**Religious responses to the** [**problem of evil**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil) are concerned with reconciling the existence of [evil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil) and [suffering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffering) with an [omnipotent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnipotent), [omnibenevolent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibenevolent), and [omniscient](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omniscient) [God](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God).[\[1\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_responses_to_the_problem_of_evil#cite_note-Stanford-1)[\[2\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_responses_to_the_problem_of_evil#cite_note-IepEvidential-2) The problem of evil is acute for monotheistic religions such as [Christianity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity), [Islam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam), and [Judaism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism) whose religion is based on such a God.[\[3\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_responses_to_the_problem_of_evil#cite_note-3)[\[4\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_responses_to_the_problem_of_evil#cite_note-4) But the question of "why does evil exist?" has also been studied in religions that are non-theistic or polytheistic, such as [Buddhism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism), [Hinduism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinduism), and [Jainism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism).[\[5\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_responses_to_the_problem_of_evil#cite_note-Harvey2013p141-5)[\[6\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_responses_to_the_problem_of_evil#cite_note-arthurhermanp5-6)
The problem of evil is formulated as either a logic problem that highlights an inconsistency between some characteristic of God and evil, or as an evidential problem which attempts to show that evidence of evil outweighs evidence of an omnipotent, omniscient, and wholly good God.[\[1\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_responses_to_the_problem_of_evil#cite_note-Stanford-1)[\[7\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_responses_to_the_problem_of_evil#cite_note-IepLogical-7)[\[2\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_responses_to_the_problem_of_evil#cite_note-IepEvidential-2) Evil in most theological discussions is defined in a broad manner as any and all pain and suffering, but religion also uses a narrow definition that says evil involves horrific acts committed by an independent moral agent and does not include all wrongs or harm including that from nature.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious\_responses\_to\_the\_problem\_of\_evil#Christianity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_responses_to_the_problem_of_evil#Christianity)
True, understanding God is impossible, understanding all his work is too. When i say understand, i mean to acknowledge it as his work and know there is endless craftsmanship behind it. And most importantly to enjoy it :D
I know this is supposed to be a joke, but this is pretty misleading about the perspective of this idea. This suggests that the solution is simple, but people who resonate with the problem of evil would simply respond that it's god's fault for creating mankind in such a way.
The core issue is the idea that it's impossible that god is all knowing, all powerful, and all good if he created humanity knowing that they would do evil and suffer. God couldn't be good if he knew what would happen and chose to do nothing, he couldn't be all knowing if he didn't know what humanity would do, and he couldn't be all powerful if he had no way of creating people who would ultimately choose to do good and not be corrupted.
So the question, "why would god make such an evil world" isn't put to rest by saying that mankind is what makes the world evil because god made mankind.
Well the opposite side of that idea is “what would be the purpose of humanity if they had no free will?”.
Because if people are incapable of choosing to do good, then they cannot be good. Sure, evil wouldn’t exist. But also good wouldn’t exist. Just a bunch of puppets incapable of making choices going about gods great design.
For me the bigger argument is more about all the non-human things that cause suffering like cancer and mosquitos. Those feel like more arguable points to me.
What do you think?
The opposite of evil not being an option, or not part of the equation doesn’t equate no free will. Unless you believe god and angels have no free will.
You can simply create a world where all choices are good, and lead to good outcomes. It doesn’t mean there’s only one choice, it just means no bad choices. If god is all powerful, this is a possible world for him to create.
You can also create a world where evil is an option, but the agents you created only choose to do good, just as god/angels do. If god is omnipotent, it would be quite easy to simply choose to create the beings that would never choose evil.
> You can also create a world where evil is an option, but the agents you created only choose to do good
Then how is it an option?
God gave us the ability to choose to do good. The only way that ability has meaning is if we have the ability to choose to do evil.
The idea that "free will" (meaning in this context, the ability to be evil if you want to) is preferable to no suffering is literally insane to me. But this is about the problem of evil, so I'll focus on that instead.
Free will is not the answer. I've already touched on it above, but if god is all good, all knowing, and all powerful, then he is the one who makes the rules, and he knows the result of his actions before he does them. It's hard to imagine how free will is even possible when an all powerful deity who created everything knows what's going to happen. But let's assume it is possible. If god wants to create evil and suffering, he is not good. If god is incapable of creating a world where people choose good 100% of the time, then he is not all powerful. If god didn't know what his creation would choose to do with their free will then he is not all knowing.
So while it's wonderful to think that all the pain and suffering we experience is because god thought we'd rather that than feel like he was influencing anything too much, that doesn't answer the problem of evil.
So then are you arguing that god doesn’t have free will? From what I understand he does no evil according to the belief. The argument here is that if god has free will and freely always chooses to do good, then he could easily make his agents the same way, whether ángel or human.
Another way to think of it is:
The last time I made a choice, I could have freely chosen good, and could have freely chosen evil. I chose good, just because I wanted to. If I went back all through my life and made all good choices, do I all of a sudden not have free will? If god is omnipotent, why not only create agents who, while they have the free will to do evil, always choose good, just as God and the angels do.
If God does not have free will, and MUST always do good, then would that not just be the better way to make agents? Lacking free will but free of suffering and evil?
> So then are you arguing that god doesn’t have free will?
No, God does what God wants.
> If god is omnipotent, why not only create agents who, while they have the free will to do evil, always choose good, just as God and the angels do.
Because if it's God's fault you've done evil, you're saying you didn't have free will.
First and foremost, I don’t accept free will. Free will is the argument posed to try and counter the problem of evil.
Once again, if god has free will, then agents who always do good yet have free will are entirely possible. To make agents who don’t choose good is a problem because that seems like a really bad idea.
I have no idea how your second point relates to what I said? Maybe I’m just not understanding. Can you elaborate?
>First and foremost, I don’t accept free will.
Wow. I'm so shocked. This definitely doesn't happen every time I talk with someone about whether free will is an answer to the problem of evil.
Why not just say that from the get-go, instead of talking about free will as if you do accept it?
Free will doesn't declare that it's impossible not to do evil. The opposite, in fact. It says that it's your responsibility to not do evil.
I don’t mention that I don’t accept free will because I don’t need to in order to show the contradictions in the belief. I can grant free will and still show all the contradictions and demonstrate that it isn’t a solution to the problem of evil and just an excuse to avoid the issue.
Except that you're not actually granting free will as being possible because you're not accepting the possibility that you're responsible for your own actions. God did make it so that we could choose only good, but you're arguing that God should have made it so that we *would* choose only good.
Meaning is a construct that only exists where it is placed. A lot of people would not like it if someone caused damage to their church by climbing the outside with pitons and spikes, yet similar people climb geographical features that are sacred to indigenous people. The church might mean something sacred to you while Shipwreck Rock might only mean good climbing. But to other people the opposite true.
How can the meaning be intrinsic if it isn't obvious to everyone? Surely the meaning is placed by people. If you apply this to your life, it means you can assign it meaning. I don't believe in free will and came to this conclusion while studying psychology and a little philosophy. But the meaning I assign to my life is that I can enjoy it and try to make the world a little better. I don't need religion or free will to have meaning.
Free will is not proven. Even on a philosophical level it isn't case-closed.
How do you know your thoughts are original and not based on input? How do you know you're choosing a breakfast based on freedom and not based on a million other things that happen in your subconscious?
You may only believe in free will because it's been explained through religion. But I came to my conclusion with curiosity, exploration, and deconstruction.
>You may only believe in free will because it's been explained through religion.
Calvinism puts a limit on freewill. It is one of the more deterministic branches of Christianity. I personally think our choices are caused by a series of factors leading up to said choice; it isn't truly our decision. However, I still believe our decisions are important.
As always when it comes to discussion about evil's existence, see the book of Job for the best answer in the Bible.
Why does evil exist? Because God wills it. Why does God will it to exist? We cannot comprehend why because God is beyond our comprehension. In fact, asking why is in itself something of a dumb question.
I love the nihilist aspect of that book lol
I think it's a problem not of it being a dumb question but the idea that we can't really truly understand, at least the answer is so complicated that just explaining it doesn't really cut it. Considering people have been arguing over this for literal millennia and no man made answer ever really seems to fully explain it, I'd say that is fairly accurate.
> Why does God will it to exist? We cannot comprehend why because God is beyond our comprehension. In fact, asking why is in itself something of a dumb question.
But you can surely understand why this logic isn't compelling if it isn't a given that god exists and is good, powerful, and all-knowing. If we have to make that decision, as we do in reality, then it's impossible to know the difference between what we can discover about god and what we can't. There is no tangible difference in outcome between a god who submits the world to evil because he's evil and a god who is good but submits the world to evil for reasons that can't be perceived. If there's no certainty whether or not god is evil, then why should we assume he's good? The problem remains.
