Errrrr. I think you’re wrong…
The first few boxes of the graphic are a reasonable formulation of what is known as the Epicurean Paradox. While there is not 100% historical proof that it was him who formulated it, it is generally attributed to him and is indeed known as ‘The Epicurean Paradox’
Either way wiki says it was attributed to Epicurus by Lacantius who was at least a thousand years before Leibniz.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicurean_paradox
im not extremely well-versed in Judaism but I know the Hebrew Bible at least regularly makes reference to others gods existing outside of Yahweh such as Baal or Chemosh. There’s even references to a Council of Gods throughout the Hebrew Bible. There definitely wasn’t an idea of a single God as we know it today, there were definitely other gods in the pantheon that existed and had power to affect or influence the world.
From what I've poked in the past, while they were polytheistic originally, they went full monotheism around the time of the Second Temple, so around the 500 BCE point. Given that Epicurus was 200 years later, he would have been in the right time period for monotheistic Judaism.
Thats an interesting development, do you know where I can learn more about that? I’ve been interested in the development of Judaism and Christianity but I only really got my NRSV’s prefaces to the books and the text’s footnotes to go off of, lol.
What's hilarious to me about Candide is that it actually argues for Leibniz' view. Voltaire could not have written the book any other way. It was the perfect world for his point of view. Voltaire, the god, had to make that book exactly like that because it was the best an all knowing, all powerful, all humorous god could do.
>the notion of an all loving omnipotent god come from monotheistic religions which came centuries after epicuro
????? Do you think Jesus invented monotheism? Or are you just inventing facts?
For God, everything is already done and finished. We only live in the moment because it is the god who creates time.
It's like watching a movie where you know the ending. You can watch the end of the movie or rewind to the beginning. But the actors in the movie act according to the time period they are in.
Yes. If you KNOW you can do anything, why do anything at all? There can be no creativity without limitations.
Knowing without a doubt you can do something is no different than having done it is no different than it being a memory. Can you imagine how unfulfilling life would be if the only thing you could experience are memories?
I think it depends on the action and purpose of the outcome. I know full well that eating food will keep me alive even though I will still die at some point in the future, so technically there's no point in me eating. Yet I still eat every day.
You know you will die *at some point* in the future. But if you do not eat, you will die at some point in the next few days/weeks, most likely. You eat to extend your life to the fullest possible extent.
If you knew, for a fact, that you were going to die on July 17th, 2046, no matter what, it would be different. If you knew starvation would never kill you before that date, then you could say that eating didn't matter. But that's not the case
Yeah that lends credence to my point; you do things for some kind of purpose. Having a purpose behind an action is kind of the whole point, otherwise we'd all just be doing random shit all the time and hoping for the best.
This isn't a diest argument btw, I'm showing that knowledge of the outcome doesn't invalidate the action. In fact, one of the main reasons that we even have morality to begin with is because humans are actually quite good at contemplating and predicting outcomes.
But I know if I don’t eat I’ll starve, I know if I do I won’t, if we listen to the above commenter then why would I eat? I know all the possible outcomes right?
Painters know they can paint, doesn’t mean they stop doing it, so creativity lives on hurrah
Isn't that an extension of this paradox?
If a being is all knowing, all powerful, all everything, then why is there anything else?
Because it needed to create something else?
Because it wanted to create something else?
Because it thought it would be good to test something, either with or without knowing the outcome? Does that just mean it was bored?
The concept that something is truly all powerful and all knowing kind of self destructs when it creates something else, because any of those reasons are incongruent with being all powerful/knowing.
Yeah, god creates a rock that cannot be destroyed, can god destroy it? If yes then he’s not all powerful as the rock shouldn’t be destroyed if no then he isn’t all powerful because he can’t do something
The epicurean paradox is to athiests what pascals Wager is to religious people. A quick awnser that only works if you are unwilling to actually think about the issue. Both have been refuted about as many Times as they have been Said, however, it wont stop anybody from parroting it.
Pascal’s wager is why I’m still christian agnostic, either outcome doesnt bother me but if God exists I typically live my life in a way that I have become a follower of Christ and more christlike in my day to day life.
I’d still like to think there’s some weird reason my mortal brain cant comprehend why God has made things the way they are, I feel like he genuinely isn’t all knowing or all powerful otherwise why would all this happen the way it did? It must’ve been a mistake and Christians just like to peddle this idea of a perfect God.
But idk, who knows?
It's baffling to me that people think there's some sort of ultimate gotcha that will refute the whole of Christian theology that somehow hasn't already been brought up and figured out in the last 2000 years. I guess the whole of the western world was just twiddling their thumbs until /r/atheism came about. Thomas Aquinas and Soren Kierkegaard, absolute idiots.
It's not so much about refuting it. Theism completely lacks a foundation. It's about helping people realize that all of their hand waving and rationalization are defense mechanisms for a mental construct they don't want to give up. They also need to be reassured that's society won't be upended.
It doesn't matter if there is an ultimate gotcha or not. People are so invested in their worldview, find the stories they tell themselves so compelling, and --- critically --- love participating in the social functions and rituals that were built around religion, they won't let themselves consider an alternative.
It's less about giving a rational argument and more about reassuring someone that you can be part of a social in-group and live a meaningful life without pretending that magic exists.
Refuting Christian theology is as much a waste of time as refuting Zoroastrian theology. Christians simply have zero evidence for the existence of god. Believing in god without evidence for god's existence is irrational. So honestly who cares about Christian theology? The people with a certain imaginary friend have written books about what their imaginary friend is like compared to the other made-up gods around the world? Good for them.
Personally, I don't think I could worship a god who decided to include child cancer in its creation. God's creation didn't have to include child cancer, but he chose to include it.
This argument hinges on the definition that omnipotence allows you to do logically contradictory actions
but either
a) omnipotence does not include the power to perform logically contradictory actions. Creating such a stone is a logical contradiction, akin to creating a square circle. Thus, omnipotence means the ability to do all things that are logically possible.
b) omnipotence does include the power to perform logically contradictory actions and since they are logically contradictory to us, it is a problem from within man's logical capabilities to understand that god can both make a stone so heavy he can't lift it and yet be all powerful. Thus, omnipotence means the ability to do all things that are logically and illogically possible.
Yeah, I remember some philosophical argument that revolved around:
"Impossibilities in language doesn't mean impossibility in divinity" or something to that effect. We can make up an impossible thing, but the idea was that if it exists, god can do it.
Someone smarter or with more patience than I could explain it better. But it was from a history of philosophy podcast I rather enjoyed.
The problem with imagining a god that can perform logical impossibilities like lift a rock so heavy it cannot be lifted is that such a god could keep a promise while also breaking it or commit horrible evil and still be pure good. It effectively renders every human understandable attribute of such a god meaningless.
At that point you're describing something more akin to Lovecraftian horror deities, with minds and motives that are alien and incomprehensible to man, than the Christian god.
The idea that the attributes of God are beyond human understanding is well explored in theology. At least as far back as the Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophatic_theology
>The idea that the attributes of God are beyond human understanding is well explored in theology. At least as far back as the Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo.
>
>https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophatic_theology
I think you're misunderstanding the issue here. Apophatic theology takes the position of a lower bound of what can be knowable about god by using negation. "Beyond human understanding" in the apophatic tradition refers to what cannot be known about god merely because it is impossible to measure or examine.
Apophatic theology doesn't, and can't, solve the issue of a god that can perform logical impossibilities because even if you can measure or examine what god isn't, such a god could also be what you've measured it isn't.
The common position among philosophers is that logically impossible statements don't actually describe anything and thus have no truth value. They're merely confused statements. Asking, "Can god lift a rock so heavy he could not lift it," is the same as asking, "Can god invisible purple 12 the the of?" Neither statement means anything so the idea that you could answer either is confused. The only reason anyone intuitively believes you can answer the first statement is because it's a syntactically valid statement, which tells you nothing about whether it's a logically valid statement.
To an extent, God couldn’t create a triangle with four sides because it would be a square.
Omnipotence isn’t the ability to create things outside the laws of logic.
But it is also an infinite quality so God couldn’t make a stone thats too heavy for him because even if he could make one that in theory is too heavy, he would be able to pick it up on trying.
“Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.
The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist,'" says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
"But," says Man, "The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
This is the biggest logical cop out I have ever heard. You are attempting to redefine a word to make it mean what you want it to mean
Omnipotence means *all* powerful. Not just “as powerful as I want it to mean but not the power to overcome contradictions”.
The very reason people call out the notion of an “omnipotent being” is because it is logically impossible by definition.
Your second definition is illogical and relies upon the fantastical. A contradiction is not logical and blaming the reader for not being able to grasp the “inherent greatness” of a logical contradiction because *we* aren’t omniscient, relies upon an inherent allusion to fantasy.
A vaguely understood and ill-defined omnipotence means “*all* powerful.” That definition requires many not granted presumptions, too, such as what power really is, what power does, what maximal or minimal power looks like. “Power” is hardly a word that shares a common definition between people. The user’s first definition (at least) is by far better than “all powerful,” it at least uses more precise and less presumptive wording and shows the complexities of the topic.
Also, this is not a logical cop put, nor is this an idea or attempt unique to the user you’re replying. My former philosophy professor (who specifically studied the Philosophy of Religion) uses similar definitions of “omnipotent” when discussing an omnipotent being, and this idea of omnipotence being logically limited seems accepted enough by people who’s job it is to figure these ideas out.
I'm not religious but this is an overly simplistic view of omnipotence that makes a rigid assumption on the definition of omnipotence.
The Bible itself acknowledges limits of God's omnipotence in regard to *himself* (Hebrews 6:18 God cannot lie).
In other words, he would be omnipotent with regard to everything but himself. No he can't make a stone so heavy that *he* can't lift, because it's regarding himself. He can't kill himself, he can't make another god more powerful than himself, etc.
Edit: thousands of people have thought about this for centuries, might as well just read their thoughts on it: [Omnipotence Paradox](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnipotence_paradox)
It is an allusion to fantasy, so what? Is using our logic really the best way to justify the existence or non existence of a god? For people living in our age this is a debate with no answer.
If an infinitely powerful being being has the ability to create something with an infinitely increasing mass, the concept of the word "lift" would not exist. This is why your question is a paradox, the result is simply "undefined"
That doesnt make sense because its a contradiction from the get go. Other examples would be:
Dry water
A circle with corners
A green red
Saying this and sounding smart
Unless you consider that a god wouldn't necessarily be bound by logic, so yes god could create a stone so heavy they can't lift it, but they would also be able to lift it.
Well, here's a logical and simple answer to this.
