The Problem of Evil, Christians, and Inconsistency

[Tartarus Sauce]

My $.02...Free will is necessary is someone is to freely love another. How you think about this thought problem indicates how persuasive you find the free will arguement. You can pick one of two generally comparable female lovers. The first loves you because they recognize traits in you that they find attractive and want to be with you of their own volition. THe second, has been enchanted by a love potion and adores you for no particular reason. With whom do you want to spend the rest of your life?


(answer: The one with the biggest tits)

I'm more of an ass man myself.

[Mudhammam]

Drich, I'll concede that my argument only applies to the absolutist deity and not a finite one; but that IS the deity most Christians, catholic and protestant, theologian and laymen, seem to confess belief in, and that anything less is not worthy of the name.

[ignoramus]

So basically, we are tested in this life. It's meant to be hard and sad. But it'll all be worth it in the next so please don't rock the boat.

Now get back to your lousy job for minimum pay and conditions so the Vatican can get richer and richer because that is the word of god!

How can people be so gullible...

[Drich]

Drich, I'll concede that my argument only applies to the absolutist deity and not a finite one; but that IS the deity most Christians, catholic and protestant, theologian and laymen, seem to confess belief in, and that anything less is not worthy of the name.

Mt7:
13 “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. 14 For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.


Those who do not seek the God outlined and described in the bible, follow the easy path out lined by religion. If and when a religious description seperated itself or even speaks about God where the bible does not, that religious description ceases to be about the God of the bible.

The problem with those who follow denominational Christian religions have, is in each version there are instances and explainations/rules that are not included in scripture.

The religion speaks where the bible is silent or the religion is silent where the bible speaks in an effort to preserve a given religion's doctrine.

These rules all have to relate back to God somehow. With so little actually said about God this leaves much, some times too much room for personal freedoms. Freedoms denominational churches tend to want to regulate. So they close off these freedoms by inventing rules that have to be supported by traditional beliefs, rather than biblical ones. At that point that religious expression of Christianity uses religion (efforts of man) to describe God. which again is much easier to do, rather than change one self to adapt and match the God we find in the bible.

Do you see how easily you can dismantle the god of 'many' with elementary school level logic? Do you think a truly all powerful God could be taken down by a simple paradox?

I don't blame you for trying to dismiss the idea of a deity, and sticking with what you know, what you know you can conquer. However if and when you want to challenge the God that is described in scripture, rather than man's remedial version of Him, I would be happy to walk you through what the bible actually says.

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So basically, we are tested in this life. It's meant to be hard and sad. But it'll all be worth it in the next so please don't rock the boat.

Now get back to your lousy job for minimum pay and conditions so the Vatican can get richer and richer because that is the word of god!

How can people be so gullible...

The Vatican gets richer because people do not read their bibles and resolve the contradiction they find in scripture as Martin Luther did.

[Mudhammam]

However if and when you want to challenge the God that is described in scripture, rather than man's remedial version of Him, I would be happy to walk you through what the bible actually says.

I'm quite open-minded to hearing about your version of Christianity. Go ahead.

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My $.02...Free will is necessary is someone is to freely love another. How you think about this thought problem indicates how persuasive you find the free will arguement. You can pick one of two generally comparable female lovers. The first loves you because they recognize traits in you that they find attractive and want to be with you of their own volition. THe second, has been enchanted by a love potion and adores you for no particular reason. With whom do you want to spend the rest of your life?

That is basically the Christian answer that I stated in my OP as the primary problem with the free will argument. Tally all those in human history whom Christians would consider "people" (fetuses and children), who died before even having the option available to their conscious reflection, and you have billions (perhaps even numbering more than those who made it to adulthood)--assuming God is just--in heaven, not by choice, but by "coercion." If God can populate his kingdom with so many souls in this manner, it defeats the whole purpose of creating earth so that we could "freely choose" him...or are those who died almost immediately upon their entry into this life not worth as much to this deity?

[Michael]

The problem of evil is certainly one I find challenging, and I can't pretend to have a perfect answer. But I think we can get beyond some of the assumptions of the Epicurean problem of evil outlined in the OP.

If I may start with a story, Pickup. Abbot Christopher Jamison is a Benedictine monk who was headmaster of the well-respected Worth school in England. He recounted that parents of prospective children would come and visit and would often say something along the lines of "I just want my child to be happy". He said he wondered why he never heard "I just want my children to be of service to others", or "I just want my children to love".

And this highlights something about the problem of evil Epicurus proposed. If we step back and, instead of launching into the problem, think about presuppositions of the problem then we begin to see the problem tells us as much, if not more, about Epicurus than about evil. Underlying the problem proposed is an assumption that the universe should be organised so that the end result is that everyone is happy. What Abbot Christopher gently challenged is that very notion. And so, as parents, do we subvert all things to ensuring the happiness of our children? Would we encourage them to ride rough-shod over others to secure their own happiness? Do we encourage them to dismiss any environmental concerns that might get in the way of their happiness? Surely not.

But as we start to go deeper along these lines of thoughts we begin to explore and understand what true happiness might be. And we might begin to explore the thoughts of another Greek philosopher, who had quite a different view of ultimate happiness than Epicurus, and we might find alternative Greek philosophy more in line with Christian thought. For Epicurus happiness meant an absence of suffering, freedom from pain. And we see that reflected in his 'problem of evil'. We might simply accept that and rush headlong into his problem. But we can also challenge it. For Plato, true happiness came from acting with virtue, knowing that we had done the right thing.

