Philosophy: Problem of Evil Part 2
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- Опубликовано: 13 сен 2024
- Part 2 of a trilogy. Here, Greg Ganssle (Yale University) gives a response to the deductive version of the Problem of Evil on behalf of someone who believes that God exists. In thinking about this response, we need to think about whether God can make contradictions true, and whether God can have good reasons for allowing bad things to happen.
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Hi philWynk. What do you think of the following version of the argument? It's very similar, but it doesn't mention evil at all.
1) If an OOO God exists, this is the best of all possible worlds.
2) This is not the best of all possible worlds.
Conclusion: An OOO God does not exist.
@Red Guy What makes it the case that the "God's ways are not our ways" apologetic is any any way helpful or informative? That's just theological non cognitivism. Which would entail sentences & propositions about God are not truth-apt.
The existence of Evil and gratuitous suffering is incompatible with an omni-benevolent God.
The argument runs thus:
1. Omni-benevolence entails permitting the most perfect world possible to obtain.
2. Necessarily, if God is omni-benevolent, God will permit the most perfect world possible to obtain
3. The most perfect world is one with no imperfections, to which its perfection could not be increased.
4. God is perfect- and necessarily omni-benevolent & omnipotent
5. Therefore a world where God alone exists is perfect by definition, since nothing can increase or add to its perfection.
6. The world where God alone exists is a possible world.
7. Therefore God would necessarily permit a world where he alone exists to obtain.
8 A world where God exists alone does not obtain.
9 Therefore God does not exist
1- follows from a definition of omni-benevolence. It does not necessarily by itself entail a perfect world. Theists tend to say 'possible' entails only what is logically possible- so maybe God can't logically eliminate all suffering/evil/imperfection in order to achieve some higher Good/perfection, if that good/perfection is achieved then God in permitting it is not acting contra his omni-benevolence.
2- Follows if the most perfect possible world is something God can actually bring about. Given his omnipotnece entails bringing about all logically possible worlds, the only question is- is the world sans creation possible? Yes (most theists think it actually obtained prior to creation).
3- I think this is pretty trivially true. A world lacking imperfections is presumably perfect. One could argue an empty world lacks imperfections, but is not perfect. But non existence is assumed to be an imperfection, so that doesn't follow.
4&5- God being perfect seems definitional to God. He is that which nothing greater than can be conceived, devoid of deficiency, possessing all the perfections. A world where God exists is by definition devoid of imperfections. Added to this, nothing permitted by God could add to its perfection- it could only ever add gratuitous imperfections. God could not justify that permittance by claiming to achieve some higher good or perfection, since by definition there could be none without suggesting a lack of perfection in the world prior to his permittance, which is to say that God alone is lacking a perfection, whcih entails he is imperfect, which is a contradiction.]
6- Again, it is clearly possible for God to permit a possible world where he alone exists. Many theists believe he did just this prior to creation. To suggest otherwise seems to suggest either such a world is logically impossible, or God is not omnipotent. The latter is clearly impossible for God, the former is clearly wrong.
7- This follows from the above premises. Essentially, what God's omnipotence/omni-benevolence entail is that God would only permit a world where he alone exists. Perhaps you want to appeal to his freedom- but that would only be a freedom to permit gratuitous suffering. Whilst God may have that power, he would no more exercise it than he would commit an act of wanton evil, or an unjustifiable lie. Perhaps the response will be that in creating a world with free agents God is adding some value that did not already exist. But this commits you to the view that a perfect world can be lacking a value- that would of course be an imperfection. Or that God existing alone is not a perfect world. Given God is co-extensive with that world (as it contains nothing else) this implies God is not perfect, which runs into similar problems.
8- is obvious given we are having this conversation.
9- this follows because God has clearly failed to permit a world where he alone exists to obtain. Given God can not fail in this and given God's omnibenevolence entails this is what he would do, we can conclude that no perfect being with the attributes of omnipotence/omnibenevolence could possibly exist and the world exists. Given the world exists, then it is impossible for such a being to exist. These attributes are essential to God, therefore God can not exist.
The necessity here is one of logical entailment, such that to deny it would lead to a contradiction.
1. To know that a thing is best of all possible scenarios require omniscience
2. Man is not omniscient.
Conclusion: He cannot know if this is not the best of all possible worlds.
@@servant5795 You're correct when you say "to know that a thing is best of all possible scenarios require omniscience". However, omniscience is not required to know that a thing isn't best of all possible scenarios. So saying world could be a better place doesn't require omniscience.
Baffled with the needing to revise 4. This is just patently wrong and a false analogy.
