In about 300 B.C., Epicurus eloquently summed up the problem of the existence of evil. It has come to be known as the Riddle of Epicurus or the Epicurean paradox. It was translated by David Hume in the Dialogues concerning Natural Religion:
If God is willing to prevent evil, but is not able to
Then He is not omnipotent.If He is able, but not willing
Then He is malevolent.If He is both able and willing
Then whence cometh evil?If He is neither able nor willing
Then why call Him God?
Wow most modern people are still asking themselves these questions… yet cultures older than us explain this problem easily with the philosophy of dualism in the lower levels of oneness…
and dualism was proved false almost a hundred years ago…
God is omnipotent, so he COULD create evil if he wanted to, but he did not. He created sentient beings and gave them free will so that they may choose their own paths. Some of those sentient beings choose to do evil, thus, evil is introduced into the world.
People often falsely assume God has some moral obligation to end suffering and to make their lives perfect. In reality, suffering and imperfection are merely parts of life (in the physical sense). Therefore "evil" is not a state in nature, but a product of human free will.
Religious philosophers and theologians have pondered the whole Fate vs Free Will thing for hundreds of years. Here's one of the most accepted theories (in short): God is omniscient. God knows every possible decision you could make and every possible fate. Therefore, it is possible to have free will AND have an all knowing God.
Sounds like gods design wasn’t so perfect after all…
“God is omnipotent, so he COULD create evil if he wanted to, but he did not.”
Isaiah 45:7 — I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I, the LORD, do all these things.
The way I understand it is that God IS able to end all suffering, but chooses not to. Epicurus’ fault is that he tries to simplify an infinitely complex God and falsely assumes that it is God’s will to prevent ALL suffering, and that no good can come of temporary suffering. Think about it this way. When a parent punishes their child, in the child’s eyes that 5 minute time out is the pinnacle of suffering. Nothing worse could happen to them. But the parent knows that out of the temporary “suffering” of the child will come a positive outcome. They will learn proper behavior and be a better person for it, even though they don’t see that at the time. Now ask yourself, from the time you are 4 years old to the time you are say… 30 (age of the parent), you’ve lived and learned and gained 26 years worth of knowledge. Isn’t the difference between an infinite God and yourself far more vast than the 26 years between being a child and a parent? So isn’t it conceivable that even though sometimes it seems that we are at the pinnacle of suffering, and that God seems to be doing things to us that are unjust and wrong… that maybe he can just see the bigger picture and is molding us into the people that he knows that we can be? We must have a childlike faith in the good nature and wisdom of God. I believe that it pains God to see us suffer and that he wants nothing more than to come to our rescue, but he knows that it is not what we always need. I trust his judgement.
“The way I understand it is that God IS able to end all suffering, but chooses not to.”
Fine. Then take that as given, that, basically, god does nothing. Obviously, then, we have to create our own solutions and deal with the problems as they are. Praying for solutions to problems that we have the responsibility to deal with is a monumental waste of time and energy, just as is arguing over why god allows evil to exist.
Why this need to justify the existence of something that, by whatever formulation you care to make, does nothing? If god is just going to stand off to one side and watch, functionally that is the same as if said god is not there at all. We might as well act on that assumption and stop petitioning the vacuum for boons we will not get. (Many people do this anyway, whether they believe in a god or not.)
Which renders the question moot—why is there evil? Many reasons, none of which are addressable through supernatural means. We have the neurobiology, the political science, economic theory, behavioral science…we can grasp why people treat each other like shit. Deal with it.
The real problem is that many of the solutions fail to conform to expectations derived from a simplistic moral system based on an omnipotent deity that is heavily into punishment and revenge. Humans don’t want to deal with it because it doesn’t feed the desire to lay it all on an external source.
If darkness does not exist but is the absence of light, then we must conclude that evil is the absence of good. We as humans are responsible for doing what is right because the best and worst thing God ever gave humans is free will. We mess things up so let’s not blame Him for our short comings.
“If darkness does not exist but is the absence of light, then we must conclude that evil is the absence of good.”
What? Really? You are making a link that isn’t warranted. A metaphor or analogy is not proof of anything, they are only used to try and explain a point that is not understood and then it is discarded. So many believer types mix up example for analogy and then thing they’ve discovered something. It’s a huge logical fallacy and one that is often used by those who have no evidence.
Your conclusion that we “must” accept, as you demand, is bogus. Please try and use your mind in more productive ways.
It seems inaccurate to simplify all human actions to either good or not good. Would you say that the Rwandan genocide was only the lack of some one doing good? I would say that it is very, very evil, not just “the absence of good”. I therefor fail to see the logic in relating morality to light. Also, atheism isn’t blaming God for our shortcomings. It is a belief that there is no deity silently controlling the world. It is a belief that, in your words, “We as humans are responsible for doing what is right” not because we are obligated by a deity, but because we believe it is morally right.
