Does God Exist A Philosophical Inquiry, Available Worldwide on Amazon... Paperback: mybook.to/doesGodexist This script is part of... - The Philosophy Vibe - "Philosophy of Religion Part I" eBook, available on Amazon: mybook.to/philosophyvibe1
I challenge the idea of natural evil. A tornado, earthquake, etc. cannot be evil simply because it is not capable of being good either. We only consider them "evil" if they wrought damage or take lives. If a tornado simply touches down on an unoccupied field and does no significant damage, is it still evil? Evil is a moral choice acts of nature are not capable of making. In other words, a tornado does not decide to destroy your home. It simply happened to be in its path, which was predetermined by air currents, humidly levels, wind directions, etc.
Good point. Furthermore, many of these "natural evils" are in fact beneficial to us depending on the context. Volcanoes create fertile soil, earthquakes raise up new areas of land, diseases prevent overpopulation in species and create stronger mutations. Hell, the dangers of the natural world are what helped drive the evolutionary process in the first place. So calling any of these things evil is a very narrow mindset.
I like you Good Tornado idea. Also, plate technology causes earthquakes. But it is a necessary process to recyle earths resources. Sometimes you have to work within tradeoffs and constraints.
@@negosyochannel7701 In order for something to commit an "evil" act, it has to have free moral agency. Since cancer is simply a mutation that effects previously healthy cells, it has no choice in the matter and so, consequently, is not evil. The results, however, can be catastrophic in the same way that a volcanic eruption is.
I just watched your video a like! What I love about this channel is that it does not really attempt to convince people of an argument but rather present both sides of an arguement and make people think for themselves what they belive. Keep up the good work, I like what you are doing and I learn from it.
Before discussing the Problem of evil, it is important to define what each person means by "good" and "evil". It would prevent the attempt to simply define away evil as simply the "lack of goodness".
That is precisely what evil is, it is a privation of good. Evil would not exist if good didn't exist. There would be no shadow without light, cold is the absence of heat, these privations do not have "positive definitions" but rather are dependent on and compared to a positive reference point. Consider the light example., light is made up of particles with wave like characteristics and it can have the property of illumination. What is darkness? It is the absence of the part of the light spectrum that has the property of illumination. Good and evil have s similar relationship.
@@moose9906 On the privation theory of evil, to say that one action is more evil than another action just means that one action is more good than the other action, right?
I'm glad you've started doing videos again! I watched a few of them last year for my first year in Uni and found them mega helpful. I was disappointed when I saw you hadn't uploaded in a while. Keep up the good work I look forward to seeing more content.
So happy that you found the videos helpful. Apologies for the gap but we are back now and there's a lot of material in the pipeline! Hope you find the new videos equally as helpful.
Don't apologise. disappointed wasn't the right word. I should have said i was a bit gutted. Thought you were onto a winner, was strange to see you didn't carry it on. Look forward to seeing the new content.
So much enjoy your videos. For some years now, while teaching various topics in the philosophy of religion in my university courses, I show your videos. An excellent resource tool and a great help explaining the various issues. The students love them. Thank you!
Irenaen Theodicy: We can only know good if we can compare it to evil. Therefore, Adam and Eve's decision to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was necessary for a full human understanding of good. Therefore, eating of the tree could not have been a sinful action.
However, that would only be plausible if God judged us accordingly to our actions and not our intent. Let’s take the Christian God for example. We know that the cross was predestined from all eternity to occur as seen in Acts 4:28. We know that the cross was the peak of Gods glory and grace in manifesting his love for us by achieving an atonement. What lead to the cross? Jesus couldn’t have been crucified if it weren’t for Judas’s betrayal. So why doesn’t God reward Judas for making the forgiveness of sins possible? Because Judas’s *intent* was to betray his Lord to be crucified for 30 pieces of silver. Therefore, Adam and Eve were justly punished because their intent wasn’t to inform good with the introduction of evil, but rather to act on their selfish carnal desires to be like God. This conflation between free will and divine sovereignty is explained by theologians through the doctrine of compatiblism/ soft theistic determinism
@@Dvstvrm if the action of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge was sinful why punish humanity as a whole? If your father killed a man should you then be put in jail for your father's actions? I think punishment for another's actions is cruel. I don't believe God is moral or good based on his actions throughout the Bible.
@@ldogg2356 The doctrine of original sin by no means teaches that we “inherit” Adams sin like some sort of genetic malignity. Adam is more than a person, he is our federal head. He is our representative of what we each of us would do in his place. Adam’s sin is our sin because we wouldn’t do any different in Adam’s place.
@@888PsyMike888or sin already existed before any fruit was eaten since they were already able to disobey god before they rebelled. Therefore, the world was not perfect when created and evil was always in the cards.
The question that keeps coming up for me is: If God is omnipotent and omniscient, and he wants everything to be the way he wants it to be, and he gets 'angry' if it doesn't happen that way, why would anything ever happen that he doesn't want to happen? If evil happens, then he wills it to happen, so he is evil as well as being 'good' and 'all loving'. He is like an abusive parent, he gives you life, but then threatens to torture you forever. Why would anyone want to worship such a god?
@@efolson here’s the the thing sir sorry I’m late 😭 but the thing is god grants us all free will which means we can either do gods will or not his will so evil can happen but wouldn’t entail that he wants that to happen
This is very helpful. I know this is a short video and there is only so much that you can cover in the time frame, but I would love to see the rebuttal to the basic objections presented. Regardless, this was pretty solid to show the main idea and basic objections. Keep up the good job.
If God's goal was to have humanity strive to be good & noble, then we should be living in a Karmic world. A world where good actions brings good fortune and bad actions bring misfortune. Instead we live in a world where bad actions can bring fortune and good action causes suffering, ect, ect...
in a karmic world good actions would be self-serving actions. And evil actions wouldn't be tempting. by having good people suffering and bad people rewarded... temptation and selflessness (doing good for the sake of doing good) is created.
@@daroay In the Christian view, heaven is a place void of evil thoughts & intentions & actions. That would be a place _without the freewill to choose_ anything but good. *Also;* A karmic world would not be full of the random horrors that would have good actions be punished and evil actions lauded. People would still do evil & commit crimes knowing they will suffer for it in some way, as they already take actions with _unavoidable obvious negative consequences_ everyday, anyway.
@@moodyrick8503 most people do evil things because they think they can get away with it. Countries where impunity soars, crime soars. But is true, some people are just pure evil, and want to get caught. Why would an all good, omnipotent and omniscient God allow this? Well, we could say because restraining free will to His creation would be even more evil (we would all be robots programmed to do good things) Still, human evil is limited to our human capacities, just like our free will is limited to our human capacities (we can't fly). Lets assume there is free will in heaven (as we are made in His image) the people there are benevolent (as a byproduct of faith which results in salvation + works), so they freely do good. They are not robots doing good. In Christianity (not in Judaism or any other world religion) only through faith can we be transformed, we are not saved through works, so it makes sense that neither works will guarantee a happy stay on earth.
@@daroay *In heaven;* You would have to drastically alter the nature of humanity, (freewill), to eliminate any negative urge to sin. (the bible says that sinning is in our nature) And if this was always possible, (eliminate the urge to sin), then why not do so, from the very start?? How can God truly know what it is like to be _lost, alone and without hope,_ if he is a perfect being? *And if God can have this knowledge without any actual suffering, then why can't we?* *More important;* Why would the Christian God require _"faith as a foundation for belief",_ when he would have known that _"believing things on faith",_ would lead billions to fall for false religions? _Setting humanity up, for failure._
@@moodyrick8503 I cant reply from a hard-core Christian point of view, since I dont believe it can actually answer it. If I reply from literal bible scripture... then there are things there that contradict each other. But think on the counter argument, lets say that reductionism/materialism and pure physics is the only real thing. That there is no metaphysics (a.k.a spiritual dimension). Then free will is an illusion (compatibilism is nothing more than word acrobatics to reconciliate determinism with free will), the only other true form of free will would be libertarian free will (indeterministic world with a metaphysics plane that allows us to take different decisions even under the exact same circumstances). So at the end there are 2 possible options: 1. You give up an spiritual metaphysical realm, but you will have to give up free will. Which is great! there cant be no regrets if you couldnt do otherwise and anxiety makes no sense here. 2. You believe in libertarian free will, but it will necessarily require a metaphysical realm (call it the kingdom of God, heaven, or whatever). I personally keep them both as truths until my final days. I mean, we can prove that Christian theology as it is is faulty. But we cant or can prove that there is something beyond this material world. Giving up a metaphysical world gives away our human experience like free will and conciusness. We are merely robots manipulated by the laws of cause and effect. You cant cause yourself. Regarding a change of nature in the afterlife, Jesus said: At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. That means that yes, our nature changes in the afterlife.
