The Problem of Evil (XXVII)

[Mister Agenda]

Evil is that which a benevolent god wishes to prevent or minimize.  
 
An omnipotent god could prevent evil if it wanted to.  An omnibenevolent god would want to.  An omniscient god would know how to.  A tri-omni god--if it existed--would prevent all evil.

Therefore: if evil exists, tri-omni gods do not exist.  

If a tri-omni god existed, there would not be any evil.  

It is logically impossible for a tri-omni god to coexist with any kind of evil.

I prefer the LPoE (logical problem of evil).  Tri-omni gods are logically inconsistent with even the tiniest smidgen of evil.   

I pulled these statements from your post (it seemed to be your theme). Your reasoning is that God would somehow necessarily have to create a word in which there was no (let's use suffering). I don't think you can support that logically because there is no implicit nor explicit reasons that that should be the case. As long as we can conceive of a possible situation where God would have morally sufficient reasons to permit suffering, there is not a contradiction. Rather, I think it crosses over into a probabilistic argument.

So you've conceived of a possible situation where God would have morally sufficient reasons to permit suffering, despite his tri-Omni super powers. I'd like to hear what it is.

[Mister Agenda]

If you're going have a God, saw off the omnipotence leg. Leave it powerful enough to create a universe, but not powerful enough to do anything it wants and not omniscient enough to predict the consequences of its actions down to the last quark. Then you have a nearly omniscient, omnibenevolent God doing the best it can in a universe it can't completely control which didn't turn out as perfect as it intended; but it's trying as hard as it can to fix things. At least that version of God has some nobility.

[ApeNotKillApe]

If you must believe in the cosmic person, you can skirt these morality conundrums by admitting that it's malevolent. But then I suppose people wouldn't want to live in that world, would they, so they have to play the beaten child in an abusive household.

"Your father beats you?"

"Only when I deserve it."

It's an understandable reaction when you happen to be a member of a species that projects agency onto a universe that has done nothing but hit you with disasters and plagues since the day you spawned, it's similar to how many victims of abuse react, they blame themselves for the pain they receive, excuse whatever terrible things the abuser has done, submitting to their authority, telling themselves the abuser knows best, etc; it just so happens this abuser is a cold, unthinking cosmos that their flawed primate brains have mistaken for an angry parent. An understandable reaction, but primitive and inaccurate.

[Neo-Scholastic]

IMHO, all a Christian believer can really say is that skeptics have not adequately shown that a better world than ours was possible. Skeptics have only their incredulity. The bible records many instances where people of faith expressed the same doubts about Divine Justice. Job comes to mind. So we, as believers, shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking that we have any proof that vindicates God. In the end, we really only have plausible excuses and our trust in His Lordship. For the faithful, the mere possibility of a plausible excuse is sufficient to overcome their own incredulity.

That said, the skeptic cannot say that Christian’s offer no plausible excuses. There are many, but even still, Christian vindications of Benevolent Providence remain tentative at best. The problem of evil is and emotional, not logical, rejection of the Christian God**.

Steve, I question the notion that natural evil is necessary for gaining knowledge of God. That knowledge could be inherent as in the case of angelic beings. For that reason, I do not consider your premise for proposed theodicy a sound one. I find the free will argument more persuasive but only when coupled with the notion that because God is eternal He cannot have middle knowledge. For God there is no past or future. Every moment is fully present. So the idea that He knows what anyone will do in the future doesn’t make any sense. He only knows what potentials a free agent will actualize as it is doing it. To paraphrase something I read elsewhere – “God knows what we will do tomorrow, but he doesn’t know it today. He already knows it tomorrow.”

(** To Drich: You are right that the special revelation of the Bible does not explicitly call God All-Loving and Romans 9:13-15 would suggest that to be so. At the same time, the general revelation reveals a god that Goodness Itself. As such, I do think there is sufficient reason to say that the God of the Bible conforms to Goodness Itself. In summary, I think you are right in a naïve kind of way but wrong as it relates to God’s Essential nature.)

[Minimalist]

The bible records many instances where people of faith expressed the same doubts about Divine Justice.

You do remember that as far as we are concerned the bible is a pile of shit, right? 

Why don't you quote articles from TheOnion?  They tend to be better written with the same percentage of bullshit.

http://www.theonion.com/article/god-admi...nism-53009

God Admits Stealing Idea For Messiah From Zoroastrianism

[Mister Agenda]

IMHO, all a Christian believer can really say is that skeptics have not adequately shown that a better world than ours was possible. Skeptics have only their incredulity. The bible records many instances where people of faith expressed the same doubts about Divine Justice. Job comes to mind. So we, as believers, shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking that we have any proof  that vindicates God. In the end, we really only have plausible excuses and our trust in His Lordship. For the faithful, the mere possibility of a plausible excuse is sufficient to overcome their own incredulity.

That said, the skeptic cannot say that Christian’s offer no plausible excuses. There are many, but even still, Christian vindications of Benevolent Providence remain tentative at best. The problem of evil is and emotional, not logical, rejection of the Christian God**.

1. A tri-Omni entity who can't do better than this world is a contradiction in terms.
2. Lots of excuses, none of them plausible.

[Minimalist]

[LastPoet]

Why not hear it from the man himself?
http://youtu.be/8r-e2NDSTuE

[robvalue]

Here's the rules: you can make up whatever story you want. You don't even need to provide any evidence. It just has to be internally consistent, and consistent with reality.

If your story fails under either of these, you really need a new story.

That is what happens with these omni max deities. It's not a good explanation even when you're given free run to make up whatever shit you want.

[Neo-Scholastic]

That said, the skeptic cannot say that Christian’s offer no plausible excuses.

1. A tri-Omni entity who can't do better than this world is a contradiction in terms.
2. Lots of excuses, none of them plausible.

Christians don't believe God is "all-powerful" in the sense that He can do the impossible, either. That's not how we define all-powerful. So if you are going to object to the Christian god, then you should do so based on how Christians define the terms they use to describe their god. As far as we're concerned a God that can do anything it is possible to do satisfies the criteria for all-powerful.

Personally, I see nothing problematic about a god for whom some things simply are not possible, such as making square circles, acting contrary to His own nature, or making Himself cease to exist. In order to make a perfect creation, God would have to make another equal to Himself. Doing so would be another God which is also impossible. Therefore God can only create things less perfect than Himself. Could he have done better than this? Maybe he has. I can imagine that because God is infinitely creative, He would actualize creations of various degrees of perfection, from highest Heaven to lowest hell until all possibilities were exhausted. But that's pure speculation on my part and not part of any established doctrine.