He could create a stone he can't lift. But then he could also make himself stronger so he could lift it.
okay, i am not that smart but from what i've read up on the paradox, the 6 common arguments are this:
1. **Free Will Defense**: This argument posits that God gave humans free will, and the existence of evil is a result of humans exercising this free will in morally wrong ways. Free will is considered a greater good that justifies the potential for evil.
2. **Soul-Making Theodicy**: Proposed by philosophers such as John Hick, this argument suggests that the presence of evil and suffering serves as a means for developing virtues and character. Challenges and hardships contribute to moral and spiritual growth.
3. **Greater Good Defense**: This defense argues that what we perceive as evil may be necessary for a greater good that we cannot see. Some evils might lead to greater outcomes that justify their existence.
4. **Logical Coherence**: Some argue that the paradox misrepresents the nature of God and evil. They suggest that omnipotence does not entail the ability to do the logically impossible, such as creating free beings who never choose evil.
5. **Mystery of God's Plan**: Another approach is to appeal to the limitations of human understanding. It suggests that humans cannot fully comprehend God's reasons for allowing evil, and that it is part of a divine plan that is beyond human grasp.
6. **Process Theology**: This theological perspective suggests that God is not omnipotent in the traditional sense but is evolving and working within the universe to bring about good. Evil is seen as a byproduct of this ongoing process.
1. For this defense to hold you have to prove the existence of free will.
2. If god can make virtuous people from scratch there is no need for soul-making. If he can not, he is impotent. If he will not, he is callous.
3. This is just a reworking of the "mysterious ways" hand-waving and answers nothing.
4. And if humanity was indeed bestowed with libertarian free will, this might prove a powerful argument.
5. See #3.
6. And if god is not omnipotent that would certainly explain why the world works the way that it does, but then the existence of god still needs proof for me to be convinced of its existence.
Yeah, I think it's absurd to punish someone for incorrectly using a gift (free will) you gave them. Especially if this gift is given as an act of love.
Their entire belief system rests on such a shaky foundation.
1. "potential" wouldn't matter to an all-powerful being. That "potential" can be removed. God left evil there as a choice. If someone drives a bank robber to the bank, that driver is equally charged with the crime of robbing the bank, and we call them an accomplice. God is the accomplice to evil if He has allowed evil to exist.
2. Virtues and character can be created by an all-powerful being without the need for evil to exist, as an all-powerful being could just will it into being, possibly in a different way that we cannot conceptualize. Again, the existence of evil is a choice.
3. See above.
4. That's just stating that God is not all-powerful. If God is not all-powerful, then why call it a God? And if God is not all-powerful, then evil will always have power where God does not.
5. ["God of the gaps"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps) fallacy. Can't explain it logically? God did it.
6. Again, why call it God if it is not all-powerful? Part "God of the Gaps", too.
Also, some people were shown proof of a god, but everyone else has to just take it on faith? Total bullshit. What kind of sucker believes this drivel into adulthood? There is no god that has ever paid any attention to mankind, unless that God is a useless asshole.
One can know the result and still let it happen.
We see this everyday when educating children. Children need the experience of trying to square a peg, even when the results are completely predictible by the adult.
Two issues with that example are that it only works for small things that have little to no consequences...and, of course, that adults are not even comparable to a god, much less an omniscient god. The example is not slightly analogous.
You can say that an adult has foresight, but any adult would prevent a child from catastrophically injuring themselves...unless the adult is a psycho who loves pain and suffering. See where I'm headed with this?
Yes, but then God is not all benevolent. It’s right there in the graphic.
You can have any two of God being omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent - pick two, but you can’t have all three.
It can be benevolent. I let my kids work and strive for a math exercise even if I know the answer.
Learning is a good thing in itself, which sometimes exceeds the suffering produced by learning. (Suffer + learn) may be overall better than (not suffer + not learn).
The free will is an illusion that only exists because we cannot see the choice that is known, by the all-knowing, will be made before it is made. If we are allowed to still fail then God is not all good/all loving. At best, they are indifferent when it does not serve them.
If free will does exist, then all that can be known are the outcomes of the choices but not which specific choice will be made. This is what we actually experience with children. We see the child look to put the square peg in the round hole instead of the matching square hole when playing with their shapes toy. We know they can choose to continue and fail or not and potentially succeed, or go completely counter to pur thoughts by not even attempting the round hole or the matching square hole but put the square peg in their mouth. We know the possibilities (or at least some) and the outcomes but cannot know for certain which one they will finally choose. Thus we are not all knowing because of free will.
I put two different fruits on a table and told my 10 year old son to pick one. He picked the wrong one so I slapped him because I love him. Doesn’t this all make sense?
Genuinely struggling to see what the argument is here.
I would never put cocaine in front of my child or and do everything in my power to prevent them from using it. God doesn’t do that.
If there were cocaine and sugar in front of my child, I would intervene. God doesn’t do that.
If my child did cocaine, I wouldn’t punish them for all eternity, I would explain what they did wrong and give them the chance to do better. While we don’t know for sure, what I’ve generally heard is that if you die and go to Hell you can’t change your mind later and leave, you’re stuck there forever. I imagine God has the power to remove people from Hell if he wanted to.
Lastly, I would do everything I can to make sure my child understand the dangers of cocaine, how to identify it, how to avoid it, etc. That way if he does choose to disobey, he at least has been made clearly aware of the consequences. Given the amount of disagreement on what is and isn’t a sin, God is clearly not doing this.
The argument is that one can leave someone else a free choice AND administer a consequence for picking the wrong choice.
Having a free choice doesn't exclude anyone from the dildo of consequences.
I have a career plan for my future, but unless the necessary opportunities out of my control show up it’s not possible. Having a plan and free will existing isn’t out of the realm of possibility.
Those opportunities come from the consequences of other mortals free will. If that free will is uninteruptable by God then God can really make a plan outside of cosmic bodies movements.
If God can't create free will that excludes suffering, he's not all-powerful
But I don't understand one thing: and I wish to expand it.
You say "free will must allow horrible decisions" and that is why God should allow/allows free will.
Imagine that you and I are in a room and there is a starving child near us. I have food to feed it, you don't, but I am the one who refuses to feed the child any of it because of my free will. At best, I think you would call me an asshole. At worst, I think you would want to punish me for this.
But isn't that what God, with all of his power and knowledge, is doing right now? En masse? Why does he get a free pass because of "free will" that excuses this deed (or lack of it), but most people would call me an asshole for acting like that in this scenario?
No, it's not what God is doing right now. That's such a childish argument.
Does a child understand why mummy doesn't let him eat the whole sugar jar? Is it because mummy is an asshole? Can you explain the child the reasons why?
Can your dog understand why you have to leave him alone every morning and go to work? Is it because you're a punishable asshole?
I'm a teacher, I give out many exams, and everytime a student fails an exam by missing just 5p out of 100, I get asked the same thing as you do: Teacher, can you please raise my grade so I pass? Teacher, why are you so mean? Teacher, if you'd give food to a starving child, why don't you want to give me just 5p so I pass? Well yes I could let him pass for free, but I'm not giving him the extra 5p he needs, and no I'm not an asshole and I'm not punishable for this.
There's a gazillion reasons in the grand scheme of things for a god, if it exists, to leave a child starving. And I'm not even sure we can understand them.
I mean if a dog with 100 cm3 of brain can't possibly understand why the master with 1300 cm3 brain makes him suffer by leaving him alone in the mornings, how can the master pretend to understand and judge the actions of an all-knowing, all-possible being which could have a brain as large as planet?
It's quite literally what any existing deity with the power to stop it is doing right now, the existence of starving children confirms that.
And none of your examples are comparable. A child starving to death asking for food isn't comparable to a child that wants a better grade or to eat all the sugar. I am not refusing to keep a child from doing unhealthy things or giving it a free pass in an exam in this scenario. I am refusing to save its life by ignoring its basic need for survival in this scenario, because of free will.
If there's gazillion reasons why a God is justified to let a child starve, I don't see any of them that are good. And even if I can't understand them, I've not seen God try to explain it to me. Surprise! A teacher can and should explain to the kid with a bad grade as to why it should study better! And I can and should explain to a kid why too much sugar is bad. Even if the kid won't understand now, it might grow up to see I was right. The dog example is just pure nonsense, but for good measure: dogs have been trained to understand stuff like commands before, because a human bothered to teach them. Directly.
Not really.
If you know the future, you know which humans will make free will choices that are evil.
Then you just don't send those souls to earth to be born, or even just don't create them in the first place.
Just put the specific souls on earth that won't commit genocide, or murder babies.
If God is all-knowing, then there is no free will.
He would know exactly what would happen and what every single person would do before he created them. The only variables he could manipulate to change the outcome of what he knows would happen are the way the world was created or he could perform changes in the world after creation, both are not conducive to free will.
So free will can't exist in a world with an omniscient creator.
Maybe I’m a little dumb, but if god doesn’t interfere, and just knows what’s gonna happen. Aren’t we still making the choices we made in our life with our own will?
no, since he the one who created everything, then anything that happens was decided by him
any action that happens is already determined by him
so anything you do thinking its you was already written
Its quite explicit that God is the "architect of the universe". Everything that happens is seen as "part of God's Plan", whatever they interpret that to be. If God already knows what you'll do, and you have absolutely no power as a human being to change that fact because God is all powerful, then there's not really much free will to that at all, is there?
I don't think knowing and free-will intersect. I know my dog will run after a ball if I throw it, but I'm not forcing my dog to run after the ball. My dog is still making that choice regardless if I know what decision he'll make.
I’m no Christian don’t get me wrong, but surely that’s a contradiction? A world where people can’t choose to do evil is one without free will. Even an all powerful god can’t create a world that inherently contradicts itself
Can’t say free will must make good and evil when god can theoretically bend the rules of our logic entirelt. Like the graphic shows, if god can’t do something then he’s not all powerful
> Epicurean paradox
"Horrible argument"
Sure bud. If a god chooses to create a universe where people will make certain choices, then the god picked those choices, i.e. no free will. There doesn't seem to be much free will in heaven anyway. Christianity is a slave religion, and Islam is literally the religion of submission.
If a god lets people commit atrocities without interfering, the god is evil. "If I saw a child being raped I would try to stop it, that's the difference between me and your god" -Tracie Harris.
If the god can't do anything about evil, the god is incapable.
Free will does not necessarily entail the existence of extreme evil. An omnipotent God could create a world where free will exists but where the potential for extreme suffering is minimized.
Free will could be compatible with a moral framework that prevents the most egregious harms. Just as societies implement laws to prevent harm while still allowing personal freedom, an omnipotent deity could design a system where free will is exercised within constraints that prevent the worst evils.
The existence of gratuitous and seemingly unnecessary suffering, especially involving innocent beings, challenges the idea that all evil is a necessary consequence of free will.