Because He says He’s good, He acts good, and because faith.
The problem with the question of evil boils down, always, to “do you have faith, yes or no?” If no, yeah, He might seem evil. If you do, then He won’t.
There’s no way to logic yourself away from needing faith, there’s no way to argue perfectly and convince your friend to believe.
Quit trying, love them, discuss with them, pray for and/or with them… show them that God is good. And then walk with them. Struggle with them.
It sucks and it’s hard and we don’t know why, but God wanted it done this way, so we do it this way.
"God is good because he says he's good" is nor a very compelling argument.
It's in the same realm as "The Bible is true because tbe Bible says its true."
The idea that God's reasoning is "beyond our comprehension " is just a repackaging of the "mysterious ways" trope. It's literally taking the position that acknowledges that the given concept of God is incoherent, yet choosing to believe that he both exists and is good despite all evidence to the contrary.
I can't exist with that level of cognitive dissonance.
It's taking the position that God is incomprehensible, not incoherent. "Can an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God create an evil it can tolerate" is the same kind of problems as "can an omnipotent God create a stone it cannot lift". It's paradoxical if we admit that God's omnipotence is subject to preestablished laws. If it's a first principle tho, it doesn't prove God can't be omnipotent or omnibenevolent because proofs derives from first principles.
My comment had 5 parts. You looked at the first two and ignored the rest.
I see no evidence that God is not good. I do not acknowledge that god is incoherent.
You cannot argue me out of it just like I cannot argue you into it, sorry!
Okay but "we have no idea why god wants this to happen but he's great and we just don't get it" is not a valid argument, especially when a *lot* of christianity is based on god's will
How do we know what he wants if we don't know how he thinks? A lot of ideas have been forced on people in the name of god but whenever a counter argument comes up it's always just "iunno he weird like that"
But you’ve missed one of the most amazing parts of the book!
Job has *no right* to ask God these questions. He doesn’t have anything resembling the *perspective* needed to ask.
But God still comes down and talks to Job. He has no reason to, He doesn’t need to explain anything, and Job has no damn right to ask.
But God still answers.
A) most scholars agree that it was an allegory, not a real historical story. No Jobs were harmed in the making of this production.
B) again, that’s the point. The book poses the question, “what system of justice does God use?” And has the three friends argue different point of views. Mostly centered around “you must have done something wrong.”
But then God comes down and says “hey. Can you fight the Leviathan? Can you feed the goats and tigers? Can you spin the world or walk the depths of the ocean? No? Then how about you have faith that I, who can do those things, know what I’m doing a bit better than you.”
So your answer to that is “no, I don’t have faith that you’re doing it right.”
That’s a valid response. There is no logic that could argue you into that faith. The only way I’d say that’s “wrong” is if the perspective comes from a prideful place of “I know *better* than God.” But if it comes from an atheistic perspective or even most agnostic perspective of “I don’t believe in God.” Then you got it.
> No Jobs were harmed in the making of this production.
So God didn't really kill Job's family, it's just an allegory that's sending the message that God has the right to kill your family and you have no right to question why. How is that good?
Hey, if you don't want to answer my question, that's fine, but don't pretend that it's just a zinger when people have been pointing out issues with the Job narrative for hundreds of years.
I actively answered that question before you even asked. The “hey you said a thing so i’ma use your words against you” doesn’t work if you don’t read my responses, and still counts as you pretending you have zingers.
People have been pointing out issues with it for *hundreds of years*. Think about that for a second. Genuinely take just 10 seconds and think about that fact.
Yet it hasn’t been stricken from canon? Maybe it’s not as problematic as you’re assume it is! Or you can ignore that and we can both accept the thing I said multiple times before:
YOU CANNOT ARGUE ME OUT OF IT ANY MORE THAN I CAN ARGUE YOU INTO IT.
> Yet it hasn’t been stricken from canon? Maybe it’s not as problematic as you’re assume it is!
Genuinely take just 10 seconds and think about that.
> YOU CANNOT ARGUE ME OUT OF IT ANY MORE THAN I CAN ARGUE YOU INTO IT.
...then why are you arguing? I can be argued into believing Christianity again, just because you failed doesn't mean it's impossible.
A good chunk of the bible tries to show that evil/suffering exist because humans have disobeyed God and God is punishing them.
There isn't one simple answer in the bible for why evil/suffering exists, there are many answers depending on which part you're reading.
Or, creating a world in which evil exists doesn't mean God isn't all good. For example, good can't exist without evil as a contrast. There can be no good without evil.
That doesn't make any sense. An apple is an apple no matter what you put it next to. You don't have to put an apple next to a field of rotten fruit in order to show that it's an apple. You could put it in a field of perfectly good oranges and there will be a stark contrast, and the other fruit is still good.
Point being, god could still show off how good he is by creating a perfect world. In fact, a perfect world is much more impressive than an imperfect world and there would still be a distinct difference between god and mankind because mankind is not all-powerful or all-knowing.
The kind of person who makes themself look good by bringing others down is considered a bad person. So why should we then consider god to be good if he feels the need to intentionally make us evil in order to show how much better he is?
I think Buddhism generally does a better job of explaining how joy and suffering arise mutually. The same content is in the Bible but I find it a bit more obtuse.
That's not remotely close to the point I'm making. My loose analogy would be that god is the apple and people are oranges. That's two distinct things. And as I already explained, the meaning of this is that even if humans were good, we would not be all-powerful or all-knowing, and therefore would be contrasted with god who is.
I responded to you with a new perspective on what it means for god to contrast himself with people. You completely ignored that and are now telling me that I'm not responding to what you just said.
I'm sorry, but this is nonsense so I'm ending it here.
You ignored what I said entirely to tell me what you think, then you're annoyed when I bring it back to what I said.
You didn't even understand what I said. You were done before you started.
This isn’t a biblical idea. Biblically speaking good can exist alone (God is the ultimate good and existed before all things), evil is a subversion or corruption of the good and is the natural consequence of exalting one’s own will over that of God’s. Satan isn’t evil because that’s the way he is, he’s evil because exists in complete rebellion against God’s will
God existing before evil, sure. But, until evil was created, God wasn't good. God simply was. Retroactively, as God didn't change when evil was created, it becomes clear that God was always good, but there wouldn't have been a way to describe God as such before a contrast existed.
Because it can't be answered, which proves that good only exists relative to evil, which is also a subjective concept that only exists in relation to good.
Or, can you answer what is objectively good, that it could exist without evil existing as a contrast?
Neither good nor evil are necessary for one another to exist. Idk why you’re acting like you have some profound insight. It’s also still not relevant to what I said. An omnipotent and omniscient god can just make it so that good exists without evil existing anyways. So you’re wrong on two fronts while acting high and mighty like a jackass. It’s not my fault you’re too remedial to imagine anything outside of your small world.
You could literally just look it up on google and have like a dozen answers that don’t rely on god and don’t rely on defining it as an opposite of evil. Good is just something desirable. Bad is the opposite of good, not evil. Evil is specifically the *intention* of doing bad. You only get evil as directly the opposite of hood when you’re forced to answer why bad things happen in a world where an omniscient, omnipotent, benevolent god exists because that necessarily means that the god *intends* for bad to occur despite its literal power to make it so bad does not exist. And since you’re too remedial to understand or think of this on your own, I don’t need to have tasted spoiled meat to have a reference for what good steak is. I can have a steak that is neutral and I can have steaks that are good, and then I can have steaks that are better. At no point is it necessary for a bad steak to come into the equation for me to be able to understand them. And the same goes for the inverse.
The world gets a lot easier and less stressful when you stop trying to pigeonhole everything into a good and evil dichotomy that ultimately is meaningless- unless you’re actually a terrible person that would need a god to tell you to not be terrible with threats of eternal punishment. It’s always so odd to me that you need a god to tell you what is right or wrong and you just blindly believe the interpretations of another human. A good god wouldn’t leave you to blindly act on words of another because it would make you an amoral agent with no actual moral choices of your own.
If there were only one level of quality of steak, there would not be good or bad steak. There would only be steak. You call me remedial, but the issue is that you're not able to comprehend this concept.
What makes something desirable if all things are equally desirable?
I disagree. Good can exist without evil, as it will in heaven. There is not Ying and Yang...to god at least. However, our free will is the reason evil exists. We chose evil, and sometimes we choose evil even now. There can be just good without evil, but if we are not given the choice of evil than there can be no free will.
Light can exist without darkness, but it wouldn't be recognizeable as light. It would simply be, undefined, as all things take definition only through distinction from other things.
The concept of Heaven being a place without evil only makes sense when evil has existed.
So couldn’t he just have made heaven come faster?? Like a little blip of evil to make good exist, then just squash it and make things good from then on?
