theodicy

Philosophy of Religion
Chapter 6. The Problem of Evil
Section 4. Theodicy

What can I say? Sure, if you are able to think yourself into believing that something along these lines is true then for you it’s true. That’s the beauty of living in a world where the evolution of biological life on Earth has culminated in human brains able to believe in things not even remotely able to be demonstrated.

Minds able to reconcile an omniscient God with the free will of mere mortals. Minds able to worship and adore a God that has inflicted mind-boggling amounts of pain and suffering on the flocks down through the ages. After all, is not God ultimately responsible for the existence of such things as the covid-19 and HIV viruses?

But: blame Adam and Eve, not God?

Of course all of this is just “thought up”. In theory it is true and all any of us can do is take a leap of faith to it and live our lives as though it were in fact true. After all, if it is true and you live your life accordingly you are rewarded. And if it is true and you don’t live your life accordingly you are punished. And if you can’t figure out why the good people are punished you can just go back to Adam and Eve and assume that the Fall is manifested in ways that are beyond the reach of mere mortals.

Knowing of course that unless you are able to think yourself into believing it, you’re left with hundreds and hundreds of conflicting moral narrative here and now to choose from and then oblivion there and then.

My solution for this is that God is finite and the universe is alive.

And you would go about demonstrating to us that this is true…how?

Take the covid-19 pandemic. The terrible toll that has taken on millions around the globe. How does God being finite or the universe being alive help us to make sense of it?

In terms of “the problem of evil”?

Creation took a long time to form.
So its creator took a long time to form it.
So its creator is finite because it takes him a long time to do things.

Reality is very non random.
Also there is a similarity between new and old cosmic bodies.

And you would go about demonstrating to us that this is true…how?

And, again, given the point of the thread…

…how would this point of yours possibly be applicable?

Give it your best shot.

Notice im not here to debate how nice or how evil God is.

This is just a question of creation vs evolution.

There has been much said on both sides of this debate.

The fine tuned qualities of the universe.
The irreducibly complex qualities of some living things.

The answer revolves around deduction.
We can’t ask God if there is a god,
and we can’t ask reality if it is alive.
But deduction shows clues about how much of this whole thing is like this or like that.

What if i asked you to prove there is no creator?

Demanding proof is for lazy half-philosophers.
You gotta get it yourself.

Well, the point of this thread [mine] is to somehow reconcile a God said by many to be loving just and merciful with “the question of theodicy”: “the vindication of divine goodness and providence in view of the existence of evil”

Pain and suffering that is clearly derived from human interaction and then the terrible afflictions inflicted on humankind as a result of so-called “acts of God”.

What clues do you deduce about God or the universe that might explain the existence of viruses like HIV or Covid? Or bacterium that brought about such things as the bubonic plague.

Then, from my frame of mind, we are back to suggesting it is far more incumbent upon those to demonstrate something that they claim does exist than for those to prove that it does not. Besides, the assumption here is that God and the Universe do exist and, as a result of it, staggering amounts of human pain and suffering accumulate day after day after day.

Why, given the assumption that, in turn, God and the Universe reflect “divine goodness and providence”?

Though not for, say, committed scientists.

And have you got some proof yourself? So far, what is it?

Philosophy of Religion
Chapter 6. The Problem of Evil
Section 4. Theodicy

Okay, but there are any number of mere mortal parents who do precisely that: they are fruitful and multiple and then are adament in instilling the word of any particular God said to be loving, just and merciful into their child’s interactions with others. The child accepts the difference between good and bad and lives his or her life accordingly. But then bad things still happen to both the parents and the child.

Why?

Well, what else is there here but either The Fall or God’s mysterious ways? Isn’t that theodicy in a nutshell. One or the other?

So, for those who adhere to the God of Abraham and Moses, Adam and Even are not in a cage, are given free will, but are punished for actually using it. Not only that but all the rest of us are punished in turn for something that they did.

Here, for many, the only way to grapple with theodicy now becomes God’s mysterious ways. Unless there is another reason that I’m not privy to…or am privy to but fail to grasp.

In other words, you have to earn immortality and salvation. And, yet again, explaining those who do endure many, many terrible trials and tribulations maintaining and then, through strength and moral effort, sustaining their faith in God and continuing to live in accordance with the will of God…?

