The Problem of Evil

@harvey1,

Comparing God to the skiers analogy imposes significant limitations on God's power and knowledge. Minimally, this view of God clashes with the commonly held Christian belief that "God is in everything, God is everywhere, God knows all things". It works, insofar as it takes the bite out of the problem of evil but, still, it permits the possibility that we could become greater than God (say by obtaining a greater knowledge and control of the universe through science), and that potential seems to be counter-intuitive to Christianity.

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@TK421,

TK421 wrote:

Comparing God to the skiers analogy imposes significant limitations on God's power and knowledge. Minimally, this view of God clashes with the commonly held Christian belief that "God is in everything, God is everywhere, God knows all things". It works, insofar as it takes the bite out of the problem of evil but, still, it permits the possibility that we could become greater than God (say by obtaining a greater knowledge and control of the universe through science), and that potential seems to be counter-intuitive to Christianity.

We can't obtain greater knowledge than God since God is omniscient. Humans, no matter how great their scientific progress, cannot become omniscient of the future.

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@harvey1,

harvey1 wrote:

Meaning doesn't come to exist in a vacuum.

harvey,

No not a vacuum,it is what they call an emergent quality that arises between the relation of subject and object.The objective world is just as essential as the subjective, indeed it is only through their relation there is any reality at all.

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@boagie,

Hey Boagie,

boagie wrote:

No not a vacuum,it is what they call an emergent quality that arises between the relation of subject and object.The objective world is just as essential as the subjective, indeed it is only through their relation there is any reality at all.

What I meant was that subjective beliefs emerge from objective causes. So, whereas one (you!) might say that moral values are subjective, this to me is like saying that scientific beliefs are subjective. Sure, minds perceive certain stimuli and as a result form subjective views of the world, but this is misleading when it comes to scientific beliefs since there are objective rules by which those beliefs come to be believed. Similarly, there are objective rules by which certain evil morals become perceived as evil.

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@harvey1,

"What I meant was that subjective beliefs emerge from objective causes. So, whereas one (you!) might say that moral values are subjective, this to me is like saying that scientific beliefs are subjective. Sure, minds perceive certain stimuli and as a result form subjective views of the world, but this is misleading when it comes to scientific beliefs since there are objective rules by which those beliefs come to be believed. Similarly, there are objective rules by which certain evil morals become perceived as evil.[/quote]

harvey, Smile

Yes,I see what you mean now,the inferences on both sides are true but sometimes can leave a little in obscurity.When you use the term evil are you inferring something that is not liked or something of a supernatural nature?:eek:

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@harvey1,

harvey1 wrote:

We can't obtain greater knowledge than God since God is omniscient. Humans, no matter how great their scientific progress, cannot become omniscient of the future.

I assume by "omniscient" we're talking about absolute and not "relational" all-knowing? If so, is it safe to say that absolute "all-powerfulness" describes omnipotence? If that's the case, would you say that God is not omnipotent or that God is omnipotent in some kind of conditional way?

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@boagie,

boagie wrote:

When you use the term evil are you inferring something that is not liked or something of a supernatural nature?:eek:

Evil is a general category that represents our human experience with those behaviors, thoughts, actions, etc., which our evolution (physical, cultural, spiritual) has naturally led us to see as couterproductive, dangerous, unwelcoming, etc. This sounds subjective, but the ultimate theory of morality (i.e., part of an evolutionary theory) that describes all of this would make it perfectly understandable why morals are objective from a theoretical standpoint.

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@TK421,

TK421 wrote:

I assume by "omniscient" we're talking about absolute and not "relational" all-knowing? If so, is it safe to say that absolute "all-powerfulness" describes omnipotence? If that's the case, would you say that God is not omnipotent or that God is omnipotent in some kind of conditional way?