But God even gave people the right to freely blame Him if that is their way of looking at it. They just don’t want to find it with in themselves to possibly consider accepting His apology. People believe they can hold God hostage to their own way of thinking about free will and the death of Jesus.
“…hostage to their own way of thinking about free will…”
Meaning that how I think about free will is not actually an aspect of free will? Meaning that just because I think I have free will I don’t really because it’s not what someone else intends it to be? Which would mean, I suppose, that it’s not free will at all but a deception wherein subservience to a set of dogmas masquerades as free will and any attempt to think outside those dogmas, while apparently “free”, is really an abandonment of free will? That the actual exercise of what I assumed to be my will in a manner inconsistent with a predetermined set of restrictions is in reality just the opposite of freedom because I’ve decided all on my own to think about it in a manner of my choosing rather than accept what has already been decided is best for me?
Can you get anymore Orwellian, Karl?
That’s what you are held hostage to concerning free will, because you don’t consider you are also held hostage to your view of the death of Jesus.
And once more we have tautology. It always becomes circular with these arguments at some point. So I’m now also a hostage to my view of the death of Jesus. By that logic, there is no “way of thinking” that is not a kidnapper holding one hostage. No matter what point of view, there is a way to see it as inescapably chained to…what?
An active three plus year-old thread is impressive. I’ll help…
Brian Dalton (aka Mr. Deity) has explored the subject often. His latest:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwf6QD-REMY
Jim: Not only is the thread active–Stumbleupon sometimes brings as many as several thousand unique viewers to that post in a day (average is probably 300)
I still say that attempting to have a discussion about faith issues and injecting facts into it is silly. Faith is belief in the absence of proof. Believe or not as you will. Evil presupposes a moral code which some one or group violates. Moral codes are given to us by our beliefs, whether religious or otherwise. We choose what we believe or not. Evil is a choice to violate some moral code.
That, sir, is one of the most well reasoned and easily applicable arguments on the topic of religion that I have heard in a long time. Thank you.
Evil is much more than a choice to violate some moral code. It is as attempt to replace an existent moral code with another one that has at its root a total disdain for the existence of an moral code that is seen as serving no purpose inherent in the character of the perpetrators of evil.
Karl, your agrgument is specious. Your complaint is a matter of degree, not kind. The definition I gave is appropriate.
God…. a sanskrit word meaning “to invoke.”
And it is said in the original dictionaries.
God is an old english word meaning… “let Evil take its course….”
but I am sure someone doesn’t want you to know that!!
though I feel that explains everything.
it is said, let there be no God/god before me. thus there is only Creator!!
Not very many people still believe in the existence of god. This might have been a thought provoking problem or paradox at one point but in today’s time were 80% of people don’t believe in god it’s just meh.
I’ve always wondered, if God is all knowing, meaning that he knows everything of the past, the present and the future…how can free will even exist? Considering when He “made” you, He already knew whether you were going to end up in heaven or hell. Kind of unfair if you ask me.
Plus, I laugh at people when they talk about how God is “infinitely complex”. If this were so, how can anyone or anything have a true understanding of God? How can the Bible? The Koran? You can’t claim that one cannot understand God, while claiming that you yourself understand God.
Religion has countless hypocrisies that one must be able to ignore if one is to believe in that religion.
That’s why I like Buddhism the most, it has no problem with question itself. This is how every religion should be. In my opinion, an unchallenged belief is truly meaningless. I could believe in unicorns even though there is no evidence that they exist. This belief system is similar to a lot of religions. Ahh, enough ranting, I’ll end here…
Colin: It’s often seemed to me as something akin to blasphemy when anyone claims to understand what “God” wants. Really? A human animal equipped with a 3-pound brain can understand what is typically purported to be omniscience and omnipotence? This arrogance–blasphemy–is all-too-common these days, as numerous politicians claim to know what “God” wants.
With regard to your first paragraph: Is watching someone doing something the same as making them do it?
Since Einstein we have known that time is inseparably connected with space (as in the phrase “space-time continuum”).
Since Hubble’s observations of the expanding universe in 1929, we’ve known that our universe had a beginning. Hence, time also had a beginning point (at least as far as our universe is concerned. It’s possible that other universes exist, but they also probably had beginning points).
If God exists and created the universe, then it follows that God is not part of the universe. That is, He is transcendent. Existing outside our universe’s space-time continuum implies that He can observe all of space at once, and all of time at once. So while we experience time as a sequence of moments sliding from future to present to past, God would experience all moments as present.
Since all moments we think of as still in the future are present to Him, He can see what decisions you have made before you make them. But watching you act out your decisions is not the same as forcing you to make them.
So God’s foreknowledge does not create any unfairness.
