who I guess you're defining as pre-Christian?

Classical theism is pre-Christian but also heavily influenced Christianity: Thomas Aquinas is the most notable Aristotelians in the Catholic world.

But how would a classical theist...apply this concept of omnipotence to the usual set-up requiring a theodicy? 

I think how goodness and God are tied together in classical theism is quite beautiful (even if it is false); as it sees God as goodness itself from which all other things flow. In modern times, especially in protestantism, we see morality being used in a moral non-naturalist sense where goodness is a property thing’s have akin to monetary value instead of akin to roundness. Consequently, they are incapable of giving an account of how anything is really good because they must seek some external source to anything that attributes that supervenient property of goodness on to it (like a person attributes a value of $10 to a cup); and this leads them to have to special plead that God just makes up what is good as the Divine Arbiter.

In classical theism, on the other hand, goodness is the equality of a thing’s essence and esse; and so goodness is innate and natural to the thing in question (like having the property of hardness, roundness, etc.). This means that a thing is perfectly good when it is perfectly united in being and essence—in whatness and thatness. Absolute unity is, then, perfect goodness; and this absolute unity can only happen in subsistent Being itself. Why? Because anything which gets its being derivatively from something else—even its own parts—is has at least one aspect of its being which is not entail by its essence: namely, its being. This means that no contingent being can be perfectly good because it cannot be perfectly united in essence and existence (since its very existence is not a part of its essence). The only being which would have being intrinsically is Being itself; and so a perfectly good being would be Being itself, which is absolutely unified with itself and perfectly self-harmonious. This is also why the more being a thing has the better it is; because the more being it has the more its essence and existence are united (viz., the more realize it is at what it is)(e.g., a car without wheels isn’t as good as a car with wheels). Likewise, absolute unity requires absolute simplicity because if the being has parts then it does not have being intrinsically (for it depends on those parts to exist). This is what God is: He is the uniquely perfectly good being, which is the ipsum ens subsistens that is absolutely self-unified, self-harmonious, pure being, and purely simple.

When the questioner asks why God did not create a world without (or merely with less) suffering, this request doesn't seem to have anything to do with what is metaphysically possible, or what would be beyond "innate" power.

This assumes that it would have been better for their to be less suffering at the cost of the natural world in which we live now; and I am not sure why that would be the case. Again, this assumes that God has a magical power to create a world which is better than the one we have because we have this intuition that suffering is bad and that we can conceive of a world without it; but this confuses metaphysical possibility with conceivability.

This isn’t true for classical theism simpliciter, but my flavor of it would say that a completely actualized and pure intellect would always have to pick the best option. This is because it has to have full knowledge of everything that is real and what could exist due to lacking nothing at what it is (which is an intellect); and the nature of an intellect is that it always wills what it perceives as best; and what this being, since it has perfect knowledge, perceives as best is what is best; and it has unrestrained power to will what it perceives as best (which would be what is best in this case). This means that the world which was created, in its entirety, must be the best out of the options that could have been out of necessity.

What is best is a creation perfectly ordered towards what is perfectly good; which is God Himself. So whatever may be contained in God’s creation must have been, at least prior to any Great Fall, perfectly ordered towards Himself (which is perfect unity, communion of persons, complementary natures, etc.).

I'm glad to be considered your friend :smile: but . . . have you mistaken me for another TPFer? I don't think we've conversed before. If I've forgotten, my apologies.

No worries: maybe I am mistaking you for someone else.

The cost of this move, however, is that God no longer has alternative possibilities or deliberative choice in the ordinary sense. A purely actual, necessary being cannot do otherwise than it does. As a result, moral predicates such as responsibility, permission, or justification apply only analogically, not literally.

This is a very good observation, and I just happened to explain this in detail to another gentlemen; so let me quote that here:

This assumes that it would have been better for their to be less suffering at the cost of the natural world in which we live now; and I am not sure why that would be the case. Again, this assumes that God has a magical power to create a world which is better than the one we have because we have this intuition that suffering is bad and that we can conceive of a world without it; but this confuses metaphysical possibility with conceivability.

This isn’t true for classical theism simpliciter, but my flavor of it would say that a completely actualized and pure intellect would always have to pick the best option. This is because it has to have full knowledge of everything that is real and what could exist due to lacking nothing at what it is (which is an intellect); and the nature of an intellect is that it always wills what it perceives as best; and what this being, since it has perfect knowledge, perceives as best is what is best; and it has unrestrained power to will what it perceives as best (which would be what is best in this case). This means that the world which was created, in its entirety, must be the best out of the options that could have been out of necessity.

What is best is a creation perfectly ordered towards what is perfectly good; which is God Himself. So whatever may be contained in God’s creation must have been, at least prior to any Great Fall, perfectly ordered towards Himself (which is perfect unity, communion of persons, complementary natures, etc.).

The point is that God necessarily freely chooses what is best; and this is unique to God because there is nothing the same as Him in His creation. The problem is that your view thinks He just necessarily chooses (without freedom); and this assumes a ‘freedom of indifference’ metaphysic of freedom (where freedom is fundamentally about being able to choose from options). Whereas, on the other hand, classical theism holds the ‘freedom for excellence’ view (which is that freedom is fundamentally about being in a state of being most conducive to flourishing at what kind of thing you are). In FFE, one can freely choose option, e.g., A when A was the only option they could choose from; and this is not possible in FOI. In FOI, God is uniquely the kind of being that is absolutely unfree because He has no option to choose otherwise like we do; whereas in FFE, God is uniquely the kind of being with absolute freedom because He can will in accord with reason with perfect knowledge uninhibited by anything external to Himself as pure act of thought (and this is what is most conducive of a state of being for an intellect to be an intellect).

In that sense, classical theism preserves internal coherence by stepping outside the moral framework that gives rise to the problem of evil, rather than resolving it within that framework

But this isn’t true given your critique above. All your critique would show, at best, is that God has no freedom; but God, according to your concession of classical theism (for the sake of your point), would be perfectly good still and consequently would create in a perfectly good way.

This assumes that it would have been better for their to be less suffering at the cost of the natural world in which we live now; and I am not sure why that would be the case. — Bob Ross

But not to assume it is to assume something much harder to swallow -- that this is indeed the best of all possible worlds, so good that not even God could make it any better. You acknowledge this, on behalf of classical theism. How would one go on to argue which of the two assumptions is more likely? I don't know if there's a "likely-ometer" we can employ! But in favor of the first assumption, it's hard to disagree with the idea that a world without the suffering of my neighbor's child wouldn't be a better world; or, if that would upset some cosmic balance, then the next suffering child, or the next, or the next . . . etc. Surely just one could have been spared? There are so many to choose among! And while we're at it, maybe the Holocaust? And the Rwandan genocide? And . . .etc. Again, we're spoiled for choice. So much horror and suffering is all necessary?

Against the second assumption, we'd have to recalibrate all our moral and imaginative language in order to consider our current world "the best". It could only mean that God's idea of the best doesn't remotely resemble what a human would mean. And if that's the case, there's not much point in even talking about God using human attributes like goodness.

we have this intuition that suffering is bad and that we can conceive of a world without it — Bob Ross

No, that's too broad-brush. We have the intuition that a great deal of suffering is bad and that we can conceive of a world without at least some of it. If that intuition's incorrect, then see above: We are so in the dark about matters of good and bad, and of what is possible, that we might as well stop trying to talk about it.

There are, by the way, other defenses of the ways of God that don't back us into this corner, as you of course know.

No, that's too broad-brush. We have the intuition that a great deal of suffering is bad and that we can conceive of a world without at least some of it. — J

Right. Would the world massively collapse in some way if PMS cramps were 10% less painful?

But not to assume it is to assume something much harder to swallow -- that this is indeed the best of all possible worlds, so good that not even God could make it any better

Not quite. I think you are thinking of ‘this world’ in the sense of our universe: I was referring to the totality of God’s creation, which includes heaven.

