(January 4, 2016 at 7:44 pm)Marcus Felix Wrote: Firstly I'd like to say that we, being finite beings with limited minds cannot fully understand an infinite Deity.
That's always been a cop out answer. I'm not saying it's wrong, but it's just a "cuz I say so" assertion. No one has ever been able to describe God's mysterious ways; we're just told his ways are mysterious, and that's that. It's a hand wave to remove further scrutiny.
(January 4, 2016 at 7:44 pm)Marcus Felix Wrote: Secondly, if there is a God, what about the devil? There is a battle between good and evil in the hearts and minds of people on earth. I'm not blaming the devil entirely for people's bad decisions, but there are two sides to the story.
My first question would be: why doesn't God stop the devil?
But that's all really missing the point of the OP. The point of the thread is that when we do bad things, we are blamed, because of free will. Yes, people will talk about the deceiver and temptation, but at the end of the day, we get blamed for falling to temptation. Conversely, when we do good things, we aren't praised for it. God gets praised.
This asymmetry is both annoying and also somewhat problematic for the whole problem of evil (hence, my thread title). If God is ultimately responsible for good, why isn't there more good? Any lack of good would, by definition, be God's fault. If the failure to do good is actually our fault, then we should get the credit when we do good.
It's just sloppy apologetics that isn't stitched together very well. One half isn't talking to the other, and it's inconsistent at best, and contradictory at worst.
