The Problem of Evil

from god's point of view (all knowing) there must not be evil. it is our lack of knowlege that allows us to perceive evil.

evil is something both of us dont like, just as i am my bedroom is is this perhaps storing energy up keeping me maddened in a box. i belive that the forces which surround us and other people are just vessels storing up energy for survival i believe that u and i are life itself which as nature states death is a part of it. but what if we could somehow cheat death. answer we wouldnt want to we have no worry there for we are life and could never die energy that appears to die only gets transformed into other forms of life i believe that one day death will walk on earth and we will then have a fight on are hands for who inherits the earth the life or the zombies.

The inital question in this thread shows great intelligence. You have identified a specific logical problem with the "Christian" theology.

There are two parts to your question.

1. How can there be a force contrary to an all powerful being

2. How can something that is pure good create evil.

I have already answered this in the Metaphysics section but I will provide a brief answer here aswell.

1. The Limitless Perfection creates everything and nothing is outside of it. Evil is thus not a seperate entity but a creation in order to serve a purpose. The Limitless could eliminate all Evil if it so Willed. So I turn to question 2.

2. Why does the Limitless Perfection Will for evil to be a part of creation?

Before we can understand this we must first understand what is the goal of creation. A) Why did the Limitless perfection Create and B) Why is evil necissary in accomplishing this task?

The Limitless perfection is pure Good. It is the quality of Good, to want to bestow of this goodness and perfection to a reciever. One can only receive something that they do not have. Thus Creation was created incomplete so that they could receive of the Ultimate Good and Perfection of the Creator.
In the Infinite Wisdom of the Limitless Perfection, not only does it wish to bestow Good on its creation but it also wishes to bestow this Good in the best possible way.
One that receives a great gift for free is ashamed upon receiving it. This is why the highest form of Giving is when the recipient feels that he or she has earned this gift, because they are not ashamed and feel that the gift is truely theirs. This is why the Limitless perfection created the world imperfect so that we can perfect it. Not only that, but the direct result of our perfecting the world yeilds the reward of Perfection. It is only when we destroy and go against our role, that punishment occurs. Punishment and evil is a direct result of imperfection.

This is the role of Evil. It assists us in Perfecting the world and allows for the world to be perfected.

This is a short answer but I think it should suffice.

Hello TK,

You ask a question that has perplexed mankind for centuries. If I may offer my opinion. Understanding God? If God is this....? If God is that.....? Then why.......? If He is all powerful as "we" say. Powerful is a word that man created for man is the one who "wields" power. To relate to God in such a way is the folly of man. You just cannot go there.

Justin was right on the mark. Mankind is the source of evil. Now that mankind is the creation of the universe (God), IMHO, God created evil. Indirectly, through us. Satan is a creation of man that relieves him of culpability. We can always point a finger that puts us in the clear, so to speak. Of course we didn't know any better, but that's another story.

Common sense tells us if God could "know" evil, he would eliminate it. Well He is, through us. We created it and we will eliminate it once we come to our senses. Ha. That's another story. I'm loaded with them, Ha. To grasp this wisdom it is essential that you not conclude your existence to be a "finite one". We will get it right and you will be around when we do.

In all due respect and please don't be offended, your inquiry is what drives atheism. They don't understand God either. Especially as it relates to religious interpretations. Although you would be surprised at how close all of them are as a group. In that the atheist, as to their intellect, cannot conceive of any "higher intelligence" other than their own, totally dimiss any notion of God. Please don't do that. There are "egotistical" motives driving atheistic thought. IMO, it comes from a deep seeded guilt that stems from that very religion they are so offended by. The notion of Hell. If there is a hell, they sure as hell, don't want to make the trip alone. IMHO.

Please don't try to "second guess" God. Live your life in the moment, consider others before self and you'll do fine. IMO.

William

Hi William,

I am an atheist, and I'm curious about your conclusions therein. You sound very sure that you understand the 'why' and the 'how' of atheistic thought. What's interesting about your statements above, is that any of them could apply to some, and in some cases may all apply to one. There are as many motivations for atheism as there is for theism. Yet yours are stated very broadly, as if knowing all that applies to all. How did you come to this? Or, perhaps I've misunderstood you - that maybe you don't believe *all* think like this. If that be the case....