The solution proposed by Dr. Craig is that god is the good and commands us according to his nature. This apparently solves both horns of the problem. 1. God doesn’t have to arbitrarily make up morals. 2. There wouldn’t be morals without god. The problem this then creates is if gods nature is arbitrary. Is gods nature good because he chose it or did he choose it because it’s good. Dr. Craigs solution only puts gods nature in trouble..
If we have God all loving and most wise then gods reason to prevail evil must be a wise decision and there must be a greater love hidden in it that we don't know since we are not as wise as god
But he could have stopped it but chose not to and allowed evil to exist. Therefore he cannot be Omni benevolent. That also doesn't explain all the unnecessary evils that couldn't possibly be helpful for the good of humanity.
It's dismayingly clear that evil is still alive today, so let's do our part in standing up for morality by spreading awareness and having meaningful conversations about this issue.
Yes. Open theism. G knows everything he can logically know. No more. If god can’t make a rock so heavey he can’t lift it,nor should he have to, then how can he know he’s going to even try before he knows he’s going to try.
I enjoyed this video. I just picked the text book Intro to the Old Testament by Coogan and as I read I began learning about Theodicy. I also learned that the Genesis account of the fall was written as a polemic against ancient Israel's neighboring nations who all believed that the god's were responsible for evil, not man.
The hilarious part is that whatever you do, the problem of evil will always depend on the existence of free will, but the more and more we tackle with it, the more it seems that human actions are completely deterministic. xD
There is a fundamental logical contradiction in holding this two believes at the same time: 1. Consciouness and hence emotions have no effect because there is no free will. 2. Cosciousness was developed by evolution. For evolution to select anything as usefull it must have a real effect on survival. If you want to know more about this problem google "ephiphenomalism" and "evolution".
@@Rakscha-Sun Consciousness does have effect on survival, you have to be conscious in order to prevent yourself from falling of a cliff and dying, or even how to find food and shelter. Consciousness is one of the most important things for survival. Ephiphenomalism assumes that mental states are separate than physical states in the brain, it literary assumes "a soul", but under determinism we argue that everything is physical and determined, so I'd say believing that mental states are separate from physical is an illusion same as free will. If mental states weren't physical as well, stuff like drugs, tumors in the brain, any various toxins wouldn't have affected it, but they do.
@@kentheengineer592 Science and logic (so far) say that it can't, but maybe we find something new that supports the possibility of it. Also the abrahamic god by definition would know past present and future, so by definition that god cannot have free will, because knowing what everyone would do includes himself :D. The very notion of a god such as this one is a paradox, it can't happen, at least not in our world...
@@pog519you conflate consciousness with self-awareness. Consciousness doesn’t contribute to fitness payoffs in the survival game (evolutionary game theory) . Also if you look in the animal kingdom if consciousness would be mandatory for survival all species other than humans including apes would be gone extinct. And your comment in regards to a tumor or drugs effecting mental states: Yes they do but this doesn’t contradict dualism. As an analogy if you set your radio to another frequency (drugs) it will receive a different program/ transmission of information - or, if you remove a certain electronic element (tumor) the radios‘ function is corrupted . Both scenarios are not an argument for the brain-matter (radio) creating its own thoughts/ Consciousness (radio program) - rather its function as a receiver is compromised. The philosophical concepts behind that is either dualism (mind/ consciousness interacts somehow with the brain/ matter) or idealism (one universal consciousness with the brain/ matter being the emergent of it - mind supersedes matter). E.g. D. Hoffmann has an interesting theory that postulates that not space time but Consciousness is fundamental - it might solve the hard problem of consciousness. This concept doesn’t tackle the free will problem though.
I see where Purple Shirt is coming from. And I actually agree with him that the free will defense does not hold water. But I’m not convinced that the problem of evil proves that theism is false. 1) I believe we have good philosophical reasons for thinking that the existence of objective evil is actually evidence for theism not evidence against it. 2) Just because we might not be able to think of any good reasons why an Elohim(Hebrew for God) would cause or allow evil, it does not follow that there are actually not good reasons for an Elohim to cause or allow evil. And 3) Even if the problem of evil goes through it does not disprove theism. At most it would only disprove some form of orthodox theism.
"I believe we have good philosophical reasons for thinking that the existence of objective evil is actually evidence for theism not evidence against it." Like what? That's an interesting claim that I haven't encountered before.
@@redbearwarrior4859 If Elohim has reasons to do something, then he is not all-powerful, he can't do anything in any way he wants, if suffering is needed to achieve his goals.
@@goranmilic442 I don't think so. What if Elohim wanted to create a world that exemplified qualities like mercy, grace, forgiveness and courage. Not even an omnipotent being could create such a world without evil and suffering. Also take Paul Draper's Aesthetic Deism which posits an omnipotent and omniscient Elohim that is motivated by aesthetic goods instead of moral goods. On this view Elohim is like a cosmic author constructing a narrative. And if this is true then Elohim wants a world with evil and suffering because He wants to create interesting stories. So I just don't see how omnipotence is logically incompatible with having reasons for creating a world with evil and suffering.
Right, the question is "is the will free?" clearly we have a will, but are we the ultimate self-determiners of our lives? or is an omnipotent God the determiner of all.
I'm curious as to how theists rationalize their belief in miracles and the "power of prayer" and free-will. If free-will truly exists and was bestowed upon us by this mythical being just minding his own business, how do they explain him intervening in human life in these ways? Aren't miracles a direct contradiction to free-will?
Evil is necessary to know good. Also, I believe God is more glorified for the way he gives us a way to overcome the evil. Our salvation was make possible by a perfect triune God becoming a sinless man and therefore reconnecting us with the Father.
Great video and insights. Please endeavour and make more of these deep philosophical arguments. Presenting both sides and the appropriate response. I really learnt a lot from the one you did on the philosophy of Idealism by George Berkeley. Again great work. Shocking I haven't subscribe yet. Doing that ASAP.
The problem of Divine Foreknowledge isn’t even a problem, as knowledge =/= causation. Also knowing the future to me seems itself to be a logical contradiction and therefore not includable to omniscience, the same way square triangles and married bachelors are not included in omnipotence. Foreknowledge equaling causation would assume hard determinism. It would also assume that necessarily any antecedents cause/effect relationship is equal to another. All of these beg the question.
If God was real then he created evil by creating wrong, like when Eve is able to eat the apple and be punished, because it is wrong and punishable, then it was an act of evil created by God
because there's no such thing as the problem of evil in islam. Allah guides *and also misguides* whoever he wants if you're being misguided by the devil, you're finished but still have a chance to repent if you're being misguided by Allah himself, you're completely finished. none but hell awaits you, Allah even went so far saying that he sealed the hearts of disobedient disbelievers
I believe all good gods, all powerful gods, the good gods can create all evils, but defeated all evils for goods. The goods are more valuable than evils.
I think the concept of heaven severely undermines the free-will-defence. Think about it; heaven is a place where there's no evil, right? But people in heaven still have free will, right? Then heaven is proof that free will can exist without evil; the free-will-defence (that evil is a natural result of free will, and that God couldn't curb evil without curbing our free will), is contradicted by the idea of heaven, a place where everyone (supposedly) has free will, yet there is no evil in it. I suppose this is kind of a proof-of-concept of J. L. Mackie's argument; if you can imagine a place filled only with good people who have free will but just happen to never choose to do evil, then heaven would be such a place.
@@ChateauLonLon Adam and Eve were not punished. Yes they were forced out of the garden when they ate the forbiden fruit when God clearly told them not to. But even then, God clothed them and taught them how to raise livestock and everything they need for a basic life and most importantly, God offered them and the rest of mankind the gift of predestination.