Of course: The Fall and/or God’s mysterious ways.

Jew-God is cruel and crazy.
No need to debate that it is so totally obvious.

But if God had limited power and couldn’t help everyone,
he could still be good / trying.

A viable theodicy (I think) which is a crucial part of my Pantheopsychic Theology is that Evil exists and is created by God (who literally created everything) while God is in a state of non-lucid dreaming, which precludes deliberation and intention and thus preserves God’s goodness.

PG

Philosophy of Religion
Chapter 6. The Problem of Evil
Section 4. Theodicy

Really, try to imagine any parent you know allowing the terrible pain and suffering that we know is afflicted upon millions of children around the globe day after day after day. And then justifying it as an exercise in “soul-making”.

For example: worldvision.org/sponsorship … erty-facts

The fate of children in this grim pile of statistics.

[b]"A child dies from hunger every 10 seconds

Poor nutrition and hunger is responsible for the death of 3.1 million children a year. That’s nearly half of all deaths in children under the age of 5. The children die because their bodies lack basic nutrients." from the world counts web site.[/b]

No, instead, this sort of thing always strikes me as an example of parents trying to deal with statistics like the ones above and recognizing [consciously or not] that the only possible consolation that is available to them is to take a leap of faith to God.

So, the children suffer terribly from any number of ghastly afflictions. But not because they chose evil, but because their parents did? And even if their parents chose good, there’s still The Fall?

How can reasonable people not come to accept just how bizarre that is given the assumption that their God is loving, just and merciful? I can only go back to the bottom line [mine]: that God is chosen because the alternative is a world of terrible pain and suffering that is essentially meaningless…and then ends in oblivion.

edit

Just a reminder that I am not arguing that this is how it is, only that this is what I have thought myself into believing makes the most sense here and now. If it doesn’t make sense to you and you have a more optimistic point of view, let’s hear it.

Philosophy of Religion
Chapter 6. The Problem of Evil
Section 4. Theodicy

Okay, but how is that then reconciled with those who claim that their own God is omniscient? It would seem [to me] to be the theological equivalent of peacegirl’s free will/no free will frame of mind on her determinism thread.

Better or worse than what? We’ll need a context of course. And God knows what that might be.

You know, whatever that means given a particular set of circumstances. Unless, of course, we really do live in a wholly determined universe. Then all of this terrible pain and suffering derived from a loving, just and merciful God is merely a manifestation of whatever nature compels me, you, all of us to think it is.

Here of course we are in sim world, dream world, Matrix world territory. Anything able to be “thought up” in our heads is possible to explain “evil”/evil merely by claiming something – anything – explains it. And not just the fantastic claims above. Here at ILP we’ve had any number members over the years who have offered us their own fantastic theological/philosophical assumptions/theories about every possible thing under the sun.

Right, Fixed Jacob? :wink:

Philosophy of Religion
Chapter 6. The Problem of Evil
Section 4. Theodicy

Where to even begin…

Suppose we can all agree that there is a rational manner in which to reconcile an all-knowing Creator – another assumption? – with human autonomy. Okay, how then do we go about pinning down which human behaviors are, in fact, objectively good and evil? Do or do not all of the multitude of religious denominations down through the ages agree on some things but disagree on others? And that’s before we get to all of the vast and varied contexts in which all of the variables are never exactly the same. Though shalt not kill? When and where given what exact set of circumstances? It’s okay in a religious crusade? Or to bring down the infidels? Or to stop a doctor who performs abortions?

Ah, but here we are ever and always talking about a God that has been “thought up” by mere mortals themselves. At least to the best of my own current knowledge. Unless, unbeknown to me, an actual God has in fact been demonstrated to exist. When God is the stuff of Scriptures, and Scriptures are the stuff of mere mortals, He can accomplish anything at all. For all we know, God has dumped us all into his very own Matrix or sim world contraption. Just to entertain Himself perhaps.

Am I understanding this correctly? God is all powerful, allows mere mortals to freely choose their behaviors, but then prevents them from acting on what, of their own volition, they want to do?

