Why does God permit evil????

I did say I don't know whether God exists, so I don't know if your post was directed at me xris. But you fail to define God, if your going to answer the question why does God permit evil either define it or you don't believe. If you don't believe then lets just leave it at that. You constantly ask questions but you fail to answer mine. Do you believe in God? If not then you obviously don't believe that God permits evil, end of argument I think.

---------- Post added 11-25-2009 at 08:34 AM ----------

If you cared to read what prothero wrote then maybe you'd understand my position and that God is neither omnipotent or omniscience.
I couldn't have put it better myself.

I don't worship anybody K, all I know is that I do not know if God exists, I cannot say. Yes I do understand that I cannot answer to the traditional problem of evil, I didn't claim I could, all I can say that evil is has a cause and effect anfd the solution lies in prevention not a cure nor devine intervention because I'm a realist not an idealist, that is what is real, ie, that evil is caused by men and the effects are suffering in others. You have to get to the route of the cause to prevent it from happening.

I am arguing from a position that i dont believe but i am assuming you do believe.

Not all evils are caused by people, as we have already seem. Earthquakes, disease, floods, and so on, are what insurance companies are pleased to call, "acts of God". They have causes, of course, but not human causes. I know of no technique that can prevent an earthquake, do you?

In the second place, if I see a child drowning, and I know the cause is parental neglect, that does no absolve me from trying to save the child. It does not matter what the cause is. If I can save the child I should. Don't you agree? Well, the same goes for God. Another example. A surgeon does not refuse to operate on someone with lung cancer because the surgeon thinks to himself, "He got lung cancer from smoking. It is his fault. Let him die". No, the surgeon tries to save the patient no matter how he contracted lung cancer. Isn't that right? Well, shouldn't the standards we apply to the surgeon also apply to God?

Caroline if you going to defend a proposed description you will have to answer the questions. He is not all powerful , you say, how powerful is he? Did he create the heavens, did he create us? If his powers insufficient, why is it he can do most things but not prevent the death of a child. Given a millionth part of his power in any ones description of him and i could save a child from drowning. If he is more than mortal you describe him? please..

Ok if God exists then he his a creationist not all powerful or powerful enough to intervene or to interfere with mans free will, besides man should and is capable of getting it's act together to stop and prevent most evils, so why do we need a God to intervene? If God is anything xris then he is the creator aned nothing else, that is clear or else he would've intervened.

Therefore, if, as I think you have shown, modifying the attributes of God will not work, then we are back to the traditional problem of evil. Can the traditional divine attributes be reconciled with the existence of evil? And the only coherent attempt to do this is Leibniz's Theodicy, which argues that all evils are logically necessary evils. That every evil is logically necessary for some compensating good without which, that good could not exist. So that the world with that evil in it is a net better world than any other possible world without that evil and its compensating good. So that this world, with all the evils in it, is a better world than any other logically possible world which God could have created. In other words, that this is "the best of all possible worlds".

So he has the powers to make the heavens, in their enormity, to conjure up the creation of man and decide on the horrific reasoning of giving man the freedom to murder and rape

but he has not the power to intervene in the accidental drowning of a young child?

Now are you saying he has not the physical power or the will to save that child. Something is preventing him from saving that child. A weakness in his creation or fault in his master plan that prevents him? what is it Caroline?

---------- Post added 11-25-2009 at 08:59 AM ----------

Who decided this reasoning, I must ask and the purpose behind this reasoning. If we are here to experience life and all its values and so become a respectful soul capable of realising gods creation, I must ask, what in heavens for? If this god is so magnificent why not just go straight to the realisation and live happily ever after in the presence of this self serving god.

I question the idea that god made this world not the reasoning, why he let evil be present. When you accept the fact he made this world, you try to invent the reasoning why we have evil. You could say the devil created this world and then ask why he allowed goodness. You could be rather inventive and give just as many ludicrous arguments.

This preconception of a god given world cant come from a position of logic till the logic of god is resolved. They are tied together and what one proposes the other has to justify and give logical reasoning. Invention needs collaboration.

I question the idea that god made this world not the reasoning, why he let evil be present. When you accept the fact he made this world, you try to invent the reasoning why we have evil. You could say the devil created this world and then ask why he allowed goodness. You could be rather inventive and give just as many ludicrous arguments.

You still haven't answered my question, do you believe in God, if you don't then you cannot say he let evil be present.

The idea is (as I pointed out) presumably God need not have made a world at all. But He did do so because God saw that it would be better for a world to exist than for no world to exist. That is, there would be more net good if there were a world than if there were not. Then, having decided that a world ought to be created, the question was whether it would be better to create a world with no evil it it, than one that does contain evil. An omniscient God then saw that a world with some evil in it would contain more net good than a world with no evil in it. The next issue, then would be, which world, among the infinite number of worlds God could have created, would be the world with the most good compatible with the least evil. And, an omniscient God saw that it was this world. And, because God is all-good, God created this world rather than any other possible world, because is world has the most net good in it. That could be "the logic of God" and it seems also to be, "the logic of man". As Oliver Wendall Holmes wrote, "Logic is logic, that's all I can say".

Caroline i have stated on numerous occasions i don't believe in god. Its you and others that are making the claim of his existence and defending him. Im saying he cant exist because you cant give a decent reason why he allows evil...........you keep on saying its our fault because god cant stop it..i have argued he could and so the argument goes on and on, its becoming circular Caroline understand my position first..... please.

---------- Post added 11-25-2009 at 10:27 AM ----------

My position stays the same one has to recognise the conclusions to maintain the proposal. If you claim god made the world your conclusions must maintain that by logic. We can debate the logic but not conclusions.

Sorry. I don't understand what you are saying here. The supposition of the problem of evil is, of course, that there is a God, and that God made the world. Otherwise, there is no problem of evil to discuss. I don't know why we cannot debate conclusions of arguments. Indeed, if the conclusion of an argument is rejected, then it follows that the person who rejects the conclusion, rejects the argument that has that conclusion, and is saying that the argument is unsound. A sound argument cannot have a false conclusion. And an argument is unsound under three conditions:

1. One or more of the premises is (are) false.
2. The argument is invalid (the conclusion fails to follow from the premises)
3. 1 or 2, or both.

So what do you want to conclude from this debate? the premise or the conclusion? If you have a valid question then the conclusion can be quantified but I'm saying the conclusion proves the question is invalid. By the arguments given a valid god has not been exposed to even ask the question. This god in my opinion does not exist.

Originally Posted by Xis
I don't want idyllic conditions, I want to know why a child died and your god h the ability to watch and do nothing about it? Life is life, it has no reasoning if you place a god into it who cares little about the suffering of a young child. Who with any modicum of feelings could say it is part of my master plan, i will stand back and let it occur..horrocks Alan horrors. I would deny humanities existence if it could stop one child's suffering, it is never worth it, never.