Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents.
Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, "Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on."
Mark 12:41-44
Jesus says that someone's good deeds only prove he/she is good if they are inconvenient. However, if God is all-powerful, then nothing is inconvenient for him. Therefore, according to Jesus, if God is all-powerful then God can't be good.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Standard: [leftovers from booster drafts]
Modern: U M'Olk; B Goodstuff
Jesus says that someone's good deeds only prove he/she is good if they are inconvenient.
No, that is not what Jesus is saying.
Jesus is saying that the poor widow, though she gave only a few coins, gave an offering greater in value than those who gave larger amounts due to the fact that she gave all the money she had.
Jesus is talking about the value of sacrifice in a matter of scale.
A woman with $10 giving $5 up, is much greater a sacrifice than a millionaire giving $50.
Because to the woman, $5 is HALF of her wealth, and to the millionaire, $50 is unnoticeable.
Ignoring the goodness of the deed,
If the value of the thing increases based on the impact of the deed to the doer, then what value would God's actions have?
If God is all powerful, how valuable a deed is it for him to say, stop a rainstorm? How valuable a deed is it for God to heal a deep cut, or to cure one persons blindness?
Is it $50 to a millionaire? Or $5 to a vagabond?
After that, now apply Jesus' goodness to it. If it is indeed more good for a vagabond to give all they have, than for a rich man to give a fraction of a fraction.
When exactly can God be good, when has he given all he had to give? When has he given most? When has he given a fraction of a fraction?
I think that is well put Icecream when refering to the OPs statement.
@ the AC I also think that there is an issue with the word "good" because it is a perspective issue. If this vagabond gave half of her wealth to the temple just for the temple and this situation puts her family in a worse position than it was; then she may have done "good" for the church but put her family in a more compromising position for survival which I would think is "bad". Also was her charity done from the heart or desperation and an offering for better day.
So in my opinion God just "is". People try and pigeon hole God but in reality the only reason exisitance is experienced is because God allowed it which includes the experience of good and bad. Maybe another way to put it is good and bad aren't real. They are just concepts humans came up with to vocalize how we feel.
To break down where the OP's logic went awry, the OP is essentially comparing apples to oranges and making a false argument.
As established, Jesus' words are about how the value of sacrifice is relative rather than absolute.
Then, the OP makes the assumption that the value of sacrifice equals the value of goodness. While Jesus' words imply that sacrifice and goodness can be related, He certainly doesn't equate the two.
There is also the assumption that Jesus' metrics judging humans' goodness and value of sacrifice can be applied to God Himself. That does not necessarily follow, since the Christian God is (aside from Jesus), not human.
His conclusion is correct, but his premises are wrong.
Everyone pointed out where he went wrong with his premises, so I won't go into that..
However: given this moral problem let's see where we are here:
There is a hill, with a house at the bottom. In the yard of this house is a small deaf child playing. At the top of this hill, is a car, that is not moving due to a block under it's wheel. You come across this situation, and see every detail, and know that removing the rock will set the car in motion down the hill and it will undoubtedly strike and injure/kill the child. Then, you move the rock.
You have done something morally wrong, and are responsible for the consequences of that action.
Similiar situation, same hill, same child. In this scenario, the car is already in motion. You are, however, able to redirect/stop the car by placing a stone in its path to protect the child at no risk to yourself. You choose not to. You are again, responsible for the consequences of your inaction.
The Christian god, if we are to assume (for argument's sake) that he exists, is directly responsible for the evil in this world by creating something (the devil) and therefor responsible for the consequences of his actions.... as well as if he is all powerful, than he is responsible for his inaction in other cases. Either way, by creating or allowing evil to happen when he has the power to stop it completely, he is responsible for it.
If god exists in this world we live in now, he is either all powerful and indifferent at best, or he's all good, and impotent. But he cannot be both.
To break down where the OP's logic went awry, the OP is essentially comparing apples to oranges and making a false argument.
As established, Jesus' words are about how the value of sacrifice is relative rather than absolute.
Then, the OP makes the assumption that the value of sacrifice equals the value of goodness. While Jesus' words imply that sacrifice and goodness can be related, He certainly doesn't equate the two.
There is also the assumption that Jesus' metrics judging humans' goodness and value of sacrifice can be applied to God Himself. That does not necessarily follow, since the Christian God is (aside from Jesus), not human.
Yeah the good God wants from his followers is different from the good he is. He does not want his perfect goodness if you will from his followers but just asks that we try as best as e can to follow in his perfect goodness example.
Yeah the good God wants from his followers is different from the good he is. He does not want his perfect goodness if you will from his followers but just asks that we try as best as e can to follow in his perfect goodness example.
I get what you're saying. You're saying that God holds Himself to different--and higher--standers than He does his followers.
Because He's perfect and humans aren't.
If god exists in this world we live in now, he is either all powerful and indifferent at best, or he's all good, and impotent. But he cannot be both.
Christians believe the former (all-powerful yet allowing evil to occur), but with a different characterization of God's inaction than "indifferent," which is an opinion of God being all-powerful yet allowing evil to occur.
They believe it to be intentional for, depending on the Christian sect, one or all of the following purposes and reasons:
1) God created the universe and the laws of science that govern it, and intervening in such a way that counteracts those laws would unravel His creation itself. Not even God can simultaneously create and undermine something, and this temporal life is not designed to be Heaven (which is designed by God to be bereft of evil, but only reserved for proven souls).
2) Determinist Christians: Any suffering resulting from the universe is pre-destined and serves a greater, unfathomable purpose (I may have missed an important point here; I haven't really studied Calvinism or talked in-depth about determinism with any thinking believer).
3) Non-determinist Christians: Any suffering of evil resulting from the universe is essentially random (due to chaos theory combined with humans' free will), but temporary compared to the eternal life of the soul. Its purpose is to test your faith and compassion for your fellow human, for without the contrast of evil and suffering, there is decreased relative capacity for goodness (some argue it is not possible to be good).