God has free will and He 'always' loves and 'never' does wrong. So, why He does not give the same free will to human beings also. Then, we will also 'always' love and will 'never' do anything wrong. What is the problem in giving such kind of free will to us so that we never commit evil acts and retain our free will also (just like God has free will but he 'never' does anything wrong)?
I think good and evil do exist but only when they are faced against each other. For example in Fairy tales, the hero always has to fight the villain. And it is the verdict that confirms if evil or good exists at that moment. So if there was a war, who would win? For that war, whoever wins means that evil or good exists. If equal, then it's obvious that evil and good live in harmony. As it is equal most of the time, I conclude that evil and good live in perfect harmony, occasionally one rising over the other.
God's omniscience is not a problem for free will in general because even though he knows what can happen he is not allowed to interfere, otherwise we would be manipulated as discussed in the video, but then this means that God still lets us fail and does nothing about it ? Well our lives are predetermined but through our choices, God wanted to create the perfect creation in his image how could we be his image if we cannot do everything he does (In a matter of choice and creativity) In case God does not interfere in a bad choice we make is really his fault? He let us do whatever we want so it's not so fair to blame him when things start to go wrong
You guys do a great job threshing out the arguments but you made a small oversight in the Irenean/soul building theodicy when you said it only accounts for moral evil. Consider the soul building virtue that can be enhanced through "Natural Evils" like disease, or natural disasters. Courage could be enhanced by making the choice to rush into a fire to save someone or jumping in the water to save a person who was drowning. Perseverance could be enhanced by rebuilding after a disaster or though an illness, charity could be enhanced by giving food during a famine. Even the death of a loved one could bring others to consider their eternity and draw closer to God. The list could go on but I think you get the point. The soul building theodicy is applicable to both natural and moral evil. Beyond this, JL Mackie was incorrect when he claimed that there are humans who choose good so God could have made only humans who would freely choose good. The reality is every human chooses evil all the time, some choose good more often but no one is perfectly good, except Jesus, and this is why humanity needs a savior from the Christian worldview. If we examine Mackie's hypothesis farther the problem with it becomes more apparent. God directly created only two people. the rest of us come from the usual process. This means that for God to do what Mackie proposes He would have to filter out everyone who would ever choose an evil act. Even if you skip over the fatal problem of that including everyone, here you would have billions of people who would never get the chance to live because they would choose an evil act ,even a small one, even once. Considering that all these people are potentially redeemable through the sacrifice of Christ, the greater good is for them to be born and given the choice to sin and to be redeemed. Finally, it is a logical fallacy that omnipotence (or any degree of knowledge) eliminates freewill. I know the sun is going to rise in the east but I am not making it rise. A new mother knows her baby will wake up and want to eat but she is not causing the baby to wake up or be hungry.
Regardless of the contradiction of 'atemporal existence', this doesn't solve the problem, since the gist is that a certain knowledge of events (whenever they occur) implies that they must occur.
You mentioned in another video Hume's argument against an inteligent creator. He says that we are anthropomorphising god but in reality god would be nothing like humans as he is all powerul. Does that not stand to reason here as well. Why would we assume our concept of evil is the same as gods? Debates on god make for intresting discussions but essentially they are an exercise in futiity. If you believe then you can explain everything through god. If you don't believe then these arguments are redundant. Nothing can be proven as much as we would like to think it can.
Its evil to create a being thats capable of feeling then torment it entirely (rather the being you created is evil or not) therfore logically speaking the Christian God commits evil every time someone goes to hell.
And also why did God shift some people's lives to 180degrees to opposite direction if He doesn't intervene in people's choices lol. For example, Yahweh/God charged Paul's mind to persecute Christians and made him a Christian by revealing Himself to him in the form of Ghostlike Jesus? Why doesn't he reveal himself to modern day persecutors? And also there are many other verses in the Bible which clearly shows that God did intervene on many occasions!
God is defined as all powerful and all knowing. However if you are all powerful that means you cannot know everything because you do not know what it feels like to be powerless. Neeext
There's no such thing as two evils, there's only evil which mankind is to blame. Like it or not evil comes from sin and we are all sinful creatures. I know some of you won't like that but live with it and understand it.
@@888PsyMike888 God had given them thousands of trees they could have eaten from and was told not to eat from one, which is the tree of knowledge of good and evil and from the day you eat from it you will surely die. They were warned, but the devil deceived Eve by saying by eating from this tree you can become like God. You see they wanted to become like God themselves and from that one act of disobedience sin entered the world. It doesn't matter what you think about sin, one persons disobedience has led us to the times we're living in. And what has an android got to do with anything. I wish you all the best.
@@cletusmorraies9370 You wrote Apple with a capital letter, so I thought you were making a joke. I guess the joke's on me. Yes they could've eaten from any tree, but how would they have known that eating from that specific tree was a bad thing if they didn't have a concept of good and evil? Also, why do I have to be punished for something someone else did? Should I hold you accountable for the sins of your parents or everyone that came before you?
This is an interesting thing l, because part of the issue i notice also is by saying god doesn't exist, you kind of try to prove some invalidity to some parts of religion, it's something controversial for religious people understandably. But if we are looking at a God who created us, is there some inevitable way of xreating humans where some tragic disaster has to he possible in order for the good stuff to be more logical and ideal. Its basically raises the question of God somehow being unable to avoid the major suffering in life when creating us. Im still glad God created us hypothetically but are we saying Gods powers had to make sure that the tortured animal is happening until we prevent it, in order to have the clear good life better in contrast being more enjoyable. Another idea i guess is that God is still super powerful and near perfect or benevolent, but has some sort of nuanced decision or partially limited power and included some negative extremes that would happen but because it was actually the best idea God had for life. Its just understandably controversial when some argument against god is had when religions have some core structure that is in conflict with the idea of no God. It becomes unjustifiably viewed immoral for some to notice that a strong stance of atheism or doubts on God is held. The profoundnesd of life i think does not have a dependance on God.
YAH, JAH = Hallelujah The phrase "hallelujah" translates to "praise Jah/Yah", though it carries a deeper meaning as the word halel in Hebrew means a joyous praise in song. Yahweh, name for the God of the Israelites
But we don't have free will To illustrate a video game sprite may believe it has free will because it can make choices of direction...(WITHIN) the invisible bariers of the programming of the physics of the game if the game like reality is timed and it runs out for what your programmed to accomplish then that's usually game over if the game has other exploitive pushy programs to your survival within the game then urr forced to contend with them Another indication of determinism. Finally there's energy within the game as well if mistakes are made🤔🤨😒 and one fails to consumate what is demanded then once again that is game over Which all Add up to free Will's Non exsistence Unfortunately God never free'd even one slave and is a slave itself bound by perfection which is why we're feeling the blunt force of this sad sadistic game perpetrated on what we all could have been which is innocent
If you have a balanced system of good and evil there will be no progress, no meaningful goal or interaction, so one side must push and put the whole duality system out of balance, then out of suffering you create more heroes in the journey, cause you need to overcome evil, this is a systemic game design, so Natural disaster is a must have in order to create more objectives to play the game, as it cause suffering, so you have to do something about it, help others, or solve the problems caused by those random evil events! The only thing that creator of this life game wants is to experience, stories and journeys, up and downs and all that challenges, otherwise it's just a boring endless dream that you don't have to do anything, just sit and enjoy without even deserving it, no one would want to play that lame game, yea it's called heaven.
but what about god or higher deity that just neutral... there's no good or bad... what makes good or bad is just human, we say good if something in our term(moral value), so human made good or bad... as Nietzsche once wrote: beyond good and evil 😏
The final argument in the video isn't a good argument. It fails to fully understand the meaning of free will and God's omniscience. The two are not mutual exclusive. To understand, I would direct you to study the physics of extra dimensions. God would be a tenth dimensional (or higher) entity. At the tenth dimension, all practical possibilities can become reality and all practical impossibilities cannot. The term "practical" here means the measures necessary to comply with the universal laws of physics and mathematics. A tenth dimensional entity would have the ability to see all possible choices, paths, and outcomes that any and all third dimensional entities can make in any and all practical circumstances. But a tenth dimensional entity cannot know definitively which choices a third dimensional entity will make until the moment the choice is made in the entity's mind. You might thus argue that this robs a tenth dimensional entity of omniscience, for how can something be known and not known simultaneously? The answer to that question is one of semantics in arguing for an absolute, yet you may or may not be perfectly content with accepting quantum theory, which establishes a similar dilemma; that particles can exist and not exist in two or more places simultaneously. Making this counterargument also presumes that God cannot have any limitations, which is a red herring. God is certainly limited to things that are practically possible. While God can do things that are impossible for Man, He cannot do things that are practically impossible for Himself (i.e. a squared circle). This doesn't mean that God isn't omnipotent; it means that His power does not negate itself. I would also add that there are many examples personal to us where we know things prior to actually confirming knowledge of those things. And I offer that final thought not necessarily as an argument but as a means of relating to the presumed issue.
