Why does God permit evil????

it's of utmost importance. If suffering is necessary then God would have no choice but to allow it. Since the only things unavoidable for God are those things which are logically necessary.

Pain and Suffering harbor just as much good if not more than they harbor evil. And they both work to strengthen our bodies, our character, and our souls. Even someone hellbent on doing something evil can't guarantee their result. Someone can try and cut someone down verbally and it will serve only to motivate the person even more. Someone can even try to physically hurt another and end up causing them pleasure and an adrenaline boost.

The point is that pain and suffering exist. But how we perceive these sensations makes all the difference.

Wrong. The conditions of the universe itself were supposedly created by this god. Therefore this god is the ultimate cause on the causal chain and is therefore logically responsible for the necessity of pain and suffering. The question remains and the only logical conclusion I can think of has been stated.

Wrong. The conditions of the universe itself were supposedly created by this god. Therefore this god is the ultimate cause on the causal chain and is therefore logically responsible for the necessity of pain and suffering. The question remains and the only logical conclusion I can think of has been stated.

Can God change himself ? I don?t think so...What is Necessary cannot be changed and is by immanent essence right...therefore Good !

hasn't science proven that if the conditions of the universe were different by even the smallest of percentages that life could not exist?

Wrong. The conditions of the universe itself were supposedly created by this god. Therefore this god is the ultimate cause on the causal chain and is therefore logically responsible for the necessity of pain and suffering. The question remains and the only logical conclusion I can think of has been stated.

---------- Post added 02-05-2010 at 03:23 PM ----------



No. That's not the point. Now you're getting into coping mechanisms to endure pain and suffering. Instead of zooming in, you are zooming out.

Wrong. God is all-powerful. Therefore, to say that god cannot change his nature is equivalent to saying that a sadistic criminal cannot change their behavior, which would do away with the whole free will thing. Also, by saying that god cannot change himself you are saying that god has a certain character that would necessitate even the most atrocious conditions. The only character traits that would necessitate such conditions is that of apathy or even antipathy, but that's not the god that the OP is talking about.

Also, your definition of rightness and goodness is presumptuous.

I'm not sure that it has, but that still doesn't change the premise that all of the physical conditions that make such a fact possible (that life could not exist if the universe were different even by the smallest percentage) were created by an all-knowing, all-powerful god.

I?m not by far defending free will... I don?t believe in it...it contradicts NECESSITY...

To me Omnipotence refers to the Necessity of things being exactly as they are...such that what happens is allays Necessary, and that, comes in conformity with the Will of God who cannot/want change himself...(God being the Universe itself of course) ...You cannot separate your finger from your hand...

The only other solution would be to have a completely different universe governed by different laws in which case, if life were able to exist, it would exist differently than it does now. At this point you would then have to prove that this different universe would be better than the one we live in. And if God cannot avoid logical necessity and if He always does what's best, we can safely conclude that the actual universe must be better than any universe that was not created by the simple fact that ours was the one created.

What exactly do you mean when you say god? Please answer that question in the most unambiguous way possible?

That's not what omnipotence means. It's an improper use of language to shape and contour unambiguous words to your liking. To be omnipotent means to have unlimited authority or power. Necessity and omnipotence are nowhere near being synonymous.

If by god you are referring to the universe, we have no business debating this subject, and I don't mean that in a condescending way. If you are truly a pantheist (you believe that the universe is god) then I think your debating this subject is founded on an error.

First I have to stipulate by saying that God cannot be defined per say. But yes, I'm referring to the Tri-Omni God of the bible.

If you don't believe that the word god can be defined then why use it? That seems to contradict the notion.

The god of the bible you say? In that case I have some questions for you.

Do you believe in heaven?

But let's zoom out a bit and consider the real objects of perception. They always appear in a context - a figure on a background. What is the background? A hard question to ask, because as soon as you do, you're making a figure of the background. Nevertheless a great deal about the object in your perception is only inferred because of the relationship of the figure to the background. In a very real sense, no figure exists without a background - it couldn't, because then there would be no figure. So the background is as much a part of the perception of the object as is the figure. So in this respect 'the object of perception' is already an abstraction.

To my best and informed reasoning, the Fundamentals on ancient God view are not wrong...