In the end, it should be noted that, in my experience, theology can and will always find a way to explain itself so long as someone has taken the leaps of faith required to believe in a particular religion. There are practically an infinite number of ways to justify things the way they are based on that perspective since those leaps themselves do not need to be justified, and theologians think a great deal about how to do so.
To underscore the malevolent argument, I recently found this gem in the book of Samuel: the prophet Elijah, upon being called bald by some children, cursed them in the name of the lord. Immediately following this, said children were set upon by bears and ripped limb from limb.
We have to be careful though about what we read into things, cultural context, and understand that our translations are not always perfectly accurate.
In this story for instance, the world "children" doesn't necessarily describe what we would consider children today. The same word could be used to describe adolescents, teenagers, young men, servants, or even immature adults. It also says there were over forty of them present mocking and jeering at a single old man. So the story isn't necessarily what we think it is.
"Is god willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both willing, and able?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him god?"
This proof seems neglectful of some things.
"Is god willing to prevent evil, but not able?"
He is not willing to prevent evil. The nature of the universe is that of opposites. Thus, as you define right, you create left. So, if you create good then evil also exists. Its neither or both, you cannot have just one.
To prevent evil would require one of two things, cease the definition of good and destroy evil in the process. In which case I don't think we even have a universe anymore. Or, remove all other acting agents in the universe. We generally consider killing people or enslaving them evil, and I believe this belief to be correct. Thus he is unwilling.
"Is he able and unwilling? Then he is malevolent."
He is able and unwilling, but the response is incorrect as it completely neglects all other agents and God's position towards them. If creating acting agents is a purpose of God, and I contend that it is. As outlined above, allowing those acting agents to act is good, even if they perform evil in the process. Removing that agency would be as evil as slavery. So he must tolerate it, at least to some extent. He does intentionally expose us to the possibility of evil because he does not force those agents, but that is not the same as desiring it for us and should not be conflated with a malevolent being IMHO.
I would liken it more akin to how vaccines are intended. He will teach and guide and hopefully the pupils learn to choose good, most especially after experiencing evil chosen by others and it's consequences, or performed ourselves with it's consequences.
The remainder seems inapplicable.
Elimination/prevention of evil/sorrow/hardship is a red herring designed for those who do not understand that evil/sorrow/hardship is a necessary part of having good/happiness/peace.
He is not willing to prevent evil. The nature of the universe is that of opposites. Thus, as you define right, you create left. So, if you create good then evil also exists. Its neither or both, you cannot have just one.
To prevent evil would require one of two things, cease the definition of good and destroy evil in the process. In which case I don't think we even have a universe anymore.
You are confusing definition with existence. Just because something is defined does not imply that it exists. We have a definition of "unicorn", but unicorns don't exist. Even if the thing being defined is an antonym to some other thing, and that other thing exists, the defined thing need not exist.
For example, let us define "black" and "nonblack" as true antonyms. Anything that is not black must by definition be nonblack, and vice versa. This is a similar relationship to that which you have in mind between "good" and "evil", I think. But now imagine that the entire universe was black. No nonblack objects whatsoever. This is a perfectly cohesive hypothetical scenario - there is nothing in the definitions of "black" and "nonblack" that contradicts the possibility. We still have the definitions for both "black" and "nonblack", but it happens to be the case that only black things exist, and no nonblack things do. And surely, if God is omnipotent, it is within his power to make this happen. He could turn everything black, easily, right? And it would not break the definition of "black", much less the universe itself.
The same goes for evil. We have a definition for "good" and "evil", but God in his omnipotence could ensure that evil things never happened. This wouldn't mean there would be no good; it would mean everything was good. Just as turning everything black wouldn't mean there was no black; it would mean everything was black. There is nothing about blackness that necessitates the existence of nonblackness. There is nothing about goodness that necessitates the existence of evil. These antonymic properties are defined, because everything whatsoever may be defined, but that is a matter of semantics (words and their meanings), not metaphysics (the universe and existence). Do not confuse the two fields.
Or, remove all other acting agents in the universe. We generally consider killing people or enslaving them evil, and I believe this belief to be correct. Thus he is unwilling.
Then, when human beings prevent other human beings from doing evil, is that prevention evil? Ought we to stop arresting criminals? Ought we to stop teaching others about right and wrong?
And if these prevention activities are not evil, how is it that human beings are morally allowed to do something that God is not?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
He is not willing to prevent evil. The nature of the universe is that of opposites. Thus, as you define right, you create left. So, if you create good then evil also exists. Its neither or both, you cannot have just one.
To prevent evil would require one of two things, cease the definition of good and destroy evil in the process. In which case I don't think we even have a universe anymore.
You are confusing definition with existence. Just because something is defined does not imply that it exists. We have a definition of "unicorn", but unicorns don't exist. Even if the thing being defined is an antonym to some other thing, and that other thing exists, the defined thing need not exist.
For example, let us define "black" and "nonblack" as true antonyms. Anything that is not black must by definition be nonblack, and vice versa. This is a similar relationship to that which you have in mind between "good" and "evil", I think. But now imagine that the entire universe was black. No nonblack objects whatsoever. This is a perfectly cohesive hypothetical scenario - there is nothing in the definitions of "black" and "nonblack" that contradicts the possibility. We still have the definitions for both "black" and "nonblack", but it happens to be the case that only black things exist, and no nonblack things do. And surely, if God is omnipotent, it is within his power to make this happen. He could turn everything black, easily, right? And it would not break the definition of "black", much less the universe itself.
The same goes for evil. We have a definition for "good" and "evil", but God in his omnipotence could ensure that evil things never happened. This wouldn't mean there would be no good; it would mean everything was good. Just as turning everything black wouldn't mean there was no black; it would mean everything was black. There is nothing about blackness that necessitates the existence of nonblackness. There is nothing about goodness that necessitates the existence of evil. These antonymic properties are defined, because everything whatsoever may be defined, but that is a matter of semantics (words and their meanings), not metaphysics (the universe and existence). Do not confuse the two fields.
Or, remove all other acting agents in the universe. We generally consider killing people or enslaving them evil, and I believe this belief to be correct. Thus he is unwilling.
