If God is Good why is there so much suffering? My Answer!

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thinkinginpictures
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03 Dec 2013, 12:34 pm

If God is good, why is there so much evilness in this world (since God created this world)?

Either God is non-existent, or God is evil himself. But if God is evil himself, that doesn't take into account for the good things in life.
In short, we are usually left with the "atheist-response" of concluding that there is no god at all, wether it be a omnipotent good or evil god.

I have a third solution. It's already been addressed by others:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil#Free_will

It's the free will argument.

In short, it goes like this:

God is good, so he created the world, where everybody has the potential to choose goodness.
People have free will. With free will, it too implies that we have the potential to choose evil. And we use that to a large extent.

Without free will, we will not be able to choose God, and God could as well make a world where everything is good from the beginning.
The problem with such a paradisical world, is we won't know evil. We only know goodness.

I'd like to describe this visually:

Draw a dot on a piece of white paper.
Where is the dot? It's where you placed it, you say. But where exactly it is, you cannot answer, because where something is, is always in relation to something else.
In short, the dot doesn't exist. Well, it does exist, because it exists in relation to the paper it is drawed on. But what if this dot was placed in empty space?
It won't exist, other than in relation to itself. For "others" ("others" don't even exist, but I'm doing this for the sake of making a point) it doesn't exist at all.

Now, draw another dot. Then the dot exists in relation to the other dot. It exists in EXACTLY 1 (ONE) Dot Unit Lenght from the other.
Only if you place a third dot, you can actually have shape. If you place a fourth dot, you can now easily have these 4 dots in relation to each other. You have a clear shape, length, and with the fourth dot you actually also have a dimension to it (the third spacial dimension).

What I'm trying to tell you, is that in order for the world to exists at all, we need plurality.
We need both the good, the bad and the in-between and the various nuances.

I'm not usually the one people would claim is "nuanced in his views". Admittedly, it took me some time to figure this one out myself.
But now I realize that nuances is important, for something to exist.

Without the bad stuff, we won't have the good stuff because the good stuff depends on the fact that we HAVE some stuff at all!

Now back to the original topic:

As you can read in my link, to Wikipedia, this "free will" has already been addressed. Critics say:

The first critic is the Negatives-outweights-the-Positives-argument. It basically says that there is more evil than good in this world, so the good stuff can't possibly outdo the bad.

My response to that is that while it is indeed true that there exists more evil in this world than goodness, it only makes the smaller good units worth that much more. We need to hold on to the good stuff, because it is valuable.

The second critic is that God could make it more irresistible to do good than to do evil (but God seemingly doesn't!).

My response is that God would not do so, as that would destroy you free will of doing good. If doing good is irresistible, you don't actually choose it. You do it only because of you desire. It's not a real choice.
By making the evil irresistible, you not only have to make a choice to do good, what's more important is that you can blame evildoers for choosing the "easy solution first". It requires no effort, hence no need to reward the evildoers by a good conscientiousness.

The third critic is that while the free will may describe why people are evil, it fails to answer the natural evils (natural disasters).
While others may usually respond to this by saying that the natural evils are explained by other supernatural forces of evil causing natural disasters, I would instead say that the natural disasters is caused by the same basic mechanisms that causes our morality to exists: The hurricanes, earthquakes do also constitute our very basic world. Without them, there would be no Earth at all!
Just as with morality where you need the bad to describe the good, nature itself is ruled by this symbiosis of good and evil complementing each other.

The forth critic is the Deterministic-argument, that says that the world is predestined to run its course, and hence we don't have any influence on our actions.

My response is that while God may indeed have created the world predestined to run its course, and hence our free will is an illusion, our illusion of free will makes us who we are.
It gives us existence, afterall. God may have invented the evilness, to show us the good, so to speak (a very comprised argument, I know).

The fifth critic is the Omniscient One God that seems to show no evilness in his own world (Heaven). Hence God is a huge hypocrit, it seems, because he wants all of us to know that there is evil in the world, to show us the good, whilst God himself suffers no evil.

I disagree about this, as I don't see our Creator God as the one and only God.



TallyMan
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03 Dec 2013, 12:36 pm

thinkinginpictures wrote:
... God is non-existent.


^ This. Problem solved. Next question.


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MCalavera
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03 Dec 2013, 12:41 pm

Free will argument has been debunked so many times here. You're not saying anything new.

But I feel like commenting on your post since you took the time to make a long argument. So hold on and let me do just that.



