Hi @TWI:

Although I see where you’re coming from, I believe there are some things you need to keep in mind if you uphold the idea that if God frees the worlds of problems, that it would be a closer copy to God’s “heaven”. I will first outline your argument as follows:
1. If God rids the world of evil, then the world would become the way that God always intended
2. God rids the world of evil.
3. Then the world would become the way that God always intended. (1,2 MP)
I would like to point out the flaw of premise 1, that the world would become the way that God always intended if he rids it of evil. I think that the price humanity would have to pay in such a world would be free will, because then God would ensure that all of humanity’s acts were good and not ever evil. I believe that this is problematic because God would desire a world with some evil, in exchange for rational and thinking human beings that have free will. Why? In such a world without problems, God, in my opinion, would simply have robots programed to always do the right thing. This would be of no value to humanity and God, because humans would not be able to choose, and their actions would always be dictated, and God would not have genuine worshipers that choose to worship him. I hope this helps clarify the reason some evil seems to be necessary in the world, per Alvin Plantinga.

Hi Terrapin Station, I believe your argument goes a little like this:

1. If God is a loving God and wants the best for us, then he would not make certain behaviors an option.
2. God is a loving God and wants the best for us.
3. Thus, he would not make certain behaviors an option. (MP 1,2)

Although I see where you're coming from, I believe that God made a world that allowed for such behaviors, in order to give humans complete free will. In other words, the fact that He allowed all behaviors, including the ones that are wrong, is so that we could choose between committing those acts or not. Had God forbid certain behaviors, it would have curtailed total free will, and I don't think he would have wanted that because having robots or people that do exactly as He dictates without ever erring as worshipers would be boring and meaningless. The fact that a human can choose not to kill, steal, or rape etc. shows rational and themselves abiding by a higher moral ground, at least in my opinion. So that is why I challenge premise one. I'd love to hear what you think.

Hi everyone, I first want to say that I do agree that if God is all-loving, then why would he have created hell. I do, however, have some arguments contesting this belief, that even I wrestle with. As first point I would like to adress questions brought by the point that “God is love. But there’s also hell, and I think God being loving and creating hell are at odds with each other.” It is often stated that just like a parent can be all-loving towards a child, the parent can still exhibit disciplinary actions towards that child. That argument could go like this.

1. If God is all-loving (and wants the best for us like a parent), then he would discipline us when we misbehave.
2. God is all-loving.
3. Then like a parent he would disciple when we misbehave. (1,2 MP)

However, I have a problem with this counterargument in that I only see a parent foreseeably disciplining their child for a period of time. According to many Christians, God will punish those that do not obey him for eternity… err… what parent would do such a thing to their child.
But still, many Christians argue that those that do not obey God, are not God’s children. I guess this approach eases the way Christians see God punishing humans that aren’t his own. This argument could go a little like this:

1. If you are not God’s child, then you will be punished for eternity.
2. You are not God’s child.
3. Then you will be punished for eternity. (1,2 MP)

However, once more, I ask to people that believe this at what point does not belong and is considered God’s child and at what point does one stop being one? It seems to me arbitrary from the people that espouse this view to say that this is when they believe an individual starts and stops being a child of God. In view of this, my thing is not to judge, in cases where people have lived morally good lives and yet were not believers. Let others be and God will decide if they get to go to this inferno or not. I’d love to know what y’all think.

Hi @FordFestivaPhilosophy,
I believe you are wrestling with the sovereignty of God. I do agree with your second premise that Divine command Theory is true because we often see God in the Old testament condoning individuals for no reason and ordering the Israelites to kill off the enemy completely. However, I do not agree with you that the incarnation is unnecessary under the divine command theory. I think that even under a Divine Command Theory, incarnation is indeed still necessary. Even though God has commanded humans to do certain acts, in the end it is the humans that have chosen to obey or to disobey, thus illustrating humanity’s free will. So with the New Testament in mind, God gives humanity an avenue through which humans can choose to be saved. Under a world where God would choose who to save and not to save, God is doing the choosing, thus abducting the free will that humans require. So the value of the incarnation, even under a divine command theory, is that it still gives humans free will. I will layout my argument as follows,
1. If God does not exhibit the divine command theory, then there is no free will.
2. There is free will.
3. Thus, God does exhibit the divine command theory (MT 1,2)
Moreover, the fact that Jesus walked on Earth and lived like a human allows humans to see an exception to the rule. This is important especially for Christians because offers an example that one should attempt to follow. On the other hand, if the incarnation had not occurred, it would be useless to point to any individual that was both divine and of the flesh and lived a sinless life. It, once again, enables humans to choose on their own account to emulate such a man. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

