Why does God do/allow...

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These are my thoughts lately please comment, add to or say what ever you wish.

It seems to me that a lot of the time atheists or whomever applies ask things like: "Why does God allow evil?" or "Why do innocent people suffer?" or "Why didn't God give people the ability to grow limbs back etc..."

They then go on to say that "Because God does not do or allow this we know that God can't exist or if he does he is evil, bad etc..."

The thing is that response doesn't answer the question. It assumes that allowing people to suffer in situations where there suffering is not abated is 'wrong'.

This isn't to say that these questions are worthless questions it is to say that the question gets asked and and answer isn't looked for. For example some ask "Why does a benevolent God allow evil?" An atheist then goes on to say "well since evil is allowed something is amiss." That assumption is only true if the answer to the question is known and that the known answer conflicts with the state of the world. Yet the atheist is not interested in the answer or it doesn't seem that he is. If in one situation we had an answer to why God truly does allow evil then what ever the atheists assumes would then be up for question.

So it would seem to me that when the atheist asks the question he isn't looking for an answer he is assuming that there is no answer and proceeds by saying this is why.

Does anyone else here share my confusion as to why some atheists approach in this manner? Or maybe you can help me to understand.

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@click here,

To be honest, I don't think this needs a whole new thread. If you really can't find your answer within the half dozen threads already on the matter, I'll try to articulate.

I didn't mean this maliciously at all, so please don't take it that way.

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@Zetherin,

No offense taken. I didn't know there were lots of other threads about this. Maybe a link or 2?

Does anyone have any links?

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@click here,

Just look through the philosophy of religion subforum.

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@Theaetetus,

When I was Christian, I subscribed to the minority view that not only does God allow evil, but he also created evil (the Bible would agree with me on that). I see no contradiction between omnibenevolence and creating/allowing evil for a good purpose (in this case, the development of moral standards in his creation). Of course, I also subscribed to other minority views such as universalism, so you may not want to trust me for answers to questions on Christianity Smile

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@click here,

click here wrote:

It seems to me that a lot of the time atheists or whomever applies ask things like: "Why does God allow evil?" or "Why do innocent people suffer?" or "Why didn't God give people the ability to grow limbs back etc..."

This seems to be mixed up because Atheists don't ask this question, Theists do. Unless I'm confused here.

click here wrote:

They then go on to say that "Because God does not do or allow this we know that God can't exist or if he does he is evil, bad etc..."

I'm not sure I'm understanding this either. I think an Atheist takes responsibility rather than blaming a Myth for his or her actions. Where a Theist has a Myth to blame according to their faith.

click here wrote:

This isn't to say that these questions are worthless questions it is to say that the question gets asked and and answer isn't looked for. For example some ask "Why does a benevolent God allow evil?" An atheist then goes on to say "well since evil is allowed something is amiss."

Do they? First you'd have to believe in the myth of a benevolent God to ask such a question. This is not the characteristic of an atheist.

click here wrote:

That assumption is only true if the answer to the question is known and that the known answer conflicts with the state of the world. Yet the atheist is not interested in the answer or it doesn't seem that he is. If in one situation we had an answer to why God truly does allow evil then what ever the atheists assumes would then be up for question.

Wow, now you have my head spinning. What are you assuming here to begin with? Conflict in the world is more due to Theistic pressure than Atheistic so I guess what's the point?

Why does God allow evil?... I used to ask this question as a child who, at the time, was a born again Christian. It wasn't until I stepped away from blind faith and into reality that the question changed. Why does man put the blame on God instead of taking responsibility for what he or she has created and creates every day.

click here wrote:

So it would seem to me that when the atheist asks the question he isn't looking for an answer he is assuming that there is no answer and proceeds by saying this is why.

Sorry, I don't believe the atheists asks that question. Again, to ask such a questions you'd have to believe in theistic mythology. If there is no God, then why would the question even come up to an Atheist?

click here wrote:

Does anyone else here share my confusion as to why some atheists approach in this manner? Or maybe you can help me to understand.

Geesh, I do now. Your confusion is founded on ... Well, I'm not sure. You're confusing yourself I think. We should simplify it to remove any confusion.

Theist: Believes in a God, therefore it is God who allows evil and suffering and the question of why comes from Theism.

Atheist: They are not believing in Man's creation of a God and therefore have no one to blame or ask why.

I would typically think that the Atheists believe that the evil in the world is created by humankind not a mythical being in the sky or on a mountain top.