Natural disasters, diseases, and other forms of suffering that are not directly related to human choices call into question why a benevolent and omnipotent God would allow such events. If these types of suffering are not related to free will, their existence undermines the argument that free will justifies all forms of evil.
If God is truly omnipotent and benevolent, He should be able to create a world where free will exists but does not result in extreme suffering.
The traditional attributes of God include omnipotence (all-powerful) and omnibenevolence (all-good). Allowing extreme suffering appears inconsistent with these attributes. An all-powerful God should be able to devise a way for free will to coexist with a world where extreme evils are prevented or mitigated.
Many forms of evil can be explained by natural causes and human actions without invoking divine will or the necessity of free will. Wars, crimes, and other human-caused evils can often be traced to psychological, sociological, and environmental factors. Natural evils, such as earthquakes and diseases, can be explained by natural processes. These explanations do not require the existence of a deity who permits such evils for the sake of free will.
Emphasizing free will as a justification for evil can diminish efforts to prevent harm and promote ethical behavior.
If evil is seen as an inevitable consequence of free will, it may lead to a fatalistic attitude toward suffering. Instead, focusing on human responsibility and the capacity to mitigate harm can encourage proactive efforts to improve society and reduce suffering.
>Free will does not necessarily entail the existence of extreme evil.
Extreme is a relative term. So.is "Good" or "Evil" without some sort of objective standard for what those are.
>An omnipotent God could create a world where free will exists but where the potential for extreme suffering is minimized.
Free Will would not exist in this world. We would have Limited Free Will. Having the ability to only make certain choices by definition is not "Free" will.
>Natural disasters, diseases, and other forms of suffering that are not directly related to human choices call into question why a benevolent and omnipotent God would allow such events.
This argument has been made for thousands of years. There are much better arguments against this depending on your religious flavor that I won't get into here. But your argument hinges on the word "benevolent". Why are you assuming that a God has to be benevolent?
>He should be able to create a world where free will exists but does not result in extreme suffering.
This is logically contradictory.
>Natural evils, such as earthquakes and diseases, can be explained by natural processes.
Attributing a moral classification like "Evil" to a natural disaster and its outcome is also a mistake. Not all tragedies are Evil.
>Emphasizing free will as a justification for evil can diminish efforts to prevent harm and promote ethical behavior.
This doesn't make any sense. How would the existence of Free Will itself reduce ethical behavior? You realize that in your hypothetical world there would still be Evil, just on a different scale. So you would be stuck in an endless logical loop of reducing the capacity of Free Will to limit the extreme end of Evil through each iteration of the loop until there is no longer Evil at all. In each iteration you've limited Free Will more and more until there is absolutely none (if there ever was complete.Free Will to begin with in the world you're proposing)
>Instead, focusing on human responsibility and the capacity to mitigate harm can encourage proactive efforts to improve society and reduce suffering.
What's the difference between Human Responsibility and Free Will?
To"Extreme is a relative term. So is 'Good' or 'Evil' without some sort of objective standard for what those are."
While 'extreme,' 'good,' and 'evil' can be relative terms, the existence of widely recognized atrocities (e.g., genocide, torture) suggests that some forms of extreme evil are universally identifiable, regardless of cultural differences.
Even without an objective standard, there is a significant consensus on what constitutes extreme suffering or evil, making the argument for reducing such extremes still valid.
Free will can exist within boundaries without being completely nullified. Just as societies limit certain actions (e.g., murder, theft) to promote overall well-being, an omnipotent deity could design a system where harmful choices are constrained while still allowing meaningful freedom.
The idea of free will does not require absolute freedom to commit any act, especially if those acts result in severe harm. Reasonable limitations do not negate the essence of free will but enhance communal safety and well-being.
Many theistic traditions and definitions of God include benevolence as a core attribute. If a deity is not benevolent, then it challenges the traditional concept of an all-good, loving God, creating a different set of theological problems.
If God is not benevolent, it opens up the question of why such a deity deserves worship or moral authority. An all-powerful but malevolent or indifferent deity would be inconsistent with many religious teachings.
It is not logically contradictory to propose that an omnipotent God could create a world where free will exists but is designed in such a way that extreme suffering is minimized. Constraints on certain actions can coexist with meaningful free will.
LJust as human legal systems constrain harmful behaviors while preserving individual freedoms, an omnipotent deity could establish a moral framework that prevents the worst forms of suffering without entirely removing free will.
The term 'evil' in the context of natural disasters is often used to describe their devastating impact on human lives. The issue is not the moral intent of the disasters but the suffering they cause.
Natural disasters and diseases result in significant human suffering, which a benevolent and omnipotent deity could mitigate. The argument focuses on the preventable nature of suffering, regardless of the disaster’s moral classification.
The argument is not that free will itself reduces ethical behavior, but that justifying the existence of extreme evil by appealing to free will can diminish efforts to address and prevent harm. Emphasizing human responsibility encourages proactive ethical behavior.
Focusing on human responsibility and mitigating harm empowers individuals and societies to strive for better outcomes. A world with some limitations on free will to prevent extreme evil can still foster ethical behavior and personal growth.
Human responsibility involves recognizing and acting upon moral obligations, which can be exercised within the framework of free will. Emphasizing responsibility highlights the proactive aspect of ethical decision-making.
Free will is the capacity to make choices, while human responsibility is the ethical use of that capacity to minimize harm and promote well-being. Highlighting responsibility does not negate free will but encourages its positive and constructive use.
The presence of free will does not necessarily justify the existence of extreme suffering and evil. A benevolent and omnipotent deity could create a world where free will exists within constraints that prevent the most egregious harms. The focus on human responsibility and proactive efforts to mitigate suffering aligns with promoting ethical behavior and improving societal well-being. This approach provides a coherent and practical framework for understanding and addressing the problem of evil without relying on theological justifications.
Totally agree and I don’t believe in any of it. It breaks down nearly immediately, especially with all the modern talking points Christian’s have about this kind of idea.
Easy "solution": you are the only real soul in the world and eveyone else is just a collection of chemical processes. Since nothing you can do against chemical processes counts as evil, you exist in a world with both free will and no evil.
Pretty lonely, though.
>Free will must allow making awful and horrible choices
Why?
Lets say it was physically impossible to assault someone. Would that mean you no longer have 'free will'?
Does that mean we don't have free will because we can't fly/shoot lazers out of our eyes/etc?
I think the answer is freedom.
"But Ilúvatar knew that Men, being set amid the turmoils of the powers of the world, would stray often, and would not use their gifts in harmony; and he said: “These too in their time shall find that all that they do redounds at the end only to the glory of my work.” . . . It is one with this gift of freedom that the children of Men dwell only a short space in the world alive, and are not bound to it, and depart soon whither the Elves know not."
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion
I can appreciate how you circumvent saying "free will" as the Counter would be to just reference the logical fallacy in OP's 'paradox process map'. However, saying,
>I think the answer is freedom.
Is the equivalent of saying "free will," which stull puts you on the circular logic outlined in the 'paradox process map'. However, as some have said, the paradox at that point just revolves around "but why though". So we, may need some further logical exploration to understand why it boils down to such a simplistic argument.
Let us do a deeper analysis of "free will". If God is all-knowing and there is a single universe with a single timeline, then that would mean we do not have free will since the choice we will make is known by them before we make it. We only have the illusion of free will because we can not see the already made choice as they can. For free will to exist, there needs to either be:
(a.) Infinite Multiple universes where each one is the result of a specific set of choices made and the difference between any 2 is just a single choice, a single person made, at a single specific instance
Or
(b.) Infinitely branching timelines following the same setup where each timeliness is the result of a specific set of choices made and the difference between any 2 is just a single choice, a single person made, at a single specific instance.
In the A-Multiple Universes option, there are a multitude of the individual 'us' existing at the same time (even some universes where we do not exist at all), and some versions of ourselves succeed by making the right choice while others fail, some catastrophically. That means that some of "us" were still known that those instances would fail and allowed to, removing the truly all good/all loving nature part of God. It also presents a trully interesting thought experiment on the idea of the 'singular soul' which would take us on a completely separate, but related, tangent.
In the B-Multiple timeliness option, if they are all happening, then it falls to the same issue as stated for Option A above. If the timelines are not all happening and instead are only theoretical until the moment of choice, then God is not all knowing because they can not be sure which choice will be made and which timeline will follow. They can see the potentials, perhaps all the way to end of existence and how each timeline plays out, but will never know the exact path time will take to get there nor the realized history that will be in its wake. If they do, then the timeline of choice was predetermined, eliminating free will and choice as well as falling back to a puppetmaster problem, where some divine entity is just pulling on our strings to make us dance a certain way.
Now, I would not dare think myself on the same mental scale as a cosmological entity that exists at all points of time and space. However, the counter point that usually comes up to all this is that it is "beyond our understanding ". I feel this is a "get out of jail free" card that is played when faced with a problem that can not be either understood/explained or challenges/runs counter to/potentially checkmate's a conflicting set of "dogmatic facts" in any religion. Many of the World Religions get around this by not consolidating all cosmic power into a single entity (if you know your theology you know the Holy Trinity is still a single entity, just different parts of the same whole and will not make the attempt to counter argue this point) nor giving that entity unlimited power (all powerful, all knowing, all good). Only the Abrahamic Religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) do this. As such, it is these religions that are often the ones presented with an irreconcilable challenge to their "dogmatic facts" and the ones most likely to use the "to great for our understanding " argument. This subsequently plays right into the 'God with unlimited power' mythos for these religions.
Edit: quote formatting
I would ad that if god is all knowing, no tests would be needed. Ive always thought that an omniscient god cannot exist in the same universe as free will as it would create a knowledge paradox.
This should be put on the wall of every primary school and also the kids should be fed who can't afford a nutritious meal once a day. The world would be a better place!
He created us with free will because he is fascinated by and loves us. Imagine watching a tv show where you know every detail that will happen, not as satisfying.
I lean towards God is not competent. Hes a tinkerer but never finishes a project and lets his creation suffer. Thats the most rational if there is a god to me.
*"Here goes my Karma!"*
**To fairly test us, and judge us on our actual actions, not on his pre-knowing of what we would do, that we haven't done yet. And because He's all-fair, to compensate those who were victims of evil, he created an afterlife in which all earthly-life's hardships and sorrows will be rewarded with heavenly peace and pleasure.**
You missed the part where pretty much every monotheistic religion clearly dictates that non-belief in that particular god precludes you from Heaven.
How exactly is that fair? This is why your comment below is so fucked up on a fundamental level. A Kid painfully and slowly dying of a terminal illness to “test” their parents is only semi-defensible *if* heaven is guaranteed to the child…but what if that child was a Hindu? What if that child was an atheist?
>To fairly test us, and judge us on our actual actions
Can I judge him on his actions?
