Could God do better?

[Paul of Tarsus]

The philosopher Gottfried Leibniz argued that this is "the best of all possible worlds" to free God from blame for the world's troubles. In other words, this world, warts and all, is the best God could have done. I'm left wondering, though, why this world is the best possible. It seems likely to me that the world would be better off without cancer, for example, and therefore it's really not the best possible world. Wouldn't the world actually be better without cancer, and if it would be better without cancer, then why is God failing to do the best he presumably could do? If the world is the best possible world, then how does the presence of cancer make it better than a world without cancer?

[2ndpillar2]

The law this world was built on was the law of equal and opposite forces (Newton's law). To have light, you first must have darkness. How can you judge good from evil, if you do not have evil. People have the free will to choose good (law) or evil (lawlessness). If one follows the light, they enter into life, if they follow darkness, they follow the path to death and destruction, such as cancer.
The laws of the new heaven and earth are different. For the millennium, you will not have the darkness stemming from the darkness/devil, for he will be bound in the abyss. Many people will not make into the millennium, for they have chosen lawlessness/wickedness. (Rev 8 & 9:18). The world started as a paradise, without lawlessness, until Adam and Eve chose lawlessness, which led to death/cancer.

Wouldn't the world actually be better without cancer, and if it would be better without cancer, then why is God failing to do the best he presumably could do? If the world is the best possible world, then how does the presence of cancer make it better than a world without cancer?

You miss the point. Lawlessness/sin/transgression of the Law, is the predicate for disease and death. If you don't want to die of cancer, I suggest that you repent of your transgressions, and produce good fruit (Mt 3). The daughters of Babylon can't help you, for they perpetuate lawlessness, as in the false gospel of grace, promoted by the false prophet Paul. You either come out of "her", the daughters of Babylon, or you suffer her plagues (Rev 18:4). As for the direct followers of Satan, they reap what they sow. If you think you can argue your way out of having to repent, well, get used to your regular doctor appointments, and consumption of health killing prescriptions, for swaths of plagues/diseases, which includes cancer.

[JehovahsWitness]

You either come out of "her", the daughters of Babylon, or you suffer her plagues (Rev 18:4).

I cannot agree with you here, I believe Revelation 18:4 is speaking if spiritual plaques not literal disease. Babylon the Great being symbolic of false religion.




JEHOVAH'S WITNESS

[Paul of Tarsus]

Wouldn't the world actually be better without cancer, and if it would be better without cancer, then why is God failing to do the best he presumably could do? If the world is the best possible world, then how does the presence of cancer make it better than a world without cancer?

You miss the point.

And you missed my questions. Ignoring questions posed to you is very uncivil and is indicative of the recognition that truth is injurious to your position. The obvious answers to my questions is that the world would obviously be better without cancer, any God who exists is failing to eradicate cancer, and it's stupid to think that cancer could make the world a better place.

Lawlessness/sin/transgression of the Law, is the predicate for disease and death. If you don't want to die of cancer, I suggest that you repent of your transgressions, and produce good fruit (Mt 3).

So to you God kills sinners with cancer, and you think cancer victims are being punished by God because they are sinners.

The daughters of Babylon can't help you, for they perpetuate lawlessness, as in the false gospel of grace, promoted by the false prophet Paul. You either come out of "her", the daughters of Babylon, or you suffer her plagues (Rev 18:4). As for the direct followers of Satan, they reap what they sow.

I see that the Bible inspires you to hate people.

If you think you can argue your way out of having to repent, well, get used to your regular doctor appointments, and consumption of health killing prescriptions, for swaths of plagues/diseases, which includes cancer.

Do faithful Christians never get cancer? I know a man who is a Christian whose Christian wife has cancer. Both of them would be upset if they knew how you are condemning her.

[JehovahsWitness]

.

. Apparently god has abandoned his experiment on Earth for more interesting undertakings elsewhere .

As one of Jehovah's Witnesses I do not believe God has abandoned us; its true some religions teach the earth will one day play no part in his projects (and all humans will go to live in heaven) but that his not what we believe.







JW

To learn more please go to other posts related to

THE PLANET EARTH, .GOD'S KINGDOM and ... THE LAST DAYS

[JoeyKnothead]

From Post 54:

As one of Jehovah's Witnesses I do not believe God has abandoned us;

As one of the debaters on this site, I've struggled to find anyone who can show a god's there to have ever been involved with us in the first place.

It's like trying to get the pretty thing to let me do me the stuff it is, the pretty thing won't let me do.

its true some religions teach the earth will one day play no part in his projects
...

