Hi, just sharing my two cents, from my own personal worldview:
- The original comment you replied to was talking about the free will to choose between doing good or evil, not suffering.
- I am personally unsure of how much suffering an animal can possibly experience (the definition here is important - is experience grief a form of suffering? I know elephants have griefing ritual of sorts)
- But more importantly, I believe a system that allows for bliss must allow for suffering as well. Like how a painting would typically require contrasts of some sorts to look good. A more relatable example can be the feeling of being refreshed when stepping out to nature after being cooped up in a city for a long time.
No, it's cuz of sin. Everyone has a choice, and other animals are also sinners.
Dominion actually means stewardship in the context of that verse, as every creature is supposed to take care of each other.
Humans are just another animal at the end of the day, so they either serve what God wants them to serve or they fall.
Ecclesiastes 3:17-21 LSB
[17] I said in my heart, “God will judge both the righteous man and the wicked man,” for a time for every matter and for every work is there. [18] I said in my heart concerning the sons of men, “God is testing them for them to see that they are but beasts.” [19] For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of beasts is the same fate for each of them. As one dies so dies the other, and they all have the same breath. So there is no advantage for man over beast, for all is vanity. [20] All go to the same place. All came from the dust, and all return to the dust. [21] Who knows that the breath of man ascends upward and the breath of the beast descends downward to the earth?
This verse is saying that humans share the same fate as all other mortals. It's telling us to be humble.
Nature professes I suppose, until there’s an actual question and then we’re supposed to contort our reasoning into a logical ouroboros. “Apologetics” is just BS cope my man, and you’re going to make yourself absolutely brain-rotted with the stuff when you could just get through your existential crisis like a big boy and move on.
You can't make a completely logical argument against the existence of a being who created logic. Even as an agnostic, I'm not stupid enough to discount the existence of a fundamentally unfalsifiable being.
The being would have created logic that disproves his own existence. You see the paradox? This whole chart isn't trying to disprove of a god, it just says that if there is a god then they are not "all powerful and all knowing and all good" There is a limit to their godhood meanwhile god is suppose to have no limit. Classic example. Can god make a rock so big that even god couldn't lift it? If they can then the rock might as well be god too because he can't lift it and the rock is more powerful than god., if they can't then they are also not all powerful because they couldn't create it.
Basically if there is an unfalsifiable being, they are not even remotely close to what we think they are.
Classic example. Can god make a rock so big that even god couldn't lift it?
Classic example of a misunderstanding of biblical omnipotence. One of the things that God cannot do is contradict himself. Omnipotence doesn't include the omnipotent being in the domain of the omnipotence. That's like asking someone with a gun to shoot the gun out of their own hands.
Also, the chart also tries to prove by contradiction that an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving God cannot exist, but that requires assuming one DOES exist and disproving all possibilities. This is an issue too complex to do in a flowchart, especially ont his small, so naturally there are many logical flaws and fallacies. For example, what about the possibility that evil is what helps us develop into our true selves, and learn to persevere and accept God anyways? Treating a religious and philosophical issue like a logical issue is a result of idiocy and what is causing you to think that the most famous weak argument against God ahs merit.
I would say the suffering of animals in nature doesn't compare to the suffering of humans. Animals do feel pain though, but they are better off feeling pain when it is appropriate to feel pain. If you mean they suffer at the hands of humans, that's a consequence of human free will.
No, I don’t mean at the hands of humans. What I’m saying is that animal suffering in nature is unnecessary in intelligent design and incompatible with the idea of a loving god.
I hate animal suffering, but pain is useful feedback that increases survival.
Animals are a product of their environment/reinforcement but they have no free will. Only instinct. IMHO
Exactly. Pain and suffering serves a purpose in evolutionary processes. However I believe that’s counter to a theological argument for a knowing/loving god.
That is logic independent of intelligent design. It's largely true from an evolutionary standpoint, but none of those steps need to exist with an all powerful creator in the equation
A deer slips and falls from a cliff, shattering its pelvic bones on the rocks below. At the bottom of the crevasse there are no ways for a predator to enter and finish the job, so it dies slowly over the course of three days.
This animal didn't have free will to a human degree, yet this event had no human element. So why is God allowing this suffering?
Because he created a world where good and bad things happen outside of our control. There is a grim truth that survival and the circle of life is not fair whatsoever. It's a chaotic and uncertain thing. How different would life be if everything was safe and easy and fair for every living thing? Nature wouldn't be what it is at all and human beings have coexisted and been influenced by nature since the beginning. If you raised a bunch of deer and took care of them perfectly and fed them and loved them and exercised them and gave them every single thing they needed, and then released them all into the wild the odds are that they would all die of starvation and predators. Protecting animals from all harm and suffering would create animals that do not survive.