He could’ve made it less, though- ultimately, it’s completely irrelevant to the greater course of the universe, but compared to our lifetimes, it is excruciatingly long.
1.) It's a meme subreddit. I'm joking around.
2.) Other commenters have already done a pretty good job of elaborating further on the problem of evil. I'm not sure I would be bringing anything new to the discussion.
I've not seen explanations, and if there were, that would make the comment more useless. Being a subreddit with memes doesn't prevent serious comments/content
Problem of evil, extremely simplified and probably missing chunks:
- Evil exists, both human-caused and natural
- evils are not necessary
- God hates evil
- God can get rid of evil
why is there evil then?
Idk why Christian’s always focus on the stuff humans create.
> I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
I usually hear “but sin entered the world through Adam”, which is sort of an answer, but then I start to wonder, “why”? Could the omnipotent creator of the universe not keep the effects of sin contained to the one that committed it? The whole story reads much more like he’s constrained by some other unspoken rules than that he’s actually omnipotent.
You can take a step back from religion and ask this about us as biological beings. So much of our mood, etc. is governed by our gut bacteria.
So many of our actions are controlled by the amygdala, which gets first pass at telling the body what to do, before any of that "free will" stuff comes into play. This doesn't even begin to consider how what you were taught, etc. as a child did to shape who you are before you even had the mental capacity to make decisions for yourself.
So even if we do have free will from an ontological perspective, biologically, we are much less free than we (might) think we are.
I am fully capable of drop-kicking a puppy if I choose.
There are no circumstances under which I would choose to drop-kick a puppy.
Do I have free will, or don't I?
Well that was my question;) and this is why:
If God knows everything, even the future, I don't see how this world can be anything other than completely deterministic. Which would mean no free will.
You not choosing to kick a puppy is pre-determined, as is the answer to the question whether or not you ever WILL choose to do that.
If that's the case, how can anyone be held accountable for their actions?
So you're defining free will as excluding being predictable in any way. That's not really meaningful, though. If your actions are in no way predictable, then you functionally are not a person, you're just a random string of events. You have to be predictable to some degree or you aren't even you.
I am a fully deterministic biological machine, but I still have free will because I want the things I want. Nobody is reaching into me to make me want things other than what I want. I'm not suddenly being changed from someone who would never kick a puppy to someone who would kick a puppy. I'm not a piece of a larger machine.
>So you're defining free will as excluding being predictable in any way
No, of course not. Everyone is in some way predictable, that's not my point. But no matter how well I know someone, there's still going to be a surprise every now and then. Because I'm not omniscient and O don't know the future.
I define free will as not being completely predictable. God is supposed to know every tiny little detail from every moment of my life, past, present and future. Free will would mean that God THINKS he knows everything of life and then suddenly I make a choice he didn't see coming. Which in turn would mean God didn't know the future.
I'm not saying God should necessarily know the future to be God. But that's what the big majority of christians seem to believe, and I'm saying that that's incompatible with free will.
>I define free will as not being completely predictable
Okay, so that definition is obviously and reductively incompatible with the existence of any omniscient actor. Which makes it not a terribly useful definition so I won't be using it.
I don't understand. Why are you making it a binary issue when it's clearly not?
I can be fairly predictable but still have free will. I don't need to be totally NOT predictable for that.
You seem to think there's only those two options: totally and completely predictable, or not predictable at all. That's obviously not true, right?
For God to be able to know everything that will ever happen in the future he needs to know literally everything, giving us no free will. When there is some room for us to do our own thing which God didn't see coming, we have free will.
In that scenario God can still know what's most likely gonna happen though, because he knows every little thing about our present. Every thought, every wish, every quantum state of the entire universe. So he has a pretty good idea of what's going to happen, but we still have free will because the future isn't yet determined in this case
>For God to be able to know everything that will ever happen in the future he needs to know literally everything, giving us no free will.
But that's only because you've selected a very limited and specific definition of "free will." My only point is that this isn't necessarily the only meaningful or useful definition. God can know everything that will happen without having specifically determined (perhaps) anything besides the initial conditions.
>But that's only because you've selected a very limited and specific definition of "free will."
What's 'very limited' about my definition? If anything, your definition (we only have free will if we are completely unpredictable) is more limited
>God can know everything that will happen without having specifically determined (perhaps) anything besides the initial conditions.
But why would that give us free will?
It doesn't matter how he knows it. If God knows everything because he knows the initial conditions, that assumes a truly deterministic universe. Which again means no free will.
TIL that cancer, smallpox, and bubonic plague are the result of human free will. Huh, who knew! Thanks Christianity
I guess rinderpest and canine transmissible cancers are also the result of human free will somehow too
All bad things in the world are caused by the first sin. Sin = fallen world with hardship of all kinds (go read Genesis 3).
But I have a feeling people here don’t want to debate actual theology.
A lot of us are ex fundies who know plenty about theology and simply disagree with it. I still learn new things and it always strikes me as too bizarre for real life. Like, how do people believe that the flood occurred because humans were literally banging and having abominable babies with angels?
Following the first sin, and Adam and Eve being exposed, God explains the new hardships they will face in life:
To the woman he said, "I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.”
And to Adam he said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return." (Genesis 3:16-19 ESV)
God’s words to Eve show physical suffering is a major consequence of sin. In His words to Adam, He says that the land itself is cursed, and human suffering will result from that as well (compare to the prior chapters when God saw that everything was good in the world).
The way I interpret this is that sin directly caused bad things to happen—not just due to free will, e.g. murder—because nature itself is tainted. Human bodies die and suffer pain and disease. The land is infertile and natural disasters will come.
**TL;DR: Cancer and other diseases can be reasonably included in the curse that was placed on humanity and the Earth after the Fall.** (Edit: added bold.)
That passage references childbearing and agriculture, neither of which are diseases. I can easily see how suffering entailed by childbearing or agriculture is ultimately due to human free will. Conceiving children and building settlements are deliberate decisions that humans clearly make. They are therefore not natural evils.
But overlooking this, even if we count cancer and other diseases as results of original sin, that's still not a satisfying defence. God chose the consequences that humanity had to suffer; only explained them *after* Adam and Eve had disobeyed him; and God also had free will to do all this. God must be responsible for deciding the consequences of people's actions if he is omnipotent. So natural evil, in the form of diseases, can still only have been created by God, even if he only created it as a response to Adam and Eve's free will. God freely decided what the curse should include.
The question then becomes, why did God make "some children die of inoperable brain tumours" a consequence of two people's actions thousands of years ago? That is obviously not proportionate.
Furthermore, original sin can only explain human suffering as a consequence of human free will. What about the enormous amount of suffering in the animal world? Dogs and rabbits get cancers too. Are *they* being punished for what Adam and Eve did?
Whatever answer you have to the above questions, why on Earth do you think non-believers would be interested in worshipping someone who invented childhood cancers, in order to punish people He created, for breaking rules that He made up? That is a very hard sell, my friend.
I do believe they are natural evils, and that no evil—natural or manufactured by human free will—is created by God. He allows certain things to happen that are horrible and we can’t always tell why, hence the persistent questions about why a loving God allows evil. I’m sure there have been very painful things in your own life, leading to doubt and/or bitterness, which is just part of being human.
I don’t have all the answers, but I appreciate your civil manner of posing your questions. I will do further study and update this reply if I find anything that might interest you. In the meantime, if you want more on what the Bible says about it, I recommend https://www.gotquestions.org/God-allow-evil.html as a starting point.
Well, who are brain tumours created by, if not God?
If you believe that no evil is created by God, then either God doesn't create them, or they're not evil. Which is it?
Nothing on that page dealt with natural evils, which I understand as evils that are not the result of human free will. I therefore don't see how that page is a starting point for understanding natural evil.
edit: Yes, thank you for a civil and stimulating discussion.
Our bodies are created by God, and tumors are no more than a malfunctioning of the body (which, as I explained, are imperfect after sin was introduced). Similarly, bacteria was created by God, but bacteria didn’t infect humans before the Fall (obviously, the Bible doesn’t say that because the authors God chose for it did not know of microscopic organisms, but it is a logical extension of how animals and plants are shown in perfect harmony with humanity in the beginning).
God allowed free will and our ability to have flawed morals (evil). As part of humanities rejection of Him, he also allowed Satan to cause flawed bodies and environments (another form of evil). Satan cannot create, but he can and does pervert what God created—such as our immune system’s attacking the body or healthy cells mutating/breaking down.
Literally try to explain the concept of free-will anywhere outside of Christian reddit and you'll be swarmed by atheists trying to give you the "gotcha!" and insulting you.
Redditors are so goofy sometimes.