@JO Okay, if time is the deciding factor, then it isn't observable, reproducible, and falsifiable. Therefore, it is not based on scientific evidence but faith.
@JO You're referring to genetics, epigenetics, and natural selection, not macroevolution, which is the change from one kind of organism into another. Is there any observable, reproducible, and falsifiable evidence of one kind of organism evoving into another?
@JO I understand the theory of macroevolution. What I'm asking for is evidence to support it. I'm not contesting natural selection. I'm contesting the offered conclusion that natural selection proves macroevolution. Conclusions must be based on evidence, not "could bes", "looks likes", "maybes", and "best guesses".
@JO Again, you are merely reciting the theory of macroevolution. It has not been demonstrated through genetics and the fossil record. That is false. You are listening to scientists who say, "Fossil specimen A has similarities to fossil specimen B, and modern living specimen such-and-such," and you are appealing to their authority on the matter without questioning how they can conclude one is an ancestor of the other based on incomplete data and speculation. No, genetics is not the answer either, for many organisms share similar DNA, markers, and traits, and it does not definitively mean that they shared a common ancestor.
@JO An explanation and evidence are two different things. Fossils do not contain DNA. DNA can only be extracted from unfossilized remains. Thus, comparing fossil skeletons to anything living today and attempting to extrapolate ancestry is absolute pseudoscience.
1 Corinthians 15:1-4 Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; 2 By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. 3 For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; 4 And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:
As if Adam and Eve are white and this image of Jesus that prevails, isn't it painful even for beasts? But we are still so brutish. God is still a grey haired white man and we still believe in comforts and give away our will for the sake of some eternity somewhere some redemption for for the unimagineable suffering that goes on but it is only a place holder for our inability. And how annoying that one mans voice is. like are you putting it on for the video or what?
For the soul making the theodicy, maybe natural disaster are made to advance human technology. God want human to perfectly understand natural too, and better at mastering the natural
The problem of evil is only a problem for the existence of a *GOOD* , or purely good, all-loving, omnibenevolent God. That may he the god of common theistic apologetics, but it's not the God of the Bible. (Or of reason or observation for that matter.) The Biblical God is the source of, and is sovereign over, both good and evil, and everything else for that matter; so you have to learn to take the good with the bad. Job, the protagonist of the oldest book in the Bible, tells us this outright. When Job's idiot friends counter his analysis with the omnibenevolence/free will theodicy, God shows up personally to reprove them, threaten them with divine retribution for their blasphemy, and endorse Job's viewpoint: "Shall we receive good from the hand of the Lord, and not evil? The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name (reputation) of the Lord." In other words; this is MONOtheism, there's only ONE God for everything, who is LORD of everything. The existence of evil doesn't ruin his rep, it's par for the course; because "evil" is a subset of "everything". If I'm the President of the United States, the existence of Alabama does not invalidate my presidency, because that's *one of the United States* of which I am the president, you see. A god of pure goodness could not be a monotheistic deity; at best, he'd be a dualistic deity, as in Zoroastrianism, with a separate god of/for evil. Unless you want to go full Greek and have a god of feet, a god of olives, a god of manure, a god of laundry, etc. ad nauseam.
@@auroraphoenix8103 If God would exist and if he is all-powerful and all-good, then nothing would stop him from preventing it. Since hurricanes exist, he either isn't all-powerful or all-good or he doesn't exist.
@@goranmilic442 Lol? If there is a "god" then you are thinking for a "god" coming from a puny lower conscious being, I highly doubt if there was a "god" it would care about your thoughts nor the people of this earth. "Good" is a relative term. Killing people doesn't mean bad nor good ;)
@@auroraphoenix8103 I agree I can't know properties of some proposed god. What I said was that such god couldn't be considered good and loving and benevolent from our point. If good doesn't mean helping people, then I disagree that "good" is relative, "good" is actually meaningless then, it describes something that doesn't exist.
1:45 OK then what about the animals? Why is he killing and allowing the torturing and suffering and pain of animals? Lets face it, whatever is controlling this joint is one sick ass M%$^F$%^!
Does God Exist A Philosophical Inquiry, Available Worldwide on Amazon...
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This is gold. How can this channel be so underrated?
Thank you :)
Wow you guys are seriously helping me through my A level, thank you!👌🏻
You're welcome, glad we could help.
I challenge the idea of natural evil. A tornado, earthquake, etc. cannot be evil simply because it is not capable of being good either. We only consider them "evil" if they wrought damage or take lives. If a tornado simply touches down on an unoccupied field and does no significant damage, is it still evil? Evil is a moral choice acts of nature are not capable of making. In other words, a tornado does not decide to destroy your home. It simply happened to be in its path, which was predetermined by air currents, humidly levels, wind directions, etc.
Good point. Furthermore, many of these "natural evils" are in fact beneficial to us depending on the context. Volcanoes create fertile soil, earthquakes raise up new areas of land, diseases prevent overpopulation in species and create stronger mutations. Hell, the dangers of the natural world are what helped drive the evolutionary process in the first place. So calling any of these things evil is a very narrow mindset.
@@conorowens8382 What about cancer to humans? What good can that bring?
I like you Good Tornado idea. Also, plate technology causes earthquakes. But it is a necessary process to recyle earths resources. Sometimes you have to work within tradeoffs and constraints.
@@negosyochannel7701 In order for something to commit an "evil" act, it has to have free moral agency. Since cancer is simply a mutation that effects previously healthy cells, it has no choice in the matter and so, consequently, is not evil. The results, however, can be catastrophic in the same way that a volcanic eruption is.
I just watched your video a like! What I love about this channel is that it does not really attempt to convince people of an argument but rather present both sides of an arguement and make people think for themselves what they belive. Keep up the good work, I like what you are doing and I learn from it.
Thank you, glad you like the content :)
Before discussing the Problem of evil, it is important to define what each person means by "good" and "evil". It would prevent the attempt to simply define away evil as simply the "lack of goodness".
That is precisely what evil is, it is a privation of good. Evil would not exist if good didn't exist. There would be no shadow without light, cold is the absence of heat, these privations do not have "positive definitions" but rather are dependent on and compared to a positive reference point. Consider the light example., light is made up of particles with wave like characteristics and it can have the property of illumination. What is darkness? It is the absence of the part of the light spectrum that has the property of illumination. Good and evil have s similar relationship.
@@moose9906 On the privation theory of evil, to say that one action is more evil than another action just means that one action is more good than the other action, right?
@@chad969define good and evil
@@ydlbm Good and Evil have no meaning but a are merely expressions of personal feelings
@@user-ip8lg3uz2u So morality don't exist
If God don't exist. Everything is relative.
I'm glad you've started doing videos again! I watched a few of them last year for my first year in Uni and found them mega helpful. I was disappointed when I saw you hadn't uploaded in a while. Keep up the good work I look forward to seeing more content.
So happy that you found the videos helpful. Apologies for the gap but we are back now and there's a lot of material in the pipeline! Hope you find the new videos equally as helpful.
Don't apologise. disappointed wasn't the right word. I should have said i was a bit gutted. Thought you were onto a winner, was strange to see you didn't carry it on. Look forward to seeing the new content.
This video really helped me write my essay on the problem of evil. Thank you!
You're welcome, glad we could help.
really great vid. you guys are really great at explaining these deep concepts with clarity. thanks so much!
You're welcome, thanks for watching.
