Proof God created evil

[YouAreAwesome]

Please either find the mistake in this logic, or find the false premise:

1. God created free agents
2. Free agents have the potential to do evil, e
3. Potential has a non-zero probability, p, where 0<p<1
4. Therefore, over infinite time, the probability of a free agent to perform evil approaches 1 [Let t represent time, then P(e)=1-(p')^t, ∴ P(e)=1 as t→∞]
5. Therefore God created free agents knowing they would create evil
6. It was impossible for free agents to remain sinless
7. Therefore God is 100% responsible for evil
8. Therefore God created evil

SOLVED: FAULT FOUND IN PREMISE #4
As a free agent develops in their relationship with God, they are less likely to do evil. The probability of doing evil is then a decreasing exponential function approaching zero. For example, we might arbitrarily choose p=e^-t as t→∞ and t>0 (e=natural log, not to be confused with e=evil).

The equation when taking the complement of p is then:

P(e)=1-(1-e^-t)^t as t→∞ and t>0

And this approaches 0, not 1.

 

[RDKirk]

"Infinity" has been aptly described as "the time it takes all possibilities to occur."

 

[YouAreAwesome]

"Infinity" has been aptly described as "the time it takes all possibilities to occur."

So would you say God did create evil because He created at least one possibility for evil (i.e. the tree in the Garden)?

 

[RDKirk]

So would you say God did create evil because He created at least one possibility for evil (i.e. the tree in the Garden)?

I would not have known sin if it were not for the law. For example, I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, Do not covet. And sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind. For apart from the law sin is dead.

Once I was alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. The commandment that was meant for life resulted in death for me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and through it killed me. -- Romans 7

The primary thing God did was to utter the command. There could have been no sin without the utterance of the commandment.

There was nothing inherently toxic about the tree. God had already said that all the plants He'd created were good for food. If God had not uttered the command, Adam and Eve could have eaten freely from the tree with nothing but beneficial effects.

It was the command that created a toxic potential--and as Paul puts it, an inevitability--for sin to occur.

And then God had already created the being He knew beforehand would be the catalyst for that sin to occur.

 

[John Hyperspace]

Please find the mistake in this logic:

1. God created free agents
2. Free agents have the potential to do evil, e
3. Potential has a non-zero probability, p, where 0<p<1
4. Therefore, over infinite time, the probability of a free agent to perform evil approaches 1 [Let t represent time, then P(e)=1-(p)^t, ? P(e)=1 as t?8]
5. Therefore God created free agents knowing they would create evil
6. It was impossible for free agents to remain sinless
7. Therefore God is 100% responsible for evil
8. Therefore God created evil

I don't believe there is a mistake in the logic; but logic is like math being a "garbage in garbage out" system of expression. So

1. All elephants are pink
2. Nellie is an elephant
3. Nellie is pink

is flawless logic. But since the proposition 1 is false, the flawless logic leads to a false output. I would dispute your proposition 1 as being unreasonable. But for sake of discussion, accepting it as reasonable, the logic is cogent. I also believe the conclusion to be true, though arrived at through false propositions.

If this is true, is "the end justifies the means" the only response available? In other words, was the value of free agents to God greater than the evil they would create? In times of suffering, is there comfort found in recognizing the overall reason for evil is because we are more valuable to God when we have a moral free will?

This "comfort" will completely depend on the outcome of free will. If universal reconciliation is the underlying truth; then there is indeed comfort. But in contemplations of things like "salvation" and "hell" and "damnation" and such: those who teach these can somehow find "comfort" in their own state of safety, while completely detaching themselves from others. I find this type of "love" to be egocentric in the extreme, and indicative of a false form of "love" (which I believe the scripture refers to as "feigned love"): this meaning that unfeigned love never considers the comfort of its own self, but always on the comfort of others: it is truly the self-sacrificing love of a brother's keeper and "seeks not to her own" (1 Corinthians 13:5) as well as looks "on the things of others" (Philippians 2:4)

If others are not reconcilied right along with me, then there is no comfort in anything, since they will not have comfort; creation becomes a failed creation, and I end up in a state of perpetual discomfit (no matter where I end up) having to forgive God for causing needless endless suffering to others. In all "hell" scenarios (or, forever unreconciled) I, a mere man, end up in a situation of being more loving and forgiving than God; I end up pitying God. This is so outrageous a scenario that it is clearly not the truth, and thus just another reason I can easily and confidently reject all such teachings as patently false.