Then, when human beings prevent other human beings from doing evil, is that prevention evil? Ought we to stop arresting criminals? Ought we to stop teaching others about right and wrong?
And if these prevention activities are not evil, how is it that human beings are morally allowed to do something that God is not?
This.
Why do we hold human beings to a moral standard (No killing. No enslaving) but God gets a pass from those same morals? If God commands a man to go on a mountain and kill his son, this is seen as an ultimate act of faith when he does it... but if I was to, today, say that God commanded me to do the same, EVERY SINGLE PERSON would go crazy and demand I be put to death.
There is some cognitive dissonance going on here. The god of the bible is 100% immoral, and a bit on the side of being a sociopath.
He is not willing to prevent evil. The nature of the universe is that of opposites. Thus, as you define right, you create left. So, if you create good then evil also exists. Its neither or both, you cannot have just one.
To prevent evil would require one of two things, cease the definition of good and destroy evil in the process. In which case I don't think we even have a universe anymore.
You are confusing definition with existence. Just because something is defined does not imply that it exists. We have a definition of "unicorn", but unicorns don't exist. Even if the thing being defined is an antonym to some other thing, and that other thing exists, the defined thing need not exist.
...
There is nothing about blackness that necessitates the existence of nonblackness. There is nothing about goodness that necessitates the existence of evil. These antonymic properties are defined, because everything whatsoever may be defined, but that is a matter of semantics (words and their meanings), not metaphysics (the universe and existence). Do not confuse the two fields.
So you want to draw a semantic line and say my claim to opposition isn't true. You are essentially claiming this is more or less not axiomatic and not otherwise questioning the logic train. (restating to understand where you are here). So I will make an argument in favor of it.
You can't win this semantic game because the fundamental term used here is good. Good as a neutral category doesn't exist. The choice capacity between good and evil is also axiomatic to the term agent in this context. If we create agents, and only give them one choice to make. Then they aren't really agents. They are automatons or animals with only neutral valid choices. Good bereft of the choice of evil isn't actually good - it's something else. Both must exist and also be valid choices to have a true agent unto himself.
Thus if God wants agents, he cannot remove evil. It's fundamental to the system and the previous logic holds.
Or, remove all other acting agents in the universe. We generally consider killing people or enslaving them evil, and I believe this belief to be correct. Thus he is unwilling.
Then, when human beings prevent other human beings from doing evil, is that prevention evil? Ought we to stop arresting criminals? Ought we to stop teaching others about right and wrong?
And if these prevention activities are not evil, how is it that human beings are morally allowed to do something that God is not?
My thoughts further along these particular lines... There are limits he imposes to his agents. He does not allow the design of evil beings to unravel all of creation if he was to do nothing. He can and will stop them before they go "too far". And he does permit himself some levels of influence short of force as well. The stay on intervention isn't absolute and any implications I made along that it is were not intentional - I did try to convey with very strong examples for this reason.
I'm not sure how far I want to take the analogy, but think sporting event rather than free for all. He isn't after robotic automatons he micromanages, but independent players making their own choices. It is his game, his rules, his creation. He wants players in his game, but excessively bad players are eventually removed rather than allowed to wreck the whole game. The wrecking of the game would also be contrary to the purpose of developing additional agents perhaps as much as forced compliance would be. In the end you have no good agents.
This general principle is followed, with varying degrees of success, in government and laws implemented by men as well. And we discuss all the time what is in bounds and what isn't and what to do about it... When people go too far we "force" them to stop. Though I also personally find the practice of locking people up for years and years rather detestable.
I do not find this to be an inconsistency between the systems or one doing what the other cannot. I also find learning about how far God lets agency go to be a very interesting topic to study.
Why do we hold human beings to a moral standard (No killing. No enslaving) but God gets a pass from those same morals? If God commands a man to go on a mountain and kill his son, this is seen as an ultimate act of faith when he does it... but if I was to, today, say that God commanded me to do the same, EVERY SINGLE PERSON would go crazy and demand I be put to death.
There is some cognitive dissonance going on here. The god of the bible is 100% immoral, and a bit on the side of being a sociopath.
Well, I haven't even mentioned the Bible.. I also have no intention of defending every passage in the Bible as there are many places with a severe lack of context to make good judgements on and even errors.
Additionally, if you are going to deliberately misconstrue the stories by leaving out core vital information inconvenient to your point and then painting with the broadest possible brush in your arsenal. I... have... no further response...
Why do we hold human beings to a moral standard (No killing. No enslaving) but God gets a pass from those same morals? If God commands a man to go on a mountain and kill his son, this is seen as an ultimate act of faith when he does it... but if I was to, today, say that God commanded me to do the same, EVERY SINGLE PERSON would go crazy and demand I be put to death.
There is some cognitive dissonance going on here. The god of the bible is 100% immoral, and a bit on the side of being a sociopath.
Well, I haven't even mentioned the Bible.. I also have no intention of defending every passage in the Bible as there are many places with a severe lack of context to make good judgements on and even errors.
Additionally, if you are going to deliberately misconstrue the stories by leaving out core vital information inconvenient to your point and then painting with the broadest possible brush in your arsenal. I... have... no further response...
You mean, Abraham not actually killing isaac? Fine. If someone sees it and stops it, is that a sign from God that he was never to be sacrificed? Why would a completely moral god instruct a man to kill his son? Seems a bit sick, does it not? And if anyone says that god told them to kill their son, would you think he's talking to god, or crazy?
The problem is, if someone in today's world did something that happened in the bible... you would write them off. This is the double standard that you refuse to acknowledge, and when called out on it, you say "I have nothing to discuss with you"
Is that because you've actually been challenged to defend the the immorality of your god?
You can't win this semantic game because the fundamental term used here is good. Good as a neutral category doesn't exist. The choice capacity between good and evil is also axiomatic to the term agent in this context. If we create agents, and only give them one choice to make. Then they aren't really agents. They are automatons or animals with only neutral valid choices. Good bereft of the choice of evil isn't actually good - it's something else. Both must exist and also be valid choices to have a true agent unto himself.