So much enjoy your videos. For some years now, while teaching various topics in the philosophy of religion in my university courses, I show your videos. An excellent resource tool and a great help explaining the various issues. The students love them. Thank you!
Irenaen Theodicy: We can only know good if we can compare it to evil. Therefore, Adam and Eve's decision to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was necessary for a full human understanding of good. Therefore, eating of the tree could not have been a sinful action.
However, that would only be plausible if God judged us accordingly to our actions and not our intent. Let’s take the Christian God for example. We know that the cross was predestined from all eternity to occur as seen in Acts 4:28. We know that the cross was the peak of Gods glory and grace in manifesting his love for us by achieving an atonement. What lead to the cross? Jesus couldn’t have been crucified if it weren’t for Judas’s betrayal. So why doesn’t God reward Judas for making the forgiveness of sins possible? Because Judas’s *intent* was to betray his Lord to be crucified for 30 pieces of silver. Therefore, Adam and Eve were justly punished because their intent wasn’t to inform good with the introduction of evil, but rather to act on their selfish carnal desires to be like God. This conflation between free will and divine sovereignty is explained by theologians through the doctrine of compatiblism/ soft theistic determinism
@@Dvstvrm if the action of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge was sinful why punish humanity as a whole? If your father killed a man should you then be put in jail for your father's actions? I think punishment for another's actions is cruel. I don't believe God is moral or good based on his actions throughout the Bible.
@@ldogg2356 The doctrine of original sin by no means teaches that we “inherit” Adams sin like some sort of genetic malignity. Adam is more than a person, he is our federal head. He is our representative of what we each of us would do in his place. Adam’s sin is our sin because we wouldn’t do any different in Adam’s place.
It couldn't have been sinful in the first place, because Adam and Eve hadn't eaten from the tree yet.
@@888PsyMike888or sin already existed before any fruit was eaten since they were already able to disobey god before they rebelled. Therefore, the world was not perfect when created and evil was always in the cards.
The question that keeps coming up for me is: If God is omnipotent and omniscient, and he wants everything to be the way he wants it to be, and he gets 'angry' if it doesn't happen that way, why would anything ever happen that he doesn't want to happen? If evil happens, then he wills it to happen, so he is evil as well as being 'good' and 'all loving'. He is like an abusive parent, he gives you life, but then threatens to torture you forever. Why would anyone want to worship such a god?
Great remark.
But he's not just Omnipotent, all good, and omniscient, he's also all wise. There's a wisdom behind all the evil in this world that is ultimately good
@@Zaid26127 Ok. ? ?
@@mildredmartinez8843 therefore such a God deserves gratitude and worship
@@efolson here’s the the thing sir sorry I’m late 😭 but the thing is god grants us all free will which means we can either do gods will or not his will so evil can happen but wouldn’t entail that he wants that to happen
This is very helpful. I know this is a short video and there is only so much that you can cover in the time frame, but I would love to see the rebuttal to the basic objections presented. Regardless, this was pretty solid to show the main idea and basic objections. Keep up the good job.
Glad it was helpful, thanks for watching.
If God's goal was to have humanity strive to be good & noble,
then we should be living in a Karmic world.
A world where good actions brings good fortune and bad actions bring misfortune.
Instead we live in a world where bad actions can bring fortune and good action causes suffering, ect, ect...
in a karmic world good actions would be self-serving actions. And evil actions wouldn't be tempting.
by having good people suffering and bad people rewarded... temptation and selflessness (doing good for the sake of doing good) is created.
@@daroay In the Christian view, heaven is a place void of evil thoughts & intentions & actions.
That would be a place _without the freewill to choose_ anything but good.
*Also;*
A karmic world would not be full of the random horrors that would have good actions be punished and evil actions lauded.
People would still do evil & commit crimes knowing they will suffer for it in some way, as they already take actions with _unavoidable obvious negative consequences_ everyday, anyway.
@@moodyrick8503 most people do evil things because they think they can get away with it. Countries where impunity soars, crime soars.
But is true, some people are just pure evil, and want to get caught. Why would an all good, omnipotent and omniscient God allow this? Well, we could say because restraining free will to His creation would be even more evil (we would all be robots programmed to do good things)
Still, human evil is limited to our human capacities, just like our free will is limited to our human capacities (we can't fly).
Lets assume there is free will in heaven (as we are made in His image) the people there are benevolent (as a byproduct of faith which results in salvation + works), so they freely do good. They are not robots doing good. In Christianity (not in Judaism or any other world religion) only through faith can we be transformed, we are not saved through works, so it makes sense that neither works will guarantee a happy stay on earth.
@@daroay *In heaven;*
You would have to drastically alter the nature of humanity, (freewill), to eliminate any negative urge to sin.
(the bible says that sinning is in our nature)
And if this was always possible, (eliminate the urge to sin), then why not do so, from the very start??
How can God truly know what it is like to be _lost, alone and without hope,_ if he is a perfect being?
*And if God can have this knowledge without any actual suffering, then why can't we?*
*More important;*
Why would the Christian God require _"faith as a foundation for belief",_ when he would have known that _"believing things on faith",_ would lead billions to fall for false religions?
_Setting humanity up, for failure._
@@moodyrick8503 I cant reply from a hard-core Christian point of view, since I dont believe it can actually answer it. If I reply from literal bible scripture... then there are things there that contradict each other.
But think on the counter argument, lets say that reductionism/materialism and pure physics is the only real thing. That there is no metaphysics (a.k.a spiritual dimension). Then free will is an illusion (compatibilism is nothing more than word acrobatics to reconciliate determinism with free will), the only other true form of free will would be libertarian free will (indeterministic world with a metaphysics plane that allows us to take different decisions even under the exact same circumstances).
So at the end there are 2 possible options:
1. You give up an spiritual metaphysical realm, but you will have to give up free will. Which is great! there cant be no regrets if you couldnt do otherwise and anxiety makes no sense here.
2. You believe in libertarian free will, but it will necessarily require a metaphysical realm (call it the kingdom of God, heaven, or whatever).
I personally keep them both as truths until my final days. I mean, we can prove that Christian theology as it is is faulty. But we cant or can prove that there is something beyond this material world. Giving up a metaphysical world gives away our human experience like free will and conciusness. We are merely robots manipulated by the laws of cause and effect. You cant cause yourself.
Regarding a change of nature in the afterlife, Jesus said:
At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.
That means that yes, our nature changes in the afterlife.
The solution proposed by Dr. Craig is that god is the good and commands us according to his nature. This apparently solves both horns of the problem. 1. God doesn’t have to arbitrarily make up morals. 2. There wouldn’t be morals without god.
The problem this then creates is if gods nature is arbitrary. Is gods nature good because he chose it or did he choose it because it’s good. Dr. Craigs solution only puts gods nature in trouble..
The Euthyphro dilemma, basically.
I really love your videos and especially the guy on the left :p
Thank you! Glad you are enjoying the content :)
This argument was so good that No athiests use it.
If we have God all loving and most wise then gods reason to prevail evil must be a wise decision and there must be a greater love hidden in it that we don't know since we are not as wise as god
But he could have stopped it but chose not to and allowed evil to exist. Therefore he cannot be Omni benevolent. That also doesn't explain all the unnecessary evils that couldn't possibly be helpful for the good of humanity.
It's dismayingly clear that evil is still alive today, so let's do our part in standing up for morality by spreading awareness and having meaningful conversations about this issue.
God knows everything doesn't mean he knows what a man will do with his free will.. People have took this "god knows everything" to extreme
Then he doesn't know everything?
@@danster813 i dont fw god anymore lol
Yes. Open theism. G knows everything he can logically know. No more.
If god can’t make a rock so heavey he can’t lift it,nor should he have to, then how can he know he’s going to even try before he knows he’s going to try.
There doesn’t need to be bad. It could literally be good and shades of better all the way up to perfect.
That is simply putting icing on 💩 and calling it cake.
I disagree, but I like your analogy.
Phenomenal video, please continue producing such great content!
Thank you very much. And don't worry a lot more to come.
I enjoyed this video. I just picked the text book Intro to the Old Testament by Coogan and as I read I began learning about Theodicy. I also learned that the Genesis account of the fall was written as a polemic against ancient Israel's neighboring nations who all believed that the god's were responsible for evil, not man.
