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Post by Electron on Jan 30, 2005 7:31:02 GMT -5
[quot]Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
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Post by Satori on Jan 31, 2005 4:14:10 GMT -5
I agree.
Things happen - whilst there might be a cause there's no need for a reason.
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Post by Electron on Jan 31, 2005 10:13:22 GMT -5
I agree. Things happen - whilst there might be a cause there's no need for a reason. But if there is indeed a god - that makes him a tad impartial does it not? I don't see much preaching on how uninterested god is in our affairs!
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Post by Satori on Jan 31, 2005 13:28:18 GMT -5
But if there is indeed a god - that makes him a tad impartial does it not? I don't see much preaching on how uninterested god is in our affairs! Well I don't particularly believe in a god - especially not one that can be 'impartial' or would in any way have an interest in human affairs - so I'm not really in a position to comment on any gods' interest in our affairs.
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Post by Areopagite on Feb 2, 2005 17:17:37 GMT -5
The second option has been the favoured escape route by re-interpreting the conclusion of malevolence into something more pallatable... I wouldn't really call it reinterpretation, as you have Electron. Epicurus' conclusion was his own. I don't think anyone disputes that he made another conclusion by saying that, but I could be mistaken. The problem is that Epicurus makes the assumption that because God chooses not to prevent evil, he is malevolent. This assumption is incorrect. Let me ask you, Electron, do you enjoy the freedom to make a choice? To have a decision to make? For God to prevent evil, He would need to prevent free will. Because God's creation freely chose to do evil, it is the creation that caused evil, not the Creator. For evil to not exist, God would have had to create humans without free will.
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Post by Satori on Feb 2, 2005 17:33:50 GMT -5
Why bother with 'free will' at all though? If He hadn't given it to us we wouldn't know any better. Is it all just a game to God?
If God loves us He'd want us to be saved no matter what, so why does He decide he doesn't love us enough to make 100% sure of that? I always see the 'free will' bit as something of a cop out when discussing the 'malevolence' of God. He is supposedly all powerful; He had a choice to give us either 'free will' and the possibility of eternal damnation, or no free will and a guaranteed spot in heaven.
Likewise an 'all powerful' God could visit each and every one of us to convince us of His existence without any wishy washy beating about the bush. Yet He chooses not to do that, like it's a game to see who burns and who doesn't.
These aspects of the so-called 'all powerful' 'all loving' God are the ones that most put me off the Abrahamic concept of the God 'persona' and convince me that if a God does exist it would be God of some pantheistic nature.
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Post by Areopagite on Feb 2, 2005 22:02:10 GMT -5
So let me understand fully what you just said, Satori. You would rather be a mindless animal than an intelligent human being (made in God's image)? That seems to be the logical end to what you said. We wouldn't even be in Heaven, since Heaven wasn't created for animals!
And there is no game about God's creation of free will. Just because God created free choice doesn't make Him responsible for our decisions. He could have just said "Well I gave you a chance to live with me, too bad you screwed up", but he didn't. Instead He provided a choice: turn back to God (through Christ), or continue to exercise the free will He gave us to rebel against Him. If we choose the latter, to rebel against God, then we get exactly what we deserve: death. Should we choose to accept Christ as Saviour, God will give us life eternal with Him. God gave us the beautiful gift of free will.
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Post by Electron on Feb 3, 2005 5:05:24 GMT -5
So let me understand fully what you just said, Satori. You would rather be a mindless animal than an intelligent human being (made in God's image)? That seems to be the logical end to what you said. I'd be interested to see the logic you're using there.
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Post by Satori on Feb 3, 2005 8:22:18 GMT -5
So let me understand fully what you just said, Satori. You would rather be a mindless animal than an intelligent human being (made in God's image)? That seems to be the logical end to what you said. We wouldn't even be in Heaven, since Heaven wasn't created for animals! The point is, we wouldn't know any different would we? It's not a case of what I'd rather have. God, for some reason, must have chosen to give us free will and then chosen to make it more difficult than it needs to be to secure a spot in heaven. Why? He must have a motive for this. That's exactly what he has said to those he won't 'save' because they haven't heard of Christ or make the mistake (in his eyes) of thinking it's all a load of tosh. See it is a game - he's omnipotent and can do what he likes and chooses to give us this 'free will' to see how we screw it up. Forget this baloney about coming to Christ to be saved. He's all powerful; why bother with such things? Well we all get the same fate in reality of course, but I'll assume we don't for the purposes of this argument. One of the often quoted things about 'free will' is the similarity between us giving our kids free will to make choices, but that's not a good analogy. God is supposedly omnipotent and His supposed 'vastness' makes the comparison more like us giving a baby free will to crawl into the traffic on a road. Do we allow it to do so? No we don't, we pick it up and stop it as the consequences of not doing so are too dire. A 'loving' God would stop us from making such a 'dire' choice as to jeopardize our place in heaven too. The only justification for God's behaviour in this respect is that if there was a God of the Abrahamic type, he either isn't 'all powerful' or he's malevolent; perhaps not downright 'evil' but endowed with enough pride to want us to demonstrate servitude to him.
