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The problem of Evil
(the Epicurean paradox)

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The problem of Evil

periculum
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Posted 12/01/05 - 07:41 PM:	#31
eliminating sin does not eliminate freewill. just because you eliminate one option (or a set of option) does not mean you've eliminated the power to choose itself among the remaining options. We also lack the ability to choose to fly under our own power, does that mean we lack freewill? I think not. Philosophy, you are now redifining evil as turning away from god (or that may have been your intent the whole time). I disagree with this definition, as god having created the whole universe also created every option available to us and thus we can't turn away from him. Please, let's stick with the definition of evil being unfortunate or harmful events. As to your question to me, you already answered it with your comments about heaven. You maintain that we WILL have freewill and yet be so disposed as to not want to sin. If he can make us like that in heaven, he can do so on earth. Your argument then is not with that god controls freewill (and thus god, not freewill, creates evil) but instead you argue that evil is appropriate on earth and not in heaven. So the question then is why does god want evil on earth? I don't really expect the thoughts of god to be layed out on this forum, but you must agree that a being who wishes evil acts to be commited when they could've been prevented must itself be evil or at least less than all good. And don't use the "for the greater good" argument again, as we have all ready been over the fact that such then contradicts god's omnipotence by saying he couldn't create such a greater good otherwise. You have already eliminated his omnibenevolence, proving again that omnibenevolence and omnipotence are mutually exclusive. Mariner, I am sorry for the request, but I'm feeling a little tired (and lazy?) right now. If there is an argument that I have missed in my address, could you please reiterate or point me to it.
"When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible god's out there, you will understand why I dismiss yours."

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Posted 12/01/05 - 07:48 PM:	#32
dclements wrote: everything that I have ever come across that tries to prove there is a benevolent and omnipotent God is too flawed to be the work of any such God. Instead all I see are people that want there to be benevolent and omnipotent God and are trying to prove it is true even if there isn't enough facts to support such a belief. osibe wrote: i'd like to know, and i'm asking anyone who holds God to be all powerful and all knowing, what is lost if he is not these qualities? At this moment you two are abandoning the argument that claims that it is impossible for God to be 3-omni. dclements argues that there is no proof that God is [actually] omnibenevolent and omnipresent, while osibe wonders whether God could not [in actuality] be either not-omnipotent or not-omniscient (or neither). In other words, you are leaving the field of strict logic and entering the field of research. To answer both of you one has to look at the world to gather evidence, it is not enough to reason from first principles. I think this shift in the discussion is quite important, which is why I'm emphasizing it. To answer both of your concerns, there are the Platonic/Aristotelian arguments about how Goodness/Beauty/Truth is the greatest Idea (which means, for Plato, the most real thing there is) and about how the entire world can be traced back to the Prime Mover, which is pure actuality and therefore lacks any potentiality. From these arguments the omniscience and omnipotence of this Being (Who is pure actuality, therefore can't be limited in either knowledge or power)can be deduced; and the nature of the Being (Goodness=Beauty=Truth) is clarified by the Platonic argument. These, in my opinion, are the best reasons to believe in God, anyway. All of this is addressed to the mind, though. To have faith in God, we require a more personal relationship, and so we must consider, in turn, the Church and the Bible. These two sources clarify (even if mostly through the via negativa) the nature of God and so remove all doubt about God's power, knowledge and benevolence. * Kwalish Kid wrote: The argument of the problem of evil establishes that, given the state of the world, there cannot be a being that is both all powerful and all good. It does this by judging that the world is full of evil** that should be prevented by an all-good being. In order to avoid inconsistency, one must abandon the combination of all-good and all-powerful. The part in bold is the part that is incompatible with a world in which there is no objective basis for morality. The bottomline is that atheists must be moral absolutists (the opposite of moral relativists) if they want to embrace the Problem of Evil as an objective criticism of theism. Yet, they are very reluctant to embrace any kind of moral absolutism, for obvious reasons. So far, no one in this thread has even suggested a hypothetical framework for moral absolutism without reliance on a supernatural Being. If no alternative is suggested, the argument of the Problem of Evil lacks all persuasive power. * HadouKen24** -- God gambled . Some people might say that He lost the gamble, but He can fix the game in the best possible way, so that's not too worrisome . Felix peccatum Adae
"In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't." -- Blaise Pascal "The more I am by myself and alone, the more I have come to love myths" -- Aristotle in his later years

