Jamie_L

The thing is, I think Christians like this do a bit of a smoke and mirrors trick.

On the one hand, when they say "God is benevolent", they don't really mean "benevolent". They mean "God does whatever he wants, and what God wants is good by definition." Which means, benevolent in this context is not describing benevolence at all. It would make as much sense to say "God is frakenzigle", where "frakenzigle" means "doing what god wants".

On the other hand, however, Christians use words like benevolence on purpose, because they want their God to be a nice guy. They believe their God is a nice guy. They want other people to think their God is a nice guy. They really mean "benevolent" in the way normal people mean it.

This type of Christian flip-flops back and forth between the two meanings of "benevolence" depending on the situation. And that's what's bothersome.

Either God is benevolent in the sense that normal people use the word, or he's not. You can't have it both ways.

Jamie

xeren

Good points, everone. I forgot to mention though, that the reason my roommate said that God's concept of benevolence was different from ours is that he fully knows what benevolence is, while we humans all have somewhat imperfect definitions of benevolence. Essentially, God's definition of benevolence is simply more complete and perfect that ours is.

With that said, what can I say to that? It basically comes down to my roommates complete trust in the idea of god. I suppose no matter what god does, if god wanted to call it benevolent, my roommate would believe that it was benevolent because humans doesn't fully know what benevolence is.

So frustrating...

Jamie_L

But he's still giving benevolence a completely different definition than our "human" definition.

Give this back to him: if we don't understand what benevolence is, why should we pursue our concept of benevolence. Clearly God's concept of benevolence involves mass suffering. Should we therefore allow suffering. Maybe trying to alleviate suffering is bad. Really, since God's benevolence seems so incomprehensible, one is lead to the conclusion that one shouldn't take any actions whatsoever. Whatever is happening is what God wants in his infinite benevolence, so sit back and let that child get raped, because your concept of benevolence just isn't sufficient for you to know if it's good or bad in the grand scheme of things.

Jamie

Silent Acorns

Last year, for a few months, I hung out at the Landover Baptist Forum pretending to be an ardent True Christian (TM). One thing I discovered very quickly was that with a deftly combination of "The LORD moves in mysterious ways" and "'tis the deception of Satan ..." one can justify/argue absolutely anything. Once someone adopts this way of thinking they become immune to all arguments. Even the most blatant contradictions can be easily overlooked.

orac

It sounds suspiciously like you're talking to a christian, so the bible would seem to be useful here - christians often quote it to explain why they believe something.

Way back in the beginning, supposedly Adam and Eve ate a particular fruit that gave them the knowledge of good and evil - only after eating this fruit were they aware of what counts as sin.

If the bible is true then humans do know the difference between good and evil, even if we don't always do good ourselves.

Why would god lie to us about what is good? (Ok, there's a whole nother discussion there.)

Still, if you're going to worship a deity that drowns babies (at least when he's being merciful), you're going to have to jump through a few logical hoops to explain why you think you're worshipping the good guy.

the_cave

Well, yes and no. But let me put it this way; let's say you gave money to homeless beggars, thinking it was benevolent. Then you learned that money was usually spent to feed alcoholic addictions. "My God," you think, "That wasn't benevolence at all! I shall from now on not give money to homeless beggars. That way, I will actually be benevolent." So, were you benevolent before?

But regardless of which way you answer that question, now ask yourself; at which point did you start becoming a benevolent person?

In the same way, God's benevolence could be something other than what we think benevolence is--but when we see what is really going on, we would state "Yes, that is actually benevolence (though earlier I was deluded.)"

I'm not necessarily claiming that God's benevolence is in fact very different from our conception of benevolence--I'm saying that benevolence _itself_ could be very different from our conception of it (regardless of the existence of God). Or maybe not--but it could be.

philechat

The "Platonic form" of benevolence? Unfortunately the existence of benevolence "in-itself" without human conception need first to be demonstrated as existent.

As a moral "subjectivist", I do not believe morality to be independent of human values. In this sense "benevolence" could only be described with respect to the valuations of an individual or a culture.

sourdough

tell him there are no Gods standards of benevolence,
b/c He is an invention of human mind, they like to make him into anything they want,
there are no levels of benevolence/goodness,
either he's good or he's not.