I suppose the first question would be “Did god create evil, or has evil always existed?”
From there, I have a lot of other ones to work with, but let’s start with that.
Evil is a product of free will. God had to give us free will so that we could meaningfully choose to have faith in him. Because that’s so important, it outweighs the evil that results.
If god is all powerful, he could have fairly easily created free will that didn’t leave room for evil. The only evil that would be possible would be the lack of belief, and I do not understand why this would be evil.
No He couldn’t.
Explain.
Free will would ONLY be needed for people to actually have faith in god. If this were the case, that would be the only choice people would need in life.
If a person is given free will and god limits thier choices, then it’s a watered down kind of free will that just doesn’t mean very much.
I mean, if God isn’t gonna let me do evil, I might as well be good. Not much of a choice there really.
Yes, but we aren't in a world anything like that. We're in a world full of lots of interesting choices, such as what to have for breakfast. In [i]this[/i] world, free will can lead to all sorts of evil, so Smears' answer is correct.
The possibility of God making some world nothing at all like this one in which there's nothing to choose from that would be evil has nothing really to do with here evil comes from in reality, right?
This seems to be free will day for me.
Free will is an illusion. That’s not the way the world works. We have a will, we can make choices, but they’re hardly ‘free’.
I agree with you sometimes ingenium. That reminds me of this dude named Berlin who wrote this paper about liberty. There a real paradox there somewhere. I’ll have to think about what it was called…
Well, I’d say that if we only have the illusion of free will, then we only have the illusion of evil, too. Real or unreal, they’re still connected as Smears described, though I do happen to think both are real.
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Hello, this is my first post. First, I think you will need to define evil. For example: maybe at this moment you are drinking a nice cold drink, you think it is good, then a friend made you laugh as you’re drinking it and you choked on water , so would you call water evil? Or maybe you have a nice table at home, it is useful so it must be good. But this same table caused that little bump on your head when you went under it to retrieve your pen, so would you call your table evil? Evil, I think, is man-made…created by man’s mind. When we don’t like what’s happening, then we call it bad, or evil, when we like it, then we call it good. I think good and evil exist together. It is like a long line, excellent good on one end, good, little good, not so good, bad, badder, baddest, evil on the other end of the line. Like a magnet, there’s the positive end and the negative end. Positive and negative co-exist. For example, within you, there’s light and dark. Proof: there’s part of your clothing that’s light and there’s part of your clothing that is dark, the pockets for example, when you wear shoes your feet re in the dark. Another example: the earth, one side is nighttime, the other side is daytime and between light/darkness in between. We, made from dust or the material things, (C,H,O,N) afflicted with health problems, or money problems, etc., we call our sufferings evil, but I think in the eyes of the immaterial unknown being, maybe we are following the law which we call the 2nd law of Newton, for every action, there is an equal and something reaction. For babies born with defects, did the mother get prenatal care, is it hereditary, etc. Disease/Money problems, do we spend more than we can afford; do we worship money that we work all the time and neglect our health? do we eat in moderation, or overeat or undereat , etc., Hunger in other countries: don’t they have officials there, are they doing what they are supposed to do or are they just lining their pockets with the aid from developed countries? Natural disasters: please remember, nothing is permanent. We all succumb to a natural law called change. Thank you.
I would go with Augustine’s answer.
He said that evil is a semantics used by people to describe an absence of something. Like coldness as the absence of heat, because if we remove heat we will have coldness but if we remove coldness will we have more heat? Which we don’t because heat is energy and coldness is a term to describe the absence of that energy. Or like darkness to describe the absence of light, sickness to describe the absence of health.
Now I think that moral evil is a product of a FREE and RATIONALman to whether approach the ultimate good (i.e. virtues, God), settle with the okay but not commendable good, the lesser good, the really lesser good, or the total absence of good, or just becoming a f*ck and draws a gun spraying people with bullets for the fun of it.
Morality is like a man in a campfire who choose to go away from that fire, as he go further away it grows darker and colder, now does it mean that that fire is lesser in intensity because that guy stands 8 meters away? If we do, then I think we have to settle with the issue of relativity and who the heck is the basis of reality.
