Posted on 09/03/2023 10:10:00 AM PDT by daniel1212
Certainly that logical fallacy, a superficial ignorant parroted polemic (such as invokes everything from the Flood to AIDS as a moral argument against God), can be answered. There simply is no contradiction btwn God being omnipotent (and omniscient) and all good (from whom all good has come, as the creator of an exceedingly vast, systematicity ordered universe, exquisitely fine-tuned for our physical life), and the allowance of evil, For unless you want a world in which mankind is like a cloud or a robot, then allowing evil is a necessary good if: Man is to be a being with the ability to make moral choices; And if such choices are to have effects/consequences, for both good and evil, And which consequences can affect others as well as self, directly or indirectly. But which God can make to ultimately work out for what is Good, in the light of all that can be known. Which includes just punishment for eternal beings which manifest they wanted the opposite of God, (John 3:19–21) though only being punished according to what they could and did choose to do, (Deuteronomy 24:16; Luke 10:1- 15; Revelation 20:12; cf. 2 Corinthians 8:12) while making all to work out to the benefit of those who honestly choose Him over sin, seeking and finding the mercy of God in the Lord Christ. (Roman 8:28) Consider some alternatives. God could have, 1. made us (and angels) with no moral standard or sense or deprived us from the moral ability to respond to or choose good [morally insensible, even as with clouds]. 2. granted us free moral agency, but never have given us anything to choose between [negation of moral choices, and no devil or God]. 3. left man only with recourse to finite competing sources as his ultimate object of spiritual affection and allegiance and source of security, and supreme judge of what is good [atheism and atheistic governments]. 4. called man to make the Creator their ultimate object of spiritual affection and allegiance and source of security as being what is right and what is best for man, versus finite created beings or things being one's "god," and provided moral revelation and influences. Yet always have moved us to do good, and never have allowed us to choose evil (even if as by making believing in God and choosing good so utterly compelling — like God appearing daily and always doing miracles on demand, and preventing any seeming evidence to the contrary - so that no man could attempt to make excuses for not believing in Him [effective negation of any freedom to choose]). 5. allowed created beings a negative alternative to faithfulness to the creator, and the ability to choose evil, but immediately reversed any effects and not penalized such [negation of consequences to choices]. 6. allowed us to do bad, but restricted us to a place where it would harm no one but ourselves [isolated consequences to choices]. 7. allowed us to choose between good and evil, and to affect others by it, but not ultimately reward or punish us accordingly [negation of judicial and eternal consequences, positive or negative]. 8. given us the ability to choose, and alternatives to chose between, and to face and overcome evil or be overcome by it, with the ability to effect others and things by our choices, and to exercise some reward or punishment in this life for morality, and ultimately reward or punishment all accordingly [pure justice]. 9. restrained evil to some degree, while making the evil that man does to work out for what is Good, with justice yet with mercy, and grace, towards those who want good, and who thus the One who is supremely Good. 10. in accordance with 8, the Creator could have chose to manifest Himself in the flesh, and by Him to provide man a means of escaping the ultimate retribution of Divine justice, and instead receive unmerited eternal favor, at God's own expense and credit, appropriated by a repentant obedient faith, in addition to the loss or gaining of certain rewards based on one's quality of work as a child of God. And eternally punish, to varying degrees relative to iniquity and accountability, those whose response to God's revelation manifested they want evil, [justice maintained while mercy and grace given]. But man, as an exceedingly finite being who is but a speck in this universe, and in the sea of humanity, and whose existence on earth occupies an infinitesimal amount of time, and who is very ignorant of what all the effects of his choices have been and will be, in time and eternity, and quite impotent to make them all work out as he/she wants, not only in one’s own life but in others, and for this life, as well as eternity, is in no position to sit in judgment upon an omniscient and omnipotent being and giver of life, who alone knows what all the effects will be of even our most seemingly insignificant actions or inactions, not only in this life but for eternity. And can make all work out for what is Good, for what is just, as well as showing mercy and grace. And which the God of the Bible has often manifestly done already, and promises to do for those who choose the ultimate Good, the living and true God, (Romans 8:28) by His grace, thanks be to God. This the choices of an omniscient omnipotent Being cannot be judged as being evil or good by extremely finite and relatively ignorant man. Not that - in my ignorance myself - I have/do not too often protested His dealing with me as I subjectively imagined Him, though objectively blessed, and I am being blessed right now listening to,
The whole issue of "unequal footing" - on which you are HARPING - would be relevant only if the "lesser" entity were the one clamoring for attention, insisting upon explanations, requiring assistance, making demands, etc.