First of all, this is a totally different argument than the one you started with. Nothing you say here supports your original claim that "The nature of the universe is that of opposites" and for this reason evil is necessary. There's nothing wrong with changing arguments per se, but I'd like you to be aware of what you're doing.
Now, your new claim is that good is only good if it is chosen by an agent who could have chosen to do evil. But all you've done is claim this - you give us no reason to believe it is true. Why can't good be good even absent the choice of evil? Let us define "evil" as "an action performed by an agent which causes harm to other agents who are undeserving of harm." Then, if "good" is the true antonym of "evil" (within the domain of agents' actions), it must be defined as "any action performed by an agent which is not evil - i.e., which does not cause harm to other agents who are undeserving of harm." Now, imagine you are in a universe where it is physically impossible to cause harm to other people - everybody's got a personal force field, or something. It is therefore impossible to do evil. But you are still an agent; you still have a variety of choices in action available to you. If your complaint is that physical impossibility denying some actions to you renders you not an agent, then none of us are agents now, because we cannot choose to levitate or shoot lasers from our eyes or hold our breaths for hours. So you are an agent who can do no evil. Furthermore, whatever you do, it will be good, because it will by necessity meet the definition of "good" which was determined by its antonymic relationship to "evil" above. Does your action do harm to another agent undeserving of harm? No. Therefore it is not evil. Therefore it is good. And all other actions in this hypothetical universe fit the same logic. Therefore all actions in this hypothetical universe are good. Therefore it is possible for a universe to have good and no evil.
And you do not have to agree with this particular definition of "evil" for my argument to work. I've tried to give a prima facie plausible one, but it doesn't really matter. For any definition of evil, if you hold that good is the opposite or antonym of evil, the argument will run exactly the same way: when no actions are evil, it will not mean no actions are good, it will mean all actions are good.
And what's more, even if you abandon the antonymy of good and evil and say that good requires something more than not-evil (as most moral philosophers do), you're still not out of trouble. Let us now define "good" as, say, "An action performed by an agent which is not evil and which intentionally benefits another agent." Now, in our hypothetical evil-free universe, there are many actions that are neither good nor evil. But there are still some actions that are good. Give a homeless man a bowl of soup - that's good. It fulfills the definition just fine. It's not any less good because the homeless man has a force field and so you do not have the choice of punching him in the nose.
That said, you can get to your desired conclusion once we've unhitched the definitions of "good" and "evil". But you can only do this by specifically defining "good" as "An action performed by an agent who could have chosen an evil action." And this is simply begging the question, and may be rejected out of hand.
I do not find this to be an inconsistency between the systems or one doing what the other cannot. I also find learning about how far God lets agency go to be a very interesting topic to study.
However far God lets agency go, it is an undeniable fact that humanity is less indulgent. If you see one man savagely kicking another who is lying on the floor helpless, we tend to say you're doing a good thing if you go over and pull him off, and you're not doing a good thing if you pass by and allow him to continue exercising his freely-willed decision to do evil. I'm not talking about locking somebody up for years and years - I don't have to. I'm just talking about putting an immediate stop to real and tangible pain. And that's the problem. If it's a good thing for you to pull the attacker off, then why doesn't God pull the attacker off the next time it happens, when you're not there? And if it'd be a bad thing for God to pull attackers off, then how can we possibly think that it's a good thing for us mere mortals to pull attackers off? That would imply that there are some actions which are morally good when we perform them but morally bad when God performs them. God may not do some things that humans may do.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
You can't win this semantic game because the fundamental term used here is good. Good as a neutral category doesn't exist. The choice capacity between good and evil is also axiomatic to the term agent in this context. If we create agents, and only give them one choice to make. Then they aren't really agents. They are automatons or animals with only neutral valid choices. Good bereft of the choice of evil isn't actually good - it's something else. Both must exist and also be valid choices to have a true agent unto himself.
...
Imagine a state of affairs where only God (an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent creator) exists. In other words, he hasn't "yet" created a universe, heaven, hell, angels, demons, nothing. Just Him.
God, being omnibenevolent, is Himself a good thing -- so we can say of this state of affairs that a good thing exists.
God, being omnibenevolent, is without evil, and since he is the only thing that exists, the only thing that exists is without evil -- so we can say of this state of affairs that no evil thing exists.
If this state of affairs is possible (as a lot of theology would suggest -- this is the essence of Aquinas' "fact of creation") then a state of affairs is possible where there is good, but no evil.
If such a state of affairs is possible then your arguments in this regard are unsound by way of reductio.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A limit of time is fixed for thee
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
You mean, Abraham not actually killing isaac? Fine. If someone sees it and stops it, is that a sign from God that he was never to be sacrificed? Why would a completely moral god instruct a man to kill his son? Seems a bit sick, does it not? And if anyone says that god told them to kill their son, would you think he's talking to god, or crazy?
The problem is, if someone in today's world did something that happened in the bible... you would write them off. This is the double standard that you refuse to acknowledge, and when called out on it, you say "I have nothing to discuss with you"
Is that because you've actually been challenged to defend the the immorality of your god?
One of the fundamental attributes of God up there with Creator is power over life and death. It is not inconsistent for him to kill someone or to command it done - even if executed it isn't evil.
For him to kill doesn't permanently remove an agent if we consider the soul as immortal. He simply ends it's mortality. It isn't the same as it would be for us. Since we only are currently restricted to the mortal plane, it has every appearance of permanence and thus it is completely different for us to kill. So it's really apples and oranges.
Yes, most people today would find this occurring as objectionable. But frankly, other people don't even matter in this context. This isn't a democracy. This is the fallacy of mass appeal. As long as God is an axiom, and in this thread he is. Good is literally defined by God. The opinions of the masses are irrelevant.
I am not afraid of actual questions and relevant points. Nothing personal, but I do not like debates with people who use broad brushes, who are overtly confrontational, and bring up only tangentially related points having little to nothing to do with my core arguments. My beliefs are often and regularly questioned. I can deal with confrontational within limits, but broad brushes and vanishingly small cross sections of relevance in debate drive me bonkers.
