I'm trying to stay true to the classic framing of a theodicy in the West, which conceives of God as omnipotent, omniscient, and all-benevolent. — J
It (theodicy) does disappear if your version of god is less benevolent sky wizard and more ground of being. Mind you, the Bible deosn't help as it depicts a pretty nasty deity who has no issues with slavery and genocide and behaves like a mafia boss, demanding deference and worship to sooth his seemingly fragile ego, so there is that. — Tom Storm
Dawkins holds that the existence or non-existence of God is a scientific hypothesis which is open to rational demonstration. Christianity teaches that to claim that there is a God must be reasonable, but that this is not at all the same thing as faith. Believing in God, whatever Dawkins might think, is not like concluding that aliens or the tooth fairy exist. God is not a celestial super-object or divine UFO, about whose existence we must remain agnostic until all the evidence is in. Theologians do not believe that he is either inside or outside the universe, as Dawkins thinks they do. His transcendence and invisibility are part of what he is, which is not the case with the Loch Ness monster. This is not to say that religious people believe in a black hole, because they also consider that God has revealed himself: not, as Dawkins thinks, in the guise of a cosmic manufacturer even smarter than Dawkins himself (the New Testament has next to nothing to say about God as Creator), but for Christians at least, in the form of a reviled and murdered political criminal. The Jews of the so-called Old Testament had faith in God, but this does not mean that after debating the matter at a number of international conferences they decided to endorse the scientific hypothesis that there existed a supreme architect of the universe – even though, as Genesis reveals, they were of this opinion. They had faith in God in the sense that I have faith in you. They may well have been mistaken in their view; but they were not mistaken because their scientific hypothesis was unsound. — Lunging, Flailing, Mispunchiing, Terry Eagleton (review of The God Delusion)
God as omnipotent, omniscient, and all-benevolent — J
First, it's very confusing that the word "theodicy" is being used in this thread to mean "anti-theodicy" or "anti-theism." For that reason I will avoid the word altogether. — Leontiskos
Part of your argument is something like this:
4. If God is omnipotent, omniscient, and all-benevolent, then there would be no head colds
5. But there are head colds
6. Therefore, there is no existing God who is omnipotent, omniscient, and all-benevolent {modus tollens}
7. Therefore, head colds disprove the existence of God {reductio ad absurdum} — Leontiskos
(although I don't know if genocide was part of the narrative. That doesn't enter the language until WWII, and not through any act of God.) — Wayfarer
God is not a proximate cause operating within the causal order. He is not a being in the world, but the ground of all being, the cause of causes. His causality is not like ours — it is ontological, not mechanical or voluntaristic. — Wayfarer
But this picture, intuitive though it may be to us, is metaphysically confused. It domesticates divinity into a kind of super-personality — and then is shocked when the universe doesn’t live up to the standards we come to expect. — Wayfarer
But this view mistakes what kind of causality is at issue. In the classical world — particularly in Aquinas and the Neoplatonic tradition — God is not a proximate cause operating within the causal order. He is not a being in the world, but the ground of all being, the cause of causes. His causality is not like ours — it is ontological, not mechanical or voluntaristic. — Wayfarer
The argument is, if the existence of suffering is supposed to be an indictment against God, then where do you draw the line between what you would deem a reasonable and an unnacceptabe degree of suffering? — Wayfarer
"God loves us like a parent loves their children" — J
Or we can agree that to imagine God as a loving parent is to imagine them more or less like our human idea of such a love...The problem is not with God, but with the consistency of human descriptions of God. — J
And it also depends on what we take “Father” to mean. Interpreted archetypally, Father is a symbol of creative origination — the generative, principle. — Wayfarer
But it’s meant analogically, not literally. — Wayfarer
Jesus, after all, was a pretty demanding teacher. 'He who saves his life will lose it, while he who loses his life for my sake will be saved.' There's a moral demand in that, isn't there? It isn't 'do what you like, it will turn OK' — Wayfarer
