Ku Bop

Greetings Bible Humper,

I appreciate your patience and time. Hopefully I haven’t bored you away with a delayed response.

I must first admit that I am sympathetic to your rejection of the free-will defense. (Thank-you, by the way, for your presentation and critique. I was honestly not familiar with it, and have since done some reading.) The free-will defense just isn’t Scriptural [Eph 1:11 “…according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will.] As is it is, I agree with some of your conclusions concerning the free-will defense but have issues with others. I will mention those later. So, as noted above, nothing happens that God hasn’t ordained to happen. Does this mean that God is an evil God? Does God sin? The answer to this is “No.” Now, There is much here to which we don’t know the answers. But we do know that Scripture presents God as perfectly holy, righteous, loving, and just. It also plainly places the blame for sin on the people that commit the sins. Just because it was a part of God’s will doesn’t mean that He is responsible in a sinful way.

This brings me to a very important point. There is a great difference between God (creator) and person (creature). And if God is all-powerful and perfectly loving, by what right do you question the reality that He has ordered?

This question quickly leads us to a discussion of epistemology. In other words, I can’t help but wonder that if by formulating an argument such as “the problem of evil” you have exalted yourself to the position of God. By what criterion are you allowed to judge the will and actions of an all-powerful and perfectly loving God? My guess is that you would respond by saying reason is your ultimate guide. And this is where we differ. Scripture is my ultimate criterion because it is the Word of God. How do I know that it’s the Word of God? Because the Bible says so. I’m well aware that this is a circular argument. I am appealing to Scripture to argue for its own authority. But what about the argument for reason as the ultimate criterion for truth? Don’t you appeal to reason when arguing for the supremacy of reason? Isn’t that circular? What about the empiricist? Doesn’t he appeal to sense experience when arguing for the supremacy of sense experience.

So, we have two different starting points: The Scriptures and Human Reason. These two presuppositions have a powerful effect on the way we approach and evaluate the world. The question, of course, is “How did we come to differing presuppositions?” This takes us back to the beginning of this post where I referenced Ephesians 1:11, “according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will.” We can’t be convinced of the truth of God or the supremacy of the Scriptures as the Word of God unless He wills it to happen. You wrote in your critique of the free-will defense,

The problem with this statement is that God has willed that some believe and some not believe. This is what we find in Romans 9:18-23:
“Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?" But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?'” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use? What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath-- prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory”

The bottom line is that you could have evidence upon evidence (not that there’s not enough now) and you still wouldn’t believe. It’s impossible for you to believe (and I say this with all due respect) unless God works in you to convict you of your intellectual pride. Up until this point, you have denied the existence of God based on your own standards and assessment. My challenge to you is to repent of your intellectual pride and acknowledge God as Lord based on His standards and assessment.

Let me conclude by saying that everything I’ve written here has been written with the utmost amount of sincerity and concern. I have not sought to be flagrant, hostile, or judgmental. There is a problem inherent with Internet forums. The personal nature of dialogue gets shoved out of view.

I have one last question for you. How do you explain the “nontheist’s problem of evil?”

I thank you greatly,

Ku Bop

(I have a few comments to make in regards to points made in your critique of the free-will defense that I will post later. Thank you.)

[ November 22, 2002: Message edited by: Ku Bop ]</p>

Wyz_sub10

God does force us to worship him.

Therefore, by your own logic, god is not loving.

The Other Michael

Hello Ku Bop,

Without Human Reason you aren't going to be able to do anything with those Scriptures.

Unless maybe you, like Edgar Cayce, can put your head on them and soak up the contents by mental osmosis.

But even then, you've got to use your reason to interpret the information in those Scriptures.

cheers,
Michael

Jamie_L

Digression: Man, those three words just don't sound right when you put them together.

This response to the problem of evil essentially says "There is no evil. The world is as God wants it, and what God wants is not evil." Yet, this essentially re-defines the term "loving" in the phrase "all-loving God". We humans have an understanding of the meaning of "love", and I don't think many humans would wish suffering on their loved ones. So, for an all-loving God to want the amount of suffering we see in the world, we must say that what we believe to be "love" is not correct. But then the term "all-loving" becomes meaningless.

This leads us down the road to: "Why should anyone strive to do good and not evil?" After all, if our judgement of what God wants is so impaired, we cannot know what suffering God wants and what suffering God doesn't want. Should we intervene if we see a child being raped? Or does God want this piece of suffering in the world, and thus we should let it stand? After all, who are we to judge God's world?

And don't forget the problem of unbelief. It's a good one to.

Jamie

[ November 22, 2002: Message edited by: Jamie_L ]</p>

Wyz_sub10

We must own different copies. I'm going to guess you are reasoning "backwards" here - god is righteous, loving and just. Therefore, everything he does must be righteous, loving and just. The problem with this reasoning is that it assigns new defitions to those terms - definitions inconsistent with their application in the real world. You should look at what acts are righteous, etc. and see which or those god does or does not do.

