NonContradiction

Yes, you are correct. I have to admit that the God that you are describing in your argument doesn't exist. I don't believe that a God who wants to prevent suffering more than anything else exists. However, your argument doesn't prove that a Tri-Omni God who wants us to obtain the virtue of patience doesn't exist.

NonContradiction

I agree. However, the devil is in the details, as they say:

Synonyms: patience, long-suffering, resignation, forbearance.
These nouns denote the capacity to endure hardship, difficulty, or inconvenience without complaint.

If patience denotes the capacity to endure hardship, difficulty, or inconvenience without complaint, then, by definition, how can you have patience without hardship, difficulty, or inconvenience? It's logically impossible, by definition, for us to obtain one without the other, much in the same way it's impossible for 2+2=5.

Dr Rick

It is not logically possible for 2 + 2 to equal 5, but that doesn't say anything about the possibility of emotional attributes.

Patience is not the opposite of suffering, nor is its definition contigent upon suffering, so it is not by definition impossible for one to exist without the other. You have provided no logical proof that one is contingent upon the other. There is no more reason to accept your assertion than there is to accept this one:

How can you have hardship, difficulty, or inconvenience without patience? It's logically impossible, by definition, for us to obtain them without the other.

Do you find this last statement to be a logical proof or even remotely convincing? It's constructed just as your argument is, so it is no less valid.

theophilus

Because that would destroy the illusion of actually saying something just by throwing around terms like "illogical,"
"question begging, " etc.

theophilus

These statements are characteristic of a general misunderstanding or misapplication of logic. Logic does not prove or disprove anything.
Logic is a way of testing the validity of arguments, and nothing more. An argument can be valid even if the premises are false if it follows the proper form.
The "proof" of an argument resides elsewhere; it requires an epistemological system which can establish truth and falsehood.
Of course, materialism cannot furnish such an epistemological system since truth is not a function of matter.

NonContradiction

Nonsense. You are affirming the consequent here which is an invalid argument.

P1) If patience exists, then pain and suffering must exist.

If P then Q

Q

Therefore, P

I can think of many examples where pain and suffering exists and patience does not. Think of how tempers flare during traffic jams. Yes, it's quite possible for pain and suffering to exist without patience, but for what reason would people have patience if no pain and suffering exists? Nobody is answering that question because there is no reason.

Philosoft

NonCon, I'm a little confused. Is it your contention that a person suffers or feels pain while standing in line for the bank teller? Because I would have trouble stipulating to that. That would expand the scope of pain and suffering out of whack, seemingly only to allow your argument to proceed. This sounds like some kind of special plead.

Wiploc

Sure it does.

Take omniscience: A lot of people give up omniscience because of the PoE. They say that god can't know the future, or that god can't know people's minds. That's how they square god's benevolence with suffering: god's doing the best he can, but he doesn't know enough to get everything right.

Take omnipotence: You yourself admit that god can't do everything. If there's a disagreement between god and logic, logic wins. Then, for every apparent divine malfeasance, you cite an implicit logical impossibility. God can't do both freewill and obedience, or god can't do both patience and lack of suffering. If god doesn't seem to be performing as advertised, it must be because he can't; some sort of logical impossibility must exist, right?

Take Omnibenevolence: It seems to me that patience is a virtue only because we have to wait. Patience is a way of coping with suffering, not a good-thing-in-itself that it's worth suffering to get. I haven't been arguing that with you though, because it seems to that your patience vs. not suffering example is just an example. It's not important, because if somebody convinced you it was wrong, you'd just pick another example. Your point is that god has to choose between different ways to help us. Every bad thing that ever happened to anybody was a gift from god; it's god's way of giving us something better than not having that pain.

God chooses for us to suffer from cancer, from the death of friends, from fear and hunger and child abuse and hatred. God has a higher goal in mind than relieving our suffering.

Well, you can call it a "higher" goal. You can say suffering is "good" for us. You can believe that eternal torment in hellfire is "beneficial" in some unknowable sense. But, in so doing, you have denatured the word "omnibenevolence." Where it used to mean not wanting anybody to suffer at all, you've got a meaning that has to somehow accommodate hellfire. You can still call god omnibenevolent, but only at the cost of robbing omnivenevolence of all meaning.

Is god still tri-omni? Not like in the old days, and not in any meaningful sense. Now omnipotent means there are things he can't do. Omniscient means there are things he doesn't know. And omnibenevolent means he's going to hurt you bad.

You can keep calling him tri-omni if you want to, but because of the PoE, it doesn't mean a thing.
crc

Dr Rick

There are logical proofs; you may find an introduction to logic helpful if you want to learn a little about the subject.

It is not valid to assert a premise, even a false one, and then claim it as a conclusion. From the reference above:

"We say that an argument is valid if the conjunction of its premises implies its conclusion. In other words, validity means that if all the premises are true, then so is the conclusion. Validity of an argument does not guarantee the truth of its premises, so does not guarantee the truth of its conclusion. It only guarantees that the conclusion will be true if the premises are."

Then there's that whole non sequitur 'thing' that just seems to pop-up out of nowhere...

Dr Rick

What you call "P1" is the conclusion that you seek, so it's probably not such a great idea to propose it as a postulate or premise and then come up with it as a conclusion.

You have claimed that there can be no patience without [whatever]; you can't use that claim as a postulate in a logical proof.

The "but for what reason would people have patience if no pain and suffering exists" is just the question begging; the obvious answer is "none." There is no reason for an omni-god to let us suffer to give us patience.

In an earlier post you claimed that god allows suffering to teach us patience, so it's a little bit weird to then ask us what is the reason for patience; in my opinion, the questionable benefits arising from the attribute of patience are no justication at all for the degree of suffering we witness and experience, so to answer the question you pose: "There is no reason for suffering; an omni-god wouldn't let us suffer without reason, and yet we do; therefore, there is no omni-god."

If you believe otherwise, the burden of proof is upon you, and it's probably not such a great idea either to ask "what reason would people have patience" unless you can come up with an answer yourself. My answer is that patience is no justification for suffering; you have provided no logical proof that it is.