sorry, I still don't think that is a fair assessment. It's a very Dawkins style depiction, God as a kind of cosmic film director, staging all of the action. I think it betrays a misunderstanding of the God that Dawkins doesn't believe in. A straw God, so to speak. — Wayfarer
If you asked for a specific interpretation of those sentences within the context of a particular denomination, you'd get varying answers. — Hanover
Certainly. But I'm asking for your answer, in the context of saying that "simple literalisms" should be avoided when trying to understand religious doctrine. Is this an example of such a literalism? If further context is needed, I can find some Gospel passages, I suppose, but I doubt whether you really need them. — J
If further context is needed, I can find some Gospel passages, I suppose, but I doubt whether you really need them. — J
Acknowledged. I had associated the word with general discussion of the problem of evil not realising that it was usually intended as a apologetic in the religious context. So it is misleading, and I have changed the thread title to reflect that. — Wayfarer
That is not the argument at all. The argument is, if the existence of suffering is supposed to be an indictment against God, then where do you draw the line between what you would deem a reasonable and an unnacceptabe degree of suffering? That colds and influenza would be 'allowed' by a merciful God, but not cancer? That earthquakes would be reasonable, but mass casualties would not be? — Wayfarer
That colds and influenza would be 'allowed' by a merciful God, but not cancer? — Wayfarer
So there is a possible danger of over-emphasizing the critique contained in the OP, namely by overemphasizing the question, "Where exactly should the line be drawn?" — Leontiskos
The more general argument is that a world without suffering is inconceivable, (although I might add that this is actually what Heaven is supposed to mean.) — Wayfarer
Again, the essay 'is not an attempt to justify suffering, nor to offer spiritual guidance. It aims only to point out the mistake of that common assumption in modern discourse — the idea that if God exists, He must operate like a benevolent manager of human well-being. It’s a superficial way of seeing it. Recovering some understanding of the metaphysical and theological contexts against which the problem of evil has traditionally been resolved, allows us to reframe the question in a larger context — one in which suffering still has to be reckoned with, but not on account of a malicious God.'
And I stand by that argument. — Wayfarer
This definition of deity may be peculiar to the Catholic rendition of Judaism. The God of the Hebrews was indeed all-powerful, by contrast to pagan idols, but his goodness was conditional : if you don't Love & Fear & Obey God, you will suffer. The Creation was described as Good, but its imperfections were blamed on the species of sentient-yet-gullible creatures that were supposed to “manage” the Garden. Ironically, the Hebrews, as the Chosen People, accepted that blame, on behalf of all humanity, as inscrutable divine Justice.One of the most frequently raised objections to religious belief in the modern world is the Problem of Evil. The argument is simple and emotionally powerful: if God is all-powerful and all-good, then why does He allow terrible suffering? — Wayfarer
Contrary to Catholicism, my philosophical god-concept is closer to that of Spinoza and Whitehead*1. Whitehead defined his God, not as an ideal of perfection, but as the potential for creation and change. Specifically, his god functions as a “principle of concrescence” : the act or process of coming or growing together; coalescence . And that is one way of describing Natural Evolution : incremental & progressive occasions of form change.The moment there is matter, there is entropy. — Wayfarer
Just from what you've provided, you're assuming a particular context, specifically a New Testament version of "God" which arguably differs substantially from the OT (as you refernced "Gospel). That places you into a Christian context. — Hanover
To give a secular example, if I were to ask what a particular provision of the US Constitution means . . . — Hanover
And this was my point to Wayfarer (and his point as well), which is that the attack on biblical meaning by using the most unsophisticated exegesis method available is a strawman. — Hanover
God is loving and good, and yet the world is filled with devastating suffering — especially natural suffering that doesn’t seem to arise from human choices. — Wayfarer
Far more damning is the design and creation of a world that uses death and pain as the engine of survival. That’s pretty twisted. — Tom Storm
