Questioning the Problem of Evil once again

[instantc]

Here is what I find slightly baffling about the Problem of Evil.

The argument essentially says that the present world is not what the universe would look like if it were ruled by a loving and powerful ruler. I.e, there is too much evil in the world.

There is too much evil in the world, that strikes me as an odd thing to say. What would be an appropriate amount of evil for an almighty ruler to allow? Is it logically possible to know happiness without knowing any suffering? Some variants of the PoE say that it is the unnecessary suffering that disproves God, but is any suffering completely unnecessary or gratuitous? I don't think so. Some instances of suffering may be highly disproportionate to the potential positive consequences, but every instance of suffering has at least some conceivable positive consequences.

I think that one who wants to endorse PoE also has to define where he draws the line with regard to the acceptable amount of suffering, i.e he should define what amount/type of suffering would be consistent with the God hypothesis. He would then have to show that a world with those conditions would be (1) conceivable and (2) desirable.

To make it short, if you are to claim that this is not how a loving God should act, then you should be able to explain how it is that a loving God should act. If you say that this is not what a universe ruled by a loving ruler looks like, then you should, according to the rules of inference, first have a vision of what a universe ruled by a loving ruler does look like.

What do you think?

[tariki]

Perhaps I am just a simple thinker at times, but I wonder why, if God is who he is, why he didn't just take all those he knew would accept him and go straight to heaven and by-pass all this. God certainly knew what each and everyone of us would choose to do with our lives, so why not alleviate all the suffering by just skipping the game on this earth, it doesn't make sense.

I think I'm a simple thinker all of the time. Anyway, as I see it, you make a point that seems to me a valid argument against much Fundamentalist/Literalist theology. Such theology seems indeed to empty this life, and our life in this world (that God loved, and loves, so much that.......) of all meaning and significance. Much play is made of "free will", yet it seems that only the choice for or against "jesus" has any ultimate significance.....all other choices, such as, perhaps, the choice of a young person to study medicine rather than history, or the choice of a young girl to walk to school to be educated irrespective of threats from those who would deny her any such right.........and so on and so on.

Again, whatever the fate of a foetus that dies in the womb, or that of a very young child who dies curled up in its own excrement without love or concern, the sheer fact that certain theologies claim that its fate can be eternally decided seems to me, if we think it through, to deny significance to lives which are longer and involve far more "choice".

I've heard certain attempts to "justify" all such things. We each have decide for ourselves what may or may not "justify" whatever we happen to "believe" or assert about God.

[ttruscott]

...

Hi Ted, after a few weeks on the forum I've come to the conclusion - having seen a number of your posts dotted about - that you are indeed serious.........and not what is known as a troll.

Thanks for the kind words....my theology is a complete theology though that does not come across well in a forum format being so comprehensive...

I have difficulty relating your various statements with each other, such as the foetus that dies having "chosen sin", proven by the sheer fact of dying, and thus deserving of condemnation - this statement as related to the above where you inform us of what our lives are given to us for.

Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death... so dying is the proof of sin and all sin deserves condemnation. Ordinary stuff.

Some sinners are under a promise of salvation and some are not therefore:

Our lives are to teach all those who who can be brought out of sin into readiness for heaven from all those who can't ...and when the separation is final, heaven and the universe will be as advertised.

...
All I wish to say is that as I see it, there is the rejection of God and there is the rejection of your views. As I see it they are not one and the same thing. Thank God!

I'm not sure what this means, where is a rejection of GOD and where is a rejection of my views? I condemn no one for rejecting me...nor am I a judge of who rejects GOD - I can only compare a person's doctrine with what I believe to be true and amen!

There is the peace that passeth understanding.......and there is the peace that is all too understandable. Each time I meet someone on the net who "knows", and is certain of what they know, having had it revealed to them by God Himself..........I think back to all the previous such claims and views given by others equally convinced of having "truth", yet whose claims were different.

All the best

Shanti to you too but as we say in martial arts, don't judge my abilities by your lack of ability...<shrug>

[ttruscott]

Perhaps I am just a simple thinker at times, but I wonder why, if God is who he is, why he didn't just take all those he knew would accept him and go straight to heaven and by-pass all this.

...

GOD wanted to create a Church, a congregation of people in full loving, holy communion with HIM in heaven BECAUSE THEY WANTED TO BE THERE WITH HIM IN THAT REALITY! They must have truly wanted love, holiness and heaven as HE defines it.

