(March 8, 2018 at 3:42 am)robvalue Wrote: It's pretty easy to show that any being in charge with the following characteristics is not a logical possibility:
A) Has no restrictions on its abilities
B) Has our best interests in mind and isn't sadistic
1) Suffering occurs.
2) The being can go about achieving any goals it might have, including looking after our best interests, any way it wants.
3) The being chooses the way things happen (or at least the things that can possibly happen).
4) The being chooses suffering to be involved, when it could achieve everything it wanted in other ways.
5) The being is the cause of unecessary suffering which serves no purpose.
6) The being is a sadist.
So a person making such a claim needs to drop either A or B. Funnily enough, people seem more eager to drop B. Many have openly said that they don't care if God is sadistic, they will still worship it.
You are just making the age old Problem of Evil argument.
Your A is wrong. Giving free will to humans imposes a restriction on his abilities. (called the Free Will Defense).
Your B is not well formed: God may have morally justified reasons to ALLOW evil if it results in a greater good (like more people heaven). This is called the Greater Good defense.
In a nutshell, atheist philosophers no longer consider this to be a logical problem with God because the two defenses are sufficient to defeat the argument.