God, being omnibenevolent, is Himself a good thing -- so we can say of this state of affairs that a good thing exists.
God, being omnibenevolent, is without evil, and since he is the only thing that exists, the only thing that exists is without evil -- so we can say of this state of affairs that no evil thing exists.
Things aren't evil, actions are. In order to be omnipotent he must also retain the capacity for evil himself. Even if he never does any. So, even just him, evil exists.
This is a semantic shell game that doesn't make a difference; you can just run the same argument with evil acts replacing evil things. "God does no evil act" and "God is the only thing there is" together imply "no thing does an evil act," so no evil act takes place, so evil doesn't exist.
In order to be omnipotent he must also retain the capacity for evil himself. Even if he never does any. So, even just him, evil exists.
1) "The capacity for evil" isn't and can't be the same thing as "evil," for reasons of logical circularity. That a thing has the capacity to do evil means that the capacity to do evil exists, but it does not follow from that capacity that evil itself exists.
2) Omnipotence only requires of God that he possess the ability to do that which is logically possible. It is not logically possible for an omnibenevolent being to do evil, therefore God's omnipotence does not even require that he have the capacity to do evil. In fact, He lacks that capacity altogether.
3) Even if that weren't analytically the case, and His refrainment from evil were merely voluntary rather than logically necessary, His voluntary refrainment from evil entails the absence of evil in any state of affairs where He's the only actor.
You mean, Abraham not actually killing isaac? Fine. If someone sees it and stops it, is that a sign from God that he was never to be sacrificed? Why would a completely moral god instruct a man to kill his son? Seems a bit sick, does it not? And if anyone says that god told them to kill their son, would you think he's talking to god, or crazy?
The problem is, if someone in today's world did something that happened in the bible... you would write them off. This is the double standard that you refuse to acknowledge, and when called out on it, you say "I have nothing to discuss with you"
Is that because you've actually been challenged to defend the the immorality of your god?
One of the fundamental attributes of God up there with Creator is power over life and death. It is not inconsistent for him to kill someone or to command it done - even if executed it isn't evil.
For him to kill doesn't permanently remove an agent if we consider the soul as immortal. He simply ends it's mortality. It isn't the same as it would be for us. Since we only are currently restricted to the mortal plane, it has every appearance of permanence and thus it is completely different for us to kill. So it's really apples and oranges.
Yes, most people today would find this occurring as objectionable. But frankly, other people don't even matter in this context. This isn't a democracy. This is the fallacy of mass appeal. As long as God is an axiom, and in this thread he is. Good is literally defined by God. The opinions of the masses are irrelevant.
I am not afraid of actual questions and relevant points. Nothing personal, but I do not like debates with people who use broad brushes, who are overtly confrontational, and bring up only tangentially related points having little to nothing to do with my core arguments. My beliefs are often and regularly questioned. I can deal with confrontational within limits, but broad brushes and vanishingly small cross sections of relevance in debate drive me bonkers.
In otherwords: Because, God.
Saying that god is exempt from our own morality, because he is simply god is a really bad excuse.
If you derive your morality from god, and he does not himself follow the same morality that he has given you... what makes his morality worth following?
Is something good because God says its good? Then good is arbitrary. Is something good independent of God? Then god is unnecessary.
First of all, this is a totally different argument than the one you started with. Nothing you say here supports your original claim that "The nature of the universe is that of opposites" and for this reason evil is necessary. There's nothing wrong with changing arguments per se, but I'd like you to be aware of what you're doing.
What I'm saying is not that different to me, but that doesn't mean I'm communicating clearly
Now, your new claim is that good is only good if it is chosen by an agent who could have chosen to do evil. But all you've done is claim this - you give us no reason to believe it is true. Why can't good be good even absent the choice of evil?
...
And you do not have to agree with this particular definition of "evil" for my argument to work. I've tried to give a prima facie plausible one, but it doesn't really matter. For any definition of evil, if you hold that good is the opposite or antonym of evil, the argument will run exactly the same way: when no actions are evil, it will not mean no actions are good, it will mean all actions are good.
I know you put a lot of work into this.. But... I'm really not seeing the relevance. A major point is agency, and such a creation with no evil excludes agents. You destroy them all with this creation. Or at least never create them. Which is something I said he wasn't suppose to do in the first pass.
Since my view of good includes agents, removing them destroys good.... So my statement "Good bereft of the choice of evil isn't actually good - it's something else" probably doesn't hold in a vacuum where we can contort good to exclude agents and I'll grant you that we could make a no-agency universe where we call all actions good.
Why didn't he make THAT universe? I think that he might find it lonely... I'm don't think I'm a fan of being the only human on a farm of plants and animals myself so I sympathize.
And that's the problem. If it's a good thing for you to pull the attacker off, then why doesn't God pull the attacker off the next time it happens, when you're not there? And if it'd be a bad thing for God to pull attackers off, then how can we possibly think that it's a good thing for us mere mortals to pull attackers off?
Because what is good for us is not identical to what is good for him. Apples and oranges.
That would imply that there are some actions which are morally good when we perform them but morally bad when God performs them. God may not do some things that humans may do.
I'm just going to nit pick here and say I prefer would not to may not. He certainly could do it, but he doesn't... Typically... That we know of...
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Jesus says that someone's good deeds only prove he/she is good if they are inconvenient. However, if God is all-powerful, then nothing is inconvenient for him. Therefore, according to Jesus, if God is all-powerful then God can't be good.
Modern: U M'Olk; B Goodstuff
No, that is not what Jesus is saying.
Jesus is saying that the poor widow, though she gave only a few coins, gave an offering greater in value than those who gave larger amounts due to the fact that she gave all the money she had.
Where does He say that?
Jesus is talking about the value of sacrifice in a matter of scale.
A woman with $10 giving $5 up, is much greater a sacrifice than a millionaire giving $50.
Because to the woman, $5 is HALF of her wealth, and to the millionaire, $50 is unnoticeable.