On Natural evils like calamities, accidents, sickness and even death. Now that’s problematic. But I would borrow the formula of Taoism who suggest to see things as they are. I mean are deaths, calamities and sickness really problems to be solved and fret about or normal occurence in a finite and in a very constant changing beings like us to grow upon?
I suggest reading a story by Liu An which concerns about horses and life lessons (it’s too long to type, haha, 
but I’m looking for a version in the net to copy and paste in the future) on how we must accpet things as they are.
Hmmmm… maybe if we assume a god, then our inate attraction to what is apparently good because of the beauty of goodness per se is not “free” legally speaking right? Therefore, assuming a good god, I also have to add that man is only and totally free if he chooses what is good.
So in a sense I agree with you.
I asked originally, where did evil come from. If it’s only a product of free will, why would god want it to exist? What logical reason is there for wanting people to have the ability to do stupid things?
In the beginning, he surely had the option of just not adding “free will” to the package deal that was humanity. He could have even limited it to exclude evil choices quite simply, leaving the only “evil” available to us the choice not to believe in god. Why not do it? Why would god WANT people to have the choice of murdering each other?
Like I said you know, the dude considers it a pretty big deal that we choose a relationship w/ him over a world of sin. If you think of things as though this world, (the one in which we all suffer) is finite, and heaven is not, then it’s not only not that big a deal that a little finite suffering goes on here, but it becomes true that you should really conisder choosing to minimize your sins. (You might suffer infinitley in hell, crazy shit man!!).
He’s an all powerful god as far as I know, so why is it outside the realm of his ability to create free will which allows people to choose to believe in him or not, but not to murder or steal?
You can’t be all powerful in a way that just defies logic. Once you choose one thing, then the opposite of it can’t be, evil and free will are a package deal you know. I mean, God’s not being illogical, he’s decisions have the problems that all decisions have, so he does the best that can be done, and sometimes it turns out that people end up thinking he’s an asshole even when he’s not.
Why is it vital to give humans free will? What is so important about you being able to choose to murder? If the only choices in your life had no evil option (except for one, of course), what would be lost? Sure, make free will…let people pick their boyfriend, their clothes, their breakfast…why give them the option of stealing?
Maybe, just maybe, it has something to do with the cosmic drama in the Christian perspective. But I think having evil options available is necessary because that is the greater good than depriving creatures of that choice.
If you remember the story of Gautama, he was excluded to see evil outside his realm. Now is he free in the simplest definition. He can stroll inside the palace, he can have many courtesans, he can enjoy the food and the wine. But his father setting a facade of luxury and the “good life”, is not granting Gautama any free will whatsoever.
Another thing is man is also an animal and “evil” is done because we are freely to choose if we want to get stuck with our animality or if we wish to transend the base appetites like hunger, lust, anger, etc…
Essentially God is working on a utilitarian basis here. Free Will is so good that it outweighs every possible and actually evil every committed. First problem here. Why is free will to be considered the greatest good? Would you prefer a world of pure heaven where no free will existed, or a world very much like ours? I know what I’d choose… However suppose we assume that yes, free will is the best thing ever, and God can be justified for allowing evil to give us free will. This only holds if there is no possible way that God could give us free will without allowing evil. It has to be necessarily true that free will entails evil. J.L Mackie asks is it not logically possible that one man may always freely choose to do the right action? Just because I never do evil, does not mean I cannot, simply that I choose not to. I agree with him. An omnipotent God, should be able to make free men who always do right. This obviously depends on free will and determinism being compatible, which I think they are. However Alvin Plantinga suggests that it is not possible for God to create wholly good free men, due to the existence of transworld depravity, which states that it is possible that for some possible action, X will choose wrongly. God cannot stop this possibility, otherwise it isn’t a choice, and if it is possible, then it could be actual. More can be found about this here (if you have JSTOR access) http://www.jstor.org/pss/2025307
One thing that bugs me though, is that God is credited with intervening to prevent evil, i.e. miracles. So why does He not do this constantly.