We can illustrate that with another story, that of Maximilian Kolbe. Kolbe was far from a saint in all his life, but he is known for one amazing act of heroism. He volunteered to die in place of a stranger, a father and husband, in the Nazi German death camp of Auschwitz. He, with others, was placed in a bunker and left to die of dehydration. After two weeks, it is told, that he was still alive, so was finally killed by an injection of carbolic acid. This is about as far away from an Epicurean ideal of happiness than you can get. Yet, it very much fits to a Platonic idea of 'happiness'; dying knowing absolutely that you die out of love for others. This, of course, mirrors the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, and many martyrs have been 'happy' to follow the example of our Lord. Jesus, to Christians, was, and is, the image of what the 'Kingdom of Heaven' is like, and he suffered pain for a greater cause; he showed us another way, the Kingdom Way; and it is not necessarily a way without suffering. For Christians, suffering is subservient to the goal of love. Or as C.S.Lewis put it (and I'm paraphrasing from memory), 'perhaps God doesn't necessarily want us to be free from suffering; he wants us to love and be loveable'.

And so, if you'll forgive that circumlocution, I'd want to shake up the assumptions behind the Epicurean problem as presented. Before we launch ourselves into the problem, do we actually accept the Epicurean world view that lies behind it? So, as parents, do we really just want our children to be happy (from an Epicurean perspective)? Should all things organise themselves around our children's Epicurean happiness? Or does Abbot Christopher point us to a re-ordering of priorities, even for our own children. Can the example of Maximilian Kolbe help us see something that Plato saw that Epicrus did not?

Just a view from a different angle.

[Neo-Scholastic]

...that I stated in my OP as the primary problem with the free will argument. Tally all those in human history whom Christians would consider "people" (fetuses and children), who died before even having the option available to their conscious reflection, and you have billions (perhaps even numbering more than those who made it to adulthood)--assuming God is just--in heaven, not by choice, but by "coercion."

Children that die at birth are raised by angels in the spiritual world and prepared to take their place in heaven. I cannot answer as to why those of us here on earth were not afforded the same opportunity.

[Mudhammam]

Great post, Mike. I think you raise some valid points but what I would want to ask is why do we consider something virtuous? Is there some universal principle that qualifies something as virtuous separate from the fact that happiness (whether our own or others) is the ultimate goal? To put it in another way, if I choose to act out of service to others, and this service requires a great deal of personal suffering for myself, cannot it still be said that I am achieving a level of happiness and peace of mind--through my service, and hence, suffering--because I know the context, that it's allowing others to reach a level of happiness that they would otherwise be unable to attain? I think this point becomes much more difficult to establish in favor of a deity's goodness and innocence if we're talking about a being that has it within his power to absolve all suffering. Not to mention, this being requires nothing, due to his self-sufficient essence, to achieve(?) any such quality or ideal. The requirement of suffering to attain maximal happiness or virtue appears to me completely arbitrary in this case--unless we're talking about a finite being, as drich pointed out, which I might add, I find much more plausible as a concept to begin with.

Children that die at birth are raised by angels in the spiritual world and prepared to take their place in heaven

Chad, where do you come up with that? I don't recall anything in the Bible stating that.

[Neo-Scholastic]

...Abbot Christopher Jamison is a Benedictine monk who was headmaster of the well-respected Worth school in England. He recounted that parents of prospective children would come and visit and would often say something along the lines of "I just want my child to be happy". He said he wondered why he never heard "I just want my children to be of service to others", or "I just want my children to love".

The sentiment of these parents fits well with Aquinas's conception of 'blessedness" that in turn comes from Aristotle's focus on happiness in the Nichomachian Ethics. Neither results in the pleasure principle. Blessedness would come from service to God and others, i.e. being Christ-like in the world.

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Children that die at birth are raised by angels in the spiritual world and prepared to take their place in heaven

Chad, where do you come up with that? I don't recall anything in the Bible stating that.

"May it be known, therefore, that every child who dies, no matter where he or she was born, within the church or outside it, of devout or irreverent parents, is accepted by the Lord after death, brought up in heaven, taught according to the divine design and filled with affections for what is good and through them with direct knowledge of the truth; and then, being continually perfected in intelligence and wisdom, all such individuals are led into heaven and become angels." - Swedenborg, Heaven and Hell, Section 329.

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In defense of Drich, the God of the Bible does not promise believers freedom suffering (ex. Job); but rather, justice.

[Michael]

Pickup. You ask why we would consider something virtuous. That to me is something I explore through my faith. I do have a trust that God is good (something all faiths share, despite those faiths coming from times of great hardships). And I trust that God calls us all to goodness, to virtue. Though we have the life and teachings of Jesus to help guide us as Christians, I think all people sense that in their conscience. The Catholic Church puts it rather poetically ....

"Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment. For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God. His conscience is man's most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths."

I could be wrong, but I sense that all people who are concerned about doing the right thing will end up with a lot in common, though the are always points of tension (the tension between justice and mercy being a key one, and that is still a tension and point of theological difference within Christianity).

So I explore virtue through my faith, through scripture (especially the life and teachings of Jesus), and through prayer and being quiet enough to let my conscience speak.

How would you explore goodness as an atheist? (And I don't mean that as saying you can't).