If you aspire to be a believer then you have to accept that your finite intellect will never be able to understand the ways of an infinte intentionailty. IF you deny infinite intentionality then you are left with Spinoza's God.
If you are not satisfied with Spinoza's God then just be an atheist. What's the problem?

Lucifer the light bringer is akin to Loki; teacher and trouble-maker. I can't speak for the orthodox, but the myth makes sense to me as a psychological description of the separation of man from the beasts. The perfection of nature is it's innocence. The beasts live in a timeless present and do not reflect on their own existence. Thus there is no death and no morality - paradise.

Self knowledge, in the sense of a projected identity into the future and a reflective identity on the past, creates moral knowledge because it identifies my point of view as a view of itself and your point of view as the unseen other. It also creates awareness of death, which is always a projection to the future. So it is this knowledge that throws us out of nature, and out of the garden, and gives rise to 'work', as the sweat of one's brow as a projection to the future. Thus we no longer hunt because we are hungry, but because we will be hungry in the future.

Thus will as free-will is identical with the projection that constitutes psychological time, and the separation that constitutes both the fall from innocence and the ejection from paradise. Unfortunately, this way of reading the story does not allow me to make much sense of the questions you ask, which seem to depend on a rather literal understanding.

It's a way of misreading Scripture. You take a bunch of Biblical references from various authors spread over several centuries and with very different purposes and contexts. You knit them together as if they make a single coherent story. Then you sit back and wonder what this nonsense is all about.

What it's all about is that the passages are not and were never intended to be a coherent story. Some are metaphors. Some are manners of speaking. Some are revelations hidden in dreams. Some are cautionary tales.

I'm not knocking the OP. There are some good questions here. Especially: is it actually a good thing that people can choose to do bad things?

Especially: is it actually a good thing that people can choose to do bad things? — Cuthbert

Is it actually a good thing that children who've crossed the 18 mark have to think for themselves?

In giving us free will (to do anything) god offers us an opportunity to mature as responsible members of our world. Some (most?) fail this simple task. However, hat doesn't diminish the value of free will.

But to a person on the receiving end of the evil the theological justification can start to look a little shakey. I've never heard someone say - "I was devastated when my husband started beating me, but I thank God that he had the choice."

"I was devastated when my husband started beating me, but I thank God that he had the choice." — Cuthbert

Haha. I've never heard it put that way before. Usually it's, "Why did God let that happen to me?", which turns into it being an opportunity for growth or forgiveness or God's ways are mysterious. But it's never thanking God for free will.

1. Lucifer was also said to have been perfectly created. Why would a perfect being rebel? It's also stated that his motivation was pride. Why would a perfect being become proud? Imagine if you had a perfect will to live, and God put a cliff before you. Realizing that you had free will to jump off the cliff to your death, would you become suicidal, because free will? — Marchesk

Lucifer is the highest angel, not perfect. To be perfect would be to equate Lucifer with God. That is exactly Lucifer's sin, he thought he was God or equivalent to God, when he was really created by God and therefore less perfect. He experienced all the powers given to him by God, and upon experiencing all this great power, he thought he was God, and this false thinking is his imperfection, the greatest sin.

If you aspire to be a believer then you have to accept that your finite intellect will never be able to understand the ways of an infinte intentionailty. — John

But that's a get out of jail free card for anything a believer wishes to attribute to God or the divine story of why things are the way they are.

Suppose that G had no choice, he had to create evil to justify his creation, to create the best possible world, even though we may question how it can be the best. Socrates thought evil is a form of ignorance...perhaps that's what Lucifer symbolizes, the anthropomorphization of cosmic ignorance, which allows for freedom in the universe.

Suppose that G had no choice, he had to create evil to justify his creation, to create the best possible world, even though we may question how it can be the best. — Cavacava

Say you were granted the power to create your own world of your choosing (just another planet). Would you grant the creatures living there the ability to freely will all manner of evil?

Say you were granted the power to create your own world of your choosing (just another planet). Would you grant the creatures living there the ability to freely will all manner of evil? — Marchesk

What would that world look like, if it were up to you? Would you prevent "all manner of evil," or only certain kinds of evil? What abilities would you grant and deny the creatures living there in order to achieve that end? How do you define evil in the first place?

What would that world look like, if it were up to you? Would you prevent "all manner of evil," or only certain kinds of evil? What abilities would you grant and deny the creatures living there in order to achieve that end? How do you define evil in the first place? — aletheist

Let's say it's an Earth-like planet, and I was introducing humans to it, but I got to modify the potential human beings as I saw fit before doing so. And let's say one of the things I could do is change their genes so that sociopaths couldn't be born into that world.

I would do so, and moreover, I would increase the genes responsible for feeling empathy and experiencing love.

In that sense, I would act in a way to constrain their free will from behaving in a manner that is without consideration for others. But that's only as a start.

Well, sure if I had the power I would give creatures there the freedom to err, I would not make a world of p-zombies, where all thoughts and actions are rigidly determined, a world without creativity. It's not possible to make a world where only what is good can be chosen because in such a world there is no freedom.