The common property identified in using the family as an example MUST include that the parents have properties of omnipotence and omnibenevolence, otherwise its not addressing the issue. Clearly the parents aren't all powerful or all good so this is just designed to avoid the criticism. If a parent had an option to continuously scold their child for misbehaving, or invoke an ability to have them understand the good and always choose between good, then you would. You wouldn't opt for some needless lesson that can be overcame by your omnipotence. Any excuse to have them go through it, would be admission of not being all good.
An all powerful being could create a world where there is no evil at all, with free agents choosing between the good. An omnibenevolent god ought to do this, as it maximized the good.
Merely saying evil is needed is like saying an all good and powerful god couldn't create a world where evils like baby killing dont exist towards an eventual good. He is all powerful, why would it be limited by a middle man of evil?
This is just sloppy and embarrassing from an academic standpoint.
Apparently this philospher couldn't just intuit 'why would God be tripped up by the necessity of evil to get to the good, couldn't an a powerful god skip the evil?'. No contradiction.
@@jmike2039 You are correct. Example where parents forbid children to eat lot of candy is based on fact that parents are not all-powerful, otherwise they would make world such that children can eat as many candy as they want. Laws of biology dictate parents what to do, so they can't be good analogy for all-powerful being.
Regarding free will, when you and I stop the criminal in his attempt to harm someone, that criminal still has free will, we just phisically stopped him. And stopping criminal is a good thing. So why can't all-powerful God do that all the time?
Even if there are reasons to allow it, God can well prevent the reasons in the first place. The parents are tough on kids on certain things to train them for the hard realities, but if they had the power to prevent the very realities and they were wholly good, they would do it. If you can make a world in which candies don't harm your children's health, you better let them eat. This would eliminate all necessary suffering in the name of a greater reason if the reasons themselves are eliminated from the core.
Hang on. Is God a slave or a master to the laws of logic? If God must follow logic, why call him omnipotent?
I hold a strict definition of omnipotency. If it turns out that some contradictions are impossible, then it follows that nothing including god can be omnipotent. I'm not aware of any footnote in any holy book with the caveat: "God can do everything! (except make contradictions true)".
Of course he can’t do things that by humans have been defined in a way that makes it impossible. That last word I.G.: If God can do the impossible, it’s not impossible, then nothing is impossible. At least not for this potential God. Don’t know if that made any sense haha but I tried
You misunderstand you see.
1. God is an Intelligent Being
2. The world is intelligible and follows logical principles
3. God created the universe
C: Hence, all logic and intelligibility must flow from the Intelligent Existence known as God.
@@ibn_klingschor
Your mistake is in thinking Omnipotency doesn't follow logic. Let's investigate.
1. God follows non-logical principles
2. God created the universe
3. Hence the universe must be unintelligible and non-logical
As you can see, the conclusion isn't true because the world is intelligible and logical.
Why not:
1. God follows logical and non-logical principles
If parents were powerful enough to make candy healthy they wouldn't prohibit it. An all powerful being requiring bad things for good things to happen is pathetic
Can you at least make it appear like you are responding to the argument from analogy I made. If there is a false premise show me which and how or show me how it is not analogous. Individual x (god/parent) has ability to do anything including make undesirable things (unhealthy cookies) into desirable ones (healthy cookies) yet chooses not to instead. Why? Who am I to question ridiculous choices. I'm assuming the premises in the argument of there being such a thing as good and evil. Still the argument falls apart. It's invalid on it's own merit. Ad homineming me doesn't save it.
@Tony Droid If you're issue is with the words "good" and "bad", then replace them with "non-suffering" and "suffering".
hi David, it gets better then that , this imaginary sky daddy if "true" watches child rape
and if we are talking about the god of the bible , GOD is sovereign , so that would imply
god organized the rape ! this god of the bible is a psychopath !
@Brandon Robinson hi Brandon , yes you are correct, if i saw someone
hurting a child , i would get off my arrogant ass and stop it !
That's my point ! I would, but this god of the bible ( if true ) does bugger all !
Are you ok with that ? I apologize for my comment , calling god a "sky daddy"
There is a difference between suffering for the sake of not getting rotten teeth, than to have millions of children get raped or starve to death every year. I would posit that if you give any loving parent omnipotence their children would never see, or know about evil, as omnipotence would mean a parent could infact keep all evil away from people.
True, but unfortunately God doesn't quite meet the average basic standards of human decency and stewardship. When we have an animal that's a killer, unmanageable, aggressive or dangerous ... we try to put it to sleep gently. God prefers to torture it for all eternity, keeping it alive forever to experience infinite suffering... and for far smaller indiscretions.
Sure, he could just make the bad ones cease to exist at death, end their suffering... let them slip off peacefully into darkness as almost any human would allow for even the most irredeemable animal. But he'd rather keep them alive and torture them into eternity - than fix them with a mere thought - or benevolently let them simply cease to be.
