Epicurus riddle.

[Minimalist]

Still conning yourself with fairy tales, G-C. 

  The Christian church is trying to help people who need clean water, it's why we were put here. What are you doing for them ?

GC

I'm calling for the governor of Michigan to resign.... another jesus loving, water-poisoning cocksucker.

[Angrboda]

I know my destination in God's eternity.

Yeah, no, you don't. Knowledge isn't simply what you believe to be true. You're full of shit.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Nestor, I directed my last comment, regarding moral absolutes, specifically towards those who elsewhere dispute objective morality. They are disingenuous, because for them, theodicy is an argument of convenience. They want to judge God based on a moral standard they say does not to exist. I gather from your writings that you believe moral absolutes may apply. This means that your responses are sincere, something I greatly appreciate. With that in mind, please let me address your objections.

[quote='Nestor' pid='1188856' dateline='1454029167']I can easily imagine better possible worlds[/quote]
AND
[quote='Nestor' pid='1188856' dateline='1454029167']Even if you argue that... God could easily rid the world of (as we are told in many religious traditions that eventually he will), is needed for greater acts of goodness to be realized, it still remains unreasonable to believe that none of the evil observed could have been reduced without the loss of opportunity for such acts.[/quote]

In summary, Epicurus’s riddle purports to be a logical refutation of God’s concurrent omnipotence and benevolence, not an emotional appeal. For all of their complaining about this being a crapsack world, I know most people would say, on balance, that:

1-Despite the pain, life is still worth living.
2-They’re glad to have known the people they loved, even though they are now gone.

People love to look gift horses in the mouth. I also can imagine better worlds (starting with free beer). Given all the cruelty and misery its easy to overlook the good. Examples abound in Holy Scripture of incredulous Patriarchs. Abraham argues for mercy towards Sodom. Job challenges His Creator. Jacob wrestles with the Angel of God. Even Jesus Christ in His humanity pleads to be spared from the Passion. Many, with some justification, interpret these as examples as blind faith and unconditional trust. There is some of that. Personally, I see them as object lessons about balancing intellectual understanding with emotional responses.

Faced with Epicurus’s riddle, I too recognize the prevalence of unrelenting cruelty and our precarious place in a hostile universe and struggle accept my limited understanding of Divine Providence in light of my intellectual knowledge of God’s nature. So in one sense I agree with you. The existence of evil is a persuasive emotional argument and for many it is overwhelmingly compelling. My point, however, is the argument of Epicurus isn’t the purely logical refutation it appears to be.

You raised a second objection in passing. Holy Scripture reveals two instances of Paradise: The Garden of Eden and the New Jerusalem. On first blush it does appear that God could indeed provide an earthly paradise free of both natural and moral evil. I think with deeper exegesis it becomes apparent that this interpretation is simplistic. Unfortunately I am not prepared at the moment to wade into those thickets.

[quote='Nestor' pid='1188856' dateline='1454029167']... you can only hold out on faith that the simplest and most evident explanation is incorrect, though consequently this is by definition an irrational belief to hold.[quote]Generally, I agree that people should prefer the most parsimonious theories. Ruling in favor of simplicity serves as a useful guide so long as provision has been made for all relevant phenomena and considerations.

[quote='Nestor' pid='1188856' dateline='1454029167']If ... God's creation is "according to an order that reflects His own intelligibility,"...appearances would suggest that creation reflects anything but the work of an orderly, intelligent, or benevolent creator.[/quote]I intended my comment about Divine intelligibility to address the lack of on-going miraculous interventions. I take all the blame for not being sufficiently clear.

Both my comments 1) that ”A world with the possibility of voluntary love is better than one in which love is compelled or absent.” and 2) “The Passion of Our Lord shows that He does not stand aloof from our pain; but rather participates in it. are indeed non-sequitors with respect to the issues you raised. They are both about desirability of free will.

[Homeless Nutter]

It's not me with a problem, I know my destination in God's eternity.[...]

Yeah - and other equally stupid people believe in the same thing - except with a different deity in place of yours. You can't all be right. However, you can all be - and most likely are - wrong.

Your confidence in your imaginary friend being the real one is just as convincing, as that of all the other dumb-f*cks, who's parents were too stupid to give their children education. You don't see that you have a problem, just as a person in a coma doesn't realize, that they're drooling, pi**ing and sh*tting all over themselves.

[Minimalist]

Ignoring god's prophets - like Muhammad, J. Smith and many others - and their teachings is your will. So have fun in islamic hell - or whatever - in case you bet on the wrong bullsh*t. You'll be lucky if LDS are the right religion - they don't believe in hell. You'll just wait in some sort of "limbo", until the mormons posthumously baptize you. As they do...

  It's not me with a problem, I know my destination in God's eternity. If you know yours and it's not what mine is you need to sit down and find out what's going to happen to you.

 GC

This is no stupider than your silly shit, G-C

[Mudhammam]

Chad, in short, I disagree that the Problem of Evil is making an emotional appeal. The formulation attributed to Epicurus is deductive, insofar as we define God with certain attributes, a conclusion about the type of world such a God would be reasonably expected to sustain follows. And this conclusion contradicts experience. And if the believer wants to argue for a theodicy, they must demonstrate by way of induction that it is simpler and more evident than the conclusion Epicurus draws. I have not seen that (I can't imagine how that could even be possible, short of direct, persuasive revelation... I would not count the Old or New Testaments as being such).

