Evil means a Christian God cannot exist?

[jc104]

Since there are many Christian users on Smogon, I am curious as to how you explain the existence of evil. I recently read another thread on a similar area, and thought that this would be a good discussion point. This is a well known and frequently discussed issue. However, I have yet to be confronted with an explanation than cannot be refuted within a couple of lines. For those of you who are not aware, here is the problem:

According to many Christians, God is:
- All Powerful (omnipotent)
- All Knowing (omniscient – arguably a subset of omnipotence)
- All loving (omnibenevolent)

The issue here is that if god loves us, knows about suffering and is able to stop it, why do evil and suffering continue to exist?

A few common counter arguments:

Free Will – God gave us free will so we choose to commit sins.
Never did understand why on earth he would give us free will in the first place. Given that he is all-powerful, he is able to enrich us (and himself) fully without doing so. It would be far more effective to merely allow us to believe we had free will, for example. This also goes no way to explaining so-called “natural evil.”

The Devil – quite possibly the worst argument in history – need I explain? God can destroy the devil, so why not?

Suffering is necessary for Good? – nobody ever seems to understand the meaning of all-powerful. If you are all powerful, you are capable of providing good to everyone without evil. Also sometimes along the lines of "if we don't understand suffering, we cannot understand pleasure/good." The same applies in this case, god is capable of allowing us to feel and understand pleasure without pain, as he is omnipotent. This also goes no way to explaining why some suffer more pain than others.

It is a Test? - since God knows the results, this would be unnecessary

I’m afraid that the only conclusion I can come to is that Christianity is (very slightly) wrong. It seems clear to me that god is not all powerful. You may now be asking: why not “all-powerful but not all-loving”? A Christian may believe this due to the (arguably vain) assertion that we are the most important things and must be loved by God. Nonetheless, in fact, Omnipotence is in itself slightly inconsistent with Omniscience (which, arguably, you must be if you are omnipotent as you have the power to know everything. Subtle difference actually, as the omnipotent but not omniscient one can chose not to know.)

Consider: you know everything; therefore you know (and are forced to know) exactly what you will do in the future. You then therefore lack the ability to do something different. Therefore, by contradiction, you cannot be omnipotent.

Please explain to me why I’m wrong, and hence how one can believe a Christian God exists, particularly when there is no supporting evidence for his existence as far as I'm aware (if there is feel free to tell me what it is.)

I just wanted to add something. If God is not quite omnipotent, this would not make him unworthy of worship, or give any additional reason to sin. It is, in reality, a technicality, so the question arises as to why some Christians are so unflinching in their beliefs.

 

[6A9 Ace Matador]

the bible says we're made in the image of God and have free will. if we have free will god is unable to influence our choices, meaning we are the ones who create the evil. also this is likely another dumb religious debate which has likely been explored countless times!

 

[J-man]

sin =/= God

Sin is the opposite of God

Sin is absence of God.

We were given a free will to worship God, and we chose not to. Sin is the result.

There's an ancient Chinese Curse: May you get your heart's desire
Think upon that a little bit.

 

[jc104]

Yeah you're right its been explored, and I'm sick of terrible anwers, so I'm looking for a good one. Its not dumb, it is undoubtedly important, as religion undoubtedly corrupts a large number of people with poor arguments that need to be challenged. Please, do not give me any arguments involving the Bible, because the bible is insignificant as evidence for anything. The question lies in why free will? There does not seem to be adequate motive for this. Someone is bound to accuse me for questioning God's motives here, but this would merely be an excuse for a lack of an argument.

J-man - OK if sin is not the work of God, why does God allow it? Also, not sure what you mean about the curse. This has nothing to do with what I desire, other than to explain why a particular religion that I do not follow is wrong. Also, I would argue that evil is not the absence of god, because then there is an extremely high chance of there being nothing but evil.

Also, I would appreciate a reading of the OP before jumping to any conclusions if you were not already doing so. I do not want to have to repeat myself where possible

 

[6A9 Ace Matador]

i like to think of life as a test. sin is put in there to test you as a person. if you're a good person, you'll try to avoid sin as much as possible. it's obviously impossible to give a definite reason (so don't give me that "it's an excuse to stray way from an argument bullshit), so i doubt you'll get an answer which you feel is not terrible...

also, to this, "Consider: you know everything; therefore you know (and are forced to know) exactly what you will do in the future. You then therefore lack the ability to do something different. Therefore, by contradiction, you cannot be omnipotent.", if God is omnipotent he can likely change his actions which will change what he knows will happen in the future.