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@click here,

justin answered so well i dont think i need to add anything.... but my mom and i argue this often... shes a christian and tends to think god has the power to give her a good life and its god who just stands by and allows satan to make her life crappy...

i dont know if people just dont have the time to put more thought into it or what...

you cant even have good without evil... everything is defined by its opposite. If there was no evil or bad, then many things in life couldnt even be possible... like a simple competition... if losing invokes sadness and sadness is bad, then there could be no winners cause to win is to make others feel like losers... you know what im gettin at? Winning only has positive value if you know the sadness of losing...

you will never find an interesting story without a villain or conflict...

whos to even say the creator of the universe has the power of devine intervention...
whens the last time someone was hit with a lightning bolt for telling a lie.... or is it god just hates people who golf in storms... Razz

na for real though...

this is why i think religion CAN be unhealthy...

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@sarathustrah,

To say "God does X" or "God allows X" is personification of God. These problems, like the problem of evil, is a purely semantic issue, one which is rooted in taking descriptions of God literally.

A theist might and can blame God, but that would be a cognitive mistake: Mistaking the finger for the moon.

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@Didymos Thomas,

I think all three of you are are confused with me.

Justin wrote:

This seems to be mixed up because Atheists don't ask this question, Theists do. Unless I'm confused here.

Yes atheists do ask this question but only rhetorically. They then go on to say that God can not exist because their is evil in the world. Or that because innocent people suffer God can't exist.

sarathustrah wrote:

you cant even have good without evil... everything is defined by its opposite. If there was no evil or bad, then many things in life couldnt even be possible... like a simple competition... if losing invokes sadness and sadness is bad, then there could be no winners cause to win is to make others feel like losers... you know what im gettin at? Winning only has positive value if you know the sadness of losing...

I think that is a false example. Everyone enjoys winning but some people are bad losers. When I play a game of soccer with my friends the teams may be weighted one way or another though we don't really keep score and we know who would have won but we don't care. Even if we did keep score we wouldn't be sad. Sadness is not what must go along with losing. You can be happy that you had fun and happy for the winner and just strive to do better. Without 'evil' you wouldn't have a concept of what 'good' is but that doesn't mean that a 'good' world is not possible. Yes it wouldn't be called 'good' but from the outside viewers who share in the 'bad' they would view it as 'good'.

Didymos Thomas wrote:

To say "God does X" or "God allows X" is personification of God. These problems, like the problem of evil, is a purely semantic issue, one which is rooted in taking descriptions of God literally.

A theist might and can blame God, but that would be a cognitive mistake: Mistaking the finger for the moon.

It isn't the theist but the atheist who somehow pulls out the trump card of 'evil' in the world and just completely disproves God.

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@click here,

click here wrote:

It isn't the theist but the atheist who somehow pulls out the trump card of 'evil' in the world and just completely disproves God.

Many theists and many atheists make the mistake of reading the language of God literally.

The point is that trying to disprove God by citing evil in the world is not going to produce a convincing argument because doing so relies on certain premises about the nature of God which are false.

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@click here,

click here wrote:

I think that is a false example. Everyone enjoys winning but some people are bad losers. When I play a game of soccer with my friends the teams may be weighted one way or another though we don't really keep score and we know who would have won but we don't care. Even if we did keep score we wouldn't be sad. Sadness is not what must go along with losing. You can be happy that you had fun and happy for the winner and just strive to do better. Without 'evil' you wouldn't have a concept of what 'good' is but that doesn't mean that a 'good' world is not possible. Yes it wouldn't be called 'good' but from the outside viewers who share in the 'bad' they would view it as 'good'.

yeah its not the best example, but it usually gets the idea across... not that i meant to get so technical about it, :poke-eye: but ultimately it would be nice if everyone played for fun and not to just win, which is generally my own mentality... but a whole world of people capable of such rationality... at all times... like if having a bad day and i lose a game i was certain i would win i would feel especially bad... or if i won against a person i disliked i might even gloat and tease and so on.... in such a world with nothing on the negative to evil side then.... then.... i mean its not even possible to imagine... its not possible to be...

as i said though... find me an interesting story without a villain or conflict...

could life be interesting without conflict... could we develop without learning from mistakes and so on...

like i just heard about that pill to detach the emotional reaction from a traumatic experience (the memory eraser pill) imagine if you had a bad relationship... and couldnt remember how it went wrong, where it went wrong... you couldnt learn what not to repeat and so on... imagining the effects of a world without negativity at all... whats the point then?

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@click here,

It's not a big mystery. Some atheists beg the question, some atheists ask rhetorical questions, some atheists are stupid... just as some theists are. That is, if you're asking a question about some people's psychology. But even though you pose your question that way, it seems to me you're trying to make a point, albeit in a roundabout way, disguised as a question. And the point might be: "Hey, the argument from evil is not a good argument against the existence of God as the argument merely assumes (and therefore begs the question) that God's existence is logically incompatible with the existence of evil." Or something like that.