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03 Dec 2013, 1:05 pm

To accept the "Free Will" defence when facing the Problem of Evil inevitably leads to a conclusion where one must agree that God considered it more important to preserve the free will of 5 single individuals (Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Hirohito and Pol Pot) than preventing the (often very violent and very painful) deaths of more than 100 million people... and that this is good...

Image



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03 Dec 2013, 1:20 pm

thinkinginpictures wrote:
Without free will, we will not be able to choose God, and God could as well make a world where everything is good from the beginning.


Ok, first objection. Lack of free will does not necessarily negate one's ability to choose. After all, even though you may believe in free will, you don't believe that you are completely independent in the choices you make and you admit that many factors, in the least, influence the choices you make, right? So if you allow for choices to be influenced and still call them choices, why not still call them choices if they are fully caused by prior factors?

God could design us in a way so that we could end up either accepting him (translation: choosing him) or rejecting him (translation: not choosing him) all without giving any of us one tidbit of free will.

Quote:
The problem with such a paradisical world, is we won't know evil. We only know goodness.


Which shouldn't be an issue. After all, if God is perfectly good, then why should he allow for the existence of a world tainted with evil?

Quote:
I'd like to describe this visually:

Draw a dot on a piece of white paper.
Where is the dot? It's where you placed it, you say. But where exactly it is, you cannot answer, because where something is, is always in relation to something else.
In short, the dot doesn't exist. Well, it does exist, because it exists in relation to the paper it is drawed on. But what if this dot was placed in empty space?
It won't exist, other than in relation to itself. For "others" ("others" don't even exist, but I'm doing this for the sake of making a point) it doesn't exist at all.


I would argue that dots only exist conceptually. Even on paper, you can't really draw a true dot. It's supposed to have no dimensions.

Quote:
What I'm trying to tell you, is that in order for the world to exists at all, we need plurality.
We need both the good, the bad and the in-between and the various nuances.


That may be the point you're trying to make, but you didn't manage to build a logical bridge between the existence of the world and the need for plurality (especially when involving both concepts of good and evil). Yo did say something about dots, but it wasn't a satisfying analogy.

Quote:
I'm not usually the one people would claim is "nuanced in his views". Admittedly, it took me some time to figure this one out myself.
But now I realize that nuances is important, for something to exist.

Without the bad stuff, we won't have the good stuff because the good stuff depends on the fact that we HAVE some stuff at all!


How exactly do you logically compute that an absolute lack of suffering (for example) entails that suffering must exist in some way?

Quote:
The first critic is the Negatives-outweights-the-Positives-argument. It basically says that there is more evil than good in this world, so the good stuff can't possibly outdo the bad.

My response to that is that while it is indeed true that there exists more evil in this world than goodness, it only makes the smaller good units worth that much more. We need to hold on to the good stuff, because it is valuable.


My own response to the first critic would be that he is implying that we all agree on what is negative and what is positive, but this doesn't seem to be the case. All a theist has to do is challenge this critic to come up with some support for such an argument.

Quote:
The second critic is that God could make it more irresistible to do good than to do evil (but God seemingly doesn't!).

My response is that God would not do so, as that would destroy you free will of doing good. If doing good is irresistible, you don't actually choose it. You do it only because of you desire. It's not a real choice.


But since when did you ever make a real choice? See the beginning of my response. Your response poses a challenge for your own position as well.

And why does it matter so much that we need such free will anyway? For what? So we could experience pain and suffering?

Quote:
The third critic is that while the free will may describe why people are evil, it fails to answer the natural evils (natural disasters).

While others may usually respond to this by saying that the natural evils are explained by other supernatural forces of evil causing natural disasters, I would instead say that the natural disasters is caused by the same basic mechanisms that causes our morality to exists: The hurricanes, earthquakes do also constitute our very basic world. Without them, there would be no Earth at all!
Just as with morality where you need the bad to describe the good, nature itself is ruled by this symbiosis of good and evil complementing each other.


Say what? Your response is very unsatisfactory here. It is logically possible for Earth to exist without earthquakes and hurricanes and such. Especially when with a benevolent God in control.

Quote:
The forth critic is the Deterministic-argument, that says that the world is predestined to run its course, and hence we don't have any influence on our actions.

My response is that while God may indeed have created the world predestined to run its course, and hence our free will is an illusion, our illusion of free will makes us who we are.
It gives us existence, afterall. God may have invented the evilness, to show us the good, so to speak (a very comprised argument, I know).