How would one go on to argue which of the two assumptions is more likely? I don't know if there's a "likely-ometer" we can employ!

This is the central question one should be asking, and this is very astute of you to discern: most people get stuck in a problem of evil debate without examining this crucial aspect of the discussion. I would say that we have good, separate reasons to believe that God exists and in this classical sense; and so it must be the case that this is the best possible creation. However, someone could approach it from the perspective that this universe seems too insufferable or evil to be possibly what God could create; and this argument requires that they demonstrate why. When I say God exists in the classical sense, I must demonstrate why; just as much as they must demonstrate why this world is not a part of the best totality of creation. The problem is that they don’t demonstrate it: they leave it at this vague intuition they have.

But in favor of the first assumption, it's hard to disagree with the idea that a world without the suffering of my neighbor's child wouldn't be a better world

Free will; natural laws; soul-building; etc.

 Surely just one could have been spared?

But this, without justification, is a baseless and vague intuition you have. I get why you have it, but you need to demonstrate how God could have spared even just one child that has suffered pointlessly without comprising the higher goods of freedom, love, heaven, etc.

It could only mean that God's idea of the best doesn't remotely resemble what a human would mean

This is partially true, I think: for example, we tend to think suffering is intrinsically bad; but I don’t think this is true. Suffering is neutral: it depends on why you are suffering. This idea that suffering should be avoiding at the cost of almost everything is a liberal idea that I don’t share.

No, that's too broad-brush. We have the intuition that a great deal of suffering is bad and that we can conceive of a world without at least some of it

In order for this to be true, you would have to have sufficient knowledge of the totality of creation—including heaven and hell—so as to decipher how one could create a world that doesn’t sacrifice perfect justice, perfect mercy, freedom, love, etc. for the sake of avoiding suffering.

Can you demonstrate it?

There are, by the way, other defenses of the ways of God that don't back us into this corner, as you of course know.

True.

It could only mean that God's idea of the best doesn't remotely resemble what a human would mean - J

This is partially true, I think: for example, we tend to think suffering is intrinsically bad; but I don’t think this is true. — Bob Ross

I'm not sure that helps. We can think of far too many cases -- the majority, probably -- in which suffering is bad for specific reasons. Let me really load the dice: The suffering and slow death of children who are trapped beneath a cliff after an earthquake is "bad," for reasons we can both give, though that word is much too weak. Preserving our ordinary meanings of goodness and badness, we could, perhaps, just about make a plausible case for why such suffering "had to happen" in this best of all possible worlds. The problem is that you have to multiply your plausible case by a million million, to equivalently explain all the other instances of "bad suffering." This is where the "likely-ometer" starts to go off, especially if you don't have a previous belief in a loving God.

The other alternative is, as you say, to just acknowledge that we don't have a clue. We lack the knowledge God has about outcomes, possibilities, etc. But, to be consistent, that would mean we could no longer speak about God as "good" or "loving", since we no longer know what those words mean from the cosmic viewpoint. They can't mean "sparing suffering whenever possible," unless our understanding of "possible" also is immeasurably out of whack. And if it is, we're back to wondering why it wasn't possible for God to do something that any child can do for its pet, namely create a "world" that is on the whole kind and nurturing.

This sense of what is loving and possible is not something most believers are willing to give up, and I don't think we should.

Yes, but that responsibility is not absolute, and treating it as if it were is where the analogy goes wrong.

1. Being mindful ≠ being bound

A loving father should take his son’s wishes seriously. Respecting agency matters. But being mindful of someone’s wishes does not morally obligate you to permit their foreseeable death, especially when you have the authority and capacity to prevent it.

If that were the case, any parent could absolve themselves by saying, “My child wanted this.” That’s not how moral responsibility works.

2. Authority increases responsibility, not reduces it. The greater the power, the greater the culpability.

In your story, the father:

* Has authority over the son,
* Knows with certainty the son will die,
* Has the power to forbid the action and be obeyed.

Those facts increase the father’s moral responsibility. The more power and knowledge you have, the less plausible moral passivity becomes.

Mindfulness of wishes matters most when:

* The harm is unavoidable,
* The agent lacks decisive control,
* Or preventing the act would violate comparable moral rights.

None of that is true here.

3. Wishes don’t override preventable harm.

The son’s desire to save others is morally admirable. But admiration does not license allowing a preventable death when:

* The goal could be achieved by other means, or
* The authority figure could intervene without comparable moral cost.

Respecting autonomy has limits - especially when death is certain and avoidable.

4. Why this matters for the God analogy

For a human father in tragic circumstances, honoring a child’s wish may be morally defensible because options are constrained.

For an omniscient, omnipotent being, constraints evaporate. Appealing to “respect for wishes” becomes hollow when:

* No tragic trade-off is necessary,
* No lethal mission is required,
* No greater good depends on the death.

At that point, allowing the death is a choice, not a necessity.

Yes, the father should be mindful of his son’s wishes - but mindfulness does not justify permitting a foreseeable, preventable death when one has decisive power to stop it.

Respect for agency matters.
Preventing unnecessary death matters more.

This objection trades on an ambiguity between suffering as a chosen challenge and suffering as imposed harm. Once that distinction is made, the argument loses its force.

1. “Minimizing suffering” ≠ “eliminating all difficulty”.

My premise does not claim that a perfectly omnibenevolent being must eliminate:

* effort,
* risk,
* challenge,
* self-chosen hardship.

It claims such a being would oppose unnecessary, non-consensual, and uncompensated suffering - especially when no greater good requires it.

Mountaineers choose hardship. That choice itself is part of their flourishing. But:

* the value lies in the agency, not the pain,
* and the pain is instrumentally tolerated, not intrinsically good.

A broken leg, frostbite, or death on the mountain are not what make the climb meaningful. They are tolerated risks - not virtues.

2. Virtues do not logically require suffering.

Courage, fortitude, and perseverance require:

* resistance,
* uncertainty,
* stakes.

They do not logically require agony, trauma, disease, or death.

An omniscient and omnipotent being could instantiate:

* meaningful challenge without horrific suffering,
* growth without child cancer,
* courage without genocide,
* fortitude without lifelong trauma.

The claim that suffering itself is necessary for virtue is an empirical assumption, not a logical truth - and a highly questionable one.

3. The “heroic gods” point concedes limitation.

When the Greeks said the gods could not be heroic because they were immortal, they were describing limited gods, not morally perfect ones.

But omnibenevolence, omniscience and omnipotence change the landscape:

* If a being cannot enable virtue without permitting extreme suffering, then it is not all-powerful.
* If it can, but chooses not to, then it is not omnibenevolent.

You can’t appeal to tragic necessity and omnipotence at the same time.

4. Preference matters, not absolute prohibition.

Premise 4 says:

“prefers the outcome that maximizes well-being and minimizes suffering.”

“Prefers” does not mean:

* zero pain,
* zero challenge,
* zero cost.

It means:

* no gratuitous suffering,
* no morally pointless horrors,
* no worse world chosen when a better one is available.

A being who chooses a world with extreme, involuntary suffering when a better one was possible has made a value judgment - and that judgment contradicts omnibenevolence.

* Chosen hardship can enhance well-being.
* Involuntary, excessive suffering does not become good by producing side virtues.
* Virtue does not logically require agony.
* Omnipotence eliminates tragic necessity.

So the appeal to adventure and fortitude does not undermine Premise 4 - it quietly assumes constraints that omnipotence explicitly denies.

Your reply relies on assertion where argument is required, and it quietly assumes the very conclusions it’s meant to defend.

1. “Suffering is not avoidable” is not established - it’s asserted.

Saying suffering is “not avoidable” only follows if all of the following are true:

* Free will logically requires ignorance, vulnerability, and massive asymmetries of power.
* Free will logically requires the capacity for extreme suffering.
* No alternative forms of agency are possible.

