RE: Q: do you, Christian, claim that God exists, rather than you believe that he exists?
February 27, 2014 at 11:48 am
(February 26, 2014 at 7:23 pm)discipulus Wrote: The problem of evil argument posits that evil and suffering could not exist if God existed and possessed the attributes traditionally ascribed to him in western philosophy. One of those attributes being omnibenevolence.
Right, it is an argument against the creator God of theodicy: omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent. The world we live in has a lot of suffering in it. An omnibenevolent God would want there to be less suffering. An omniscient God would know how to reduce suffering. An omnipotent God would be able to reduce suffering. At least one of the legs of theodicy needs to be sawed down to account for the real world. The sport is in seeing which leg the believer will pick. Drich throws out omnibenebolence entirely, for instance.
If it were me, I'd knock omnipotence and omniscience down to 'ultra-powerful' and 'ultra-wise'. That gives us a God doing the best it can in a vast universe where we're probably not the only ones who need miracles rather than an omnipotent tyrant. And it probably doesn't care if we worship it, because it is silly to care if lesser beings worship you.
But if that description applies to the God you believe in, congratulations on having a nicer God than some people, and one that doesn't contradict what we find in nature, but there's still no good reason to think that it's real.