Is that the sort of point you're making? If so, which atheist are you talking about and which argument from evil? There are many variations, in fact a whole study of this argument pattern--the argument could go in many different ways. Any in particular you want to talk about?

A lot depends on what you mean by "God" (rather, what qualities you're associating with this concept) and what sorts of evil we're discussing. For example, if the concept involves the 3 Omni's (omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence), then the issue might be framed: Why couldn't a all-powerful God create a better world than this? Surely an omnibenevolent God would want to if He only could. Now that better world might be one with no evil at all, or at least with less evil, or with only the "necessary" evil. Now the discussion could go on many directions regarding how the world could be better (do you really believe this is the best possible world with all that suffering?), or what evils are logically necessary if this were to be a "good" world (if any are necessary at all). For example, some theologians have thought that evil is necessary if we are to have free will (which presumably is a good thing). But even then it's not clear why there has to be so much evil. Was it really necessary for 6 million Jews to be tortured and killed in those concentration camps? If God were to intervene and spared some of them, how does this negate free will? I mean a parent can stop a kid from torturing his brother and that intervention would not negate that kid's free will (either entirely preventing it or stopping it once the parent sees what he's doing). Even worse, how about the kinds of evils NOT caused by humans? Like natural disasters--earthquakes, floods, etc. These create a lot of suffering. Why are they necessary? They have nothing to do with free will. Why is it impossible for an all-powerful God to create a world without floods, earthquakes, etc.?

I suppose you could say I'm begging the question too when I ask these questions, seemingly rhetorically, because I don't see why such evils has to exist. And I suppose you're right; all arguments are question-begging as they ultimately depend on premises the arguer takes for granted. But if you were to make theistic arguments, all your arguments would be question-begging too as you're making use of premises you take for granted--premises that others would deny. Welcome to philosophy, heh.

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@Sleepy phil,

Sleepy wrote:

Even worse, how about the kinds of evils NOT caused by humans? Like natural disasters--earthquakes, floods, etc. These create a lot of suffering. Why are they necessary? They have nothing to do with free will. Why is it impossible for an all-powerful God to create a world without floods, earthquakes, etc.?

yeah, good stuff... im gonna think spill even though in a sleep deprived state and operating a chemically skewed brain...

im thinkin if the creator of the universe made something out of nothing... it had to be that there is no more nothing because to have a nothing makes it a something...it had to be done somehow... oh wait i forgot to look up about "vacuums"... hmm hey can electricity exist in a vacuum? but a vacuum still isnt truly technically nothing.... but ok...where was i... then what was the method of creation? In the beginning was the word and the word was god... did god exist as some type of electricity, imagination, bodiless essence or something practically unimaginable... to be as exact as logically possible... god was consciousness... prolly then, all knowing all powerful thought? or maybe just highly imaginative and intelligent... is god perfect? did (he) really say he is? who says he is? (unless the creator is of a seahorse nature, isnt typically the gender that gives birth to life feminine - but its silly a gender is needed) so then anyways, assuming (he) IS perfect... id imagine god calculated and designed the world in the most effective way right... with the best results in mind.... or maybe just the preferrable results in mind.... but anyways... i think the method of creation wasnt as magical and simple as genesis describes... i think it was vibrations... sound... the word... words are sound, sound is vibrations... we were created with vibration... but vibrations have to have something to travel through, so to turn nothing into infinity is still just...:brickwall:
but surely an infinite consciousness would be capable of thinking up the necessary design especially with infinite time... and created the elements in some big bang somehow... hey maybe all this infinity got boring and created a finite existance to play hide and seek in... who knows, you could assume an infinite number of personalities... i try to avoid that...

i think its more like the force behind existance figured out a way to get the hardware... then made the software programs to keep it going, let it go, all the necessary rules, regulations, balances, cycles, processes, all there so that the users do the work needed, and is self maintained... so that you can lose your infinite self in seperated consciousnesses to gain such a wide variety of experience... if you are all knowing... all powerful... do you get bored? after your ride at this existance, is your ration of consciousness returned to the One consciousness and all-aware again? Does the creator value experiencing being a koala bear just as much as the human experience? Is their value in pain? Purpose in pain? Reason for pain? Does it HAVE to be?
Maybe the next experience will be the design that doesnt have evil.... maybe thats the experience for people who earn it? eh...
the odds are just as possible as getting the creators name and personality right... lol...