I prefer to explicitly define my terms. By omnipotence I mean that God makes decrees that are impossible for them to not be true. However, if God makes a later decree (e.g., God said, "Let there be light") then this later decree cannot possibly contradict an "earlier" decree (e.g., logical and mathematical propositions). So, for example, if God decrees to make a free will being, then God cannot later decree to rob that free will being of all its free will. Any later decree must be completely compatible with all earlier decrees. Omnipotence, then, is that God can decree anything that does not interfere with an earlier decree. God is not confusion.

By omniscience I mean that God has knowledge of all facts throughout spacetime. However, God's knowledge about the future is based on His omnipresence in the future, and therefore God's omniscience is dependent on what actually happens freely in creation (i.e., versus what must happen according to a deterministic future).

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@harvey1,

boagie wrote:

Justin,

"Death, diease, injury, etc: the phenomenology of suffering." That would make evil that which you do not like.

Boagie, the above isn't something I would consider evil. The fact is that physical life has a cycle just as everything in nature has a cycle. Death isn't evil it's inevitable. Disease and injury, those aren't necessarily evil either. It would all depend on the circumstances in which we suffer and the underlying cause of the effect.

TK421 wrote:

Comparing God to the skiers analogy imposes significant limitations on God's power and knowledge. Minimally, this view of God clashes with the commonly held Christian belief that "God is in everything, God is everywhere, God knows all things". It works, insofar as it takes the bite out of the problem of evil but, still, it permits the possibility that we could become greater than God (say by obtaining a greater knowledge and control of the universe through science), and that potential seems to be counter-intuitive to Christianity.

TK, I'm not aware of any ability of man to become greater than God. That is not possible and certainly not with science. Science is limited by statistical measures of things we can see, identify and measure... table of elements.

Christianity... there are so many forms of Christianity... Who's to identify what Christianity really is? Do the Christians know what Christianity is? This is another topic altogether but since I was raised in a Christian home (if that's what you want to call it), from my experience and from my knowing Christians believe that they have to give their life to Jesus in order to be saved. Christians have this belief that God is some great deity or being that has created a heaven and a hell. Although Jesus made his message very clear, Christians don't even understand it. It's been twisted throughout the ages. The more money you give, the more God loves you... That's also Christianity.

Back to the evil in the world... it is because mankind has made it so. Our thoughts and actions and deeds and our free will have allowed evil to be a part of our world. Mankind on a whole lives for the things of this world and frankly, so do many of the Christians. Jesus again made this very clear in the Bible that we shall not live for the things of the world. Jesus also made it very clear that we were created in the image of God and have the spirit of God within us.
[INDENT]John 17 Verse 20 "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me."
[/INDENT]Mankind on a whole (even some Christians), live in this world, of this world and for this world. Evil will be present so long as the heart of man is living for the things of this world and not making that connection with their spiritual self and the realization that we are all created in the light of God, in the image of God... yet we choose the world over our own spiritual awakening. So long as our hearts are in the wrong place, there will be evil in the world and we will continue to suffer the consequences of the world.

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@Justin,

Justin,

Man does not create evil in the world,he takes what is there and defines evil into existence for himself and his fellows.
Evil will always have the basic foundation of,"I do not like".

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@boagie,

boagie wrote:

Man does not create evil in the world,he takes what is there and defines evil into existence for himself and his fellows.
Evil will always have the basic foundation of,"I do not like".

Boagie, in my opinion this is true as long as you're willing to say this is true:

Quote:

Man does not create [scientific truths], he takes what is there and defines [scientific truths] for himself and his fellows. [Scientific truth] will always have the basic foundation of,"I... like [it]".

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@harvey1,

harvey1 wrote:

Evil is a general category that represents our human experience with those behaviors, thoughts, actions, etc., which our evolution (physical, cultural, spiritual) has naturally led us to see as couterproductive, dangerous, unwelcoming, etc. This sounds subjective, but the ultimate theory of morality (i.e., part of an evolutionary theory) that describes all of this would make it perfectly understandable why morals are objective from a theoretical standpoint.

