Roller

Well... I don't know much, but this looks like God is capable of doing evil and we, mere humans, can see that and make him change his will.
(I hope I'm not breaking any rules with this quotation?)

Exodus 32
10 Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation.
11 And Moses besought the LORD his God, and said, LORD, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand?
12 Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people.
13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever.
14 And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.

the_cave

I'd love to talk about this, but I think it belongs on the philosophy boards.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by wiploc
[B]How so?

(wiploc's comment was written in response to my comment that God has to be all-good.)

What I mean is, for one thing, if God isn't all-good, there are some reasons for not bothering to care. For another, if God isn't all-good, then we start to argue about, well, how good is he, then? Some good? Mostly good? Half-good? This debate can rapidly become absurd (as someone else pointed out on another board here.)
I think what I really mean is, God must be maximally good. What maximally means, is a very good question. I'd say it actually means as good as is _actually possible_, perhaps the same thing as, as good as logically possible. We can imagine a God who creates a world that is happy all the time; whether this is a logically coherent idea is another question.

Another great question. Christian orthodoxy (and, really, any religion that makes sense) would say it's neither; he wants to, but freedom for his creatures is a higher good, which he always prefers. He could control the evil; but that itself would be a greater evil. What he can't do is make a world with freedom, and without evil. That, the theologian argues, is logically impossible.

Ok, that might be a coherent system. I don't think sophisticated theologians wouldn't understand you, at least.

Well, Christians I think have always been uncomfortable with an all-good God who punishes eternally. There are different responses to this; one that could work, that I can think of, is God lets people lead themselves into hell. This is kind of a technicality, but it could work. I'm not here to make these arguments, though, but I think your definition is interesting. Personally, I find it possibly compatible with the existence of a good God, who allows freedom for his creation (and who, for example, lets them lead themselves to hell if they so choose. Or, well, some other explanation...) So it's interesting, thank you.

bgponder

Albert, such sweeping generalizations!
Yes, atheists such as myself are hedonists if and,

Only if you include in "pleasure and pain" the intricacy of long-term pleasure defined and the joys of compassion. The pain of worrying about your kids when they're late from the last time they called and the relief when you finally find out they're all right. And yes the problem of suffering, of parasites and the like as the telltale squiggly lines on a graph that show the unlikelihood of the existence of a God that maintains such a conglomerate by preference.

Cave,
By all means, let's get moderated. I think it has bearing on how we may think of goodness, and thus be relevant.

Yeah.

Sincerely, BarryG

P.S. If You'd Rather Laugh With The Sinners...

Mageth

What he can't do is make a world with freedom, and without evil. That, the theologian argues, is logically impossible.

Then what of the logical possibility of the afterlife (e.g. heaven) that many of those same theologians posit? Will heaven include freedom and evil, or no freedom and no evil?

Cipher Girl

How can anyone call a god, who sends people to eternal torment for being exactly the way he created them, good?

Fiach

Nice was a poor choice of words. It is off the mark in reference to the Judeo-Christian God. You say nice is not love nor good.

Setting up Adam and Eve, programming them to fall to temptation was not GOOD nor LOVE.

Condemning them and their descendents to death and hell for either eating a fruit or seeking knowledge was definitely not LOVE.

Noah's Flood was not GOOD, but sadistically EVIL.

Requiring a blood sacrifice of his own begotten son, was not good, not love, but rather INSANITY.

If God exists and created everything, then he created parasites that eat human brain tissue, germs that killed millions in plagues, created the lethal Ebola and HIV viruses, a world where most animals die by tooth and claw by predators, and army ants that bite and sting animals to death and start eating them while still alive.

So, I and the other poster are not just nicer to God. We and You are capable of greater love, greater good, and nearly incapable of matching God's evil (Hitler came in a distant second in the genocide derby.) And no human can imagine a place more horrible than God's Hell. We are more moral than God, less vindictive than God, less violent than God.

This is a rhetorical point since I don't believe in God. I am basing my arguments on the imaginary God that Christians in whom Christians believe.

Fiach

the_cave

Cool with me, but there are already forums in the Moral Whatnot area that are appropriate...perhaps you'll find me there...

Mm, delicious question...I'll admit I have no idea. I suppose it could be that in heaven, freedom is surrendered in return for no evil; or perhaps it's as free as God is--except that, like God, no evil is ever caused. But this is speculative, and I'm afraid I just don't know what theologians tend to say.

Well, this is the same old problem again, isn't it? First, I'd say Christian orthodoxy doesn't believe that people are exactly the way God created them--our nature was changed by our will to disobedience. We were created free, but our choice of evil corrupted our nature (I won't get into the Pelagian controversy here which I still don't understand, anyway) I don't know whether you'll find that a helpful answer, though.

Now, besides this, some say there is no eternal torment...others argue that it's all about the free choice of individuals to believe or disbelieve...now why eternal torment is the just punishement for disbelief, I'm afraid I don't know, and I won't defend it if you ask me. (I will say, though, that modern definitions of "unbelief", at least for the Catholic church, have become significantly tempered...)

theophilus

God is the standard of good and, as such, cannot be measured as to "how good" he is. God is absolutely whatever he is, e.g., holy, just, righteous. Neither can we know what good is apart from him.

If Tercel told you that, he does not speak for historic Christinity.

theophilus

God is the standard of good and, as such, cannot be measured as to "how good" he is. God is absolutely whatever he is, e.g., holy, just, righteous. Neither can we know what good is apart from him.

If Tercel told you that, he does not speak for historic Christinity.

Fiach

Theo writes:

God is the standard of good and, as such, cannot be measured as to "how good" he is. God is absolutely whatever he is, e.g., holy, just, righteous. Neither can we know what good is apart from him.

If that is so, then good is completely arbitrary. Good is whatever God feels is good at the moment. In the days when God felt it was commendable to kill babies, He killed millions according to the flood story. He had Israelites kill untold hundreds of thousands of Canaanite babies in the generalised slaughters that accompanied God commanded aggression on the infidels.

God also was GOOD when he killed innocent Egyptian first borns including the first-borns of innocent non-human animals. I suppose Jesus changed the standards of good to some extent. He said for us to love our neighbour as ourselves. I suppose that also meant the neighbour's baby. So after 29 AD, baby killing became un-Good or wrong. So God changes his mind.

I have heard back in the USA during my tour there, fundamentalists claimed moral absolutes and chided secular humanists for situational ethics. Yet what I read here is that God himself is a situational ethician or moral relativist. An atheist like myself believes that morality is complex but that our evolution made some moral absolutes: murder is wrong including killing babies at all times, lying, stealing, abusing, depriving one of his/her legitimate freedom (i.e. no slavery).

How does the Chrsitian defend against the charge of moral relativism given the Bible's stories? Is morality simply subject to God's particular mood at a given time? Good is not absolute?

Fiach