Please put that issue to rest! Please never again mention "humility." Because I am positing only scenarios in which the "greater" entity VOLUNTARILY and without prompting (from the "lesser" entity) chooses to intercede (e.g., avert natural catastrophes, report an unknown serial killer to Law Enforcement) or instruct (e.g., appear as a Burning Bush and advise against, e.g., a given course of action).
So in my scenario, the "lesser" being is in no wise impudently demanding anything! So please drop that! The "unequal footing" issue is thus passé!
Now: Wouldn't a FRIEND want - without prompting - to help out another friend (even one on a "lower" level)?
YES or NO?
I'm sure you would [help the "lesser" being]
Well, if I would help the "lower"-level friend - isn't it puzzling that God would not?
The objection I raised earlier is that most people aren't motivated to change their ordinary behavior (let alone an addiction) by dry logic.
I have already effectively refuted this point of yours: The mere fact that not EVERYONE would be susceptible to or willing to accept Divine assistance is IRRELEVANT.
1. If even only ONE "friend" in need could be helped and would accept help, then isn't it puzzling that God does not routinely intercede directly? You keep insisting that NOT ALL people would welcome Divine intercession - but it is NOT NECESSARY that "all" accept it for its even-only one-time absence to be puzzling!
2. In the "serial murderer" scenario, it is also NOT NECESSARY that the killer be amenable to rebuke and instruction; rather, it's about SAVING THE INNOCENT. So isn't it puzzling that God does not routinely intercede and "trip up" serial murderers? I mean as a DEFAULT. He wouldn't necessarily have to report them to Law Enforcement. He wouldn't even have to obviously intercede (e.g., smite them with a bolt of lightning). He could, e.g., simply "trip up" the murderer and thus save the future victims - e.g., give the killer a near-fatal stroke after his first murder, thus paralyzing him and effectively preventing all future murderers.
Isn't it puzzling to you that God does not routinely do that? (And please don't counter with: God may have in rare instances about which we know nothing. That is not sufficient. All I have to do is posit a SINGLE, known case where a serial killer was needlessly "allowed" to go on a rampage and capture, rape, torture, and kill innocent people.)
[..] God promises different results to different people [...]
You are thus espousing Augustinian Calvinism.
The theology of Calvinism has been immortalized in the acronym TULIP, which states the five essential doctrines of total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the saints.
-Wikipedia
God did not promise to save sinners, unless and until they turn to Him.
... and even then, and even if the endangered person prays fervently, there is no promise of God interceding to extricate that person from physical torment at the hands of a crazed and depraved mass-murder.
So your response to the title question ("If God is all powerful, then why can’t he stop evil from happening?"), is, again: Because He doesn't want to. Because it is not in His "unfathomable plan."
And that includes Heaven (which you've curiously ignored) as well as Hell (which you yourself already know how to avoid)
I have assiduously tried to avoid unnecessarily expanding the scope of this discussion in order to keep it halfway manageable. Introducing concepts involving the Hereafter would have caused a trainwreck!
And I seriously doubt that you are entertaining thoughts of converting to Islam: if anything, your insistence on "if God is all-loving and all Merciful, and He has to prove it" etc. would put such out of the running immediately.
Islam was ONLY one example. There are literally thousands of religions and sects and belief systems to choose from. So far, the only CONSISTENT one I've found declares that nothing shall be embraced that doesn't provide forensic-level proof and cogent arguments - preferably without recourse to poorly translated and fragmentary writings produced by Bronze Age nomadic tribesmen, which were then "revised" and "reframed" by, e.g, the Council of Nicea. Of course, as a result, a lot of questions remain unanswered. But it is still more satisfying to me (= seems more consistent) than any other.
Now come the misrepresentations, slanders, emotional arguments, and strawmen. It's like someone hit the spray can on reddit atheism.
Sorry-not-sorry for "triggering" you!
There are so many different - and, in part, contradictory - versions of the Bible out there - the Eastern Orthodox Bible, the Lutheran version, the Roman Catholic version - with varying numbers of books and deleted passages, etc. - that you have no right to chastise me for comparing it to a "set of instructions" that has been photocopied multiple times, edited, re-edited, poorly translated, etc.
Then there are additional books purporting to be "revealed scripture" that compound the problem. What is your argument for dismissing, e.g., the Book of Mormon? What are you issues with, e.g., the Jehovah's Witnesses? And what about the Jews?
Those are rhetorical questions: I am not actually asking you to state your position on the hundreds of Christian sects out there. Rather, my rh. question serves merely to indicate that the chaos out there precludes any sensible person from embracing, willy-nilly, the first (or the 1,300th) variety of religion or "Sacred Scriptures" he happens to encounter.