Hi harvey, Smile

Yes I guess I am still missing something,I believe I understand that the conditions of the objective world are out there and ready to be the fuel of the mind.I still do not understand how anyone could believe that morality,which is meaning, could ever be the property of the inanimate world.Sorry harvey,it just doesn't fly,perhaps if I read some of the material you are talking about,but I really do not see how.

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@boagie,

boagie wrote:

Yes I guess I am still missing something,I believe I understand that the conditions of the objective world are out there and ready to be the fuel of the mind.I still do not understand how anyone could believe that morality,which is meaning, could ever be the property of the inanimate world. Sorry harvey,it just doesn't fly,perhaps if I read some of the material you are talking about,but I really do not see how.

You might read up on books by Russ Shafer-Landau and/or David Copp that utilize reliabilist strategies to argue for moral realism. Also, I would intermix reliabilist arguments with a naturalized epistemological defense of moral realism such as the kind of arguments you'll probably find in a book like this. (Note: I haven't read this book, but I think I'm pointing you in the right direction.)

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@boagie,

Boagie, in my opinion this is true as long as you're willing to say this is true:
Quote:
Man does not create [scientific truths], he takes what is there and defines [scientific truths] for himself and his fellows. [Scientific truth] will always have the basic foundation of,"I... like [it]".
harvey whos quote be this

havery, Smile

You truely are a Christian soldier,no I would not say scientific truths are defined into existence,science does take what is out there but no, science does not create truth it finds it through speculation and trail and error.The remainder seems a rather desparate bid harvey,of course when science fails to find the truth or the way of things, it is displeaseing,sucess is always pleaseing.The foundation of evil is, I do not like it.The foundation of science is curiousity.

harvey,thanks for the tip and link on reading material.I missed the post earlier some how.

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@boagie,

boagie wrote:

I would not say scientific truths are defined into existence, science does take what is out there but no, science does not create truth it finds it through speculation and trail and error.

In other words, you are saying that there are reliable methods to obtain scientific knowledge. Well, as a reliabilist, I'm saying that nature itself provides reliable means to know moral knowledge.

boagie wrote:

The remainder seems a rather desparate bid harvey,of course when science fails to find the truth or the way of things, it is displeaseing, sucess is always pleaseing.The foundation of evil is, I do not like it.The foundation of science is curiousity.

The foundation of evil is more than I don't like it. It goes against 3.5 billion years of evolutionary history. Similarly, scientific reasoning is also based on 3.5 billion years of evolutionary history. We evolved in a world where you either reasoned properly, or you were eaten by lions, sharks, or an amoeba. We also evolved in a world where you acted according to morals or you failed to garner the cooperation of our kinsmen and then you were eaten by lions, sharks, or an amoeba.

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@harvey1,

harvey,

Sounds interesting indeed, thanks for the reading tips and the link!

harvey,perhaps we could speak again of this,after I have had time to read and ponder----------much thanks!! boagie