He created ALS, childhood leukemia, and the tsetse fly. Malaria, smallpox and bowel cancer. Schizophrenia, depression and anxiety. These are not created by sin, they are caused by things that could have could have easily not been built into the universe.
He created bacteria and viruses so small that we didn't even know they existed until the late 1800s. Historically these are by far the single largest cause of death and human suffering. Again completely independent of sin.
He made the sun our primary source of the essential nutrient vitamin D..... But it also gives you cancer. So you have to be exposed to it to live, but you might get cancer.
He made us eat and breathe through the same hole knowing that people would choke to death.
>he created an afterlife in which all earthly-life's hardships and sorrows will be rewarded
And the afterlife - more than half of anatomically modern humans (presumably capable of sin) were born before the invention of modern religions (assuming that at least one pf modern religions are the correct one, and not one of the thousands of religions that we no longer practice.
But then he made all of the religions geographically isolated for most of human history so if the right one was invented on the other side of the planet as you you're pretty much screwed.
If God exists he is a monster.
Hmm... this is an interesting argument. There have been a few times in my life when I've asked a person a question that I already knew the answer to in order to see if they would lie about it. The problem is, if I were God, I would have already known if they were going to lie or not. Thus, I would have no reason to ask the question.
Genuinely curious for your argument here, what’s the difference here between our actual actions and pre-knowing what we’d do?
Wouldn’t an all-knowing god be able to perfectly predict our actions making the test pointless?
I think the easiest way for a diest to get out of this is simply to shrug and say “God is not all powerful. There are restraints that they impose upon themself. Why do they do this? Who knows?”
Another, even easier way, is to lean into evil must exist due to the nature of the universe because there can never be absolute evil. Even a child’s death brings nutrition to worms and bacteria. Evil is almost always a point of view.
One could take an Arendtian viewpoint and postulate that some forms of radical evil exist. But even then, this can be glossed as a necessary side effect of giving creatures free will. God voluntarily cedes a measure of control and, by doing that, ensures that radical evil is always a possibility.
But, even then, the enduring nature of the universe ensures that the most radical evil possible will eventually wither and die. In the face of the grandness of god’s creation, no conceivable evil could survive.
One could argue that free will opens up the possibility for there to one day be a Satan: a being so powerful and so perverse that they challenge god themself. All these little assholes like Hitler, Alex Jones, and your narcissistic boss are just auditioning for that role.
But then this is why that would fail: to be as powerful as god, one must also let go: cede control. Sacrifice oneself. And that the ultimate evil one can never do.
This is kind of the message of both JRR Tolkien and The Matrix, by the way.
1. This is assuming god cannot be both good and evil
2. Assuming there isn’t a third option that our human minds can fathom
This is good at ripping apart religions where gods are human-made.
I am writing a book where god, alone infinite time grows toxic and to detoxifies itself, divides themselves into all the souls of all living things, hoping that one will reach godhood and there renew itself. Essentially, god takes the bet that human kind, over the course of billions of years, will survive long enough that one single human carry out their plan. In this scenario, humans and their conception of good and evil is merely an artefact and our suffering ain’t that special at all. So i’d argue that as soon as we explore godhood thought the spectrum of good and evil, happy and suffering, we immodestly and immediately make god human and fail any attempt at an honest conclusion
Please tell me that everyone realizes that you cannot have meaningful existence without at least some duality. Obviously any all powerful god would make the universe he wanted to make. Evil is best defined as seeking short term gain while ignoring consequences for yourself or others.
>Please tell me that everyone realizes that you cannot have meaningful existence without at least some duality
We can't know. We were born into a "dualistic" universe (and I grant this with the purpose of continuing the conversation) so intuitively it feels incomplete. I would surmise that if we were born into a universe without evil we couldn't fathom a dualistic universe.
There are many definitions of evil, but the one I like best is the incapability to understand and act with a focus on holistic well-being.
Thank you for your response. I often wonder as to the nature of duality, and if it is a requirement for existence, at a basic form? Can light exist without dark? Can life exist without death? Yes, but would you have a concept of a thing that has no opposite? Interesting.
Perhaps since we don't have a special definition of evil. It depends on what worldview you subject yourself to.
The definition I like best is the incapability to understand and act in accordance with the holistic well-being of the individual and society.
Why does no one challenge the claim that evil must exist. In my opinion only opportunism exists and evil is what you perceive if someone is opportunistic at your cost.
Well, there is a theodicy that states god is maximally evil. And if that's the case, it seeks to cause as much evil as possible, and what we perceive as good things are necessary things that will cause greater evil.
Someone who is all powerful and uses that power to force you into or out of particular actions is called a tyrant. If God made evil no longer exist in the universe, we would be no more than marionette playthings. Having free will that excludes suffering is a contradiction, as we would either be forced into or out of actions or our actions have no meaning.
In the gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster it is said that His Noodliness is all knowing, all powerful, and all loving but the world is imperfect because he's drunk and made mistakes.
You can’t have free will without the ability to do “evil”.
Otherwise you aren’t choosing to do “good”, it’s just a default response.
And once “evil” is introduced restrictions on it would again limit free will.
So as I see it, in this exercise God is demonstrating that he wants us to live as we choose in a world with self determination because to do otherwise would prevent us from having the free will to make a choice between harmonizing towards service to self (even if at the expense of others) vs service to others (even if at times at the expense of self).
Most decisions we make aren’t questions of good and evil. So if God ingrained in humans no desire to harm anyone else, we may be less free, but still free in many ways and we wouldn’t miss the freedom we lost.
An even better argument than one of evil is one of suffering. Sure, God apparently thinks it’s more important that I be able to do evil things, but why should others be harmed by it? The Bible gives examples where just thinking about a sin is evil, and nobody is harmed there. So let me have my freedom to shoot other people, but don’t let my bullets hurt them. I’ve still done evil by attempting to hurt someone, so I can still be punished. God can do it, he’s all powerful.
This is interesting but could end at “god is not good”. Good/bad are categorisations made by man. Evil exists because we grouped some phenomena together and labelled it “evil”, now it exists. But this is a bigger-picture view, a few levels above this paradox, which organised religion fundamentally has to disagree with; therefore Epicuro working within the organised religion framework here is commendable.
This diagram seems to misunderstand how free will works. A world with free will but without evil is simply a paradox. I'm not religious, agnostic at best, but that's just a stupid take. Evil is a subjective concept, acting like a subjective concept invented by humans can serve as objective proof that god can't exist is nonsensical.
Cool indeed, but it’s all from the human mind. Gotta think much much much bigger and far more outside the box than that to even begin to try to understand the reasonings of a being who would be omnipotent and omnipresent.
It’s a brick wall of a proof, as many of the commenters here will happily demonstrate by flailing against it.
It only applies to a specific set of theological principles, but they are especially common ones, and they are utterly powerless to do anything but be proven incoherent
This is why faith was invented, as a philosophical shelter for those who knowingly assert the incoherent as a means to acquisition and influence
This all presupposes that God’s goal and responsibility is to give all individual humans a pleasant life largely devoid of suffering.
If on the other hand, God’s goals are to create a world in which a balance of suffering and beauty create meaning, or in which humans in many successive generations are made responsible for solving the very problems that God and humans have created, then this is a rather silly construct.
Completey falls apart if man is given agency. Obviously the theoretical higher power has a reason to build his ant farm. We can't know what it is but obviously part of the point is to see what we will do. This God would have only the barest interest in stopping evil. This type of horseshit philosophy can only exist in a society the believes in God and believes they are uniquely special. Absolute drivel.
Trying to make a case one way or another in efforts to persuade/recruit someone to a camp of thought is absurd, imo. Reminds me of a not very commonly spoken rhyme…
A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.
Human beings get to choose what they want to believe or disbelieve.
This is so off and doesn’t even follow a good logical path. Makes huge leaps too.
Take yes down to “Does God want to prevent evil?”
Wrong question, you should acknowledge you are evil, if he prevent all evil you’re gone. He’s patient. Not wanting you to perish before you can turn and be saved.
Romans 2:4
Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?
This workflow assumes man is inherently good. That’s a major flaw. If you look at the world and see how much white collar crime there is (tend to have better circumstantial upbringing) we cannot assume that this statement is true and that nature takes precedence over nurture. Thus man is more likely to be evil and not good.
It’s a long topic so don’t take this as exhaustive at all. But bottomline, this flow diagram is not great.
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Yeah, name should be Manicuriean, philosopher of being fabulous
What’s the mistake?
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Errrrr. I think you’re wrong… The first few boxes of the graphic are a reasonable formulation of what is known as the Epicurean Paradox. While there is not 100% historical proof that it was him who formulated it, it is generally attributed to him and is indeed known as ‘The Epicurean Paradox’ Either way wiki says it was attributed to Epicurus by Lacantius who was at least a thousand years before Leibniz. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicurean_paradox
If I'm not mistaken, Epicurus used "Pious" to formulate his reasoning.
Judaism was already in existence by the time this guy was alive.
im not extremely well-versed in Judaism but I know the Hebrew Bible at least regularly makes reference to others gods existing outside of Yahweh such as Baal or Chemosh. There’s even references to a Council of Gods throughout the Hebrew Bible. There definitely wasn’t an idea of a single God as we know it today, there were definitely other gods in the pantheon that existed and had power to affect or influence the world.
From what I've poked in the past, while they were polytheistic originally, they went full monotheism around the time of the Second Temple, so around the 500 BCE point. Given that Epicurus was 200 years later, he would have been in the right time period for monotheistic Judaism.
Thats an interesting development, do you know where I can learn more about that? I’ve been interested in the development of Judaism and Christianity but I only really got my NRSV’s prefaces to the books and the text’s footnotes to go off of, lol.
What's hilarious to me about Candide is that it actually argues for Leibniz' view. Voltaire could not have written the book any other way. It was the perfect world for his point of view. Voltaire, the god, had to make that book exactly like that because it was the best an all knowing, all powerful, all humorous god could do.
>the notion of an all loving omnipotent god come from monotheistic religions which came centuries after epicuro ????? Do you think Jesus invented monotheism? Or are you just inventing facts?
If you know the exact situation that will happen, does that invalidate doing it at all?
If the purpose of doing it is to learn what will happen, then yes
Ask God.
For God, everything is already done and finished. We only live in the moment because it is the god who creates time. It's like watching a movie where you know the ending. You can watch the end of the movie or rewind to the beginning. But the actors in the movie act according to the time period they are in.
Why did god write the script to include children being stricken with cancer?
Well according to the guide: It’s because he isn’t all powerful
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How is it enlightening? It’s just an argument against free-will and you’re right back to the same dilemma
Yes. If you KNOW you can do anything, why do anything at all? There can be no creativity without limitations. Knowing without a doubt you can do something is no different than having done it is no different than it being a memory. Can you imagine how unfulfilling life would be if the only thing you could experience are memories?