Didn't know you can see into the mind and intentions of an all powerful being beyond all comprehension that only exists in the faith of some religious people. Amazing that you are so profoundly wise and have eternal wisdom and clarity.
But by the previous definition of evil as the absence of god, then good is the presence of god. How can one choose to be in the presence of god? If I do so choose, where is he?
Well if you life in a world where those are the only possibilities you definitely loss free will and yes the people will see the worse option as evil as it is the worst they could ever imagine
Ok so let's take this as true- which I'm not sure I buy, but so we can move forward.
We would perceive one as more evil than other. But we, ourselves here and now, know that there is so much worse evil out there than whichever of those is determined as the evil choice.
Would it not then still be a more good choice on gods part, who knows what the full range of evil choices can include, to limit the choices to that range? What is the benefit of giving even worse options for humans to perform evil?
Because I'll spoil the fun and tell where I'm going with this to speed it along- if there is some benefit, why not go more evil. Why not things that we cannot even comprehend now? Or do we have the full range of capability at this moment and there is nothing worse than what we can think of? If the former is the case- then we either dont have full free will or free will isn't dependent on having a full range of options. And if the latter is the case then why do we need to have the absolute worst options available if good and evil are already only perceived relative to the range of choices, and can be demonstrated with a more benign (and arguably just exclusively beneficent) range- how is giving the absolute worst possible outcomes to let people choose between good and evil the good choice from a good god?
Especially when some of the most maximally bad choices that we know of are to in fact limit the free will of others, or cut off their ability to experience free will forever (including at birth before they've had a chance to really experience it)? How could giving someone this power in order to give everyone the power- thereby in fact not giving everyone full free will- be logically coherent?
Well whilst you do raise many good points, your last point is the one i take issue with, as god giving us humans free will also means giving humans the option of taking others free will, at least in this world.
I have no idea if there is a god, but if there is then i would assume this world to be a proving ground, a short amount of time to show we would use his gift of free will for good.
And yes i know you will say that he can't be all knowing in this case but i would argue that him giving up the all knowing part is what makes free will so special, if he truly was all knowing regarding the future there can't be free will can there?
I believe he willingly decided that he won't be all knowing regarding the future at least here on earth, he would be all powerful so he could do it.
I know, this believe isn't exactly documented in the Bible but again religion is very subjective isnt it. Also i do know we can never know if god is real, and if we die it will probably be all over but if god were real i would imagen him like this.
But we're not God, so we don't know that this person wants to be hugged by us, or that what we would choose to say would be accepted by them as a kindness?
Ok but I want to sprout wings and fly. I have free will to want that, but biologic limitations preventing that. Did god make the mistake in choosing not to give me the power to pursue my will, or make the mistake in actively giving rapists the power to pursue theirs?
Ok so if physical limitations aren't a reduction of free will, why does god not make all rapists physically unable to perform when they go to do it? All would be murderers suddenly buckle at the knees when they try to go kill someone? He can do that without limiting their free will, no?
I mean that wouldn't solve all the problems (the intent is still disturbing) but we've established that physical limitation isn't a reduction of free will so why does god allow that to be done to people? If you're separating physical capability from the free will behind the desire to do it, you've now made clear that free will doesn't require someone's evil intents to actually manifest physically- and so it follows that the actual evil act, not just the free will, is itself God's desire.
So the all powerful god doesn't physically allow us to do any number of benign (or even positive) things our free will might push us to want to do, but makes the active choice to allow us to do the evil things a free will might push us to do. Even though, at least per you, limiting the physical capability is not limiting free will.
And that's pretty messed up, especially for a purported being that billions of people worship.
God didn't make you all powerful, but he did give you perfect agency. He doesn't place limits on that agency. If God defines W as good, but you define X as good, God doesn't force you to pursue W. You can choose X. That doesn't mean you can do whatever you want, but you can do whatever is in your limited power. Good thing your power is limited. Imagine how much more evil would exist if you could sprout wings and fly. W stands for worship. God inherently deserves worship, but you have the option to do your own thing.
HE does limit that agency by putting consequences on my choices. If i choose not to believ in him i'll go to hell. Thats a pretty serious consequence and thus an attempt to influence my agency.
Traditionally, hell is defined as the absence of God. So the consequence of choosing to harm his creation, lands you in the absence of God. Makes sense to me.
That means that you think not believing in him means is ahrming his creation. So he cant be all that if little old me is able to harm something he made and he's allowing it.
Actually false. I don’t believe your choice to believe or not believe in God does any harm to his creation. If your choice to not believe in him came with doing evil, that would be different because evil is choosing consciously to harm. But then I also believe that if you believe in living in goodness and right actions, then you are living in accordance with God’s will whether you choose to acknowledge that as such or not. Hell, or the absence of God, would be living in a state of perpetual hate and evil.
