I don't see how it can be contradictory.  You still have the option to sin, you simply don't choose it.  Alternately, instead of creating people he KNEW would sin, God could have simply created those people he knew would never exercise that option.

Boru

(February 8, 2020 at 10:32 am)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: I think it's generally good to view most brain injuries and diseases, even those stemming from genetic or behaviors such as drug use, as either hijacking, exploiting, or limiting what the brain does naturally. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I don't know any disorder that adds a behavior that isn't already possible in a healthy brain. Drugs and diseases are using the same colors to make a different painting.

Everything that's good can be used for evil. Your immune system fights off pathogens, but if it no longer recognizes your native cells you get an autoimmune disorder. The same hands that can be used for building houses can be used for breaking necks. Evil can always be possible because things that are designed for good can always be misplaced.

Perhaps the only way to design an organism incapable of evil is to create an organism that has no autonomy, no behaviors, and no functions.

Okay. You may have a point. Nevertheless eliminating the type of male desire (it's always a man)  to torture women for sexual pleasure does not seem to involve any logical contradiction and thus God could have done it without interfering with that individuals free will. I'm not that interested in the whole issue because God is under no compulsion or obligation to create the best of all possible worlds. I don't think he did but there is no conclusion about the nature or existence of God to be drawn from that. This whole debate seems the purview of Deists. As you already pointed out once the philosophical debate doesn't fit hand in glove with Revelation where after all we have the Fall, Original Sin and Jesus , in His human nature, being brutally and unjustly executed.

(February 8, 2020 at 3:40 pm)ColdComfort Wrote:

(February 8, 2020 at 10:32 am)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: I think it's generally good to view most brain injuries and diseases, even those stemming from genetic or behaviors such as drug use, as either hijacking, exploiting, or limiting what the brain does naturally. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I don't know any disorder that adds a behavior that isn't already possible in a healthy brain. Drugs and diseases are using the same colors to make a different painting.

Everything that's good can be used for evil. Your immune system fights off pathogens, but if it no longer recognizes your native cells you get an autoimmune disorder. The same hands that can be used for building houses can be used for breaking necks. Evil can always be possible because things that are designed for good can always be misplaced.

Perhaps the only way to design an organism incapable of evil is to create an organism that has no autonomy, no behaviors, and no functions.

Okay. You may have a point. Nevertheless eliminating the type of male desire (it's always a man)  to torture women for sexual pleasure does not seem to involve any logical contradiction and thus God could have done it without interfering with that individuals free will. I'm not that interested in the whole issue because God is under no compulsion or obligation to create the best of all possible worlds. I don't think he did but there is no conclusion about the nature or existence of God to be drawn from that. This whole debate seems the purview of Deists. As you already pointed out once the philosophical debate doesn't fit hand in glove with Revelation where after all we have the Fall, Original Sin and Jesus , in His human nature, being brutally and unjustly executed.

Well, at least we can agree on something - the described torture and murder of Jesus is one of the worst stories in religion (all religions, not just yours).  Good thing it never happened, innit?

Boru

Plantinga feels that god would be morally obligated to create a better world, if it were in his power. Plantinga contends that it isn't within gods power.

(February 8, 2020 at 4:02 pm)Gae Bolga Wrote: Plantinga feels that god would be morally obligated to create a better world, if it were in his power.  Plantinga contends that it isn't within gods power.

That's theologians for you - always going about telling God what to do.

Boru

edit:  Physicists too, come to think of it.

(February 8, 2020 at 3:31 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: I don't see how it can be contradictory.  You still have the option to sin, you simply don't choose it.  Alternately, instead of creating people he KNEW would sin, God could have simply created those people he knew would never exercise that option.

Boru

I don't think we have enough information to know that's how it works. We barely understand concepts such as time which seems a prerequisite. So we'll just have to put a question mark over that proposition.

(February 8, 2020 at 4:18 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote:

(February 8, 2020 at 3:31 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: I don't see how it can be contradictory.  You still have the option to sin, you simply don't choose it.  Alternately, instead of creating people he KNEW would sin, God could have simply created those people he knew would never exercise that option.

Boru

I don't think we have enough information to know that's how it works. We barely understand concepts such as time which seems a prerequisite. So we'll just have to put a question mark over that proposition.

*shrug*  It seems that if there's anything to Timothy 1:24, God would be able to suss out this little problem.

Boru

You might have put the wrong verse.

(February 8, 2020 at 4:23 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: You might have put the wrong verse.

Whups, so I did.  1 Timothy 2:4.  Thanks for the correction.

Boru

(February 8, 2020 at 4:17 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:

(February 8, 2020 at 4:02 pm)Gae Bolga Wrote: Plantinga feels that god would be morally obligated to create a better world, if it were in his power.  Plantinga contends that it isn't within gods power.

That's theologians for you - always going about telling God what to do.

Boru

edit:  Physicists too, come to think of it.

OFC.  All theology is an attempt to put boundary conditions on the divine.  Within the context of plantingas christian god there would be a logical contradiction unless some caveat of necessity discharged the moral responsibilities god has by virtue of his nature.

Or, in simpler terms.....god would be logically inconsistent with itself - shorthand for nonexistent in rational theology. Hence, the necessity of theodicy and defense.

---

For you, John, putting the "we don;t know" pin in it doesn't solve the problem. We may not know, but god does. He's omniscient.

God would know of every possible way to improve the situation, and because he;s omnipotent, he would have the ability to effect any possible solution to the situation, and because he's omni benevolent, he would have every interest and compulsion to improve the situation.

The fact that evil exists, if the omni attributes are true, logically entails that there simply is no solution to this problem. No way to improve the situation. OFC, none of us believes this, or we wouldn't seek to improve anything about this world, or our lives. I mentioned as much a few pages back. We know that just because a person can freely will to murder, that doesn't mean that anyone has to get murdered. We try to stop that, the consequence, the natural evil that plantingas defense seeks to omit from the moral calculus. We do, often enough, so obviously this situation can be improved...and we don't have an ounce of omnigods ability. This is a problem for that view of god and any commensurate view of god.

There's an easier resolution to the dilemma, ofc. One that doesn't take tying our scrotums into pretzels. People got the omni shit wrong. That's what plantinga is saying, boiled down to it's essence, anyway.

That "omni" aint all it's cracked up to be.