If God is all powerful, then why can’t he stop evil from happening? That would mean he’s not all powerful. If God refuses to prevent evil, then he can not be all good. So can a Christian explain how God is all powerful and good in this case?

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.

For unless you want a world in which mankind is like a cloud or a robot, then allowing evil is a necessary good if:

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)

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].

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,

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,

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 consequences of violating some basic natural laws is immediate death. The consequences of violating some other basic natural laws are often no worse than, e.g., a painful sting.

However, the effects of violating many or most natural laws are only manifest after some time (ask any doctor, dentist or mechanic), and thus to be consistent, the effects of violating all natural laws should be immediate.

God could likewise mete out punishments commensurate with the magnitude of the misdeed, or "dose" them so as to ensure that the perpetrator survived (in time to repent). Problem solved!

Nothing new in your proposal, since it is close to my proposal #4, that of effective negation of freedom to choose by making believing in God and choosing good utterly compelling, in your construct by immediate punishment. Meaning a god which anti-theists rail against even because of the threat of eternal punishment. Yet God actually allows man the freedom to choose evil without immediate punishment, vs your preference for a world of robots or obedience constrained by immediate execution of penalty.

! How would God executing immediate consequences for disobeying moral laws have a more "straightjacket"-like effect than imposing immediate consequences for violating physical laws?

Since as said, man is grossly ignorant of so many of his sins of commission and omission and which negatively effect others, then life would be one of constant individual punishments, even if mainly bee stings. I am sure prohomosexual (most are) etc atheists would love that.

The mere prospect of some much-postponed (post mortem) Divine punishment for being, e.g., a serial killer wouldn't be nearly as effective in curbing crime and saving the innocent lives of the serial killer's subsequent victims as an instant "slapping down" (notice I didn't say: execution; you want, as you said, to allow the sinner the opportunity to repent before his death).

Execution refers to execution of penalty, and yes, Jesus could have struck down all the men who came to arrest Him, but He did not, as man is allowed to choose evil and even make mistake without immediate consequences, and overcome some, but not escape punishment for what he is culpable for.

A heretical claim! Are you saying that we are culpable also for sins of which we, ourselves, are ignorant? Where is your much-touted "Moral Sense" and "Free Will" now?

No. i have already dealt with the basis for punishment, but your analogy to violations of natural law includes mistake, and to be consistent with immediate punishment construct as a preferable world, then this must apply to sins of which we, ourselves, are ignorant.

That's one of the things that makes the story of Exodus so implausible! I always imagined Scotty and a six-man security team beaming down before their eyes, and phasering the lot of them, with Edward G. Robinson then nonetheless sneering and saying, "Nyah, nyah! Where's your God now, Moses?"

Which you can only wish. I think that instant Divine Justice and/or the performance of "manifestly supernatural mighty miracles" would have the same effect, and make believers of nearly everyone.

I never said that these were not believers in God. How could they not be? What I said was such "did not overall make the subjects true believers," since they acted like practical atheists and Democrats.

I have, but the reason for your objections flows from your rejection of the premise of omniscient being who knows all that can be known, past present and future, and in accordance with that has a purpose for all His actions and inaction, being able to make all to to ultimately work out for what is Good. Your argument against Him essentially presumes He is not as revealed in the Bible.

Your most-grievous instance of fallacious reasoning yet! You are essentially saying that I have to first accept your version of God and/or your interpretation of the teachings of the Bible before arguing against them. Circular reasoning!

Not at all. If you are making a moral argument against the God of the Bible then it must include His attributes, and not judge him as if you were omnipotent! But again, your whole premise is that you know better than an omniscient omnipotent creator of this astounding universe.

You are insisting that I have to first accept your (specious) premise that the manifestly apparent contradictions in your reasoning ("God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent" PLUS "God does not interfere in our sinful ways - except for Pompeii and Herculaneum - because it would lessen our much-touted Free Will"

Incorrect. I never said "God does not interfere in our sinful ways - except for Pompeii and Herculaneum - because it would lessen our much-touted Free Will" but taught that your mass extinctions are rare, and there are influences to will, for God has made negative effects to violations of law, thus sufferings, yet such are usually not immediately realized as would be in your preferred totalitarian nanny state.