1 Reply

@sarathustrah,

Sleepy, you, as so many before you, have managed to produced a convincing reductio ad absurdum argument against a certain notion of God. Okay, God cannot literally be omnipotent, onmibenevolent, and omniscience.

What's next?

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@Didymos Thomas,

Didymos Thomas wrote:

Sleepy, you, as so many before you, have managed to produced a convincing reductio ad absurdum argument against a certain notion of God. Okay, God cannot literally be omnipotent, onmibenevolent, and omniscience.

What's next?

Even as you and sleepy both said

"all arguments are question-begging as they ultimately depend on premises the arguer takes for granted."

"by citing evil in the world is not going to produce a convincing argument because doing so relies on certain premises about the nature of God which are false."

That still relies on certain premises and unknowns about God.

So we have all powerful, all good, and all wise/knowledgable. We are using human terms from our human minds to establish the best defintion we can of God (in one view) and still assuming that under this definition it is not logically possible to have 'evil' in the world.

If he is all wise then we can't see past our finite wisdom and our defintion of these terms. We can't be sure that everything works out perfectly anyway. The Bible talks about how there was a fight between Lucifer and God and fallen angels etc... If God is all powerful he could have knocked them out of existence in a single breath yet he did not. But he is all good? Hmm ahh yes but he is all wise. So he sees why choosing not to do something is 'right'.

I don't know I just don't think that you can know that God if is 'all powerfull, good and knowing' that he can't have created the universe like he did. You can't disprove God that way as we are trying to disprove something with infinite knowledge with our finite minds.

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@click here,

The problem that you are talking about has to do directly with the defining of the character of a thing that nobody has any information about other than the legacy of its work.

Regardless of whether a person is a theist or an atheist, or somewhere in between, all we have for evidence to argue is the work of the carpenter's skilled hands. Of the carpenter itself we know nothing. NOTHING!

We know it has made some very elaborate and intricately designed cupboards unmatched by any other builder, so we know it is very capable.

We also know that it has never made itself known to those who view its work and doesn't seem to interfere with their lives in any way. In any way, good or bad.

So what we have is both sides of the coin wondering about both the existence and/or the character of this builder. Those who doubt the existence try to support their claim with reasons like it cannot exist because it hasn't made itself known to them or left any calling cards other than its work.

That is the mentality of one who would open his door to find a bouquet of flowers without a card and than say they have no reason to believe that anyone sent these when there is no card.

So their argument would be that there is no sense in calling the flower sender good or bad, because there is no reason to believe it even exists without the identification.

On the other hand we have the ones who look at the bouquet, and knowing that someone must have sent them, they immediately define that unknown person with all sorts of character traits based upon their own assumptions and ideals.

Its the typical right wing/left wing attitudes of the map.

What click seems to be pointing out is that too many of those who refuse to acknowledge a sender for lack of identification, often try to defend their stance by suggesting that this god of the right wingers cannot possible exist because it doesn't meet with the expectation that they place on it. Therefore what they see as a contradiction becomes their defense.

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@click here,

We have to take into consideration the creation of God. In order to validate all else being discussed, is it not important who created God in the first place? Who said this created God was omnipotent to begin with? Theist or Atheist, what difference does it make? Who created God? All arguments are invalid, null and void and everything else if we are discussing a notion that was creatively written by men who, to our knowledge could have been stoned out of their mind or found some psychedelic mushrooms.

My point is, man in his need for a higher power created God. It's all the writings of man it's all the doctrines of man, it's all the stories created by man and NOBODY in the world has ever been able to prove the existence of this great myth everyone seems to try to justify. Who actually created God in the first place? Who wrote the book? Who created the laws? Who is creative? Who is the story teller? Who created this idea of a God? MAN.

So to ask the question why does god allow evil, it's not only redundant but it's almost like asking why doesn't Casper (the friend ghost) stop the evil or why would Casper allow it. Either way, both figures here, Casper and God were created in the minds of men before put on paper.

So, we would be discussing here an effect of an unknown so how are we to come up with any kind of answer if we are dealing with effects of effects of an unknown. The only thing we do know is that MAN had his hand in the mix the entire time and we don't know what's true and what's not true.

To approve or disapprove the notion of a God that allows or doesn't allow evil IMHO is a mute point when we consider who it is that created the idea of this massive deity to begin with. Do you see my point? Likewise with Jesus ---- No proof other than a man's story of such. Have we not grown up enough to know the difference between a hare and a tortoise? Are we really that blind?

