Why does God permit evil????

Of course you can allow evil and be good if the evil is necessary for a compensating good. Dentists allow evil for a compensating good all the time. It is their business to do so.

My dentist only hurts when he produces the bill. I know your idea of evil differs from everyone else's, so I will say the evil man does. BUT then it does not matter, you are now saying this god is logical. You have been converted, this is first for me, a public conversion. Hallelujah brother.

My dentist only hurts when he produces the bill. I know your idea of evil differs from everyone else's, so I will say the evil man does. BUT then it does not matter, you are now saying this god is logical. You have been converted, this is first for me, a public conversion. Hallelujah brother.

To say that one thinks a concept of God is logical is not to say that one believes in that God.

Its harder to argue against if he is logical. Belief is an impossibility, its not logical. Am I contradicting myself? I might just try inventing a god for examination.

Its harder to argue against if he is logical. Belief is an impossibility, its not logical. Am I contradicting myself? I might just try inventing a god for examination.

Doesn't your dentist hurt when he extracts a tooth. or does a root canal procedure. This has nothing to do with my particular idea of evil. TAke the silly view that only intentional evil is evil. Why does God permit a rapist to succeed? What I said about logically necessary evil applies to that just as it applies to what is happening in Haiti right now: namely terrible things. Just switch the question a lttle: why does God allow terrible things to happen, like what is happening to the people in Haiti right now? How does that change the substance of the issue? Not at all, so far as I can tell. So, you can have the word "evil". It is my gift to you. I'll take the term, "terrible things". All right? Now, is anything changed? Not so far as I can see. The objection about evil is just quibbling about a word.

Kennethamy is showing you how the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good God is logical (at least in regards to the problem of evil). But even if he's successful, it isn't required of you to argue against anything. Just because something is logical, doesn't mean it is true. It is a logical possibility that unicorns are sitting beside me right now playing Bingo, but it is of course not true.

What do you mean belief is an impossibility? You can have a good reason (justification) for believing something, and this would be logical, right? Or do you mean that belief in God, no matter the circumstance, is not logical?

Logically god is not possible, if he was we would all be believers. If you can prove by logic your unicorn then we have ourselves a nice little earner.

Logical possibility - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It means the proposition can be asserted without a contradiction, it does not mean that the proposition is true. I think you may be misunderstanding what I mean by "logical" when I say logical possibility. It's not about proving anything. I am not saying it is a plausible possibility; Plausible possibilities and logical possibilities are different, don't confuse the two.

It depends on if you are a religious person or not. If you are a religious person then evil is more of a religious problem than a logic problem and you are more interested in religious solutions than formal logic solutions. Evil is a problem for religious individuals irrespective of their conception of the divine. Evil is a problem for man, I would say even if just as a moral problem. What is evil?

There is the traditional problem of evil which is the logical problem for which the Leibniz solution is being offered. Then there is the question in the OP why does god permit evil? The religious form of the question which begs for an adequate religious response not merely a logical formality.


No I would say you are addressing the religious problem not just the logical problem. The irony being in that if you are not religious; why does god enter into the discussion at all for you? (and I have the distinct impression hardly anyone in the discussion is religious in the classical sense). The Leibniz solution in which one asserts that (genocide, racial, religious and ethnic hatred, the millions who died in the world wars and in the Nazi death camps) were somehow all for the good (a classical ends justifies the means assertion) just is not a credible or emotionally acceptable solution. For those who survived the death camps their faith was altered and in many cases their faith in an all powerful all knowing all benevolent deity was lost. That conception of god does not withstand the reality of the extent and scope of evil in the world. Of course that does not bother people who do not have faith in god in the first place it just confirms their underlying convictions. Evil is only a formal logical problem not a religious problem to those who do not believe in a god or gods in the first place. For those who struggle to maintain faith evil is not just a logical problem it is a problem that begs for a different conception of the divine.

If you are saying that the problem of evil has emotional ramifications, I agree with you, and so should everyone.

Not necessarily. However, disasters like this occur as natures way of keeping balance. Man has tried to dominate and control nature through science etc., rather than work with nature and/or God in balance and harmony.

I believe we inadvertently bring about many of the natural disasters by demonstrating our own imbalance. Imbalance in human relations, chemical imbalances, nuclear energies, etc. etc.