How did HE find all the people in HIS creation who would like to live that way, after HE taught them all about it and all about the alternatives? HE asked them to make a true free will decision to accept HIM as their GOD and to accept HIS purpose for their creation.

How did HE ensure they really wanted that and were not just pushed into it by HIS being all GODlike and all? Looking the same as anyone else, HE offered no proof at all that HE was divine and that HE could take us to heaven or help us learn to be pure, holy and loving but asked us to accept this on faith, ie the hope that it was all true because we liked what we heard so well and wanted it so much, we didn't need proof to accept it. Faith = hope, Heb 11:1, hope in our eternal life in heaven with GOD in full loving, holy communion, ie fulfilling HIS reason for our creation.

By not proving HIMself overwhelmingly but hiding HIS glory, GOD allows us each to choose where to put our faith, by which we actually define our own reality, the world view we live in which also defines both God and our relationship with Him from our point of view. "This is what I believe" means "This is the way I hope it is, the reality of the universe." 2 Corinthians 5:7 We live by faith, not by sight (ie proof).

BUT once someone chose to accept HIM as their GOD and to accept HIS purpose for their creation, HE gave them the promise of ELECTION to heaven, backed by the gospel promise that if they should ever choose to become evil in HIS sight, HE would do what ever was necessary to bring them to redemption, back to HIM and back to their original true free will decision.

For those elect who did chose to become evil in HIS sight, HE gave PREDESTINATED lives, perfectly designed to fulfill their salvation and to bring them to holiness.

Since this all happened pre-earth's creation, and since earth is where these people live out their predestined lives, this is not the place where we try to find GOD but the place where we work out our already made decisions about HIM.


Peace, Ted

[tariki]

Ted wrote......

Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death... so dying is the proof of sin and all sin deserves condemnation. Ordinary stuff.

This is perhaps our point of departure and why any further dialogue would in all probability be pointless.

Such is "ordinary stuff" to you ( I do not doubt it ) yet your "so" (and much else that you post) does not follow at all accept within the orbit of your theology. Once again I have to say - even if you do not understand yet again - that there is rejection of God and their is rejection of YOUR views, which are not one and the same. Thank God.

All the best

[Bust Nak]

That world would necessarily be open to the same objection, there could always be one less evil deed in the world, at least seemingly so. On the face of it, removing one instance of suffering would make the world a better place, but that would then apply until there is not a single negative thing left. A world with no possibility of suffering of any kind seems dull, boring and rather pointless to me. Perhaps then this is the best possible world.

I can think of plenty of fun yet perfectly safe activities that doesn't harm anyone, even in this world. I don't see why the perfect world have to be dull or pointless.

In the absence of any point of comparison, the assertion that a world governed by a loving God would look different from this one seems bold and speculative.

I don't think it is bold to claim this world is imperfect. I don't think it is bold to claim a loving God would make a world anything less than perfect. I think that a world a loving God would create would look different to this one follows logically form those two claims.

Any place filled only with people who have dedicated themselves to YHWH's loving holiness by their own true free will would be as free of suffering as heaven...

Whatever you vision of heaven is, it's clear that this world isn't it. Explaining why this world isn't perfect, only confirms my premise that this world could be better, strengthen my argument.

[ttruscott]

...

Whatever you vision of heaven is, it's clear that this world isn't it. Explaining why this world isn't perfect, only confirms my premise that this world could be better, strengthen my argument.

Your thesis that "The world would look like heaven if God was omnipotent and omnibenevolent." is unfounded in that heaven and earth house totally different kinds of people and are designed around the needs of the people. An opera hall is designed differently from a prison farm though the the designer may be the same person.

The perfection of this world is only found in its being perfectly suited to fulfill GOD's promise to HIS elect who have chosen to be evil in HIS sight to redeem them and bring them to holiness so they can start their heavenly experience, that is, living in the awareness of full, loving, holy communion and harmony with God and HIS Church.

People don't usually get an heavenly experience here and if they do, they are often gotten out of life here on earth pretty quick.

A hospital is a closed system full of all manner of physical and mental horror and great suffering. Does the presence of great suffering prove the hospital system is a failure or the design is wrong? Not at all - it IS a hospital after all and you expect to find suffering in a hospital because that is where sufferers collect to be healed if they can be healed.

This world is a hospital for the addiction to sin and evil, an addiction that causes great suffering. The fact that it is not a very nice place is NOT proof it should be better but proof it is what it is, a hospital world for the criminally pathological. If you want to get out of the hospital and live the heavenly experience then follow the doctors orders.