None of that has been demonstrated. It’s simply declared.

An omnipotent being is not restricted to one implementation of free will. If it is, omnipotence has already been abandoned.

2. Free will does not require this much suffering.

Even if we grant (for the sake of argument) that:

* Free will is intrinsically valuable, and
* Some risk must accompany it,

it does not follow that:

* children must die of cancer,
* people must be born with unbearable chronic pain,
* genocide, famine, and torture must exist,
* billions must live and die without understanding or opportunity.

That is a non sequitur.

A being who can design minds and worlds could:

* limit the magnitude of harm,
* ensure informed agency,
* prevent irreversible devastation,
* intervene before catastrophic suffering occurs.

If those options exist, then the suffering is avoidable.

3. “Outweighing suffering” is a moral trade-off - not omnibenevolence.

Claiming that:

“The existence of beings like us is so positive it outweighs the suffering”

is no longer a defense of perfect goodness. It’s a utilitarian calculus that accepts preventable harm for a greater aggregate outcome.

That position entails:

* some beings are created as means rather than ends,
* some lives are knowingly allowed to be net-negative,
* extreme suffering is morally acceptable if the total ledger comes out positive.

That is not omnibenevolence as normally understood. It is selective benevolence constrained by a preferred project.

4. “Maximally good” is doing illicit work here.

Saying a world of perfect beings would not be “maximally good” assumes:

* value depends on contrast with suffering,
* ignorance is necessary for meaning,
* vulnerability is intrinsically superior to flourishing.

Those are substantive axiological claims, not logical truths. They require argument, not intuition.

Worse, they imply that suffering is not merely permitted - it is instrumentally valuable.

At that point, suffering is no longer a tragic byproduct. It is part of the design.

5. The core dilemma remains untouched.

If God could have created:

* beings with greater knowledge,
* greater resilience,
* greater moral insight,
* reduced capacity for catastrophic harm,

and chose not to - then the suffering introduced was avoidable.

If God could not do this, then God is not omnipotent.

Your reply abandons omnibenevolence for outcome-based justification, assumes constraints omnipotence denies, and treats suffering as a necessary ingredient rather than a moral failure.

Once that concession is made, classical theism has already been revised - not defended.

Your response is philosophically coherent only because it abandons the very moral framework classical theism usually wants to keep. That’s the key point.

1. You’ve conceded the central issue: moral categories no longer apply literally.

You explicitly state that for God:

* responsibility,
* permission,
* justification,

apply only analogically, not literally.

Once that concession is made, the problem of evil is not solved - it is declared inapplicable. That is not a resolution; it is an exemption.

But then classical theism loses the right to:

* praise God as morally good in the same sense we mean “good,”
* say God is just, loving, or omnibenevolent in any ordinary moral sense,
* appeal to God as a moral exemplar.

You cannot step outside morality to escape moral critique and then step back inside to make moral claims.

2. “Best possible world” collapses into triviality.

You argue that:

* God necessarily wills what He perceives as best,
* God’s perception just is what is best,
* therefore this world must be the best possible world.

But this renders “best” empty of independent content.

On this view:

whatever God actualizes = what is best
because God actualizes it.

That is not an evaluative claim - it’s a tautology.

It makes the statement:

“God created the best possible world”

equivalent to:

“God created the world God created.”

Nothing substantive follows from that, and no comparison with alternative worlds is meaningful.

Besides, you have not proven that God exists and created the universe we exist in.

3. Appealing to metaphysical necessity doesn’t neutralize the critique.

You suggest my argument assumes conceivability = metaphysical possibility.

It doesn’t.

My argument is conditional and structural:

If a world with less involuntary suffering and greater flourishing was metaphysically possible, and if God necessarily actualizes the best, then the existence of massive suffering requires explanation.

Your response avoids the conditional by asserting:

“This is the only world that could have been.”

But that assertion is doing all the work, and it is unsupported.

Worse, it entails that:

* childhood cancer,
* extreme congenital pain,
* moral ignorance leading to eternal consequences (on many theologies),

are not tragic features of reality but necessary components of the optimal order.

That is a very heavy metaphysical cost.

4. Freedom-for-Excellence does not rescue moral agency.

Reframing divine freedom as FFE rather than FOI doesn’t help here.

On your own account:

* God cannot do otherwise,
* God has no deliberative alternatives,
* God’s act is necessary and automatic given His nature.

Calling that “freedom” is a stipulative redefinition, not a vindication of agency.

If a being lacks alternative possibilities, cannot refrain, cannot revise, then it does not meaningfully choose in the sense required for moral praise or blame - regardless of how perfect its internal state is.

FFE may preserve metaphysical elegance, but it empties moral language of traction.

5. Saying “God remains perfectly good” becomes question-begging.

You conclude that: even if God has no freedom, He is still perfectly good.

But now “good” no longer means:

* responsive to suffering,
* opposed to harm,
* committed to minimizing needless pain.

It means: “whatever necessarily flows from divine actuality.”

At that point, “perfect goodness” is no longer a moral claim - it is a metaphysical label.

6. The real upshot (which you partly admit).

You say: classical theism preserves internal coherence by stepping outside the moral framework that gives rise to the problem of evil.

Exactly.

And that is my point.

Once you do that:

* the problem of evil is not answered but rendered irrelevant by fiat,
* omnibenevolence ceases to be recognisably benevolence,
* moral evaluation of God becomes impossible in principle.

Your position is internally coherent only because it gives up:

* literal moral goodness,
* meaningful responsibility,
* genuine evaluative comparison between possible worlds.

That is a defensible metaphysical move, but it is not a defense of omnibenevolence as ordinarily understood.

It doesn’t refute my critique.
It confirms that classical theism avoids it by exiting the moral domain entirely.

↪Ecurb This objection trades on an ambiguity between suffering as a chosen challenge and suffering as imposed harm. Once that distinction is made, the argument loses its force — Truth Seeker

The fact that mountaineers choose suffering means that they (at least) see some virtue in overcoming it. Besides,, without suffering, courage would be meaningless., So would heroism. Have you read "The Worm Ouroboros" by E.R. Edison? It's a pre-Tolkien fantasy in which the heroes defeat the enemy, and then rue their peaceful lives without challenges and suffering, courage and heroism.

IN addition, who can know the mind of God? Maybe He values heroism more than you do? Maybe genocide offers the victims eternal bliss. OK, He massacred all those first born Egyptians, but we don't know what became of them after death.

It is true that "omnibenevolence" loses significance if everything God does is good by definition. IN that case, saying God is "benevolent" is like saying "God is God". But that's the theme of the Bible. God is good by definition. The careful reader must accept that (not in real life, but as a literary theme).

Therefore, such a deity cannot be simultaneously omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent. — Truth Seeker

Does a deity exist in the real world?

Your response assumes that free will can be preserved while catastrophic consequences are engineered away. That assumption is unargued and highly questionable. A world in which harm is always capped, reversed, or divinely intercepted is one in which agency is never finally serious. Moral choice without the real possibility of irreversible failure is not the same kind of freedom. Omnipotence does not require God to actualize every imaginable form of agency, only those that are logically coherent.

You also assume God could indefinitely increase knowledge, power, and resilience without changing the moral structure of the world. But beyond a certain point, those increases collapse epistemic distance. A world that is too safe, too orderly, or too transparently managed would function as direct empirical proof of divine authorship and ongoing intervention. Belief would no longer be freely formed; it would be compelled by evidence. Faith would be replaced by inference, and trust by observation.

The claim, then, is not that suffering is good or instrumentally valuable. It is that certain goods—genuine trust, faith, moral responsibility, repentance, and transformation—logically require vulnerability and risk. Remove those conditions, and you remove the goods themselves. In that sense, the suffering is not “avoidable” without sacrificing the very features that give moral agency its depth.