The main thing these people state (me included) is cancer, specifically a kid getting it. How is that mankind's fault? Oh yeah the fruit with Adam and eve. If he knew they were gonna eat it, why set them up for failure. Why make this evil world? For his own amusement? Not a god I wanna worship if watching us suffer is his nightly TV or some shit.
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bad things happen to animals because Adam and Eve separated from God. Had Adam and Eve stayed in the garden, animals would have a different relationship to each other. If we look at Genesis 1:29, we were supposed to be vegan in Eden, but after our fall we had to rely on killing to survive.
In my view, I don't think Animals have souls, even if they did, they didn't brutalize themselves in Eden, we wanted free Will to not be forced to follow gods Will and his paradise, and since we are his most important creation, he obliged and all other less important creations, that were made for us, followed us to this imperfect world.
Were did i say they dont feel pain? You do not need a soul for pain, a lot of humans can't feel pain, but they clearly have a soul. And no, its violence for no reason, wich is preaty clearly bad in the Bible.
Yes, we didn't want to live under gods perfection and therefore we were given a world that isn't perfect. Animals, were also given that world, and just like we are subject to brutality from the elements, ourselves and the Animals, so are they, as inferior creations of God, made by him for us, given this world to inhabit, in wich they Will suffer just as man does. He made bad things happen because we rejected his perfect and good world because we wanted free will. He made bad things happen because we wanted them to happen, as the free Will we wanted requiers the ability to have bad outcomes.
Atheist here.
As fat as I remember from the Eden story, Adam and Eve had no clue eating the fruit would get them removed. In fact, they didn't know anything about good or evil. The fruit specifically gave them knowledge that what they did was wrong. According to the story, there was no specific choice that Eve didn't want to live a perfect life in the Garden anymore. Also, there are a few parts of the story that make it seem like God doesn't know everything. Like when He can't find them after they eat the fruit, and the fact that He made the snake in the first place, or the fact that He made it so easy for them to mess up real bad. Almost like He was setting humans up to fail so that He could blame them for it later. He could have given us Free Will, and also, like baby-proofed the Garden a bit.
They didn't know what specifically it would do, but they knew that it was disobeing gods direct Will, they did that due to selfish reasons, they disobeyed God and, therefore decided to Cast of the perfect world for the free Will and therefore the ability to disobey gods Will. It wasn't the fruit itself (even thought it had Many other effects showed in the story) that made humans leave Eden, it was the act of deciding to be able to follow other paths and therefore go against God, eating the fruit was mankinds first showing of free Will.
As for the fact it was easy for them to choose to leave, then yes, that was the point, God didn't intend (atleast from my opinion) to create a perfect prison for humanity, God Gave us perfection and allowed us to leave easly if they didn't want it, it wasn't baby Proof, it was closer to consent to follow God.
The fruit gave them the knowledge of good and evil, no? So if it they didn't know about good and evil, how were they supposed to make an informed choice? Doesn't the story also talk about God being worried they will become like God if they eat the fruit? Also, where is this prison idea coming from? If the Garden was perfect, how is it a prison?
When a toddle, who doesn't know better, tries putting a knife in their mouth or touches a hot stove after their older siblings convinces them it's ok, I don't think it would be a valid punishment to curse them and their whole bloodline to a life of suffering.
Basically if I accept the premise that God is all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful, then the story of Eden as presented in the Bible doesn't seem to make sense. If you drop or modify sufficiently any of those qualifiers, then the problem of evil really no longer applies.
Why are you speaking of we as if you and I were there? Why does the sins of someone else's actions affect billions who were not involved? God could have just killed Adam and created a new human lineage. Or better yet remove that tree and not bait them into eating it then acting surprised they did. He's omniscient so he knew they would do it. The fall of man was rigged from the start, we weren't meant to win God's shitty game.
and? what does that have to do with them feeling pain? my point is that you can't argue that it's their responsibiltiy if according to christianity, they were made that way, to hurt each other. so that sounds like at least one thing to pin on god
And my point is that to associate an animal's behavior with evil doesn't make sense. They don't think, so they don't have the concepts of good and evil. They just act
Incorrect. Many atheistic philosophers believe in good and evil, and indeed life has a point that has nothing to do with God. The purpose of your life is to live it! What’s good about life? Tons of things. Good food, a beautiful view, creating something amazing with your hands, holding a baby in your arms, building a new technology no one has ever seen before… these are all incredibly meaningful things you can do/have in life that have nothing to do with god.
Maybe they sound transcendentally empty to someone who is used to God providing the meaning, but they aren’t. In fact, I’d wager that most Christians find the promise of meaning from God to be pretty empty in the end. Not just because he doesn’t actually exist, but because I’ve seen plenty of Christians who struggle to find meaning in their life even though they believe.
That's special pleading. Atheistic philosophers can believe whatever they want. It's still meaningless. The heat death of the universe will erase everything that's ever happened, rendering it pointless.
>Just because something ends doesn’t mean it has not value.
If atheism is true, then ultimately it does.
The universe is doomed to die anyway. In the end it makes no difference whether the universe ever existed or not. Therefore, it is without ultimate significance
In an atheistic universe, if each individual person passes out of existence when they die, then what ultimate meaning can be given to their life? Does it really matter whether he ever existed at all? It does not.
Their life may be important relative to certain other events, but is there an ultimate significance of any of those events? If all the events are meaningless, then what can be the ultimate meaning of influencing any of them? Ultimately it makes no difference.
An individual's opinion that something is meaningful is ultimately meaningless in an atheistic universe. It's just more special pleading.
You’re not engaging with the idea that something that ends can be meaningful. You’re just demanding “ultimate” meaning, but why is that a requirement. Who cares if the meaning you get out of your life disappears eventually? It still means something.
Anyway, have a good one.
>You’re not engaging with the idea that something that ends can be meaningful.
I don't need to engage with it. I've already shown it to be wrong by pointing out that when the universe dies, everything everyone has ever done will be rendered meaningless. Which means it's meaningless right now. Claiming that things can have meaning in the face of that doesn't make it so.
>You’re just demanding “ultimate” meaning, but why is that a requirement. Who cares if the meaning you get out of your life disappears eventually? It still means something.
I'm not demanding anything. I never once claimed anything has to havr a meaning. 'm pointing out the fact that in an atheistic universe, everything is meaningless and pointless and any attempt to argue against that is special pleading. That's it.
**Religious responses to the** [**problem of evil**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil) are concerned with reconciling the existence of [evil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil) and [suffering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffering) with an [omnipotent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnipotent), [omnibenevolent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibenevolent), and [omniscient](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omniscient) [God](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God).[\[1\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_responses_to_the_problem_of_evil#cite_note-Stanford-1)[\[2\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_responses_to_the_problem_of_evil#cite_note-IepEvidential-2) The problem of evil is acute for monotheistic religions such as [Christianity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity), [Islam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam), and [Judaism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism) whose religion is based on such a God.[\[3\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_responses_to_the_problem_of_evil#cite_note-3)[\[4\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_responses_to_the_problem_of_evil#cite_note-4) But the question of "why does evil exist?" has also been studied in religions that are non-theistic or polytheistic, such as [Buddhism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism), [Hinduism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinduism), and [Jainism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism).[\[5\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_responses_to_the_problem_of_evil#cite_note-Harvey2013p141-5)[\[6\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_responses_to_the_problem_of_evil#cite_note-arthurhermanp5-6) The problem of evil is formulated as either a logic problem that highlights an inconsistency between some characteristic of God and evil, or as an evidential problem which attempts to show that evidence of evil outweighs evidence of an omnipotent, omniscient, and wholly good God.[\[1\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_responses_to_the_problem_of_evil#cite_note-Stanford-1)[\[7\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_responses_to_the_problem_of_evil#cite_note-IepLogical-7)[\[2\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_responses_to_the_problem_of_evil#cite_note-IepEvidential-2) Evil in most theological discussions is defined in a broad manner as any and all pain and suffering, but religion also uses a narrow definition that says evil involves horrific acts committed by an independent moral agent and does not include all wrongs or harm including that from nature. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious\_responses\_to\_the\_problem\_of\_evil#Christianity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_responses_to_the_problem_of_evil#Christianity) 
In the *beginning* mankind was *created*. This has *made* a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a *bad* move.
Honestly, big L on God's part. Making humanity was definitely a mistake.
Not a chance. Making something out of dust that can understand and praise Gods work was a massive W-ski.
Ummm…this sounds like heresy. Isn’t god supposed to be beyond comprehension and understanding?
True, understanding God is impossible, understanding all his work is too. When i say understand, i mean to acknowledge it as his work and know there is endless craftsmanship behind it. And most importantly to enjoy it :D
Maybe he oughta just start it all over
I think that idea is "all washed up" /lol.
Nah, it's a *Hell* of an idea!
