Epicurean Paradox

[genkaus]

Words are ascribed to abstractions of the mind to help us communicate. If I asked you what is infinity, you could spit me off a definition, but that definition doesn't capture the full abstraction of the concept. The same is true for most words, including evil. As for your definition: "something that is considered undesirable", you've made the abstraction subjective and therefore meaningless outside of your own perceptions.

You forget that the abstractions themselves are created by the mind. Why wouldn't words ascribed to represent the abstraction not capture it fully? Further, providing a concrete definition fro a word does not make the concept subject or meaningless outside perception.

We know what human evil is, we know what human benevolence looks like. We know nothing of the abstract concept of benevolence and evil outside of ourselves. Once again, we ascribe the words of definition to these abstractions of thought - omnipotence and omniscience - but we can't even fathom what they entail.

Yes, we can, since we are the ones who created those abstractions. We cannot know the concepts of benevolence and evil outside our consciousness because they do no exist outside it. To the extent they exist, they can be fathomed.

Human evil requires conscious choice - I'm not sure if this will help illustrate my idea more clearly, but if you've seen the move Avatar, their God (the energy between all things) takes no action to prevent or inhibit violence and destruction, it acts as a silent observer to the qualms of the humans and the avatars. The non-action of an able and willing God does not make them malevolent. It simply makes them non-actors.

Yeah - no action - if you ignore the declaration of Jake Scully as the "chosen one" in the beginning of the movie or the directing of all creatures against humans in the climax, thereby saving the Navi's collective asses. I think that that deity definitely proved that it was both capable and willing to intervene and prevent violence and destruction when no other course was open.

The conscious causation of unnecessary suffering is indeed evil, as to whether God is contained within this human definition is the argument of this thread. If God really is limitless, all powerful, all knowing, and all good then I see no reason to confine it to our simple definitions which fail at even capturing our own abstractions.

And that is your error. Firstly, our definitions do capture our abstractions. Therefore, I see no reason, apart from special pleading, for why god would not be bound by them.