I read this quote on a webpage recently and it got me thinking: “Why do we think God is evil just because he permits evil?â€
Could it be possible that God loves us so much he allows us to be hurt and suffer so called evils, because of the benefits learnt from the experience? Most of the important lessons learned from life have pain at the centre.
Is pain just Gods tool for teaching us? And one that we choose to abuse against each other, because of our ignorance?
The Epicurus quote really comes to a poignant head when compared to the mainly Christian notion of an omniscient, omnibenevolent, omnipotent God. Take one of these properties away from God and there is no contradiction.
In reply to Pax Vitae, I would like to point out that the claim that from pain one learns the most is a poor argument when confronting the problem of evil. However true it may be, it doesn’t help the cause of theism. Indeed if God is omniscient, he would have known, before his creation of humanity, that the human race was bound to be characterised by evil and suffering. In fact he would have essentially been able to predict which people would be evil, good and how they would die and so on. Therefore, if God is a wholly benevolent force, he would not have bothered creating an imperfect species of beings knowing that a large part of it was bound to be evil. Why put them in a position to be evil ? Why give them the choice between believing in him or not believing in him ? When God, knowing exactly what each human in history is going to be like, decides to carry out the creation of humanity, he essentially chooses to create beings that are bound to disobey him and that are bound to be evil. Therefore he is actually evil, as he consciously creates evil people, who at this point become blameless because they are effectively destined to choose evil.
You have all probally heard this alot but supossedly God gave us free will. I guess sort of as a test to see if we would choses him or evil. So all the evil in the world is a result of people not chosing to be on Gods side.
Firstly, God has given men free will. Any evil commited by a man if not a fault of God’s.
Secondly: God’s power is so great that even from the most evil act He can bring good about from it. God permits evil so a greater good can be reaped. There’s some saying that I heard after 9/11 that I really liked. If I find it I’ll post it later in the thread.
Reply to: BUBU’s statement.
I totally agree with your line of reasoning, and against the line of reasoning that “God allows the existence of pain to teach us a lesson” on the very basis of the conception of God’s OMNISCIENCE. Without getting into omnipotence, et. al. The very fact (conceptually) of God’s omniscience seems to beg the question of God’s motivations in allowing evil to exist.
It is true that if God is omniscient then even before the Big Bang (as one who is theist can hold that God cause the event) he would know who would turn out to be evil and so on even before he created those persons and still he did so.
Although I considered that this is “proof” of an evil God, I did look for viable alternatives. One view that I put forward is that God is undergoing a psychological “evolution” from an intention to create evil to an intention to remove it over time forever( turning from evil to good over time and in a sense is “becoming omnibenevolent” rather than ALREADY BEING omnibenevolent)
Another option is that God is “constructively aloof”, or that God does not actually see us as “people” to whom that God might be morally obligated to do right by us but as a compilation of atoms that he causes to believe that are “people”, and as such the phenomenon of pain and evil to that God are just “interesting” arrangements of the microphysical world (despite our subjective misfortune)
These alternatives do not hold the phenomenon of pain, evil, and death to be eternal entities, only contingent entities dependent on the evolution of the mind of God and that God’s intentions over the span of time.
( Even if God does not exist, one can argue that pain, evil, and death are contingent rather than eternal phenomena: What if a meteor the size of Europe strikes the earth, wiping out all life on earth? That would erase pain, evil, and death from the universe as well in a secular universe as the existence of pain, evil, and death ultimately depends upon the existence of a 3 pound electronic machine: THE HUMAN BRAIN!)
So we can say that God is evil and “out to get us”, or we can say that God is “out to get us” at first but by some fluke of Nature is changing into omnibenevolence, or we can say that God does not see us as “real” people in the first place, and that evil to him is just an interesting new array of atoms interacting in space and time.
But that is only my suggestion,
Jay M. Brewer
phenomenal_graffit@yahoo.com
I consider the notion of a divine being being even remotely interested in whether we are evil or not somewhat tenuous. I personally do not care whether ants worship me, praise me, or disobey me even though i avoid stepping on them. Epicurus also said, “If there are Gods they have nothing to do with us.”
Consider this scenerio: There is a God, but he did not create us. He just created the world we live. This can explain the reason why there is evil in the world.
Good God no. free will is the power to make choices. restricting choice limits free will. i think evil demonstartes that we have a lot of choices, and are able to exercise a lot of free will. God wouldn’t be God if he didn’t give us free will and we wouldn’t be human if we didn’t have it. the bigger question is, would we be human if we don’t exercise it?
Well the discussion is mainly in the context of an omniscient, omnibenevolent, omnipotent God, so I’m not sure how relevant that is, he would have known he was creating something that would take on an evil aspect.
Also, as I’ve said in another thread, I don’t think our idea of “God” is the same as the idea of “creator”. A creator doesn’t have to be anything special, for example it may have been another being farting in another dimension that created our universe, I don’t think we’d call him God if we found out, just the creator. Perhaps I’m just making a distinction which doesn’t really exist, but I don’t think there’s any point in ‘creating’ a God who has no active involvement in the world around us, what would be the point of worshipping it?