And how I can't have any pudding if I don't eat my meat.

(and all humans will go to live in heaven) but that his not what we believe.

I respect and preciate JehovahsWitness sharing his beliefs best and honest as he can. I ain't fretting me that at all.


What I'm getting at is the absurd, unsupportable assumptions we gotta assumpt just to carry on so many of these debates.

[2ndpillar2]

You either come out of "her", the daughters of Babylon, or you suffer her plagues (Rev 18:4).

I cannot agree with you here, I believe Revelation 18:4 is speaking if spiritual plaques not literal disease. Babylon the Great being symbolic of false religion.




JEHOVAH'S WITNESS

The plagues of Revelation 18:4 are in line with the plagues of Zechariah 14:12, with respect to the day of the Lord, which models radiation poisoning, whereas "their flesh will rot while they stand n their feet", "and their eyes will rot while in their sockets". Or better yet the Egyptian plagues of Exodus, which are more is line with Passover, as when the angels return to gather out the tares/lawless "first", to throw into the furnace of fire/great tribulation (Mt 13:30), but passes over those with the mark of God (Rev 9:4). There is no "false religion", Babylon has many harlot daughters, and they all cling to the false prophet Paul, and the "worthless", "stumbling block", Peter (Zechariah 11) & (Mt 16:23). There is no such thing as a "spiritual plague" except that when one sins, they transgress the Law, and one is cut off from God, and the result is death, often by means of disease, referred to in the OT as the plagues of Egypt. (Exodus 15:26)

[2ndpillar2]

Wouldn't the world actually be better without cancer, and if it would be better without cancer, then why is God failing to do the best he presumably could do? If the world is the best possible world, then how does the presence of cancer make it better than a world without cancer?

You miss the point.

And you missed my questions. Ignoring questions posed to you is very uncivil and is indicative of the recognition that truth is injurious to your position. The obvious answers to my questions is that the world would obviously be better without cancer, any God who exists is failing to eradicate cancer, and it's stupid to think that cancer could make the world a better place.

Lawlessness/sin/transgression of the Law, is the predicate for disease and death. If you don't want to die of cancer, I suggest that you repent of your transgressions, and produce good fruit (Mt 3).

So to you God kills sinners with cancer, and you think cancer victims are being punished by God because they are sinners.

The daughters of Babylon can't help you, for they perpetuate lawlessness, as in the false gospel of grace, promoted by the false prophet Paul. You either come out of "her", the daughters of Babylon, or you suffer her plagues (Rev 18:4). As for the direct followers of Satan, they reap what they sow.

I see that the Bible inspires you to hate people.

If you think you can argue your way out of having to repent, well, get used to your regular doctor appointments, and consumption of health killing prescriptions, for swaths of plagues/diseases, which includes cancer.

Do faithful Christians never get cancer? I know a man who is a Christian whose Christian wife has cancer. Both of them would be upset if they knew how you are condemning her.

Your "Christian" neighbors would be apparently part of the daughters of Babylon, which follow the false prophets, wolves in sheep's clothing, and are on the road to "destruction" (Mt 7:13). They would need to repent and come out of "her", the daughters of Babylon, or suffer her plagues/diseases, which of course you are subject to as well. Babylon has daughters apart from the "Christian" churches. Your definition of "faithful" fails to reveal to whom your "Christians", and what your "Christians" are faithful too. If they are faithful to the message of the devil, the tare seed, which is mixed among the good seed/message, then they are subject to "destruction", often in the form of disease, fire, famine, earthquake (Rev 6). They should investigate before calling anything holy, or be dragged into the pit

[tam]

Peace to you,

This is not the "best" of all possible worlds (if by "best" you mean a world without cancer, and be extension, any other ailment that causes suffering and death).

Then God did not achieve creating the best possible world.

Or He did, and we just weren't around back then (though we can be around when the world is healed; things made anew; the new earth). Man messed the world up (for himself and for his offspring). That shouldn't be too hard to grasp, since men have continued messing things up (such as that pollution I mentioned, which can indeed cause cancer and other ailments).

It's illuminating how you and I, people who fall far short of divine perfection (or at least I fall far short of divine perfection), are nevertheless quite capable of understanding that the world could be better.

I don't think "the world could be better" is meant to be a secret. If it could not be "better" (re: without cancer or other ailments as you mention in your OP), then why would the promise be for things to be made anew, for there to be no more mourning, tears, suffering, etc?

I would suggest to you and others that this world could be much worse without God interfering and preventing certain things from becoming worse (or from happening before their proper time).

I agree that yes, the world could be worse. Perhaps God saves us all from being forced to watch Lawrence Welk.

