RE: What God's justification for eternal torment?
December 15, 2020 at 1:06 pm
(This post was last modified: December 15, 2020 at 1:08 pm by R00tKiT.)
The problem of evil, in its logical part, is never conclusive. One can babble all they want about specific cases where the amount of suffering seems to be unnecessary and incompatible with omnibenevolence, it doesn't lead to a logical contradiction. And the information assymetry between the observer of suffering and an all-knowing God is gigantic (infinite?). Maybe earthquakes are some heartless demon inflicting random damage by his own free will, after all?
The Qur'an gives another all encompassing response to this kind of doomed arguments, : (23:109) "Behold, there were among My servants such as would pray, ‘O our Sustainer! We have come to believe [in Thee]; forgive, then, our sins and bestow Thy mercy on us: for Thou art the truest bestower of mercy!’ (23:110) "But ye treated them with ridicule, so much so that (ridicule of) them made you forget My Message while ye were laughing at them! ".
In other words: God responds to anyone defending himself by invoking evil that there are servants - i.e. theists - who believed in him, and prayed for mercy, reconciling belief with evil anyway. If it were possible for the latter to reconcile omnibenevolence with suffering, then what didn't you do the same thing ?
Besides, there are compelling arguments for God's existence based on the existence of evil. If one accepts there is evil, then he accepts, implicitly, that there is goodness, and matter doesn't know good and evil, a moral agent must exist !
The Qur'an gives another all encompassing response to this kind of doomed arguments, : (23:109) "Behold, there were among My servants such as would pray, ‘O our Sustainer! We have come to believe [in Thee]; forgive, then, our sins and bestow Thy mercy on us: for Thou art the truest bestower of mercy!’ (23:110) "But ye treated them with ridicule, so much so that (ridicule of) them made you forget My Message while ye were laughing at them! ".
In other words: God responds to anyone defending himself by invoking evil that there are servants - i.e. theists - who believed in him, and prayed for mercy, reconciling belief with evil anyway. If it were possible for the latter to reconcile omnibenevolence with suffering, then what didn't you do the same thing ?
Besides, there are compelling arguments for God's existence based on the existence of evil. If one accepts there is evil, then he accepts, implicitly, that there is goodness, and matter doesn't know good and evil, a moral agent must exist !