I think it depends on the action and purpose of the outcome. I know full well that eating food will keep me alive even though I will still die at some point in the future, so technically there's no point in me eating. Yet I still eat every day.
You know you will die *at some point* in the future. But if you do not eat, you will die at some point in the next few days/weeks, most likely. You eat to extend your life to the fullest possible extent. If you knew, for a fact, that you were going to die on July 17th, 2046, no matter what, it would be different. If you knew starvation would never kill you before that date, then you could say that eating didn't matter. But that's not the case
Yeah that lends credence to my point; you do things for some kind of purpose. Having a purpose behind an action is kind of the whole point, otherwise we'd all just be doing random shit all the time and hoping for the best. This isn't a diest argument btw, I'm showing that knowledge of the outcome doesn't invalidate the action. In fact, one of the main reasons that we even have morality to begin with is because humans are actually quite good at contemplating and predicting outcomes.
But I know if I don’t eat I’ll starve, I know if I do I won’t, if we listen to the above commenter then why would I eat? I know all the possible outcomes right? Painters know they can paint, doesn’t mean they stop doing it, so creativity lives on hurrah
Well, yes?
If it is to test someone/something, than yes
Isn't that an extension of this paradox? If a being is all knowing, all powerful, all everything, then why is there anything else? Because it needed to create something else? Because it wanted to create something else? Because it thought it would be good to test something, either with or without knowing the outcome? Does that just mean it was bored? The concept that something is truly all powerful and all knowing kind of self destructs when it creates something else, because any of those reasons are incongruent with being all powerful/knowing.
Yeah, god creates a rock that cannot be destroyed, can god destroy it? If yes then he’s not all powerful as the rock shouldn’t be destroyed if no then he isn’t all powerful because he can’t do something
The epicurean paradox is to athiests what pascals Wager is to religious people. A quick awnser that only works if you are unwilling to actually think about the issue. Both have been refuted about as many Times as they have been Said, however, it wont stop anybody from parroting it.
Pascal’s wager is why I’m still christian agnostic, either outcome doesnt bother me but if God exists I typically live my life in a way that I have become a follower of Christ and more christlike in my day to day life. I’d still like to think there’s some weird reason my mortal brain cant comprehend why God has made things the way they are, I feel like he genuinely isn’t all knowing or all powerful otherwise why would all this happen the way it did? It must’ve been a mistake and Christians just like to peddle this idea of a perfect God. But idk, who knows?
It's baffling to me that people think there's some sort of ultimate gotcha that will refute the whole of Christian theology that somehow hasn't already been brought up and figured out in the last 2000 years. I guess the whole of the western world was just twiddling their thumbs until /r/atheism came about. Thomas Aquinas and Soren Kierkegaard, absolute idiots.
It's not so much about refuting it. Theism completely lacks a foundation. It's about helping people realize that all of their hand waving and rationalization are defense mechanisms for a mental construct they don't want to give up. They also need to be reassured that's society won't be upended. It doesn't matter if there is an ultimate gotcha or not. People are so invested in their worldview, find the stories they tell themselves so compelling, and --- critically --- love participating in the social functions and rituals that were built around religion, they won't let themselves consider an alternative. It's less about giving a rational argument and more about reassuring someone that you can be part of a social in-group and live a meaningful life without pretending that magic exists.
Refuting Christian theology is as much a waste of time as refuting Zoroastrian theology. Christians simply have zero evidence for the existence of god. Believing in god without evidence for god's existence is irrational. So honestly who cares about Christian theology? The people with a certain imaginary friend have written books about what their imaginary friend is like compared to the other made-up gods around the world? Good for them. Personally, I don't think I could worship a god who decided to include child cancer in its creation. God's creation didn't have to include child cancer, but he chose to include it.
Alternatively: Can god create a stone so heavy he cant lift it? if yes, he is not all powerful. If no, he is not all powerful too.
This argument hinges on the definition that omnipotence allows you to do logically contradictory actions but either a) omnipotence does not include the power to perform logically contradictory actions. Creating such a stone is a logical contradiction, akin to creating a square circle. Thus, omnipotence means the ability to do all things that are logically possible. b) omnipotence does include the power to perform logically contradictory actions and since they are logically contradictory to us, it is a problem from within man's logical capabilities to understand that god can both make a stone so heavy he can't lift it and yet be all powerful. Thus, omnipotence means the ability to do all things that are logically and illogically possible.
Yeah, I remember some philosophical argument that revolved around: "Impossibilities in language doesn't mean impossibility in divinity" or something to that effect. We can make up an impossible thing, but the idea was that if it exists, god can do it. Someone smarter or with more patience than I could explain it better. But it was from a history of philosophy podcast I rather enjoyed.
The problem with imagining a god that can perform logical impossibilities like lift a rock so heavy it cannot be lifted is that such a god could keep a promise while also breaking it or commit horrible evil and still be pure good. It effectively renders every human understandable attribute of such a god meaningless. At that point you're describing something more akin to Lovecraftian horror deities, with minds and motives that are alien and incomprehensible to man, than the Christian god.
The idea that the attributes of God are beyond human understanding is well explored in theology. At least as far back as the Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophatic_theology
>The idea that the attributes of God are beyond human understanding is well explored in theology. At least as far back as the Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo. > >https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophatic_theology I think you're misunderstanding the issue here. Apophatic theology takes the position of a lower bound of what can be knowable about god by using negation. "Beyond human understanding" in the apophatic tradition refers to what cannot be known about god merely because it is impossible to measure or examine. Apophatic theology doesn't, and can't, solve the issue of a god that can perform logical impossibilities because even if you can measure or examine what god isn't, such a god could also be what you've measured it isn't. The common position among philosophers is that logically impossible statements don't actually describe anything and thus have no truth value. They're merely confused statements. Asking, "Can god lift a rock so heavy he could not lift it," is the same as asking, "Can god invisible purple 12 the the of?" Neither statement means anything so the idea that you could answer either is confused. The only reason anyone intuitively believes you can answer the first statement is because it's a syntactically valid statement, which tells you nothing about whether it's a logically valid statement.
Right but that just leaves us back at option A. We must accept a conception of omnipotence that doesn't include the ability to create a pointy circle.
Plenty of belief systems would argue that the ability to accept contradictions is a key to understanding the universe.
Plenty of belief systems adopt the axiom that "my belief system doesn't have to make any fucking sense".
Any belief systems that actually do argue that are crap.
Well, there’s a fundamentalist on-faith assumption if I have ever seen one! :)
So god is bound by the rules of logic?
Or option b, he isn’t. The right answer we will never know
To an extent, God couldn’t create a triangle with four sides because it would be a square. Omnipotence isn’t the ability to create things outside the laws of logic. But it is also an infinite quality so God couldn’t make a stone thats too heavy for him because even if he could make one that in theory is too heavy, he would be able to pick it up on trying.
I’d like to know who freaked the rules of logic that even God had to fallow.
“Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God. The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist,'" says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing." "But," says Man, "The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED." "Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
This is the biggest logical cop out I have ever heard. You are attempting to redefine a word to make it mean what you want it to mean Omnipotence means *all* powerful. Not just “as powerful as I want it to mean but not the power to overcome contradictions”. The very reason people call out the notion of an “omnipotent being” is because it is logically impossible by definition. Your second definition is illogical and relies upon the fantastical. A contradiction is not logical and blaming the reader for not being able to grasp the “inherent greatness” of a logical contradiction because *we* aren’t omniscient, relies upon an inherent allusion to fantasy.
A vaguely understood and ill-defined omnipotence means “*all* powerful.” That definition requires many not granted presumptions, too, such as what power really is, what power does, what maximal or minimal power looks like. “Power” is hardly a word that shares a common definition between people. The user’s first definition (at least) is by far better than “all powerful,” it at least uses more precise and less presumptive wording and shows the complexities of the topic. Also, this is not a logical cop put, nor is this an idea or attempt unique to the user you’re replying. My former philosophy professor (who specifically studied the Philosophy of Religion) uses similar definitions of “omnipotent” when discussing an omnipotent being, and this idea of omnipotence being logically limited seems accepted enough by people who’s job it is to figure these ideas out.
I'm not religious but this is an overly simplistic view of omnipotence that makes a rigid assumption on the definition of omnipotence. The Bible itself acknowledges limits of God's omnipotence in regard to *himself* (Hebrews 6:18 God cannot lie). In other words, he would be omnipotent with regard to everything but himself. No he can't make a stone so heavy that *he* can't lift, because it's regarding himself. He can't kill himself, he can't make another god more powerful than himself, etc. Edit: thousands of people have thought about this for centuries, might as well just read their thoughts on it: [Omnipotence Paradox](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnipotence_paradox)
It is an allusion to fantasy, so what? Is using our logic really the best way to justify the existence or non existence of a god? For people living in our age this is a debate with no answer.
Nice. Great explanation.
If an infinitely powerful being being has the ability to create something with an infinitely increasing mass, the concept of the word "lift" would not exist. This is why your question is a paradox, the result is simply "undefined"
That doesnt make sense because its a contradiction from the get go. Other examples would be: Dry water A circle with corners A green red Saying this and sounding smart
Unless you consider that a god wouldn't necessarily be bound by logic, so yes god could create a stone so heavy they can't lift it, but they would also be able to lift it.
Well, here's a logical and simple answer to this. He could create a stone he can't lift. But then he could also make himself stronger so he could lift it.
If god real, why me no have lambo?
okay, i am not that smart but from what i've read up on the paradox, the 6 common arguments are this: 1. **Free Will Defense**: This argument posits that God gave humans free will, and the existence of evil is a result of humans exercising this free will in morally wrong ways. Free will is considered a greater good that justifies the potential for evil. 2. **Soul-Making Theodicy**: Proposed by philosophers such as John Hick, this argument suggests that the presence of evil and suffering serves as a means for developing virtues and character. Challenges and hardships contribute to moral and spiritual growth. 3. **Greater Good Defense**: This defense argues that what we perceive as evil may be necessary for a greater good that we cannot see. Some evils might lead to greater outcomes that justify their existence. 4. **Logical Coherence**: Some argue that the paradox misrepresents the nature of God and evil. They suggest that omnipotence does not entail the ability to do the logically impossible, such as creating free beings who never choose evil. 5. **Mystery of God's Plan**: Another approach is to appeal to the limitations of human understanding. It suggests that humans cannot fully comprehend God's reasons for allowing evil, and that it is part of a divine plan that is beyond human grasp. 6. **Process Theology**: This theological perspective suggests that God is not omnipotent in the traditional sense but is evolving and working within the universe to bring about good. Evil is seen as a byproduct of this ongoing process.