periculum
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Posted 12/01/05 - 09:04 PM:	#33
I'm not referring to instantiating contradictions. First off, a square circle is nothing at all, so it is meaningless to comment on it (for what are we referring to when we state "square circle"). I still maintain that it would not be contradicting for god to eliminate evil as a subjective object. evil might depend on perspective as to which actions are termed evil, however the definition of evil is uniform for all perspectives as that which is harmful or destructive. Thus if god was to eliminate all harmful and destructive acts, he would eliminate evil, even subjectively, though there may still be some things we dislike or disagree with we would not be able to term them evil for they would not harm anyone. To state that an inability to harm someone could be construed as an unfortunate act is not relevant, as again it would not be evil if nobody was suffering and also if such acts were nonexistent we would be unable to grasp the concept. Now, some may construe this rigid application of the definition of evil to be leaning towards objective morality. This is not the case as it does not eliminate the importance of perspective in applying the term to actual acts. For instance: jews v. hitler. whomever is killed will see it as an evil act because they are necessarily being harmed in an unfortunate way, however whomever is doing the harming will see it as a justified and possibly good act. However, if nobody was to able to be harmed, even in a justified manner (from one viewpoint), there would be no evil from anybodies perspective. again though, it is not absurd for an atheist to take the position of evil as an objective state stems from god in order to argue that such an event is incompatible with an omnibenevolent and omnipotent god. I don't see how relying on the being in question to provide the backdrop of evil for comparison with the defined characteristics of that being causes my arguments to lack persuasive power.
"When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible god's out there, you will understand why I dismiss yours."