PLUS "That we often suffer immediate effects when violating natural laws is somehow necessary AND does not impair our Free Will, but instant justice for sin would confound God's plan" PLUS etc.) ."

No, violating natural laws is not always immediate, while the instant justice for sin would unduly impair our Free Will as regards its purpose in the plan of God. This is not not inconsistent, except via your either/or construct.

You have made God (via his Plans) so inscrutable as to be manifestly unlovable.

Rather, it is the recourse of atheists which render God to being unlovable, that of dealing with God as if He was not omniscient and omnipotent and acting accordingly, the rejection of which is essential to antitheists perverting the God of the Bible to fit their desired image.

Inscrutable? Yes, as regards His actions being in the light of all that can be known, but not as a capricious Islamic distant deity of brief narrow revelation, and who would never condescend to taking on the flesh of man, and facing the basic ways man is tested, and having done everything Right, take responsibility for all that we did Wrong, that anyone who wants can have salvation on His account and expense.

I did not find Christ as a RC, but by sincere personal repentance and faith, resulting in even nature being new to me. And whose reality I cannot rationally deny, as being in me, and subjectively and objectively working in my life, and having made choices that actually require Christ to be real, which is besides the external testimony to His reality.

But this thread has gone on longer than I expected, and is keeping (slow typing) me from service to others. Thus I must leave again. Are you maintaining a list of them? Just because I don't accept YOUR VERSION of the Bible etc. does not mean anything.

It is important to know where a poster is coming from, while I find conservative atheists to be rare, esp. those who would choose a pro-God forum, even to argue against the faith that this forum is motivated by. Atheists testify to overall being liberal men.

So, in reality, the purpose/goal of Theology TODAY should be recognized as...?

I think it was C.S. Lewis who said the purpose of good philosophy was to drive out bad philosophy.

one problem not generally considered, is that Christianity is no longer accepted as more-or-less the default paradigm, defining some of the givens or the axioms whom all hold in common.

As a result of that, people not only go one committing basic mistakes about God -- but some errors go "upstream" as it were, committing category errors or making quite elemental mistakes about things which philosophers and/or theologians had agreed upon.

E.g. most of the Marxist debating techniques, center not on finding the truth^TM but in anything from swashbuckling to dirty pool, so long as their opponent is neutralized and they can gain power.

I suppose you could argue such a thing has happened in the natural sciences too, where at least the remnants of "Nature's God" conditioned people to expect an universe that was, if you were disciplined enough to weed out side influences, rational; even though the 1800s scientists bullied some Christians into "God of the Gaps" and such was not a consequence of the scientific discoveries, but poor metaphysics bolted on after the fact, it was still based on discoverable truth.

Nowadays, between relativity and non-Euclidian space, and quantum mechanics and non-determinism, consistency and reason themselves are under attack: again, not that they intrinsically follow, but are bolted on as metaphysics superficially supported by a shallow look.

As Hilaire Belloc wrote in 1938 in The Great Heresies :

"it is characteristic of the advancing wave that it repudiates the human reason. Such an attitude would seem again to be a contradiction in terms; for if you deny the value of human reason, if you say that we cannot through our reason arrive at any truth, then not even the affirmation so made can be true. Nothing can be true, and nothing is worth saying. But that great Modern Attack (which is more than a heresy) is indifferent to self-contradiction. It merely affirms. It advances like an animal, counting on strength alone. Indeed, it may be remarked in passing that this may well be the cause of its final defeat; for hitherto reason has always overcome its opponents; and man is the master of the beast through reason."

and a few pages further on :

"But the Faith and the use of the intelligence are inextricably bound up. The use of reason is a main part — or rather the foundation — of all inquiry into the highest things. It was precisely because reason was given this divine authority that the Church proclaimed mystery-that is, admitted reason to have its limits. It had to be so, lest the absolute powers ascribed to reason should lead to the exclusion of truths which the reason might accept but could not demonstrate. Reason was limited by mystery only more to enhance the sovereignty of reason in its own sphere. When reason is dethroned, not only is Faith dethroned (the two subversions go together) but every moral and legitimate activity of the human soul is dethroned at the same time. There is no God. So the words "God is Truth" which the mind of Christian Europe used as a postulate in all it did, cease to have meaning. None can analyse the rightful authority of government nor set bounds to it. In the absence of reason, political authority reposing on mere force is boundless. And reason is thus made a victim because Humanity itself is what the Modern Attack is destroying in its false religion of humanity. Reason being the crown of man and at the same time his distinguishing mark, the Anarchs march against reason as their principle enemy."