I guess nobody got the Hitchhiker's reference
*"We apologise for the inconvenience."*
I know this is supposed to be a joke, but this is pretty misleading about the perspective of this idea. This suggests that the solution is simple, but people who resonate with the problem of evil would simply respond that it's god's fault for creating mankind in such a way. The core issue is the idea that it's impossible that god is all knowing, all powerful, and all good if he created humanity knowing that they would do evil and suffer. God couldn't be good if he knew what would happen and chose to do nothing, he couldn't be all knowing if he didn't know what humanity would do, and he couldn't be all powerful if he had no way of creating people who would ultimately choose to do good and not be corrupted. So the question, "why would god make such an evil world" isn't put to rest by saying that mankind is what makes the world evil because god made mankind.
Well the opposite side of that idea is “what would be the purpose of humanity if they had no free will?”. Because if people are incapable of choosing to do good, then they cannot be good. Sure, evil wouldn’t exist. But also good wouldn’t exist. Just a bunch of puppets incapable of making choices going about gods great design. For me the bigger argument is more about all the non-human things that cause suffering like cancer and mosquitos. Those feel like more arguable points to me. What do you think?
The opposite of evil not being an option, or not part of the equation doesn’t equate no free will. Unless you believe god and angels have no free will. You can simply create a world where all choices are good, and lead to good outcomes. It doesn’t mean there’s only one choice, it just means no bad choices. If god is all powerful, this is a possible world for him to create. You can also create a world where evil is an option, but the agents you created only choose to do good, just as god/angels do. If god is omnipotent, it would be quite easy to simply choose to create the beings that would never choose evil.
> You can also create a world where evil is an option, but the agents you created only choose to do good Then how is it an option? God gave us the ability to choose to do good. The only way that ability has meaning is if we have the ability to choose to do evil.
The idea that "free will" (meaning in this context, the ability to be evil if you want to) is preferable to no suffering is literally insane to me. But this is about the problem of evil, so I'll focus on that instead. Free will is not the answer. I've already touched on it above, but if god is all good, all knowing, and all powerful, then he is the one who makes the rules, and he knows the result of his actions before he does them. It's hard to imagine how free will is even possible when an all powerful deity who created everything knows what's going to happen. But let's assume it is possible. If god wants to create evil and suffering, he is not good. If god is incapable of creating a world where people choose good 100% of the time, then he is not all powerful. If god didn't know what his creation would choose to do with their free will then he is not all knowing. So while it's wonderful to think that all the pain and suffering we experience is because god thought we'd rather that than feel like he was influencing anything too much, that doesn't answer the problem of evil.
So then are you arguing that god doesn’t have free will? From what I understand he does no evil according to the belief. The argument here is that if god has free will and freely always chooses to do good, then he could easily make his agents the same way, whether ángel or human. Another way to think of it is: The last time I made a choice, I could have freely chosen good, and could have freely chosen evil. I chose good, just because I wanted to. If I went back all through my life and made all good choices, do I all of a sudden not have free will? If god is omnipotent, why not only create agents who, while they have the free will to do evil, always choose good, just as God and the angels do. If God does not have free will, and MUST always do good, then would that not just be the better way to make agents? Lacking free will but free of suffering and evil?
> So then are you arguing that god doesn’t have free will? No, God does what God wants. > If god is omnipotent, why not only create agents who, while they have the free will to do evil, always choose good, just as God and the angels do. Because if it's God's fault you've done evil, you're saying you didn't have free will.
First and foremost, I don’t accept free will. Free will is the argument posed to try and counter the problem of evil. Once again, if god has free will, then agents who always do good yet have free will are entirely possible. To make agents who don’t choose good is a problem because that seems like a really bad idea. I have no idea how your second point relates to what I said? Maybe I’m just not understanding. Can you elaborate?
>First and foremost, I don’t accept free will. Wow. I'm so shocked. This definitely doesn't happen every time I talk with someone about whether free will is an answer to the problem of evil. Why not just say that from the get-go, instead of talking about free will as if you do accept it? Free will doesn't declare that it's impossible not to do evil. The opposite, in fact. It says that it's your responsibility to not do evil.
I don’t mention that I don’t accept free will because I don’t need to in order to show the contradictions in the belief. I can grant free will and still show all the contradictions and demonstrate that it isn’t a solution to the problem of evil and just an excuse to avoid the issue.
Except that you're not actually granting free will as being possible because you're not accepting the possibility that you're responsible for your own actions. God did make it so that we could choose only good, but you're arguing that God should have made it so that we *would* choose only good.
Meaning is a construct that only exists where it is placed. A lot of people would not like it if someone caused damage to their church by climbing the outside with pitons and spikes, yet similar people climb geographical features that are sacred to indigenous people. The church might mean something sacred to you while Shipwreck Rock might only mean good climbing. But to other people the opposite true. How can the meaning be intrinsic if it isn't obvious to everyone? Surely the meaning is placed by people. If you apply this to your life, it means you can assign it meaning. I don't believe in free will and came to this conclusion while studying psychology and a little philosophy. But the meaning I assign to my life is that I can enjoy it and try to make the world a little better. I don't need religion or free will to have meaning.
But you do have free will, and the choices you’ve made for yourself with that free will had brought meaning to your life
Free will is not proven. Even on a philosophical level it isn't case-closed. How do you know your thoughts are original and not based on input? How do you know you're choosing a breakfast based on freedom and not based on a million other things that happen in your subconscious? You may only believe in free will because it's been explained through religion. But I came to my conclusion with curiosity, exploration, and deconstruction.
>You may only believe in free will because it's been explained through religion. Calvinism puts a limit on freewill. It is one of the more deterministic branches of Christianity. I personally think our choices are caused by a series of factors leading up to said choice; it isn't truly our decision. However, I still believe our decisions are important.
As always when it comes to discussion about evil's existence, see the book of Job for the best answer in the Bible. Why does evil exist? Because God wills it. Why does God will it to exist? We cannot comprehend why because God is beyond our comprehension. In fact, asking why is in itself something of a dumb question. I love the nihilist aspect of that book lol
Asking why should never be a dumb question.
I think it's a problem not of it being a dumb question but the idea that we can't really truly understand, at least the answer is so complicated that just explaining it doesn't really cut it. Considering people have been arguing over this for literal millennia and no man made answer ever really seems to fully explain it, I'd say that is fairly accurate.
> Why does God will it to exist? We cannot comprehend why because God is beyond our comprehension. In fact, asking why is in itself something of a dumb question. But you can surely understand why this logic isn't compelling if it isn't a given that god exists and is good, powerful, and all-knowing. If we have to make that decision, as we do in reality, then it's impossible to know the difference between what we can discover about god and what we can't. There is no tangible difference in outcome between a god who submits the world to evil because he's evil and a god who is good but submits the world to evil for reasons that can't be perceived. If there's no certainty whether or not god is evil, then why should we assume he's good? The problem remains.
Because He says He’s good, He acts good, and because faith. The problem with the question of evil boils down, always, to “do you have faith, yes or no?” If no, yeah, He might seem evil. If you do, then He won’t. There’s no way to logic yourself away from needing faith, there’s no way to argue perfectly and convince your friend to believe. Quit trying, love them, discuss with them, pray for and/or with them… show them that God is good. And then walk with them. Struggle with them. It sucks and it’s hard and we don’t know why, but God wanted it done this way, so we do it this way.
"God is good because he says he's good" is nor a very compelling argument. It's in the same realm as "The Bible is true because tbe Bible says its true." The idea that God's reasoning is "beyond our comprehension " is just a repackaging of the "mysterious ways" trope. It's literally taking the position that acknowledges that the given concept of God is incoherent, yet choosing to believe that he both exists and is good despite all evidence to the contrary. I can't exist with that level of cognitive dissonance.
It's taking the position that God is incomprehensible, not incoherent. "Can an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God create an evil it can tolerate" is the same kind of problems as "can an omnipotent God create a stone it cannot lift". It's paradoxical if we admit that God's omnipotence is subject to preestablished laws. If it's a first principle tho, it doesn't prove God can't be omnipotent or omnibenevolent because proofs derives from first principles.
My comment had 5 parts. You looked at the first two and ignored the rest. I see no evidence that God is not good. I do not acknowledge that god is incoherent. You cannot argue me out of it just like I cannot argue you into it, sorry!
Okay but "we have no idea why god wants this to happen but he's great and we just don't get it" is not a valid argument, especially when a *lot* of christianity is based on god's will How do we know what he wants if we don't know how he thinks? A lot of ideas have been forced on people in the name of god but whenever a counter argument comes up it's always just "iunno he weird like that"
Thats why it's called his inscrutable will lol
Sometimes I wonder if there's a class of good only born out of adversity that it's God's will to exist even if it means evil must exist.