... please know that there's a good many of us who work hard not to lump all believers into one category or motivation, I'd be ever so grateful if you didn't do similarly. I ask this, because your previous posts show compassion and sensitivity (and that's *SO* rare these days). For many others who post broad categorizations like this, they're simply not worth the reply.

Or even better, perhaps what might be a good step for you - if you'd like to understand some of the thought-processes of your brothers and sisters - would be to ask, rather than stereotype your brothers and sisters. :whistling:

Thanks

Forgive me. You are right. I am a little biased to the word "atheism". That bias comes from atheist's effort's to destroy "God" in the mind of the believer. I do have a tendency to "lump" atheists in together and I know I shouldn't. My comment is a perception as I labored to understand the incessant attack on religion. I have always concluded the intellect of the atheist and for the life of me could not understand their not being able to see the real reason those of faith are so grounded in their beliefs. My God, if I can understand it, anyone can.
You see my friend, I don't understand why the atheist feels it necessary to proclain such a title as "atheist". The agnositic doesn't. Yes, they do not understand, but they simply don't shut the door. They are looking for answers as we all are. Not the atheist. There I go looping again. I can't help it. For anyone to profess to have all knowledge, which can only be assumed if one dismisses the possibility of a higher intelligence is a vanity I just cannot relate to.

I know I probably did a terrible job of explaining my reason, but you cannot just "strike God out" simply because you cannot conceive it. No one is that smart. My conclusion about the "hell" thing, I admit was a bit over the top. But still, I think it has something to do with it.

Sorry if I offended you. I like your posts. Perhaps the both of us can arrive at some answers that will help the two factions, theists and atheists, become better acquainted.

William

William
I don't understand your disagreement so please clarify in your oppinion.
Why would the Limitless Perfection create Evil? You say that Man creates Evil, so why would the Limitless Perfection give Man the ability to create evil?

I do not believe in a separation from God. I believe we are all one with God. We are His physical manifestation. We are mere infants, divine infants. It is our treatment of our fellow man is the origin of evil. Man is not evil, he was force to be. Man cannot be controlled. Not by man, nor by God. God, IMO doesn't command, man does; God doesn't want to rule, man does; God doesn't want to be worshiped, man does. I have never understood as it relates to the 7 deadly sins the rational of accusing God of being guilty of 2 of them: Wrath and Jealously. Never made any since to me. Let's face it if God wanted to put our light's out, He would have done it when we murdered Christ, or dropped an atomic bomb or began killing our unborn. Those are frailties of man. In that we were a creation of God, indirectly, that makes God responsible for the evil we commited. In our perfection it is we who must determine from our errors the path we must all take. For us to realize our perfection we must come to realize our inability to control the world and concede our assumed autonomy. Just look at the world, we have done a really rotten job of running things.
We will find our way, but let's hope we don't create too much of a hell, before we do. Peace of mind is God's domain. Fear clogs up those channels. I know it took a while to reach that realization. I'm not just spouting this off the top of my head, I have a little help. Divine help. God is not about religion, He is about life. He is the missing link. How could we know of perfection, if we had no clue of what imperfection was. We had to learn for ourselves. This body is a new thing in the universe. Having senses and reason was not only new to us, it was new to God too. We are all in this together. We will grow as go. When you are green you grow; when you ripe you rot. Once we stop trying to control each other and begin cooperating with each other then and only then will be able to make that divine link. It is no fun having it alone. Trust me. This world is not for sale. It is our gift and it was custom made just for us.

Now I need to stop.I do have a tendency to "ramble" Ha. I hope that answered you question. I realize it may counter all you believe, but it really doesn't if you think about it. It just takes it to a higher level.

William

I still do not understand your point of view.

Did God create man?
Why did God create man?
And why did God give man the ability to do Evil?

I know the answer to these questions but you seem to disagree. If you dont disagree and only take it to a "Higher Level" then you should be able to answer the basic level first and then expand upon it.

It is obvious to me that God does not need anything (power, prayer ...etc). If Limitless perfection were to "require" anything then that would imply that it is not intrinsically perfect. God does not "need" man and did not "need" to create man. This is obvious. Perfection "needs" nothing for it is already perfect.

