Hostage to fear

[Spacetime]

Alright, Spacetime, I see what the problem is. You don't want to be seen agreeing with the Christian apologist now that you've come out as an atheist, but my questions are so simple and innocuous that you couldn't help going along...at first. But then your Spidey senses started tingling because you realized that there must be a gotcha coming at the end, so now you're tying yourself up in knots overthinking your response to question #3 because you can't for the life of you figure out what's coming in question #4. Well, I'm going to put you out of your misery...it's just another simple, innocuous question:

Question #4

If an all-powerful creator exists, would it be possible for him to grant us full moral freedom without the ability to choose evil?

Now, remember that you said in answer to question #1 that you did not want restrictions placed on your ability to make moral choices. In your response to question #2, you agreed that having freedom to make moral choices is a good thing. You tried to avoid answering to question #3 (for reasons just explained) by arguing that "good" is not objective, but it is intuitively obvious that freedom to make moral choices requires that we can select from a full-range of options which includes some "good" (like baking cookies for a shut-in neighbor or going out on a patrol in place of a buddy who is due to rotate stateside in a couple of days) and some "bad" (like murder and rape).

So, restating Question #4: Is God's omnipotence capable of creating a scenario in which we have complete freedom to make moral choices while at the same time limiting those choices to only good options?

Can God grant us full moral freedom while simultaneously granting no possibility of doing evil?

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The answer to these variations of Question #4 is no. Although God is all-powerful, it is not possible for Him to grant us free will and the ability to make moral choices while simultaneously limiting our choices to the "good" only. Limiting our freedom would itself be a bad thing, and God does not make bad things.

Consequently, we have been given free will and the potential to choose to do evil; but the actualization of that potential is our decision, not God's. We could freely choose to do only good, but we choose to do bad or evil things all the time. The responsibility for those choices is on us, not God.

In summary, there is no logical contradiction in the fact that both God and evil exist, and the possibility of choosing evil is a necessary condition of having true freedom to make moral choices. Thus, it is simply a false notion that an all-powerful, all-knowing and all-good God would be able or even want to eliminate evil for the reasons we have seen in this exercise.

While your concerns about problem of evil and suffering in the world are understandable on an emotional level, they do not justify the complete loss of faith in God which you seem to be struggling with, and the healing of the pain you are experiencing can only come from Christ Himself.

You need MORE God - not less, Spacetime.

I've had your god, decided the relationship was one-sided, and tossed it into the bin with all the other gods I've tossed away throughout the course of my life. Despite this, take comfort in knowing that I don't respect your opinion... at all, because it's completely ignorant.

Your problem is that you've not defined the terms "good" and "evil". We could have, this entire time, been talking about entirely separate ideas; condemning each other's for falling short of our own when we have no idea what one another are talking about.

Define "good" and "evil".

And regarding the pain I felt... I didn't suspect it would take this long... but I no longer feel any sort of negative feelings regarding giving up trying to have faith. It all seems so ridiculous now... I'm happy to report.