But why would we be surprised. God's own biblical testimony declares him to be a Jealous and Vengeful God... responsible for all nature and all suffering... creator of the imperfect and the punisher of imperfection.
By human standards the guy is an unnecessarily evil, torturing, vengeful, jealous, psychopath ... and we humans have got pretty fucking low standards.
Yet we wouldn't treat a rabid Dog the way God treats his flock.
If that's benevolence - I can do without it thanks : )
An omnipotent being would be able to create whatever outcome it wanted without intermediate steps, i.e. subjecting his creatures to suffering. If parents were omnipotent candy would not rot kids teeth or broccoli would taste like chocolate.
So. God Can't disobey logic. If he can't disobey Logic and create contradictions, then Logic has an authority over God. If God can't control logic, he couldn't have created it, otherwise it would be the equivalent of creating a rock he cannot lift. He would create a principle that he can't disobey. Which means God didn't create Logic. Then... where does Logic come from?
hmmm. logical.
HRV789 I hope so :P
You fool, God can do whatever He wants. You think God is owned by anything? He made everything. How can God not do something contradictory to you? You cannot comprehend anything other than what u learned. God made everything! God can make a rock He cannot lift but guess what, He can lift it! Ask yourself, why would He make this? And if He did, why would He choose to lift it when it's purpose was for Him to not lift it? How would gravity apply to God wen He made it? How can you believe you can think ur way into outsmarting God? Let me make this clear... GOD IS GOD AND HE CAN DO WHATEVER HE WANTS NO MATTER WHAT OUR PUNY LITTLE MINDS CAN THINK OF! God's infinite being is beyond beyond us, so only God can create a contradiction that is contradictory to Him but even then He is too great to be swayed by it. He would already know the answer before the beginning of time.
And in answer to ur question, God made Logic logical
But u can think whatever u want
Premise 4 is true as written. The only "good reason" for a wholly good being to permit evil to exist is that it cannot prevent that piece of evil without creating a larger one.
In defending God against the problem of evil what you ultimately end up doing is justifying evil. Regardless of a God, do you truly believe that justifying evil is wise? If not then you should stop defending God against the problem of evil and instead change either your understanding and/or definition of God. Keep in mind there are other versions of a God. The Abrahamic religions do not have exclusive copyright on God. You have allowed others theology, love of God, to confuse your philosophy "love of wisdom". One cannot serve two masters.
So, God's omnipotence can't supersede logic? That doesn't sound like omnipotence at all.
Michael Orlinsky Yeah, and they didn't even mention that the christian God manages somehow to be one and three at the same time, so isn't that a contradiction?
Logic is just a method to understand reality., to understand God. In the Bible for example, the reality is that nature was/is corrupted. When it gets rectified, we'll have a new reality, or the original reality. One that we can't understand in our corrupted state. We don't even understand our reality.
Logic is a way to understand God, God already understands. He sees logics true form, we see its shadow.
@@bradspitt3896 ...😑
@@rc7625 "In the beginning there was logos."
You illustrate a more serious weakness in the Problem of Evil, namely, that "evil" is equivocal. Is "suffering" necessarily evil? Is any inconvenience necessarily evil? Is the premise, "A good being always eliminates or prevents evil" the same as saying "A good being always eliminates or prevents any event that feels bad and that we would not prefer?"
If one begins analyzing what is meant by "evil," the argument quickly collapses to "A good God would NEVER inconvenience or upset me."
Meh.
A useful question would be: If contradictions can be done by god ¿why there are no contradictions in the world? The only exception would be god, but we dont have this information from observation of the enviroment, but from a person's argument. We have no strong proof that god can contradict itself, and therefore is not worth it believing so
I'm not a philosopher, except in my spare time. But I think you would not be able to prove either of those premises, and especially not the second.
I think the first would have to be modified to say "this is the best of all possible worlds TO ACHIEVE THE PURPOSE FOR WHICH THE 000 GOD CREATED IT." And then you'd have to find a way to discover precisely what the purpose for the creation of this world was. Without that, you could not prove the 2nd premise true.
Its quite simple, yet I can't believe I didn't realize just that making contradictions true would be a good way to dismiss this argument.
Yeah but then you now are not taking seriously when you challeng someone's claims as wrong. They could say, yeah its wrong and true. And you couldn't argue on parody of reasoning.
Im seriously baffled that wireless philosophy let this video through, its not even engaging with the literature and worse, cites Mackie who made specific arguments against these claims
What i's god's "good reason" for not preventing rape and murder?
Wow he is a great teacher. I really need to get around to reading Ganssle's "A Reasonable God"! Thanks for the upload.