The mystery of free-will is more of a problem for non-theists than it is for theists. If you assume a naturalist or reductionist view of the universe, then the configuration of your brain is the result of three billion years of evolution, a process of random mutation and natural selection. If there is no “ghost in the machine”, that is, no non-material soul connected with the body, then all decisions are really electro-chemical phenomena in an organic computer programmed by chance and environment. Where is there room for free-will in that?
Philosopher Alvin Plantinga adds the further observation that since natural selection selects on the basis of survivability, there is no reason to think that it also selects on the basis of ability to distinguish truth from untruth. He offers examples of untrue beliefs that actually improve the individual’s abilities to survive and pass on his or her genes. So the non-theist has no foundation for believing that his or her position is true. Your brain just isn’t programmed for that job.
If that conclusion makes a non-theist uncomfortable, then perhaps it’s time to revisit the assumptions that inexorably lead to it.
[btw, people are free to object to my use of capitalized masculine pronouns in reference to the Deity, but I am simply following a well-established practice in the use of the English language.]
Jonathan, “existing outside our universe’s space-time continuum” actually implies unable to observe or affect anything within this continuum. That’s why we cannot detect tachyons or some of the other particles that are necessary to our understanding (model, theory) of how the universe is put together. Given that GPS and DVD players work (byproducts of quantum theory and general relativity), tachyons exist until proven otherwise. There is no rigorous model of the universe that requires a Creator; simply superfluous.
As for “free will,” it is turning out (not yet proven, but evidence is mounting) that the apparently completely spontaneous and random decay of short-lived nuclear isotopes may actually be triggered by neutrino interactions. Each nucleus is free to split up whenever it wants, as long as the neutrinos are around. And they always are.
Not relevant, you cry? Each decision we make is based on highly complex patterns of electrical interactions in a squishy biochemical matrix, far beyond the bounds of predictability according to chaos theory. What will be will be, but that does not mean that it is in any way predictable.
If God knows what will happen, good for Him. But He cannot communicate that knowledge to us, nor change the course of events. Again, He is a superfluous idea.
And to my amusement my anti-spam word evokes Schrodinger, “cat.”
Is there proof that God exists?
Is there proof that I exist?
Is there proof of anything?
Is there anything?
Is there a questioner
SEPARATE
from the
question
being asked?
OOOH METAPHYSICALNESS
If mankind has found ways to transfer multiple terra bytes of data/information and programming from one “vessel” to another, why do we find it outlandish to believe that the essense of any individual must by necessity cease to exist when the squishy biochemocal matrix can no longer physically function. We can recover data from “dead” computer systems. Why does a person’s ideas. beliefs and character and yes even consiousness cease to have “existence” just because we don’t have evidence that any specific individual cares to believe in?
Karl, the mind is in some ways analogous to a computer. We’ve been through this before, like at The Brain is not a Computer..
In this case, you are confusing the active mind (memory, RAM) with the long-term storage (hard disk, books). It is this latter place from which computer systems (or civilizations) can be recovered.
When a computer stops, all that is “knows” is gone, until re-loaded from a non-active storage system. This takes time, many billions of computer cycles. To bring a human to up to the boot level of reading a very simple book takes several years of training, around 150,000,000 seconds. All this can be lost with one bump to the head, and we need to start over.
This is not much of an argument for an eternal consciousness. And well astray from the issue of preventable “evil.”
So when that which is once believed to be inherently spontaneous is found to have apparently related anticedents – it still all remains purposeless as eventually the reason for the existence of anything is always unrelated to anything other and mass and random interactions of particles.
How far must direct cause and effect relationships be discounted before one has no other option but to admit the existence of a first cause?
Never of course, because one can always state a point in time existed before any direct relationships could have ever even been conceived of.
Randomness purposeless existence (evil) must rule the day or one must also confront one’s own desires to accept the interaction of energy upon matter as the cause for one’s own behaviors as well.
How and when does supposed rationality turn into evil? When one has no other rational way to get people to enlist in one’s cause other than mocking the supposed rationality of others, and by providing financial support for one’s agenda which is often never even seen in the light of day.
Tyrrants on either sides of issues push for chaos or the elimination of chaos as a way of causing a outcome that might work in their favor. When the goal is chaos that will certianly lead to some unknown outcome, all you really have to work with is a dissatisfaction with a current state of affairs,either short term or long term.
America survived thus far because of the short term nature of governmental elections. When special interests began calling the shots in Washington and larger states the short term nature of governmental elections went out the window. The next transition of government in Washington will not be peaceful, that is assured already by the special interests that put the Obama administration into power.