Well, I don't even know who that is, so...

Regardless, this is the world with conditions that man has made for himself. God certainly did not force man to pollute the air, the protective layer around the earth, the oceans, the land, the food, etc.

People can make a mess and often do, but none of us ever created cancer and neither did any of us start a tsunami or hurricane. If God exists, then all that's his own work assuming he's able to create natural disasters.

Pollution -air, sea, land, food, cigarettes, radiation, etc - causes cancer (and other ailments). A moving and living world also means that things like tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc, occur. I doubt we even know the half of how our actions affect the world around us, even in nature. The alternative to things that come from a living and moving world might be that no life could be sustained.

The world without cancer or any other ailment that causes suffering or death (because death causes suffering as well) is the world promised to come.

Allowing needless suffering that one can prevent, even if allowing the suffering temporarily, is still cruel.

Unless acting - or acting too soon - would cause even more harm (as stated above), even cause the loss of one of your own children. Especially if you know that you have a plan and a means for people to be healed, for the world and the life in the world to be healed. Perhaps acting too soon would cost lives that would otherwise be saved. You know, the whole - let the wheat and the weeds grow together until the harvest, lest you pull up some of the wheat as well (Matt 13:28-30)? Unless you can see everything (from the beginning to the "end"), unless you know all the players (including enemies and how to defeat them without harming the 'wheat'), you cannot know the full scope of what is being done in order to bring about that new earth with no suffering, mourning, tears or even death.


Peace again to you.

[Paul of Tarsus]

Man messed the world up (for himself and for his offspring). That shouldn't be too hard to grasp, since men have continued messing things up (such as that pollution I mentioned, which can indeed cause cancer and other ailments).

Again, any harm done to the world by people doesn't explain the suffering that has nothing to do with what people have done. Besides, people don't deliberately spew pollution and other environmental contaminants because people are evil; we do so as an unfortunate byproduct of our efforts to survive. If we want energy to keep from freezing in the winter, for example, then we must pollute the air at least until we can find clean alternative means of producing useful energy to heat our homes.

So the "evil people made the world bad" is an argument that has little basis in reality.

I don't think "the world could be better" is meant to be a secret.

In that case God knows the world could be better but does nothing about it.

If it could not be "better" (re: without cancer or other ailments as you mention in your OP), then why would the promise be for things to be made anew, for there to be no more mourning, tears, suffering, etc?

Tam, in the OP I mentioned that it was the philosopher Gottfried Leibniz who said that this is the best of all possible worlds. I never said I agree with him. The world I think could be much better which I have argued since the OP. The Bible writers no doubt realized the conflict between the real world and the God they made up, and to try to smooth things over they promised people that that God would some day solve the world's problems, at least for the few people who believed them. Of course, they never offered to explain why we must wait or how long we must wait.

Pollution -air, sea, land, food, cigarettes, radiation, etc - causes cancer (and other ailments).

Actually, DNA causes cancer although environmental factors like you mention can increase the probability of cancer. There's plenty of cancer in nature that has nothing to do with human activities and that includes the cancer that ravages many innocent people including the very young.

A moving and living world also means that things like tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc, occur.

If you're saying that God cannot prevent tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes and other natural disasters, then I agree. God makes much more sense if we see him as limited and imperfect.

The alternative to things that come from a living and moving world might be that no life could be sustained.

Then that would be a limitation of God's. He cannot create and sustain life without killing much of it off from time to time.

Unless acting - or acting too soon - would cause even more harm (as stated above), even cause the loss of one of your own children. Especially if you know that you have a plan and a means for people to be healed, for the world and the life in the world to be healed. Perhaps acting too soon would cost lives that would otherwise be saved. You know, the whole - let the wheat and the weeds grow together until the harvest, lest you pull up some of the wheat as well (Matt 13:28-30)? Unless you can see everything (from the beginning to the "end"), unless you know all the players (including enemies and how to defeat them without harming the 'wheat'), you cannot know the full scope of what is being done in order to bring about that new earth with no suffering, mourning, tears or even death.

So what harm would result from curing cancer right now do to the world? Are the hardworking doctors who try to find cures for cancers (that's not a typo; there are many cancers) going against God's plan? If we do anything at all to alleviate the suffering in the world, are we actually harming the world?

[Tcg]

If you're saying that God cannot prevent tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes and other natural disasters, then I agree. God makes much more sense if we see him as limited and imperfect.

God makes even more sense if we view him as nonexistent other than in the imagination of humans. That explains why he can't do anything about tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, other natural disasters or anything at all.


Tcg