But then the conclusion becomes completely unfalsifiable:
There is no evil, except where God has good reasons to permit it. Why is it permitted? Because reasons.
So, you take a contradiction and you put in unfalsifiable excuses. And if we permit those excuses, then the contradiction is gone.
What possible reason is there to let a person burn to death? Unlike the child being deprived of candy, there is no future benefit.
Can God ask a question? Seeing God knows everything if He did ask a question it would just be rhetorical but because God knows everything he would not be able to ask a real question like He was trying to get to know something.
Wrong argument. It is not evil to deny your children candy before breakfast. It's just good parenting.
***** It's not relevant what children 'consider' evil. Good and evil are absolute. Every rational human being knows the difference between good and evil.
Btw... it's not 'evil' to give a child candy.
1. Is it logical to create a rock?
2. Is it logical to not be able to lift a rock one has created?
3. Is it possible to do everything logical?
I don't see any problem with 1 and 2 but 3 is an assumption that has yet to be demonstrated. We humans recognize our limits in spacetime, in knowledge, in ability, etc. We conjured up a being who defies those limitations. But no reason to believe what omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, etc. are actual qualities.
To say that X has Y qualities or does Z, we need to first demonstrate that X exists. All the arguments trying to prove the existence of God while assuming that he exists. For example, the Kalam cosmological argument assumes that the universe can have a supernatural cause while trying to prove the existence of the supernatural.
Why assume there is a god if everything is cause and effect? If he won't save someone from drowning, what good is he? And god can't use supernatural means to save someone from drowning? If the lifeguard or Coast Guard saves a person--why praise god?
Evil that is good for us isn’t actually evil. That kind of definition makes a mockery of the concept of evil by claiming evil is just good in disguise.
There's fish that have lungs in addition to their gills, so they can breathe both in and out of water. There's nothing logical about water that makes it necessarily possible to drown in for all life. An omnipotent deity could make us have gills like that fish.
If God cannot do all things including making contradictions true, then God is NOT omnipotent. The whole revising over and over again the statements about God(and many times about religion) has been going on for a long long time. There does not seem to be any consensus on what God is or is not. Most of the omni - this and that have already been shown to be very contradictory in their nature. After 60 years of listening closely to the arguments for and against the existence of God, I'm satisfied that there is no such thing as a God(omni-anything). I do recognize that there are many things we do not understand yet. I expect there is other life in the universe. I would expect that some of that life would be considerably more advanced than us.
Regarding the contradictions question, rocks and lifting are uninteresting compared to the question whether God can destroy himself.
The problem only gets that problematic if we're talking about a god that does not guarantee an afterlive. Because if there is an eternal afterlive where humans experience happiness, then life didn't even happen as it's infinitely shorter than the afterlive which means there was infinitely few suffering, which is equal to no suffering at all.
So, being burned alive is "no suffering at all." Makes sense.
Michael Dean Yeah, it doesn't make sense. But you can't really argue against an almighty being. You can only argue why one should not believe in something that is basically no different from magic.
The argument against omnipotence is, if you do not define "all powerful" as above the laws of logic, then the laws of logic are more powerful than something that is "all powerful" that's the contradiction. So basically the atheist says, God isn't all powerful, and the theist say "yeah you're right" case closed.
A God that is as powerful as logically possible could create a world where no suffering was required for the most beneficial ends. Meaning there could not be a reason for allowing evil.
Could someone tell me what tools are used to create such instructional video?
I guess I had higher hopes for an "all powerful God," but sure it is logically possible that God has good reasons for allowing evil. Good thing we have the evidential problem to fall back on!
One the ending argument is embarrassing. And two, explain ww1, ww2. Explain cancer, explain parasites that burrow into the eyes of small children. Explain the concept of hell. Explain child rape, that results in creating a sociopath who is not morally responsible in turn.
How did I end up here from searching for ''is it okay to challenge ethics?''
Can relate lol
Good reasons to allow evil?
First of all, the sanctity of physical laws is itself a elimination of God. If God cannot stop people from drowning, what kind of God is he?
Define omnibenevolence as the quality of taking such actions as will result in as little total suffering as possible.
Omniscience includes knowing which actions will result in zero total suffering.
Omnipotence means that he can take any action, including one that will result in zero total suffering.
Omnibenevolence means that he will take that action, if he can. (Which he can.)
(That action is untaken.
Arc de Seel I think you missed the point of this video...
Wait a minute...these arguments involve doing a lot of mental gymnastics and assuming that the God follows the same logic as humans - what is to say it even thinks or thinks evil is wrong? I don't fully get how these baseline premises are formulated. As far I am concerned all life (human or not) has the same value - why should human life be any greater unless it's a human making up all the rules?
they are formulated from the definitions of God and the nature of reality.
