The Problem of Evil and the Free Will Defense

[Faith No More]

Doctor: You should stop smoking.
Patient: Why?
Doctor: Because it will give you cancer.
Patient: But I like smoking.
Doctor: It's a free country.

(10 years later)

Doctor: You have cancer.
Patient: Why couldn't you make me stop?
Doctor: Because, its a free country.

It's more like...

4 year-old: Why did you allow that man to rape and kill me?
God: I have to allow free will.
4 year-old: Why didn't you create people so they didn't want to do such things?
God: I did, but Adam and Even ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge and brought sin into the world.
4 year-old: Well, why didn't you stop them from eating the the fruit, which you knew would inevitably lead to me being raped in the anus with a splintery broom handle and having my throat slit?
God: 'Cause I'm a dick like that.

Spin it however you wish, Chad, you can't dance around the fact that your god willingly allows evil things to happen in this world.

[Angrboda]

...when I cover the subject of God, the nature of his omniscience and our free will.

While you're at it, can you cite me chapter and verse where this "free-will" thing appears in sacred scripture?

“Then they will call to me but I will not answer;
    they will look for me but will not find me,
since they hated knowledge
    and did not choose to fear the Lord.
Since they would not accept my advice
    and spurned my rebuke,
they will eat the fruit of their ways
    and be filled with the fruit of their schemes.
For the waywardness of the simple will kill them,
    and the complacency of fools will destroy them;
but whoever listens to me will live in safety
    and be at ease, without fear of harm."

Seems like a pretty straightforward appeal to a libertarian conception of free will. And given our knowledge of ANE culture, it's reasonable to conclude this is implied by any language referring to choosing or freedom. The whole doctrine of sin doesn't make much sense without it.

(The speaker in the passage quoted above is 'Wisdom'.)

[Minimalist]

For the waywardness of the simple will kill them,
and the complacency of fools will destroy them;
but whoever listens to me will live in safety
and be at ease, without fear of harm."

Seems like a passive-aggressive motherfucker.

I wouldn't want any part of his bullshit.

[Ryantology]

Spin it however you wish, Chad, you can't dance around the fact that your god willingly allows evil things to happen in this world.

Since God is (allegedly) in total control, you can't really argue that he doesn't explicitly intend for evil things to happen in this world. I mean, it's pretty obvious that God thwarts free will whenever he wants to. What is human free will against a tornado or a flash flood, right?

[Faith No More]

Since God is (allegedly) in total control, you can't really argue that he doesn't explicitly intend for evil things to happen in this world. I mean, it's pretty obvious that God thwarts free will whenever he wants to. What is human free will against a tornado or a flash flood, right?

And this gets to the heart of the issue, which is that this whole charade is really just an attempt to excuse their god for the suffering of humanity because the alternative is to accept that no benevolent god exists.

[Neo-Scholastic]

The conflicts you perceive are based on conflating moral with natural evils, not accepting finite knowledge as part of the human condition, ignoring the utility of pain, dismissing the role of our attitude while suffering, and limiting God’s justice to the earthly existence. Taken individually, these mistakes appear to present a conflict between a just God and a fallen creation. A complete picture of the human condition reveals a different story, one in which He, brings justice to the wicked, restores the losses of the innocent, and redeems the suffering of the righteous.

Conflating moral with natural evils: A moral evil is when one person wrongs another. Fraud, murder and fornication are all moral evils. A natural evil is when natural events harm an unsuspecting person. Examples of natural evil include hurricanes, disease, famine, and wild animal attacks. Most people agree that when a villain or deviant suffers as a result of their own bad behavior (like my informed smoker example) they are getting their just desserts. Likewise, most people consider the suffering of the innocent at the hands of a villain (like the pedophile victim), morally equivalent to a wild animal attack, a natural evil.

Not accepting Man’s finite knowledge: Cities get built on fault lines and in flood plains. Food gets tainted with poison. Yesterday’s cures become today’s malpractice. In each of these examples the victims have no fore knowledge of what awaits them. You, non-believers, wonder why God made a world with such hazards and placed us in it. Or at the very least give us the infallible ability to avoid these hazards. This objection is met with a three-part response.

First, “the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.” God gave us the gift of life. It may be long or it may be short. Nevertheless it is life. To complain about the inequality of His blessings, shows a lack of gratitude, i.e. looking the gift horse in the mouth.