1- Yes, God as to be, it needs to be, Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent...
He/It, is the some of ALL THINGS, Real and "Imaginary" or less tangible as I prefer...

2- God is Instantaneous, "IT "encompasses the vastness of Time and Space, the Future and the Past and all places, everything in Him and with Him, is pure Present...It does n?t grow or diminishes, It does n?t move, he is There ! It does n?t look, he Knows...God is everything and God is Order !

3- There?s no Chaos as Chaos is just complex Order...and gaming is the essence of experiencing reality...you have to be able to loose, in order to win something, to appreciate something...
..ultimately what you take you end up giving it back...nothing stays to yourself, because nothing is yours trully, not even your identity, as everything is in God...

4- God is the Universe and the Multiverse, and the GOGGLE-PLEX upon it and beyond it...
...He is the Void as none of the Forms are Permanent and Pure...
...that Void is Order and Abstraction...
...with no Time but setting Time and setting Space not to be or to become, as they ARE already, but to be experienced through Oblivion of itself, in us, reflections and projections of Him as the Ultimate LAW, the definitive one...
...we are the minor common step, and the bigger... as He lives in Us and only through Us can He live...In Itself, as a whole it does n?t think, it does not need to, it does n?t run, it does n?t feel...He "SLEEPS" !...We as parts, as Dynamic, even if it is false as it is done (the dynamic), are the goal of Order itself...The simulation is set for us...Universe is our playground...

As for Catastrophe...

...Catastrophe and Suffering have the purpose of creating the Illusion that everything we old dear can be lost, and in the Idea that it can be lost, We nurture the only reason to old them dear...

There?s no Good without "Evil"... IN FACT THERE?S NO EVIL, its all GOOD !...:a-ok:

Best Regards>FILIPE DE ALBUQUERQUE

Do you believe in heaven?

When you say unlimited power I suppose you refer to Reality and as a Deterministic believer I defend that power can just relate to what there is, witch by its turn must be Necessary and defined/confined...So Power its limited to making Reality as it is and in that sense is sort to speak, limitless...once it brings everything that exists up by Necessity...bl? bl? and so on...

Pantheism is a Necessity, God and "Creation" cannot be disentangled or diffused amounting to the Groups problem approach...as for Time/Space they have to be defined predicted and already existent in some sort of wave length variation ( like when you change from a radio station to another...)

God is EVERYTHING, nothing is left out, Everything is a POSITIVE and GOOD, thus NECESSARY affirmation of REALITY !!!

And this is a quick some of the extent of my personal view and belief upon the subject that I am so entitle to discuss as you are here or in any thread elsewhere that summons the question...

I also want to inject a quote from Fil. Albuquerque from another thread here because I think it holds some merit and is pertinent to what we were just discussing:

I'm not saying you're not entitled to discuss this subject, but I don't see why you would be defending the notion that a personal supernatural agent exists when your conception is a holistic, mystical, pantheistic one. You don't believe that the universe is a personal agent do you?

yes I believe in heaven, but I do not believe that we can consider heaven in isolation from the earthly decision that led to eternal life. We had free will on earth, and God simply permanently cemented our free-willed choice. Love still exists in heaven because God affirms the free-willed decision to follow God while on earth.

Thank you for answering my question, but I politely ask that you don't make statements in the affirmative, such as "we had free will on earth, and God simply permanently cemented our free-willed choice". Such a statement cannot be proven. This discussion is about meaningful questions, not meaningful answers.

Let's proceed with the questions. I asked if you believed in heaven and you said yes. Do you also believe that heaven is a better place?

1- Would you care to explain how pleasure or pain work in the brain neurologically, and the chemistry involved ?

2- Is n?it true that someone who is used to be in cold feels it less ???

3- Portugal is far from developed aldo it as came out of neolithic in the past years...

4- I?m not preaching I?m speaking my mind, and I accept your position as a valid one...it happens that my opinion is different theoretically speaking, ...for pratical purpose I would chose yours without a blink...

yes I believe heaven is a better place but cannot be considered in isolation from the here and now....One cannot have heaven without first passing through earth. It's like saying isn't being 21 better than being 14? One cannot get to 21 without going through 14. And indeed 21 is only as good BECAUSE of what preceded it

If you believe that heaven is a better place, as the Christian doctrine teaches, and you believe that God always does what is best, why didn't God create his creatures in heaven?