In short, how can God be all powerful yet cant achieve his purpose without making man go through suffering.
Evil is a by product of free will
Okay, No non-illogical things he can't do. So who got to decide what was logical?
madgodloki That’s just something that is: I mean don’t you under stand that if something is logical, it isn’t NONlogical. Of course you do, because it’s logical. Logic is a name for something that we use to come to obvious conclusions. Notice that they can be obvious even though it’s hard to understand. Just like this statement here might be ^^
So, God is not Omniscient, not Omnipotent, not Omnibenevolent, and has a good reason for, among other things, child abuse, starvation, rape and genocides.
Don't kid yourselves theists; Omniscience, Omnipotence, and Omnibenevolence don't allow exceptions.
Withholding candy from children is not evil...
If God can make a contradiction true, then there is no reason to worship him.
With his omnipotence, he can put in you absolute knowledge that you are going to heaven. But if he can make a contradiction true, that means you still don't know you're going to heaven even if you know you're going to heaven. It makes it so God can lie, and he can do it without lying, so even if God doesn't lie, he could still be lying to you.
god is omnipotent and omniscient. he knew from the very first start that satan, or if any of of the angels would rebel against him even before he created them. he had a choice which one to create and which ones not to. the fact that he created satan, it only means he chose the kind of world we are into. (that's if he exist).
The Christian gymnastics of trying to cover all bases when it comes to their god. It's really just moving the goal post and now redefining their god.
Keep in mind that god couldn't defeat chariots fitted with iron.
Furthermore, even without modifying the 1st premise, the 2nd premise falls to the sort of analysis described in part III of this series. The simple fact remains that if a 000 God exists, the likelihood that you are able to assess whether or not this is the best of all possible worlds approaches 0.
And besides all that, proofs of the non-existence of God have no more effect on me than proofs of the non-existence of my mother, because I interact with Him regularly, as does everyone I know.
This is a bit of a huge leap, and nearly any philosopher worth his salt would pounce on the idea of whether a reason is "good" or not.
In the context of the given analogy, its merely accepted that the child learning is a good outcome, even though that could be contested. It also unnecessarily attributes evil to a thing that humans do.
Additionally, an omnipotent parent could easily create a child that felt no suffering, yet still knew all the information that could be gained from suffering. The given analogy itself is fallacious.
What is up with the hand fake writing thing? .. Its confusing.
The main problem with this argument is denying that good and evil is defined by man and deciding that there is no grey area between them. How do human see something as good or evil? Is it labeling a thing or event evil due to self-preservation or something as good because it gives satisfaction to their needs? If an absolute being exist, why should it even bother itself with mortal's notion of morality and if it does care, how does its concept of it compare to us? We use logic as a tool to make sense of this reality but theists pointed out that God abides to logic. If God abides to logic then we are merely fitting God to our idea of what a God really is. This means that God is not absolute in our logic. In short, that God is nothing more than a human's shot of understanding an absolute being. An endeavor of understanding the unknown, like always having the need to, and forgetting that maybe we are all just a product of cause and effect.
As far as Gods reasons for allowing evil. If the theist world view is God made us for himself. Then God is vain and his reasons for suffering are vain, especially considering he's not only omnipotent but present and knowing as well.
2:08
NOooo!!
This is just point where the theist starts implementing justification for circular reasoning because if "God" is everything the believer claims then the best you can hope for is "God *can* do contradictory things and either just doesn't or the believer is simply unaware"
One should ALWAYS object to circular reasoning as a means of justification!!!
If you add the "purpose" the original premise list, you can negate evil altogether. If things we people misunderstand as "evil" have a purpose and are warranted by the grand plan, preventing them would be working against the plan. Preventing suffering would have no value - it's all a part of the plan, which you don't understand, so don't worry about it!
What is evil then? If it's "not in line with the plan",it would give people authority to do terrible things which wouldn't be labeled as "evil"!
4* seems to have implications for a personal God. Why would this only apply to one of the attributes. For example, 4* could be applied to truth with the following:
"A wholly truthful God will eliminate or prevent falsehoods in it's holy scriptures or word, unless it reveals a higher truth"
Then if God has/will reveal why evil was allowed, should anyone believe it?
Your main enquiry question is related to fatalism and determinism, while its answer appears clearly by adopting the view of the free well of human as a decision maker.
God has granted full power and control over humans acts... So they become responsible for the consequences.
God is not guilty... Human beings are
There appears to be a lot of mental bending over backwards to explain the possibility of the existence of a god. On the other hand, assuming that there isn't one does not prevent us from explaining the vast majoriy of our observations and you don't have to do mental gymnastics either.