Ignoring the goodness of the deed,
If the value of the thing increases based on the impact of the deed to the doer, then what value would God's actions have?
If God is all powerful, how valuable a deed is it for him to say, stop a rainstorm? How valuable a deed is it for God to heal a deep cut, or to cure one persons blindness?
Is it $50 to a millionaire? Or $5 to a vagabond?
After that, now apply Jesus' goodness to it. If it is indeed more good for a vagabond to give all they have, than for a rich man to give a fraction of a fraction.
When exactly can God be good, when has he given all he had to give? When has he given most? When has he given a fraction of a fraction?
Thanks to Xenphire @ Inkfox for the amazing new sig
“Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments
are we bound to prosperity and ruin.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
@ the AC I also think that there is an issue with the word "good" because it is a perspective issue. If this vagabond gave half of her wealth to the temple just for the temple and this situation puts her family in a worse position than it was; then she may have done "good" for the church but put her family in a more compromising position for survival which I would think is "bad". Also was her charity done from the heart or desperation and an offering for better day.
So in my opinion God just "is". People try and pigeon hole God but in reality the only reason exisitance is experienced is because God allowed it which includes the experience of good and bad. Maybe another way to put it is good and bad aren't real. They are just concepts humans came up with to vocalize how we feel.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/trading-post/details/360-bitterblossom-and-mistbind-clique-looking-to-trade
As established, Jesus' words are about how the value of sacrifice is relative rather than absolute.
Then, the OP makes the assumption that the value of sacrifice equals the value of goodness. While Jesus' words imply that sacrifice and goodness can be related, He certainly doesn't equate the two.
There is also the assumption that Jesus' metrics judging humans' goodness and value of sacrifice can be applied to God Himself. That does not necessarily follow, since the Christian God is (aside from Jesus), not human.
Everyone pointed out where he went wrong with his premises, so I won't go into that..
However: given this moral problem let's see where we are here:
There is a hill, with a house at the bottom. In the yard of this house is a small deaf child playing. At the top of this hill, is a car, that is not moving due to a block under it's wheel. You come across this situation, and see every detail, and know that removing the rock will set the car in motion down the hill and it will undoubtedly strike and injure/kill the child. Then, you move the rock.
You have done something morally wrong, and are responsible for the consequences of that action.
Similiar situation, same hill, same child. In this scenario, the car is already in motion. You are, however, able to redirect/stop the car by placing a stone in its path to protect the child at no risk to yourself. You choose not to. You are again, responsible for the consequences of your inaction.
The Christian god, if we are to assume (for argument's sake) that he exists, is directly responsible for the evil in this world by creating something (the devil) and therefor responsible for the consequences of his actions.... as well as if he is all powerful, than he is responsible for his inaction in other cases. Either way, by creating or allowing evil to happen when he has the power to stop it completely, he is responsible for it.
If god exists in this world we live in now, he is either all powerful and indifferent at best, or he's all good, and impotent. But he cannot be both.
Yeah the good God wants from his followers is different from the good he is. He does not want his perfect goodness if you will from his followers but just asks that we try as best as e can to follow in his perfect goodness example.
I'm not sure if I'm getting my point across.
I get what you're saying. You're saying that God holds Himself to different--and higher--standers than He does his followers.
Because He's perfect and humans aren't.
Christians believe the former (all-powerful yet allowing evil to occur), but with a different characterization of God's inaction than "indifferent," which is an opinion of God being all-powerful yet allowing evil to occur.
They believe it to be intentional for, depending on the Christian sect, one or all of the following purposes and reasons:
1) God created the universe and the laws of science that govern it, and intervening in such a way that counteracts those laws would unravel His creation itself. Not even God can simultaneously create and undermine something, and this temporal life is not designed to be Heaven (which is designed by God to be bereft of evil, but only reserved for proven souls).
2) Determinist Christians: Any suffering resulting from the universe is pre-destined and serves a greater, unfathomable purpose (I may have missed an important point here; I haven't really studied Calvinism or talked in-depth about determinism with any thinking believer).
3) Non-determinist Christians: Any suffering of evil resulting from the universe is essentially random (due to chaos theory combined with humans' free will), but temporary compared to the eternal life of the soul. Its purpose is to test your faith and compassion for your fellow human, for without the contrast of evil and suffering, there is decreased relative capacity for goodness (some argue it is not possible to be good).
In the end, it should be noted that, in my experience, theology can and will always find a way to explain itself so long as someone has taken the leaps of faith required to believe in a particular religion. There are practically an infinite number of ways to justify things the way they are based on that perspective since those leaps themselves do not need to be justified, and theologians think a great deal about how to do so.
We have to be careful though about what we read into things, cultural context, and understand that our translations are not always perfectly accurate.
In this story for instance, the world "children" doesn't necessarily describe what we would consider children today. The same word could be used to describe adolescents, teenagers, young men, servants, or even immature adults. It also says there were over forty of them present mocking and jeering at a single old man. So the story isn't necessarily what we think it is.
This proof seems neglectful of some things.
"Is god willing to prevent evil, but not able?"
He is not willing to prevent evil. The nature of the universe is that of opposites. Thus, as you define right, you create left. So, if you create good then evil also exists. Its neither or both, you cannot have just one.
To prevent evil would require one of two things, cease the definition of good and destroy evil in the process. In which case I don't think we even have a universe anymore. Or, remove all other acting agents in the universe. We generally consider killing people or enslaving them evil, and I believe this belief to be correct. Thus he is unwilling.
"Is he able and unwilling? Then he is malevolent."
He is able and unwilling, but the response is incorrect as it completely neglects all other agents and God's position towards them. If creating acting agents is a purpose of God, and I contend that it is. As outlined above, allowing those acting agents to act is good, even if they perform evil in the process. Removing that agency would be as evil as slavery. So he must tolerate it, at least to some extent. He does intentionally expose us to the possibility of evil because he does not force those agents, but that is not the same as desiring it for us and should not be conflated with a malevolent being IMHO.
