ReasonableDoubt

There's been a lot of discussions about the Problem of Evil - and why God should not allow it at all, or at least at the level it is, if he is omnipotent, omnibenevelont, etc.

The thought crossed my mind - it's certainly desirable to humanity that humans act well instead of badly, that they make fewer rather than more mistakes. But why should they? Why shouldn't a person be able to continue to act wrongly if he or she so desires? Why shouldn't that person continue to make mistakes?

For God to prevent these actions or mistakes, God must DEMAND that humans do things his way rather than the way we want to. He'd give humans no democratic right to do things their own way, no matter how wrong they are according to most people or to God himself.

Doesn't everyone have a right to make mistakes and to live how they choose? Don't they have a right to prove their behavior stupid, etc?

People usually don't think they are wrong when they make their mistakes. Later they may realize it. But isn't there some value in learning through errors and finally proving the wrongness of their actions?

Humans are fallible, much of the time they first make their mistakes, then they recognize them. The fallibility allows them to have experiences they may never have had - valuable or not.

So if everyone lived the way God desired they would not be fallible, would they. Would we want to live in the fascist-type world that would create?

If you knew you were acting irresponsibly in your choices, would you really want your mother telling you which job you should take, whom you should marry, how much money you could spend? Even though you knew intellectually she was correct- you would resent that intereference.

Perhaps allowing people to make serious mistakes and to defeat their own ends is the price we pay for democracy.

If we value autonomy more than any other value, this makes some sense. What good is it to have a desirable outcome without autonomy? FOr example, would you want your spouse to continue to be married to you, even though you know he or she really wants out of the marriage but is only staying out of inertia or obligation? Perhaps some people would, but I would only want the desired outcome of a sustained marriage if both partners were autonomously choosing to do so, if my partner's autonomy was not being honored, it would not be authentic or true - and so would not be worth much to me.

The consequences of allowing everyone to go their own way and make mistakes then arise naturally according to natural law, is that correct? The consequence of me pushing someone off a cliff is that gravity takes hold and then that person falls, thus evil is ensuing.

I grant that this does not take care of the problem of why God chose to create us in the first place knowing the amount of evil that would obtain - nor does it take God off the hook for creating us with bodies that are so susceptible to disease and injury.
But I am trying to explore this possibility -t hat personal autonomy is actually the most important value, rather than an evil-free society.

Any thought are appreciated.

Ab_Normal

post prandial rambling:
I have no objection to people making mistakes or stupid decisions that hurt only themselves. It's when their decision is to hurt another that I have problems. We're talking about the Problem of Evil, not the Problem of Stupid. Would an omnipotent deity be able to create creatures that would choose not to hurt each other, but still have the ability to make mistakes that hurt themselves? I dunno.

Pyrrho

The ONLY reason it has value is that we learn. If we learn without making mistakes, that would be better, and if we already knew, so we didn't have to learn anything, that would be better still.

Furthermore, the fact that people make mistakes is reason to believe that their creator, if they have one, is flawed. After all, when a human makes something that is defective, we say that he or she is not very good at making that thing. Since people are defective, it makes sense to say that their creator (again, if they were created) is flawed. A perfect creator creates perfect things, not imperfect things.


But it is not good to have those experiences that are not valuable, and the valuable ones often derive their value from the lessons learned, so, again, it would be better to learn without mistakes, and better still to already know. And if something else were accomplished through the mistakes, again, it would be better to have the accomplishment without the mistakes.


Speak for yourself. I welcome valuable suggestions from others, and prefer to avoid making mistakes as much as possible. If you prefer to learn only through your own mistakes, rather than learning from the mistakes of others, I think you are making a big mistake.


But if everyone freely chose to be good, this would not interfere with their autonomy, and that would be better than people making the choices they now make.


If it were true that personal autonomy were the most important thing, then it would be good for God to only make perfectly autonomous beings, if He made any beings at all (which there would still be no particular reason for Him to do, as He can be perfectly autonomous on His own). He did not choose to do that. (Perhaps because He does not exist.)

Family Man

The problem I have with this is that, according to theistic doctrine, we have an interventionist god. Allegedly, god does do things for us. Thus, insteading of taking the rather simple position that evil exists and we're on our own, we get the following rather nonsensical position:

Theist: First, there is a God.
Atheist: How do we know there's a God?
Theist: We just do. And he wants us to have free will.
Atheist: How do we know that he wants us to have free will?
Theist: We just do. But sometimes, God will help us overcome evil if we pray to him.
Atheist: So praying to God will always prevent evil from hurting you?
Theist: No, because sometimes the answer is no.
Atheist: Then how do you know that God answered your prayer?
Theist: I just do. You see, God has this plan.
Atheist: Really? Can I see it?
Theist: No, you can't see it.
Atheist: Then how do you know that God has a plan?
Theist: I just do. Look, God is mysterious.
Atheist: No, he isn't. He simply appears to be a set of unwarranted assumptions.