Lastly: I repeat that, if you would enter all such discussions (on Theodicy) by first proclaiming that you would have no qualms about a God damning to eternal perdition 99% of all newborn babies, or allowing serial killers to go unchecked, or wiping out entire civilizations through natural disasters that He could have just as easily averted (without impairing anyone's Free Will in the least) - you would soon find that such conversations were a lot shorter.
This would save a lot of time and ink (or electrons).
Nonetheless: Thanks for the invigorating conversation! You have prompted me to read up on some interesting theological matters, to brush up on my rhetorical skills, and to better understand the workings of minds unlike my own.
Regards,
Same here. I'm a bottom-line guy.
But some people (evidence abounds on this thread) seem to love the chaff for chaff's sake OR they are using it the way a jet fighter might use metallic chaff as a means of confusing the radar of an oncoming missile.
As an old professor of mine said, don't think for a moment that there aren't many, many fools and idiots among the educated class (he was referring to his fellow PhDs). He had a rule for his classes, "No Mental (i.e., rhetorical) Masturbation Allowed").
Someone should have posted a sign to that effect on this thread.
Insisting on explanations is exactly what *you're* doing. I was not speaking in the abstract, or a generality, but about the present discussion.
Well, if I would help the "lower"-level friend - isn't it puzzling that God would not?
It's not puzzling at all, since the is accusation is false. Coming down from Heaven, taking on a mortal body, being born into the lower classes in a country under foreign military occupation, successfully avoiding temptation including literally being offered all the political power in the world, and then being betrayed to your enemies by one of your closest friends, being convicted in the dead of night by an illegal kangaroo court after being pressured to testify against yourself, and then being beaten and tortured by the occupying civil magistrate just to prevent a riot that would stain his record, even though that magistrate said he had found no crime in you, and finally being subjected to getting tortured to death, in public, naked, in the company of felons, by a firm of execution so brutal that the name of it us synonymous with extreme pain--is the exact opposite if doing nothing to help.
1. If even only ONE "friend" in need could be helped and would accept help, then isn't it puzzling that God does not routinely intercede directly? You keep insisting that NOT ALL people would welcome Divine intercession - but it is NOT NECESSARY that "all" accept it for its even-only one-time absence to be puzzling!
The story isn't over yet. Unless you have been to Heaven you do not know the final state of things; let alone the why.
The other issue has to do with the analogy of toy soldiers mentioned by another poster--we do in fact see in both the Old and New Testaments, God mentioning other, large-scale plans that have seemingly override the will, or even the innocence, of people affected--e.g. the firstborn in Egypt, the Israelites who died in the pestilence following David's disobedience in taking a census, "the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete" and even Jesus saying in the way to Calvary, "Weep not for me, but for yourselves and your children, because you did not recognize the day of your visitation" : so the analogy to the army man has backing in Scriptural example, and is not merely hand-waving to throw up a cloud of dust.
Have to go to work, it may be a day or two to finish.
Onan would surely agree!
He ought to try taking the limit as t—> infinity. 😁
And don't forget Leviticus 15:16 and 32...and Deuteronomy 23:10.
In the spirit of some on this thread, let me ask you why an all-powerful and good God wouldn't prevent teenage boys from getting their grubby little paws on girlie magazines?
Or why wouldn't God simply prevent the publication of girlie magazines to begin with.
Maybe God could just paralyze Larry Flynt.
Whut?
But... what about NDEs?
But what has He done for us lately?
/humor
Seriously, as admirable as those acts of self-abnegation may have been - on the order of what many Holocaust victims suffered, some of them voluntarily, to spare another prisoner - a one-time act (over the course of a mere three days; I'm not giving credit for being born in a sh*thole country under occupation, etc. - since millions of others had to suffer the same thing) does not absolve the supernatural "Friend" of ever helping again. Or, more correctly: Of ALWAYS helping again. In every instance throughout all Human history, without exception.
Seriously.
I REPEAT: All I have to do is cite a single instance where He whimsically failed to render CONCRETE assistance to a person in need of CONCRETE help to dismiss your reference to Christ's Crucifixion.
Insisting on explanations is exactly what *you're* doing. I was not speaking in the abstract, or a generality, but about the present discussion.
No, I am insisting that you provide explanations, since you claim access to the Truth / claim to understand more about God. But although you've as much admitted that it was an "unknowable mystery" and/or that we mere mortals should not be so arrogant as to expect an explanation - you keep giving explanations (albeit defective ones).