philosophy
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Posted 12/01/05 - 09:54 PM:	#34
philosophy wrote: The existence of good does not prove the existence of God. However, the existence of God does explain the existence of good. Could there be an objective good without God? That would require a difference explanation, one that has yet to be forthcoming. Until then, God is the reasonable choice. That is one of the biggest loads of crap I have seen on this board, including the pseudophilosophy posts. A great many canon philosophers, most of them Christian, offer many foundations for objective morality. Then you should have no trouble proposing one of them. I would especially love to see the examples you have in mind of Christian philosophers who supposedly propose non-theistic systems explaining objective morality. Thus far, no one has proposed such an explanation in this thread. Bring one up, and we can see how reasonable it is. Until then, we have one explanation, which is internally consistent, that being theism, and so the reasonable thing to do is tip the hat to it. The argument of the problem of evil establishes that, given the state of the world, there cannot be a being that is both all powerful and all good. It does this by judging that the world is full of evil that should be prevented by an all-good being. In order to avoid inconsistency, one must abandon the combination of all-good and all-powerful. The trouble with this counter argument is that noting that evil exists in the world does not prove the theistic (almighty, all-good) position is contradictory (and certainly not inconsistent, as it applies everywhere consistently). You would have to show one of two things: either that God is the author of evil, or that God cannot (or will not) bring forth a greater good from the evil that does occur. I await those arguments. Until then, let us be clear on the theistic position: God created us with free will, we freely choose to perform evil, God permits this only when he will bring forth a greater good. So, to answer your question: “why does God permit suffering and evil in the world?” Answer: because he created us free, and because no evil will occur that does not bring forth a greater good. Lastly, to hold God responsible for the evil acts that we commit, on account of his giving us free will, you will have to show that, in the beginning, we lacked the ability to chose not to sin (which is the same as denying free will, at least morally speaking). Do you see why you have to provide arguments for those claims? Philosophy, you are now redifining evil as turning away from god (or that may have been your intent the whole time). Indeed, that is what I meant the entire time. God is goodness itself, thus to do evil is necessarily to “turn” from God. I disagree with this definition, as god having created the whole universe also created every option available to us and thus we can't turn away from him. God created free beings, and therefore one of the options (possibilities) that God created for us was to turn away from him. Such a statement means, conversely, that we are free to willfully love God, or not. Hence the possibility of evil, though it need not occur, and indeed cannot occur without a willful act on our part, thus making us the cause of evil, and not God. Think of God as the efficient cause of everything he creates (as creator), and the formal cause of everything good (as sustainer). God created man with free will, which is necessarily good. However, we were created with the ability to cause evil, or not, depending on our will. Ergo our willful decision pertaining to the fall is the efficient cause of evil. God did create the possibility of evil (necessary consequence of free will), but there is no evil from which God cannot and will not bring forth a greater good. And don't use the "for the greater good" argument again, as we have all ready been over the fact that such then contradicts god's omnipotence by saying he couldn't create such a greater good otherwise. You will need to spell out this objection in fuller terms. Why, exactly, is this the case? The greater good includes our free decisions, even our evil ones, and this can occur exactly because God is both omnipotent and omniscient, and it occurs exactly because God is omnibenevolent. Please, let's stick with the definition of evil being unfortunate or harmful events. So long as unfortunate and harmful events are understood as that which goes against God, then sure. The issue here is over goodness, especially as the source (cause) of what is good. Again, we would have to construct some kind of objective source of good without God as goodness in order to proceed. Thus, until this is done, we have only this definition (as long as we want to talk about good, or evil, which clearly here we do). As to your question to me, you already answered it with your comments about heaven. You maintain that we WILL have freewill and yet be so disposed as to not want to sin. If he can make us like that in heaven, he can do so on earth. But the point is that he has chosen to allow us to willful choose to have ourselves made like that, or not – that is the nature of human free will. In this sense, we-together-with-God make us like that, and that is why Heaven is only for those who actually want to be in communion with God (in thought and deed: faith and works). And this is exactly how he made us on earth. The difference is that temporal existence is the opportunity to make the choice; extemporal existence is the choice having been made. you argue that evil is appropriate on earth and not in heaven. So the question then is why does god want evil on earth? He doesn’t. He told us not to eat from the tree. He died on a Cross to save us from evil. We want the evil. We want the evil every time we live against God, every time we act against neighbor, and therefore act for the self over and against the other. This is pride, and it is the dark, abysmal choice that we so often embrace. No matter how bleak this looks, we must always remember the converse, that the opposite is the choice of virtue, and its inexplicable beauty. That there is a heaven and a hell is not something to foreign to man on earth, who can glimpse both in his relationships with others. Edited by philosophy on 12/01/05 - 10:01 PM
There is no more pleasant food for the soul than the knowledge of truth. - Lactantius

Mariner
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Posted 12/02/05 - 04:05 AM:	#35
periculum wrote: However, if nobody was to able to be harmed, even in a justified manner (from one viewpoint), there would be no evil from anybodies perspective. There are two ways in which this could happen. Absence of free will or absence of free action. If one is endowed with free will but lacks freedom of action to do what seems good to him, he will consider this lack of freedom to be evil. again though, it is not absurd for an atheist to take the position of evil as an objective state stems from god in order to argue that such an event is incompatible with an omnibenevolent and omnipotent god. I don't see how relying on the being in question to provide the backdrop of evil for comparison with the defined characteristics of that being causes my arguments to lack persuasive power. They lack persuasive power because they are inherently inconsistent. You are using a premise that depends on God (as far as you've shown; you haven't offered any alternative explanation for an extrinsic morality, you have been arguing for a morality that is completely subjective) in order to deny God. The consistent atheist who refuses God as the source of morality must also consider the Peoblem of Evil the figment of weaklings' imagination, nothing worthy of the Superman, who does not complain about the evil in the world, but transcends its perception.
"In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't." -- Blaise Pascal "The more I am by myself and alone, the more I have come to love myths" -- Aristotle in his later years