In other words, to those with unfeigned love of others, there can never be comfort in a free will that brings endless suffering to others; it can only be comforting to those with feigned love of others, who really only love themselves, and only suffer when they, themselves, suffer; and are comforted when they, themselves, are comforted.

 

[freezerman2000]

Creation needs a balance of good and evil..without the balance,existence would become stagnant..without purpose.

 

[YouAreAwesome]

I would not have known sin if it were not for the law. For example, I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, Do not covet. And sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind. For apart from the law sin is dead.

Once I was alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. The commandment that was meant for life resulted in death for me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and through it killed me. -- Romans 7

The primary thing God did was to utter the command. There could have been no sin without the utterance of the commandment.

There was nothing inherently toxic about the tree. God had already said that all the plants He'd created were good for food. If God had not uttered the command, Adam and Eve could have eaten freely from the tree with nothing but beneficial effects.

It was the command that created a toxic potential--and as Paul puts it, an inevitability--for sin to occur.

And then God had already created the being He knew beforehand would be the catalyst for that sin to occur.

Right, so when God commanded "Do not..." He created evil?

 

[Mediaeval]

I think of evil not as a creation, i.e., as something posited in being or as an object of sense, but as the predicate of a moral character or of a moral act by a free moral agent. In any case, since God is not the agent in a human act of evil, He cannot be blamed for the evil. To illustrate by analogy, consider a couple who decides to have a child. The couple knows beforehand that the child will in all probability be rebellious at times, cause some suffering to others, and require punishment. As a matter of logic, it could be argued that the child's evil is traceable back to his parents. Yet the parents would (or should) not be considered morally responsible for the child's own acts of evil. Moreover, the couple sees that having a child is fundamentally a good thing, judges that the inevitable evil done by the child and the suffering caused by the child can be adequately dealt with and overcome, and so pursue parenthood with a clear conscience.

 

[CrystalDragon]

I think of evil not as a creation, i.e., as something posited in being or as an object of sense, but as the predicate of a moral character or of a moral act by a free moral agent. In any case, since God is not the agent in a human act of evil, He cannot be blamed for the evil. To illustrate by analogy, consider a couple who decides to have a child. The couple knows beforehand that the child will in all probability be rebellious at times, cause some suffering to others, and require punishment. As a matter of logic, it could be argued that the child's evil is traceable back to his parents. Yet the parents would (or should) not be considered morally responsible for the child's own acts of evil. Moreover, the couple sees that having a child is fundamentally a good thing, judges that the inevitable evil done by the child and the suffering caused by the child can be adequately dealt with and overcome, and so pursue parenthood with a clear conscience.

The difference though is that the parents don't know everything their child is going to do, just the potential. God knows everything and thus there's no "probably", especially since God is said to control everything.

 

[Richard Tanner]

I would not have known sin if it were not for the law. For example, I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, Do not covet. And sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind. For apart from the law sin is dead.

Once I was alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. The commandment that was meant for life resulted in death for me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and through it killed me. -- Romans 7

The primary thing God did was to utter the command. There could have been no sin without the utterance of the commandment.

There was nothing inherently toxic about the tree. God had already said that all the plants He'd created were good for food. If God had not uttered the command, Adam and Eve could have eaten freely from the tree with nothing but beneficial effects.

It was the command that created a toxic potential--and as Paul puts it, an inevitability--for sin to occur.

And then God had already created the being He knew beforehand would be the catalyst for that sin to occur.

 

[Richard Tanner]

This my friend is spot on. I have preached this, spoke of it it and yet it falls on deaf ears. For man can not fathom that God could set up such a scenario. That the tree was and all that occurred was part of Gods' grand scheme.

 

[YouAreAwesome]

I would dispute your proposition 1

Are you a compatibilist or a hard determinist?

If universal reconciliation is the underlying truth; then there is indeed comfort.

You argue there can be comfort in all situations because all will be saved, but aren't there still situations of truly "purposeless" evil that need to be reconciled with omnibenevolence? Especially within a deterministic framework.

 

[YouAreAwesome]

Creation needs a balance of good and evil..without the balance,existence would become stagnant..without purpose.

So God created evil because it is necessary. What about heaven, will we have no purpose?