This argument cannot be applied to governments or historical figures, because in that context, evil is completely subjective. While you and I likely agree that the Holocaust is despicably evil, had Germany conquered the globe, we would likely not think so. While not all examples are as drastic, the fact is that our opinions and values are shaped by the society we develop in, and society will perceive things from their view of right and wrong. It comes down to the basic psychological concept of schemas; that we perceive what we see through our own biases and shape reality so that it fits our mold for it. This effects the question of a God as well. If one holds the modern view that war and murder are evil, how can one explain the praise heaped upon the Israelites as they go to battle? Some might counter this by saying, “This simply disproves the Christian God. A non-denominational omnipotent deity could still be watching and judging us.” This though, would not explain the fighting between, for example, muslims and jews. Both sides commit tremendous atrocities upon each other, and each believe that it is morally justified. They cannot both be right, which would boil down to one religion being correct, at which point the earlier argument would take effect once again.
You did not read that I said “Tyrrants on either sides of issues push for chaos or the elimination of chaos as a way of causing a outcome that might work in their favor.” This simply implies that those governmental leaders that win and those that lose should both be considered “evil” if their plan is simply to let dissatisfaction promote change just for the sake of wanting to do something that the people “in charge” thinks will eventually get rid of the dissatisfaction either in the long or short term.
If people don’t recognize the evil done in their own land by leaders with no agenda other than creating a little more or a little less dissatisfaction then you have no clue what evil really is at all. If only the “majority” determines evil, or right and wrong, there is no hope for any rational future for human civilization.
Saying that god did not create evil but only the conditions for evil and evil manifested on its own would be dismissive of the qualities attributed to any diety who is described as omnipotent. Sounds an awful lot like some theories of evolution I hear. The problem always lies in interpretation and the fact that our guidelines are inconsistant and cryptic at best. Old testament rules are cut and dry but in their context, many of these are broken by the “father” in every old testament story we hear and is a direct contradiction between the idea that the parent is responsible for the child and should lead by example. New testament ideas are similar but very cryptic and leave man guessing at every turn. Then we have to consider that omnipotence is unchanging, as all is known and early requirements for sacrifice would have been dismissed only by some “revelation” that they where unnecessary. Having experiance life as man and having a change of heart enough so that the rules of “salvation” change, implies that there was little understanding of the heart of man in the first place and is a direct contradiction with decrees handed down directly to the human profits.
If anything, we have to consider god did create evil and “free will” is either an attempt to ensure only the most devoted pass the test, or a total cop out to avoid responsibility, or the alternatives, god did not know what would happen, didn’t care, or doesn’t exist.
I chose to believe in a higher source, that free will is an illusion, and that there is no plan, and no superhero is complete without an enemy, so one was imagined that was created out of love and misunderstanding, often treated like a rogue family member, and who constantly competes on the opposite side like a sibling. Enough so that they meet every so often and plague the souls under their feet in a childish wager for the strength of the human soul with no path or guidance.
This conversation is endless. Everybody has their own beliefs and isms they follow to create their world, way of thinking and “god” to their definition and convenience. Every perception in every beliefs and isms are rooted different from the other. So you can NEVER compare them all from each other. Nobody can deny the belief or ism of the other for these thought are their foundation on how to live their own life. To those who believe in “God” or an “Absolute Being” no matter what religion it maybe; you don’t need a proof to prove God that’s why there is Faith. To those who don’t believe in any “God” or an “Absolute Being” nobody is forcing you to believe that’ why there is free will.
Everybody will be faced with all the answers in their head when we all die. Wait for it.
“To those who don’t believe in any “God” or an “Absolute Being” nobody is forcing you to believe …”
That would be ideal, if it was actually true.
God and the Time Traveller: A Brief Chat
God: Look, he’s coming to the intersection.
Time Traveller: Ya, he’s gonna turn left.
G: He is, of course, free to do so.
TT: No he’s not.
G: He is free to turn right, or go straight for that matter. Or mount the curb. Or stop and abandon his vehicle…
TT: Is he gonna turn left?
G: Yes.
TT: Is there any way he’s gonna do otherwise?
G: Well, no.
TT: Then he’s not determining anything. He’s just being a passenger in the driver’s seat.
G: But I invested him with free will, I’m sure of it!
TT: If you did, then you must have used your Omnipotence and willed yourself out of Omniscience.
G: But I need omniscience to be omnipotent!
TT: Your problem.
G: (“poof”)
Not to add anything here to the incredibly smart people above me…but this translation of Epicurus is a purely Islamic translation. because of Islam many of the great works of the Greeks and Romans would not have survived into today. This means that Epicurus was a polytheist, not a Christian. Also, saying that we cannot understand the Bible fully, or god’s “will” is detrimental as a species. A)It discourages further investigation into the texts by saying “we cannot understand it”. B)It sells the human race short, setting a boundary as to our capability as a race. Last but not least, the above quote is very logically sound, and all the rebuttals have not been…