this analogy doesn't help you here. by your own admission, "protons may not have mass" logically follows just like "rape may not be evil."

if you disagree with "rape may not be evil" than you need to modify the second premise, "just because i feel strongly that rape is evil does not mean that i completely understand evil."

i do not know why you took that angle in the first place. saying "maybe we should drop the assumption that we truly understand what is evil" only helps to solve the problem of evil if things that we think are evil aren't evil.



ok, but then what god are we talking about? are we talking about the christian god or a different god of your own invention? i'm simply granting the assumption of christians that god intervenes in human lives. if you don't buy the biblical examples of god's intervention i don't understand why you're defending the christian god. the problem of evil exists because christians believe god can stop evil. if you think that god exists but can not stop evil, do you really believe in the christian god?



don't see what free will has to do with it. once again, there are many biblical examples of god taking action on evil people. god killed onan for spilling his seed on the ground. god killed lot's wife for "looking back at sodom."

under christian theology there is no reason why god could not smite every future rapist. he has that power. if you don't think he has that power, you are describing your own version of god and not the christian version.

i would say that any definition of "all-good" should include preventing innocent people from being raped.

Seems pretty clear to me. I believe that rape is evil. I believe that protons have mass. If you feel that rape is not evil, you should make your case. Same for protons and mass.

You are going to have to define the term "Christian god" because I am not sure what you mean. Just saying "God of the Bible" is not enough because people who consider themselves Christians disagree strongly about elements of God's will.


Are we talking about God or are we talking about Bible stories.

I would agree that given the typical parameters of God, He could kill every future rapist. Apparently, He does not.

OK. That is simple. By that definition of "all-good" than God is not all-good. You made that simple. Nothing more to add.

I don’t think Christians are required to accept the problem the way it's framed or that evil exists in the way you say it does.

For your problem to really be a problem for Christians, they need to accept your underlying assumption that we are in essence distinct beings detached from God. But Christians needn’t accept that. We can think of ourselves as participating in God’s being, and in turn, his participation in our being as our innermost self. From that conception of Unitary Being, doing evil unto another is really doing evil unto God, which in turn is doing evil unto oneself. In other words: the rapist is raping himself. And he’s doing so out of ignorance; he’s ignorant of his participation in unitary being and the consequences that follow. And it’s from that ignorance - the belief that we are in essence distinct beings detached from God and consequently from one another - from which all evil stems. Hence, for your argument to work one must assume that a view of creation, which stems from ignorance, is in fact reality. But as I said, I don’t think Christians need accept that account of things and needn’t abandon their 3-O conception of God because of an erroneous understanding of our relation to God, to one another, or what evil really is.

It seems to me then that God only made us ignorant because he wants rape to happen.

I doubt you can be prosecuted for raping yourself so I guess you just proved that rape isn't even a crime. Unless of course you're not god after all, then you came up with one of the most egocentric explanations for why god moves in mysterious ways his evil to perform, that I've ever encountered.

If I'm god, and I don't believe in myself, did I just vanish in a puff of logic?

I can't tell you how much it scares me that one of the most powerful political and military countries on the planet has people running for senior political office and making statements like this one, in public...

So if we don't really understand "evil", why would it be logical to think that we understand "good"?

From Thou Art That by Joseph Campbell (Just substitute ‘unitary being’ or ‘God’ for ‘the all’):

So when Jesus says, “I am the all,” he means: “I have identified myself with the all.” This does not refer to the one who is talking to you, not to that physical body; it refers instead to that which he indeed, and you indeed, in fact, are. Thou art that.

Thanks for the quote, I genuinely wish it meant something to me. How does it relate to evil?

It’s not so much how it relates to evil, but more that the PoE (as the OP framed it) isn’t applicable to monist or nondualist theological systems.

I actually don't think that the omnimax God is a biblical idea. It's later appearance in Christianity seems to me more the result of the engagement of Christian theologians with Greek and Jewish philosophy than a result of biblical revelation. The God of the Bible is much more engaged with the world, a much more human God.

I recently read this in Timothy Keller's book "Reason for God".

Flaw: If evil appears pointless to me, it must be pointless.

"Tucked away within the assertion that the world is filled with pointless evil is a hidden premise, namely, that if evil appears pointless to me, then it must be pointless. ..Just because you can't see or imagine a good reason why God might allow something to happen doesn't mean there can't be one. Again we see lurking within supposedly hard-nosed skepticism an enormous faith in one's own cognitive faculties. If our minds can't plumb the depths of the universe for good answers to suffering, well, then, there can't be any! This is blind faith of a high order."

St. Bernards and No-seeums

Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga provides an illustration to address the above flaw in reasoning. "If you look into your pup-tent for a St. Bernard, and you don't see one, it is reasonable to assume that there is no St. Bernard in your tent. But if you look into your pup tent for a 'no-see-um' (an extremely small insect with a bite out of all proportion to its size) and you don't see any, it is not reasonable to assume that they are not there. Because, after all, no one can see 'em. Many assume that if there were good reasons for the existence of evil, they would be accessible to our minds, more like St. Bernards than like no-see-ums, but why should that be the case?"