Sometimes it does, but when it does, that does not mean it is "just" to do so. I can put the blame of you for me arriving late for work today. Doesn't make it right. In addition, there is plenty of killing and torture in the bible that god can take full and absolute credit for.

The question goes not to the reality he has ordered, but to whether he has ordered the reality. Apart from that, though, is the application of the terms all-powerful and perfectly loving. I understand those terms. Those terms are used to help us understand god (if not, then why assign any attributes to him whatsover?). If god is inconsistent with those attributed terms, then I should have every right (and obligation) to question the validity of those terms being assigned to him.

Not at all. Evil exists, does it not? Are you suggesting evil is not a problem? God does not have a problem with evil? If that is the case, then the bible has some edits coming.

The bible is supposedly the revelation of god. It is supposedly there to teach me about god. If the teaching appears incomprehensible, then do I not have the right to seek clarification? Am I not allowed to ask questions and expect reasonable answers?

Even if the bible was my utlimate guide, it is an incredible confusing and contradictory one.

Why has the bible gained that special privilege for you? Why can't the Vedas argue for their own authority?

No. Reason is not content, in itself. Reason is a process - a tool, if you will. It has no internal truth. The process is used toward something external. You don't use reason to prove reason. You do use the bible to prove the bible. Big difference.

The empiricist uses various experiences to validate things experienced, yes. But these experiences can be different and can come from different sources. I can set up an experience validated by your experience. The bible validates itself.

I can take a position ("the earth is a sphere") and validate that through a variety of different means, different tests, different instruments. Again, the bible validates itself - no corroborating literature or archeological evidence to subtantiate its supernatural claims.

No, reason always has some measure of effect on everyone. Even the most irrational person reasons when they eat and drink and walk and sleep. The bible has absolutely no effect on billions of people.

This is not the question at all. You reason, as do I. We don't take different presuppositions to life. You simply take certain different presuppositions, namely to the existence and nature of god.

This is grossly inconsistent with the expectations god supposedly has for mankind. If he truly wills me to believe, then I will. I don't, so I guess he doesn't will it. Therefore, I'm absolved of any "sin" I may be committing by not believing.

This statement is simply not true. If I had evidence, I would believe. If it is indeed true, then what kind of god are we talking about?

Really? Then what's god waiting for? Why not do it from birth? Or are these the kind of questions we can't ask because it challenges god? this is the problem with your reasoning - it assumes everything in god's way, on god's time. Why pray, then? Why ask god for forgiveness?

Speaking for myself....no. My challenge to you would be to apply the same reason you apply when watching a fictional movie to reading the bible. Apply the same skepticism to the bible as you do to stories about alien abductions or Uri Geller's spoon bending.

I'll buy that.

Well...two out of three. Of course you are being judgmental, but that is the nature of discussion, after all.

People think for themselves. They do not always make decisions in the best interests of others or society. People typically act in self-preservation, and the idea of this varies greatly among individuals. (i.e. having children, helping neighbours, physical gratification, ending their suffering, feeling powerful, having friends, making enemies, controlling others, acquiring wealth, converting others to their religion, etc.)

Ku Bop

Bible Humper,

Some comments and questions:

Is it believable to claim that morality and ethics arose from an impersonal, material world?

How can you descern between what can be understood by the human mind and what is the product of human thought. You are, in reality, demanding that God communicate something incommunicable. It is to His credit that he revealed himself to us via human media, in an understandable manner. He is a personal God, both transcendent and immanent.

(This all goes back to presuppositions.) The Scriptures are clear that Satan and his demons are real, and that they are deceivers. They have the power to manipulate men and the elements in order to cause miracles and religious experiences for people of other faiths, all for the purpose of taking glory away from the Lord God.

God is the God of secondary causes. It isn't suprising that many miracles can be explained via natural causes. These events are often called freak happenings for a reason. The reason being that they are abnormal, exceptional. God is Lord of the heavens, earth, and sea. He can do what He wishes with them.

Later,

Ku Bop

xeren

My favorite argument is one I kind of thought up myself, but I'm sure someone else has thought it up before:

If god is omniscient, and therefore knows everything that will ever happen in our future, then why would he create somone he knows will never believe in him, and thus will go to hell?

He is essentially creating people with no chance to make it in to heaven, who will burn in hell forever.

If any theists(or anyone who just wants to play devil's advocate) have a rebuttal to this i would like to here it, because i haven't really presented it to other people to get their views on it.

xeren

Is it believable to claim that morals came form god?

God doesn't seem to have much of a problem with rape or slavery.

Wyz_sub10

My favourite too. I'm currently engaged on this topic in RR&P.

xeren

give me the link!