 

[jc104]

This is a better argument. Also, you are not accusing me of questioning God's motives, so i have no problem with that.

The problem is that God is Omniscient - so in theory he already knows who is good and who is bad without actually having to carry the test out, making it ultimately pointless.

This test would make great sense if God were not supposed to be Omniscient.

Also, I'd be happy with any plausible reason. There may be more than one of these. You don't have to know which one is correct.

 

[6A9 Ace Matador]

it's often pondered that if God knows what will happen why does he make such strange choices. for example if he knew Judas Escariot would betray him as it was ~destined~ why did the bible say he would go to hell for a pre determined event which is thought to be unchangeable. i don't know the answer, and i doubt anyone does. i believe it's that peoples free will forges their life choices, however god does not influence these choices so ultimately you are the one sinning if you chose to. without you being created and existing these choices would not be made and you would not have existed meaning god would not be able to know the choices you would make and you would hence not have been tested. so although god knows what you will do, you still chose to do it.

 

[cantab]

Free will does not explain the existence of evil, because free will is not limitless. No matter how much I 'freely will' myself to teleport to the lawn of the White House right now, it's not going to happen.
If God created us, then he created us bound by certain restrictions - what we call the laws of physics. So then why didn't he create us unable to do evil? Why place certain restrictions upon our free will but not others?

 

[jc104]

Ace Matador: Actually I thought the whole idea was that Jesus was meant to die, to free us from our sins somehow. There is an obvious answer to these questions and that is that is that particular God is wrong or does not exist. If you provide an alternative answer, then I will be satisfied that that God can exist, and this is all that one needs to do to disprove this argument.

And thankyou Cantab, that is a good point.

 

[lati0s]

What I see as the biggest fallacy of the 'free will' theory is that it does not explain why an all good god would ever choose to create people that desire evil. People do not choose their own desires or natures so creating people that have the ability to do bad but instead choose to do good because they are at heart good is just as free as creating people who are capable of doing good but choose to do bad because they have evil natures. The free will theory gives no explanation as to why god would have chosen the second option over the first.

 

[Luduan]

According to Christian belief, God is:
- All Powerful (omnipotent)
- All Knowing (omniscient – arguably a subset of omnipotence)
- All loving (omnibenevolent)

This is the way that many Christians understand it, but it is certainly not the only view of what "God" is. See apophatic theology for instance.

 

[6A9 Ace Matador]

christians believe god created the earth which we live on which is bound by the laws of physics. the ecosystem is in perfect balance. it would make no sense to have limitless human beings on this earth. if this world is like a maze and we are mice, the choices we make will lead us to the end of the maze. don't question the logicality behind the earth and why we can't shoot lazer beams from our eyes and teleport, just think of this earth as a plane for us to carry out our lives. if he had created us unable to do evil, as i stated earlier (sigh) we would not be tested.

this doesn't seem like a very good argument i'm not gonna waste my time.

 

[jc104]

I think his point is that we are limited and have to be limited, but why are we then not limited from doing evil?

And (sigh) God has no reason to test us.

Luduan: Thankyou. Any christian who does not believe in this is in my opinion more rational. I'll edit the OP and I apologise for my sweeping generalisations.

Xaqwais: I'm not especially knowledgable, regrettably, when it comes to Islam. However, I am assuming you have a belief that Allah is all-knowing, and therefore knows what the results of a test would be without testing us. You also brought up another point I was expecting: free will is there to distinguish us from animals. As God is allegedly all powerful, he has the power to distinguish us from animals without allowing us to sin. Our intelligence distinguishes us anyway.

 

[Xaqwais]

Alright, lemme say that I'm not Christian, but this is a logic that works for Islam. So note that everytime I say God, it is interchangable with Allah, as they mean the same thing.

God is deserving of worship by all means. So in his wisdom, instead of creating all only beings that constantly worship and obey him, he created some who have free will(Animals, and the rest of creation are what obey without question).

Keep in mind that even though God is deserving of worship, he does not need our or anything else's worship in the slightest regard.

The main reason we worship God is that he is deserving of it. Next would be that he blessed us with life. So even if you think your life is horrible, that doesn't mean you are exempt from worshiping God.

As for why we suffer and why sin exists: God is just, and will reward us for our worship. That reward would be going to heaven. However, people who sin are not worthy for heaven. Sin exists as a test for us. So, if the opportunity to sin presents itself, it's a test from God.
If you continue to pass these tests, God will send more. While this may seem backwards, they are being sent to you so that you can pass more tests and increase your amount of good deeds and level in heaven.