It's not possible to make a world where only what is good can be chosen because in such a world there is no freedom. — Cavacava

There is no freedom to do what, though? No freedom over what I choose to eat for lunch, or whom I hang out with today, or no freedom to bludgeon someone over the head?

Must all freedom get lumped together, such that terrible evils can't be prohibited, while other freedoms can be permitted?

Yes, that's right, if you can only do good, then what you choose for lunch, who you associate with and whatever acts you do or don't must conform to goodness...it suggests a mindless society of do-gooders, which sounds impossible as well as incredibly boring & robotic, where no one eats bacon.

And let's say one of the things I could do is change their genes so that sociopaths couldn't be born into that world. I would do so, and moreover, I would increase the genes responsible for feeling empathy and experiencing love. — Marchesk

You are presupposing that being a sociopath, feeling empathy, and experiencing love are all entirely a matter of genetics. In other words, you are already ruling out the possibility of libertarian free will before you even start setting up your world. Obviously the free will defense is grounded in a different assumption - while genetics contributes to these aspects of humanity, we are still responsible for making our own choices. Evil in the actual world is not God's fault, it is our own; that is the whole point of the story of the Fall.

In that sense, I would act in a way to constrain their free will from behaving in a manner that is without consideration for others. But that's only as a start. — Marchesk

That seems pretty vague. Evil behavior is limited to that which is "without consideration for others"? What does "consideration" mean in this context? How much "consideration" is sufficient to make an action good, rather than evil?

What other abilities would you grant and deny the creatures living in your world? I am looking for a comprehensive response. If that seems unreasonable, maybe creating a better world than the one we have is harder than you think.

What other abilities would you grant and deny the creatures living in your world? I am looking for a comprehensive response. If that seems unreasonable, maybe creating a better world than the one we have is harder than you think. — aletheist

No doubt it's beyond my limited ability. But giving birth to more empathetic humans is only part of it. Another part of it is having an environment that prevents the most serious crimes, like murder. We humans can't manage that, but God could.

I think that if humans could manage it, we would, or most of us would (excepting those who wish to commit murder).

No doubt it's beyond my limited ability. — Marchesk

Maintaining this kind of humility would be a significant step toward properly understanding the free will defense.

First let me say that I've enjoyed reading both this thread and the other one on the free will defense, as I think your criticisms are cogently expressed. I've been thinking about similar things recently, too. My problem with the Genesis account is that the history of life on the planet as we now understand it rubbishes God's boast that it was created "very good" prior to the fall. The world has always ever been fallen, that is to say, has always contained horrendous suffering, evil, and death. For hundreds of millions of years, a timescale so vast it can't even be properly imagined, various living organisms have preyed on each other, fought each other, starved, become sick, or suffocated to death in sink holes, bogs, and under volcanic ash, which preserved their skeletal remains we now gawk at in museums. These processes continue today as well. Just look around or watch any nature documentary.

Creation has never been good, unless one is so callous as to call the processes just described as "good." Some theologians do this. They say the lion eating the lamb is good for the lion but bad for the lamb. Therefore the lion does no wrong. Yet to admit that the bad existed alongside the good still means that the pre-fallen world was not good, or not wholly so. So what accounts for this state of affairs? To answer this question with "the fall" would have to mean that it affected two temporal dimensions: the past and the future, not just the future, as traditionally believed and as implied in Genesis. If granted, whatever it means, we must then ask what accounts for the fall. The traditional answer is that our ancestors were tempted by Satan to rebel. But now, having pushed back the problem of evil to Satan, we seem to have reached a dead end. In other words, if the natural evil in the world is due to the corrupting influence of Satan and his minions, both pre and post-fall, and moral evil is due to the choice of human beings tempted by Satan to do evil, then we have satisfactorily explained the problem of evil with respect to the world. However, we are still left with accounting for Lucifer's fall. It appears as a dead end because there isn't a second Satan who tempted the first to rebel. One fall explains the other, but the first, the fall of the angels, seems to admit of no good explanation.

If the answer is "pride," we can ask: why was Lucifer created to be susceptible to pride? Why also was he created at all, since his creation precipitated the whole tragic history just enumerated? Indeed, why did God create anything at all? Did he have to? If God had a reason to create, then he was determined to do so by that reason and so did not do so freely (or at least isn't free in one sense of the word). If God created freely, then he had no reason to do so, and so is capricious, or seemingly capricious. Perhaps, as you said in the other thread, the only answer to these questions is what we find in Job. But as you also said, this leaves one deeply unsatisfied, as it sounds like a cop out. We might then consider the following mottos: intellectus quaerens fidem et fides quarens intellectum. The former, "understanding seeking faith" is perhaps what you are doing now, inasmuch as you are seeking to believe but find there are theoretical difficulties in doing so due to your understanding of what Christianity claims. So maybe you ought to adopt the latter motto first, i.e. "faith seeking understanding," such that you believe in order that you might understand. Understand what? The meaning of problems like the one you have addressed above. It could be that if you remain on the outside looking in, the problem will never be understood. Perhaps its solution isn't strictly communicable in the form of an air tight syllogism either. Notice the phrase does not say "understanding seeking understanding." Faith is not so much intellectual assent to a set of propositions but a way of life. Try living as if the claims of the religion were true and see where that gets you. It could be nowhere or it could be to understanding. I myself haven't yet made such a leap, but the temptation is there.