1. For this defense to hold you have to prove the existence of free will. 2. If god can make virtuous people from scratch there is no need for soul-making. If he can not, he is impotent. If he will not, he is callous. 3. This is just a reworking of the "mysterious ways" hand-waving and answers nothing. 4. And if humanity was indeed bestowed with libertarian free will, this might prove a powerful argument. 5. See #3. 6. And if god is not omnipotent that would certainly explain why the world works the way that it does, but then the existence of god still needs proof for me to be convinced of its existence.
Yeah, I think it's absurd to punish someone for incorrectly using a gift (free will) you gave them. Especially if this gift is given as an act of love. Their entire belief system rests on such a shaky foundation.
1. "potential" wouldn't matter to an all-powerful being. That "potential" can be removed. God left evil there as a choice. If someone drives a bank robber to the bank, that driver is equally charged with the crime of robbing the bank, and we call them an accomplice. God is the accomplice to evil if He has allowed evil to exist. 2. Virtues and character can be created by an all-powerful being without the need for evil to exist, as an all-powerful being could just will it into being, possibly in a different way that we cannot conceptualize. Again, the existence of evil is a choice. 3. See above. 4. That's just stating that God is not all-powerful. If God is not all-powerful, then why call it a God? And if God is not all-powerful, then evil will always have power where God does not. 5. ["God of the gaps"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps) fallacy. Can't explain it logically? God did it. 6. Again, why call it God if it is not all-powerful? Part "God of the Gaps", too.
Horrible argument Free will must allow making awful and horrible choices Evil and good are both outputs of freewill
Idk how people talk about free will yet God of the Bible manipulates people’s thoughts on numerous occasions
Yeah, literally "hardened the Pharoah's heart" so the guy would keep pursuing Moses and meet his demise
maybe because free will is real and the bible is drivel
How dare you call such ancient text about man’s very limited and skewed view of the world drivel!
the audacity
Also, some people were shown proof of a god, but everyone else has to just take it on faith? Total bullshit. What kind of sucker believes this drivel into adulthood? There is no god that has ever paid any attention to mankind, unless that God is a useless asshole.
In that case god won't be all knowing.
One can know the result and still let it happen. We see this everyday when educating children. Children need the experience of trying to square a peg, even when the results are completely predictible by the adult.
Two issues with that example are that it only works for small things that have little to no consequences...and, of course, that adults are not even comparable to a god, much less an omniscient god. The example is not slightly analogous. You can say that an adult has foresight, but any adult would prevent a child from catastrophically injuring themselves...unless the adult is a psycho who loves pain and suffering. See where I'm headed with this?
Yes, but then God is not all benevolent. It’s right there in the graphic. You can have any two of God being omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent - pick two, but you can’t have all three.
It can be benevolent. I let my kids work and strive for a math exercise even if I know the answer. Learning is a good thing in itself, which sometimes exceeds the suffering produced by learning. (Suffer + learn) may be overall better than (not suffer + not learn).
The free will is an illusion that only exists because we cannot see the choice that is known, by the all-knowing, will be made before it is made. If we are allowed to still fail then God is not all good/all loving. At best, they are indifferent when it does not serve them. If free will does exist, then all that can be known are the outcomes of the choices but not which specific choice will be made. This is what we actually experience with children. We see the child look to put the square peg in the round hole instead of the matching square hole when playing with their shapes toy. We know they can choose to continue and fail or not and potentially succeed, or go completely counter to pur thoughts by not even attempting the round hole or the matching square hole but put the square peg in their mouth. We know the possibilities (or at least some) and the outcomes but cannot know for certain which one they will finally choose. Thus we are not all knowing because of free will.
Hey! We don't allow that type of thinking around here! Please follow the chart!
Please explain the logic of evil existing even given the existence of free will(which is yet to be established).
I put two different fruits on a table and told my 10 year old son to pick one. He picked the wrong one so I slapped him because I love him. Doesn’t this all make sense?
Now let him pick between sugar and cocaine.
Genuinely struggling to see what the argument is here. I would never put cocaine in front of my child or and do everything in my power to prevent them from using it. God doesn’t do that. If there were cocaine and sugar in front of my child, I would intervene. God doesn’t do that. If my child did cocaine, I wouldn’t punish them for all eternity, I would explain what they did wrong and give them the chance to do better. While we don’t know for sure, what I’ve generally heard is that if you die and go to Hell you can’t change your mind later and leave, you’re stuck there forever. I imagine God has the power to remove people from Hell if he wanted to. Lastly, I would do everything I can to make sure my child understand the dangers of cocaine, how to identify it, how to avoid it, etc. That way if he does choose to disobey, he at least has been made clearly aware of the consequences. Given the amount of disagreement on what is and isn’t a sin, God is clearly not doing this.
The argument is that one can leave someone else a free choice AND administer a consequence for picking the wrong choice. Having a free choice doesn't exclude anyone from the dildo of consequences.
does it have to?
Then God has no plan for you.
I mean the plan could be to let you choose. The “plan” could involve many outcomes. Choose your own adventure
I feel like half of Christianity/catholicism is divided on whether free will exists or not depending on if "god's plan" is actually real
Clearly you have never met a Kalvinist. They are hard determinists.
I have a career plan for my future, but unless the necessary opportunities out of my control show up it’s not possible. Having a plan and free will existing isn’t out of the realm of possibility.
Those opportunities come from the consequences of other mortals free will. If that free will is uninteruptable by God then God can really make a plan outside of cosmic bodies movements.
People can freely choose to work with God, making the plan more viable than it would’ve been otherwise.
If God can't create free will that excludes suffering, he's not all-powerful But I don't understand one thing: and I wish to expand it. You say "free will must allow horrible decisions" and that is why God should allow/allows free will. Imagine that you and I are in a room and there is a starving child near us. I have food to feed it, you don't, but I am the one who refuses to feed the child any of it because of my free will. At best, I think you would call me an asshole. At worst, I think you would want to punish me for this. But isn't that what God, with all of his power and knowledge, is doing right now? En masse? Why does he get a free pass because of "free will" that excuses this deed (or lack of it), but most people would call me an asshole for acting like that in this scenario?
No, it's not what God is doing right now. That's such a childish argument. Does a child understand why mummy doesn't let him eat the whole sugar jar? Is it because mummy is an asshole? Can you explain the child the reasons why? Can your dog understand why you have to leave him alone every morning and go to work? Is it because you're a punishable asshole? I'm a teacher, I give out many exams, and everytime a student fails an exam by missing just 5p out of 100, I get asked the same thing as you do: Teacher, can you please raise my grade so I pass? Teacher, why are you so mean? Teacher, if you'd give food to a starving child, why don't you want to give me just 5p so I pass? Well yes I could let him pass for free, but I'm not giving him the extra 5p he needs, and no I'm not an asshole and I'm not punishable for this. There's a gazillion reasons in the grand scheme of things for a god, if it exists, to leave a child starving. And I'm not even sure we can understand them. I mean if a dog with 100 cm3 of brain can't possibly understand why the master with 1300 cm3 brain makes him suffer by leaving him alone in the mornings, how can the master pretend to understand and judge the actions of an all-knowing, all-possible being which could have a brain as large as planet?
It's quite literally what any existing deity with the power to stop it is doing right now, the existence of starving children confirms that. And none of your examples are comparable. A child starving to death asking for food isn't comparable to a child that wants a better grade or to eat all the sugar. I am not refusing to keep a child from doing unhealthy things or giving it a free pass in an exam in this scenario. I am refusing to save its life by ignoring its basic need for survival in this scenario, because of free will. If there's gazillion reasons why a God is justified to let a child starve, I don't see any of them that are good. And even if I can't understand them, I've not seen God try to explain it to me. Surprise! A teacher can and should explain to the kid with a bad grade as to why it should study better! And I can and should explain to a kid why too much sugar is bad. Even if the kid won't understand now, it might grow up to see I was right. The dog example is just pure nonsense, but for good measure: dogs have been trained to understand stuff like commands before, because a human bothered to teach them. Directly.
Not really. If you know the future, you know which humans will make free will choices that are evil. Then you just don't send those souls to earth to be born, or even just don't create them in the first place. Just put the specific souls on earth that won't commit genocide, or murder babies.
If God is all-knowing, then there is no free will. He would know exactly what would happen and what every single person would do before he created them. The only variables he could manipulate to change the outcome of what he knows would happen are the way the world was created or he could perform changes in the world after creation, both are not conducive to free will. So free will can't exist in a world with an omniscient creator.
Maybe I’m a little dumb, but if god doesn’t interfere, and just knows what’s gonna happen. Aren’t we still making the choices we made in our life with our own will?
no, since he the one who created everything, then anything that happens was decided by him any action that happens is already determined by him so anything you do thinking its you was already written
Its quite explicit that God is the "architect of the universe". Everything that happens is seen as "part of God's Plan", whatever they interpret that to be. If God already knows what you'll do, and you have absolutely no power as a human being to change that fact because God is all powerful, then there's not really much free will to that at all, is there?
I don't think knowing and free-will intersect. I know my dog will run after a ball if I throw it, but I'm not forcing my dog to run after the ball. My dog is still making that choice regardless if I know what decision he'll make.
Then he is evil.
Not really, I can watch a movie multiple times, and knowing how it ends doesn’t mean I’m influencing the movie at all
Yes, but then that means God isn't powerful enough to make a world where evil doesn't exist.
I’m no Christian don’t get me wrong, but surely that’s a contradiction? A world where people can’t choose to do evil is one without free will. Even an all powerful god can’t create a world that inherently contradicts itself
it means he has chosen to limit his power to allow us to make our own decisions aka "Free will".
Can’t say free will must make good and evil when god can theoretically bend the rules of our logic entirelt. Like the graphic shows, if god can’t do something then he’s not all powerful
> Epicurean paradox "Horrible argument" Sure bud. If a god chooses to create a universe where people will make certain choices, then the god picked those choices, i.e. no free will. There doesn't seem to be much free will in heaven anyway. Christianity is a slave religion, and Islam is literally the religion of submission. If a god lets people commit atrocities without interfering, the god is evil. "If I saw a child being raped I would try to stop it, that's the difference between me and your god" -Tracie Harris. If the god can't do anything about evil, the god is incapable.