Hold on. Are you arguing that, even if we don't have free will, God wants us to experience evil regardless? That makes him come off as even less loving then, since you no longer can use the free will argument as an excuse in an attempt to justify his actions.

Note that your response here assumes a lack of free will when you're supposed to be defending it.

Quote:
The fifth critic is the Omniscient One God that seems to show no evilness in his own world (Heaven). Hence God is a huge hypocrit, it seems, because he wants all of us to know that there is evil in the world, to show us the good, whilst God himself suffers no evil.

I disagree about this, as I don't see our Creator God as the one and only God.


So what do you believe exactly about God?



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03 Dec 2013, 2:01 pm

GGPViper wrote:
To accept the "Free Will" defence when facing the Problem of Evil inevitably leads to a conclusion where one must agree that God considered it more important to preserve the free will of 5 single individuals (Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Hirohito and Pol Pot) than preventing the (often very violent and very painful) deaths of more than 100 million people... and that this is good...

Image

How can you be certain that it would have been better any other way? God could have created automatons that only COULD choose His will. Prior to the fall of man, Adam and Eve lived such an existence with the sole exception of being able to choose between that and attempting to improve on perfection. They were good by nature, hence no need of consciously KNOWING good from evil, and were only inclined to make decisions in line with God's will. They were able to willingly subordinate their own will to God's. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil offered a way out of that existence, and I'm not convinced they really understood what that meant. Regardless, they made a choice, and the question that remains for mankind to answer is whether reconciliation (and return to an Edenic state) is desired. A society that so highly prizes freedom will have difficulties in understanding that subjection to God's will necessarily requires a forfeiture of individual freedom in favor of a higher will (though a free society provides perhaps the best vehicle for the individual to FREELY give up freedom of the will IF that's what he WANTS, while others can choose differently if they so desire).

The problem of evil really isn't a problem if you leave out the false assumption that an alternative necessarily must be superior to the way things are. If God allows the choice of choosing good over evil, then He necessarily must allow that some individuals will choose evil over good. If God allows the choice, it also follows that God is willing to accept responsibility for the existence of evil, even if He himself isn't the direct author of it since WE are the ones who choose to do evil rather than God compelling us to do evil. If God is responsible (all persons now living did not choose to be born into a sinful human nature that we inherited, for instance), it follows God would provide an escape despite not having any real obligation to do so (allowing Himself to be punished for sins He allowed by allowing free will and yet committing no sin himself). If God thereby shows mercy, then there is ultimately no significant problem of evil. The "problem of evil" (note the use of quotes) is, then, an attempt of man to absolve himself of his own personal wrongdoing and blaming God. God has done no evil and yet has already taken the blame and punishment for what man has done. If God has already accepted the blame in our place and offered forgiveness, then the only problem of evil left is one of our own making.

The man-made "problem of evil" is an attempt to deny man's own culpability and avert a strongly undesired need to admit that his own mistakes are what they are: his own. The "problem of evil" assertion assumes that man-made alternatives are superior to a Divine way. If God is good and perfect and all-knowing, then there is no superior way (on God's part) to handle the existence of evil in the world. We are not omniscient, and thus we are unable to know directly for ourselves whether any alternatives we might come up with are really superior to God's own way. So the "problem of evil" does not significantly challenge the existence of the Judeo-Christian God. All it does is show that mankind has an unduly high appraisal of himself.



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03 Dec 2013, 2:08 pm

AngelRho wrote:
GGPViper wrote:
To accept the "Free Will" defence when facing the Problem of Evil inevitably leads to a conclusion where one must agree that God considered it more important to preserve the free will of 5 single individuals (Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Hirohito and Pol Pot) than preventing the (often very violent and very painful) deaths of more than 100 million people... and that this is good...

Image

How can you be certain that it would have been better any other way? God could have created automatons that only COULD choose His will. Prior to the fall of man, Adam and Eve lived such an existence with the sole exception of being able to choose between that and attempting to improve on perfection. They were good by nature, hence no need of consciously KNOWING good from evil, and were only inclined to make decisions in line with God's will. They were able to willingly subordinate their own will to God's. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil offered a way out of that existence, and I'm not convinced they really understood what that meant. Regardless, they made a choice, and the question that remains for mankind to answer is whether reconciliation (and return to an Edenic state) is desired. A society that so highly prizes freedom will have difficulties in understanding that subjection to God's will necessarily requires a forfeiture of individual freedom in favor of a higher will (though a free society provides perhaps the best vehicle for the individual to FREELY give up freedom of the will IF that's what he WANTS, while others can choose differently if they so desire).