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@boagie,

The Tale of the Twelve Officers
Mark I. Vuletic

Last updated 21 March 2008
It was, of course, sad to hear that Ms. K had been slowly raped and murdered by a common thug over the course of one hour and fifty-five minutes; but when I found out that the ordeal had taken place in plain sight of twelve fully-armed off-duty police officers, who ignored her terrified cries for help, and instead just watched until the act was carried to its gruesome end, I found myself facing a personal crisis. You see, the officers had all been very close friends of mine, but now I found my trust in them shaken to its core. Fortunately, I was able to talk with them afterwards, and ask them how they could have stood by and done nothing when they could so easily have saved Ms. K.
"I thought about intervening," said the first officer, "but it occurred to me that it was obviously better for the murderer to be able to exercise his free will than to have it restricted. I deeply regret the choices he made, but that's the price of having a world with free agents. Would you rather everyone in the world were a robot? The attacker's choices certainly weren't in my control, so I can't be held responsible for his actions."
"Well," said the second officer, "my motivation was a little bit different. I was about to pull my gun on the murderer when I thought to myself, 'But wait, wouldn't this be a perfect opportunity for some unarmed bystander to exercise selfless heroism, should he chance to walk by? If I were to intervene all the time like I was just about to, then no one would ever be able to exercise such a virtue. In fact, everyone would probably become very spoiled and self-centered if I were to prevent every act of rape and murder.' So I backed off. It's unfortunate that no one actually showed up to heroically intervene, but that's the price of having a universe where people can display virtue and maturity. Would you rather the world were nothing but love, peace, and roses?"
"I didn't even consider stepping in," said the third officer. "I probably would have if I hadn't had so much experience of life as a whole, since Ms. K.'s rape and murder admittedly seems pretty horrible when taken in isolation. But when you put it into context with the rest of life, it actually adds to the overall beauty of the big picture. Ms. K.'s screams were like the discordant notes that make fine musical pieces better than they would have been had all the notes been flawless. In fact, I could scarcely keep from waving my hands around, imagining that I myself was conducting the delicious nuances of the orchestra."
"When I first arrived on the scene, I actually drew my gun and pointed it right at the rapist's head," confessed the fourth officer, with a very guilty look on his face. "I'm deeply ashamed I did that. Do you know how close I came to destroying all of the goodness in the world? I mean, we all know there can't be any good without evil. Fortunately, I remembered this just in time, and a wave of such strong nausea came over me when I realized what I had almost done, that it knocked me to my hands and knees. Man, was that a close one."
"Look, there's really no point in my trying to explain the details to you," said the fifth officer, who we had nicknamed 'Brainiac' because he had an encyclopedic knowledge of literally everything and an IQ way off the charts. "There's an excellent reason for why I did not intervene, but it's just way too complicated for you to understand, so I'm not even going to bother trying. I mean, you admit you are nowhere near as knowledgeable as I am, so what right do you have to judge? Just so there's no misunderstanding, though, let me point out that no one could care about Ms. K. more than I did, and that I am, in fact, a very good person. That settles that."
"I would have defended Ms. K.," said the sixth officer, who was notoriously careful about staying out of the public eye, "but it simply was not feasible. You see, I want everyone to freely choose to believe in me. But if I were to step in every time someone was about to be raped or murdered, then the evidence would be so clear-cut that everyone would be forced to believe in me. Can you imagine a more diabolical infringement upon their free wills? Obviously, it was better for me to back off and let Ms. K. be raped and murdered. Now everyone can freely choose to believe that there is this extraordinary cop out there who loves them like his own children."
"What are you complaining about?" exclaimed the seventh officer when I turned to him, his eyebrows shooting up in exasperated disbelief. "I just saved a woman from getting raped and murdered last week! Do I have to jump in every time I see something like that about to happen? I would say the fact that more women are not raped and murdered in this city is almost miraculous testimony to my goodness."
The eighth officer, too, looked frustrated. "Nothing I do is good enough! Do you know how much worse it could have been? The thug actually had a blowtorch with him when he started out, but I said 'No way, not on my watch,' and knocked it away from him with my nightstick. Sure, I let him keep the switchblade, the pliers, the coat hanger, and the vial of acid, but think how much worse it would have been with a blowtorch! Ms. K. should have thanked her lucky stars that someone so loving was there to watch over her."
"I'll let you in on a secret," said the ninth officer. "Moments after Ms. K. flatlined, I had her resuscitated, and flown to a tropical resort where she is now experiencing extraordinary bliss, and her ordeal is just a distant memory. I'm sure you would agree that that's more than adequate compensation for her suffering, so the fact that I just stood there watching instead of intervening has no bearing at all on my goodness."
The tenth officer gave us all quite a start when he revealed a surprising secret about Ms. K. "I genetically engineered her from scratch. I made her, therefore she's my property, and I can do whatever I want with her. I could rape and murder her myself if I were so inclined, and it would be no worse than you tearing up a piece of paper you own. So there is no question of my being a bad person for not helping her."
The eleventh officer chimed in, gesturing at the tenth officer "I hired him to create Ms. K. for me, because I wanted someone to love and worship me. But when I approached Ms. K about the matter, she actually turned away from me, as though she could find meaning and happiness with someone else! So I decided the loving thing to do would be to break her spirit by arranging to have her raped and murdered by a common thug, so that she might turn to me in her extraordinary suffering, thereby fulfilling the purpose for which she had been created. Well, mission accomplished, I'm happy to say! A few seconds before she died, she was so insane with terror and pain that she actually convinced herself she loved me, since she knew that only I could end her ordeal. I'll never forget the love in her eyes when she looked up at me the last time, begging for mercy, right before the thug bent over and slit her throat. It was so beautiful it still brings me to tears. Now I just have to go to that island so she can claim her prize of servitude."
"Well, this is quite a coincidence," chuckled the twelfth officer. "It looks like the thug got himself double pay, because I actually hired him to carry out the murder, too! Why? Oh, well it was just a test. Ms. K. and I had been dating for some time (no offense, I didn't know she was someone else's property), and one beautiful night she finally told me she loved me. So, naturally, I wanted to see whether this was indeed love -- that is, whether she would continue to adore me even while drowning in a pool of her own tears and blood, with me standing before her doing nothing."
By now, it had become clear to me that any difficulty I might have had in reconciling the presumed goodness of the officers with their behavior that day was unfounded, and that anyone who sided against them could do so only for love of evil over good. After all, anyone who has experienced their friendship in the way I have knows that they are good. Their goodness is even manifest in my life -- I was in a shambles before I met them, but now everyone remarks on what a changed person I am, so much kinder and happier, apparently possessed of an inner calm. And I have met so many others who feel exactly the same way about them -- so many who, like me, know in their hearts the truth that others try to rationalize away with their cold reason and sterile logic. I am ashamed that I ever doubted the entitlement of the twelve officers to my loyalty and my love.
As I was getting ready to leave, the first officer spoke up again. "By the way, I also think you should know that when we stood there watching Ms. K. get raped and stabbed over and over, we were suffering along with her, and we experienced exactly the same pain she did, or perhaps even more." And everyone in the room, myself included, nodded his head in agreement.
Postscript