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@sarathustrah,

sarathustrah wrote:

justin answered so well i dont think i need to add anything.... but my mom and i argue this often... shes a christian and tends to think god has the power to give her a good life and its god who just stands by and allows satan to make her life crappy...

i dont know if people just dont have the time to put more thought into it or what...

you cant even have good without evil... everything is defined by its opposite. If there was no evil or bad, then many things in life couldnt even be possible... like a simple competition... if losing invokes sadness and sadness is bad, then there could be no winners cause to win is to make others feel like losers... you know what im gettin at? Winning only has positive value if you know the sadness of losing...

you will never find an interesting story without a villain or conflict...

whos to even say the creator of the universe has the power of devine intervention...
whens the last time someone was hit with a lightning bolt for telling a lie.... or is it god just hates people who golf in storms... na for real though...

this is why i think religion CAN be unhealthy...

It might be so that the existence of good things logically require the existence of bad thing, so that for God to produce the good things, He must permit the bad things. But now, the question arises whether the good things that logically require the bad things are worth the bad things they require. For example, sympathy and compassion for others is no doubt a good thing. And there cannot be sympathy and compassion for others unless those others require sympathy and compassion. So, if a child has a dreadful and painful disease, then sympathy and compassion for the child is a very good thing. But why should the child have the disease in the first place? Surely not for the sake of the sympathy and compassion it causes. Wouldn't the world be better off without the sympathy and compassion if that meant that the child would not have the disease? So, if God needn't cause the disease, or if he could get rid of the disease, would that not be better than having the disease and also the sympathy and the compassion?

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@click here,

Click, as I've said in this thread as well as in another thread that philosophy cannot prove a damn thing about God or about anything else. All arguments are question-begging and if that's all you're saying about the argument of evil, then we're in agreement. Except this is not some novel feature of THIS argument. ALL arguments are like that. So this argument is no worse than any other argument ever put forward in this respect. So you shouldn't be "confused" about atheists and this sort of argument than you should be of any other argument.

As for that other line of thought regarding our finite understanding etc. well if you're going to start with that kind of defeatist attitude why even attempt any discussion? If you're going to start with "We cannot possibly understand blah blah blah" then why even waste time trying? Or are you just trying to help those poor atheists who think they can understand things that they cannot by pointing it out? But as I said in the previous paragraph, you're also simply begging the question here. Where is your proof that we cannot understand? How does our intellect being "finite" prove that we cannot understand? You're using premises that many would not buy into, therefore you're simply begging the question yourself. That we have no philosophical knowledge I agree with, but you cannot PROVE that with some philosophical argument.

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@Didymos Thomas,

Didymos Thomas wrote:

Sleepy, you, as so many before you, have managed to produced a convincing reductio ad absurdum argument against a certain notion of God. Okay, God cannot literally be omnipotent, onmibenevolent, and omniscience.

What's next?

I think the typical reaction among those that buy into that argument and still want to maintain some form of theism is to compromise on one or more of those attributes. Most common, I think, is to give up on the idea of God being all-powerful. He may still be the creator and very powerful, just not all-powerful. Some, I suppose, may give up on omnibenevolence, even to go as far as to view God as some impersonal force. Really, this is just the starting point and there are as many approaches concerning the God concept as there are philosophers pursuing this. But as you start to "dilute" this God-concept, the point of theism or atheism (if there ever was one) becomes more and more unclear. Today it's gotten almost meaningless to say whether one believes in God when all one might mean by "God" is some abstract higher power or some vague idea of "universal Love" or whatever. What is "higher power"? Some being or consciousness that has much more power than you or I? If so, some advanced alien race might qualify as such higher power. Or maybe that's not enough. Maybe some being that's responsible for this universe? But then who can say that some advanced alien race cannot create other universes and this one is just one result of such? Now, why should we care about such creator if he/she/they are still around? I mean, other than curiosity I suppose.

The theism/atheism thing meant something for me because I grew up indoctrinated in Christainity (with my father being a pastor and all). What mattered to ME was whether Christian God existed, not the God philosophers typically talk about (the 3 omni's). And He might even if you agree with the argument of evil. In fact, many Christians don't seem to have a problem with God NOT being omnibenevolent, well, I suppose because the Bible is full of instances where God acts not-so-nicely. I struggled with this for a long time until I've come up with an argument that satisfied me, about how the Christian God (the fundamentalist kind) is not only not-omnibenevolent but in fact extremely evil and thus do not deserve worship, though fear perhaps if he exists. The argument isn't that special; I'm sure it's a variation of what many have thought about Christianity about the fact that God sending people to hell (eternal torment) is evil.

I still like to think of myself as an atheist (I certainly AM with regard to Christian God and the 3 Omni God). But a lot of times this label is meaningless because people mean all kinds of different things with 'God.'

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