In reply to Phen. Grafetti and BUBU, I think you’ve missed Pax Vitae’s point somewhat. There’s a very good argument for saying that Good can’t possibily exist without the corresponding opposite Evil, hence in order to create Good God had to create evil. For all we know the overall balance of the universe might be in Good’s favour, which would keep God omnibenevolent. Your arguments would be much better if you took a more creative line, something like:
P1. If God is omniscient, omnibenevolent, omnipotent he will wish to minimize the amount of evil in the universe.
P2. He would know how to create a universe where all people, while knowing of evil, are only able to imagine the horror of it without being able to commit it.
P3. He created a people who commit evil.
C. Thus God cannot be an omniscient, omnibenevolent, omnipotent God.
Obviously the weak premise there is P2 and any counter argument would revolve around the question can you imagine evil without having experienced it. P1 isn’t exactly water tight either.
Are you reading too much into omniscient there? Does omniscient mean he has to be able to see into the future? Don’t forget we define time as a fourth dimension, he doesn’t have to, we could just be doing it for ease of understanding. Certainly we’ve nothing that can freely travel in time while keeping the other co-ords the same. Not only that you seem to be applying determinism, it is also true that God may just know ALL the Probabilities of certain things happening, not the certainty of which path is going to be taken, that would still count as omniscient. And don’t forget about human free will, I’m no theist, but I thought it was by design not supposed to be under his control.
P1 above really is a weak premise too. An omnipotent, omniscient god does not imply a desire to minimize evil. There could exist an omnipotent, omniscient evil god. An omnibenevolent god may understand that without evil, good is not as sweet. Greater pleasure can be gained in the presence of pain. In fact, without pain, there would be no concept of pleasure.
The makers of Monopoly intend for the game to make people happy, but they understand that every time the game is played, someone will lose. It’s built into the game. Still, people buy the game. People love it. People spend joyous hours playing the game.
I did put omnibenevolent as part of P1, so that’s not a valid objection, you have to attack the “he will wish to minimize the amount of evil in the universe” part of it somehow to make that premise weak. I did admit it’s not water tight, but not on that account.
In fact by putting minimize I inadvertantly made it quite a good premise, exactly for the reasons you just gave. If I’d have put eliminate it would have been much easier to attack.
NB For any budding philosophers out there confused by terminology, without trying to be patronising to Ray as it was me who used it wrong, as a side note I shouldn’t have used weak to describe my premise as questionably valid, if you call a premise weak it’s usually in reference to its scope, i.e a strong premise would have been “he will wish to have no evil in the universe”, a weak one “he will wish to minimize evil…”.
Dear J.M. Brewer,
the problem with your attempts to selve the problem of evil is mainly that you are indirectly negating the assumption that God has all the five qualities of omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence, eternal existence and simplicity. Indeed by suggesting that perhaps God is still “evolving” you are essentially limiting God: a supposedly perfect being, characterised by simplicity, eternal existence and so on, cannot possibly evolve or change in any way over time. Therefore, although he may still be greater than humans he would not be the absolutely perfect being conceived of in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic traditions. Indeed the only way to solve the problem of evil is by somehow dimishing God’s status and responsability.
As far as your bizarre suggestion that God perhaps only sees humans as collections of “atoms” rather than real people is concerned, it needs to be said that this would only increase the argument in favour of an evil God: why would a wholly benevolent and knowing God create collections of atoms constituting organic beings, as well as being indifferent to them, knowing that these would illude themselves by thinking of themselves as individuals and of having some kind of value ?
Similarly, as far as your asteroid scenario is concerned, that is another thing that God would have known about. Furthermore, the fact that human suffering would be wiped out in three seconds would not mean necessarily mean that evil would no longer exist in the universe: there could be other beings in the universe who have similar conceptions of morality. Also, the destruction of the earth and humans would only be a painful ending of a violent species which has struggled with disease, hardships and wars for as far as it can remember.
Reply to BUBU’s REPLY to my statement:
Of course I must admit that SOME conceptualizations of the Judeo-Christian God insists that the God is “perfect” and simple. But I hold that not ALL conceptions of that same God holds that the God is NECESSARILY immutable in PSYCHOLOGICAL MAKEUP. Remember, God is (at least in the epistemological domain of us humans, as the existence of God is ultimately an unanswered question, although I am theist: belief for or against the existence of God does not constitute KNOWLEDGE BY EXPERIENCE of that God’s existence or nonexistence, if such a thing is possible) a conceptual idea. A religion can have a rigid idea of a God and if that God exists, that God could be totally distinct from what the main religion claims that he is.