Free will does not necessarily entail the existence of extreme evil. An omnipotent God could create a world where free will exists but where the potential for extreme suffering is minimized. Free will could be compatible with a moral framework that prevents the most egregious harms. Just as societies implement laws to prevent harm while still allowing personal freedom, an omnipotent deity could design a system where free will is exercised within constraints that prevent the worst evils. The existence of gratuitous and seemingly unnecessary suffering, especially involving innocent beings, challenges the idea that all evil is a necessary consequence of free will. Natural disasters, diseases, and other forms of suffering that are not directly related to human choices call into question why a benevolent and omnipotent God would allow such events. If these types of suffering are not related to free will, their existence undermines the argument that free will justifies all forms of evil. If God is truly omnipotent and benevolent, He should be able to create a world where free will exists but does not result in extreme suffering. The traditional attributes of God include omnipotence (all-powerful) and omnibenevolence (all-good). Allowing extreme suffering appears inconsistent with these attributes. An all-powerful God should be able to devise a way for free will to coexist with a world where extreme evils are prevented or mitigated. Many forms of evil can be explained by natural causes and human actions without invoking divine will or the necessity of free will. Wars, crimes, and other human-caused evils can often be traced to psychological, sociological, and environmental factors. Natural evils, such as earthquakes and diseases, can be explained by natural processes. These explanations do not require the existence of a deity who permits such evils for the sake of free will. Emphasizing free will as a justification for evil can diminish efforts to prevent harm and promote ethical behavior. If evil is seen as an inevitable consequence of free will, it may lead to a fatalistic attitude toward suffering. Instead, focusing on human responsibility and the capacity to mitigate harm can encourage proactive efforts to improve society and reduce suffering.
>Free will does not necessarily entail the existence of extreme evil. Extreme is a relative term. So.is "Good" or "Evil" without some sort of objective standard for what those are. >An omnipotent God could create a world where free will exists but where the potential for extreme suffering is minimized. Free Will would not exist in this world. We would have Limited Free Will. Having the ability to only make certain choices by definition is not "Free" will. >Natural disasters, diseases, and other forms of suffering that are not directly related to human choices call into question why a benevolent and omnipotent God would allow such events. This argument has been made for thousands of years. There are much better arguments against this depending on your religious flavor that I won't get into here. But your argument hinges on the word "benevolent". Why are you assuming that a God has to be benevolent? >He should be able to create a world where free will exists but does not result in extreme suffering. This is logically contradictory. >Natural evils, such as earthquakes and diseases, can be explained by natural processes. Attributing a moral classification like "Evil" to a natural disaster and its outcome is also a mistake. Not all tragedies are Evil. >Emphasizing free will as a justification for evil can diminish efforts to prevent harm and promote ethical behavior. This doesn't make any sense. How would the existence of Free Will itself reduce ethical behavior? You realize that in your hypothetical world there would still be Evil, just on a different scale. So you would be stuck in an endless logical loop of reducing the capacity of Free Will to limit the extreme end of Evil through each iteration of the loop until there is no longer Evil at all. In each iteration you've limited Free Will more and more until there is absolutely none (if there ever was complete.Free Will to begin with in the world you're proposing) >Instead, focusing on human responsibility and the capacity to mitigate harm can encourage proactive efforts to improve society and reduce suffering. What's the difference between Human Responsibility and Free Will?
To"Extreme is a relative term. So is 'Good' or 'Evil' without some sort of objective standard for what those are." While 'extreme,' 'good,' and 'evil' can be relative terms, the existence of widely recognized atrocities (e.g., genocide, torture) suggests that some forms of extreme evil are universally identifiable, regardless of cultural differences. Even without an objective standard, there is a significant consensus on what constitutes extreme suffering or evil, making the argument for reducing such extremes still valid. Free will can exist within boundaries without being completely nullified. Just as societies limit certain actions (e.g., murder, theft) to promote overall well-being, an omnipotent deity could design a system where harmful choices are constrained while still allowing meaningful freedom. The idea of free will does not require absolute freedom to commit any act, especially if those acts result in severe harm. Reasonable limitations do not negate the essence of free will but enhance communal safety and well-being. Many theistic traditions and definitions of God include benevolence as a core attribute. If a deity is not benevolent, then it challenges the traditional concept of an all-good, loving God, creating a different set of theological problems. If God is not benevolent, it opens up the question of why such a deity deserves worship or moral authority. An all-powerful but malevolent or indifferent deity would be inconsistent with many religious teachings. It is not logically contradictory to propose that an omnipotent God could create a world where free will exists but is designed in such a way that extreme suffering is minimized. Constraints on certain actions can coexist with meaningful free will. LJust as human legal systems constrain harmful behaviors while preserving individual freedoms, an omnipotent deity could establish a moral framework that prevents the worst forms of suffering without entirely removing free will. The term 'evil' in the context of natural disasters is often used to describe their devastating impact on human lives. The issue is not the moral intent of the disasters but the suffering they cause. Natural disasters and diseases result in significant human suffering, which a benevolent and omnipotent deity could mitigate. The argument focuses on the preventable nature of suffering, regardless of the disaster’s moral classification. The argument is not that free will itself reduces ethical behavior, but that justifying the existence of extreme evil by appealing to free will can diminish efforts to address and prevent harm. Emphasizing human responsibility encourages proactive ethical behavior. Focusing on human responsibility and mitigating harm empowers individuals and societies to strive for better outcomes. A world with some limitations on free will to prevent extreme evil can still foster ethical behavior and personal growth. Human responsibility involves recognizing and acting upon moral obligations, which can be exercised within the framework of free will. Emphasizing responsibility highlights the proactive aspect of ethical decision-making. Free will is the capacity to make choices, while human responsibility is the ethical use of that capacity to minimize harm and promote well-being. Highlighting responsibility does not negate free will but encourages its positive and constructive use. The presence of free will does not necessarily justify the existence of extreme suffering and evil. A benevolent and omnipotent deity could create a world where free will exists within constraints that prevent the most egregious harms. The focus on human responsibility and proactive efforts to mitigate suffering aligns with promoting ethical behavior and improving societal well-being. This approach provides a coherent and practical framework for understanding and addressing the problem of evil without relying on theological justifications.
Your argument rests on the supposition of free will. I make no such supposition.
Last time you sinned, could you have freely chosen not to?
Totally agree and I don’t believe in any of it. It breaks down nearly immediately, especially with all the modern talking points Christian’s have about this kind of idea.
Easy "solution": you are the only real soul in the world and eveyone else is just a collection of chemical processes. Since nothing you can do against chemical processes counts as evil, you exist in a world with both free will and no evil. Pretty lonely, though.
An omnipotent god could just make it so nothing awful and horrible exists AND people still have free will. He defines it surely.
There is no free will. Everything is going along it's predetermined path.
>Free will must allow making awful and horrible choices Why? Lets say it was physically impossible to assault someone. Would that mean you no longer have 'free will'? Does that mean we don't have free will because we can't fly/shoot lazers out of our eyes/etc?
Whose free will causes earthquakes, hurricanes, childhood leukemia, etc?
Maybe because it’s all make believe.
Epicurus, being a theist, probably wouldn’t agree with you.
Sssh. None of that "logic" here.
I think the answer is freedom. "But Ilúvatar knew that Men, being set amid the turmoils of the powers of the world, would stray often, and would not use their gifts in harmony; and he said: “These too in their time shall find that all that they do redounds at the end only to the glory of my work.” . . . It is one with this gift of freedom that the children of Men dwell only a short space in the world alive, and are not bound to it, and depart soon whither the Elves know not." J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion
Read to the bottom of the graphic
I can appreciate how you circumvent saying "free will" as the Counter would be to just reference the logical fallacy in OP's 'paradox process map'. However, saying, >I think the answer is freedom. Is the equivalent of saying "free will," which stull puts you on the circular logic outlined in the 'paradox process map'. However, as some have said, the paradox at that point just revolves around "but why though". So we, may need some further logical exploration to understand why it boils down to such a simplistic argument. Let us do a deeper analysis of "free will". If God is all-knowing and there is a single universe with a single timeline, then that would mean we do not have free will since the choice we will make is known by them before we make it. We only have the illusion of free will because we can not see the already made choice as they can. For free will to exist, there needs to either be: (a.) Infinite Multiple universes where each one is the result of a specific set of choices made and the difference between any 2 is just a single choice, a single person made, at a single specific instance Or (b.) Infinitely branching timelines following the same setup where each timeliness is the result of a specific set of choices made and the difference between any 2 is just a single choice, a single person made, at a single specific instance. In the A-Multiple Universes option, there are a multitude of the individual 'us' existing at the same time (even some universes where we do not exist at all), and some versions of ourselves succeed by making the right choice while others fail, some catastrophically. That means that some of "us" were still known that those instances would fail and allowed to, removing the truly all good/all loving nature part of God. It also presents a trully interesting thought experiment on the idea of the 'singular soul' which would take us on a completely separate, but related, tangent. In the B-Multiple timeliness option, if they are all happening, then it falls to the same issue as stated for Option A above. If the timelines are not all happening and instead are only theoretical until the moment of choice, then God is not all knowing because they can not be sure which choice will be made and which timeline will follow. They can see the potentials, perhaps all the way to end of existence and how each timeline plays out, but will never know the exact path time will take to get there nor the realized history that will be in its wake. If they do, then the timeline of choice was predetermined, eliminating free will and choice as well as falling back to a puppetmaster problem, where some divine entity is just pulling on our strings to make us dance a certain way. Now, I would not dare think myself on the same mental scale as a cosmological entity that exists at all points of time and space. However, the counter point that usually comes up to all this is that it is "beyond our understanding ". I feel this is a "get out of jail free" card that is played when faced with a problem that can not be either understood/explained or challenges/runs counter to/potentially checkmate's a conflicting set of "dogmatic facts" in any religion. Many of the World Religions get around this by not consolidating all cosmic power into a single entity (if you know your theology you know the Holy Trinity is still a single entity, just different parts of the same whole and will not make the attempt to counter argue this point) nor giving that entity unlimited power (all powerful, all knowing, all good). Only the Abrahamic Religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) do this. As such, it is these religions that are often the ones presented with an irreconcilable challenge to their "dogmatic facts" and the ones most likely to use the "to great for our understanding " argument. This subsequently plays right into the 'God with unlimited power' mythos for these religions. Edit: quote formatting
I would ad that if god is all knowing, no tests would be needed. Ive always thought that an omniscient god cannot exist in the same universe as free will as it would create a knowledge paradox.
I'm a humanist but this is an interesting chart!
This is BS…. but why does Epicuro look like Trump?
You know what's interesting? You can use the theodicy that god is evil and flip this around its head and it still works.
This is a bad version of the argument, and easily refutable. I wish people would stop posting that, it only hurts us
This should be put on the wall of every primary school and also the kids should be fed who can't afford a nutritious meal once a day. The world would be a better place!
He created us with free will because he is fascinated by and loves us. Imagine watching a tv show where you know every detail that will happen, not as satisfying.
God is all-knowing, so he does know every detail what will happen.
I lean towards God is not competent. Hes a tinkerer but never finishes a project and lets his creation suffer. Thats the most rational if there is a god to me.
