree with

god gave us a universe such that being robbed of things you love and having your dick chopped off unequivocally feel “bad” without any exception.

It is subjective.

[Sagesound]

Assuming the Personal God exists, then by creating and formulating the function of everything, would not God be just as much sinner as saint?

In this context, it is justified that the Hebrew/Xtian/Islamic God is not only the purity of good, but the self-incarnated embodiment of evil. This is exemplified by the Hebrew God, as he chose to commit rediculous acts of malevolence against people for some of the stupidest reasons I have ever read in a book of literature.

Thus…

+ = GOD

[Future_Man]

enslin those peope are freaking weird. it seems like what you are trying to say is that since humans cant agree on a standard of happiness, since psychos exist, there is no standard, and happiness is a lie?

would YOU want YOUR dick chopped off? if you went around the world and asked people if they wanted to be robbed, would you expect to find one person who did? i would bet you millions of dollars that if you spent the rest of your life looking, you wouldnt find one of these weirdos on your own.

99.999% of the sane population agreeing with me is enough for me to say that human brains were built to normally feel the same way about evil as i do. and therfore we should eliminate evil. we should make laws that prevent dicks being chopped off because the “super majority” 99.99999% dont want it. is that not fair? could we add a clause in there for consensual evil?

by the way ive been robbed and i didnt care so much. i didnt go crazy with rage, buit i would have preferred to keep my stuff. what i know for damn sure is that poor people DO want to keep their stuff and nobody wants to let them.

[ASEI]

by the way ive been robbed and i didnt care so much. i didnt go crazy with rage, buit i would have preferred to keep my stuff. what i know for damn sure is that poor people DO want to keep their stuff and nobody wants to let them.

But it’s okay to rob rich people. After all, we just have our stuff based on random circumstance. There’s no possible way that we could ever have wanted it all, right? I suppose under your standard of morality if an action gives more than one person pleasure at the expense of only one person, then it is morally justified. I guess any two people can rob one person then. Any two sadistic murderers can torment and kill one hapless victim? Greaaat.

[w_enslin]

It is not as uncommon as you think it may vary in it’s degrees in it’s extremity it may apear like only physco’s but every human being has the ability to choose how they feel towards what ever it is they choose to feel. I am not a Christian but the the story of Christ comes to mind. Wasn’t the whole idea that a God could come to Earth as a human being undure the most horrific suffering and still turn around and reply with love. Whether the story is true or not I believe in the idea. There have been many Guru type people who have been able to do this, they werent exactly insane or phsycotic prehaps odd but still fully intact of their faculties and they would be able undure to most horrific events turn around and reply with love. Every human being has this ability.

[Future_Man]

But it’s okay to rob rich people. After all, we just have our stuff based on random circumstance.

my parents bought me a bike. i had a free bike for months. it got stolen, i said to myself “i had a free bike for a few months” instead of “god fucking dammit some god damn nigger just stole my bike” SO YEAH YOURE RIGHT even though youre being sarcastic.

There’s no possible way that we could ever have wanted it all, right?

if you really want a car that goes 200 mph and you know you cant actually go that fast under any circumstances, THATS BECAUSE YOUR BRAIN IS BROKEN.

I suppose under your standard of morality if an action gives more than one person pleasure at the expense of only one person, then it is morally justified.

if had two twin brothers, and i had a chocie of stabbing myself with a toothpick or stabbing the two of them the same amount, you better fucking believe ill take it for the team and i pity you and your empty disgusting life if you would refuse.

Any two sadistic murderers can torment and kill one hapless victim?

if the hapless victim is going to sadistically murder the two then hell yes.

[aviemus]

Assuming the Personal God exists, then by creating and formulating the function of everything, would not God be just as much sinner as saint?

Your right. God is a sinner, because God himself rests inside of us, and we, by other’s standards, seem to sin. Philisophically, we CAN’T sin, but unrealistically, in the eyes of Xtians, Jews, Muslims, we sin all the time because we are humans.

God can no more tell the future than any human can. But he does know everything that ever happened, because it has happened, unless he chooses to forget. And he knows everything that is going on, because the humans that are alive right now, still bear God within their souls, so God is 24/7 conscious of what he is doing.

God kills. God steals. God lies. God commits blasphemy. God gives. God loves. God shares… he does all the things that we do.