If Evil didn't exist, would God even be Good? Without contrast and polarity, there is no definition. Like my hand with its background, or dark and light.
@Tony Droid And free will cant exist if God knows the agents future actions.
God does not have the capacity to prevent all evil. All powerful does not have to mean limitlessly powerful. Perfect does not mean limitless.
smilyle God loves challenges that He allowed evil,Satan and more
Since when making a rock that the creator of it cant move it?
If a contradiction can be made true than is it truely a contradiction?
Hi, Osaka0ya!
Not so fast! Not everyone thinks that saying God can make contradictions true *is* a good way to dismiss the argument. For a start, it is not clear God can do that --- it's not super clear what it *means* for a contradiction to be true.
Even if we grant that God can make contradicitions true, it is not clear that blocks the argument. The conclusion that God doesn't exist might be true. It's just that, also, it might be that God exists.
Any action that has a good reason for it is a good action, by definition. This good action cannot be evil. So the premise 4* is incoherent.
Only if "Evil" can never be "Good". A limb may be amputated which seems evil, but it is in service of the good of the person.
the mistake lies in how the 4th premise is redefined.
When has the God character _ever_ allowed human beings to behave freely? The Garden of Eden story was a complete setup; they had no choice but to eat the fruit as they couldn't have possibly understood the consequences of eating the fruit without first eating the fruit. Pretty much from that point on, the choice was to believe in him or burn forever. A choice with the worst possible threat hanging over one of the two options is not a choice. It's a coercion. Free will is also entirely possible without the existence of evil, so again, logically, the God character has been mistakenly identified as being perfectly good.
Omnipotent: God has created all substances, table of elements whereas the Devil has not created any substances. Only God is "omnipotent".
Dr. Lukas F. Olsnes-Lea included evils
If GOD cannot make contradictions he is not Omnipotent. Saying GOD is Omnipotent but he cant make contradictions it's a self destroying argument.
Hi philWynk,
I agree with you mostly that scrutinizing the premise that "a good being always eliminates or prevents evil" results into a premise of the form "a good being always eliminates or prevents any event that seems evil to us."
However, I don't think this second premise leads to a further premise of "a good God would NEVER inconvenience or upset me." There are suffering in the world, say lack of access to clean water and genocides, that we deem evil and not just inconvenient.
Baffled with the needing to revise 4. This is just patently wrong and a false analogy.
The common property identified in using the family as an example MUST include that the parents have properties of omnipotence and omnibenevolence, otherwise its not addressing the issue. Clearly the parents aren't all powerful or all good so this is just designed to avoid the criticism. If a parent had an option to continuously scold their child for misbehaving, or invoke an ability to have them understand the good and always choose between good, then you would. You wouldn't opt for some needless lesson that can be overcame by your omnipotence. Any excuse to have them go through it, would be admission of not being all good.
An all powerful being could create a world where there is no evil at all, with free agents choosing between the good. An omnibenevolent god ought to do this, as it maximized the good.
Merely saying evil is needed is like saying an all good and powerful god couldn't create a world where evils like baby killing dont exist towards an eventual good. He is all powerful, why would it be limited by a middle man of evil?
This is just sloppy and embarrassing from an academic standpoint.
Apparently this philospher couldn't just intuit 'why would God be tripped up by the necessity of evil to get to the good, couldn't an a powerful god skip the evil?'. No contradiction.
Some of this I agree with, some of it I don't. (I'm not referring to my religious beliefs. Also, I don't at all think that any of what's said is invalid.)
Maybe some suffering is necessary to teach a lesson, but even if it isn't (and there are so many good arguments that point in that direction) there is something wrong with premise 4. It doesn't define what evil is.
From a utilitarian stance, this is a great argument against the existence of God. Voltaire wrecked the optimistic Leibniz that thought this was the best of possible worlds. But from a deontological point of view this problem gets a lot more fuzzy. There are duties that contradict often and with the "rephrasing" (though I think, at least now, it's often a given that there is the constraint non-contradiction) of premise 3 the argument as a whole for the denial of God gets a bit weaker.
I'll give an example. Even (one of the formulations of) the Categorical Imperative of treating people as ends in themselves and not just means gets kind of fuzzy. What if the ends the individual has in mind are not healthy and detriments the rational agency of themselves? Obviously, Kant's answer would be that that's wrong and that's the limit of that maxim. But with what authority are we going to say our judgement is better than yours? I mean that on two levels--why trust Kant (and he does give his reasons) and who is to say our judgement is right?
For instance, I'm sure we all have had arguments with our parents and our parents were wrong. They most definitely thought they were doing this to help you but instead they took away your right to be a rational agent. Kant would say hallucinogenics are bad; Huxley would disagree (he might even say it's a matter of "perspective").