[...] so the analogy to the army man has backing in Scriptural example, and is not merely hand-waving to throw up a cloud of dust.
No, I had clearly stated that that analogy - of the toy soldiers - was the clearest and intellectually most-honest I had encountered yet in this thread. No need to re-hash it: I had accepted it as above reproach (though I find the implications horrifying; another possible justification might be that, throughout History, anyone who has suffered was only a "p zombie").
Regards,
Thank goodness for verse 11!
I wonder if Galatians 5:12 would solve the problem?
Just a glimpse; and generally not a wide sweeping survey of the ultimate fate of everyone.
The point went right over your head, I’ll explain tonight.
Heheh. Why didn’t God think of that? Think of the poor teenage boys he could have kept from eternal perdition.
The point went right over your head, I’ll explain tonight.
What kind of GOD would allow this??
John 9:2 niv
His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
From the devil’s own dept of psychops and propaganda.
Yet the BORG is what many imagine as preferable. Fo football for them.
OK, I will take and hopefully not waste more time (hours actually for me) in response here, due to the nature of this accusation, etc.. I apologize if I have indeed misunderstand you contrary to what is warranted, one who nowhere expressed any argument for the existence of God, or affirmed the same, but mocked the Bible ("a couple of dusty old documents that were in fragments") and responded to the alternatives I posted (as the OP) as being inferior, from depriving man of the ability to make moral choices, and thus having no ability to evil-effect anything, to essentially compelling belief and obedience (" even if as by making believing in God and choosing good so utterly compelling — like God appearing daily and always doing miracles on demand, and preventing any seeming evidence to the contrary - so that no man could attempt to make excuses for not believing in Him") by basically affirming both as a means of dealing with the problem of evil. As well as proffering a world of instant punishment for sin, a dictatorial existence.
Meaning I see this as demanding of God that He intercede in Human affairs if He is to be considered omnipotent, good and just. And thus worthy of belief. Therefore your argumentation seems to be just like that of an atheist against God on the basis of allowing suffering which you cannot reconcile with His stated nature.
You rejected my proposed alternatives to being like a cloud or being basically compelled to believe and obey, that of enabling choices, with consequences that affect others, and that of requiring a seeking of heart, not simply to believe God exists but to know Him, for that which is beyond the simply material, which finds evidential warrant for faith, over that of unbelief (yet there is no compelling "dus" evidence for denying God, which indeed vocal atheists typically do, often even rejecting a creator as hypothesis) and thus that chooses God over competition, and results in wanting to obey Him.
And you are consistently refusing to properly counter my observations.
"refusing to properly counter my observations"? Rather, it is your accusations and denials that are improper, and being implacable in rejecting reasonable responses. You affirm "a world in which mankind is like a cloud or a robot" (Sold! Anything to avoid evil, misery, and suffering!) and when I respond with "Perhaps you only want a Stepford wife" you dismiss this as "Irrelevant, distracting response." while yet arguing that "a world without suffering is always preferable to a world with suffering." And also much ignoring my lengthy time-consuming rebuttals
How is claiming to understand God, almost to speak FOR God, more "presumptuous" or "prideful" that my asking God for proof (which, again, I have NOT done - but which you accused me of doing)?..you accuse me of having the effrontery to "demand proofs of God" (which I have NOT done).
By implicitly arguing God should provide humans with "the most compelling logic and forensic-level evidence" possible then it is easy to see this as indeed demanding proofs of God, and by inference, if He is to be considered justifiable.
My basic argument is that in the light of God omniscient and omnipotence, of all that can be known, including of man and his motives and and of what he would do, and of all effects of all choices, and what this reveals, not simply how this pertains to this speck of time but for eternity, then enabling man to make choices btwn good and evil, and this affect others, and of requiring a seeking of God beyond simply material evidences, and from among competing claims, and in which God can and promises to make all to work out for what is Good in the light of eternity , with warranted justice as well as showing mercy and grace, relative to what man choose, renders the suffering of this world, and its purposes, from tornadoes to STD's. compatible with God being both Good (and thus defining what is God) and omnipotent, but only as also being omniscient.
And rather than dissing Bible being as a couple of dusty old documents that were in fragments, as if the mss evidence for it, and its volume and scope surpasses anything of of like antiquity, it supports what I presented.
That is all, as this has taken too much of my time.
I don't think people have any idea what they would be giving up when they say they would give up their free will.
As an aside, I used to work around a lot of atheists. They were all a mile wide and one inch deep (i.e., they could blow rhetorical smoke into a thunderhead but had the intellectual depth of a fashion model).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.