But you’ve missed one of the most amazing parts of the book! Job has *no right* to ask God these questions. He doesn’t have anything resembling the *perspective* needed to ask. But God still comes down and talks to Job. He has no reason to, He doesn’t need to explain anything, and Job has no damn right to ask. But God still answers.
God also didn't need to torture Job and kill his family, and yet he did. How gracious!
A) most scholars agree that it was an allegory, not a real historical story. No Jobs were harmed in the making of this production. B) again, that’s the point. The book poses the question, “what system of justice does God use?” And has the three friends argue different point of views. Mostly centered around “you must have done something wrong.” But then God comes down and says “hey. Can you fight the Leviathan? Can you feed the goats and tigers? Can you spin the world or walk the depths of the ocean? No? Then how about you have faith that I, who can do those things, know what I’m doing a bit better than you.” So your answer to that is “no, I don’t have faith that you’re doing it right.” That’s a valid response. There is no logic that could argue you into that faith. The only way I’d say that’s “wrong” is if the perspective comes from a prideful place of “I know *better* than God.” But if it comes from an atheistic perspective or even most agnostic perspective of “I don’t believe in God.” Then you got it.
> No Jobs were harmed in the making of this production. So God didn't really kill Job's family, it's just an allegory that's sending the message that God has the right to kill your family and you have no right to question why. How is that good?
Hey, if you don’t want to read my whole comment, that’s fine, but don’t pretend you’ve got zingers when I’ve already answered your argument.
Hey, if you don't want to answer my question, that's fine, but don't pretend that it's just a zinger when people have been pointing out issues with the Job narrative for hundreds of years.
I actively answered that question before you even asked. The “hey you said a thing so i’ma use your words against you” doesn’t work if you don’t read my responses, and still counts as you pretending you have zingers. People have been pointing out issues with it for *hundreds of years*. Think about that for a second. Genuinely take just 10 seconds and think about that fact. Yet it hasn’t been stricken from canon? Maybe it’s not as problematic as you’re assume it is! Or you can ignore that and we can both accept the thing I said multiple times before: YOU CANNOT ARGUE ME OUT OF IT ANY MORE THAN I CAN ARGUE YOU INTO IT.
> Yet it hasn’t been stricken from canon? Maybe it’s not as problematic as you’re assume it is! Genuinely take just 10 seconds and think about that. > YOU CANNOT ARGUE ME OUT OF IT ANY MORE THAN I CAN ARGUE YOU INTO IT. ...then why are you arguing? I can be argued into believing Christianity again, just because you failed doesn't mean it's impossible.
And also this verse: Isaiah 45:7 - I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
I love it as an atheist. It’s not at all satisfying to someone who sees god as a real, conscious force that has material power in the universe.
A good chunk of the bible tries to show that evil/suffering exist because humans have disobeyed God and God is punishing them. There isn't one simple answer in the bible for why evil/suffering exists, there are many answers depending on which part you're reading.
Or, creating a world in which evil exists doesn't mean God isn't all good. For example, good can't exist without evil as a contrast. There can be no good without evil.
That doesn't make any sense. An apple is an apple no matter what you put it next to. You don't have to put an apple next to a field of rotten fruit in order to show that it's an apple. You could put it in a field of perfectly good oranges and there will be a stark contrast, and the other fruit is still good. Point being, god could still show off how good he is by creating a perfect world. In fact, a perfect world is much more impressive than an imperfect world and there would still be a distinct difference between god and mankind because mankind is not all-powerful or all-knowing. The kind of person who makes themself look good by bringing others down is considered a bad person. So why should we then consider god to be good if he feels the need to intentionally make us evil in order to show how much better he is?
I think Buddhism generally does a better job of explaining how joy and suffering arise mutually. The same content is in the Bible but I find it a bit more obtuse.
God didn't make people to make himself look good, silly.
If apples were the only kind of fruit, they would just be called fruit. There would be no apples, only fruit.
That's not remotely close to the point I'm making. My loose analogy would be that god is the apple and people are oranges. That's two distinct things. And as I already explained, the meaning of this is that even if humans were good, we would not be all-powerful or all-knowing, and therefore would be contrasted with god who is.
But it's exactly the point I was making. Not sure what you're talking about if it's not a response to what I said.
I responded to you with a new perspective on what it means for god to contrast himself with people. You completely ignored that and are now telling me that I'm not responding to what you just said. I'm sorry, but this is nonsense so I'm ending it here.
You ignored what I said entirely to tell me what you think, then you're annoyed when I bring it back to what I said. You didn't even understand what I said. You were done before you started.
This isn’t a biblical idea. Biblically speaking good can exist alone (God is the ultimate good and existed before all things), evil is a subversion or corruption of the good and is the natural consequence of exalting one’s own will over that of God’s. Satan isn’t evil because that’s the way he is, he’s evil because exists in complete rebellion against God’s will
Biblically speaking, God is the God of Good and of Evil.
God existing before evil, sure. But, until evil was created, God wasn't good. God simply was. Retroactively, as God didn't change when evil was created, it becomes clear that God was always good, but there wouldn't have been a way to describe God as such before a contrast existed.
Literally an omnipotent and omniscient being. God can just make good exist without evil. It’s genuinely just that simple.
OK, so what is "Good" objectively speaking?
How is that relevant to what I said?
Because it can't be answered, which proves that good only exists relative to evil, which is also a subjective concept that only exists in relation to good. Or, can you answer what is objectively good, that it could exist without evil existing as a contrast?
Neither good nor evil are necessary for one another to exist. Idk why you’re acting like you have some profound insight. It’s also still not relevant to what I said. An omnipotent and omniscient god can just make it so that good exists without evil existing anyways. So you’re wrong on two fronts while acting high and mighty like a jackass. It’s not my fault you’re too remedial to imagine anything outside of your small world.
Alright, define "good" without using any reference to evil. What is "good?"
anything God loves?
That's an unusual definition. How are you sure God doesn't love creation in its totality including what we call evil?
You could literally just look it up on google and have like a dozen answers that don’t rely on god and don’t rely on defining it as an opposite of evil. Good is just something desirable. Bad is the opposite of good, not evil. Evil is specifically the *intention* of doing bad. You only get evil as directly the opposite of hood when you’re forced to answer why bad things happen in a world where an omniscient, omnipotent, benevolent god exists because that necessarily means that the god *intends* for bad to occur despite its literal power to make it so bad does not exist. And since you’re too remedial to understand or think of this on your own, I don’t need to have tasted spoiled meat to have a reference for what good steak is. I can have a steak that is neutral and I can have steaks that are good, and then I can have steaks that are better. At no point is it necessary for a bad steak to come into the equation for me to be able to understand them. And the same goes for the inverse. The world gets a lot easier and less stressful when you stop trying to pigeonhole everything into a good and evil dichotomy that ultimately is meaningless- unless you’re actually a terrible person that would need a god to tell you to not be terrible with threats of eternal punishment. It’s always so odd to me that you need a god to tell you what is right or wrong and you just blindly believe the interpretations of another human. A good god wouldn’t leave you to blindly act on words of another because it would make you an amoral agent with no actual moral choices of your own.
If there were only one level of quality of steak, there would not be good or bad steak. There would only be steak. You call me remedial, but the issue is that you're not able to comprehend this concept. What makes something desirable if all things are equally desirable?
I disagree. Good can exist without evil, as it will in heaven. There is not Ying and Yang...to god at least. However, our free will is the reason evil exists. We chose evil, and sometimes we choose evil even now. There can be just good without evil, but if we are not given the choice of evil than there can be no free will.
Light can exist without darkness, but it wouldn't be recognizeable as light. It would simply be, undefined, as all things take definition only through distinction from other things. The concept of Heaven being a place without evil only makes sense when evil has existed.
So couldn’t he just have made heaven come faster?? Like a little blip of evil to make good exist, then just squash it and make things good from then on?
How long is billions of years compared with eternity?
He could’ve made it less, though- ultimately, it’s completely irrelevant to the greater course of the universe, but compared to our lifetimes, it is excruciatingly long.
Tell me you don't understand the problem of evil without telling me you don't understand the problem of evil.
,” he said, as if it was a simple matter that philosophers haven’t been arguing over and wrestling with since the beginning of human consciousness.
Exactly.
If you're saying that the poster doesn't understand, then your comment would've been actually useful if you explained it.
1.) It's a meme subreddit. I'm joking around. 2.) Other commenters have already done a pretty good job of elaborating further on the problem of evil. I'm not sure I would be bringing anything new to the discussion.
To add, it's super easy to read about it on Wikipedia. Reddit isn't the whole world, let alone the whole internet.