But rejecting the doctors orders while condemning the administration for the evil in its halls and rooms is strange - where else would you expect sick people than in a hospital, and criminally pathological people in a locked ward, isolated from good (that is, heavenly) society?

Only sinners are born on earth which means in modern terms, only pathological criminals live here and to not want to live with us all is quite natural but to blame the admin for building such a place to have all of us sinners addicted to evil live is somewhat short sighted, that is, where should we then live and how? We are not acceptable in polite society until we are cured of our addictions and evil expressions of ourselves.

That many cannot see out the windows and so think that their hospital experience is the sum total of all experience will have no effect upon the running of the institution. Their dissatisfaction is inherent to their situation of being addicts confined to a rehab ward.

Peace, Ted

[Bust Nak]

Your thesis that "The world would look like heaven if God was omnipotent and omnibenevolent." is unfounded in that heaven and earth house totally different kinds of people and are designed around the needs of the people. An opera hall is designed differently from a prison farm though the the designer may be the same person.

You are once again explaining why the world as it is does not look like heaven. Which doesn't have an relevance to my claim that the world would be like heaven if God was omnipotent and omnibenevolent. Even if you could convince me that this is the best an omnipotent and omnibenevolent deity could do given the current situration, that still wouldn't address the point that there is no logical reason why things has to be broken in the first place.

The perfection of this world is only found in its being perfectly suited to fulfill GOD's promise to HIS elect who have chosen to be evil in HIS sight to redeem them and bring them to holiness so they can start their heavenly experience, that is, living in the awareness of full, loving, holy communion and harmony with God and HIS Church.

If a deity cannot create a people living in the awareness of full, loving, holy communion and harmony with himself and his church, without going through some intermediate steps resulting in rejects, where the intermediate steps are not a logical necessity, then he is NOT onmipotent.

People don't usually get an heavenly experience here and if they do, they are often gotten out of life here on earth pretty quick.

A hospital is a closed system full of all manner of physical and mental horror and great suffering...

...Their dissatisfaction is inherent to their situation of being addicts confined to a rehab ward.

You are wasting your time addressing the things that is not relevant to what I said. I am not blaiming the hospital; that the hospital could be better or not is not important; that a hospital is a positive thing given the existence of sick people is not important. The very situration of needing a hospital in the first place, is the problem of evil.

[ttruscott]

...

If a deity cannot create a people living in the awareness of full, loving, holy communion and harmony with himself and his church, without going through some intermediate steps resulting in rejects, where the intermediate steps are not a logical necessity, then he is NOT onmipotent.

...

Love and holiness must come from a true free will choice because they can't be true love or true holiness if forced.

And this use of omnipotent in this way is wrong - it was never a question of power but of moral superiority and true free will decisions.

Free will has with it the ultimate responsibility of wearing the clothes one has made, and rejecting this due to bad feelings about that (called sympathy for the devil sometimes) has no bearing upon it.

As for wasting my time, I do not write for those who have taken a solid stance against me for over a year over and over again, but for those who may be influenced by such opposition and not know how to answer.

Peace, Ted

[tariki]

Love and holiness must come from a true free will choice because they can't be true love or true holiness if forced.

No, true love must come from God as pure gift (by grace) and as Thomas Merton has said, God is "his" own gift.

If by OUR "free choice" then the casual basis of our salvation is "works".

But then, one must refer to the early Church Fathers to meet such thoughts, those who believed in and taught Universalism.

All the best

[ttruscott]

Love and holiness must come from a true free will choice because they can't be true love or true holiness if forced.

No, true love must come from God as pure gift (by grace) and as Thomas Merton has said, God is "his" own gift.

If by OUR "free choice" then the casual basis of our salvation is "works".

But then, one must refer to the early Church Fathers to meet such thoughts, those who believed in and taught Universalism.

All the best

The love and holiness I speak about is the love and holiness before the fall which came to be actualized in the elect except for those elect who sinned which diverted the direct line of growth into true love and true holiness into a detour onto earth to be cleansed and redeemed by grace alone, no works, until they are cleansed enough to start to learn how to love and be holy as they should have done eons ago.

Great sound bite but essentially neaningless: "true love must come from God as pure gift (by grace)" I know God loves within the Trinity but loving himself within a created person seems weird...is this a bit of Merton's fake Christianity?

Peace, Ted