[robvalue]

T: "A creature with tiny, delicate paws came through here."

A: "What? Oh, I suppose you think these massive craters here are paw prints."

T: "Of course they are paw prints."

A: "Fine. So how exactly does the creature have tiny delicate paws if they leave massive craters?"

T: "Gravity was different."

A: "What? What does that mean?"

T: "You just don't understand paw prints."

A: "You just said these were paw prints. I understand that much. These are the evidence we have, in that case, and they look like some massive stomping motherfucker walked past, not some dainty thing."

T: "Someone changed the paw prints to make them look bigger."

A: "What the fuck? That's it, I'm going home."

[Neo-Scholastic]

Chad, in short, I disagree that the Problem of Evil is making an emotional appeal. The formulation attributed to Epicurus is deductive, insofar as we define God with certain attributes, a conclusion about the type of world such a God would be reasonably expected to sustain follows.

Hopefully you can accept that what I say when I tell you that I in no way want to minimize the misery of human existence. It’s awful and heartbreaking. There is much joy as well, but it never seems to be enough.

I agree that the logical structure of the argument is sound. Its validity all depends on the nature of those “certain attributes” found in the premises: omnipotence and omni-benevolence. I have already explained my position on these, so I see no need to repeat. But it may help, since Epicurus lived before the Christian era, to put those positions in a better context.

It seems that the Bible doesn’t actually say that God is omnipotent, only that He is Almighty. This is to say, it tells of a god more powerful that all other gods. I would say the early Christians, minus the Gnostics, would have maintained this Judaic god concept. Grappling with their own special revelation, Muslim scholars before the Scholastic period expanded on the concept of God’s transcendence to the point that, in Islam, reason is insufficient to say anything meaningful about God, i.e. Allah is beyond the reach of reason
.
What makes the late Christian concept of God unique is the belief that God is intelligible. That puts Him somewhere between an ancient Jewish god that merely the most powerful one and an Islamic god that is capable of doing the inconceivable. When the Schoolmen reconciled the Biblical God with a neo-Platonic “God of the Philosophers” they gave us to understand a God who can do anything that is logically possible. He cannot alter the value of pi. He cannot be both complete and immutable. He cannot cease His own existence. With respect to miracles, from the biblical examples given God seems to intervene with no other goal than to make Himself known in ways not inferable from nature. Providence nearly always works in accordance with natural processes, which presumably reflect God’s nature. Even if these limitations are granted, it is still hard to rationalize that logical limitations prevent Him from curing an infant’s cancer. I take these as matter of degree and not differences in kind. I could give many analogies, none of which seem emotionally satisfactory.

The same kind of thinking applies with regards to God’s omni-benevolence. If I am not mistaken, either Drich or Godschild has promoted the concept that the Bible doesn’t say God is omni-benevolent. That’s actually true. The most it says is that He is Just. Conversely many New Age Christians believe in a mysterious emanation of Love, if only we could receive it (i.e. blame the victim.) Both the Church of Rome, Orthodoxy, and New Church theology have more subtle doctrines, but review of those would far exceed the scope of a single post. As mentioned previously, these revolve around restorative justice and kenosis. If reason did not firmly assure me of God’s existence, I would not be swayed by the possibility of God’s mitigating actions. If God is indeed all-loving, then creation must be metaphysically optimized in such a way that it is ultimately made whole by our participation and struggle within it and Christians have as their example our Lord’s ultimate triumph over betrayal, brutal torture, and painful death. We suffer nothing that God Himself has not endured to achieve Glory.

[Angrboda]

The same kind of thinking applies with regards to God’s omni-benevolence. If I am not mistaken, either Drich or Godschild has promoted the concept that the Bible doesn’t say God is omni-benevolent. That’s actually true. The most it says is that He is Just. Conversely many New Age Christians believe in a mysterious emanation of Love, if only we could receive it (i.e. blame the victim.) Both the Church of Rome, Orthodoxy, and New Church theology have more subtle doctrines, but review of those would far exceed the scope of a single post. As mentioned previously, these revolve around restorative justice and kenosis. If reason did not firmly assure me of God’s existence, I would not be swayed by the possibility of God’s mitigating actions. If God is indeed all-loving, then creation must be metaphysically optimized in such a way that it is ultimately made whole by our participation and struggle within it and Christians have as their example our Lord’s ultimate triumph over betrayal, brutal torture, and painful death. We suffer nothing that God Himself has not endured to achieve Glory.

The problem does not come from postulating that God is all-loving. The other side of omni-benevolence will do, that God is all good. If you do not accept that God is all-good, then you admit that he is prone to evil, even if only a little bit. This for most Christians simply will not do. Thus he is postulated as omni-benevolent, whether or not it's in the bible, for the simple expedient of ruling out the possibility that God has committed evil acts. This meaning of omni-benevolent is sufficient to restore order to the riddle.

[Neo-Scholastic]

The problem does not come from postulating that God is all-loving.  The other side of omni-benevolence will do, that God is all good.  If you do not accept that God is all-good, then you admit that he is prone to evil, even if only a little bit.  This for most Christians simply will not do.  Thus he is postulated as omni-benevolent, whether or not it's in the bible, for the simple expedient of ruling out the possibility that God has committed evil acts.  This meaning of omni-benevolent is sufficient to restore order to the riddle.

I think if you had a better grasp of Scholastic theology, you would know that evil is defined as privation and that since God is not lacking in any perfection, He cannot be the source of evil.