Excellent! Please keep on doing other videos.
Jai Thang thank you. And yes we're currently releasing weekly. Next video set for Sunday.
Maybe there is no "Problem of Evil;" rather, we should consider the "Problem of God's Existence."
This is a good statement.
Thank you for creating this channel
The hilarious part is that whatever you do, the problem of evil will always depend on the existence of free will, but the more and more we tackle with it, the more it seems that human actions are completely deterministic. xD
There is a fundamental logical contradiction in holding this two believes at the same time: 1. Consciouness and hence emotions have no effect because there is no free will. 2. Cosciousness was developed by evolution. For evolution to select anything as usefull it must have a real effect on survival. If you want to know more about this problem google "ephiphenomalism" and "evolution".
@@Rakscha-Sun Consciousness does have effect on survival, you have to be conscious in order to prevent yourself from falling of a cliff and dying, or even how to find food and shelter. Consciousness is one of the most important things for survival. Ephiphenomalism assumes that mental states are separate than physical states in the brain, it literary assumes "a soul", but under determinism we argue that everything is physical and determined, so I'd say believing that mental states are separate from physical is an illusion same as free will. If mental states weren't physical as well, stuff like drugs, tumors in the brain, any various toxins wouldn't have affected it, but they do.
Better Question How Could You Have Free Will Occur Or Better Yet Does God Have Free Will?
@@kentheengineer592 Science and logic (so far) say that it can't, but maybe we find something new that supports the possibility of it. Also the abrahamic god by definition would know past present and future, so by definition that god cannot have free will, because knowing what everyone would do includes himself :D. The very notion of a god such as this one is a paradox, it can't happen, at least not in our world...
@@pog519you conflate consciousness with self-awareness. Consciousness doesn’t contribute to fitness payoffs in the survival game (evolutionary game theory) .
Also if you look in the animal kingdom if consciousness would be mandatory for survival all species other than humans including apes would be gone extinct.
And your comment in regards to a tumor or drugs effecting mental states: Yes they do but this doesn’t contradict dualism. As an analogy if you set your radio to another frequency (drugs) it will receive a different program/ transmission of information - or, if you remove a certain electronic element (tumor) the radios‘ function is corrupted . Both scenarios are not an argument for the brain-matter (radio) creating its own thoughts/ Consciousness (radio program) - rather its function as a receiver is compromised.
The philosophical concepts behind that is either dualism (mind/ consciousness interacts somehow with the brain/ matter) or idealism (one universal consciousness with the brain/ matter being the emergent of it - mind supersedes matter). E.g. D. Hoffmann has an interesting theory that postulates that not space time but Consciousness is fundamental - it might solve the hard problem of consciousness.
This concept doesn’t tackle the free will problem though.
I see where Purple Shirt is coming from. And I actually agree with him that the free will defense does not hold water. But I’m not convinced that the problem of evil proves that theism is false. 1) I believe we have good philosophical reasons for thinking that the existence of objective evil is actually evidence for theism not evidence against it. 2) Just because we might not be able to think of any good reasons why an Elohim(Hebrew for God) would cause or allow evil, it does not follow that there are actually not good reasons for an Elohim to cause or allow evil. And 3) Even if the problem of evil goes through it does not disprove theism. At most it would only disprove some form of orthodox theism.
what do you mean in your second reason, do you mean that it is good that God allows evil?
@@droneboy5415 I just mean that it is possible that Elohim would cause or allow evil for a good reason of which we are ignorant.
"I believe we have good philosophical reasons for thinking that the existence of objective evil is actually evidence for theism not evidence against it."
Like what? That's an interesting claim that I haven't encountered before.
@@redbearwarrior4859 If Elohim has reasons to do something, then he is not all-powerful, he can't do anything in any way he wants, if suffering is needed to achieve his goals.
@@goranmilic442 I don't think so. What if Elohim wanted to create a world that exemplified qualities like mercy, grace, forgiveness and courage. Not even an omnipotent being could create such a world without evil and suffering.
Also take Paul Draper's Aesthetic Deism which posits an omnipotent and omniscient Elohim that is motivated by aesthetic goods instead of moral goods. On this view Elohim is like a cosmic author constructing a narrative. And if this is true then Elohim wants a world with evil and suffering because He wants to create interesting stories.
So I just don't see how omnipotence is logically incompatible with having reasons for creating a world with evil and suffering.
Why call it free will, when the choices can result in punishment?
Right, the question is "is the will free?" clearly we have a will, but are we the ultimate self-determiners of our lives? or is an omnipotent God the determiner of all.
your free to make bad choices but but that doesn't mean you won't be punished in the next life for making them.😄
Dumbest comment of the year. Freedom to choose is not freedom from consequence
I'm curious as to how theists rationalize their belief in miracles and the "power of prayer" and free-will. If free-will truly exists and was bestowed upon us by this mythical being just minding his own business, how do they explain him intervening in human life in these ways? Aren't miracles a direct contradiction to free-will?
Evil is necessary to know good. Also, I believe God is more glorified for the way he gives us a way to overcome the evil. Our salvation was make possible by a perfect triune God becoming a sinless man and therefore reconnecting us with the Father.
Evil exists aslong as people chose to judge each other.
Knowing something doesn't mean interaction with something
Great video and insights.
Please endeavour and make more of these deep philosophical arguments. Presenting both sides and the appropriate response.
I really learnt a lot from the one you did on the philosophy of Idealism by George Berkeley.
Again great work.
Shocking I haven't subscribe yet. Doing that ASAP.
Thank you! And we still have a lot of videos in pipeline so stay subscribed.
@@PhilosophyVibe i thought ther was 1 of u
The problem of Divine Foreknowledge isn’t even a problem, as knowledge =/= causation.
Also knowing the future to me seems itself to be a logical contradiction and therefore not includable to omniscience, the same way square triangles and married bachelors are not included in omnipotence. Foreknowledge equaling causation would assume hard determinism. It would also assume that necessarily any antecedents cause/effect relationship is equal to another. All of these beg the question.
Knowledge does equal causation when one makes an active decision to facilitate that end goal.
@@drrickmarshall1191 If that is always the case than sure.
@JO There is no correlation between knowledge of something and causing it to happen.
@@drrickmarshall1191 that would be another variable
Masterpiece. Thank you for your efforts 👌
You're welcome, thanks for watching.
Evil is a subjective term, that humans create the define what they don’t like.
If God was real then he created evil by creating wrong, like when Eve is able to eat the apple and be punished, because it is wrong and punishable, then it was an act of evil created by God
Please also debate from also an Islamic philosophical perspective. Its the second major religion and needs to be discussed
because there's no such thing as the problem of evil in islam. Allah guides *and also misguides* whoever he wants
if you're being misguided by the devil, you're finished but still have a chance to repent
if you're being misguided by Allah himself, you're completely finished. none but hell awaits you, Allah even went so far saying that he sealed the hearts of disobedient disbelievers
The two arguments format is just amazing… for an old dog like me who decided to learn some new “philosophical” tricks, you are making it easy for me
"Evil" is not an event, but an evaluation - no different than "Good".
I believe all good gods, all powerful gods, the good gods can create all evils, but defeated all evils for goods. The goods are more valuable than evils.
I think the concept of heaven severely undermines the free-will-defence. Think about it; heaven is a place where there's no evil, right? But people in heaven still have free will, right? Then heaven is proof that free will can exist without evil; the free-will-defence (that evil is a natural result of free will, and that God couldn't curb evil without curbing our free will), is contradicted by the idea of heaven, a place where everyone (supposedly) has free will, yet there is no evil in it.
I suppose this is kind of a proof-of-concept of J. L. Mackie's argument; if you can imagine a place filled only with good people who have free will but just happen to never choose to do evil, then heaven would be such a place.
The Bible actually never says we have free will. Also, evil itself first originated in heaven and brought its influence to Earth.
Canary Tiger if the Bible doesn’t say we have free will, why is there punishment and reward?
@@ivyfrancis582
The Bible also doesn't say anything about punishment after death.
@@ArodrethEruhin They aren't specifically referring to the afterlife, but really any instance of punishment and reward. Such as Adam and Eve?