Kwalish Kid
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Posted 12/02/05 - 05:54 AM:	#36
The amount of sophistry in this thread is choking. Does nobody remember Kant, Mill, or Bentham? There have been modern interpretations of Aristotle's virtue ethics that also serve as a basis for morality that have no recourse to God. Regardless, to say that an athiest has to accept an objective standard of morality is fallacious. All the athiest must do is say that if one accepts an objective standard of morality, based on God or not, then God is evil. Indeed, all that a defender of the all-powerful and all-good has to do, in my book, is show that it's, in the end, a good thing for somebody to be raped. That's all. If one person here who thinks the argument of evil isn't persuasive will make the case for even one rape that happens, that would be nice. That some greater good could come of a rape is hardly a defence, since our all-powerful being should be able to do better.
"Scientific truth is always paradox, if judged by everyday experience, which catches only the delusive nature of things." - KM, V, P and P "A fishnet is made up of a lot more holes than strings, but you can't therefore argue that the net doesn't exist. Just ask the fish." - Jeffrey Kluger "â€¦Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people." -Ben Stein [This is included for the irony.]

Mariner
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Posted 12/02/05 - 06:06 AM:	#37
Kwalish Kid wrote: The amount of sophistry in this thread is choking. Does nobody remember Kant, Mill, or Bentham? There have been modern interpretations of Aristotle's virtue ethics that also serve as a basis for morality that have no recourse to God. We always welcome more sophistry when we can . Please, develop an argument about an objective morality devoid of God, which is all that we are asking. I remember Kant, for example, and I remember that his Critique of Practical Reason is basically the re-establishment of God that he took away in the Critique of Pure Reason. It is funny to see Kant characterized as a thinker who does not associate morality with God; you are probably over-impressed by the title "Categorical Imperative" to notice the source of the "imperative" in Kant's theory. Or, most likely, you've never read Kant on ethics . Regardless, to say that an athiest has to accept an objective standard of morality is fallacious. All the athiest must do is say that if one accepts an objective standard of morality, based on God or not, then God is evil. Quite so; which is exactly why the atheist must provide an objective standard of morality, based on God or not, before God can be judged to be evil. You managed to superpose two sentences contradicting each other in the same paragraph. Bully for sophists . Indeed, all that a defender of the all-powerful and all-good has to do, in my book, is show that it's, in the end, a good thing for somebody to be raped. That's all. If one person here who thinks the argument of evil isn't persuasive will make the case for even one rape that happens, that would be nice. The appeal to emotion is nice, too, but it only emphasizes the point being made, that atheists must provide an objective standard of morality. Why is rape wrong? We're waiting for the answer, and you don't seem to be providing any. That some greater good could come of a rape is hardly a defence, since our all-powerful being should be able to do better. Since it is not our all-powerful being who is raping anyone, this argument does not stand. Unless you can show that free will (which is what allows all rapes) is not better than the alternative. But for that, you'd need an objective standard of morality, etc. etc. After you've finished choking, perhaps you can start arguing. You may begin by offering an alternative explanation for extrinsic morality (I don't like to use the word "objective", I think it is quite misleading).
"In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't." -- Blaise Pascal "The more I am by myself and alone, the more I have come to love myths" -- Aristotle in his later years

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Posted 12/02/05 - 07:12 AM:	#38
Not surprising that some people here cannot understand the nature of hypothetical reasoning. Well, let's limit our arguments to a case by case basis. I'll accept that the argument against evil does not affect anyone who believes in a God that finds rape acceptable. An all-powerful being doesn't have to personally commit a rape to be responsible. An all-powerful being could prevent any immoral act and should do so. If we accept that there is an all-powerful being that is all good, then we must accept that rape is not evil. The sophistry is, as practiced often by proponents of ID, to shift the debate away from the real weak point. "Let's ignore the issue that I accept rape, let's see if you can find a reason not to accept rape." Free will is not merely the purview of rapists. Many people are good and have free will. Many people who could become rapists could never be in a position to cause rapes. A more inflammatory example would be that the all-powerful being that one wishes to believe in thought that the Holocaust was not evil. Fortunately, this point has already been conceded.
"Scientific truth is always paradox, if judged by everyday experience, which catches only the delusive nature of things." - KM, V, P and P "A fishnet is made up of a lot more holes than strings, but you can't therefore argue that the net doesn't exist. Just ask the fish." - Jeffrey Kluger "â€¦Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people." -Ben Stein [This is included for the irony.]