The problem of evil really isn't a problem if you leave out the false assumption that an alternative necessarily must be superior to the way things are. If God allows the choice of choosing good over evil, then He necessarily must allow that some individuals will choose evil over good. If God allows the choice, it also follows that God is willing to accept responsibility for the existence of evil, even if He himself isn't the direct author of it since WE are the ones who choose to do evil rather than God compelling us to do evil. If God is responsible (all persons now living did not choose to be born into a sinful human nature that we inherited, for instance), it follows God would provide an escape despite not having any real obligation to do so (allowing Himself to be punished for sins He allowed by allowing free will and yet committing no sin himself). If God thereby shows mercy, then there is ultimately no significant problem of evil. The "problem of evil" (note the use of quotes) is, then, an attempt of man to absolve himself of his own personal wrongdoing and blaming God. God has done no evil and yet has already taken the blame and punishment for what man has done. If God has already accepted the blame in our place and offered forgiveness, then the only problem of evil left is one of our own making.

The man-made "problem of evil" is an attempt to deny man's own culpability and avert a strongly undesired need to admit that his own mistakes are what they are: his own. The "problem of evil" assertion assumes that man-made alternatives are superior to a Divine way. If God is good and perfect and all-knowing, then there is no superior way (on God's part) to handle the existence of evil in the world. We are not omniscient, and thus we are unable to know directly for ourselves whether any alternatives we might come up with are really superior to God's own way. So the "problem of evil" does not significantly challenge the existence of the Judeo-Christian God. All it does is show that mankind has an unduly high appraisal of himself.

Quod Erat Demonstrandum



azaam
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03 Dec 2013, 5:03 pm

thinkinginpictures wrote:
If God is good, why is there so much evilness in this world (since God created this world)?

Either God is non-existent, or God is evil himself. But if God is evil himself, that doesn't take into account for the good things in life.
In short, we are usually left with the "atheist-response" of concluding that there is no god at all, wether it be a omnipotent good or evil god.

I have a third solution. It's already been addressed by others:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil#Free_will

It's the free will argument.

In short, it goes like this:

God is good, so he created the world, where everybody has the potential to choose goodness.
People have free will. With free will, it too implies that we have the potential to choose evil. And we use that to a large extent.

Without free will, we will not be able to choose God, and God could as well make a world where everything is good from the beginning.
The problem with such a paradisical world, is we won't know evil. We only know goodness.

I'd like to describe this visually:

Draw a dot on a piece of white paper.
Where is the dot? It's where you placed it, you say. But where exactly it is, you cannot answer, because where something is, is always in relation to something else.
In short, the dot doesn't exist. Well, it does exist, because it exists in relation to the paper it is drawed on. But what if this dot was placed in empty space?
It won't exist, other than in relation to itself. For "others" ("others" don't even exist, but I'm doing this for the sake of making a point) it doesn't exist at all.

Now, draw another dot. Then the dot exists in relation to the other dot. It exists in EXACTLY 1 (ONE) Dot Unit Lenght from the other.
Only if you place a third dot, you can actually have shape. If you place a fourth dot, you can now easily have these 4 dots in relation to each other. You have a clear shape, length, and with the fourth dot you actually also have a dimension to it (the third spacial dimension).

What I'm trying to tell you, is that in order for the world to exists at all, we need plurality.
We need both the good, the bad and the in-between and the various nuances.

I'm not usually the one people would claim is "nuanced in his views". Admittedly, it took me some time to figure this one out myself.
But now I realize that nuances is important, for something to exist.

Without the bad stuff, we won't have the good stuff because the good stuff depends on the fact that we HAVE some stuff at all!

Now back to the original topic:

As you can read in my link, to Wikipedia, this "free will" has already been addressed. Critics say:

The first critic is the Negatives-outweights-the-Positives-argument. It basically says that there is more evil than good in this world, so the good stuff can't possibly outdo the bad.

My response to that is that while it is indeed true that there exists more evil in this world than goodness, it only makes the smaller good units worth that much more. We need to hold on to the good stuff, because it is valuable.

The second critic is that God could make it more irresistible to do good than to do evil (but God seemingly doesn't!).