@@ChateauLonLon
Adam and Eve were not punished. Yes they were forced out of the garden when they ate the forbiden fruit when God clearly told them not to. But even then, God clothed them and taught them how to raise livestock and everything they need for a basic life and most importantly, God offered them and the rest of mankind the gift of predestination.
God has free will and He 'always' loves and 'never' does wrong. So, why He does not give the same free will to human beings also.
Then, we will also 'always' love and will 'never' do anything wrong.
What is the problem in giving such kind of free will to us so that we never commit evil acts and retain our free will also (just like God has free will but he 'never' does anything wrong)?
good explanation, upload more video
Thank you very much. Still a lot more videos to come.
I think good and evil do exist but only when they are faced against each other. For example in Fairy tales, the hero always has to fight the villain. And it is the verdict that confirms if evil or good exists at that moment. So if there was a war, who would win? For that war, whoever wins means that evil or good exists. If equal, then it's obvious that evil and good live in harmony. As it is equal most of the time, I conclude that evil and good live in perfect harmony, occasionally one rising over the other.
You are wrong. If good can only exist if evil exists, then not being raped can only be possible if rape is possible. That is not true.
God's omniscience is not a problem for free will in general because even though he knows what can happen he is not allowed to interfere, otherwise we would be manipulated as discussed in the video, but then this means that God still lets us fail and does nothing about it ? Well our lives are predetermined but through our choices, God wanted to create the perfect creation in his image how could we be his image if we cannot do everything he does (In a matter of choice and creativity) In case God does not interfere in a bad choice we make is really his fault? He let us do whatever we want so it's not so fair to blame him when things start to go wrong
I could use more responses on the videos last take. Thank you.
Powerful channel 🎉
Thank you!
Please make a video on depression and anxiety real cause...
Love you guys:))
If God does exist, with us being created in their image, then they're either indifferent to the general woes of mankind or a sadist.
Embrace the absurd
Why is there evil in the world? Because there is good in the world.
Where in the christian bible does it say god is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent?
You guys do a great job threshing out the arguments but you made a small oversight in the Irenean/soul building theodicy when you said it only accounts for moral evil. Consider the soul building virtue that can be enhanced through "Natural Evils" like disease, or natural disasters. Courage could be enhanced by making the choice to rush into a fire to save someone or jumping in the water to save a person who was drowning. Perseverance could be enhanced by rebuilding after a disaster or though an illness, charity could be enhanced by giving food during a famine. Even the death of a loved one could bring others to consider their eternity and draw closer to God. The list could go on but I think you get the point. The soul building theodicy is applicable to both natural and moral evil.
Beyond this, JL Mackie was incorrect when he claimed that there are humans who choose good so God could have made only humans who would freely choose good. The reality is every human chooses evil all the time, some choose good more often but no one is perfectly good, except Jesus, and this is why humanity needs a savior from the Christian worldview. If we examine Mackie's hypothesis farther the problem with it becomes more apparent. God directly created only two people. the rest of us come from the usual process. This means that for God to do what Mackie proposes He would have to filter out everyone who would ever choose an evil act. Even if you skip over the fatal problem of that including everyone, here you would have billions of people who would never get the chance to live because they would choose an evil act ,even a small one, even once. Considering that all these people are potentially redeemable through the sacrifice of Christ, the greater good is for them to be born and given the choice to sin and to be redeemed.
Finally, it is a logical fallacy that omnipotence (or any degree of knowledge) eliminates freewill. I know the sun is going to rise in the east but I am not making it rise. A new mother knows her baby will wake up and want to eat but she is not causing the baby to wake up or be hungry.
8:16 I will just add that God doesn't know "the future" as we see it. He's not within time.
Yes, God is timeless, for him, future and past, don't exit, everything is happening, in one eternal moment.
@@pauljohnson6019 that means everything is God, as there only ever is the NOW
If a deity does not know what it's like to know "the future" as we do, then it's not omniscient.
Regardless of the contradiction of 'atemporal existence', this doesn't solve the problem, since the gist is that a certain knowledge of events (whenever they occur) implies that they must occur.
New subscriber here ❤.Where u from btw ?
Welcome, thanks for the sub. We're from the UK.
@@PhilosophyVibe cool bro
You mentioned in another video Hume's argument against an inteligent creator. He says that we are anthropomorphising god but in reality god would be nothing like humans as he is all powerul. Does that not stand to reason here as well. Why would we assume our concept of evil is the same as gods? Debates on god make for intresting discussions but essentially they are an exercise in futiity. If you believe then you can explain everything through god. If you don't believe then these arguments are redundant. Nothing can be proven as much as we would like to think it can.
Great video guys!
Thank you, glad you enjoyed.
The only problem with evil is the assumption that it exists.
Please make more of this...
Its evil to create a being thats capable of feeling then torment it entirely (rather the being you created is evil or not) therfore logically speaking the Christian God commits evil every time someone goes to hell.
It's like a dialogue
That's cool and all but did anyone ask?
Sir, this is a Wendy’s
And also why did God shift some people's lives to 180degrees to opposite direction if He doesn't intervene in people's choices lol. For example, Yahweh/God charged Paul's mind to persecute Christians and made him a Christian by revealing Himself to him in the form of Ghostlike Jesus? Why doesn't he reveal himself to modern day persecutors? And also there are many other verses in the Bible which clearly shows that God did intervene on many occasions!
God is defined as all powerful and all knowing. However if you are all powerful that means you cannot know everything because you do not know what it feels like to be powerless. Neeext
Tolkien nerds refer to it as the problem of Morgoth
2:55 Sounds like this so called God can not control his own creation.
There's no such thing as two evils, there's only evil which mankind is to blame. Like it or not evil comes from sin and we are all sinful creatures. I know some of you won't like that but live with it and understand it.
So we're all sinful creatures because our ancestors ate an apple?
@@888PsyMike888 Yes, it's as simple as that and how do you know it was an Apple?
@@cletusmorraies9370 Because you can't eat an Android. And no it's not as simple as that. Explain to me why eating from the tree was a sin.
@@888PsyMike888 God had given them thousands of trees they could have eaten from and was told not to eat from one, which is the tree of knowledge of good and evil and from the day you eat from it you will surely die. They were warned, but the devil deceived Eve by saying by eating from this tree you can become like God. You see they wanted to become like God themselves and from that one act of disobedience sin entered the world. It doesn't matter what you think about sin, one persons disobedience has led us to the times we're living in. And what has an android got to do with anything. I wish you all the best.
@@cletusmorraies9370 You wrote Apple with a capital letter, so I thought you were making a joke. I guess the joke's on me.
Yes they could've eaten from any tree, but how would they have known that eating from that specific tree was a bad thing if they didn't have a concept of good and evil? Also, why do I have to be punished for something someone else did? Should I hold you accountable for the sins of your parents or everyone that came before you?
Adam and Eve is a fable anyway, so this discussion doesn't even matter.
This is an interesting thing l, because part of the issue i notice also is by saying god doesn't exist, you kind of try to prove some invalidity to some parts of religion, it's something controversial for religious people understandably.
But if we are looking at a God who created us, is there some inevitable way of xreating humans where some tragic disaster has to he possible in order for the good stuff to be more logical and ideal. Its basically raises the question of God somehow being unable to avoid the major suffering in life when creating us. Im still glad God created us hypothetically but are we saying Gods powers had to make sure that the tortured animal is happening until we prevent it, in order to have the clear good life better in contrast being more enjoyable.
Another idea i guess is that God is still super powerful and near perfect or benevolent, but has some sort of nuanced decision or partially limited power and included some negative extremes that would happen but because it was actually the best idea God had for life.
Its just understandably controversial when some argument against god is had when religions have some core structure that is in conflict with the idea of no God. It becomes unjustifiably viewed immoral for some to notice that a strong stance of atheism or doubts on God is held. The profoundnesd of life i think does not have a dependance on God.
tbf the augestinian theodicry is the most biblically accurate and he couldve answered those objections but yh still its a good vid
Ah yes, a bearded benevolent old man at the pearly gates.
god does not have to be good. All he have to do - create the world
YAH, JAH = Hallelujah The phrase "hallelujah" translates to "praise Jah/Yah", though it carries a deeper meaning as the word halel in Hebrew means a joyous praise in song. Yahweh, name for the God of the Israelites
The absence of good is amoral-ness, not evil. God created evil.