I'd say he needs something. Fun ! God was bored, made Adam and pointed him to the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

"Listen up Adam, this tree, do you see it ? Well you can't eat from it !"

Cracks me up.

Seriously now.
People would say yes but, that is free will. God gave Adam free will and a choice. Well I say it's entrapment.

You present something to your creation, especially something with a name like tree of knowledge, then you forbid it. What's the purpose of that ? To test the ability of your own creation to make choices or to test its obedience ? Aren't you already aware of its traits and capabilities ? It is your creation after all. I don't get it.

Additionally, as if that wasn't enough, you add the "snake" factor to actually push your creation towards disobeying you. Then you punish it. I don't see the purpose of all this, from the point of view of a perfect creator.

edit:syntax

Let me take one question at a time.

1.> Yes. Man is a creation of the universe. That is all we know for sure. We are a part of this grandeur. Now whether there is a separation from God and the Universe is not known nor will it be any time soon, if not at all. Being that we "create stuff' using our senses we assume God does the same. Huge, huge, huge assumption. For man to even think He "knows" God is insane. We are an ongoing process into an eternity of which does not exist yet. We and God will experience that together. We are an extension of God. We are His hands, so to speak.

2.> Who could possibly know that? To know that one would have to have a purpose in mind. Perhaps we will give birth to God, who knows? All man knows is what he thinks based on all that he has experienced up until that "thought". Based on what he knows, he could only assume his being was a creation of a "like being". That's only natural. God, through man, will determine what that purpose is "as we go". We must understand as it is our choice to go in misery or joy. We work better with JOY. As we learn Joy, so does God. Joy is harmonic, misery is not. We taught God what misery is, or you can say he learned what it is to "be human" and let's face it, Joy is better.

Now aside for a minute. It is written man is created in God's image. Of course that is an amazing assumption, but for the time being, let's just leave it at that. If that were the case we would not be having this conversation. All would be blissful, euphoric, harmonic, and rhapsodic. If I were a God, that's how I would do it being, as we assume, by our language to be omnipotent, perfect and all. Now you have to keep in mind these are our words, our definitions, our interpretations based on what we know as we think it should apply to God. You just cannot go there. There is a reason for us and It seems to me through common sense and logic and deductive reasoning, we have been going through an indoctrination or an orientation as we become aware of what this sensate body is capable of. We are destined to make mistakes. That's how we learn.

3.> God, doesn't know what evil is. That's all our doing. As eternity goes, we just got here. The body is the "new" creation and neither God nor us had a clue as to what sentient life was all about. We taught God what it is to "be human". Evil is created by the extremes we will go to, to survive. That is our paradox. In all our history that is the one lesson we have not learned. Life is not terminal, but if we live as though it is, we do horrible things to maintain it. Abortion being the most horrific.

Now this is what my mind, as it surveys all I have learned, goes through and accesses my knowledge and guides my thoughts. That is what I call "God communicating" or a "God consciousness". It is He speaking through me. As I have come to understand: He is me; I am not He. I have a lot to learn as do we all.

I hope I answered your questions.

William

The RAMBAM brings an interesting question in his book "The guide for the perplexed". He asks what is the difference between God's Knowledge and the Knowledge of Man.

The answer is as follows. For man, there is the Knower, the Knowledge and the Known. For God, He is the Knower, the Knowledge, and the Known.

The Great Kabbalist the Holy Ari Brings a concept called Tsim-Tsum. He states that God's Perfection is so dense that in order to create the world He had to make room within Himself. Tsim-Tsum litterally means Contraction.

The RAMCHAL who died at the age of 40 and wrote over 25 Kabalistic works and memorized the entire Babylonian Gemara and Jerusalem Gemara (It normally takes 7 years to read just the Babylonian Talmud and that is if you dont go into too much detail.) by the age of 18 writes as follows.
"Within the Limitless perfection, all states of all things are present simultaneously in every possible combination."

The fact that we can teach the Limitless anything is laughable.

I will now answer the 3 questions that I asked you.

