Board index ‹ The Problem of Evil and Suffering

[Newbie]

Unfortunately, there is no consistency on the part of Christianity regarding the features of their God, but the three biggest features discussed are:

omniscience
omnipotentence
omnibenevolence.

You can't know everything, be able to do anything and be perfectly moral...and have the Sandyhook Shooting. You just cannot. There is no logic.
In order for this to be the case, one of these features has to be incorrect. And that's what it seems all debates about the Christian God boils down to: redefining or removing one of these omni-characteristics in order to make the logic viable.

He is all knowing, except for free will. He is all powerful...except for free will. He is all good, except his love is a mystery.

So where have I erred?

[jimwalton]

Here’s the argument you’re suggesting:

God exists
God is believed to be omnipotent (all-powerful)
God is believed to be perfectly good
But evil exists, so we have a problem here.

Where did you err?

A) His omniscience does not exclude either the possibility of or the exercise of free will. If he is eternal, and can see the future as easily as the past, and therefore knows all, and our free will decisions lie before him like a movie storyboard.

and C) He is all good, but there is nothing mysterious about it. The Bible takes 1600 pages to explain many parts of it to us so that we have reasonable understanding.

To continue with the critique, the claims of omniscience, omnipotence, and omnibenevolence don’t automatically create a contradiction with the existence of evil. They may even be perfectly compatible. We won’t know until we go deeper. What you seem to be saying is that the very existence of evil automatically contradicts any belief in the existence of God. So you need to give me some evidence of that. I’m not sure you can, but I’m willing to listen.

Let's start here: we know that good is opposed to evil, but what you’re assuming is that the REAL good always works to eliminate evil as far as it can. I agree with that to a limited extent, but it only goes so far, and certainly not to the existence of the Christian God and the existence of evil. Allow me to explain what I mean.

When we say God is all-powerful (omnipotent), we are not claiming that there are no limits to what he can do. We ARE claiming that there are no non-logical limits to what He can do. We would say that there are things God can’t do because they're not logical, such as, "Can God make a rock so big God can't lift it?", or, "Can God make a circle that is square?" These aren’t logical things, so we would never claim that God can do that. Therefore God being all-powerful doesn't mean he can do everything, even illogical things. The Christian God, for instance, cannot do evil. He can't go back on his word. He can't be ungodlike. This goes along with your "B": one of the things God can't do is interfere with people's free will, because that would contradict the definition of love.

I also don't agree with the idea that REAL good always works to eliminate evil as far as it can. For instance, we say that pain is evil, but wait a minute: when a doctor performs surgery, he causes pain, but he doesn’t stop being good because he did that. As a matter of fact, the pain was part of the good he did, and you can’t get rid of that “evil” without getting rid of the “good” too. Right? So "good" and "pain" aren't automatically contradictory. I've had plenty of friends go through chemotherapy—that's an awful thing to go through. But "good" and "pain" aren't automatically contradictory.

Then, might you be saying it’s only evil if it doesn’t produce a good that outweighs the evil? Well, but you’ve already admitted then that the existence of pain is not a contradiction to a person being good and allowing it.

OK, then. Maybe God is perfectly good only if he tries to eliminate every evil that he can without also eliminating a greater good? Bingo. God can be all-powerful and good, and certain evil can still possibly exist. That’s what I’m saying, for sure. Sometimes suffering brings out the best in people (see illustrations below, including Sandyhook), and they display nobility and courage in the face of it. Sometimes people get stronger by it, or learn important lessons. It’s very possible that good and evil together can be a good state of affairs. And that means that God can be all-powerful, and permit as much evil as he please without forfeiting his claim to being good, as long as for every evil he permits there is the possibility of a great good—as long as there is a balance of good over evil in the universe as a whole. That’s exactly what the Bible teaches.

If you think there’s a contradiction between omnipotence & omnibenevolence and the existence of evil, you need to share your evidence. You have to show that if there is ANY evil, it’s unjustified evil, and that evil is always unjustified. But even if it’s remotely possible that evil is justifiable for a possible greater good, than there is no contradiction with God being good and evil existing. Is this getting too tangled, or is it clear? You’ll have to let me know.

All I’m saying is that it’s possible that God is perfectly good, and that God allows evil to exist in the world although he could prevent it. The point is there may be reasons he doesn’t prevent it, but that doesn’t make Him not good.

But what about those evils that are so severe, protracted, and involuntary that they are deep evil and deep pain? Nazi Germany, Sandyhook, Columbine. Well, what you have to prove is that even those never do and could never possibly have ANY redeeming value if your point is true. I would say that’s difficult, if not impossible, to prove, and that what the Bible teaches is still possible, and certainly not a contradiction.

To illustrate my point I'll add a quote that I got from a piece written by Phil Yancey: "Bishop Desmond Tutu, in South Africa, sat through the hearings of the crimes that whites committed on blacks in the name of God and the government. Yet after two years of listening to such horrific accounts, Bishop Tutu came away with his faith strengthened. The hearings convinced him that perpetrators are morally accountable, that good and evil are real and that they matter. Despite relentless accounts of inhumanity, Tutu emerge from the hearings with this conviction: “For us who are Christians, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is proof positive that love is stronger than hate, that life is stronger than death, that light is stronger than darkness, that laughter and joy, and compassion and gentleness and truth, all these are so much stronger than their ghastly counterparts.” Richard Dawkins, by contrast, believes the universe has “precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.” Stephen Jay Gould describes humans as “a cosmic accident that would never arise again if the tree of life could be replanted.” The tragedy in Newtown, CT, in December of 2012, tells a different story. There was an outpouring of grief, compassion, and generosity, not blind, pitiless indifference. There were acts of selflessness, not selfishness: in the school staff who sacrificed their lives to save children, in the sympathetic response of a community and a nation. There was a deep belief that the people who died mattered, and that something of inestimable worth was snuffed out on December 14."