rhutchin

For context, we have--

Exodus 4
10 Then Moses said to the LORD, “O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before nor since You have spoken to Your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.”
11 So the LORD said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the LORD?
12 “Now therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say.”

Other verses can be cited to make Johnny Skeptic's point. The issue here is whether God has to cause a person to be born blind, deaf, or dumb or could a person be born this way as a consequence of natural laws (e.g., genetics) which require that God only choose to do nothing for a person to be born blind etc.

Since God has the power to prevent a baby being born blind, deaf, or dumb, and has prior knowledge of that outcome, God decides whether to allow such to happen or to intervene to prevent that outcome. Consequently, God can properly say that He causes a person to be blind even if God did not have to do anything to cause it other than to refuse to intervene to prevent a natural outcome.

The Evil One

This is a distinction without a difference. If X is EITHER a result of God's causing it, OR a result of the operation of natural laws, THEN in either case it is the result of God's causing it, since according to standard Christian doctrine God is the cause of all natural laws (and being all-knowing, knew on creating them what effects they would have for all time).

Furthermore, even accepting that God might "cause" X to happen by simply doing nothing to stop it, I don't see why that makes God any the less culpable for the negative outcome.

Johnny Skeptic

Absolutely. It is called "negligence". A web definition for the world "negligence" is "failure to act with the prudence that a reasonable person would exercise under the same circumstances." Rhutchin would not consider it to be reasonable for a man to refuse to try to save all of his children if they were in danger of drowning, but he considers it to be reasonable that God is willing that some will perish. Rhutchin will certainly not claim that God did not kill babies at Sodom and Gomorrah, and that he did not kill all of the firstborn males in Egypt. I can already predict where this thread will end up. It will end up where all of the threads that rhutchin starts (and conveniently vacates when he knows that he is in trouble) end up, with Pascal's Wager, which rhutchin calls "risk assessment". When this thread gets there, I will demolish Pascal's Wager just like I always do.

All states have laws against negligence. Some people who break negligence laws end up in prison.

Whether God makes people blind, deaf, and dumb, or allows people to become blind, deaf, and dumb, he cannot possibly derive any benefits from such detestable behavior, and mankind most certainly does not derive any benefits from such detestable behavior. A loving God would help people. He would not kill them, or allow them to be killed, or make them blind, deaf, and dumb, or allow them to become blind, deaf, and dumb.

Toto

Would this topic be better in MFP? I don't see much discussion of texts or history.

rhutchin

It seems that we agree that God is responsible for people being deaf, dumb, or blind but that this does not mean that God must be the active agent in this. A person can be born blind because this happens through natural processes over which God has control and can change.

Because of this, God can claim complete credit for such things and implore people to ask Him to intervene to prevent such things. At the same time, God gives people the freedom to ask Him or not.

Since God tells people what the situation is and how to escape that situation, the person who freely chooses not to ask for God's help is the one who is culpable. It is people who are negligent in not seeking help.

Anat

The same way God does anything else: by having people believe he does it.

Draconis

And also, if he is responsible for choosing who is and who isn't - why? Why have deaf/dumb/blind people? On what basis does he choose? Flipping a metaphysical coin? If that's so then maybe we might as well call it an accident.

djrafikie

Anyone here seen Constantine? Who else laughed?

but seriously, it's clear why the blind/deaf/dumb situation comes about, god does not exist.
either that or he does, and he creates individuals condemned to a lifetime of impairment just so others may demonstrate sickening and trite degrees of sympathy. Just so someone can "heal" them.
If thats the case then I opt out of his game.
Check, mate.

Johnny Skeptic

Sometimes that is exactly what it means. Two examples are when God directly killed everyone in Sodom and Gomorrah, including babies, and when he directly killed all of the firstborn males in Egypt. At any rate, negligence is little better than direct action. I assume that you approve of the laws that we have against negligence.

From a Christian perspective, there is no such thing as a natural process. If God originally created the weather, he did so supernaturally. He created the first hurricances, and they had to go where he determined they would go. There is no evidence that that has ever changed.

Your claim is obviously false. Some amputees have asked God for new arms and legs, but since God discriminates against amuptees, he never gives them new arms and legs. If he does, he has sure been successful keeping it a secret. James says that if a man refuses to give food to hungry people, he is vain and his faith is dead, and yet God stood idly by and allowed one million people to die of starvation in the Irish Potato Famine alone even though many of those people, most of whom were Christians, must have asked him to provide them with food. It is an absurd notion that God told Christians via James to feed hungry people and refuses to do so himself. If preventing people from starving to death is a good thing, then it is good for humans and for Goid.

Hundreds of millions of people died without having heard the Gospel message because God refused to tell them about it. In addition, today, many people in the world live in areas where some people do not have access to the Bible. For instance, Saudi Arabia bans the possession of Bibles, and some people who live in remote jungle regions do not know anything about the Bible. Further, God deliberately withholds information that some people would accept if they were aware of the information. Such detestable behavior does not benefit God or mankind in any way. God is willing that some will perish, but if you have children, if they were in danger of drowning, you would not be willing that any of them perish. You would try to save all of them. You would also not be willing that any of your children not hear about the Gospel message. Human effort alone could never let everyone in the world know about the Gospel message. Only God could do that, and obviously he does not want to. That is sufficient grounds for people to reject him. In fact, rational minded and fair minded people do not have any choice in the matter.

If God told lies, given your principles and morals, you would not have a choice whether or not love him. You would not be able to love him. Given my principles and morals, I do not have a choice whether or not to love God. I am not able to love him based upon the preceding evidence. Your task is to reasonbly prove that lying is worse than the many atrocities that God has committed. Would you rather that someone lie to you about their age, or allow you to starve to death, to drown without attempting to save you, or to refuse to tell you about the Gospel message?

The Evil One

You are the only one who cares whether or not God is the active agent. the rest of us have accepted the fairly basic point that when a being is as powerful as God is, the distinction between active responsibility and passive responsibility disappears.

And which God set up in the first place. Don't forget that part. With full foreknowledge of all the consequences, if standard Christian dogma is to be believed.

If something happens because of "natural processes", then it happens because God purposefully caused it to happen. An all-powerful, all-knowing God has no way out from responsibiltiy for everything that happens in a cosmos he created.

People do, all the time. It's called prayer. It doesn't work, as demonstrated scientifically by every major study of the medical benefits of intercessory prayer.

Let me get this straight. Your position is that, if a baby is born blind, responsibility for that lies with other human beings who haven't asked God to intervene to prevent it?

This is insane. How exactly are people supposed to know that they should pray for God to intervene to stop himself from blinding a yet-to-be-born child whose blindness isn't even known about yet?

At a broader level, why does God need to be asked? Why can he not intervene to help where it is needed, rather than only where he is requested to?

Human beings need to be asked to help because if no one asks them, they probably won't know help is needed. This does not apply to God. God knows when help is needed and he is easily capable of helping with zero inconvenience to himself. He cannot escape moral responsibility for failure to help in these circumstances.