ReasonableDoubt

I don't see why, just because God is infallible, it follows that he can only create infallible things. Is God fallible b/c he creates autonomous beings, who, being autonomous, become fallible?

For the sake of this argument, I'm assuming humans are autonomous beings. I'm saying, is it possible that autonomy is actually the highest value - could it be that autonomy is more important than happiness (or non-evil)?

How are you judging that a state of non-evil is more important than individual autonomy?

I'm not limiting the term "God" to the traditional Judeo-Christian god of the Bible. Perhaps he isn't an interventionist God, but solely a creator - (deism?)

And i'm also not talking about any eternal punishment for failure to follow god either.

Just b/c we disagree w/ the traditional views of God doesn't mean there is not a God out there - that's what I'm trying to figure out.

Pyrrho

A creator, qua creator, is judged by its creations. For example, a potter is judged, qua potter, based upon the quality of the pots that the potter creates. The better the pots, the better the potter. The same reasoning applies to creating anything else.


You seem to assume that being autonomous necessarily causes one to be fallible. If you reject that assumption, then there is no inconsistency in creating an autonomous infallible being. Furthermore, with your assumption, the autonomous being must not be free to choose to always do the right thing, or it could be infallible, contrary to your assumption.

This also raises the question of whether or not a perfect God could be autonomous (in the sense you mean). If not, then, since the God is perfect, it would appear that autonomy is NOT part of perfection.


To deal with that issue would involve deciding upon (and establishing) a particular ethical theory. Good luck on that.


Well, the first thing to observe is that the "Problem of Evil" isn't a problem at all for a being that isn't supposed to be infallible, so if you are giving up on that, then we are in an entirely different discussion. For example, there being evil isn't at all inconsistent with the existence of Zeus, as understood by the ancient Greeks. Zeus was not all-knowing, not all-powerful, and not all-good. There are other considerations for deciding whether or not Zeus exists, but I'm not terribly interested in discussing that at the moment.

But as far as interventionist God vs. noninterventionist God, I'd have to say that the interventionist God would not be perfect, as it needs to keep doing things to get its creation to do what it wants. If it were a perfect creator, it would have no need to interfere with its creation later; it would simply work properly all of the time.

We can compare this with a clockmaker, if you like. A human clockmaker cannot make a perfect clock, that never will need to be repaired or rewound (or new batteries or whatever power source it uses, it will be finite in its duration). However, a perfect clock works perfectly forever. No clockmaker, therefore, can be claimed to be perfect if there are no perfect clocks. In the absence of a perfect creation, there is no reason to believe in a perfect creator. With an imperfect creation, the creator must be imperfect. This is because it made a mistake in its creation.

Defiant Heretic

I generally avoid applying the problem of evil to conscious beings, because quite frankly, I think that removing the freedom of choice of these beings is akin to slavery, and as such, the greater evil in nearly all cases.

However, this exception does not apply to natural disasters. Why wouldn't a benevolent god have stopped Mt. Vesuvius from erupting in 70 CE? The people of Pompeii did not choose to be killed. In fact, I would say that the majority of them were probably disappointed with the results of the eruption. So why wouldn't a benevolent god have done something to prevent it?

Stormy

A volcano errupting is not evil? It is an act of nature.

The Earth lets off steam.

You want to change the whole nature and chemistry of man and the Universe?

OK... Tell me of the life and Earth that you would design.

The Frood Dude

I offer the following as questions, not answers.

I am wondering about the way God intervenes in the world, and I am thinking God does not supernaturally intervene in any way shape or form. God does not alter any laws of nature. If God addresses any evil at all, it is the evil in the hearts of those who choose God. When a follower of God discovers evil in his or her own life, he or she has a resource for transformation and change. But the evil in the world is not simply existing as its own personality. It is through the actions of humans upon other humans that evil is expressed.

Ok, just musing about this. Still rolling these ideas around.

HRG

But according to many theists, an omnipotent and omniscient god created nature, including the volcano - in full knowledge that it would bring harm and suffering to sentient beings.

That's evil.
Me ? I'm not omniscient. But an omniscient (or close to omniscient) being should be able to design a universe without suffering, don't you think so ?

Regards,
HRG.