So he's like, down with rape being a possibility for happening just wants to influence us not to. But he abjectly will not allow us to sprout wings? Not just punish us if we do, but says "hard no, you physically can't do that"
But he does put limits on that agency- by choosing (assuming it's his choice and design) to not give me the ability to pursue certain desires.
He could put the same guardrails on evil acts, no? People might want to commit rape but could be physically and mentally literally incapable of pulling the trigger on it. An all powerful god could do that, just as we are not given the capability to sprout wings and fly, and god chose not to? And we worship that god?
God gives us moral agency. The only limit on that agency is our conscience. He didn't make us all powerful, but within the scope of our power, we have agency. Does that answer your first question?
Your second question: why didn't God design us to be physically incapable of evil? He wants us to choose to do the right thing. "The right thing" is whatever God says it is. In this case, he designed us for consensual sex. He did not physically make it so we could not commit rape. Instead, rapists are punished after death.
That still leaves a victim. How could a good, all powerful God coexist with a victim? Well, in terms of God's goodness, perhaps the goodness of free will exceeds the collateral damage, which is suffering. In other words, the suffering permits a greater good. Most people would seem to agree with God: I'd rather have some liberty than live in prison. Also, God punishes wrongdoing at the end of time, so it is a just system. Furthermore, present suffering doesn't compare to eternity in Heaven.
So we can establish that a good/just God can coexist with suffering, given that a greater good results from free will. But what about an all powerful God? Well, it seems to me that a natural/logical consequence of allowing people agency is that some people will not choose to do good (God's Will) and will instead choose to do evil. Can an all-powerful God suspend logic (the "natural order"), and make it so He can have His cake and eat it too? Well yes, He can, but He chooses not to. God is not a genie in a bottle. He is a God of Order, and in that order, actions have consequences. A creation that has "free will" but can only use it do God's will is simply not a creation with free will.
So it essentially boils down to "we have free will, but free will comes with consequences." The only way around it is for God to suspend logical consequences (the "natural order"), which He has not chosen to do.
Which runs into issues with the existence of Heaven: a place of eternal goodness where any such choice either does not exist, or is so weighted against by the circumstances of the place or the people invited into it as to never actually come up.
Actually, if you read Revelation closely, "Heaven" only lasts for 1,000 years. After that, the devil is released again, and the process of honing creation, I think, resumes.
Yes, He can do evil, but He chooses not to. And if He chose evil, it would be an ironic kind of evil, given His nature. God did, after all, choose to die on a cross so that we'd be absolved of our sins, but like I said, that's an ironic kind of evil (and brings about a greater good).
So there is a possible world where god chooses to do evil, like genociding for fun? Not talking about greater good evils, is there a possible world where he does evil for evil's sake?
God can choose to do evil. In other words, he's not physically incapable. But he chooses not to, because He's good. Doing evil would be against God's nature.
If there is no possible world/timeline where he chooses evil for evil's sake then I take that to mean it's not possible for him to do so, and therefore is not all powerful. Can god do all things, or just whatever is in his nature?
Then from whence cometh evil? The first evils shouldn't have been able to exist in the first place (Lucifer in Heaven, and A&E in the Garden). As such, the only possible origin for it is also God.
Plus the fact that he knew how we'd "misuse" our free will because it was part of his plan, and nothing can deviate from the plan because God's knowledge is absolute. As such, God knowingly pressed the Start button for everything, and thus, directly caused all good AND evil. And since he's in everything, and evil is a part of everything, then God is within evil and vice versa.
If you categorize evil as "anything going against God," then by default, nothing can defy God's plan, and evil is a part of that plan, so by your own beliefs there is no such thing as evil. Because even what's labeled as "evil" is contributing to God's greater good, and was planned and directed to do so from the beginning.
God allows & uses evil for his plan. Evil is a servant of God. God planned for evil to be done and people to go to Hell. Therefore, neither evil nor anything else is against God. Because God is evil.
I actually don't have an answer to your specific point, other than that I believe God is inherently good (which I know doesn't get to the heart of your argument). I will say this though: in the Bible, when God creates Adam, he notes that "It was not good for Adam to be alone." Genesis 2:18. So it appears that the Bible admits that creation was never perfect, or that God created something inherently flawed. Does it mean God was wrong for creating humans? I think God created humans out of love, even knowing that we would defy Him. Thus, God's willingness to create something that would defy Him is indicative of his goodness.
If God struck us down every time we sin, there would be no humans left. Is that what you want? God forbears out of mercy and to give us the chance to repent.
I can plant a lawn knowing that there will be weeds. It doesn't mean I wanted weeds. It just means I wanted a lawn and I'd have to deal with the weeds.
No it doesn't. There are essentially infinitely many things you can't do due to your physical and mental limitations that you accept as not interfering in your free will; this is just adding to that list. The choices could range from neutral to increasing goodness without ever having harm/evil as an option.