Hi @Iwanttostopphilosophizingbutikant

Although I do understand where you’re coming from, I have some questions about your premises. I will recopy and reorganize your argument below and then refer to it as I articulate my point in the post.
1. If God gave mankind free will, then he wanted mankind to freely choose to take part in spiritual growth.
2. If God wanted mankind to freely choose to take part in spiritual growth, then God designed the world and nature to challenge us.
3 (C). If God gave mankind free will, then God designed the world and nature to challenge us. (1,2 HS)
4. If God designed the world and nature to challenge us, then he wanted to make sure that mankind is ready to join in the marriage between God and the Church.
5 (C). If God gave mankind free will, then God wanted to make sure that mankind is ready to join in the marriage between God and the church. (3,4 HS)
In view of your outlined arguments, I disagree first with your fourth premise that “God wants mankind to join in the marriage between God and the church.” Because I do not believe that God is necessarily only for Christianity, I believe that you need to provide a reason why God is simply for Christians. What if the notion of a supremely good being, which I believe your notion of God refers to, also advocates for Muslims or Buddhism for example. I believe that your take begins with the assumption that this supremely good being is only for Christians, when in reality that belief could easily be challenged by inserting another religion like Islam, Buddhism, etc. Moreover, I have some reservations about God giving mankind free will, as seen in your first premise that, “If God gave mankind free will, then He wanted mankind to freely choose to take part in spiritual growth.” There are many religious spheres like Mormons that believe we are predestined to act upon certain actions, thus not having free will. I think this is self-defeating to your conclusion that God wants mankind to use their free will to unite with his church, because even some within God’s religious circles do not believe that they have free will to choose God and the Church. In conclusion, I hope that you shed more light into how God only translates to Christianity and how free will is Divinely-given, even when some Christians claim not to have free will. Thanks!

Although I do see where the author is going with their argument, I feel there are some weaknesses in their argument. I will recopy the outline of the argument and afterwards challenge them:

1. If any being aligns with the concept of a God (GCB), then that being will be worthy of worship (unconditional obedience).
2. Unconditional obedience to such a God would require abandonment of one’s moral autonomy.
3. Human beings exist as morally autonomous agents.
3a.It is not possible for morally autonomous agents to owe anyone or anything unconditional obedience.
4. Therefore, there is no God for human beings that is worthy of worship (unconditional obedience) (1,2,3, MP).
5. Therefore, there is no God (1,4, MP).

I challenge premise three on the basis that some human beings are not, in fact, morally autonomous agents. For example, many disabled human beings cannot exert their moral autonomy because they are challenged in some cases mentally or physically. As a result, another individual has to exert morality over them, guiding them to do certain behaviors and avoid other ones. In view of this evidence that some human beings are not morally autonomous agents, the author’s argument is very well undermined. The author’s argument is undermined because how could a person without moral autonomy surrender their “no moral autonomy” to God, after deciding to believe in Him/Her/It? This concept would be absurd because some humans do not have any, adding doubt to the idea that to obey God one has to surrender moral autonomy.

I definitely agree with you @Francesco di Piertro that a human being who is morally autonomous can choose to believe in a God that can offer them the best possible life without neglecting or surrendering their own autonomy. Where I do think the issue comes from is the institutions that claim to advocate for said God. In some religious institutions people do surrender their moral autonomy. For example, the Greensboro Baptist church in North Carolina is known to demand money and obedience from their attendees, and if they don’t, they forgo their chances of entering Heaven and be sent to Hell. In those instances, however, people are not surrendering their moral autonomy to a God but to a human institution and their rules. With this in mind, the issue is not God but rather religious institutions, because the concept of God which most people agree to is someone who is unconditionally loving.

Thanks for your post!

Hi @Philosopher19 thanks for responding and sorry about the late response.

Do we agree that the problem of evil only holds true when P) All things considered, an objective instance of something not amounting to the maximum possible good is demonstrated?

Yeah, so I was thinking about your argument recently and I wanted to ask your thoughts on the possibilities of knowing everything about a certain topic, couldn't that illustrate a case where humans can technically be omniscient about a certain domain. For example, a human can be omniscient on the parts of car, or omniscient about the current domain such as research methods and testing. If it were the case that humans can be omniscient in certain domains, I believe that this would undermine the divinity of God. In other words this would entail that because humans are omniscient, God must also not be completely omniscient. I hope this is making sense, but the idea is that because human beings can be all-knowing about a certain topic, it is possible that God is not all knowing. I believe that God is not all-knowing in the sense of sin. It is often argued that God does not know what sin is, because he is all-good, and sin is bad. In view of this, could it also be argued that God does not know evil because he is all good? In other words, he might not know/see the evil in the world because he can only see or feel the good, because he is all good? Yeah. I'd love to hear your response to this. Thanks!

Hi Philosopher19,
I really enjoyed your post and I found many things true. However, I did have some refutations to some of your premises and ideas, so when you get a chance, it would be nice if you could clarify them. I have re-outlined your arguments as follows, I hope that is ok?

