EnterTheBowser

Your answers don't work.

Alright, let's say that God's power is limited by logical constraints and by his love. Given that, you still don't have an attack on the problem of evil. You'd need to show that God's love limits God's power to reduce suffering - which incidentally makes no sense. Or you can argue, like I've said before, that suffering is somehow logically inextricable from the development of Godly love. But that sort of argument seems a little specious. Or perhaps you could say that while they're not necessarily inextricable, human nature makes it so. Of course, given that God created humans, and could concievably have made them similar in every respect to the way they are now, except for an ability to develop Godly love without intense suffering. It need not be a change such that we must develop Godly love - just a change so that we can without experiencing intense suffering.

The infamous "free will defense" I see referenced in your posts also seems a little less than solid - given that so much suffering is caused not by human action but by natural causes - such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and a variety of diseases and disorders.

John A. Broussard

So god has created you as a person who needs the suffering of other people in order to be a good person.

Don't you think that an all-powerful god could have created you so that you would have been a good person without needing all that pain, suffering, hardship and loss to be a good person?

Now, I grant, that you may not see some other way of accomplishing this, but don't you think an all-powerful god, who can do anything he/she/it pleases, could accomplish this task?

I'm looking forward to your answer.

Asimov

How did God develop God-like love if he didn't have a God to provide tragedies through Satan to Him?

bling

I think we are looking at this from different perspectives. You see a human problem as a tragedy, while I see the same problem as both a tragedy and an opportunity. First, I am not trying to show God must exist because there is suffering; I am only trying to show that suffering does not automatically exclude God. If I can show some logical reason, why God might allow suffering, evil, natural disasters, sin, and/or Satan then those things do not automatically excludes God that allows bad stuff to happen. The only way I see to develop Godly love requires a being to make a real choice with real likely alternatives, after consideration (thought); to except God’s selfless sacrificial gift (love) and then express that love in a selfless sacrificial gift to others. If there were no needy people, how could a person extend selfless sacrificial love to other people?

Addressing the free will issue, I am not saying Man is doing these all the bad stuff, because man has free will as you say; Man is not responsible for all tragedies. Man can only do those tragedies as part of his choice and then God can allow the tragedy to produce an opportunity for some good or potentially good person that can develop Godly love as a result.

bling

More then a good person, one that has developed Godly love.


God could and has created good people that have a love like a good child for a wonderful parent, but that love will not quench all their selfishness or would it cause the person to extend sacrificial love to their enemies, or eliminate their expectations of rewards. The development of Godly love in people requires a lot of things (everything) including other needy people.

By the way I see the Bible defining Godly love; the being must make a free will decision to love with real alternatives not to love. If that is the case then, how could God make the decision for the person to Godly love?

bling

I have addressed this before, God has always been around with Godly love. He came that way. I am only addressing how humans develop Godly love since we are dealing with earth and us and know very little about spiritual beings.

EnterTheBowser

I hate to be rude... but it would be absolutely wonderful if you could respond to the essential point I've been making: an omnipotent, omniscient, loving God could have figured out some way to give people the real oppurtunity to develop Godly love without the terrible suffering we see. It doesn't even need to be a world without any suffering at all - just less suffering than we see today.

You have not yet shown that it would somehow be a contradiction in terms for someone to be able to develop Godly love without being witness to as much intense suffering as we see today.

In fact, I'll make an argument that it is not a contradiction in terms, as opposed to waiting for you to make an argument that it is and then spending my time attacking that.

Let's assume that a whole variety of people have developed the Godly type love in an acceptable way - and in this case all the suffering they observed was natural evil. According to you, they need to have been witness to suffering in order for this to happen. Did they all witness/experience the exact same amount of suffering? Probably not. So almost everyone was able to develop Godly love without experiencing as much suffering as whoever saw the most.

Now, everyone either experienced the exact amount of suffering they needed to develop Godly love, or they experienced more than was necessary. Obviously if they experienced more than was necessary then we can conclude that God could have made it such that they saw less natural evil - and if that's the case then we can say that it's not a contradiction in terms to say that God could have made the world with less suffering and still achieved whatever purpose.

On the other hand, we have the case where everyone saw different levels of suffering, but each person needed different levels, and they each got exactly what they needed. Since we know God can make it so that a person needs less suffering to develop authentic Godly love (there are some in this set of people who are like that) then it would seem that God could have made it so that other people - who saw more suffering - would have needed less suffering to develop authentic Godly love. And this would not interferre with free choice - because we already assume that everyone in this set of people developed authentic Godly love.

So if God could have made it so that some people needed less suffering to develop authentic Godly love, then God could have put less suffering in the world.

So we can conclude that there is no contradiction in terms to say that an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving God could have made the world with less suffering. And if such a God existed, then it would have. Since it didn't, we can conclude that such a God does not exist.

John A. Broussard

You, of course, have not answered the question.

Are you saying that god can't promote the "development of Godly love in people" without also creating other needy people, i.e., suffering?

As for free will, god has people in heaven loving him all over the place with or without free will. That's a non-issue.

But let's get back to the original issue. You insist that your all-powerful god has certain limitations...that there is no possible way for your god to promote all the desirable qualities in human beings you describe without causing untold suffering to 75,000 Pakistanis who are now dead, a million more who are homeless, perhaps 30,000 or so who will die as a result of that quake.

Please do explain to me why your god is unable to prevent this horror and still allow you to develop the godly love you feel is so essential.

I'm looking forward to your explanation.

bling

Yes.

I explained this before the way I define free will, would allow someone to have free will and still have only one option. This is how I see those in heaven live.

God does not cause the suffering of innocent people, God allows Satan to do that. It is the only way I see to do it and I do not see away God could do it without allowing the suffering.

God can prevent the horror, but will not in order to allow some of us to develop what we want which is Godly love. This can happen for those receiving the pain, those ministering to those in pain, and even to those observing what is happening (to a lesser degree at least I feel). The Horror is the opportunity that is needed.

John A. Broussard

I have just a couple of comments, since you've pretty much settled the discussion. I'm assuming that your "yes" at the outset of your answer is what you believe rather than the "no" at the end.

I've never heard of the concept of free will including only "one option." "One option" is definitely irreconcilable with the concept of free will.

Since god, as you point out, can't prevent horror--can't prevent Satan from causing hurricanes and floods--and cannot do so without interfering with your ability to generate godly love, it's quite evident that your god is not all-powerful.

I should add that your view that there exists an impotent god in the thrall of Satan is a far more tenable one than the standard Christian view that god is omnipotent.

Thanks for your answer, by the way.