Problem of Evil

[Ghel]

This is a tangent to another thread: To former Christians: Why do you no longer believe?
The logical structure of the problem of evil begins with four premises:

1. God is omniscient.
2. God is omnipotent.
3. God is omnibenevolent.
4. Evil exists.

We can see the contradiction here. If God is omnibenevolent, he wants to prevent evil. If he is omniscient, he knows about all evil in the world. If he is omnipotent, he can do something about the evil he detects. Thus, evil should not exist. Yet evil does exists, so one or more of the premises must be incorrect.

I don't expect this argument, by itself, to cause anyone to become an atheist. But I hope that it does cause believers to examine their beliefs and try to be consistent.

This argument, phrased slightly differently, was what started me thinking about what I believed and why. I thought (and prayed): Why would God take a good man away from his family who loved and needed him? The eventual answer that I came to was that God did not have the characteristics that I was brought up to believe that he had.

If anyone has comments or objections to this argument, I would like to discuss them. Granted that this argument only applies to gods that have the characteristics listed in the first 3 premises.

[Kheldarson]

I'll bite.

You're forgetting the other side of the issue. Particularly with the argument of omnibenevolence. The issue is free will. Sure, God can prevent evil. He can keep us from ever committing a sin. But if He does that, He violates free will. This is the problem which the Church struggled with following the Protestant Revolt/Reformation.

The answer came from the Jesuits. The theology is known as media scientia, or middle science. This is the belief that God is omniscient in the fact that He knows all paths. He knows every single possible decision you might make at any given time and all potential ways you might go. He will send His grace to support you making the right choice, but, just like Adam and Eve, we can always make the wrong choice.

Besides, not to denigrate anyone's pain at the loss of someone, but this was something pointed out to me a while back. How do we know the loss of that good man didn't bring about a greater good? We're not God. We don't see what He sees. He's got this whole huge picture in front of him. So how are we to know what's really good and really evil?

[Ghel]

So your definition of God includes God knowing all past events and all current events, but only knowing future possibilities without knowing for certain which of those possibilities will happen? I don't see this as omniscience, but I think I can work with your definition.

Does that mean that God can only act in the present, and not in the past? Even in that case, I would think that God would be able to stop a murder (for example) right before it happens. Or does God put more value on the murderer's free will than on the victim's?

[jackfaire]

Or does God put more value on the murderer's free will than on the victim's?

By not stepping and stopping the murder I don't really say that as God affecting the victims free will at all.

If he stepped in and say made the victim choose to do what God wants him to do that would certainly but leaving the situation alone and just watching.

This of course then removes the benevolence angle as an observer cannot be benevolent.

The reason I say this is because once you desire to do good and be good and act you stop being an observer.

[Ghel]

Jack, I'm not sure I follow your train of thought, but you seem to be saying that if God can see that a murder is about to happen and does nothing to stop it, then he cannot be benevolent. I agree.

[draggar]

Without evil good becomes neutral.

[Ghel]

Are you saying that baking cookies for my neighbor (or any other good deed) becomes a neutral act if there is no evil in the world?

[Wingates_Hellsing]

No, drag's saying that without negative experiences, positive experiences mean less if anything at all.

If you baked your neighbor cookies and they had had a perfect life, then the cookies would be meaningless.

[jackfaire]

Jack, I'm not sure I follow your train of thought, but you seem to be saying that if God can see that a murder is about to happen and does nothing to stop it, then he cannot be benevolent. I agree.

I am actually.

What I was also saying was that choosing not to stop one human from doing something isn't restricting another's free will.

[lordlundar]

Gehl, you keep thinking as God in a physical, tactile presence in this situation, that has the same perspective as a mortal being, and therein lies the problem. You are not a deity, and as such cannot have that perspective.

Do I have an answer? No. But then again, no one can have this answer.

[Arcade Man D]

That's exactly the problem. Just like the ant has no framework to truly understand what humans are thinking, humans have no framework to understand a deity's thought process. (Example of a non-Christian deity: Zeus essentially raped scores of women, and was still considered a good deity by ancient Greeks)

And while The Problem of Evil is always a good discussion point, I prefer The Problem of Will. (popular discussion point for John Calvin)

1. God is omniscient.
2. God is omnipotent.
3. God is omnipresent.
4. Humans have free will.


However, how can an all-knowing God - who knows the past, present, and future - exist at the same time as free will? If a human has free will, the outcome of his decisions is unknown until they are done. If humans are predestined, then God can be omniscient, but any laws passed are essentially unfair because a human predestined to be a murderer can't help it.



Now, my take on both is that any deity would necesarrily be beyond the ken of a mortal man. In the case of Jehovah being omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent, it is because God can see a far bigger picture than is ever possible for a mortal to see that these aspects can exist in the face of the Problem of Evil and the Problem of Will.

God grants free will, which some people use to commit evil. God does not actively prevent this because it would serve to essentially rob all humanity of free will, because you could not even have a stray thought about pocketing a candy bar or punching that really annoying person in the face.

God can be omniscient in the face of free will because God exists in all places and times at once (omnipresence). God not only sees all paths, but also sees which one is being taken at any one moment. (If you start to pocket a candy bar at a store, God would know all possible outcomes, but he'd also know that before you left the store you placed it back on the shelf because you thought better of it. Because for God it is both yet to happen, and has already happened.)

[HYHYBT]

I still think a piece of it depends on *precisely* what 'omnipotent' means, and God's being eternal. I don't think omnipotence can include doing something intrinsically self-contradictory; within one universe, "God did this" and "God did not do this" cannot both be true*. Free will is important because without it whatever we do is meaningless rather than good. But it inherently includes the ability to choose wrong; a world with only right choices available, or where wrong ones are always miraculously undone which amounts to the same thing, is one where there aren't any significant ones to make.

*and I leave out "at the same time" because of that 'eternal' business. God is supposed to have created time; it doesn't apply to him. Anything he has ever done or will ever do, he is, in a sense, doing right now. Which makes me wonder whether, omnipotent or not, he could possibly do anything that he does not, in fact, do. It does fit in with what I was trying, badly, to express before: the reason I wouldn't buy the argument that God's omnipotence means he cannot grant us free will (because he could override it) is that I think giving it to us makes it impossible *not* to give it to us. Of course, I could be completely wrong.

[Ghel]

You are not a deity, and as such cannot have that perspective.

Even without God's perspective, I can see that there is unnecessary evil in this world. I don't see what perspective would cause anyone to think that the holocaust was necessary. Or a child being raped and murdered was necessary.

Do I have an answer? No. But then again, no one can have this answer.

So God is effing ineffable*? If you're saying that no one can understand God, I don't see how that applies. The problem of evil must be discussed in human terms. No other context makes sense.

*Apologies to Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.

[Ghel]

...God can see a far bigger picture than is ever possible for a mortal...
<snip>
God grants free will, which some people use to commit evil. God does not actively prevent this because it would serve to essentially rob all humanity of free will...

So if a young child is raped and murdered, is this because God needs the rapist's free will so that his actions could result in greater good? Certainly the child doesn't have any choice in the matter.

What's so great about free will, anyway? If we didn't have it, we wouldn't know we didn't have it, and so we wouldn't miss it.

Edited to add: As for Zeus, he was not considered to be omnipotent, omniscient, or necessarily good. He was also not the creator of the world nor the giver of free will as the god that we're discussing is.

[Ghel]

Free will is important because without it whatever we do is meaningless rather than good.

So if somebody does something intrinsically good, such as saving a life, but has no knowlege that the act was good, it's meaningless? I think the person whose life was saved would disagree.