Eliminating suffering may be done through works of charity, of giving food to the poor; but it may also be done by teaching -- and setting up a healthy and just society which allows --self-sufficiency ("give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him how to fish and you feed him for life"). In light of that *alone*, one might consider that Theology which concentrates on accurate descriptions of God, and of God's interactions with the material universe, and with man, are merely esoteric disputations (cf the term pilpul in Chaim Potok's novel The Chosen which chronicles a non-Orthodox Jew going to high school with and among some Orthodox Jews; and the anecdote in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman(*) in which he talks about getting out-maneuvered by Orthodox Jews talking about mechanism for turning on/off room lights, and how they can be set up to not run afoul of the proscription against work on the Sabbath.

But there is you know, one other way right theology can improve our lives and those of others...as mentioned earlier, the modern attack on the faith is used to justify totalitarian states, such as the Fascists, Nazis, and Communists. Right theology enabling us to refute their siren songs, and giving us the will to fight back ("be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good" --> "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall") eliminates and prevents ALL SORTS of suffering.

(*) I *think* it was that and not What Do You Care What Other People Think?...

But it does NOT follow that we HAVE to accept as TRUE unsupported accounts from disreputable or disputed sources,

Turning your question around about "extraordinary evidence"...

Who determines if an account is "unsupported"? Sometimes a single eyewitness is good enough, other times (Semmelweis) even repeated independent confirmations don't cut it.

Ditto for disreputable and disputed, see also Pfauci and "safe and effective" vs. Ivermectin vs. side effects from the clot shots; or for that matter the Gore-Bull warming crowd.

What has happened is the decay in the institution of SCIENCE™! over the past one hundred to one hundred fifty years: it used to be that consensus really did mean a bunch of disinterested folks had tried to pick the findings apart *in good faith* and anything that made it through that gauntlet was fairly safe to be provisionally accepted.

A quote from Dorothy L. Sayers mystery novel Gaudy Night ( c. 1934 IIRC) picks up the sociology of this rather well:

"C P Snow,” said Miss Burrows ” It’s funny you should mention that. It was the book that the” --

"I know,” said Peter “ That’s possibly why it was m my mind.”

“I never read the book,” said the Warden.

"Oh, I did,” said the Dean “ It’s about a man who starts out to be a scientist and gets on very well till, just as he’s going to be appointed to an important executive post, he finds he’s made a careless error in a scientific paper. He didn’t check his assistant’s results, or something. Somebody finds out, and he doesn’t get the job So he decides he doesn’t really care about science after all.”

“Obviously not,” said Miss Edwards. “ He only cared about the post.” “But,” said Miss Chilpenc, “if it was only a mistake “

The point about it,” said Wimsey, "is what an elderly scientist says to him. He tells him ‘The only ethical principle which has made science possible is that the truth shall be told all the time. If we do not penalise false statements made in error, we open up the way for false statements by intention. And a false statement of fact, made deliberately, IS the most serious crime a scientist can commit.’ Words to that effect, I may not be quoting quite correctly ”

Now keep in mind that Tufts recently took money from Nabisco to do research, and basically concluded that Frosted Mini Wheats are the healthiest thing you can put in your body for breakfast.

Or consider the London epidemiologist who warned of millions dead of COVID, recommending lockdowns, who then left home to have a tryst with his mistress.

So the old designation of "peer reviewed" doesn't quite have the old sheen that it used to.

The other issue is that "the plural of anecdotes is not data" does NOT mean that anecdotes *must* be false; it's that you can't assign error bars to them or necessarily satisfy your self that all confounding variables have been covered. It doesn't have to mean the reporter is hallucinating or lying.

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