So the dilemma does not stand. Either God could not eliminate suffering without destroying these goods (which places no limit on omnipotence), or God refrained in order to preserve free, non-coerced relationship (which places no limit on omnibenevolence). What remains is not a logical contradiction in classical theism, but a disagreement over which moral goods are worth having.

I am not convinced the Biblical God is good. Please see: https://www.evilbible.com and https://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/categories.html if you have the time to explore both websites in detail. If you don't have that much time, here are some of the reasons the Biblical God, if he/she/it/they exist(s), has done/is doing/will do more evil than good.

God didn't keep his words to Adam and Eve

In Genesis 2:16 and 17 the Bible (New International Version) says:
And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die."

If after eating the forbidden fruits, Adam and Eve died just as God had said, then that would have been just and consistent with God's Words. However, after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruits, instead of just Adam and Eve just dying:
1. God evicted them from Eden.
2. God punished Eve and all her daughters (an estimated 54 billion and counting) with painful childbirths.
3. God evicted all the other species from Eden, too, and makes herbivores, parasites, carnivores and omnivores instead of making all the species non-consumers.
4. God punished humans with having to toil to survive.
5. God commanded humans to reproduce which leads to more suffering and death. Ruling over other creatures causes suffering and death to those creatures, too. "God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground."" - Genesis 1:28, The Bible (NIV)

These acts are cruel and unjust and totally inconsistent with what God had said to Adam and Eve which was they would just die if they ate the forbidden fruits. God didn't keep his words to Adam and Eve.

If God had made Adam, Eve, the angels, all the other species all-knowing and all-powerful, then they would all be making perfect choices. It is 100% God's fault that Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge. If they were all-knowing and all-powerful, they would not have the desire to gain knowledge, as they would already have known everything there is to know.

I didn't ask to come into existence. No living thing does. I would have preferred it if I had never existed. If God is real and actually did the things the Bible claims, then these cruel, unjust and inconsistent actions make the Biblical God evil.

Global genocide - The Global Flood

Genesis 6:13, 7:21-23 (ESV)

“And God said to Noah, ‘I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth.’ … And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all mankind. Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died.”
Summary: God kills virtually every living creature on Earth, sparing only Noah's family and the selected animals in Noah's Ark.

Genocide of Sodom and Gomorrah

Genesis 19:24-25 (ESV)

“Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the LORD out of heaven. And he overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.”
Summary: Two entire cities are burned alive - men, women, and children - for collective sin.

The Ten Plagues of Egypt (mass suffering and death)

Exodus 12:29-30 (ESV)

“At midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock. And Pharaoh rose up in the night … and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead.”
Summary: Every Egyptian firstborn - including infants, sentient animals and prisoners - is killed by God.

Genocides ordered in Canaan

Deuteronomy 20:16-17 (ESV)

“But in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the LORD your God has commanded.”
Summary: Explicit divine command to exterminate entire populations.

1 Samuel 15:2-3 (ESV)

“Thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘I have noted what Amalek did to Israel … Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’”
Summary: A total genocide command including infants and animals.

Slavery sanctioned and regulated, instead of banned

Leviticus 25:44-46 (ESV)

“As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. … You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. You may make slaves of them, but over your brothers … you shall not rule one over another ruthlessly.”
Summary: Permanent enslavement of foreigners is explicitly permitted.

Human child sacrifice ordered (later revoked)

Genesis 22:2, 12 (ESV)

“He said, ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering…’”
“He said, ‘Do not lay your hand on the boy…’”
Summary: God tests Abraham by commanding the killing of his child - a psychological act of cruelty, even if halted. Why would an all-knowing and all-powerful being need to test anyone? It makes no sense.

Mass slaughter of boys, men and non-virgin women and sexual slavery of virgin girls

Numbers 31:17-18 (ESV)

“Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him. But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him keep alive for yourselves.”
Summary: Command to kill boys and non-virgin women; keep virgin girls as sex slaves.

Sevenfold punishment and cannibalism (threat)

Leviticus 26:27-29 (ESV)

“But if in spite of this you will not listen to me, but walk contrary to me, then I will walk contrary to you in fury, and I myself will discipline you sevenfold for your sins. You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters.”
Summary: God threatens to make His people resort to cannibalism as punishment.

Eternal torment in Hell

Matthew 25:46 (ESV)

“And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Revelation 14:10-11 (ESV)

“He also will drink the wine of God’s wrath … and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night.”

Mark 9:43-48 (ESV)

“It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire … where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.”
Summary: Eternal conscious torment for unbelievers - infinite punishment for finite crimes.

Matthew 25:41 (ESV)

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’”

Revelation 20:10 (ESV)

“...and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.”

Luke 13:27-28 (ESV)

“But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’ In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out.”

Matthew 13:49-50 (ESV)

“So it will be at the close of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Divine deception and hardening of hearts

Exodus 9:12 (ESV)

“But the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not listen to them, as the LORD had spoken to Moses.”
Summary: God prevents Pharaoh from repenting, then punishes him for it.

2 Thessalonians 2:11 (ESV)

“Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false.”
Summary: God intentionally deceives some people.

Killing for minor offenses

Numbers 15:32-36 (ESV)

“While the people of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day… And the LORD said to Moses, ‘The man shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp.’”

2 Kings 2:23-24 (ESV)

“He went up from there to Bethel, and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!” And he turned around, and when he saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. And two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the boys.”
Summary: Death penalty for collecting firewood on the wrong day, and 42 small boys murdered by bears because they made fun of a prophet's baldness.

Collective punishment across generations

Exodus 20:5 (ESV)

“For I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me.”
Summary: Descendants are punished for ancestors’ actions - contrary to the Bible’s own later law: “The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.” - Ezekiel 18:20 (ESV).

Predestination

Ephesians 1:4-5 (ESV)

“Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,”

John 6:44 (ESV)

“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.”
Summary: God predestined who would be saved and who would be damned forever. It is absurd and utterly cruel and unjust.

Conclusion

These verses show that the Biblical God, by the Bible’s own words, kills entire populations, including children and animals, endorses slavery, inflicts suffering, threatens eternal torture in hell, hardens hearts or deceives minds, and predestinates who would be saved and who would be damned, removing moral responsibility.

When the acts attributed to God are judged by the same moral standards the Bible applies to humans - such as “You shall not kill,” “Love your neighbour,” and “Love your enemies” - they fit the description of moral evil far more often than benevolence. The Biblical God is a hypocrite who has killed and has failed to love his neighbours and enemies.

That’s why I conclude that, if the Biblical God exists and the Biblical text is true, His recorded actions are predominantly evil rather than good.

There are also extra-Biblical reasons. At least 99.9% of all the species that have existed so far on Earth are already extinct. Every year, non-vegans cause suffering and death to 80 billion sentient land organisms (e.g. cattle, chickens, pigs, lambs, goats, ducks, turkeys, etc.) and 1 to 3 trillion sentient aquatic organisms (e.g. fish, lobsters, octopuses, crabs, etc.). Life is full of suffering, injustice, and death. An allegedly all-knowing and all-powerful being, such as the Biblical God, could have prevented all suffering, injustice, and death, but failed to do so. He could have made all organisms made of energy that don't need to consume anything to live forever, but he didn't do that. So, all suffering, injustice, and death are 100% his fault. If he had not created anything, no one would have the burden of existence or the risk of making mistakes. If he had made everyone he has allegedly made, all-knowing and all-powerful, then everyone would always make perfect choices, and no one would have made any mistakes due to ignorance, incompetence or trickery.

I am an agnostic regarding the existence of God(s) because it is impossible to prove or disprove the existence of God(s). However, I am convinced that the Biblical God is imaginary and evil. He is imaginary because there is no evidence for the claims made in the Bible. He is evil because of his many evil words and actions in the Bible.