Religious readers, do not take offense. I have made this parable as brazen as I could, but my purpose is not to insult or blaspheme. I have found that religious believers are often conditioned to accept trite solutions to the problem of suffering, and that it is all but impossible to shake that conditioning through dry analysis. The temptation to offer to an entity a moral blank check simply because it sports a nametag with "God" written on it, is overwhelming in our theistic culture. Hence, this attempt to make the point through a medium as far removed from dry analysis as possible. But again, it is all to make a point, not to cause anyone harm. I have not written anything that I would not have wanted directed at me when I myself was a believer.
Second postscript

I have had many observant people suggest to me additional officers to add to this parable. One could, for instance, add an officer who had refused to intervene so that Ms. K.'s father might learn a valuable lesson about forgiveness or humility. One could add an officer who had refused to intervene so that other observers would be terrorized into recognizing the importance of law enforcement. One could add an officer who had refused to intervene so that Ms. K. could participate in small way in the tremendous suffering he himself had once gone through. One could add an officer who argued that since Ms. K. was less than morally perfect, she didn't deserve to be rescued. One could add an officer who argued that since he wasn't the one who raped Ms. K., everyone in the world except for him was responsible for her rape, and it was therefore wrong to blame him. These are all good suggestions, some of them representative of more popular theodicies than some of the ones in my original parable. I think it best, however, to leave my parable as it stands, and leave further officers to my readers to work out on their own, if only because I otherwise soon would end up with a number of officers closer to that of the Arabian Nights than to that of the apostles. The possibilities truly are endless: for as long as religion persists, diehard believers surely will continue to come up with new rationalizations, each one more rationally indefensible and morally callous than the one preceeding it, for the failure of a supposedly all-good, all-powerful god to do even the minimum they would require from any other being who wished to be counted as good.
Link: The Tale of the Twelve Officers

Professor Frost's Note: I am not an atheist but I think this is quite thought provoking.
What's your opinion on the story?