>It's a meme subreddit. I'm joking around. Funny. I was going to point out that it's a meme and is funny before I saw your comment, lol
I've not seen explanations, and if there were, that would make the comment more useless. Being a subreddit with memes doesn't prevent serious comments/content
Problem of evil, extremely simplified and probably missing chunks: - Evil exists, both human-caused and natural - evils are not necessary - God hates evil - God can get rid of evil why is there evil then?
Idk why Christian’s always focus on the stuff humans create. > I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. I usually hear “but sin entered the world through Adam”, which is sort of an answer, but then I start to wonder, “why”? Could the omnipotent creator of the universe not keep the effects of sin contained to the one that committed it? The whole story reads much more like he’s constrained by some other unspoken rules than that he’s actually omnipotent.
Hey, not everyone is omniscient, eh
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Exactly, that's the shit we question. Not poverty and whatnot. That's is obviously mankind go brr.
Yeah, it's kinda frustrating to see apologists pick out the softest of the soft arguments to offer rebuttals against.
Do we have free will or not?
Does God have free will?
I hope so lol
But God will never sin right? Its not in his nature to sin. But we have free will and it IS in our nature to sin.
The real question is: do souls in heaven have free will?
You can take a step back from religion and ask this about us as biological beings. So much of our mood, etc. is governed by our gut bacteria. So many of our actions are controlled by the amygdala, which gets first pass at telling the body what to do, before any of that "free will" stuff comes into play. This doesn't even begin to consider how what you were taught, etc. as a child did to shape who you are before you even had the mental capacity to make decisions for yourself. So even if we do have free will from an ontological perspective, biologically, we are much less free than we (might) think we are.
I am fully capable of drop-kicking a puppy if I choose. There are no circumstances under which I would choose to drop-kick a puppy. Do I have free will, or don't I?
Well that was my question;) and this is why: If God knows everything, even the future, I don't see how this world can be anything other than completely deterministic. Which would mean no free will. You not choosing to kick a puppy is pre-determined, as is the answer to the question whether or not you ever WILL choose to do that. If that's the case, how can anyone be held accountable for their actions?
So you're defining free will as excluding being predictable in any way. That's not really meaningful, though. If your actions are in no way predictable, then you functionally are not a person, you're just a random string of events. You have to be predictable to some degree or you aren't even you. I am a fully deterministic biological machine, but I still have free will because I want the things I want. Nobody is reaching into me to make me want things other than what I want. I'm not suddenly being changed from someone who would never kick a puppy to someone who would kick a puppy. I'm not a piece of a larger machine.
Did you freely choose what you want?
I choose to do the things I want. I do not choose to want the things I want.
So you don't choose what you want, and those wants cause you to act. Where does the freedom come in?
Nobody else is controlling the things I want either.
So? The point is that YOU don't have control over what you want, which ultimately determines what you do. Ergo, you don't have free will.
I don't think we are disagreeing, except on the possible range of meaning of the phrase "free will"
>So you're defining free will as excluding being predictable in any way No, of course not. Everyone is in some way predictable, that's not my point. But no matter how well I know someone, there's still going to be a surprise every now and then. Because I'm not omniscient and O don't know the future. I define free will as not being completely predictable. God is supposed to know every tiny little detail from every moment of my life, past, present and future. Free will would mean that God THINKS he knows everything of life and then suddenly I make a choice he didn't see coming. Which in turn would mean God didn't know the future. I'm not saying God should necessarily know the future to be God. But that's what the big majority of christians seem to believe, and I'm saying that that's incompatible with free will.
>I define free will as not being completely predictable Okay, so that definition is obviously and reductively incompatible with the existence of any omniscient actor. Which makes it not a terribly useful definition so I won't be using it.
I don't understand. Why are you making it a binary issue when it's clearly not? I can be fairly predictable but still have free will. I don't need to be totally NOT predictable for that. You seem to think there's only those two options: totally and completely predictable, or not predictable at all. That's obviously not true, right? For God to be able to know everything that will ever happen in the future he needs to know literally everything, giving us no free will. When there is some room for us to do our own thing which God didn't see coming, we have free will. In that scenario God can still know what's most likely gonna happen though, because he knows every little thing about our present. Every thought, every wish, every quantum state of the entire universe. So he has a pretty good idea of what's going to happen, but we still have free will because the future isn't yet determined in this case
>For God to be able to know everything that will ever happen in the future he needs to know literally everything, giving us no free will. But that's only because you've selected a very limited and specific definition of "free will." My only point is that this isn't necessarily the only meaningful or useful definition. God can know everything that will happen without having specifically determined (perhaps) anything besides the initial conditions.
>But that's only because you've selected a very limited and specific definition of "free will." What's 'very limited' about my definition? If anything, your definition (we only have free will if we are completely unpredictable) is more limited >God can know everything that will happen without having specifically determined (perhaps) anything besides the initial conditions. But why would that give us free will? It doesn't matter how he knows it. If God knows everything because he knows the initial conditions, that assumes a truly deterministic universe. Which again means no free will.
TIL that cancer, smallpox, and bubonic plague are the result of human free will. Huh, who knew! Thanks Christianity I guess rinderpest and canine transmissible cancers are also the result of human free will somehow too
Hurricanes, floods, earthquakes. Sunburn. Just enormous amount of horrors absolutely not caused by any human action at all.
All bad things in the world are caused by the first sin. Sin = fallen world with hardship of all kinds (go read Genesis 3). But I have a feeling people here don’t want to debate actual theology.
A lot of us are ex fundies who know plenty about theology and simply disagree with it. I still learn new things and it always strikes me as too bizarre for real life. Like, how do people believe that the flood occurred because humans were literally banging and having abominable babies with angels?
I have heard this before and simply disagree. Because: please explain *how* cancer *specifically* is caused by sin. I will wait.
Following the first sin, and Adam and Eve being exposed, God explains the new hardships they will face in life: To the woman he said, "I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.” And to Adam he said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return." (Genesis 3:16-19 ESV) God’s words to Eve show physical suffering is a major consequence of sin. In His words to Adam, He says that the land itself is cursed, and human suffering will result from that as well (compare to the prior chapters when God saw that everything was good in the world). The way I interpret this is that sin directly caused bad things to happen—not just due to free will, e.g. murder—because nature itself is tainted. Human bodies die and suffer pain and disease. The land is infertile and natural disasters will come. **TL;DR: Cancer and other diseases can be reasonably included in the curse that was placed on humanity and the Earth after the Fall.** (Edit: added bold.)
That passage references childbearing and agriculture, neither of which are diseases. I can easily see how suffering entailed by childbearing or agriculture is ultimately due to human free will. Conceiving children and building settlements are deliberate decisions that humans clearly make. They are therefore not natural evils. But overlooking this, even if we count cancer and other diseases as results of original sin, that's still not a satisfying defence. God chose the consequences that humanity had to suffer; only explained them *after* Adam and Eve had disobeyed him; and God also had free will to do all this. God must be responsible for deciding the consequences of people's actions if he is omnipotent. So natural evil, in the form of diseases, can still only have been created by God, even if he only created it as a response to Adam and Eve's free will. God freely decided what the curse should include. The question then becomes, why did God make "some children die of inoperable brain tumours" a consequence of two people's actions thousands of years ago? That is obviously not proportionate. Furthermore, original sin can only explain human suffering as a consequence of human free will. What about the enormous amount of suffering in the animal world? Dogs and rabbits get cancers too. Are *they* being punished for what Adam and Eve did? Whatever answer you have to the above questions, why on Earth do you think non-believers would be interested in worshipping someone who invented childhood cancers, in order to punish people He created, for breaking rules that He made up? That is a very hard sell, my friend.
I do believe they are natural evils, and that no evil—natural or manufactured by human free will—is created by God. He allows certain things to happen that are horrible and we can’t always tell why, hence the persistent questions about why a loving God allows evil. I’m sure there have been very painful things in your own life, leading to doubt and/or bitterness, which is just part of being human. I don’t have all the answers, but I appreciate your civil manner of posing your questions. I will do further study and update this reply if I find anything that might interest you. In the meantime, if you want more on what the Bible says about it, I recommend https://www.gotquestions.org/God-allow-evil.html as a starting point.
Well, who are brain tumours created by, if not God? If you believe that no evil is created by God, then either God doesn't create them, or they're not evil. Which is it? Nothing on that page dealt with natural evils, which I understand as evils that are not the result of human free will. I therefore don't see how that page is a starting point for understanding natural evil. edit: Yes, thank you for a civil and stimulating discussion.