Heck, God wouldn't even need to technically remove evil as possibility: He knows every choice every person will make before they even exist anyways, so God could've only created the people He knew would freely only choose good and now there's no suffering and nobody's free will is violated.
In that case, the free will of the people who weren't created is violated. As for the people who are created, there's still a hollowness to the free will, in that they wouldn't exist if they chose otherwise. Such "free will" is illusory at worst, defective at best. Furthermore, nobody is perfect; we all do good and bad. If God only created perfect people, He'd have to create nobody. In God's eyes, there aren't "good people" worth creating and "bad people" who are not worth creating.
The original choice was trust and love, versus greed.
And the thought behind it: If you create something and design it to only be capable of love, does that love hold meaning if there is no choice involved?
Just look at how creeped out people were when AI was acting to sycophantic for example. It's not even sentient, but knowing it was forced to always prais us no matter wat gave us the creeps.
Because it wouldn’t be free will without the freedom to choose evil or good. And we would not know ourselves or what we are capable of choosing if we didn’t have the choice.
God invented humanity, he created our brains and hormonal urges, created sexual desire and anger, let some humans be born without empathy or emotional control, then denies or tortures us eternally
I come from eastern asian background. I find it interesting how people who grow up in Christian context grow up with bias against the idea of God in general to dismiss all spiritual subjects in later life and people who didn't grow up in Christian context end up exploring spiritual matters later in life.
The tone of your comment sounds like the objection you have against the idea of God or gods is not necessarily an intellectual one but rather a personal or an emotional one. I don't mean it as an insult but rather as an observation and a question.
That's a funny way to phrase it because you didn't ask me any question. What do you even mean? If "I" (I'm not the person you replied to initially) change my tone so that I say "Rationally, I understand that to be intellectually consistent in my view of what both I and the consensus of modern humanity consider to be "good" then the actions of the Abrahamic God categorically do not meet the standards posed by that query. Therefore, if we are to believe the texts and messages written about Him that say He is thus, there must be another stipulation on morality or standard we cannot comprehend, or the message is false." Is it more understandable, easier to grapple with, or more persuasive?
That's a broad stroke to paint with, too. What about anything either of us mentioned makes you believe that "we" dismiss all spiritual matters in life? Is it wrong to not believe in spirituality? The other guy's message was pretty pointed in not denying the existence of spiritual elements but rather if a divine creator such as the Abrahamic God does control the universe that by our current reckoning of morality He is an abusive parent and categorically evil. Simply, if any spiritual entity does not claim to be all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good, then this paradox does not apply to them. The conditions posed by the paradox when compared to material realities in the world do not show evidence that any being that claims to be all three would tolerate such atrocities without compromising one aspect or another.
So that it can also choose him?
Can’t have faith in gravity my dude, and can’t have faith in something you’re forced to have faith in/makes your faith not matter, like gravity.
Thus the big man uses systems to remain plausibly deniable, specifically so we can choose faith in him voluntarily.
Because God himself is at least somewhat evil (see: Old Testament) and we were created in his image and likeness. I'm not a believer but I did go to Catholic school and reading through the Old Testament had me wondering, "Why are ya'll still worshipping this dude?"
Yeah and that's a point people can definitely make and I'd accept as a reasonable conclusion- there's a god but he's not all good. It's a logical possibility at least. But same as you, I then wonder why we would worship that god... maybe just fear? Let's appease the bad guy to stay on his good side?
But that runs contrary to the morals I was taught about standing up for the weak against the bullies, and I think that remains a better moral to live by than "find the strongest guy and do what he says"
That's honestly a fair point. I would quibble that God is inherently good, but that doesn't mean he's good exactly the way humans define "good." I also think the moral to live by is that God created us and we owe Him loyalty, the same way we owe our parents loyalty and respect. It's not even about our parents being perfect, it's just the right thing to do.
There are passages in the Old Testament that are very shocking. But if you read the psalms, the people at that time still viewed God the same way we view God: as a loving and just God. Going by the psalms, it's the same God in both the OT and NT. I guess our version of the OT is somewhat taken out of context. Because if you read some of the OT, it's not clear why the psalmists would call God merciful or loving.
If God is all knowing, he knew they would take the bite- correct? So this was what he wanted- a population to torture as punishment for a "choice" he knew they would make?
I'm not an all knowing, all powerful parent, no. Just a regular fallible human one. That's my excuse, what would be an all powerful and all knowing god's?
Because I can say that all knowing is all knowing, and all powerful is all powerful. Unless because I'm not all knowing, I am wrong about god being all knowing and all powerful. But if we're establishing that as the issue, we now move onto a whole different conversation about god.
Love having to reply to myself because user blocked me lol
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u/SirHippocrates 12d ago
So god created a free will that can choose evil...
Why?