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@TK421,

TK421;3374 wrote:

The problem of evil: if God is all-powerful, -knowing and -good (all-PKG), as in the Christian tradition, how can there be suffering in the world?

So, you are arguing that the Judeo/Xtian notion of 'god' is spurious? Your argument isn't relating to 'evil' per se, but is saying that an arbitrarily attributed (all those 'omnis') 'god' cannot now do such-and-such;
If god is a mechanic, why all the crappy cars? If god is Love, from whence Hate? Etc.. Makes just as much sense.
Any arbitrary (and they are all arbitrary) quality attributed to 'god' will result in the error of paradox.
It is also, in religious terms, considered 'idolatry' to give 'god' attributes, even in the mind.

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@TK421,

TK421 wrote:

(I did a search and didn't see this topic, but feel free to delete or merge this thread if the topic has already been discussed elsewhere on the forum)

The problem of evil: if God is all-powerful, -knowing and -good (all-PKG), as in the Christian tradition, how can there be suffering in the world? If God is all-powerful, he could have created the world in such a way that there wouldn't be suffering; if all-knowing, he would have known prior to creating us that we would suffer; and if all-good, he would never have wanted us to suffer. What gives? Or does this prove that the Christian God cannot possibly exist?

I'd say it certainly helps support that the Christian god is a false sense of god.!
But if you were god and were everything, perfect, and whatever else that is impossible or at least irrelevant would you want to create a sentient race that mimics his characteristics. Or would you want a deviation from the self? Or would you bother having even a reality for yourself. What's the point of perceiving when you are perfect? If you are perfect then you don't rely on anything to be perfect, not even being alive.
The characteristics that every religion conveys of God will simply create conundrums that are impossible to solve. It just proves how god can't really exist in any way yet defined by religion (from what I know of it). God is simply insane if defined as the false virtues given by humanity's bliss in the past. Lol.
I'm not saying that god can't exist. If you let god have potential upon you, by that I mean his fundamentals, then god exists. Although it seems rather pointless to allow the word god, to harass the mind, when simply knowing to live life with benevolence will meaning. And isn't that what god is about anyways?

1 Reply

@Holiday20310401,

TK421 and Holiday, you point to the problem of Heaven, which shows the spuriousness of theodicies. David Ramsay Steele puts it thus:
"God, if he decided to create other beings, would also create them in his image with a guarantee against their ever committing evil.The theist who says that God has free will,...cannot claim that free will and a guarantee against committing evil are metaphysically incompatible, and will therefore find it hard to deny that God could have created humans with a guarantee against their ever committing evil.":surrender:
What he, Michael Martin and my friend Graham Robert Oppy want is for theists to be consistent in applying the notions of free will in Heaven and on Earth without special pleading. Thus Nelson Pike errs when in 'God and Evil" when he adumbrates that we would be mere robots were we as Steele suggests as the same would apply in Heaven.This would not be the "foolish consistency of little minds." This shows that in the end theodicy merely tries to exonerate God for permitting unrequited evils with one rationalization after another!
Evil is not merely the privation of the good but also the presence of unmerited wrongs.:poke-eye:
John Hick makes the straw man out of the all or nothing fallacy when he maintains that we naturalists demand paradise as it is he who demands paradise for Heaven but special pleads to exempt the Earth therefrom. No rational being would test anyone with unrequited evils, having this solution available. If as he guesses, all will end up in Heaven anyway [ after some kind of purgatory], then the tests are more horrific. [See Edward H. Madden and Peter H.Hare's "Evil and the Concept of God."]
William Rowe is pushing his the evidential problem from evil. In the end, one can only have faith to believe that an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God would permit unrequited evils. Laughing

Thanks to all who commend my posts!
Double depression is ever so depressing! Your happy neurotic depressive.:brickwall:
Blessings to all!

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