The one thing I see demonstrated over time and in all of natural science is BALANCE. Humankind has brought imbalance to the equation and nature will not have it. Nature and the balanced nature of God, (I'm using the God term loosely here) is something most humans are unaware of. Instead, they think of God as a deity in the sky that allows evil and doesn't prevent disasters. When humankind comes to the realization of our own responsibility in this universe instead of blaming a mythical deity such as God or Satan, we will then begin to change how we see the world and realize just how responsible we actually are for what happens in the world.

It all comes back to balance. Natural disasters bring about balance in the system of nature. We see it as something totally different however, nature is balance and nature will remain in balance and if any man should wish to bring imbalance, nature will bring man to his knees.

So we keep building nuclear bombs, we go to war, we kill each other and treat each other with anything but the God given balance that has been so expertly expressed in the natural order of things. Then we ask why? Why does God allow, why does god permit, why.. why? We're asking a mythical deity why and then praying to him for forgiveness for our sins... as if it actually means anything other than settling the restless ego.

Why god why? Why do you allow satan to manipulate men into doing bad things. Why god do you allow evil in this world? Why god do you allow cancer and disease? Why god... why? In this case I think we're missing the boat standing around asking why instead of discovering for ourselves that in the stillness of nothingness, of empty space, of balance, of love, therein lies the God that just is or the inexplicable laws of nature, duality and energy.

We feed time and space with out thoughts and energy and time and space respond accordlingly in balance... and yet we still sit here on our hands asking why?

Well it does or at least should have religous ramifications too. The best solution to the problem of evil is not Leibniz but a modified and expanded view of the divine nature and divine action in the world. Either that or to abandon religion all together. While Leibniz might fufill the strictly logical requirement for the "traditional problme of evil" it does not solve the religous or the existential "why does god permit evil?".
To someone having survived the death camps, Leibniz is no solution.

Ever wondered why evil spelled backwords was live?

People call what you call, "plausible possibilities", "real possibilities". That is, possibilities outside of what is conceivable, or mind-independent possibilities. To say that something is a logical possibility is to say only that it is not impossible that it should be true. It is really, if you come to think about it, a negative statement. But to say that something is a real possibility is to say of it that there is no good evidence that it is not true, and there may be some evidence for it. For example, that there are other inhabited worlds besides Earth is not only a logical possibility, but it is a a real possibility, because there are so many out there. But that there is a unicorn somewhere on Earth is a logical possibility, but it is not a real possibility. It is not self-contradictory, but there is a lot of evidence against it, and no good evidence for it. It is important to distinguish between logical and real possibility.

Anthony Flood "Why Does God Permit Evil"

Much closer to our time, philosopher H.J. McCloskey, in his 1962 article "The Problem of Evil," describes the situation as follows: "The problem of evil is a very simple one to state. There is evil in the world; yet the world is said to be the creation of a good and omnipotent God. How is this possible? Surely a good, omnipotent God would have made a world free of evil of any kind."

You don't have to be a philosopher to feel this tension. All of us experience various types of evil, whether great or small, on a regular basis. Why would a good and all-powerful God allow this? Satisfying answers do not spring readily to mind.

It is therefore no surprise that the presence of evil drives many people to conclude that such a God does not exist. The logic is straightforward: "A God who is good and all-powerful cannot allow evil to exist, but evil does exist, therefore there is no good and all-powerful God."

Obviously, many others come to a different conclusion. Despite the presence of evil, millions today do believe that God is both good and all-powerful. For some, the reality of evil causes pain but no tension; it is a sad fact of life in a fallen world. For others, however, the tension persists.

They don't give up their faith, but feel at times like their faith is shaky, or even that they're somehow being dishonest, like those refusing to acknowledge a bad diagnosis.

A contradiction is a contradiction. Good allowing evil is a contradiction. Allowing is the word that confirms it is a contradiction. I wont let you get wet but I wont stop others getting you wet. We are not examining anything else but the contradiction. If there is a contradiction, there is, we have to explain why it is.

Sometimes people need evil to feel good and righteous, if they are not anything in life then then they can be good at least, sometimes man needs a villian in order to make himself appear to be good.