If God is good, why is there evil, suffering and death?

[DaveD49]

EDIT:SORRY, BUT I CREATED CONFUSION WITH THE QUESTION BY THE TITLE I GAVE THE POST. THE ACTUAL QUESTION IS WHERE IT SAYS "SUBJECT FOR DEBATE" BUT IF YOU HAVE AN ALTERNATIVE VIEW FEEL FREE TO POST IT, BUT I AM LOOKING FOR FEEDBACK ON THE ANSWER I GAVE. IF YOU CAN POINT TO SOMETHING WHERE I AM WRONG OR SOMETHING I MAY HAVE MISSED.

This question has been often brought up by atheists and rightfully so. It has also been extremely difficult for theists to answer who stumble over explanations. I am not trying to say that "I have THE answer", but I think I might claim that I have a possible answer.

SUBJECT FOR DEBATE: DO YOU AGREE OR DISAGREE WITH THE FOLLOWING AS A POSSIBLE ANSWER FOR THE QUESTION OF IF A GOOD GOD EXISTS WHY IS THERE EVIL, PAIN, SUFFERING, AND DEATH IN THE WORLD?
Please state whether you agree or disagree.
Please explain why you feel that way.

I most certainly do believe as John says in his letter that "God is love. He who abides in love abides in God and God in him." (1John 4:16)

Love by its very nature must be shared, hence this may be the reason why God created us as living souls. Love is best when it is returned, so yes, He wants us to love Him in return. However love cannot be "forced" to love and have it remain love. By its very nature love has to be freely given. So it would be impossible for God to create us "already loving". Certainly He could do that but that would never be true love. Love MUST be freely given. But it would be impossible to do that while we were still in the presence of God. Certainly we could have devotion and awe, but that is not love. In my mind I believe that this is the state of the angels who have not gone through the process of learning how to love.

So, how do we learn to love? First of we had to be given the complete freedom to do any and all evil even though that leads away from God and love, because it is only when we are free to do evil that we are also free to reject that evil and do the good that leads towards God and love. You cannot have "good" without the possibility of "evil". This could not be in the direct presence of God as direct knowledge of Him would skew our free choices. Hence the reason for the creation of the physical realm and why we are only given "hints" of His existence.

Secondly we had to be given pain, suffering, toil and death. These were the "punishments" in the Bible which were given to Adam and Eve for their eating from "The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil". In other words we were given a conscience. In my mind this is the most important point of the Adam and Eve story be cause it essentially describes man becoming fully human when He was given a conscience. We no longer lived by instinct as other animal do; instead we are given the insatiable desire to seek the greater good (or the greater evil). This is what has led us from trees to the ground, from the ground to caves, to huts, to houses, to skyscrapers, and also led us from stones to spears, to arrows, to guns, and to thermonuclear weapons. Every decision we make is based on the conscience.... which way would it be better to turn? Right or left? We are asking ourselves which way would be the "better good". So the existence of evil plays an extremely important part of human development.

What about pain, suffering, toil and death? When you think about it you will realize that is only through our personal experience of these, and how they hurt, either in ourselves of a member of our social circle, that we can learn compassion and sympathy for someone else experiencing the same thing. This starts only within our own social circle. But compassion and sympathy teach us to care about even those outside of our social circle. And it is caring about the stranger that leads us to true selfless love.

This whole thing came to my mind when I realized that the "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil" meant man being given a conscience. Everything else followed after that. I used to dismiss the A&E story as a simple story of creation, but now I see it as one of the most profound in all human literature because with thought it gives the reason for our existence, the reason for evil, the reason for pain, suffering and death, and what our goal should be in this physical realm: to learn true selfless love.

[Purple Knight]

Again, we also have something to compare suffering against, and that is non-suffering.

That makes for a slightly better frame of reference than the other topic, which asks us to imagine what a universe would be like without laws, order, and logic and presumes that it would be less likely a god created it. But I don't know if it passes muster. I don't seem to be suffering now but I have suffered in the past and that makes up my being. I can imagine never suffering again but I can't imagine never having suffered. I certainly wouldn't be me and I don't think I'd have learned anything ever, and I don't think I'd be conscious in the way that I am conscious now.

That's a better way to explain my whole take on reasoning like this.

If you want me to believe laws, order, and logic make god more likely, you're asking me to say that in a chaos universe, god is less likely. Okay, I can't say the second, because I can't see outside of laws, order, and logic, so I don't know. So I can't say the first either.

If you're saying suffering means a god is less likely, you're also asking me to see outside of my universe in the same way; to tell that in a universe without suffering I would think god was more likely. I can't say this either because I can't even conceptualise never having suffered.

[William]

[Replying to Purple Knight in post #31]

I can't even conceptualise never having suffered.

Why not?

[Purple Knight]

[Replying to Purple Knight in post #31]

I can't even conceptualise never having suffered.

Why not?

Because I have suffered, and that made me. I can't guess at what I'd be if I hadn't suffered because it's still me making the guess, thus ruining the guess. I might be able to make reasonable guesses at what I'd be like if I were bald (shudder) or if I lacked an arm, but that's because 1) there are actually people with these conditions and 2) hair or an arm is not a fundamental part of my being, whereas suffering probably is part of our beings. I can be happy with very little, but it's a consciously forged state. For most people, if you give them everything they want, they begin to want more just so they can be unhappy and suffer again.

Here's a good way to explain this concept I'm talking about in both this thread in the other one. Let's call it falsifiability of probability.

Actual falsifiability: If I say all swans are black, I must say, if I find a white swan, my theory is wrong.

Falsifiability of probability: If I say finding a swan makes it likelier to find water, I must say that not finding a swan makes it less likely to find water.

In other words, you can't have both a swan and lack of a swan (both A and not-A) indicating toward the same thing. That then makes it irrelevant whether there is a swan or not. So then, a swan cannot be used to prove anything.