Your reply sharpens the position, but it still rests on unargued necessity claims and quietly narrows omnipotence in ways that matter.

1. “Serious agency” does not require catastrophic irreversibility.

You assert that freedom is undermined if harm is capped, reversible, or intercepted.

That claim is not self-evident and is contradicted by ordinary moral practice.

We already limit irreversible harm (prisons, safety nets, emergency intervention) without erasing moral responsibility. A surgeon whose errors are correctable is still morally accountable. A child whose worst impulses are constrained is still a moral agent.

Irreversibility increases stakes; it does not define agency. Catastrophe is not a prerequisite for responsibility - it is an escalation.

2. Omnipotence is being constrained by a single model of agency.

You say omnipotence need not actualize “every imaginable form of agency.”

True, but the issue is narrower.

The question is whether any logically coherent form of agency exists that includes:

* meaningful choice,
* genuine responsibility,
* growth and transformation,

without permitting extreme, involuntary, lifelong or terminal suffering.

You have not shown that such forms are impossible - only that one familiar human model relies on high vulnerability. That is not a logical limit; it is a design preference.

3. Epistemic distance is a sliding scale, not a binary.

You claim that increasing knowledge, safety, or resilience would collapse epistemic distance and compel belief.

But epistemic distance is not all-or-nothing.

We already live in a world with:

* overwhelming evidence of physical law,
* strong evidence of other minds,
* strong evidence of moral consequences,

yet belief, trust, and commitment remain non-coerced.

A world with:

* less ignorance,
* less needless harm,
* fewer grotesque asymmetries of power,

does not logically become a world of forced belief. That is a slippery-slope assertion, not a demonstrated necessity.

4. Faith and trust do not logically require horrific suffering.

You list goods such as:

* faith,
* trust,
* repentance,
* transformation,

and claim they require vulnerability and risk.

Grant vulnerability and risk.

But nothing in that list requires:

* childhood cancer,
* congenital agony,
* genocidal violence,
* lives that are net-negative from birth to death.

If those are required, that is not a logical truth - it is a morally loaded stipulation.

5. The dilemma still stands - but now it is clearer.

You say:

Either God could not eliminate suffering without destroying these goods, or God refrained to preserve free relationship.

But the dilemma I raised was never about eliminating all suffering. It was about avoidable, excessive, non-consensual suffering.

So the real options remain:

1. God could have preserved agency while reducing such suffering but did not
→ omnibenevolence is compromised.

2. God could not do so
→ omnipotence is constrained by a very specific anthropology.

3. God necessarily created this world
→ moral predicates no longer apply literally.

Your reply commits to (2) while denying it is a limitation. But any claim of “logical necessity” must be argued - not asserted.

6. “Disagreement over values” is not enough.

This is not merely a dispute over which goods are “worth having.”

It is a dispute over whether:

* extreme suffering is a necessary condition for moral depth,
* or whether that claim reflects inherited intuitions rather than logical constraint.

Until necessity is shown, “worth it” remains a moral preference - not a refutation.

You’ve presented a coherent theodicy, but coherence is not the same as vindication.

Your defense succeeds only by:

* asserting that certain horrors are logically indispensable,
* narrowing omnipotence to one model of agency,
* and treating alternative designs as incoherent without proof.

That doesn’t dissolve the problem.
It relocates it into an unargued claim about what must be true rather than what is merely familiar.

Thanks for answering and in a clear manner.

So you think the father should have forbade his son from going if I have understood you correctly. You think the responsibility to prevent harm has greater weight and therefore commanding the son not to go would be the right thing to do.

For the sake of transparency, I will say now that I disagree. I think the father's greater responsibility is to observe what his adult son wishes as long as that wish is a legitimate wish in the father's eyes; that is, the father agrees that the goal (mission) achieved is not a bad or undesirable goal.

Do you think all parents should command their children not to join the military, because the military entails foreseeable danger and therefore entails the potential for a harm that could have been prevented?

That would seem to follow from what you said earlier.

I am not convinced the Biblical God is good. — Truth Seeker

One principle of literary criticism is that it is unfair to criticize a book for failing to be a different book. The critic should criticize a book for what it is, not what it isn't.

The Bible affirms the beneficence of God repeatedly. The reader (critic) is thus required to attempt to overcome the seeming paradox resulting from God's goodness and the seemingly wicked acts Truthseeker lists.

It's not easy, but thousands of years of religious apologetics (with which I am not an expert) might help.

Regarding the "genocides": isn't it acceptable for the child who builds the sandcastle to kick it over? It might be evil for the local bully to destroy the other kid's creation -- but not for the maker.

In addition, God created a world in which death exists. To an immortal outside of time and space the distinction between dying in a flood and dying of old age might be irrelevant.

As God asked Job, He might ask Truthseeker," 4Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. 5Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? 6Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; 7When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?"

The moral rules that apply to man clearly do not apply to God -- the finite does not apply to the infinite. Death is doled out by God in many ways -- but humans are enjoined from doling it out to their fellows.
Judging the benevolence of God by human standards is a mistake.

Regarding Adam and Eve's expulsion from Eden, I happen to be reading Paradise Lost right now. Here is the magnificent ending of that epic, as Adam and Eve are expelled from Eden.

"They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late their happy seat,
Waved over by that flaming brand; the gate
With dreadful faces thronged, and fiery arms:
Some natural tears they dropt, but wiped them soon;
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide:
They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way."

Was Paradise lost, or gained? "The world was all before them" and they were free. Freedom entails difficulties, but overcoming them is a pleasure (and a virtue) beyond that of simple existence without suffering.

(By the way, in "Paradise Lost" Satan is a dynamo, rebelling against an autocratic heaven. God and Jesus are more mamby-pamby. Is autocracy consistent with a utopian heaven? i'd suggest utopia must be an anarchy. Satan's rebellion lacked nobility because he would rather "rule in Hell than serve
in heaven." Other revolutionaries have followed suit. The autocracies of the Tsar or the Shah were destroyed, but autocracy merely shifted leadership.)

Also, I'm not religious. But it seems to me that judging God by human standards is a mistake. I'll grant that this makes asserting God's omnibenevolence circular.

I think what’s happening here is that the bar for “necessity” is being set so high that no theodicy could ever clear it. You’re asking for a proof that no possible alternative form of agency could preserve moral seriousness while eliminating extreme suffering. But omnipotence doesn’t require that every imaginable design be realizable, only that logically coherent ones are. Saying “God could have done better” isn’t an argument unless a coherent alternative is actually spelled out.

On the “serious agency” point: I’m not claiming catastrophe defines moral responsibility. I’m saying that a world where consequences are always capped, reversed, or preemptively blocked is not just a safer version of ours, it’s a fundamentally different kind of moral environment. Things like prisons, safety nets, and error correction only make sense against a background where irreversible harm is possible. They mitigate risk; they don’t erase moral finality. If final devastation is structurally impossible, agency loses depth in a way ordinary safeguards don’t touch.

You keep appealing to alternative “designs” of agency, but none are actually described in a way that preserves everything at once: meaningful choice, deep responsibility, transformation, and real stakes, without allowing catastrophic misuse. Pointing out that the human model involves vulnerability doesn’t show that vulnerability is optional. It might be doing essential work. Until a clear alternative is on the table, appealing to omnipotence just becomes hand-waving.

On epistemic distance: this isn’t about certainty versus uncertainty in general. It’s about whether the world clearly advertises a supervisory intelligence that steps in whenever things get too bad. A reality that reliably prevents extreme suffering, corrects outcomes in real time, and neutralizes catastrophic harm wouldn’t just be “nicer” or “more informed.” It would obviously be managed. At that point, belief wouldn’t be freely formed, it would be the default inference. Trust would turn into compliance. That’s not a slippery slope; it’s a predictable consequence of systematic intervention.