If he created it, then he is not all good as religions claim.
@@Gruso57 The only way it’s redeemable, is if universalism is true, combined with some sort of contrast theodicy, otherwise you are correct.
Evil and good are inseparable and they are much like head and tail faces of coin. The world will become motionless without one of both.
But we don't have free will
To illustrate a video game sprite may believe it has free will because it can make choices of direction...(WITHIN) the invisible bariers of the programming of the physics of the game if the game like reality is timed and it runs out for what your programmed to accomplish then that's usually game over if the game has other exploitive pushy programs to your survival within the game then urr forced to contend with them
Another indication of determinism.
Finally there's energy within the game as well if mistakes are made🤔🤨😒 and one fails to consumate what is demanded then once again that is game over
Which all Add up to free Will's
Non exsistence
Unfortunately God never free'd even one slave and is a slave itself bound by perfection which is why we're feeling the blunt force of this sad sadistic game perpetrated on what we all could have been which is innocent
juan
If you have a balanced system of good and evil there will be no progress, no meaningful goal or interaction, so one side must push and put the whole duality system out of balance, then out of suffering you create more heroes in the journey, cause you need to overcome evil, this is a systemic game design, so Natural disaster is a must have in order to create more objectives to play the game, as it cause suffering, so you have to do something about it, help others, or solve the problems caused by those random evil events!
The only thing that creator of this life game wants is to experience, stories and journeys, up and downs and all that challenges, otherwise it's just a boring endless dream that you don't have to do anything, just sit and enjoy without even deserving it, no one would want to play that lame game, yea it's called heaven.
but what about god or higher deity that just neutral... there's no good or bad... what makes good or bad is just human, we say good if something in our term(moral value), so human made good or bad...
as Nietzsche once wrote: beyond good and evil 😏
great video, but plz work on your voices (especially john) so the videos would be so much more pleasing
The final argument in the video isn't a good argument. It fails to fully understand the meaning of free will and God's omniscience. The two are not mutual exclusive. To understand, I would direct you to study the physics of extra dimensions. God would be a tenth dimensional (or higher) entity. At the tenth dimension, all practical possibilities can become reality and all practical impossibilities cannot. The term "practical" here means the measures necessary to comply with the universal laws of physics and mathematics. A tenth dimensional entity would have the ability to see all possible choices, paths, and outcomes that any and all third dimensional entities can make in any and all practical circumstances. But a tenth dimensional entity cannot know definitively which choices a third dimensional entity will make until the moment the choice is made in the entity's mind.
You might thus argue that this robs a tenth dimensional entity of omniscience, for how can something be known and not known simultaneously? The answer to that question is one of semantics in arguing for an absolute, yet you may or may not be perfectly content with accepting quantum theory, which establishes a similar dilemma; that particles can exist and not exist in two or more places simultaneously. Making this counterargument also presumes that God cannot have any limitations, which is a red herring. God is certainly limited to things that are practically possible. While God can do things that are impossible for Man, He cannot do things that are practically impossible for Himself (i.e. a squared circle). This doesn't mean that God isn't omnipotent; it means that His power does not negate itself.
I would also add that there are many examples personal to us where we know things prior to actually confirming knowledge of those things. And I offer that final thought not necessarily as an argument but as a means of relating to the presumed issue.
What evidence is there for macro evolution?
@JO Okay, if time is the deciding factor, then it isn't observable, reproducible, and falsifiable. Therefore, it is not based on scientific evidence but faith.
@JO You're referring to genetics, epigenetics, and natural selection, not macroevolution, which is the change from one kind of organism into another. Is there any observable, reproducible, and falsifiable evidence of one kind of organism evoving into another?
@JO I understand the theory of macroevolution. What I'm asking for is evidence to support it. I'm not contesting natural selection. I'm contesting the offered conclusion that natural selection proves macroevolution. Conclusions must be based on evidence, not "could bes", "looks likes", "maybes", and "best guesses".
@JO Again, you are merely reciting the theory of macroevolution. It has not been demonstrated through genetics and the fossil record. That is false. You are listening to scientists who say, "Fossil specimen A has similarities to fossil specimen B, and modern living specimen such-and-such," and you are appealing to their authority on the matter without questioning how they can conclude one is an ancestor of the other based on incomplete data and speculation. No, genetics is not the answer either, for many organisms share similar DNA, markers, and traits, and it does not definitively mean that they shared a common ancestor.
@JO An explanation and evidence are two different things. Fossils do not contain DNA. DNA can only be extracted from unfossilized remains. Thus, comparing fossil skeletons to anything living today and attempting to extrapolate ancestry is absolute pseudoscience.
you guys make good videos , what about whitehead contributions?
Thank you. And yes Whitehead is someone we plan on looking into.
1 Corinthians 15:1-4
Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand;
2 By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.
3 For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;
4 And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:
Modal scope fallacy.
As if Adam and Eve are white and this image of Jesus that prevails, isn't it painful even for beasts? But we are still so brutish. God is still a grey haired white man and we still believe in comforts and give away our will for the sake of some eternity somewhere some redemption for for the unimagineable suffering that goes on but it is only a place holder for our inability. And how annoying that one mans voice is. like are you putting it on for the video or what?
God is for fools
Believing in something without questioning is also
1:20 Look at him, he even looks evil with those buck teeth.🫵🤬
For the soul making the theodicy, maybe natural disaster are made to advance human technology. God want human to perfectly understand natural too, and better at mastering the natural
The problem of evil is only a problem for the existence of a *GOOD* , or purely good, all-loving, omnibenevolent God.
That may he the god of common theistic apologetics, but it's not the God of the Bible. (Or of reason or observation for that matter.)
The Biblical God is the source of, and is sovereign over, both good and evil, and everything else for that matter; so you have to learn to take the good with the bad. Job, the protagonist of the oldest book in the Bible, tells us this outright.
When Job's idiot friends counter his analysis with the omnibenevolence/free will theodicy, God shows up personally to reprove them, threaten them with divine retribution for their blasphemy, and endorse Job's viewpoint:
"Shall we receive good from the hand of the Lord, and not evil? The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name (reputation) of the Lord."
In other words; this is MONOtheism, there's only ONE God for everything, who is LORD of everything. The existence of evil doesn't ruin his rep, it's par for the course; because "evil" is a subset of "everything". If I'm the President of the United States, the existence of Alabama does not invalidate my presidency, because that's *one of the United States* of which I am the president, you see.
A god of pure goodness could not be a monotheistic deity; at best, he'd be a dualistic deity, as in Zoroastrianism, with a separate god of/for evil. Unless you want to go full Greek and have a god of feet, a god of olives, a god of manure, a god of laundry, etc. ad nauseam.
There is no god
Wait, what? How is hurricane evil? XD HAHAHAHAHA
Hurricane is not evil, but it causes suffering. All-powerful God would have prevent that.
@@goranmilic442 What makes you think that a "god" is entitled to prevent a hurricane?
@@auroraphoenix8103 If God would exist and if he is all-powerful and all-good, then nothing would stop him from preventing it. Since hurricanes exist, he either isn't all-powerful or all-good or he doesn't exist.
@@goranmilic442 Lol? If there is a "god" then you are thinking for a "god" coming from a puny lower conscious being, I highly doubt if there was a "god" it would care about your thoughts nor the people of this earth.
"Good" is a relative term.
Killing people doesn't mean bad nor good ;)
@@auroraphoenix8103 I agree I can't know properties of some proposed god. What I said was that such god couldn't be considered good and loving and benevolent from our point. If good doesn't mean helping people, then I disagree that "good" is relative, "good" is actually meaningless then, it describes something that doesn't exist.
Evil is not a problem for God, evil is a problem for man because he never cared for God.
Tell that to Adam, pal
Evolution is absurd and ridiculous; especially that we came from from the branches of ape's 😂.
1:45 OK then what about the animals? Why is he killing and allowing the torturing and suffering and pain of animals? Lets face it, whatever is controlling this joint is one sick ass M%$^F$%^!