That still leaves the question "why didn't God just create Heaven instead of going through this roundabout process of Earth?" You could get a cheesy answer like "there is value in the journey" or maybe a little less cheesy with something like "there is a method of moral learning (and to be in Heaven one must be moral agents)." But I like the nihilistic answer the best which I'm sure many religious people might not be so keen on. Whether you believe in God or not there is really no "purpose" in your life if by "purpose" you preclude the possibility of someone making you for a "trivial" reason. What if God just created you? Often you hear that "he wanted a relationship with you" or want you to bring him "glory" both I think are things many would find trivial without digging (very) deeply for some more. If that's true, that life is meaningless (with that sort of working definition), does it matter whether or not God made Earth before the whole Heaven thing? Is that even relevant?
Living in a cause and effect universe eliminates any free will. And don't bother trying to fob me off with the claim that free will is compatible with determinism. It's not.
If, Unless, Maybe - If that's the best argument, you need a new argument. For myself, the Elegant Solution is that there is no Single God- there are two, one Good and one Evil. As for the Problem of Evil, the answer to that is because it's not the Good God in charge down here (the physical realm), but rather it's the Evil God. The Good God is currently handling the non-physical realm (Heaven, Paradise, or whatever you call the spiritual realm). This does, of course, smack of Gnostic and Manichaean theology/cosmology (Balance of Things and all that) but it does go a long way to eliminating the problem mainstream Christians have in explaining or defending the actions of their version of God. (And yes, for those interested in such things, eventually the rule of the Evil God will end- at which time the physical realm, our universe, will cease to exist and the Evil God being returned to the spiritual realm. There's a reason for our participation and a way for us to get closer to the Good God in the end, but that's a different story. HINT: Cathars :D )
Very weak arguments for why God allows suffering. Does this mean working to eradicate Evil goes against Gods plans?
God is a contradiction, he makes himself true.
🙏
The problem here is that God does not have a good reason for Africans to starve. Thus, that means there is more evil according to 2 than there is according to the revised conclusion. There is still a contradiction, but it is weaker.
rdococ Why think God doesn't have a reason for Africans to starve? Is it impossible that He has a reason?
Daniella Noble And why did God create free will? If he didn't create us at all, it wouldn't be cruel, because we wouldn't feel cruelty, or sadness, or pain...
rdococ that’s the better question, delete the first one mate ;)
What good reason can a God possibly have to let innocent children suffer and die a horrible death ?
If God cannot be "illogical", logic must exist independent of God and does not require God to exist. God is then at a minimum, not the prime mover.
Alternatively, you are applying the current rules of logic as defined by God. Had God defined other rules of logic, you would be describing how it is illogical for God not to be able to create a rock that God could not move. You wouldn't find it in the least strange to do it either. Furthermore, you can not analyse how that could be possible because you are trapped within the logic system that God decided to go with.
Or maybe you can change premise 1 to premise 1*: God exists (But isn't necessarily omnipotent or wholly good).
A wholly good being that can create heaven would not create earth or hell.
What about his omnipotence then?
God is all-powerful. Yet he cannot do illogical things. Therefore, logic is more powerful than God. Is this your argument in favor of theism?
So, about 4), what is the "good reason" that god had to allow J.Fritzl to do what he did? Yep, Investigate the Fritzl case and I dare you that, as a moral person (at least I assume you are) you tell me that anybody can have a moral reason to let Fritzl do what he did.
So...if God is limited only by what's actually impossible...that means everthing else IS possible to achieve. And so, everything is achievable even for us and for any living being before us. Therefore, given enough time, any creature can become God.
And if God can make a contradition true: He creates a rock he cannot lift. Then he lifts it. Therefore during creating that rock, he did all he could to make it heavier, but he failed. Oops. Let's try from start...
He creates a rock he cannot lift. Then he tries really hard to lift it...but fails. Oops.
Except parents are not all powerfull beings and they want their child to be better.
What does god get when he starves a 2 year old to death.
If God can do anything than He can create a rock to heavy for Him to lift. That is what Hd made the rock for. Then if God wanted to lift this rock in another moment He can lift it because He can do anything He wants. To understand that God can do anything means you have to understand that He can do whatever He wants. Even lift the rock He made so heavy He couldn't lift it but now He is going to lift it because He simply can. It sucks a human can't think beyond this. If God can do anything than can He make a rock so heavy He can't lift it? But God can do anything so shouldn't He be able to lift it? He can do whatever He wants, He's God.
Does God allow suffering?
Why would God create a rock he or she could not lift...
But you have changed the premises that the Christians hold to be true. Only the new kind of god that you have invented have no logical contradictions. If heaven exists then it's possibly construct a world where there are no suffering or evil. So 6* is probably false. So either 1 or 4* is probably false.