And I agree that faith and trust don’t require specific horrors like cancer or genocide. But the claim was never that each instance is necessary. The claim is that a world with genuine freedom must allow the possibility of horrors, and once that’s allowed, their actual occurrence follows from creaturely action and natural processes, not divine micromanagement. Treating suffering as if it were individually selected misses the level at which the theodicy is operating.

So I don’t think the dilemma comes back unchanged. The real disagreement is whether moral depth, free trust, and non-coerced relationship can exist in a world that’s systematically engineered to prevent extreme loss. You think yes. The theist thinks no, because agency, epistemic distance, and moral finality hang together. That’s a real disagreement about values and metaphysics, not a proof that classical theism is incoherent.

Thanks for laying your position out clearly. That helps. But the military analogy does not follow from what I said, and the difference matters.

1. You’ve changed a key condition.

In your original story, the father:

* knows with certainty that the son will die,
* knows he can prevent it, and
* knows the son will obey if forbidden.

That is radically different from a parent whose adult child joins the military.

In real life:

* Parents do not have certainty of death if their adult son joins the military.
* Parents do not have the authority to prevent adult children from joining the military.
* Parents do not have the power to prevent the harm even if they disapprove.

So the military case lacks the decisive features that generated responsibility in your original scenario.

2. Moral responsibility tracks power and knowledge.

My claim was never:

“Parents must prevent all foreseeable risks.”

It was:

When an agent has decisive power, foreknowledge, and a non-tragic alternative, responsibility attaches.

A parent whose adult child joins the military:

* lacks decisive control,
* lacks certainty,
* lacks alternative means to achieve the same goal.

The father in your story has all three.

3. Respecting wishes has limits - even legitimate ones.

You say the father’s greater responsibility is to respect the son’s legitimate wish.

But legitimacy of the goal does not automatically justify permitting certain death when:

* the harm is guaranteed,
* prevention is possible,
* and the authority to prevent exists.

If respecting wishes always overrides harm prevention, then:

* parents could not intervene in suicidal missions,
* guardians could not stop terminally dangerous choices,
* authority would be morally hollow.

That’s an implausible moral standard.

4. The analogy only works by smuggling in human limitation.

Your intuition relies on treating the father as:

* emotionally involved but power-limited,
* morally serious but tragically constrained.

Once those limits are removed - once the father has certainty, authority, and alternatives - the moral calculus changes.

That is exactly why the analogy breaks when it’s used to model God.

5. Why this matters for the original debate.

The point was never “parents should forbid risk.”
The point was:

Allowing a preventable, foreknown death while possessing decisive power is not morally neutral.

In human cases, that power rarely exists.
In divine cases, it is central.

No, it does not follow that parents should forbid military service.
Yes, it does follow that an authority who knows death is certain and preventable bears responsibility if they permit it.
The analogy only survives by quietly stripping the father of the very powers that made the case morally interesting in the first place.

Your disagreement is understandable, but it depends on sliding from a case of decisive control to one of tragic limitation. That slide does the work, not the principle.

Thank you for the thoughtful response. I’ll be equally direct. "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things." - Isaiah 45:7, The Bible (KJV). The Biblical God clearly states that he creates evil. Omniscience and omnipotence make omniscient and omnipotent beings omniculpable. Might does not make right. Might is right is wrong.

1. Literary criticism does not suspend moral evaluation.

The principle you cite - criticize a book for what it is, not what it isn’t - does not exempt a text from moral scrutiny.

If a book asserts that a character is perfectly good while depicting that character commanding genocide, killing babies, endorsing slavery, and punishing innocents, then pointing out the evil choices is not asking the book to be a different book. It is taking the book at its word.

If anything, refusing to evaluate the claims internally would be special pleading.

2. Repetition of beneficence is not evidence of beneficence.

The Bible asserts God’s goodness repeatedly. So do many texts about many rulers.

Assertions do not settle moral questions. Actions do.

If a text says “X is perfectly good” and then describes X doing things that would be considered monstrous if done by anyone else, the burden is not on the reader to harmonize at all costs. It is on the claim itself.

Appealing to “thousands of years of apologetics” is not an argument - it’s an appeal to tradition.

3. The sandcastle analogy fails categorically.

Comparing sentient beings to sandcastles collapses the moral distinction that makes morality possible at all.

* Sandcastles do not feel terror.
* Sandcastles do not experience pain.
* Sandcastles do not value their own continued existence.

If the creator–creature relationship nullifies moral obligations, then no action toward creatures can be morally evaluated - including mercy, love, or justice.

At that point, “omnibenevolence” becomes meaningless.

4. “Death is irrelevant to an immortal” is morally fatal.

You suggest that from God’s perspective, dying in a flood or of old age may be irrelevant.

That move concedes the core objection.

What matters morally is not how death looks to the immortal agent, but how it is experienced by the mortal sentient beings.

If a being’s indifference to suffering is justified by its transcendence, then that being is not omnibenevolent.

5. The Book of Job is an argument from power, not goodness.

“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” does not justify anything morally. It asserts authority, not righteousness.

Power can silence a question.
It cannot answer it.

If the response to moral critique is “you are too small to judge,” then moral language has been abandoned - not defended.

6. Two incompatible claims are being made.

You say: The moral rules that apply to man clearly do not apply to God.

But then the Bible also claims:

* God is good,
* God is just,
* God is loving,
* God is a moral lawgiver.

Those claims only make sense if moral terms apply non-trivially.

If God is beyond morality, then:

* “God is good” is not praise,
* “God is just” is not meaningful,
* “God is benevolent” is empty.

You can’t exempt God from moral standards and still credit him with moral virtues.

7. Paradise Lost doesn’t rescue the theology.

Milton’s poetry is powerful - but poetry is not the same as moral justification.

Freedom can involve difficulty.
That does not entail:

* inherited guilt,
* cosmic punishment,
* or divine retribution.

Nor does it retroactively justify suffering imposed without consent.

8. You’ve correctly identified the cost.

You end by saying: I’ll grant that this makes asserting God’s omnibenevolence circular.

That is exactly right.

Once we say:

* God is good because God is God,
* whatever God does is good because God does it,
* and human moral reasoning is inapplicable,

then “omnibenevolence” no longer means benevolence. It becomes a stipulative label, not a moral claim.

I am not demanding that the Bible be a different book.
I am taking its claims seriously and following them where they lead.

And where they lead is this:

Either God is morally evaluable - in which case the depicted actions seriously challenge omnibenevolence, or God is beyond morality - in which case calling him omnibenevolent is empty.

You can have transcendence.
You can have immunity from critique.
But you cannot have those and meaningful moral goodness at the same time.

I agree that we’ve now reached the deepest layer of the disagreement. But at this layer, the issue is no longer rhetorical or intuitive - it’s structural. And here, your position still relies on unearned necessity claims.

1. The burden of necessity really does matter.

You say I’m setting the bar for “necessity” too high. But that’s exactly the bar omnipotence sets.

If the claim is: Extreme suffering is unavoidable if morally serious agency exists, then that is a modal claim - a claim about what is and is not logically possible. Modal claims carry a burden. They are not discharged by saying “no alternative has been spelled out.”

I am not required to prove every alternative design.
You are required to show that none are possible.

Absent that, “God could not have done better” remains an assertion, not a conclusion.

2. You quietly redefine “real stakes” as “irreversible devastation”.

This is the hinge of your argument.

You claim that unless final devastation is structurally possible, agency “loses depth.”

But that is a stipulative elevation of catastrophe, not a logical truth.

* Stakes require significance, not annihilation.
* Finality requires consequence, not maximal harm.
* Responsibility requires authorship, not the power to ruin lives irreversibly.

We already recognize this distinction everywhere else:

* A judge’s ruling has real stakes even though executions are barred.
* A pilot’s error is morally serious even if fail-safes exist.
* A parent’s betrayal can permanently damage trust even without bodily harm.

Depth does not scale linearly with horror.