I would liken it more akin to how vaccines are intended. He will teach and guide and hopefully the pupils learn to choose good, most especially after experiencing evil chosen by others and it's consequences, or performed ourselves with it's consequences.
The remainder seems inapplicable.
Elimination/prevention of evil/sorrow/hardship is a red herring designed for those who do not understand that evil/sorrow/hardship is a necessary part of having good/happiness/peace.
For example, let us define "black" and "nonblack" as true antonyms. Anything that is not black must by definition be nonblack, and vice versa. This is a similar relationship to that which you have in mind between "good" and "evil", I think. But now imagine that the entire universe was black. No nonblack objects whatsoever. This is a perfectly cohesive hypothetical scenario - there is nothing in the definitions of "black" and "nonblack" that contradicts the possibility. We still have the definitions for both "black" and "nonblack", but it happens to be the case that only black things exist, and no nonblack things do. And surely, if God is omnipotent, it is within his power to make this happen. He could turn everything black, easily, right? And it would not break the definition of "black", much less the universe itself.
The same goes for evil. We have a definition for "good" and "evil", but God in his omnipotence could ensure that evil things never happened. This wouldn't mean there would be no good; it would mean everything was good. Just as turning everything black wouldn't mean there was no black; it would mean everything was black. There is nothing about blackness that necessitates the existence of nonblackness. There is nothing about goodness that necessitates the existence of evil. These antonymic properties are defined, because everything whatsoever may be defined, but that is a matter of semantics (words and their meanings), not metaphysics (the universe and existence). Do not confuse the two fields.
Then, when human beings prevent other human beings from doing evil, is that prevention evil? Ought we to stop arresting criminals? Ought we to stop teaching others about right and wrong?
And if these prevention activities are not evil, how is it that human beings are morally allowed to do something that God is not?
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
This.
Why do we hold human beings to a moral standard (No killing. No enslaving) but God gets a pass from those same morals? If God commands a man to go on a mountain and kill his son, this is seen as an ultimate act of faith when he does it... but if I was to, today, say that God commanded me to do the same, EVERY SINGLE PERSON would go crazy and demand I be put to death.
There is some cognitive dissonance going on here. The god of the bible is 100% immoral, and a bit on the side of being a sociopath.
So you want to draw a semantic line and say my claim to opposition isn't true. You are essentially claiming this is more or less not axiomatic and not otherwise questioning the logic train. (restating to understand where you are here). So I will make an argument in favor of it.
You can't win this semantic game because the fundamental term used here is good. Good as a neutral category doesn't exist. The choice capacity between good and evil is also axiomatic to the term agent in this context. If we create agents, and only give them one choice to make. Then they aren't really agents. They are automatons or animals with only neutral valid choices. Good bereft of the choice of evil isn't actually good - it's something else. Both must exist and also be valid choices to have a true agent unto himself.
Thus if God wants agents, he cannot remove evil. It's fundamental to the system and the previous logic holds.
My thoughts further along these particular lines... There are limits he imposes to his agents. He does not allow the design of evil beings to unravel all of creation if he was to do nothing. He can and will stop them before they go "too far". And he does permit himself some levels of influence short of force as well. The stay on intervention isn't absolute and any implications I made along that it is were not intentional - I did try to convey with very strong examples for this reason.
I'm not sure how far I want to take the analogy, but think sporting event rather than free for all. He isn't after robotic automatons he micromanages, but independent players making their own choices. It is his game, his rules, his creation. He wants players in his game, but excessively bad players are eventually removed rather than allowed to wreck the whole game. The wrecking of the game would also be contrary to the purpose of developing additional agents perhaps as much as forced compliance would be. In the end you have no good agents.
This general principle is followed, with varying degrees of success, in government and laws implemented by men as well. And we discuss all the time what is in bounds and what isn't and what to do about it... When people go too far we "force" them to stop. Though I also personally find the practice of locking people up for years and years rather detestable.
I do not find this to be an inconsistency between the systems or one doing what the other cannot. I also find learning about how far God lets agency go to be a very interesting topic to study.
Why do we hold ourselves to a higher moral standard than we hold your god?
Well, I haven't even mentioned the Bible.. I also have no intention of defending every passage in the Bible as there are many places with a severe lack of context to make good judgements on and even errors.
Additionally, if you are going to deliberately misconstrue the stories by leaving out core vital information inconvenient to your point and then painting with the broadest possible brush in your arsenal. I... have... no further response...
You mean, Abraham not actually killing isaac? Fine. If someone sees it and stops it, is that a sign from God that he was never to be sacrificed? Why would a completely moral god instruct a man to kill his son? Seems a bit sick, does it not? And if anyone says that god told them to kill their son, would you think he's talking to god, or crazy?
The problem is, if someone in today's world did something that happened in the bible... you would write them off. This is the double standard that you refuse to acknowledge, and when called out on it, you say "I have nothing to discuss with you"
Is that because you've actually been challenged to defend the the immorality of your god?
First of all, this is a totally different argument than the one you started with. Nothing you say here supports your original claim that "The nature of the universe is that of opposites" and for this reason evil is necessary. There's nothing wrong with changing arguments per se, but I'd like you to be aware of what you're doing.
Now, your new claim is that good is only good if it is chosen by an agent who could have chosen to do evil. But all you've done is claim this - you give us no reason to believe it is true. Why can't good be good even absent the choice of evil? Let us define "evil" as "an action performed by an agent which causes harm to other agents who are undeserving of harm." Then, if "good" is the true antonym of "evil" (within the domain of agents' actions), it must be defined as "any action performed by an agent which is not evil - i.e., which does not cause harm to other agents who are undeserving of harm." Now, imagine you are in a universe where it is physically impossible to cause harm to other people - everybody's got a personal force field, or something. It is therefore impossible to do evil. But you are still an agent; you still have a variety of choices in action available to you. If your complaint is that physical impossibility denying some actions to you renders you not an agent, then none of us are agents now, because we cannot choose to levitate or shoot lasers from our eyes or hold our breaths for hours. So you are an agent who can do no evil. Furthermore, whatever you do, it will be good, because it will by necessity meet the definition of "good" which was determined by its antonymic relationship to "evil" above. Does your action do harm to another agent undeserving of harm? No. Therefore it is not evil. Therefore it is good. And all other actions in this hypothetical universe fit the same logic. Therefore all actions in this hypothetical universe are good. Therefore it is possible for a universe to have good and no evil.