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Post by Areopagite on Feb 3, 2005 11:39:10 GMT -5
Read Romans 1 You seem to still have a problem with this concept though: God created free will, man chose to use that free will sin. Man didn't have to. Do you really want to know why? The motive of free will is that it allows for us to love God back, just as He loves us. God has no desire for witless creature who serve but have no feelings, no love for Him. God doesn't desire sacrifice, but wants men to walk humbly with Him, as the prophet Micah says. I've answered your question and I hope that you find it helpful, unless the question was rhetorical since you weren't actually looking for an answer. I hope thats not the case though. God desires your companionship
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Post by Satori on Feb 3, 2005 12:52:13 GMT -5
I take it that relates to the general revelation v special revelation issues? I really didn't want to complicate this thread further by going there, but it's something I've looked into a lot in the past and would make an interesting discussion in a separate thread sometime. No, and God didn't have to give us free will. What's the motivation for an omnipotent God to give us free will? Fun? Why not just give us free will if He thinks that's best then just let us all go to heaven anyway? I'd say that would perhaps be the most 'loving' thing a God could do. Clearly he's not a very forgiving God if he sets the trap by giving us free will but is not merciful enough to release us from it when we get caught. Right, now we're getting somewhere. So God has desires and craves our love? Interesting. So God wants servitude and respect too? Okay. The God you describe here is one who suffers from human emotions - desire, pride, ego etc. To me, that makes him a lot closer to man than I would credit an omnipotent being being ('being being'?!). Neither are these particularly good traits, so this is not a 'perfect' God. To me, this doesn't describe an omnipotent God. He must have some power though if we assume that he created Man and can exert such influence over his affairs. The presence of emotions in God explains why he does what he does (the 'free will' trap), but it also explains why he simply doesn't save all of us. He wants people to suffer if they don't show enough 'respect'. So, from what I've read in this thread in relation to the original point of: Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? I'd have to go for him being neither able nor willing.
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Post by Electron on Feb 3, 2005 15:27:11 GMT -5
Once again I can't help noticing how the "official interpretation" of god betrays something that looks like a human construct. I will keep referring to my observation that religious doctrine consists of many untestable statements - however I note that there are occasions when the gaurd has been let down enough to reveal a clear view of the underlying human inspiration.
I also note that philosophy was already well developed by biblical times. The utility of untestable statements would not have been lost on the thinkers of the time. I've always suspected that this is no coincidence.
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Jedikiller
New Member
Hunt them down, and destroy them
Posts: 38
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Post by Jedikiller on Feb 26, 2005 2:14:28 GMT -5
Here's my take: (You've probably heard this before) When/if you are a parent and you have a child, you are going to want the best for that child, are you not? Sometimes, though, the thing that is best is not always the easy way out. Think of all of the evils that have occured in your life. Haven't they helped you grow in a way not possible through any other means?
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Jedikiller
New Member
Hunt them down, and destroy them
Posts: 38
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Post by Jedikiller on Feb 26, 2005 2:16:57 GMT -5
Why bother with 'free will' at all though? If He hadn't given it to us we wouldn't know any better. Is it all just a game to God? If God loves us He'd want us to be saved no matter what, so why does He decide he doesn't love us enough to make 100% sure of that? I always see the 'free will' bit as something of a cop out when discussing the 'malevolence' of God. He is supposedly all powerful; He had a choice to give us either 'free will' and the possibility of eternal damnation, or no free will and a guaranteed spot in heaven. Likewise an 'all powerful' God could visit each and every one of us to convince us of His existence without any wishy washy beating about the bush. Yet He chooses not to do that, like it's a game to see who burns and who doesn't. These aspects of the so-called 'all powerful' 'all loving' God are the ones that most put me off the Abrahamic concept of the God 'persona' and convince me that if a God does exist it would be God of some pantheistic nature. If God loved us he would want us to make it back on our own. We have his help but the final decision is ours. If God did indeed visit each and every one of us, what need of faith would there be? Faith is believing without seeing. Therefore if God were to just show up to all of us most would be givin no chance to decide on our own. Then there would be no agency.
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Post by Satori on Feb 26, 2005 4:24:36 GMT -5
This is God you're talking about and you're saying He needs our faith and requires our servitude? I would have thought an omnipotent God would be above human desires such as those.
We have covered this earlier in the thread, but I'll ask you here: if you see a baby crawling into the road, do you stop him? I would certainly hope so. If it's in your power to stop him then it is the right thing to do. You don't debate the issue, you don't weigh up whether it's better or not to give the baby 'free will', you simply stop him.
A loving God would apply the same principles and stop us crawling towards Hell, so either God can't stop us from exercising free will (which means he's not omnipotent) or He won't stop us from falling into eternal damnation (whivh means he's malevolent or, at least, irresponsible).
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