3. Safeguards ≠ micromanagement.

You repeatedly slide from “engineered limits” to “constant divine supervision.”

That slide is doing illicit work.

A world could be structured such that:

* catastrophic harm is physically impossible beyond a threshold,
* irreversible devastation is blocked by lawlike constraints,
* agents still act freely within those bounds,

without any visible intervention at all.

Gravity already works this way. So do conservation laws. So do biological limits.

If you reply that those limits would themselves advertise design - then epistemic distance is already gone, because fine-tuning arguments exist in our world.

So either:

* epistemic distance is already compromised (which theists deny), or
* lawlike constraints do not force belief.

You can’t have it both ways.

4. “Possibility of horrors” vs “necessity of horrors”.

You now concede something crucial:

“The claim was never that each instance is necessary.”

Good. That matters.

Because once you admit that:

* specific horrors are not required,
* their distribution is not chosen,
* their victims are not selected for moral reasons,

then the question sharpens, it does not dissolve:

Why allow this magnitude, this distribution, this asymmetry, this lifelong devastation?

A world can allow moral risk without allowing:

* infants to be murdered,
* people to be born into nonstop agony,
* moral understanding to be radically unequal.

Allowing the possibility of misuse does not entail allowing every degree of misuse.

5. “No alternative has been described” is not decisive.

You say no alternative preserves everything at once.

But “everything at once” here includes:

* your specific conception of moral depth,
* your specific anthropology,
* your specific epistemology,
* your specific theology of faith.

That stack is not neutral. It is already a theological package.

Omnipotence is precisely the claim that reality need not be restricted to the one package we happen to find familiar.

If only one fragile configuration of agency is possible, omnipotence has already been curtailed.

6. This is not just a values disagreement.

You conclude that this is merely a disagreement over values and metaphysics.

Not quite.

It is a disagreement over whether:

* claims of logical necessity have been justified,
* omnipotence is doing any real work,
* omnibenevolence is more than a project-relative preference.

If your defense requires:

* asserting that catastrophe is essential,
* asserting that no other agency is possible,
* asserting that moral depth scales with irreversible harm,

then, the position is coherent - but it is no longer compelled by the classical attributes of God. It is one metaphysical vision among others.

Your theodicy does not collapse into incoherence, but it survives by raising suffering to a structural necessity and lowering omnipotence to a single viable design space.

That is a substantive metaphysical commitment, not a logical inevitability.

Until the necessity is shown rather than assumed, the original challenge stands:

If a world with less extreme, non-consensual suffering was metaphysically possible, then allowing this one was a choice - and that choice bears on omnibenevolence.

The disagreement is real.
But it is not cost-free, and it is not neutral.

Also, we have not established that biological organisms have libertarian free will. It is assumed by religious people that humans have immortal souls which grant them free will, but the existence of souls and free will is not proven with evidence.

“Parents must prevent all foreseeable risks.” — Truth Seeker

It might not have been your intention to make the claim, yet I think it is an implication of your position. If greater responsibility attaches to preventing harm, as you have asserted, then it follows that any preventable harm must be prevented or else the agent is responsible. In other words, if there is even a potential for harm that turns out to become actualized, the supervising parent must be responsible for not having prevented it. According to your argument, it would not even be morally acceptable for a parent to let their child leave the house, because the child might get a bruised elbow.

* Parents do not have certainty of death if their adult son joins the military.
* Parents do not have the authority to prevent adult children from joining the military.
* Parents do not have the power to prevent the harm even if they disapprove. — Truth Seeker

*It does not matter if death is certain, the possibility of death that the parent knows about should render them responsible on your account.
*Assume at least one parent in the world does have that authority and if they say "no military" then their child will obey them; it is not an inconceivable situation. You can deny that this is possible, but that would seem ad hoc, to me at least.
*By ordering the child not to join, they would thereby prevent any harm that would have occurred. The parent does have power in the relevant sense.

You have misquoted me. This is what I actually said in my previous post:

My claim was never:

“Parents must prevent all foreseeable risks.”

It was:

When an agent has decisive power, foreknowledge, and a non-tragic alternative, responsibility attaches.

Those are not equivalent claims, and collapsing them into one is doing the argumentative work for you.

1. Why your reductio does not follow

You argue that if responsibility attaches whenever harm is preventable, then parents could never let children leave the house.

But that reductio only follows if my principle were:

“Any preventable harm must be prevented.”

It isn’t.

My principle is conjunctive, not absolute. Responsibility attaches only when all three conditions are met:

Decisive power – the authority to reliably prevent the outcome.

Foreknowledge – not mere possibility, but knowledge that the harm will occur.

A non-tragic alternative – the good can be achieved without the harm.

Letting a child leave the house satisfies none of these:

There is no decisive control over outcomes.

There is no foreknowledge that harm will occur.

Normal life itself requires risk; forbidding it would itself be a tragic alternative.

So the bruised-elbow reductio simply does not apply.

2. Possibility ≠ certainty (and this distinction matters morally).

You say:

“It does not matter if death is certain; the possibility of death should render the parent responsible.”

This is where your argument overreaches.

Moral responsibility does not track mere possibility. If it did:

every driver would be morally responsible for every accident they did not cause,

every parent would be culpable for every illness their child contracts,

every act of permission would become negligence.

Moral systems universally distinguish:

risk from foreknown outcome,

exposure from guarantee,

tragic uncertainty from certain harm.

Erase that distinction, and moral responsibility becomes incoherent.

3. Authority alone is not sufficient.

You then say: assume a parent has authority such that the child will obey.

Even granting that (for the sake of argument), authority by itself does not generate responsibility unless the other conditions are present.

If:

the parent does not know harm will occur,

the good pursued is not achievable otherwise,

or forbidding the action would itself impose serious harm,

then responsibility does not attach in the way you claim.

Your move treats power as automatically obligating, which no plausible moral theory accepts.

4. Why the original case still stands

In your original parable, the father:

knows with certainty the son will die,

knows he can prevent it,

and knows the mission’s goal could be achieved without that death (or at least has not been shown otherwise).

That is why responsibility attaches there - and why the analogy was relevant to God.

The military case works only by removing those features and then insisting the same moral judgment applies anyway.

It doesn’t.

5. The deeper issue you’re sliding past.

Your objection keeps trying to force a false dilemma:

either prevent all risk,

or bear responsibility for all harm.

But moral responsibility does not work that way.

It scales with:

knowledge,

control,

alternatives,

and proportionality.

That scaling is exactly what makes human moral reasoning possible - and exactly what breaks when applied to an omniscient and omnipotent being who supposedly has all knowledge, all power, all control, and all alternatives.

You misquoted my position, and the reductio depends on that misquotation.

Mere possibility of harm does not generate responsibility.

Decisive power + foreknowledge + non-tragic alternatives do.

The military analogy fails because it lacks those conditions.

The original point remains intact.

The disagreement isn’t about whether parents should prevent all risk.
It’s about whether allowing foreknown, preventable catastrophe while possessing decisive power is morally neutral.

That question does not dissolve by expanding “responsibility” until it becomes absurd.

You are no longer addressing the issues I raised in my first post in this thread. You have digressed in a direction that doesn't add anything to that discussion.

* parents could not intervene in suicidal missions,
* guardians could not stop terminally dangerous choices,
* authority would be morally hollow. — Truth Seeker

This is not so; you have misunderstood my argument. I stipulated that a parent can give permission to goals that the parent themselves find to be good goals. So, a parent can intervene if a goal is not good according to them; a parent who believes suicide is wrong would not give a child that permission. Guardians can stop dangerous choices. Authority would not be hollow.

It is not my intention to digress, but it seems to me that you are resorting to ad hoc rationalizations to defeat my analogies instead of facing them as they are stated. Also, you are very accusatory I notice; what's up with that?

