Come again?

A rational argument should (ideally) be free of appeals which are merely based on sentiment.

Oh, like living with p-zombies?

He cannot be, according to our own definitions, both omnibenevolent and omnipotent/omniscient. — Janus

This conception of g/God seems flawed by direct contradiction. If He knows the good, then he must perform it - nor is it reasonable to suppose that He has to think about it. It is always already done. Such the constraint of categorical absolutes.

The simple solution to this conundrum is to stop thinking of God as either omnibenevolent or omniscient/ omnipotent or else to simply stop thinking of God at all. — Janus

On which, I think understanding compels agreement.

That leaves God as idea, just not the omni-, omni-, omni- version. Any omnis at all? Maybe benevolence as good and kind intentions. But how would we know? Answer: only by thinking those thoughts ourselves. Which puts us on the path of being God-like.

I buy the notion that God is an idea, and as idea an open invitation to try to think in a Godly way. I.e., it's the power of the human mind that determines God in all respects and aspects, and in the thinking of which determines the quality of human being and humanity.

Don't be silly.

:up:

Notice the unusual myown fixation in this thread on the word "gratuitous"? — Wallows

But your use of the term "gratuitous" is an injection of your judgment upon the acts of God, which is only to say you've inserted your non-theistic worldview into a theistic question, which is "what is evil?" So, sure, if you start with the given that the fawn's pain is just pain for no good reason (which I assume your use of the term "gratuitous" means to you), then you've established that God is not all good by logical necessity.

However, if you start from the theistic view that God is all good, then you cannot declare any event as truly evil if it occurs as the result of God's creation, but you are left at deciphering the mystery of how the fawn's suffering is an event that results in a higher good than had the fawn not so suffered. You may think an attempt to explain away evil, even in in most striking forms, is absurd, but such is the challenge to those who take these theistic concepts seriously.

If you continue to see this world's events as all there is to reality, then I do think you are left with the conclusion that there is evil. But, if you adopt a view that there is a higher purpose you cannot understand that transcends this world as we know it, then the fawn's suffering cannot be so clearly understood as evil.

You want to see someone else so there is powerplay if all you experience is your own simulation required for God's perfect world.

Perhaps all it took was knowledge.

I buy the notion that God is an idea, and as idea an open invitation to try to think in a Godly way. I.e., it's the power of the human mind that determines God in all respects and aspects, and in the thinking of which determines the quality of human being and humanity. — tim wood

Agreed. The three ‘omnis’ refer to absolute values of knowledge, potential and will - not action. It is the successful application of all three that boggles the mind when we consider how one would act. If I knew everything there was to know about creating a possible universe, had the capacity to do anything, and genuinely intended to do well by the universe as a whole, do I really think my relation to the universe would be more accurate? And is it just about this moment we’re in right now, or this fawn, or humanity, or is it about an entire universe coming eventually to maximum awareness, connection and collaboration? Given what humans can know about the universe, our capacity to interact and our supposed intention to do well by all, how do we evaluate our own actions towards the universe in this context? How can we more accurately relate to the universe in applying the knowledge, potential and will that we have available, or better yet seek to increase that knowledge, potential and will such that we can more accurately relate than we are currently?

These seem to me more productive queries than positing a purely ‘logical’ (ie. value) relation between these absolute values of knowledge, potential and will.

I kind of ran through your response, and think there's some merit to the idea. But, it strikes me ass odd to believe that you can't figure out the characteristics of a being by the things s/he creates.

I think perhaps ‘God’ does ‘suffer with’ the fawn - just not in the way we expect or intuitively understand. — Possibility

Perhaps everything is everything else, and perhaps nothing is everything else. - how can you argue against such a statement? It asserts nothing, it is untouchable. Therefore it is not philosophy but dreamery, mere fantasizing about possibilities without giving it any sort of real merit.

I kind of ran through your response, and think there's some merit to the idea. But, it strikes me ass odd to believe that you can't figure out the characteristics of a being by the things s/he creates. — Wallows

One of the characteristics is the ability to create. If you can not figure out any of the characteristics, because they are hidden from you, then creation is NOT guaranteed to be a character trait; therefore you can't be sure that creation is a sign or an effect from which you can reverse-engineer.

I understand that the italicized part is a basic given for argument's sake, which the debaters must accept as an axiomatic truth for the duration and purposes of this argument topic only.

Shit happens.

The fawn has importance to me, based on two questions:
1. How burned is it?
2. Is it still edible?

Ponder this simple truth:

"A creation cannot know its creator"
ergo: No amount of discussion about the creator will ever produce any knowledge of the creator so such conversations are totally void of truth and are no more than gossip.

Hi Shawn,

I hope I am correct in assuming when you ask for a coherent logical explanation for the fawn scenario that you are looking for a solution to the logical problem of evil, and not a solution to the evidential problem of evil. The difference is that a solution to the logical problem of evil has to be logically possible one, and a solution to the evidential problem of evil has to be a reasonable one. I cannot give a reasonable solution to the evidential problem of evil, but I will try to offer a logically possible one to the logical problem of evil the fawn scenario presents.

I think your argument could look something like this:
1. If an omniscient, omnibenevolent and perfectly good God existed, then intense pain or suffering should not be possible (or at least God should be able to prevent it).
2. The fawn scenario is a possible example of intense pain and suffering.
3. Therefore, an omniscient, omnibenevolent and perfectly good God does not exist.

However, if God created free will for human beings, then it seems as though Premise 1 is not necessarily true. If human beings are given free will, then that means that in at least one circumstance (even if it’s on a nearby possible world) every human being will bring about moral evil. And if this is true and like we said, God is perfectly good, then it was not in God’s power to create moral goodness without creating moral evil. What follows is that, if it was not in God’s power to create moral goodness without creating moral evil, then it is possible for an omniscient, omnibenevolent and perfectly good God to exist.

A couple things that need clarification. First, it seems as though free will is good in itself, but unfortunately acquires the potential to bring about evil when human beings receive this gift and thus gain liberty to choose moral goodness or moral evil. It seems as though the only other alternative given God’s perfect goodness would have been to create equally perfect and equally good beings which would be unable to bring about moral evil. On the other hand, it seems as though a person who has the option to bring about both moral goodness and evil but still chooses goodness deserves more merit compared to the one who lacks the option to choose evil altogether. Secondly, what I mean to say when I assert that it was not in God’s power to create moral goodness without creating moral evil is not that God was unable to create such thing, but rather that the decision was passed on to human beings along with the gift of free will.