Second, in themselves, naturally occurring processes hostile to humans are neither good nor bad. The believer considers them a net good, because they are part of the providential order. Forest fires clear the land for new growth. Earthquakes produce islands and mountains that serve as niches for various types of wildlife. Etc. Only our ignorance places us in harm’s way, which takes you to the next part of the response.

Mankind lacks the omniscience that would allow him to avoid these hazards. God cannot be blamed for failing to make us equal to Himself in this regard. For God to create equals to Himself is logically impossible, like squaring the circle. Any created being must of necessity be less perfect than God. But could we not be made sufficiently aware? Perhaps, except that brings you to the next two mistakes.

Ignoring the value of pain & dismissing the role of our attitude while suffering: I like the proverb that, “Pain is a given; suffering is optional.” Pain serves as a warning of harm and signals injury. As such it is a net good, because it helps protect and inform us about dangers to our health and well-being. Suffering relates to whether the pain we endure has value or is in vain. Athletes willingly endure pain to increase their strength and stamina. Patriots risk life and limb to protect the liberties of their country. It is only when your pain seems senseless that you suffer. It is at this point that you pray to the Lord for comfort and to give you strength. This is how you grow spiritually, by recognizing His authority and trusting that your suffering has purpose.

“But why must suffering even exist?” you ask. A life without hardship would thwart your spiritual growth and personal development. A life of perfect ease* would not provide you with the opportunity to attain the spiritual maturity necessary to partake in the blessings of Heaven. The only reasonable objection to this of which I can think is this: still-born infants and the untimely death of small children seem not to allow enough time for such spiritual development. How do I account for this? I don’t know. In my denomination, children in the afterlife are raised by angels to become citizens of heaven. I suppose they can build on whatever small amount of suffering they experienced and observation of earthly injustice. I don’t know. To me this is a very minor objection.

Finally, the mistake of limiting God’s justice to this world: Anyone can see that wicked people literally “get away with murder”, lie, cheat, and steal with impunity. Meanwhile, good people are hurt, abused and killed through no fault of their own. The problem of evil is only a problem if the wicked go unpunished and restitution is not made to their victims. If you only allow God to work his justice in this earth, then of course you find Him ineffective. You cannot forget that reward and punishment in the afterlife corrects the failures of our species.

In conclusion, you have no justification for claiming that the “Problem of Evil” is a reason to not believe. Your only defense is to retreat into your general lack of belief. That's fine. None of what I have presented makes any sense without taking God as a given, nor have I presented any of this as proof of God's existence, only to show that free will, local/temporary injustice, and natural disasters are not incompatible with a just and all-knowing God.

*The Garden of Eden could be thought of as a life of perfect ease and a counter-point to this statement. Unfortunately I do not have the time to fully address this counter-point, but only to mention that New Church theology does not have the same view of “original sin” as orthodox Christianity. That is because we view the creation account as an allegory and not as history.

[Faith No More]

I never said the problem of evil is a reason not to believe. I said that the free will defense does not account for it.

I am not conflating moral and natural evils, because the problem of evil is only a problem due to the suffering it causes. Since both evils produce suffering, both evils are pertinent.

Man's finite knowledge is not a defense, because god could have easily designed us in a way that would allow us to circumnavigate our environment without pain and suffering. But this doesn't really matter due to your next claim about the value of pain and suffering, which also fails. What benefits do we gain from pain and suffering? Nothing that an omnipotent god couldn't have bestowed upon us sans the pain and suffering. Claiming that it is necessary to partake in the blessings of heaven negates god's omnipotence by implying that god could not have created us in a manner that would already allow us to partake in those blessings.

Finally, your claim about justice being served in the afterlife also fails. Punishment does not right what has been wronged, nor does it negate evil. It merely causes the perpetrator to reap the negative consequences of his/her actions and has no effect on the pain the perpetrator caused. Putting someone in prison does mean the person they raped no longer feels the effect of that rape. Reward for suffering also does not right what has been wronged, nor does it negate evil. Otherwise, you would be forced to accept that crimes like rape are acceptable to commit as long as the perpetrator gives the victim a sufficient reward, like enough money to live on for the rest of his/her life.

Thus, you are left to conclude that there is no reason that god would allow suffering except for the purpose of making us suffer.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Now who's spinning.

[Faith No More]

I'll take that as an "I give up." Thought you were above such trivial responses.

[Cato]

That's fine. None of what I have presented makes any sense without taking God as a given, ...

'God as a given' is a little presumptious on an atheist forum, don't you think? You can't possibly wonder why you aren't taken seriously here.