Philosophy of Religion
Chapter 6. The Problem of Evil
Section 4. Theodicy
So, leaving the part where an omniscient God is compatible with human freedom aside, we are to believe that the God of Moses and Abraham allows the pain and suffering endured by His flocks still today to persist because of something done by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. We are made to endure unspeakable tortures for something that others did. We didn’t disobey God, they did. But it’s all the same.
And yet [of course] most of us would find it utterly appalling to punish children for the transgressions of their parents. Let alone for their parents parents or their parents parents.
And, again, what of the terrible agonies endured by men, women and children brought on by natural disasters and ghastly diseases and extinction events? How is that explained when human obedience and behaviors have little or no part to play at all in these catastrophes?
Another bizarre frame of mind. As though Satan himself is not just another creation of God. And what of Satan literally entering the bodies – the hearts and souls – of mere mortals. Blame it all on us? Going all the way back to Adam and Eve.
And what of all those who lived, suffered and died, before this? And [seriously] what did Christ have to say about the terrible suffering endured by mere mortals due to “acts of God” beyond their control?
My own point as well.
On the other hand, my own point is as well to note the obvious. That in the absence of God, all human pain and suffering is essentially meaningless and life itself ends in oblivion.
So, if the only alternative to that is to invent a loving, just and merciful God and then subsume all the pain and suffering in His “mysterious ways”, how can that not be better than an essentially meaningless existence that tumbles over into the abyss that is nothingness?
I’ll still choose that if I can come up with a way to.