K

benevolence - an inclination or tendency to do kind or charitable act. A kindly act.

That's how the dictionary defines it.

An omnibenevolent entity would never be able to perform a non-benevolent act, and would perform a benevolent act at every possible opportunity.

An omnipotent entity would be able to do anything it wanted to.

There is no problem of pain if God is:

impotent and omnibenevolent
potent and omnibenevolent
omnipotent and non-benevolent
ominpotent and benevolent

There is a problem of when if God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent.

Assume for the sake of argument that there is an omnipotent god that created this world. It is possible to conceive of an omnipotent God who could create a world without the random suffering caused by acts of nature without at all limiting free will. Tha god would be more benevolent than any god that created this world. Therefore, if a god did create this world, He could not be considered omnibenevolent.

Kassiana

luvluv:
The ability to follow rules is a good thing...

Kass:
I see. You're blindly asserting without evidence that being able to follow rules is good, even though I have presented you with much evidence that it is not. Got it. I shall not try to sway you with facts any longer, as you're not working with them.

I assert that being able to follow rules is not good. There. I've rebutted your "argument." Now I can go do something productive.

Philosoft

luvluv, K echos my sentiments in his/her last post. I don't therefore see a need to respond to your last post to me, so I'll pick up where K leaves off if need be.

K

Philosoft:

His.

Jack the Bodiless

luvluv:

A truly omnibenevolent, omnipotent and omnipotent God would evaluate every single situation on its merits and weigh the distress caused by intervention against the distress caused by non-intervention in that situation.

Free will would be overruled whenever this is necessary to prevent distress which exceeds that caused by the intervention itself. The Holocaust would not have happened. All children would recover from "character-building" diseases. Bad things would never happen to good people: at worst, they would happen only to people who were not good yet. Life may still contain "ups and downs", but no setback will ever be permanent.

Of course, this means that the existence of God would be obvious to all. I don't see why knowledge of the existence of God would be a bad thing: even if this "removes some measure of free will", this is not automatically a bad thing (and others who cannot bring themselves to believe due to lack of evidence will gain the option of believing).

You have attempted to define unlimited "free will" (indistinguishable from total anarchy, in fact) as "good": we disagree.

And it's interesting that you keep bringing up the stubbing of toes and suchlike. Let's try to keep a sense of perspective here. You are embracing ALL of the most terrible suffering that humanity has ever experienced! Being burned to death is no big deal. Shitting yourself to death from dysentery. Watching your loved ones dig their own graves, then get their brains blown out one by one. While someone who can stop all this (and has the power to deal with ANY complications that might arise from intervention) watches and does nothing.

In any other context, we would never use the word "benevolent" to describe such an onlooker. But you expect us to use the word "OMNIbenevolent"!

wordsmyth

K,

You summed things up excellently and I applaud your eloquence. <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />


luvluv,

K also echoes my sentiments as well and so I see no need to reply to your last reply to me as there wasn't any new arguments in it. All I saw was a regurgitation of your obvious lack of understanding the implications of the OMNI aspects of your deity's alleged attributes.

luvluv

K:

Here is the point where I disagree. I don't think Omnibenevolence would have to intervene at every possible opportunity. It is possible that the end results of intervening at every possible opportunity could be produce an end that is not as good as intervening sporadically or not intervening at all.

The example I gave before was the example of requiring someone to learn how to do a task on their own. Obviously, this process will involve some level of failure and with that failure some suffering. Intervening and doing the task for the person would spare them suffering, but it would be at the expense of them ever learning for themselves. If a being can learn to do something on their own, even if their are failures along the way, that person has recieved MORE good than the person who was simply given automatic knowledge and automatic application of the knowledge. The individual who learns through trial and error can be free, can have the satisfaction of learning on his own and coming into possesion of the skill through his own effort, can have the joy of teaching others the skill, etc, etc.

Certainly, an omnipotence could simply create an entity with the ability to perform every task perfectly. But would that be a better way (involving more goodness) than allowing the person to learn?

The one who lives in a world where everyone automatically knows the skill would not have any of these joys, which are good. Therefore, the individual in such a world would have quantitatively less goodness surrounding his ability to do a task than the one who was born into a world where suffering was not the defining criteria.

I propose that learning how to live is a skill that is learned just like the hypothetical skill in the example above. It can be simply given, but it would involve a net loss of goodness as opposed to it being fought for and earned.

Is it better for a child to simply be programmed with the all spelling knowledge and win the spelling bee, or for that child to have worked hard, overcome hardships, learned to believe in himself and appreciate hardwork, have done all of these things freely AND WITH THE SAME END RESULT. I see learning to live as being demonstrably more benevolent (involving more good things) than simply being programmed to live). Therefore, since we can conceive of benevolences that are not possible without freedom to, for one thing, learn, then omnibenevolence cannot use a method that would not allow for any of these good things (it would then be lacking in these good qualities and by necessity non-omnibenevolent). Since learning necessitates some suffering, and learning allows more good qualities than instinct (pre-programming) and has the same result, it is more good to allow the process of learning and the attendant suffering than to program everyone to behave on instinct.


Your definition of omnibenevolence is of an entity that allows for the LEAST POSSIBLE BAD, mine is of an entity that provides for the MOST POSSIBLE GOOD. I believe my definition of omnibenevolence to be closer to the truth, but I think it's a good idea to define our terms.

K

luvluv:

I think you've presented a strong case for suffering in a struggle to achieve greater good. I still disagree in that I believe that, while the concept may be foreign to us, an omnipotent god could create a universe where the sense of accomplishment is tied to the accomplishment itself instead of the pain and suffering endured to reach the goal. However, I will cede this point to you as it is a reasonable and seemingly consistent view.

I would like to concentrate on the suffering that does not achieve a greater good. You could say that we can't know what greater good God may know. I couldn't refute that, but since I don't see any evidential or logical reason to believe it, I think we would just have to agree to disagree at that point.

I think the problem of pain exists as long as there are random acts of suffering that could be eliminated by an omnipotent diety without removing the sense of accomplishment of people can achieve at the end of a noble struggle. Children suffering with terminal illnesses comes to mind.

luvluv

Well, there could be a noble struggle to overcome such diseases and the joy of achieving such freedom. That's just a hypothetical, though, I'm not saying that's why diseases exist.

K, what did you make of C.S. Lewis's arguments for the necessity of a consistent external world? That would be a place to start.

K

luvluv:

There are many children with painful deseases that are never overcome. They simply suffer for their entire short lives while they are mercilessly consumed by an unrelenting condition that ravages their small bodies. Some go through this torture while their parents and caregivers look on helplessly - pleading for God to allow them to trade places with the innocent child. Others die alone and afraid in an orphanage or alley. These types of situations are what make me claim that an omnipotent god can not be omnibenevolent.

I thought Lewis' point about a consistent external world made some sense. I don't think it was at all apparent that that world should naturally conflict with our being. He seemed to make the assumption that the world was perfect and then rationalize why pain fits into this world. My contention is that an omnipotent being could create a beautiful, meaningful world with less suffering (maybe even no suffering). While I granted the point that suffering to achieve a goal can be reasoned, I still don't buy the argument that a consistent external world would require suffering - certainly not the amount we see on this earth.

(off topic) By the way, I'm going to try to pick up a copy of The Great Divorce today. I understand that it deals more with the problem of pain in the afterlife. Is this what you got from it?