1) Either omniscience is not required to know if something is not existing as well as it can do, or it is.
2) It is not true that omniscience is not required to know if something is not existing as well as it can.
Therefore 3) Omniscience is required to know if something is not existing as well as it can exist.

Although I do see where you are coming from, there are still some questions that arise from your argumentation. As first point, it seems that you are trying to argue that omnibenevolence is a true aspect of God. However, you then move to say that God is all-knowing, providing no internal link as to how human’s non-omniscience relates to the God’s omnibenevolence. Simply put, I do not think you resolve for the problem of evil since you do not provide a link between God’s omniscience and omnibenevolence. You are just arguing that God is all knowing, and we aren’t and so what? How does that relate to omnibenevolence? I hope this is making sense. This leads me to my second point, that even if you resolved your reasoning to include a link that shows how God’s omniscience and human’s non-omniscience relates to God’s omnibenevolence, your whole argument is based on the lack of knowledge (because humans do not know everything “non-omniscience”). I believe that this type of reasoning can easily be interpreted as the fallacy of ignorance. So, I am questioning your entire premises one and two on the basis of no internal links to the conclusion of omni-benevolence.

I then question your entire last paragraph “Can P be demonstrated without omniscience? No. We lack omniscience which means we cannot consider all things. Can we ever become omniscient? No. Therefore P is clearly absurd. It's not even an unknown where we'd be able to say something like perhaps one day we'll be in a position where we can demonstrate P. We will never be able to demonstrate P and where we might have thought we did, we were clearly being irrational,” on the fact that I don't believe that human ignorance means God is omni-everything. It sounds a bit disingenuous to me and it would be nice if you could specify why not. Thanks!!!

Hi Blue Lux,

Thanks for commenting! Could you please dive deeper into your claim that we are all irrational creatures? "Because something may be irrational; this does not make us rational for not engaging in this imagined irrationality. In the end we are all irrational creatures." I beg to differ seeing as we live deciding many aspects of our lives in our most rational way possible. I should look twice before crossing the road (Yes, because it will prevent me from getting into a car accident. No, because I am in a rush. Then we rationally think that our lives are more important then getting to Y location on time.l Thanks!

To adress your concern about what is compassion, I believe it is an act of kindness and selfless motive that benefits the other person, but the benefit to the person doing the compassion is mostly neutral. I think we see that often in society, not just in rare occasions. People being polite to others because they feel for person X who has been working all day. Picking up random trash by the side of the road in order to make the community nicer. I don't think it's a good argument to say that just because you don't see compassion, does not mean there is none.


I will keep responding to people as I have time. Thank you!

Hi Hanover,

I definitely agree with you that there are many religions and people that believe God does indeed reveal himself to humanity. However, many atheists argue that belief in God is delusional. For example, what makes the difference between believing in God and believing in Santa Clause? Everyone knows that Santa Clause is not real, we can't see him, it is impossible for him to go around the world to every child's house in one night, but why then do humans think God is real, (that he is all-knowing, all-mighty, and everywhere) if we have never seen him? I think that is where Atheists find it hard believe in a God if they have never seen Him or Her with their own eyes. How would you then make the distinction? Why is God not like Santa Clause? IS there any proof of God, as in is there a way to know there is a God, in addition to stories passed down from person to person?

Hi andrewk,

I am glad you liked the post! On your question about my views on there not only being the Holy Bible but also other love letters from God, such as the Quaran, Vedas, Book of Mormon, I do have to agree that God has left many love letters out there. I believe that they all have an underlying truth of teaching its followers to pay homage and respect to a higher being. Further I also believe that they all have some truth. Thus, to define God, at the moment, I see Him or Her as the greatest conceivable being. That would be the definition of God here.

Hi Bitter Crank,

To answer your question about why an almighty, all-knowing, all good God would reveal himself to limited beings as us (I hope I am accurately presenting your view and if not please correct me), I would have to say because he created us and the Earth around us. Moreover, the distinction with the God from the Holy Bible from other gods throughout history, such as Greek gods, Egyptian gods, is that the Christian God wants to have a relationship with humanity. In the Bible this is seen with Abraham's covenant. More specifically, the covenant that God made with Abraham was called a suzerain-vassal covenant. This type of covenant entailed that a being of higher power would provide for the being of lower power. So the type of covenant God made with humanity directly illustrates the scenario that you're wondering of why an almighty individual would want to be with a lesser being, and moreover, demonstrates that he or she enacted this covenant in order to provide and be active in humanity's lives. Now, you must be wondering, well how can God, if we don't see him, be active? Well just think of a scenario where even though you don't see someone, they are still aiding you in some way. A parent helping their college student by sending them money, immigrants that send money to their families abroad, etc. Hope that answered some questions or doubts.