You added an extra condition to the story I told; namely, you demanded that there must be another way. You made this demand because it coheres with your understanding of God's omnipotence, an understanding that no classical theists would agree to; Bob Ross outlined what I find to be a quite good explanation of God's omnipotence in a classical understanding.

I am largely sympathetic. I was playing Devil's Advocate. Leibniz claims this is the best of all possible worlds. As a theist who believes in an omnipotent omnibenevolent god he has to claim that. But it's prima facie absurd. THIS world is the best of all possible worlds? That's very hard to swallow. Would the world collapse in some way if God made toothaches 10% less painful? Would faith be negated by better evolved backs and knees? Good discussion! And full disclosure, I used ChatGPT to polish some of my responses.

Thank you for clarifying. That helps, but it doesn’t resolve the issue you think it does.

1. You’ve shifted the criterion, not removed the problem.

You now say:

A parent may permit only goals the parent judges to be good.

That move changes the principle from respecting the child’s wishes to the parent’s moral judgment. Once you do that, the question is no longer about autonomy - it’s about responsibility for authorising a lethal means.

If the parent judges the goal good and knows the means will certainly kill the child and can prevent that death, then the parent becomes morally implicated in allowing the death.

Calling the goal “good” does not neutralise responsibility for the foreseeable, preventable harm used to achieve it.

2. Good goals do not license certain death when prevention is available.

Many goals are good:

saving lives,

defending victims of atrocities,

preventing injustice.

That does not mean:

any means are acceptable,

or that permitting certain death is morally neutral when one has the power to prevent it.

If lethal permission is always justified by the goodness of the goal, then the principle becomes:

“A good end licenses foreseeable, preventable death.”

That principle is doing all the work - and it is far from obvious.

3. The suicide analogy still matters.

You say suicide can be blocked because the goal is bad.

But consider this:

If a person sincerely believes their death will save others,

and the authority figure agrees the end is good,

and death is certain and preventable,

your framework provides no reason to intervene.

So the suicide case reappears under a different description. The moral work is not being done by “goal legitimacy” alone.

4. Authority does not dissolve responsibility - it concentrates it.

You are right that authority need not be hollow. But authority plus permission is exactly what generates responsibility.

The moment the parent says:

“I judge this end good, and I permit you to pursue it, knowing it will kill you,”

the parent is no longer a bystander. They are a moral authoriser.

That’s the point you haven’t displaced.

5. Why this still matters for the God analogy.

This clarification actually strengthens the original critique.

If:

God judges the end good,

knows suffering or death will certainly occur,

and could prevent it without losing the end,

then permitting it is not morally neutral - it is a chosen means.

Appealing to “good goals” does not erase that responsibility; it relocates it.

You’ve shown that authority isn’t hollow. Agreed.

But you haven’t shown that permitting certain, preventable death in service of a good goal is morally innocent.

That is the crux.

Once permission is given knowingly and preventably, responsibility does not disappear - it deepens.

Let me slow this down and reset the tone first, because I don’t want this to turn personal.

If my replies have come across as accusatory, that wasn’t my intention. I’m pressing hard on the logic, not on you. Philosophical disagreement often sounds sharp because it forces distinctions that feel uncomfortable. That’s what’s happening here.

Now to the substance.

1. Adding “another way” is not ad hoc - it is structurally required.

I did not add an extra condition arbitrarily. I made explicit a condition that was already implicit in what the analogy is being used to do.

Your analogy is not a free-standing moral vignette. It is doing theological work. It is meant to illuminate or defend a claim about divine permission, responsibility, and goodness.

Once the analogy is being used to model God, omnipotence becomes relevant by definition.

So the question “was there another way?” is not an ad hoc escape hatch - it is the central discriminator between:

* tragic necessity, and
* chosen permission.

If there is no other way, permission may be tragic but justified.
If there is another way, permission becomes morally loaded.

That distinction is not something I introduced to save my position. It is what gives the analogy moral traction in the first place.

2. If classical theism denies “another way,” then that is the real disagreement.

You say: you demanded that there must be another way because it coheres with your understanding of God’s omnipotence, an understanding no classical theists would agree to.

Then the disagreement is not about ad hoc reasoning. It is about this:

I take an omniscient and omnipotent God to be actually omniscient and omnipotent. Classical theism (as you’re presenting it) collapses that to one necessary outcome.

Once that move is made, the analogy changes character entirely.

The father is no longer a deliberating moral agent who is truly omniscient and omnipotent.
He is a necessary conduit through which one fixed outcome flows.

At that point, we are no longer discussing permission in a morally recognisable sense.

3. But notice the cost of the classical move.

Bob Ross’s account is coherent - I’ve already said that.

But it comes at a price:

* God does not meaningfully choose between alternatives.
* God cannot do otherwise.
* Moral predicates apply only analogically.
* “Good” no longer contrasts with “better” or “worse.”

That means the analogy to a human father no longer works, because the father in your story:

* deliberates,
* weighs reasons,
* could have acted otherwise.

If the divine case lacks those features, then the analogy fails on your side, not mine.

4. Why pressing this point is not evasion.

You’re right that classical theism rejects my understanding of omniscience and omnipotence.

But that doesn’t make my objection ad hoc. It makes it conditional:

If God has the power classical theism claims, and if moral language applies in any substantive sense, then permission of foreknown, preventable catastrophe is morally significant.

Classical theism responds by denying one of those “ifs.”
That’s a legitimate move - but it’s a revision, not a refutation.

5. So where we actually stand.

This is not about me dodging your analogy.

It’s about this fork:

* Either the analogy is genuinely moral (choice, permission, responsibility apply),
* Or it is metaphysical (necessity, pure act, no alternatives).

It cannot be both at once.

When I press on “another way,” I’m forcing that fork into the open - not inventing it to escape the argument.

I’m not dismissing your analogy. I’m taking it seriously enough to ask what must be true for it to work.

If classical theism says “there was no other way,” then the analogy stops defending omniscience and omnipotence and starts exempting God from moral evaluation.

That may preserve internal coherence - but it does so by stepping outside the moral framework the analogy was meant to support.

That’s the real disagreement here, and it isn’t ad hoc at all.

I appreciate your honesty, and I think that concession matters more than it might seem at first glance.

Leibniz’s move is internally required if one insists on omniscience + omnipotence + omnibenevolence + necessity. But, as you say, it’s prima facie absurd once you stop treating it as a scholastic exercise and start looking at the world we actually inhabit.

Your examples get right to the heart of it:

Would faith collapse if toothaches were 10% less painful?
Would moral seriousness evaporate if backs and knees were better engineered?
Would trust be negated if childhood leukemia didn’t exist?

These aren’t rhetorical flourishes - they expose how implausible the “razor’s edge” claim really is. The idea that this exact calibration of suffering is necessary for maximal goodness strains credulity far more than the claim that a better world was possible.

And that’s the key point I’ve been pressing all along:

The problem isn’t that theism is incoherent. The problem is that saving omnibenevolence requires saying things that are increasingly unbelievable about suffering being indispensable at this scale, in this distribution, with this intensity.

Once we admit, even intuitively, that:

* small reductions in suffering wouldn’t undermine agency,
* modest biological improvements wouldn’t negate faith,
* fewer horrors wouldn’t flatten moral depth,

then, the necessity claim collapses. And with it, the strongest classical theodicy.

So yes, good discussion indeed. And for what it’s worth, using tools to sharpen arguments doesn’t bother me in the slightest. What matters is where the reasoning lands, not how polished the prose is.

If nothing else, I think we’ve shown this much clearly: “Best of all possible worlds” is not a conclusion forced on us by reason - it’s a cost classical theism chooses to pay. I feel that this is a terrible world, which is full of suffering, injustice, and death on an unbearable scale. Such a world is not compatible with the existence of any omnibenevolent, omniscient and omnipotent God, because such a God would have prevented such a world from ever existing. This world is entirely compatible with the existence of an evil God.

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