And you do not have to agree with this particular definition of "evil" for my argument to work. I've tried to give a prima facie plausible one, but it doesn't really matter. For any definition of evil, if you hold that good is the opposite or antonym of evil, the argument will run exactly the same way: when no actions are evil, it will not mean no actions are good, it will mean all actions are good.
And what's more, even if you abandon the antonymy of good and evil and say that good requires something more than not-evil (as most moral philosophers do), you're still not out of trouble. Let us now define "good" as, say, "An action performed by an agent which is not evil and which intentionally benefits another agent." Now, in our hypothetical evil-free universe, there are many actions that are neither good nor evil. But there are still some actions that are good. Give a homeless man a bowl of soup - that's good. It fulfills the definition just fine. It's not any less good because the homeless man has a force field and so you do not have the choice of punching him in the nose.
That said, you can get to your desired conclusion once we've unhitched the definitions of "good" and "evil". But you can only do this by specifically defining "good" as "An action performed by an agent who could have chosen an evil action." And this is simply begging the question, and may be rejected out of hand.
However far God lets agency go, it is an undeniable fact that humanity is less indulgent. If you see one man savagely kicking another who is lying on the floor helpless, we tend to say you're doing a good thing if you go over and pull him off, and you're not doing a good thing if you pass by and allow him to continue exercising his freely-willed decision to do evil. I'm not talking about locking somebody up for years and years - I don't have to. I'm just talking about putting an immediate stop to real and tangible pain. And that's the problem. If it's a good thing for you to pull the attacker off, then why doesn't God pull the attacker off the next time it happens, when you're not there? And if it'd be a bad thing for God to pull attackers off, then how can we possibly think that it's a good thing for us mere mortals to pull attackers off? That would imply that there are some actions which are morally good when we perform them but morally bad when God performs them. God may not do some things that humans may do.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
...
Imagine a state of affairs where only God (an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent creator) exists. In other words, he hasn't "yet" created a universe, heaven, hell, angels, demons, nothing. Just Him.
God, being omnibenevolent, is Himself a good thing -- so we can say of this state of affairs that a good thing exists.
God, being omnibenevolent, is without evil, and since he is the only thing that exists, the only thing that exists is without evil -- so we can say of this state of affairs that no evil thing exists.
If this state of affairs is possible (as a lot of theology would suggest -- this is the essence of Aquinas' "fact of creation") then a state of affairs is possible where there is good, but no evil.
If such a state of affairs is possible then your arguments in this regard are unsound by way of reductio.
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
One of the fundamental attributes of God up there with Creator is power over life and death. It is not inconsistent for him to kill someone or to command it done - even if executed it isn't evil.
For him to kill doesn't permanently remove an agent if we consider the soul as immortal. He simply ends it's mortality. It isn't the same as it would be for us. Since we only are currently restricted to the mortal plane, it has every appearance of permanence and thus it is completely different for us to kill. So it's really apples and oranges.
Yes, most people today would find this occurring as objectionable. But frankly, other people don't even matter in this context. This isn't a democracy. This is the fallacy of mass appeal. As long as God is an axiom, and in this thread he is. Good is literally defined by God. The opinions of the masses are irrelevant.
I am not afraid of actual questions and relevant points. Nothing personal, but I do not like debates with people who use broad brushes, who are overtly confrontational, and bring up only tangentially related points having little to nothing to do with my core arguments. My beliefs are often and regularly questioned. I can deal with confrontational within limits, but broad brushes and vanishingly small cross sections of relevance in debate drive me bonkers.
Things aren't evil, actions are. In order to be omnipotent he must also retain the capacity for evil himself. Even if he never does any. So, even just him, evil exists.
This is a semantic shell game that doesn't make a difference; you can just run the same argument with evil acts replacing evil things. "God does no evil act" and "God is the only thing there is" together imply "no thing does an evil act," so no evil act takes place, so evil doesn't exist.
1) "The capacity for evil" isn't and can't be the same thing as "evil," for reasons of logical circularity. That a thing has the capacity to do evil means that the capacity to do evil exists, but it does not follow from that capacity that evil itself exists.
2) Omnipotence only requires of God that he possess the ability to do that which is logically possible. It is not logically possible for an omnibenevolent being to do evil, therefore God's omnipotence does not even require that he have the capacity to do evil. In fact, He lacks that capacity altogether.
3) Even if that weren't analytically the case, and His refrainment from evil were merely voluntary rather than logically necessary, His voluntary refrainment from evil entails the absence of evil in any state of affairs where He's the only actor.
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
In otherwords: Because, God.
Saying that god is exempt from our own morality, because he is simply god is a really bad excuse.
If you derive your morality from god, and he does not himself follow the same morality that he has given you... what makes his morality worth following?
Is something good because God says its good? Then good is arbitrary. Is something good independent of God? Then god is unnecessary.
What I'm saying is not that different to me, but that doesn't mean I'm communicating clearly
I know you put a lot of work into this.. But... I'm really not seeing the relevance. A major point is agency, and such a creation with no evil excludes agents. You destroy them all with this creation. Or at least never create them. Which is something I said he wasn't suppose to do in the first pass.
Since my view of good includes agents, removing them destroys good.... So my statement "Good bereft of the choice of evil isn't actually good - it's something else" probably doesn't hold in a vacuum where we can contort good to exclude agents and I'll grant you that we could make a no-agency universe where we call all actions good.
Why didn't he make THAT universe? I think that he might find it lonely... I'm don't think I'm a fan of being the only human on a farm of plants and animals myself so I sympathize.
Because what is good for us is not identical to what is good for him. Apples and oranges.
I'm just going to nit pick here and say I prefer would not to may not. He certainly could do it, but he doesn't... Typically... That we know of...