1. Did God Create man?
There is a concept called "Sof Maaseh" which means the final state. When looking at the earth we see things occuring in order from begining to end. When the Limitless created the earth He looked at the end. Just like when you write a story or paint a painting, you have some idea of what the end would look like before you start. For the Limitless it is the same. The Limitless knew exactly what he was creating and created a world based on the end goal. "The final state is first in thought". When the Universe was created, it was created for the Final state. Thus from the point of view of the Limitless, it created Man before it created the universe because Man came later, it was closer to the Final state. But from our perspective the Universe was first created and as a result of evolution Man came about.
2. Why did God Create Man?
The Gemara answers the question. The Limitless perfection need not create a thing for it is perfect and needs nothing. But none the less it is the quality of Goodness to want to bestow of this Perfect Good to a recipient. And the RaMCHaL adds In the best possible way.
Thus God created Man in order to have a recipient to receive and understand his Goodness and Perfection.
3. Why did God give man the ability to do Evil.
The RAMBAM writes that the ability to do Evil is part of Free Choice. In order for us to have free will we must have the ability to do both evil and good. The Torah itself writes "Chose Good".
The RAMCHAL writes that the Limitless left the world imperfect so that He could give of his perfection to a recipient. Because something that is perfect cannot be perfected.

Please read the Miracles thread in the Metaphysics section. The RaMChaL brings how The universe is like a body and the The Divine Will resides in it as our soul rides in our own body.

This problem of Heaven shows the bankruptcy of all theodicy. We naturalists want theists to be ever consistent in their noting that what applies in Heaven applies on Earth: this is no "hobgoblin of little minds.' Again, parents do not require tests of their children that they put them where there is unrequited evil, so neither should God. This is a one-way street as we owe Him no allegiance, and He should not punish us [ Philo- the journal of humanistic philosophers].:shocked:
As Michael Martin notes:" The existence of heaven shows that moral choice is compatible with a better world than ours, then why did not God make Earth more like Heaven?" The Garden of Eden myth adds nothing to the discussion! No god had the right to so test them in the first place as might does not make right. The punishment was excessive, showing pathology. :poke-eye:
:rolleyes:Please be consistent! If consistent, then theists allow for evil in Heaven as the myth of Lucifer would allow as John Loftus, former apoligist for superstition, now pleader for rationalism notes in his book on why he became an atheist.:bigsmile:
Nay, that agnostics search but atheists are dogmatic is so silly as we atheists demand evidence as do agnostics. That is practical rather than dogmatic. That canard makes theists feel better but mocks us truth-seekers! In one sense, agnostics are indeed atheists in that they lack a belief in God or if agnosticism is a method [ like rationalism] as Huxley so proposes, then again agnostics can be atheists!:a-thought:
If agnostics are uncertain or think that no one can know if God exists, they are ever so wrong. However, naturalism is fallibilistic, non-dogmatic, so we naturalists could err. :shocked:
:bigsmile: Thanks to those who thanked me! Blessings and good will to all!

Well hello skeptic griggsy! Fancy meeting you here.

"Whence cometh evil. Can god solve evil but not see it? then he is not omnipotent. can he see evil but will not solve it? then he is malevolent. Can he both see and solve it? then whence cometh evil? Can he neither see nor solve it? then why call him god?"
- Desiderious Erasmus

If Erasmus said/wrote this, I hope he indicated he was paraphrasing, if not quoting Epicurus.

"TK421 why aren't you at your post?"

God created all things for all things. He consecrated the whole. The rest is left to the laws of nature and the freewill of man.

Could God sweep away all evil? Of course. Will he? Someday. That's my understanding of the plan anyway. But for now we make our own beds. He will not alter our decisions or change our actions. That is why it's called freewill. We were given guidelines. He even came down and founded a church. A church flawed by the men inside, but again... who's fault is that? It's up to us to follow the rules... or not follow them as the case may be.

The best that one can do with God is to let God be who God is. Don't box God up. If God can create a universe yet know who you are (an invisible dot on an invisible dot) Then leave God alone as you or any being alive or dead can never understand anything about God.

Presumptuous Assumption seems to be a human trait when it comes to belief structures. Give the universe a break quit trying to define it all the time. If you want to accomplish real progress start improving your own life. Be part of the solution. Make your life better for all in your personal world.

I fully concur Drxminus1.
Who are we to scan God?