So obviously there are some similarities between Islam and Christianity. Shoot me some questions if anything was unclear.

 

[Invective]

adding onto what xaqwais was getting at (sorry if you werent) if we didnt experience suffering here on earth, what would be the attraction towards heaven? if God had created us so we could do no evil and everything was perfect on earth, there would be no reason to want to go to heaven as our life on earth would have been fulfilling.
also, if God had given us the illusion of free will but still made it impossible to sin, nobody would have to prove themselves to God in order to get into heaven. in our current situation, only people who have proven themselves to God get to enter heaven.

and also, God knows the results of our "test" beforehand, but we dont. we are given a chance to prove ourselves and learn from the test.

 

[Brain]

There is nothing wrong with "evil" if it doesn't hurt anyone. The only case where it makes any sense to "test" people is if, after being tested, they will be put in a context where they can do evil (and we don't want them to). If evil cannot be done at any stage, it is completely nonsensical to test anyone for it. Don't you think there exist people who are perfectly good as of now, but if they had laser eyes, would love their new powers so much that they would become criminals? Why aren't they tested for that? Well, you know, unless they get laser eyes in the afterlife, I don't see why I'd give a shit. Similarly, if evil cannot be done on Earth or in the afterlife, nobody needs to be tested for it, that's idiotic.

Do you care about being free to do evil? I certainly don't. If I am free to choose my career, eat what I want, wear what I want, read books, watch movies, befriend people, pick a romantic partner or be alone when I want to be, I'm 100% fine with that. And so would anyone, if God forced things so that nobody even wanted to be evil. What the fuck is the point of giving people a choice if only one of these choices is valid? That's not a real choice, it's a goddamn trap, a test that has no reason to be.

vanguard: Why does there have to be a heaven? Why do we have to want to go there? Why do we have to prove anything? Why can't everybody live in a paradise? What is this completely arbitrary "test" for, why does it matter, why do we want it? How can you tell if the "test" works for people who die early, without any real sin opportunities? How can you tell the "test" is fair to people who are raised in very sinful and unfavorable conditions? What is the point of letting people take a test that you are absolutely certain they will fail?

 

[J-man]

J-man - OK if sin is not the work of God, why does God allow it? Also, not sure what you mean about the curse. This has nothing to do with what I desire, other than to explain why a particular religion that I do not follow is wrong. Also, I would argue that evil is not the absence of god, because then there is an extremely high chance of there being nothing but evil.

Also, I would appreciate a reading of the OP before jumping to any conclusions if you were not already doing so. I do not want to have to repeat myself where possible

i'm sorry if i didn't read the OP correctly, but that's what it sounded like you were leaning towards. To follow up, you fail to understand that God will NOT allow Sin to continue in the world, and will judge it at the end of time.

And to follow up this testing business... i don't know. I don't thing God would put us here to test us, rather he'd put us here to find him and enjoy his vast creation.

 

[lati0s]

And to follow up this testing business... i don't know. I don't thing God would put us here to test us, rather he'd put us here to find him and enjoy his vast creation.

How exactly does the existence of evil further the goal of having people find god and enjoy his creation? the way I see it is that evil would detract from this goal.

 

[J-man]

How exactly does the existence of evil further the goal of having people find god and enjoy his creation? the way I see it is that evil would detract from this goal.

It wasn't God's choice, it was our choice that brought in sin and Suffering. God made a way out that he gives to us.

 

[Doctor Heartbreak]

there's no point getting into the dozen or so fallacies that every post in this awful thread contains, so let's talk about this:

for example if he knew Judas Escariot would betray him as it was ~destined~ why did the bible say he would go to hell for a pre determined event which is thought to be unchangeable. i don't know the answer, and i doubt anyone does.

borges has a rather beautiful and clever answer to this

regardless of whether it's even possible to agree seriously, it's an interesting interpretation of a story that doesn't make a lot of sense

here it is paraphrased:

first, we have to look at what role judas fills in the gospel. he is the traitor, that is how he is remembered and how he will remain remembered.

but jesus was preaching to tens of thousands of people on a daily basis, in public spaces. the romans didn't need judas; nobody needed to point jesus out. he was famous, controversial and public. so why does judas iscariot exist?

he's not a logical necessity, so we ought to think of him as a narrative necessity, in the greatest story god ever told.

jesus suffers, and in the story his suffering is the noblest anyone can imagine. he saves the souls of all men even though they have treated him the worst of all men. but, and there is no denying this: he comes out of it triumphant. he becomes the greatest man who has ever lived. 3 days on a cross for everlasting life, supreme power, eternal glory.