My problem with the Genesis account is that the history of life on the planet as we now understand it rubbishes God's boast that it was created "very good" prior to the fall. — Thorongil

Your problem with the Genesis account is that you believe a different account, one that involves "hundreds of millions of years" of "horrendous suffering, evil, and death."

Faith is not so much intellectual assent to a set of propositions but a way of life. — Thorongil

I prefer to say that faith is not so much belief in a proposition as trust in a Person.

Your problem with the Genesis account is that you believe a different account, one that involves "hundreds of millions of years" of "horrendous suffering, evil, and death." — aletheist

Go on.

The Genesis account does not involve "hundreds of millions of years" of "horrendous suffering, evil, and death."

You're being coy I see. Of course it doesn't. It claims that the world, pre-fall, was "very good." The history of life we now know about says otherwise.

You're being coy I see. — Thorongil

Not really, I was just unsure what further elaboration you were seeking.

Of course it doesn't. It claims that the world, pre-fall, was "very good." — Thorongil

I still do not see the problem. The Genesis account gives no indication of any suffering, evil, or death until the Fall, which it presents as happening fairly soon after the beginning, not hundreds of millions of years later.

The history of life we now know about says otherwise. — Thorongil

Like I said before, you believe a different account.

For hundreds of millions of years, a timescale so vast it can't even be properly imagined, various living organisms preyed on each other, fought each other, starved, become sick, or suffocated to death in sink holes, bogs, and under volcanic ash, which preserved their skeletal remains we now gawk at in museums. These processes continue today as well. — Thorongil

What makes you say this is bad? Isn't this simply the way any world is? How could a world exist without predation, hazard, and death? If something is born, then how is it not going to be subject to death? If it is compounded, then how is it not going to decay?

What is 'the good' in which salvation is said to inhere? Leaving aside clliches and greeting cards with pictures of cherubs on them, what does salvation consist of? The word has the same root as 'salve'. Granted, 'salvation' now has religious connotations, such that to even contemplate its meaning seems to require intellectual assent to the whole package. But if you consider the notion from a cross-cultural perspective, it might help to make more intellectual sense of it. I think the underlying notion of 'salvation', whether it be Christian or another religion or philosophy, is 'realising an identity as something that is not subject to death'. In other words, it is separation from what is transitory, corruptible, subject to death and decay, and so on.

You find allusions to such a purported state of being in all of the higher religious traditions and also in ancient (although certainly not in much modern) philosophy. 'Lay not up your treasure where moths and rust corrupts'. 'All compounded things are subject to decay'. The philosophical ascent of the Platonistic philosopher, the return of the soul to the One - all of these are allusions to a state 'beyond death and decay'.

So according to such teachings, we don't see the world aright. We see through a haze of ignorance, the veil of maya. Accordingly all of our judgements are faulty, as they're based on ignorance. Lucifer's role in this is to confuse you, to deny that this is the case, to tell you to forget about it, and to keep enjoying your corrupted state. That is how he gets his kicks, and he's having a fabulous time at this moment in history.

I still do not see the problem. — aletheist

:-| This is the problem:

The Genesis account gives no indication of any suffering, evil, or death until the Fall, which it presents as happening fairly soon after the beginning, not hundreds of millions of years later. — aletheist

Either address it or stop replying.

How could a world exist without predation, hazard, and death? — Wayfarer

It apparently did, prior to the fall. That's the problem to which I addressed my post. The rest of your post I'll interpret as a general comment.

Either address it or stop replying. — Thorongil

Address what? You evidently believe that there was life (and death) on earth for hundreds of millions of years before humans appeared. The Genesis account says that God created humans on the sixth day from the beginning, the same day as all other land animals. The two accounts are obviously inconsistent with each other, but there is nothing internally inconsistent with the claim in Genesis that the world before the Fall was "very good."

there is nothing internally inconsistent with the claim in Genesis that the world before the Fall was "very good." — aletheist

And I never wished to imply that there was. Why are you being so obtuse?

I am honestly not trying to be obtuse. What more do you want me to say? What is it that you want me to address? If your account is correct, then the Genesis account is wrong, or at least has to be reinterpreted somehow to allow for suffering and death prior to the Fall. If the Genesis account is correct, then your account is wrong, and the world was indeed "very good" prior to the Fall.

If your account is correct, then the Genesis account is wrong, or at least has to be reinterpreted somehow to allow for suffering and death prior to the Fall. — aletheist

And this is precisely what I did. What more do you want me to say?