Instead, more likely to be this:

I am not personally aware of any prominent proponent of the partly bad [or indifferent] God, but Harold Kushner is well known for embracing a God that set into existence a world that has somehow gotten beyond His control. But, again, this would appear to be just more of the same: a God that is defined or thought into existence. With no way to actually establish which it is. Or if any God at all does exist.

Once it comes down to a thought up God, the sky’s the limits as to what one proposes that He is:

This world? The best of all possible worlds? In that case this all powerful and all good God is clearly not all knowing. Starting with the Holocaust itself, which must have gotten by him somehow.

I wrote that evil comes about via primordial fear.
It would require that God protect infants from all forms of trauma and abuse.
Killing all the “bad people” is typical of the Jew-god solution.
But at that point, it is too late.
Bad people are usually wrecked.
Prevention is the real answer to the problem of evil.

God obviously doesn’t manifest worth beans in the big picture.

We need the real deal.

We’ll need a real deal context of course.

Why do you always ask for a context?

Primordial fear is a fear that babies and adults can both feel.
Someone pulls a gun on you, boom, fear.
That can be a context.
Fear of strangers with weapons.

If God doesn’t want evil,
he shouldn’t let it germinate.
Example of a disease.
Tumors start small, then they get bigger and bigger.
There is another context. Cancer.

Your daughter gets hit by a car.
God wasn’t there to prevent that event from happening.
There is a context.
The real deal would be a God that literally
manifests and talks to people.
Instead of sending prophets and sock puppets.
Context would be the history of prophets
being killed for what they said.
Obviously, the 1 prophet method doesn’t work.

Theodicy is better called Theidiocy is the bleating of fools you cannot understand why an all powerful god is utterly in capable of designing a decent world to live in ; as if god is restrained by some sort of “as good as it gets” crapola.

First, of course, this thread revolves around a God, the God, my God creating a world in which such fear is grimly common. Given the fact that so many of the faithful insist that God is loving, just and merciful. And then the terror that is inflicted upon millions around the globe as a result of this God creating a planet rife with any number of “natural disasters”. A God creating, in turn, such critters as HIV and covid19 and malaria and Bubonic plague.

Harold Kushner’s God excepted of course.

And then what if the context revolves around, say, the right to bear arms? The fear of those compelled to arm themselves to the teeth. And then the fear of others afraid of those folks.

You generally post what I call “general description intellectual/spiritual contraptions”. Fine, that’s your prerogative. But they are only of interest to me given the arguments I make here: ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 5&t=186929

A thread those like you here tend to steer clear of.

Yeah, that’s my point. God clearly appears to want what most mere mortals would call evil…if one of us brought it into existence. So, folks like those above on this thread try to think up ways to explain that. Given their own understanding of God.

Note to others:

You tell me where he is going with this.

THE PROBLEM OF THEODICY.
BY EZRA KLEIN
at The American Prospect

First of all, Christians need to explain how Yahweh of the Old Testament and Jesus Christ of the New Testament are one and the same God. What difference does it make to make the comparison in regard to human pain and suffering, if they are both the same Dude? It is like some Christians way back then, after seeing just how horrific God actually could be in the Old Testament, figured it was time to show the world another side of Him.

As for, “How can a God who loves mankind enough to die for us allow us to suffer as much as we do?”, is there really anything other than either 1] Kushner’s less than omnipotent God 2] an omniscient and omnipotent God who works in “mysterious ways”.

There it is in a nutshell. Most progressive Christians bring us around time and again to Jesus Christ…the socialist? Whereas Jews have Yahweh. And how difficult, with a God like Him, is it to rationalize, among other things, the historical plight of the Palestinians given the creation of Israel?

You get the God you need it seems. So, who do you need God to be?

It seems taking the English translation of the Bible at face value, particularly the Old Testament, provides logic problems equating the Gods of the Old and New Testament. Thus the creation of the “Demiurge” by Gnostics to explain the God of the Old Testament as opposed to God the Father and Christ in the New. I think the answer might lie in a denial of the inerrancy of the Old Testament and the New in terms of the discrepancy between human-powered meritocracy in the earning of Heaven and Christ-replication in the Christianity of Paul.

As it is, I’m finding it exceedingly difficult to deny iambiguous’ observations.

Pantheopsychic theology is the best way to go.

PG