NonContradiction

It's a logical contradiction for God to be ignorant and knowledgable, to be powerful and weak. However, it's not a logical contradiction for God to be benevolent towards some beings and malevolent towards others.

Dr Rick

Agreed

NonContradiction

I am not a big believer in the Bible. Much of the Bible engages in character assassination of the prophets and messengers of God, such as Lot, for example. These are the same type of people that called Mary, the mother of Jesus, a whore.

Again, I think that you are arguing against Christian concepts of the Abrahamic God.

There are a couple of points that I need to clear up. Omnibenevolence is often defined as "all good" but I have a problem with that definition. First of all, what is meant by good? Good and evil are completely meaningless without a reference point, much in the same way that right and left, or above and below, are meaningless without a reference point. Pain and pleasure, on the other hand, doesn't need a reference point. Finally, I don't see why the infliction of pain and suffering is necessarily evil. I can think of examples where the infliction of pain and suffering would be a good thing. For example, would it not be a good thing to inflict pain and suffering upon someone who was trying to rape your daughter?

Wyz_sub10

Personally, I think it'd be a good thing to prevent that person from raping my daughter.

Do you mean "inflict pain and suffering" as a means to condition them not to try it again? If so, I don't think that's a very effective method.

If you mean "good for me", well, it might give me some primal satisfaction (albeit fleeting), but I would hardly call it "a good thing".

NonContradiction

Is ALL infliction of pain and suffering necessarily evil? That is the question. You are not answering my question.



The question wasn't whether or not it would be an effective method or not. The question is whether or not ALL infliction of pain and suffering is necessarily evil?


So if someone were to attempt to rape my daughter, and I died fighting to protect her by inflicting pain and suffering upon her attacker, then that wasn't a good thing? Remember when I said that good and evil is meaningless without a reference point? I think that you are proving my point.

Xixax

Considering you are not an omnipotent and omniscient being that could stop the rape with methods other than inflicting pain and suffering on the attacker, your analogy doesn't add much to the discussion.

It isn't good to inflict pain and suffering. Because that is the only option available to us at times to stop OTHER pain and suffering, we weigh the two against each other and do which one causes us or someone we care about the least amount of pain and suffering.

An omnipotent god wouldn't have this limitation.

Wyz_sub10

I thought the question was "would it not be a good thing to inflict pain and suffering upon someone who was trying to rape your daughter? "

I do get to that question, but I wanted to clarify that the "good" act in relation to the situation is connected to the "evil" (rape) and not the person.

Therefore, I would want to address the evil by preventing it.

I state that the method would not be effective because the value of the act, IMO, is contingent on the intent or the consequences. Here, the intent must be determined (which is what I was inferring), with the consequences being supposed for the sake of explaning my position.

If you ignore the intent and consequences, then by what measure are you defining it as "good" or "evil"?

(This is my second time answering this - the first long response was accidentally erased )

This scenario is considerably more specific than the general question I first answered.

Trying to save your daughter was indeed a good thing. The intent was good, but the consequences were not (as you died in the process, and it is possible that you're daughter was subsequently raped in any case - a grisly scenario that I'd rather not think about too much).

Your goal, however, was not to cause pain but to dissuade the attacker and save your daughter. It becomes rather meaningless, therefore, to talk about "good" and "evil" in this case.

I will stress, though, that if you had the ability to successfully complete your task without causing pain, then to do so would have been "evil".

I do not disagree that "good" and "evil" are often relative terms (or completely meaningless, in many cases), but the reference point is based on intent and consequence.

As I have said elsewhere, "evil", as I understand it relative to the wolrd we leave in, is an act that interferes with the maintenance of a sustainable society. (Well, it's a little more complicated than that, but that's the gist of it)

I believe that is our reference point - and it is a moving one.

This doesn't connect well to an "omni" being, because the desired product - a sustainable society - is one that I see for mankind based on biology.

But if an omnimax god existed, I would argue the desired product would be sheer bliss, meaning that "evil" and "good" would have very different definitions, and that promulgating good would require different actions.

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by NonContradiction :

Do you grant, though, that if God is morally perfect, the problem of evil is still a problem?

NonContradiction

No, I don't. Here is the problem I have that I would be most grateful to you if you could solve:

If God isn't all-good because He doesn't prevent evil, then it follows that He would be all-good if He were to prevent evil. By a standard independent of God, you deem God not to be all-good for not preventing evil. Similarly, it follows, by a standard independent of God, you would also deem God to be all-good if He were to prevent evil.

However, the problem is that if God were to prevent evil, then no standard of good and evil independent of God would exist, so how could you deem God to be all-good for preventing evil?

Dr Rick

So what if we couldn't?

Besides, if it is for some reason important to an all good god that we deem him all good, he could simply tell us that he is all good or instill us with the ability to distinguish good from evil.