: to endure death, pain, or distress

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/suffer

It's also entirely possible for an omnipotent god to allow suffering as he enjoys it.

How is that not a True Scotsman fallacy ?

"The No True Scotsman fallacy involves discounting evidence that would refute a proposition, concluding that it hasn’t been falsified when in fact it has.

If Angus, a Glaswegian, who puts sugar on his porridge, is proposed as a counter-example to the claim “No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge”, the ‘No true Scotsman’ fallacy would run as follows:

(1) Angus puts sugar on his porridge.
(2) No (true) Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge.
Therefore:
(3) Angus is not a (true) Scotsman.
Therefore:
(4) Angus is not a counter-example to the claim that no Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge.

This fallacy is a form of circular argument, with an existing belief being assumed to be true in order to dismiss any apparent counter-examples to it. The existing belief thus becomes unfalsifiable."

http://www.logicalfallacies.info/pre...true-scotsman/

1 God allows suffering (guinea worm, child drowning)
2. A loving God would not allow suffering. (?????? why not ?)
therefore :
3. God is not a loving God.
4. God(who allows suffering) is not a counter example of the premise that a loving God would not allow suffering.

You haven't submitted any proof of point two at all.
Just some random opinions based on your emotions.

This means we have no reason to believe in a loving god rather than an evil god. For example:

• Loving God allows evil to exist only for some greater purpose
• Loving God likes goodness best when we freely choose it. Unfortunately, allowing us free will means that some people may choose evil
• Loving God works in mysterious ways

versus

• Evil God allows good to exist only for some greater purpose
• Evil God likes evil best when we freely choose it. Unfortunately, allowing us free will means that some people may choose good
• Evil God works in mysterious ways

Any state of the world is consistent with either god. Clearly no evidence, scripture or revelation can adjudicate between them.

Yes. Of course.

But the God in question is a 'loving God' according to the op.

Way to deflect.

I see your point.

If God is, then He is what He is.

Can't argue with that.

I think you're overstating the case slightly. Any state of the world being consistent with both conceptions means that the state of the world is not evidence in itself for either conception being true. Or more broadly speaking, they aren't falsifiable in the way that scientific hypotheses are.

You mention "revelation" though, and I don't think most religious people consider revelation to be evidence of that sort anyway. Nor is mystical experience taken to be evidence of that kind. Both are thought to transcend "this world". It's revelation and mystical experience which inform the idea that God is all-loving (and a healthy mix of pious theologizing, but I think that usually just assumes God is all-loving), rather than an appeal to physical (in the broadest sense of that word) evidence.

I think it's quite reasonable to make the argument that "If God exists, it is necessarily the case that the nature of her existence and the nature of the reality in which we exist are such that God's existence and nature are hidden and unprovable from within the world." I think Christianity concedes that point by virtue of the fact that faith is taken to be fundamental.

Your counter-argument is that you see no reason to believe in an entity such as that, and that's also perfectly rational. To be a Christian (and I think to believe in any sort of transcendent God) requires a certain kind of irrationality, or at least a different epistemology, and the understanding that this is true goes back very far in Christianity. i.e "Credo quia absurdum", or the paradoxical formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity, or many various writing of Christian mystics.

Christianity (or maybe religiosity generally) are in decline in much of the world because that view of reality is losing ground to naturalism, but I don't think fundamentally the argument between naturalism and Christianity is about whether or not there is evidence for God of the sort that would be scientifically convincing. The argument is about epistemology and whether or not methodological naturalism is the only valid path to knowledge, or whether that approach can encompass all of reality.

Maybe I'm being too quick to dismiss the possibility of scientific arguments for God, obviously I don't know that those are impossible, but the entire structure of religious belief and faith, and the history of the last few hundred years of scientific understanding certainly lead one to believe that it's not going to happen

I don't see how the rest of your post supports the bolded... we seem to be making equivalent claims. Could you be more specific on where we are diverging?

You said "no evidence" could adjudicate between them, but I think some evidence can, namely revelation and mystical experience, but I think these are just probably not acceptable as evidence to you? (and evidence may in fact be the wrong word for revelation, since it's essentially an appeal to authority)

But I specifically mentioned revelation as well. The point is, if we accept axioms like "god may be acting for an inscrutable purpose" or "god is mysterious" then there is no way of adjudicating between LovingGod and EvilGod. Revelation can't help us if it can just as easily be the machinations of Evil-God. Same for mystical experience.

Let me phrase it as a question. Can we have justified true beliefs about the nature of God?

With the usual definitions I would say the answer is no, or else there would be no faith.

Although (perhaps paradoxically) I think faith leads to its own justification. I've said before that I think the purely epistemological definition of faith, at least within a naturalistic framework, doesn't capture the essence of faith as a Christian virtue.

A rather poetic way of trying to capture the idea that I have is that my favorite definition of love is that it is the going out of the lover to the beloved. Not just in metaphor but as a real ontological act.

There is an asymmetry to our knowledge where we seem to have much greater access to our internal experiences then the world "out there". Philosophically it either leads to solipsism or making axiomatic the existence of external realities. Given that axiom, there are certain kinds of phenomena which have properties that make them amenable to scientific methodology, which justifies them by inductive reasoning (and I think "justifies", in the sense of making plausible, the choice of axiom as well, but that's another philosophical topic).

Christians, by faith, begin by also assuming the existence of other realities that are not so amenable to science. Love, according to the definition, is what allows unmediated knowledge of those realities. But prior to bridging that gap, there is no "justified" belief that the endeavor will succeed. There is a leap of faith. The expectation that love is such a bridge, that God is love (and thus not EvilGod), that the other side is reachable, is fundamental to understanding Christianity "from the outside", in my opinion. But when one experiences love in that ontological sense, experiences God, then there is something that we would feel free to call knowledge. I know that God is.

But the truth of that is unprovable within the normal framework of epistemological justification. And that is why we say faith is necessary.

I'm drifting further and further off topic here, and my thoughts are fairly muddled, so augie I'm sorry about that. And of course I realize I've also constructed an edifice that is impervious to refutation, which is the point you are trying to make about "God is mysterious" to begin with. I think your point is granted but I'm just trying to explain how I reconcile understanding that "God is mysterious" is an uncompelling response, with my own experience of God and how I read the Bible and other Christian authors.

Thought this song from Monty Python was pretty appropriate...