judas, on the other hand, ends up hanging himself, shamed for eternity, universally despised. he goes to hell (dante has him chewed forever in the mouth of satan, in the ninth and lowest circle)

we know jesus wasn't an idiot. his twelve apostles were chosen because they were unusually wise, faithful and strong. is it possible that god made a mistake with judas? could he really have placed responsibility and trust in someone who would betray him for thirty pieces of silver? to even suggest so seems heretical. jesus obviously knew what he was getting into; it was part of the plan and had been for eternity.

two interpretations follow:

firstly, that judas went further than any man before or after has gone in the pursuit of humility: he chose to renounce salvation. he viewed happiness, righteousness, as something too good for men, fit only for god. he represents piety in the most sacrificial and humble form possible. (though borges does not suggest this, we can view this interpretation, perhaps, as god setting a reasonable limit on piety)

second, and more shocking:

god walked on earth to suffer as a man. it is clear jesus suffered as no man ever has or will, regardless of his human nature he also has a divine nature which men cannot know. judas, however, suffers as we really suffer. he is infamous; he chooses the lowest of sins - there can be no honour or glory in betrayal. borges' story says (not in any particular seriousness) that god's real avatar in the gospel is judas. god suffers the worst it is possible for man to suffer, he follows us all the way to hell. he takes on the worst of human attributes, as jesus never could: he allows himself to sin and be damned.

anyway, here's the story now i've butchered it sufficiently: http://www.southerncrossreview.org/49/borges-judas-eng.htm

it's pretty cool stuff, probably best treated as literary criticism rather than theology. importantly, it will be way more interesting to talk about than the problem of evil

 

[cantab]

To follow up, you fail to understand that God will NOT allow Sin to continue in the world, and will judge it at the end of time.

So why allow it at all?

It wasn't God's choice, it was our choice that brought in sin and Suffering. God made a way out that he gives to us.

But if you believe God created us, then it was his choice to give us that choice.

 

[Luminary]

I don't have an answer, I'm not going to try to pull one out of thin air.
I just find it funny that you find God illogical for this reason, and not because he can walk on water and heal the sick. God is not logical, and I'm content with that.

 

[Invective]

vanguard: Why does there have to be a heaven? Why do we have to want to go there?

there doesnt have to be a heaven for people who dont want there to be one. i apologize for my ambiguous wording in my previous post, we do not have to want to go to heaven

Why do we have to prove anything? Why can't everybody live in a paradise?

we have to prove ourselves to God to show that we have followed his word and are worthy to be with Him in heaven. and everybody can live in a paradise if they choose to, its just that many people choose not to.

What is this completely arbitrary "test" for, why does it matter, why do we want it?

the arbitrary test is to find out who has shown their worth and has earned their place with God in heaven.

How can you tell if the "test" works for people who die early, without any real sin opportunities?

im sorry but i cant tell you how this situation would pan out because im not sure myself. id assume though that they would be judged before god just as anyone else would.

How can you tell the "test" is fair to people who are raised in very sinful and unfavorable conditions?

the test is fair for them as well because if one has truly repented and regretted their actions, God will forgive them and they will be given a spot in heaven.

What is the point of letting people take a test that you are absolutely certain they will fail?

why is it assumed that there are people who are destined to fail? why cant it instead be the case that everybody has a chance to prove themselves?

So why allow it at all?

to give us contrast. if there was no sin/suffering, what would we have to enjoy in this world?

But if you believe God created us, then it was his choice to give us that choice.

God gave us the choice to choose for ourselves, and we chose to take it.

 

[Zach]

Sin is absence of God.

Does this mean that atheists are evil? Does this mean that extremist muslim terrorists, or better yet, extremist christian terrorists (both worship the same god), are infact, secretly godless? Many of these terrorists do what they do in the name of god, not because they are disassociated with god.


Also this is just going to turn into a shit thread where all the atheists come out slapping their foreheads in frustration and all the religious will come out saying things like "you don't understand god" or "evil doers arent actually in a relationship with god".

the only explanation that would make sense to me with a the christian god is if god had given us the ability to sin to see what would happen - and therefore, did not already know the outcome. Which isn't really the christian god....

 

[lati0s]

I don't have an answer, I'm not going to try to pull one out of thin air.
I just find it funny that you find God illogical for this reason, and not because he can walk on water and heal the sick. God is not logical, and I'm content with that.

Walking on water is improbable but does not lead to a direct logical contradiction like this does