The idea of an indifferent God that sees us as just a moving compilation of atoms is no different from a comic writer and artist that sees his creations as just “ink on paper”. He can suspend belief ( a phrase borrowed from Stephen King’s idea of how we “suspend belief” in reading books and watching movies such that we for a while believe that the characters are “real” and that what’s going on in the book or movie feels like what’s ACTUALLY GOING ON while in the back of our minds knowing that all we are doing is reading a fiction or watching a fiction) that we are subjectively individuals with value because one can conceive of a God conceiving of how we feel and think about ourselves. But at the end of the day, from his (conceptual) vantage point, all that we REALLY are are a moving compilation of atoms that thinks that IT is a valuable self-controlling individual.
As for evil, one can hold that this God knows that evil is just an “interesting” display of such atoms that can be reassembled in other things as soon as the “play” is done. This doesn’t make God evil in the classical sense, for that God would have to believe that people really ARE getting hurt (although on our subjective side of the fence we ARE) and want people to get hurt. I claim that God is evil in a “constructively aloof” sense, but is ultimately motivated by the notion of TRANSFORMATION. Creating pain only as a means to an end to create something that is beyond the reach of pain. The point: well to quote the Colonel in the movie: “Casualties of War” starring Michael J. Fox : “There ain’t no point, Erikson- I’m simply trying to illuminate the terrain in which we currently find ourselves deployed.”
Best,
Jay M. Brewer
phenomenal_graffiti.yahoo.com
i think good and evil are all relative terms.
For example in WW2, to the nazis, jews were evil and were the cause of all problems in the world, but to pretty much everyone else, nazis were the evil ones.
who’s to say who was right and who was wrong? (note: i am not implying any anti-semitism here, i’m just trying to say that good and evil are based on a point of view).
any thoughts?
Slartibartfast, I totally agree with what you say.
Take for example
A group of people with certain ideas about how things should be, in thier minds all this is good and true. They are headed by a figure, lets call this figure God.
Another group of people also have thier own ideas about how things should be, in thier minds all this is good and true. They are headed by a figure, lets call this figure Lucifer.
One of them wants you to believe in them out of fear, but can you say which one? and why does the other want you to belive in them?
MentulZen.
One of the arguments given in previous posts for the apparent evil in this world is that it is bringing about a greater good. Against all rationality and against all compassion that a human can have, you are attempting to justify the monstrous amount of evil and suffering in this world just so you can say that God is ultimately good.
You are allowing an irrational belief in a higher being to justify the pain that has been suffered by millions in the existence of mankind. Could you look a sexually abused child in the eye and say to them “it was for the greater good of mankind dear”. I simply don’t buy it, the more acceptable approach is to either say God doesn’t exist (my personal favourite) or he is limited.
The argument that evil comes from free will doesn’t cut the mustard either. God had the choice to create us or not create us. If he had known that amount of suffering that this world has gone through he should never have created us in the way he did. When people say “suffering helps us grow” they are thinking about someone who’s had a bit of a knock in life and has bounced back. What about the millions who were exterminated in the furnaces of Auschwitz or the tens of thousands of people who have perished in the earthquake in Iran. Will you be the one who says to their families, “yes but, you can learn from the experience, and remember, God is good!”. I think it is insulting that we attempt to preserve the goodness of a being who has shown us no compassion and are happy to justify the death of even one innocent child for the greater good.
Dostoevesky said it best in his “The Brothers Karamazov”:
"It’s not worth the tears of that one tortured child who beat itself on the breast with its little fist and prayed in its stinking outhouse, with its unexpiated tears to ‘dear, kind God’! It’s not worth it, because those tears are unatoned for. They must be atoned for, or there can be no harmony. But how? How are you going to atone for them? Is it possible? By their being avenged? But what do I care for avenging them? What do I care for a hell for oppressors? What good can hell do, since those children have already been tortured? And what becomes of harmony, if there is hell? I want to forgive. I want to embrace. I don’t want more suffering. And if the sufferings of children go to swell the sum of sufferings which was necessary to pay for truth, then I protest that the truth is not worth such a price.
I officially love the quote “it’s a good god that’s evil”
Since we are at the top of the food chain we don’t really have that evil in out life. We are not at risk of being hunted like everything else in on this planet.
God told me not to kill, yet he set up this way of life where I have to kill to survive, and where I have to destroy to keep warm.
It’s a good god that’s evil.
Civilisation is a decadence, religion is a tool. Without religion would we still exist/survive? Yes, religion is the balm for those who seek spiritual fulfillment. Happiness and fulfillment is a state of mind, religion is directly linked to happiness those who feel unfullfilled. Why fail to except that we are simple celled organisms whose only biological goal is to reproduce. Religion is a tool to teach us pain, modesty, respect. How can we base life altering belief on something that was designed without our best interest at heart? Man is naturally beligerent and selfish, so if it was no created by a man and by God how come the bible is riddled with hipocracy?
Why did god make man selfish? Following christianity would suggest that we should love our neighbour but we shouldn’t be shelfish but man is naturally beligerent and without this he could not survive. So, religion is a tool to rein in this natural selfishness so man can function in a society with other men. Fundamentalist religion is essentially acceptable, it is just when there is more than one fundamentalist religion that the trouble starts. I have just written a complete load of babble, but i feel better because of it.
by Sparky’s friend