It doesn't seem a little odd that God created us as moral agents that are incapable of recognising and distinguishing good from bad?

Have you ever heard of the fall of man?

God did originally create us immortal and knowing not evil until we sinned against him. There is no "problem", were the problem.

Nah. God didn't have to create a tree of knowledge (or whatever cause you like). He also could of removed the tempter, i.e. satan.

Well god has feelings and he wants you to love him and not go against him
Its just how it is

....and? (you really didn't contradict anything I said)

You have to prove that it is evil
Man did it to himself
God wasnt provoking him satan was

You cant argue with the supreme being of the universe. Saying well why didnt he just give everyone eternal bliss with no responsibility or feedback ever

tldr

he has feelings and he isnt exactly how you envision

doesnt make him evil

We're going down this path? For claiming the moral high ground it seems like a lot of people are suddenly having a problem defining what evil is.

No. We are incapable of not sinning. And God chose this set of parameters which he knew would end with this result. I see no reason why he couldn't chose another set of conditions. Ergo God did it to us.

And who created Satan and allowed him to tempt us?

Might is right. Amirite?

Well, why didn't he?

I don't think he does.

His feelings don't exactly come into the equation. As bladesman87 pointed out earlier: "It doesn't seem to contain any problems to say that God could create us, and give us the knowledge (or empathy, or whatever is needed) that we never actually choose to be evil." He could of got all the lovin' his heart desires without any evil being present (and without taking away our free will).

I disagree.

Ya and we would all be robots who didnt really "LOVE" god.

Jesus did it

23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement,[i] through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— 26 he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.


well ya and you keep going into this worldview where you think god is a machine that you can "solve"

think of an emotional person then do that times 100,000,000 and maximum intelligence
he IS GOING to try to shoot a delusion at you
,he knows you arent stupid like you think adam and eve were they delighted in doing it


10 And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.

11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:

12 That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

13 But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth:

14 Whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Like in heaven.

No. We have already demonstrated this to be false. Are you going to be a robot in heaven? Were Adam/Eve robots before they ate from the tree of knowledge? Was Jesus a robot since it wasn't in his character to sin?

And by most Christian traditions he was God in human form...not exactly a fair playing field. Secondly, it's not as if we *know* Jesus never sinned, but I'll let this minor technicality go.

Wait, so you think it's a delusion that God created Satan and allowed him to tempt us? ...because that's all I've said.

no
this is how it works for man though... another type of love i guess since we are a separate creation than like angels you cant compare them

ya

read the bible quote again

"deceivableness of unrighteousness"

thats why he allows it to happen

... satan rebelled against god and thats why he is evil then god just threw him down into the earth with us sinners

god never did anything wrong, he graciously creates immortal beings and they just keep on rebelling and thats why i dont blame him for being full of wrath

And who sets up how it works for man? More than that, Adam and Eve were not robots before before the tree of knowledge, and they were not fallen. So God could of taken out the tree of knowledge and *boom* ...no fall.

He was thrown down to earth *before* we were sinners, and it was this casting out that was instrumental in the fall of man. God screwed the pooch again.

And God could of made it in everyone's character not to rebel. Or he could of changed the rules so our actions wouldn't be at odds with what was allowable. He basically made a game with rules that nobody could follow (and he designed it this way!) and then threw a tantrum when people rebelled (which he knew was going to happen).

Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?

oh ya
well you cant seriously say that adam and eve weren't responsible if thats what youre implying

they knew full well

they have free will though......... aaaaannnnnnnnnddddddd thats exactly what the bible says but he has saved you anyways through lord jesus

noober, I suggest you look at asdf's train of logic in the exact same way that you probably attack abiogenesis/evolution....

Where did we come from?
Common ancestors with all life.
Where did the first single cell organism come from?
Abiogenesis, primordial soup.
Where did that the universe come from?
The big bang.
Where did the big bang come from?
Ummm... errr... OH NO.

(this is the way a creationist tends to defeat a non-theistic perspective.) (well, at least when he is strawmanning.)


Now, let's flip the script. asdf is (imo) using a similar attack...

Where did evil come from?
From man.
So God created us evil?
No, the devil tempted us.
So God created the devil as evil?
No the devil rebelled.
So where did the devil get the idea to rebel?

etc, etc, etc...

From a non-Christian perspective, it is hard to comprehend how an omnibenevolent God could possibly create something that had even the potential for evil in it.

For the record, I am a Christian as well. I'm not sure about God being omnibenevolent (I had never heard him characterized as that until I started reading this forum.) But I must admit that asdf's (and several other thoughtful posters here) have a decent line of attack to question God's omnibenevolence. I cannot shrug off that line of attack while at the same time stubbornly hold onto my where-did-matter-come-from attack. (and, before anyone jumps in, yes, I acknowledge that there are strawmen in all of my descriptions )