Mariner
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Posted 12/02/05 - 08:44 AM:	#39
Kwalish Kid wrote: Not surprising that some people here cannot understand the nature of hypothetical reasoning. Well, let's limit our arguments to a case by case basis. I'll accept that the argument against evil does not affect anyone who believes in a God that finds rape acceptable. I don't see anyone raising their hands . You'll be hard pressed to find any theist claiming that God finds rape acceptable. Yet, it is hard to see why an atheist would find rape inacceptable, if he won't give grounds for his belief. Which is all we ask. Then again, it seems that you advocate that your opinion is the supreme arbiter of morality. I can give you plenty of reasons why I think rape is inacceptable, but so far, you have treated this proposition as if it didn't require justification. An all-powerful being doesn't have to personally commit a rape to be responsible. An all-powerful being could prevent any immoral act and should do so. Says who? Based on what concept of morality? Isn't it necessary to weigh evils, or can I shoot the kid that is about to steal candy? If we accept that there is an all-powerful being that is all good, then we must accept that rape is not evil. No, we don't. At least there has been no argument for that view. Only sophistry, as you like to say. The sophistry is, as practiced often by proponents of ID, to shift the debate away from the real weak point. "Let's ignore the issue that I accept rape, let's see if you can find a reason not to accept rape." Free will is not merely the purview of rapists. Many people are good and have free will. Many people who could become rapists could never be in a position to cause rapes. And the pertinence of that is?... A more inflammatory example would be that the all-powerful being that one wishes to believe in thought that the Holocaust was not evil. Fortunately, this point has already been conceded. The all-powerful being may very well believe that evil is evil and still believe that preventing it forcefully would have been a greater evil. Heck, you don't have to be all-powerful, or even all-knowing, to see that. It is curious to see the atheist pushing for a black-and-white conception of morality. But then again your attempts are always curious . It is far more often the case that I have to convince theists that morality is not black-and-white, it will be a new experience for me to have to convince an atheist -- who does not offer any suggestion as to how morality could be extrinsic -- that morality has nuances.
"In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't." -- Blaise Pascal "The more I am by myself and alone, the more I have come to love myths" -- Aristotle in his later years

osibe
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Posted 12/02/05 - 12:27 PM:	#40
Again I would like to point out that theoretically, IF an all powerful and all knowing God DOES exist THEN he falls victim to these contradictions of evil, now I am not saying that he does exist and that there is an objective morality to base this on and most likely there is not, and if there is no God then I am projecting my subjective morals to theoretically think out the logic problems. If thats true then I agree my personal morals cannot be projected on everyone universally but as I do not know for sure if God exists of not then it is all just theory. Again for emphasis, if and only if God (based on the Christian concpet of him) exists then the problem of evil comes up, if there was no God then there is no problem of evil, "bad" or "evil" things just happen because that is the way things are, lacking anyone/thing's personal repsonsibility. I would agree with you, humans are not be able to "create" eternal truths out of conceptual ideas such as morality without the intervention and establishment outside of humanity. But a standard is apparent that can be applied to everyone equally, that is not to say it is "truely objective" or has any true meaning but it seems rather constant. Things that are unwanted are be deemed "evil" by everyone, rape, from the perspective of the person being raped, is evil because it is unwanted and painful (pain which too is unwanted). Everything that is forced on me, everything I don't want to do is bad, is evil, and this is pretty much global. I can't think of a person that would seriously deem "unwanted" things as good or beneficial, unless they were "wanted" in the first place, the common situations come to mind though: like masochists, and yet they love being abused, that is why it is not "evil,' to them atleast, also things like "I may not like it now but it will actually benefit me later" is also a wanted situation as the result is still a wanted object.
"Live everyday like it's your first"

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