My response is that God would not do so, as that would destroy you free will of doing good. If doing good is irresistible, you don't actually choose it. You do it only because of you desire. It's not a real choice.
By making the evil irresistible, you not only have to make a choice to do good, what's more important is that you can blame evildoers for choosing the "easy solution first". It requires no effort, hence no need to reward the evildoers by a good conscientiousness.

The third critic is that while the free will may describe why people are evil, it fails to answer the natural evils (natural disasters).
While others may usually respond to this by saying that the natural evils are explained by other supernatural forces of evil causing natural disasters, I would instead say that the natural disasters is caused by the same basic mechanisms that causes our morality to exists: The hurricanes, earthquakes do also constitute our very basic world. Without them, there would be no Earth at all!
Just as with morality where you need the bad to describe the good, nature itself is ruled by this symbiosis of good and evil complementing each other.

The forth critic is the Deterministic-argument, that says that the world is predestined to run its course, and hence we don't have any influence on our actions.

My response is that while God may indeed have created the world predestined to run its course, and hence our free will is an illusion, our illusion of free will makes us who we are.
It gives us existence, afterall. God may have invented the evilness, to show us the good, so to speak (a very comprised argument, I know).

The fifth critic is the Omniscient One God that seems to show no evilness in his own world (Heaven). Hence God is a huge hypocrit, it seems, because he wants all of us to know that there is evil in the world, to show us the good, whilst God himself suffers no evil.

I disagree about this, as I don't see our Creator God as the one and only God.


Your argument is completely absurd sorry.

Why does God need suffer evil like we do?

He created evil to test us.

Please don't compare God to humans. God is the master and we are His slaves.

You ask why doesn't God doesn't suffer evil. God is the only being that can use power the right way. God could have chose to be evil. He could have chose that the evil people will be rewarded in the end. His tests have proven that humans are incapable of using power wisely. Just look at the big guys on top. They cause corruption in every possible way imagined.. I am a Muslim and Allah has promised justice in the hereafter to everybody. He said every soul shall be judged fairly and shall receive a reward or a punishment based on the deeds and the heart of that person.


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03 Dec 2013, 5:13 pm

azaam wrote:
God is the master and we are His slaves.


Speak for yourself... slave. :lol:


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03 Dec 2013, 5:39 pm

If God does exist, then he gets to make the rules. He gets to define good and evil and make exceptions for himself. If there is a God, then morals created by humans are entirely irrelevant. If there is a God, who are we to say he's wrong?



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03 Dec 2013, 5:59 pm

There is no God,but there is suffering,there will always be suffering as long as there is a sentient being.Just try not to suffer.Its all suffering.


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03 Dec 2013, 6:06 pm

azaam wrote:
Please don't compare God to humans.


No matter how much you plead, we shall continue to judge your imaginary friend by our human standards, and continue to find him lacking.



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03 Dec 2013, 6:15 pm

UndeadToaster wrote:
If God does exist, then he gets to make the rules. He gets to define good and evil and make exceptions for himself. If there is a God, then morals created by humans are entirely irrelevant. If there is a God, who are we to say he's wrong?


But then he wouldn't be such a benevolent being, would he?

Even if he decides the rule, a perfectly good God shouldn't be allowing any form of evil to exist (because that would be an act of evil itself).



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03 Dec 2013, 6:34 pm

The OP's argument doesn't take into account all the awful things in the world that are not the result of the actions of anyone. I refer to human-specific parasites, earthquakes, poisons, diseases, genetic deformities, meteors, tidal waves, land slides, and lightning strikes. To say nothing of the vast inhospitable spaces between habitable planets. Removing these things would violate no one's free will.



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03 Dec 2013, 6:35 pm

UndeadToaster wrote:
If God does exist, then he gets to make the rules. He gets to define good and evil and make exceptions for himself. If there is a God, then morals created by humans are entirely irrelevant. If there is a God, who are we to say he's wrong?

A guy with a brain.



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03 Dec 2013, 6:36 pm

AspE wrote:
The OP's argument doesn't take into account all the awful things in the world that are not the result of the actions of anyone. I refer to human-specific parasites, earthquakes, poisons, diseases, genetic deformities, meteors, tidal waves, land slides, and lightning strikes. To say nothing of the vast inhospitable spaces between habitable planets. Removing these things would violate no one's free will.


Actually he did refer to natural disasters, but his defense was that the Earth couldn't be possible without them. 8O