 

[YouAreAwesome]

This my friend is spot on. I have preached this, spoke of it it and yet it falls on deaf ears. For man can not fathom that God could set up such a scenario. That the tree was and all that occurred was part of Gods' grand scheme.

Are you responding to the question? Or to RDKirks reply? Do you argue that God created evil as part of the purpose of creating morally free agents?

 

[YouAreAwesome]

since God is not the agent in a human act of evil, He cannot be blamed for the evil.

If God knows with 100% certainty the human will choose evil, why can't He be blamed for the evil? The problem with your analogy (as pointed out by @CrystalDragon), is that it is 100% certain. If the parents know beforehand that their child will cause the first evil in a particular world, then they are to blame.

 

[Richard Tanner]

Are you responding to the question? Or to RDKirks reply? Do you argue that God created evil as part of the purpose of creating morally free agents?

I am replying to @RDKirks statement. And yes - GOD created Evil as it is written, "
I am he that prepared light, and formed darkness; who make peace, and create evil; I am the Lord God, that does all these things." (Isaiah 45:7 Brentons Septuagint)

 

[John Hyperspace]

Are you a compatibilist or a hard determinist?

I can't see any reason to believe that anything is other than that which is determined and directed by God; or any reason either biblical or other (specially other) to believe in this concept called "free will": but noting that the term is ill-defined, so, to be honest I'd need clarification. But, as the concept is generally understood, the only thing it is really useful for, is to give cause to either boast, or, to shame. To exalt, or, to abase. It's the reason for mountains and valleys (I'm speaking metaphor) and only through the destruction of this belief can mountains be brought low and valleys be raised: all things coming into balance of equality.

If free will is true, anyone "in heaven" can boast all day long, because they are solely responsible for their salvation and God is an afterthought. God can have provided all the means necessary - but those means are completely irrelevant and useless unless the person rightly exercising their free will chooses freely to accept the means: thus, the free choice of the person is the one-and-only component that will secure their salvation. Likewise for those, "not saved"; if they are responsible for their outcome due to their free choice, then so are the saved. Free will reduces God to a mere "assistant" in salvation; the chooser is the rightful boaster in his own choice which by his own power got him salvation.

From the extra-biblical standpoint of, reason; I see nothing at all to suggest man is not subject to all of his external conditions and experiences which he has had no control over whatsoever, and from which he has emerged in the state that he currently finds himself. All of his "choices" will always be determined by influence of those things exterior to himself. I see no reasonable alternative.

You argue there can be comfort in all situations because all will be saved, but aren't there still situations of truly "purposeless" evil that need to be reconciled with omnibenevolence? Especially within a deterministic framework.

I don't believe anything is without purpose.

 

[Mediaeval]

The difference though is that the parents don't know everything their child is going to do, just the potential. God knows everything and thus there's no "probably", especially since God is said to control everything.

There is a difference but it does not strain the analogy, which was between parents’ effectively certain knowledge that their children will do some evil things and God’s perfectly certain knowledge that His children will do some evil things. In neither case does the guilt redound to the parent or Parent.

 

[RDKirk]

Are you responding to the question? Or to RDKirks reply? Do you argue that God created evil as part of the purpose of creating morally free agents?

But I deny that God created morally free agents (or free will, if you will). In fact, scripture denies it.

A morally free agent is a moral agent who can chose his actions free from constraint or consequences imposed by any other moral agent. Imposition of constraint or consequence on moral choices (which is morally the same thing as a constraint) is a deterministic factor.

Scripturally, every man is in service to a master, no man is morally free. By the grace of God, we are able to choose the master we will serve. A choice of master is not moral free agency by any reasonable definition.

 

[Widlast]

Please either find the mistake in this logic, or the false premise:

1. God created free agents
2. Free agents have the potential to do evil, e
3. Potential has a non-zero probability, p, where 0<p<1
4. Therefore, over infinite time, the probability of a free agent to perform evil approaches 1 [Let t represent time, then P(e)=1-(p)^t, ∴ P(e)=1 as t→∞]
5. Therefore God created free agents knowing they would create evil
6. It was impossible for free agents to remain sinless
7. Therefore God is 100% responsible for evil
8. Therefore God created evil

If this is true, is "the end justifies the means" the only response available? In other words, was the value of free agents to God greater than the evil they would create? In times of suffering, is there comfort found in recognizing the overall reason for evil is because we are more valuable to God when we have a moral free will?

This is all meaningless. You have completely ignored the main point - FREE WILL.