the Bible deosn't help as it depicts a pretty nasty deity who has no issues with slavery and genocide and behaves like a mafia boss, demanding deference and worship to sooth his seemingly fragile ego, so there is that. — Tom Storm
This isn't a judicially ambiguous, much-contested provision of a legal document. It's a simple phrase: "God loves you." Definitely some possible divergent ways of understanding this, but is it really capable of the same kind of multiplicity of interpretations, arguing the same case-specific technicalities? Is that what you think Christians would say about it? (I'm trying to picture the disciples scratching their heads and saying, "Now when he said 'love,' do you think he really meant 'love' like my Daddy loves me? Maybe he mea — J
But the real irony is, without God, for some reason, this same life is now seen as the triumph of nature, with life finding a way despite calamity after insufferable calamity. If we take God out of the equation, we see those beings that bear suffering and overcome pain as heroic and good. Suffering almost becomes justified by all of the lives that follow it. Suffering adds to the good of living once it is overcome. — Fire Ologist
The only position against God, then, to me, is, God should not have created anything. We should never have been given the opportunity to weigh in on our own lives or God's creation. Fine, if you are antinatalist or a miserable solipsist, or just contrarian. But the position that God must not exist because pain exists? Seems ultimately like a complaint to the hotel manager. — Fire Ologist
Exactly! Arguing about the goodness or badness of the Judeo-Christian-Muslim God does not solve the humanistic problem of Evil & Suffering. It merely assigns blame to the mythical Manager, who is ironically assumed to be absent from his post. A more philosophical position would be to recognize that the world (i.e. Nature) "uses" pain & death (sentience & senescence) as integral components in the constructive process of Evolution, from a mathematical quantum-scale Singularity to a near-infinite & ever-expanding Cosmos of Consciousness. On one Pale Blue Dot, we humans somehow became sentient, and invented the categories of Good & Evil, so we'll have something to philosophize about.But if we take God out of the mix, we still have nature; what does that make of the use of death and pain as the engine of survival in nature (the physics of it)? The world is still as it is, with it's pain and death. — Fire Ologist
The experience [of suffering] doesn’t change with or without a deity. — Tom Storm
But using all of the same terms from the flip side, the problem of evil says our experience of God changes with or without suffering. — Fire Ologist
But the real irony is, without God, for some reason, this same life is now seen as the triumph of nature, with life finding a way despite calamity after insufferable calamity. If we take God out of the equation, we see those beings that bear suffering and overcome pain as heroic and good. Suffering almost becomes justified by all of the lives that follow it. Suffering adds to the good of living once it is overcome. — Fire Ologist
We have to assume an all-good God who was all-powerful would use that power to eliminate all of our suffering. That’s not a necessary, logical assumption. — Fire Ologist
Without God or anything behind it, pain is just another experience, justifiable and justified as any experience might be justified. It is what it is; that’s how evolution works. Pleasure draws things toward each other, pain repels things apart; the living grow and take over, the dying diminish and are consumed. Suffering is no longer something to be eliminated or something that can even be imagined as eliminated. Pain is now a badge of honor to those for whom that which does not destroy us makes us stronger. — Fire Ologist
Suffering holds no intrinsic meaning. — Tom Storm
predation and cruelty … is not a disproof of god. — Tom Storm
Without God or anything behind it, pain is just another experience, justifiable and justified as any experience might be justified. It is what it is; that’s how evolution works. Pleasure draws things toward each other, pain repels things apart; the living grow and take over, the dying diminish and are consumed. Suffering is no longer something to be eliminated or something that can even be imagined as eliminated. Pain is now a badge of honor to those for whom that which does not destroy us makes us stronger. — Fire Ologist
Basically, why is God held accountable for making me suffer unjustly if I can be made to suffer justly by nature without God anyway? — Fire Ologist
Trying to avoid it is my path. — Tom Storm
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