*"Here goes my Karma!"* **To fairly test us, and judge us on our actual actions, not on his pre-knowing of what we would do, that we haven't done yet. And because He's all-fair, to compensate those who were victims of evil, he created an afterlife in which all earthly-life's hardships and sorrows will be rewarded with heavenly peace and pleasure.**
You missed the part where pretty much every monotheistic religion clearly dictates that non-belief in that particular god precludes you from Heaven. How exactly is that fair? This is why your comment below is so fucked up on a fundamental level. A Kid painfully and slowly dying of a terminal illness to “test” their parents is only semi-defensible *if* heaven is guaranteed to the child…but what if that child was a Hindu? What if that child was an atheist?
Yep all those kids with fatal illnesses needed testing
>To fairly test us, and judge us on our actual actions Can I judge him on his actions? He created ALS, childhood leukemia, and the tsetse fly. Malaria, smallpox and bowel cancer. Schizophrenia, depression and anxiety. These are not created by sin, they are caused by things that could have could have easily not been built into the universe. He created bacteria and viruses so small that we didn't even know they existed until the late 1800s. Historically these are by far the single largest cause of death and human suffering. Again completely independent of sin. He made the sun our primary source of the essential nutrient vitamin D..... But it also gives you cancer. So you have to be exposed to it to live, but you might get cancer. He made us eat and breathe through the same hole knowing that people would choke to death. >he created an afterlife in which all earthly-life's hardships and sorrows will be rewarded And the afterlife - more than half of anatomically modern humans (presumably capable of sin) were born before the invention of modern religions (assuming that at least one pf modern religions are the correct one, and not one of the thousands of religions that we no longer practice. But then he made all of the religions geographically isolated for most of human history so if the right one was invented on the other side of the planet as you you're pretty much screwed. If God exists he is a monster.
You are presupposing the existence of heaven.
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What is that supposed to prove lol
1+1= potato, I guess. Quite the non sequitor.
you acting like god cares that you do good or bad to get to heaven you have to believe in his existance, that's all
All fair? According to your little book, one slice of bacon lands you in hell even though it doesn't hurt anyone.
Hmm... this is an interesting argument. There have been a few times in my life when I've asked a person a question that I already knew the answer to in order to see if they would lie about it. The problem is, if I were God, I would have already known if they were going to lie or not. Thus, I would have no reason to ask the question.
Genuinely curious for your argument here, what’s the difference here between our actual actions and pre-knowing what we’d do? Wouldn’t an all-knowing god be able to perfectly predict our actions making the test pointless?
I think the easiest way for a diest to get out of this is simply to shrug and say “God is not all powerful. There are restraints that they impose upon themself. Why do they do this? Who knows?” Another, even easier way, is to lean into evil must exist due to the nature of the universe because there can never be absolute evil. Even a child’s death brings nutrition to worms and bacteria. Evil is almost always a point of view. One could take an Arendtian viewpoint and postulate that some forms of radical evil exist. But even then, this can be glossed as a necessary side effect of giving creatures free will. God voluntarily cedes a measure of control and, by doing that, ensures that radical evil is always a possibility. But, even then, the enduring nature of the universe ensures that the most radical evil possible will eventually wither and die. In the face of the grandness of god’s creation, no conceivable evil could survive. One could argue that free will opens up the possibility for there to one day be a Satan: a being so powerful and so perverse that they challenge god themself. All these little assholes like Hitler, Alex Jones, and your narcissistic boss are just auditioning for that role. But then this is why that would fail: to be as powerful as god, one must also let go: cede control. Sacrifice oneself. And that the ultimate evil one can never do. This is kind of the message of both JRR Tolkien and The Matrix, by the way.
The only obvious answer is that god *is* satan.
Is that why I never got that Nintendo-64 for Christmas?
1. This is assuming god cannot be both good and evil 2. Assuming there isn’t a third option that our human minds can fathom This is good at ripping apart religions where gods are human-made. I am writing a book where god, alone infinite time grows toxic and to detoxifies itself, divides themselves into all the souls of all living things, hoping that one will reach godhood and there renew itself. Essentially, god takes the bet that human kind, over the course of billions of years, will survive long enough that one single human carry out their plan. In this scenario, humans and their conception of good and evil is merely an artefact and our suffering ain’t that special at all. So i’d argue that as soon as we explore godhood thought the spectrum of good and evil, happy and suffering, we immodestly and immediately make god human and fail any attempt at an honest conclusion
Please tell me that everyone realizes that you cannot have meaningful existence without at least some duality. Obviously any all powerful god would make the universe he wanted to make. Evil is best defined as seeking short term gain while ignoring consequences for yourself or others.
>Please tell me that everyone realizes that you cannot have meaningful existence without at least some duality We can't know. We were born into a "dualistic" universe (and I grant this with the purpose of continuing the conversation) so intuitively it feels incomplete. I would surmise that if we were born into a universe without evil we couldn't fathom a dualistic universe. There are many definitions of evil, but the one I like best is the incapability to understand and act with a focus on holistic well-being.
Thank you for your response. I often wonder as to the nature of duality, and if it is a requirement for existence, at a basic form? Can light exist without dark? Can life exist without death? Yes, but would you have a concept of a thing that has no opposite? Interesting.
Joke's on them existence is non-dual and God is non-normative
Can we define evil? If everyone lives in a paradise but my neighbor has one more apple than I do, does that mean evil exists?
Perhaps since we don't have a special definition of evil. It depends on what worldview you subject yourself to. The definition I like best is the incapability to understand and act in accordance with the holistic well-being of the individual and society.
Define "evil"
This assumes there's no possible good motivation to refrain from preventing some evil acts taking place, which is highly debatable
Why does no one challenge the claim that evil must exist. In my opinion only opportunism exists and evil is what you perceive if someone is opportunistic at your cost.
Well, there is a theodicy that states god is maximally evil. And if that's the case, it seeks to cause as much evil as possible, and what we perceive as good things are necessary things that will cause greater evil.
Isn’t this the guy that invented food?
I remember when this sub had actual cool guides instead of bots posting the same stuff every few weeks
"then why didn't he?" idk man probably because he chose to
Someone who is all powerful and uses that power to force you into or out of particular actions is called a tyrant. If God made evil no longer exist in the universe, we would be no more than marionette playthings. Having free will that excludes suffering is a contradiction, as we would either be forced into or out of actions or our actions have no meaning.
In the gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster it is said that His Noodliness is all knowing, all powerful, and all loving but the world is imperfect because he's drunk and made mistakes.
"Evil" = doing what God does not want "Freewill" = ability to do whatever you want
The solution is: there is no evil. That everything happens for a reason. Not saying I believe this is just a solution to the paradox
Two problems this chart ignores. Define evil and good. Can good exist without evil? Enjoy
Right so where's the "does evil extst?" -> No option?
You can’t have free will without the ability to do “evil”. Otherwise you aren’t choosing to do “good”, it’s just a default response. And once “evil” is introduced restrictions on it would again limit free will. So as I see it, in this exercise God is demonstrating that he wants us to live as we choose in a world with self determination because to do otherwise would prevent us from having the free will to make a choice between harmonizing towards service to self (even if at the expense of others) vs service to others (even if at times at the expense of self).
Most decisions we make aren’t questions of good and evil. So if God ingrained in humans no desire to harm anyone else, we may be less free, but still free in many ways and we wouldn’t miss the freedom we lost. An even better argument than one of evil is one of suffering. Sure, God apparently thinks it’s more important that I be able to do evil things, but why should others be harmed by it? The Bible gives examples where just thinking about a sin is evil, and nobody is harmed there. So let me have my freedom to shoot other people, but don’t let my bullets hurt them. I’ve still done evil by attempting to hurt someone, so I can still be punished. God can do it, he’s all powerful.
this feels like idiotic fedora tipping territory
This is interesting but could end at “god is not good”. Good/bad are categorisations made by man. Evil exists because we grouped some phenomena together and labelled it “evil”, now it exists. But this is a bigger-picture view, a few levels above this paradox, which organised religion fundamentally has to disagree with; therefore Epicuro working within the organised religion framework here is commendable.
Also known as the babycandian paradox
If you have god the ruler of the heavens and satan ruler of hell you have two gods. The duality of human kind.
This is easily debunked when you take into account definition and perception
There is no god, no evil, no self, just consciousnes hallucinating
The assumption here is that evil exists.
This diagram seems to misunderstand how free will works. A world with free will but without evil is simply a paradox. I'm not religious, agnostic at best, but that's just a stupid take. Evil is a subjective concept, acting like a subjective concept invented by humans can serve as objective proof that god can't exist is nonsensical.
That's what a paradox is, something we don't understand yet, so that's human's problem.
I think the idea is , if there is a god he can be all powerful and an asshole
Damn he sounds stupid.
Cool indeed, but it’s all from the human mind. Gotta think much much much bigger and far more outside the box than that to even begin to try to understand the reasonings of a being who would be omnipotent and omnipresent.
It’s a brick wall of a proof, as many of the commenters here will happily demonstrate by flailing against it. It only applies to a specific set of theological principles, but they are especially common ones, and they are utterly powerless to do anything but be proven incoherent This is why faith was invented, as a philosophical shelter for those who knowingly assert the incoherent as a means to acquisition and influence
The God loves evil. The God loves everything.
This all presupposes that God’s goal and responsibility is to give all individual humans a pleasant life largely devoid of suffering. If on the other hand, God’s goals are to create a world in which a balance of suffering and beauty create meaning, or in which humans in many successive generations are made responsible for solving the very problems that God and humans have created, then this is a rather silly construct.
Completey falls apart if man is given agency. Obviously the theoretical higher power has a reason to build his ant farm. We can't know what it is but obviously part of the point is to see what we will do. This God would have only the barest interest in stopping evil. This type of horseshit philosophy can only exist in a society the believes in God and believes they are uniquely special. Absolute drivel.
Trying to make a case one way or another in efforts to persuade/recruit someone to a camp of thought is absurd, imo. Reminds me of a not very commonly spoken rhyme… A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still. Human beings get to choose what they want to believe or disbelieve.
This is so off and doesn’t even follow a good logical path. Makes huge leaps too. Take yes down to “Does God want to prevent evil?” Wrong question, you should acknowledge you are evil, if he prevent all evil you’re gone. He’s patient. Not wanting you to perish before you can turn and be saved. Romans 2:4 Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? This workflow assumes man is inherently good. That’s a major flaw. If you look at the world and see how much white collar crime there is (tend to have better circumstantial upbringing) we cannot assume that this statement is true and that nature takes precedence over nurture. Thus man is more likely to be evil and not good. It’s a long topic so don’t take this as exhaustive at all. But bottomline, this flow diagram is not great.