Wow
Genius
So you are allowing all kinds of flaws in logic to appease the theist.
There is no reason to call it logical anymore.
God or anybody can make a lever to lift the rock. It breaks 50% of the time. If you don't see the rock lifted, it is both simultaneously lifted and not lifted... (Not that I'm a theist : / )
Nice little video, thank you.
Isn't rationalization wonderful?
whet about the likelyhood argument i know the side of thist sas that the condtions for life are to improbebl to hepand alon but for god to exist the condtions are even more hard to get so well wheat about pepol envanting god ohh thats likely
All I'm hearing here in this video is a word game...
What are any justifiable reasons for allowing an Evil action to occur?
If there are justifiable reasons for allowing an Evil to take place, does that make the Evil action actually "Evil", since the justifiable reasons make the Evil action necessary to happen in the first place?
If the Evil is necessary to have happen, then it's not "Evil" at all...
It's actually "Good"...
Necessities in life that people actually need to live off of are considered "Good"...
Therefore... If you try to justify the reasons for allowing Evil to happen out of necessity in life, then it's not truly Evil...
Evil is justifiably Good...
Otherwise, if the world can exist without Evil, then Evil would not be considered necessary at all to allow to occur or exist, as well as any and all reasons that would be used to justify Evil's existence...
What justifiable reasons are there to allow a woman to be raped?
What justifiable reasons are there to allow a child to grow up in an abusive home?
What justifiable reasons are there to allow a soldier to go off to war and die?
What justifiable reasons are there to allow a war to even occur for soldiers on both sides to go off and die in?
If there are any justifiable reasons to all of these and those like them, then I guess the woman getting raped was a "Good" thing after all and not actually "Evil" because it was necessary to allow it to happen in order for something to be gained out of it from happening...
It was justifiably necessary to allow the rape to happen rather than stop it from happening...
Even though the rape being allowed to justifiably occur would end up being at the expense of the woman being raped...
At her expense, the rape was allowed to occur justifiably in order for something necessary to happen and have occur from it all as a result of the rape happening...
So, from Christianity's perspective and point of view...
Before a Rapist is saved by Jesus Christ, multiple women at their own expense needs to be raped by the Rapist in order for his saving by Jesus Christ to occur?
It was necessary for multiple women to be raped just so one Rapist could end up being saved by Jesus Christ in the end at their own expense?
WHAT ARE ANY JUSTIFIABLE REASONS TO ALLOW EVIL TO OCCUR AT ALL!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
THERE ARE NONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Actually God does not allow evil, he allows man to make his choice between good and evil , it is actualy man that allows evil just as he allows good to rule him .God told man to care for the earth , take care of the home that Gods given him. man chose to rebel and let the evil of sin to enter into his heart and into the world , so dont hold God responsible for man foolish mistake, God is not allowing anything . God has done his part and kicked evil out of heaven . Now man being made in the image of God we have to do our part and kick evil out of our hearts and our world in Jesus Christ
Otis Cooper Jesus told people concerning the blind man he said” no because his parents committed sins neither himself but God made him blind in order his name to be glorified “I made light and darkness ,good and evil I the Lord I made all these .
there is only one godess know for making contradicitons true.. and that Discordia :p
Discordianism wins!!!!!
All hail Eris!
Fnord
4.*, in other words: God is not a utilitarian.
Why does the Devil create evil? Hmmmm... Primordial? Yes...
The answer to the "problem of evil" is known once one understands: a) what 'God" is, b) what YOU are, and c) the reason why you are experiencing this world of LIMITATION. And the answer to all of these questions is revealed (in a most compelling fashion, I must say) in my book "The Holy Grail is Found." Yes, the answers are available to those who TRULY desire and seek Truth. But, unfortunately, they are a tiny minority, as most people seek to LIMIT Truth to their desires....which, as it turns, was our Original Error; the error that landed us in this realm of limitation in the first place!
NOPE! ze question IZZZ, would said god WANT to create a paradox (coz he can, see?). But therefore his all mighty attributes would change, yes? ENTER MARVEL COMICS
God is the rock
This video was pretty awful in compared to the first video. It's obvious the speaker now is a theist, while the speaker prior was kind enough to at least note that they are talking about gods in general, even if their points were directed at the Judeo Christian god. The breaking point for me was the laughable idea that "water has properties that are helpful to us, but also allow drowning, therefore god is all powerful, but still loves all and eliminates evil where he can."
Angel Flores This is a follow up video based on the first one. The conditions in the first video go into this one, except for the ones he deliberately changes to be able to show the other perspective, and why it is rational. (Not sure if I that was right, but please correct me if I wrong :) )
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even heaven can get boring...
balance