The Bobby Llama

Apparently, the student's argument is so clever and unpredictable that there's no way the professor would have seen this one coming.

Jinto

I would reply as follows:

Hello sir or madame.

The fascinating story you have sent me is actually a variation on another story frequently told in university circles. Frankly, I think it's inferior to the original version, which I present here:

At a certain college, there was professor who taught evolution. Now, knowing that some Christians would invariably challenge him on philosophical ground, he made it a point to ask his Christian students questions that would challenge their beliefs.

One semester, he asked if anyone was a Christian and in response, a young man raised his hand. The professor asked, "Did God make everything, young man?" "Yes, he did sir." the young man replied.

The professor responded, "If God made everything, then God made evil, and if we can only create from within ourselves, then God is evil." The student didn't have a response and the professor was happy to have once again proved the Christian faith to be illogical.

Then another man raised his hand and asked, "May I ask you something, sir?"

"Yes, you may," responded the professor.

The young man stood up and said, "Sir, is there such thing as cold?" "No. From a physics standpoint, cold is merely the absence of heat."

The young man replied "That is right. May I ask you another question?"

"Go ahead."

"Is there such a thing as dark?"

The professor replied "Again, no. From a physics standpoint, darkness is merely the absence of light."

"I'm glad to see we agree," replied the student. "So then, is there such a thing as evil?"

"Undoubtebly yes." says the professor. "We have rapes, murders, all sorts of violence, countless acts which harm others for the selfish and sadistic needs of a minority, all of which are evil. In fact, so pervasive is this that we have developed a term for the absence of evil: we call it good."

Needless to say, the second student was silent.

Volker.Doormann

Kevin:
Why do you think, that your absolute knowledge about that 'we can not know what evil is, unless we have an absolute concept of what is righteous and good' is more good, than other relative perceptions of the consciousness of a living crature p.e. in war?

Volker

Eudaimonist

To be objective, we should speak of temperature, but is good and evil measurable in similar terms? Can we measure the "temperature" (the degree of goodness) of an act on some numerical scale? Is a rape 0.01 goodometers above Absolute Evil? I doubt that it makes much sense to do so, so the analogy is too weak to be useful.

And God created a Universe with perfect foresight that he knew would contain this absence... and he is not responsible for this?

spurly

This is a good question. I am convinced that all good things come from God and are built into the set up of the universe. We were created in the image of God himself, thus part of our recognizing what is good and what is evil is inherent in our nature.

Without this absolute concept of good (i.e. the nature and character of God), we would have no concept of good or evil in our universe because this universe, as his creation, is an extension of himself.

Other living creatures perceptions of good and evil, whether they realize it or not, go back to the Godhead himself who put the concept of goodness and righteousness into play in the first place.

Where did evil as we know it come from? It came from the perversion and twisting of that which is good.

Kevin

Marduk

“Where did evil as we know it come from? It came from the perversion and twisting of that which is good”

More likely it came from self preservation, watch the big critter take the little critters food, eat its young to survive a period of little food etc. animal nature. But we have the ability to express our displeasure with things that harm us and through a more advanced sense of empathy for our fellow creatures, a bear can’t verbalize “hey knock it off , that hurts” or make a note to fellow bears ‘memo to bears; stop fighting there are plenty of fish to eat”

More complex forms of evil, like serial killers, come from civilization/society itself and many complex interactions, physical and social.

Volker.Doormann

If I have understood this correctly, then your claim 'we can not know what evil is, unless we have an absolute concept of what is righteous and good' is a self created idea of your mind. I had assumed, that you have an absolute knowledge about that claim 'we can not know what evil is, unless we have an absolute concept of what is righteous and good'. The simple problem is, that you can have a knowledge about a subject or not, only. You can not claim simultaneously without contradiction, that we can not have a knowledge and that you have an absolute knowledge. But if you say, that you have created your idea only for yourself, then it doesn't interfere with nature in whole.



Obvious there is a nature with living creatures, which can only live, if they eat other creatures. Other creatures must dye, that one can live. If this would not be animals, then it would be plants or fruits, from which no other plants could live. The whole world of animals is a dynamic process of murdering other creatures to live. Each mother of a Dino Saurier, who's child is eaten by other animals is crying to god, for this concept. The real world of human living is barely different from this concept.

If it would be right, that in that concept goodness and righteousness is put into in the first place to play, then no creature would have the right claim to eat other creatures. Because it can be seen by contemplation of the dynamic nature, that there is no way out to change this dynamic nature of killing and eating and will be killed and will be eaten by others into a nature of goodness and righteousness, I think that the idea of a concept, which is created in your mind, has lacks of knowledge about a concept that acknowledge the truth of nature.
If this is true, then it is also true, that not only good things comes from a god, but also things, which we are perceive as not good.

Is a hungry lion, who eats other animals pervers?

I see well a great concept of nature, in that such attributes as good or evil have no meaning. Evil and good are never to separate. Good only can exist by it's opposition, the evil. The evil can not exist without it's complement, the good. To worship only the good, means to despise the evil. But to despise the evil is equal to despise the imperfection of human creatures, what is equal to a worship of the evil. (!)

I think there are a lot of lacks in your created idea about a concept of god.

Volker

Jamie_L

Unlike light or heat, God is a conscious being capable of taking action, rather than just obeying the laws of physics.

If God is omniscient, he knows "where" he is "absent".

If God is omnipotent, he can choose to be "present" "whereever" he wishes.

So, one must ask, why does God choose to remain "absent" from so many "places"?

Jamie

Volker.Doormann

If a god would do act, then either there would be an imperfect concept before acting or after.

I think that question implied a never taken claim. Jesus cited by Thomas: "If your leaders say to you, 'Look, the kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is within you and it is outside you."

Volker

Jamie_L

I've never really bought this arguement, though I haven't thought deeply about why.

Maybe we might not appreciate our good fortune as fully without bad fortune to compare it to - but it would still be good fortune.

A woman who grows up without ever being raped and without ever encountering the concept of rape, may not fully appreciate the importance of not being raped. However, she still has not been raped. Surely she is better off than if she did get raped, but was able to appreciate how good she had it before she got raped.

The same holds true for all kinds of suffering. Even if you don't fully appreciate your lack of suffering, you're still better off if you don't actually suffer. Or else why do we spend so much time trying to eliminate suffering in the world? Why aren't we trying to preserve it so that we can maintain a strong opposition to good such that strong good continues to exist?

Jamie