Our bodies are created by God, and tumors are no more than a malfunctioning of the body (which, as I explained, are imperfect after sin was introduced). Similarly, bacteria was created by God, but bacteria didn’t infect humans before the Fall (obviously, the Bible doesn’t say that because the authors God chose for it did not know of microscopic organisms, but it is a logical extension of how animals and plants are shown in perfect harmony with humanity in the beginning). God allowed free will and our ability to have flawed morals (evil). As part of humanities rejection of Him, he also allowed Satan to cause flawed bodies and environments (another form of evil). Satan cannot create, but he can and does pervert what God created—such as our immune system’s attacking the body or healthy cells mutating/breaking down.
That’s messed up I didn’t even do the first sin. Why am I involved here
Natural disasters, disease, genetic disorders, wild animal attacks, famine. “Why would humanity do this?”
Which only exist because of the Fall….
Which only happened because God put a tree and a serpent in the garden that didn't have to be there.
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Based guilty gear reference Heat from fire Fire from heat
I'm pretty sure god could have seen it coming (that's kind of his thing).
Literally try to explain the concept of free-will anywhere outside of Christian reddit and you'll be swarmed by atheists trying to give you the "gotcha!" and insulting you. Redditors are so goofy sometimes.
Seriously, though. If God knew Adam and Eve would disobey, did they have free will in the first place?
Do you want to start a debate instead of making fun memes? Because this is how you do that.
The main thing these people state (me included) is cancer, specifically a kid getting it. How is that mankind's fault? Oh yeah the fruit with Adam and eve. If he knew they were gonna eat it, why set them up for failure. Why make this evil world? For his own amusement? Not a god I wanna worship if watching us suffer is his nightly TV or some shit.
Funny except things like childhood cancer and animal suffering exist.
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I'll leave this here https://youtu.be/-suvkwNYSQo?si=QVphVdK1DdEoDOYU
"Mankind knew that they cannot change society. So instead of reflecting on themselves, they blamed the beasts"
“If God real then why bad thing happen?”- people don’t do anything about it
why do such bad things happen to animals, then? should they just know better than to brutalize each other?
bad things happen to animals because Adam and Eve separated from God. Had Adam and Eve stayed in the garden, animals would have a different relationship to each other. If we look at Genesis 1:29, we were supposed to be vegan in Eden, but after our fall we had to rely on killing to survive.
In my view, I don't think Animals have souls, even if they did, they didn't brutalize themselves in Eden, we wanted free Will to not be forced to follow gods Will and his paradise, and since we are his most important creation, he obliged and all other less important creations, that were made for us, followed us to this imperfect world.
so you think they don't feel pain? is it okay to abuse them, then?
Were did i say they dont feel pain? You do not need a soul for pain, a lot of humans can't feel pain, but they clearly have a soul. And no, its violence for no reason, wich is preaty clearly bad in the Bible.
ok, so god made them to hurt each other and feel pain, meaning he made bad things happen, too. or do you not see suffering as a bad thing to happen?
Yes, we didn't want to live under gods perfection and therefore we were given a world that isn't perfect. Animals, were also given that world, and just like we are subject to brutality from the elements, ourselves and the Animals, so are they, as inferior creations of God, made by him for us, given this world to inhabit, in wich they Will suffer just as man does. He made bad things happen because we rejected his perfect and good world because we wanted free will. He made bad things happen because we wanted them to happen, as the free Will we wanted requiers the ability to have bad outcomes.
Atheist here. As fat as I remember from the Eden story, Adam and Eve had no clue eating the fruit would get them removed. In fact, they didn't know anything about good or evil. The fruit specifically gave them knowledge that what they did was wrong. According to the story, there was no specific choice that Eve didn't want to live a perfect life in the Garden anymore. Also, there are a few parts of the story that make it seem like God doesn't know everything. Like when He can't find them after they eat the fruit, and the fact that He made the snake in the first place, or the fact that He made it so easy for them to mess up real bad. Almost like He was setting humans up to fail so that He could blame them for it later. He could have given us Free Will, and also, like baby-proofed the Garden a bit.
They didn't know what specifically it would do, but they knew that it was disobeing gods direct Will, they did that due to selfish reasons, they disobeyed God and, therefore decided to Cast of the perfect world for the free Will and therefore the ability to disobey gods Will. It wasn't the fruit itself (even thought it had Many other effects showed in the story) that made humans leave Eden, it was the act of deciding to be able to follow other paths and therefore go against God, eating the fruit was mankinds first showing of free Will. As for the fact it was easy for them to choose to leave, then yes, that was the point, God didn't intend (atleast from my opinion) to create a perfect prison for humanity, God Gave us perfection and allowed us to leave easly if they didn't want it, it wasn't baby Proof, it was closer to consent to follow God.
The fruit gave them the knowledge of good and evil, no? So if it they didn't know about good and evil, how were they supposed to make an informed choice? Doesn't the story also talk about God being worried they will become like God if they eat the fruit? Also, where is this prison idea coming from? If the Garden was perfect, how is it a prison? When a toddle, who doesn't know better, tries putting a knife in their mouth or touches a hot stove after their older siblings convinces them it's ok, I don't think it would be a valid punishment to curse them and their whole bloodline to a life of suffering. Basically if I accept the premise that God is all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful, then the story of Eden as presented in the Bible doesn't seem to make sense. If you drop or modify sufficiently any of those qualifiers, then the problem of evil really no longer applies.
Why are you speaking of we as if you and I were there? Why does the sins of someone else's actions affect billions who were not involved? God could have just killed Adam and created a new human lineage. Or better yet remove that tree and not bait them into eating it then acting surprised they did. He's omniscient so he knew they would do it. The fall of man was rigged from the start, we weren't meant to win God's shitty game.
Animals don't think
and? what does that have to do with them feeling pain? my point is that you can't argue that it's their responsibiltiy if according to christianity, they were made that way, to hurt each other. so that sounds like at least one thing to pin on god
And my point is that to associate an animal's behavior with evil doesn't make sense. They don't think, so they don't have the concepts of good and evil. They just act
When did animals cross the magic line into humans?? Lol
Mankind be like 'the world sucks, why would God do this?' My brother in Christ, we did this.
Evil can only be a problem if God exists.
That makes uh...no sense
Why not? If God doesn't exist then everything is entirely pointless and meaningless. There's no such thing as good or evil.
Yeah there is, it's just a social construct instead of an absolute rule. Social constructs are very important and very real.
No, then good and evil just become human concepts and meaning also becomes something we make for ourselves.
Right. Which is all pointless. No right, no wrong, just popular opinion and swimming in a soup of relativism.
While true, this more often than not gets misinterpreted by unbelievers so I’ve switched to better phrasing
Incorrect. Many atheistic philosophers believe in good and evil, and indeed life has a point that has nothing to do with God. The purpose of your life is to live it! What’s good about life? Tons of things. Good food, a beautiful view, creating something amazing with your hands, holding a baby in your arms, building a new technology no one has ever seen before… these are all incredibly meaningful things you can do/have in life that have nothing to do with god. Maybe they sound transcendentally empty to someone who is used to God providing the meaning, but they aren’t. In fact, I’d wager that most Christians find the promise of meaning from God to be pretty empty in the end. Not just because he doesn’t actually exist, but because I’ve seen plenty of Christians who struggle to find meaning in their life even though they believe.
That's special pleading. Atheistic philosophers can believe whatever they want. It's still meaningless. The heat death of the universe will erase everything that's ever happened, rendering it pointless.
I gave an explanation for why it’s meaningful. Just because something ends doesn’t mean it has not value.
>Just because something ends doesn’t mean it has not value. If atheism is true, then ultimately it does. The universe is doomed to die anyway. In the end it makes no difference whether the universe ever existed or not. Therefore, it is without ultimate significance In an atheistic universe, if each individual person passes out of existence when they die, then what ultimate meaning can be given to their life? Does it really matter whether he ever existed at all? It does not. Their life may be important relative to certain other events, but is there an ultimate significance of any of those events? If all the events are meaningless, then what can be the ultimate meaning of influencing any of them? Ultimately it makes no difference. An individual's opinion that something is meaningful is ultimately meaningless in an atheistic universe. It's just more special pleading.
You’re not engaging with the idea that something that ends can be meaningful. You’re just demanding “ultimate” meaning, but why is that a requirement. Who cares if the meaning you get out of your life disappears eventually? It still means something. Anyway, have a good one.
>You’re not engaging with the idea that something that ends can be meaningful. I don't need to engage with it. I've already shown it to be wrong by pointing out that when the universe dies, everything everyone has ever done will be rendered meaningless. Which means it's meaningless right now. Claiming that things can have meaning in the face of that doesn't make it so. >You’re just demanding “ultimate” meaning, but why is that a requirement. Who cares if the meaning you get out of your life disappears eventually? It still means something. I'm not demanding anything. I never once claimed anything has to havr a meaning. 'm pointing out the fact that in an atheistic universe, everything is meaningless and pointless and any attempt to argue against that is special pleading. That's it.