Why God allows evil

Unofficial Reverand Alex

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For Philosophy of Religion, I have to write a final 2,000 word paper on a topic of my choice; I chose Theodicy, the defense of God in the face of evil. Below is what I wrote; please read & see what you think (it's too long for the short attention span many of us let the Internet train us into, but it's divided into headers if you just want to see 1 particular argument for a loving God in the face of evil):
________________________________

“How can a loving God allow so much evil in the world?”

Theodicy is the attempt to defend the existence of God in the face of evil. So many people, religious and non-religious alike, have asked this question: If God is loving, and God is all-powerful, how can there be so much evil? Why doesn’t God stop it? Why is it here in the first place?

This is the faith-shaking question that countless people have had to face. Throughout my college classes, I’ve gotten into a lot of criminology; Forensic Psychology has taken me deep into the worst of mankind, detailing all sorts of awful things people do to each other. Much of it hit close to home for me, because one of my closest friends here has spent a summer in Thailand, learning about & working against human trafficking. I’ve had 2 good friends who have nearly been raped, I grew up surrounded by meth labs & binge drinkers, my neighbors had alcoholic-abusive neighbors, and the news is filled with stories of shootings & sexual abuse.

“Why, Lord, do you stand afar, and provide no heed in times of trouble?” (Psalm 10:1)

My experiences in being surrounded by evil are by no means uncommon; in fact, it’s much lighter than what many other people have experienced. Think of the starving children in Syria, the physically & psychologically wounded women in domestic violence shelters, the men who were diseased & injured in the jungles of Southeast Asia throughout WWII.

Where is God?

There are many different directions to approach this question; I’ll try to break it down into headers to take it 1 direction at a time.

Evil doesn’t invalidate any other theistic argument
Yes, there is evil in the world, and it has confounded us throughout the ages. But that doesn’t change any other evidence of God’s existence! Somebody had to make something instead of nothing; somebody had to make conditions just right to support such an abundance of life; somebody still had to set everything in motion! The more fundamental arguments still hold strong; even if there are people who do awful things, they can only do so if God already created the universe, life, and so on.



The problem of evil is indirect evidence for God
Curiously, the problem of evil actually speaks for God’s existence!

For evil to be a problem, there has to be some objective standard for evil. Evil simply can’t be an opinion; otherwise, people’s opinions change, and crying out for an answer to why evil is permitted would be solved by relativism; “Well, I think that 9/11 was an evil act, but the hijackers didn’t think so, so it’s alright.” No! Right & wrong must be decided by something beyond personal opinions or societal norms; as history has shown, individuals & societies are really lousy at deciding what’s moral. Every “evil” tyrant had a certain amount of support, sometimes by nearly the entire nation! Militarism is widely regarded as a good idea, as is racism, slavery, selfishness of all kinds, and countless atrocities against any minority. For there to be evil beyond what societies decide on, beyond what humans can put together, there has to be a higher power with a set moral code; in other words, for evil to exist an objective wrong, there has to be an objective set of right & wrong. This objective right & wrong has to come from an objective source—God! And if God has objective right & wrong, and makes it available for us to know, that would point to his loving nature, as well!



Free will
“1730 God created man a rational being, conferring on him the dignity of a person who can initiate and control his own actions. “God willed that man should be 'left in the hand of his own counsel,' so that he might of his own accord seek his Creator and freely attain his full and blessed perfection by cleaving to him."26

Man is rational and therefore like God; he is created with free will and is master over his acts.27” --Catechism of the Catholic Church



Free will is a widely held belief among religious people & philosophers alike; history has shown the sheer amount of force needed to restrain free will, a mission that never works in the long run. Cults can convince very small groups of people that they don’t have free will, with a certain amount of success; militaristic dictatorships can restrain free will with weapons & prisons, but even then people continue to rebel, and such dictators can rarely last beyond a few generations.

If man is “master over his acts”, as the Catechism says, it stands to reason that man can choose to do evil. God could’ve made man into mindless robots, only doing good; but again, that’s not compatible with a loving God! Skeptics question how a loving god can permit evil; how much less loving would be a good who denies us the chance to choose evil! The only way we can truly choose good is to have an alternative; evil happens when we don’t choose to do good!


Love
Theodicy, and the question of God allowing evil, are inherently rooted in the idea of a loving god. If god isn’t loving, then there would be no reason to question evil in the world; an unloving god would simply create evil out of his evil nature!

Love cannot be forced; any attempt to force love would be an evil act unto itself. This makes the argument “A loving God wouldn’t allow evil” self-defeating; a loving God would have to allow evil, or else he isn’t loving at all! If you truly love someone, you will desire to be with them; but if they turn away from you, you will try to call them back, but you won’t force them back. Likewise, a god that truly loves His children will call them back when they leave him, but will not force them to come back; thus, like a good but pained lover, a loving God will allow His children to do what isn’t good, but He will never force them to love.



God already intervenes
In my Ethics class, the professor briefly talked about God. An atheist, he mentioned a few arguments for & against God, and among those arguments was the problem of evil. The professor mentioned the idea of free will, of a parental god allowing His children to do wrong, but he brought up a further argument: “Couldn’t God step in to stop the worst atrocities? Couldn’t He have stopped WWII, or the atrocities in the Middle East, or the tyrants in North Korea?” His belief was that a parent will allow their children to do some bad things, but will step in to stop the really bad things the children would do. So why doesn’t God stop the worst things His children would do?

My argument is: Who says He hasn’t?

Think about how close the world has been to nuclear destruction in the past 80 years. Suppose Nazi Germany had developed the nuclear bomb before we did; would they have stopped after the enemy surrendered? Or the Cuban Missile Crisis; Global Superpower #2 has the ability to annihilate the US before we could send nuclear missiles to retaliate, and nothing happens? Or in current times, when a lunatic in a small country with nothing to lose has a nuclear arsenal and only sends missiles into the ocean? Humans have had such abundant opportunities to completely destroy each other, and yet, it never happens. The people most hell-bent on world domination can never get the nuke quite right, as the only country who successfully developed the nuke only used to it end the war.

Think of all the mass shooters whose guns locked up, all the bioweapons that can’t be made on a mass scale, the Columbine shooters whose bombs didn’t go off; could all of this be coincidences, or is this the divine intervention that my Ethics professor said didn’t happen?

It’s always difficult to look at what didn’t happen; alternative histories can be interesting, but little more than speculation. However, let’s suppose that my Ethics professor’s wishes were granted; God stopped His children from committing WWII, the atrocities in the Middle East, and the tyranny in North Korea. He would still say, “Couldn’t God step in & stop the worst atrocities? Couldn’t He have stopped WWI, all the starvation in Kazakhstan, and all the slavery in world history?”

But suppose God stopped all that, too. Then my Ethics professor could say, “Couldn’t God step in & stop the worst atrocities? Couldn’t He have stopped the Thirty Years’ War, all the sex trafficking, and all the drug violence in South America?”

No matter what God steps in to stop, there will still be people who point to what He allows as evidence that’s He’s malevolent, impotent, or simply doesn’t exist. While the problem of evil is laden with emotional confusion, there are legitimate reasons for why He would allow evil, even if we despair.



Temptations exist to strengthen us


Trials are nothing else but the forge that purifies the soul of all its imperfections. (St. Mary Magdalen de'Pazzi)

“Blessed is the man who perseveres in temptation, for when he has been proved he will receive the crown of life that he promised to those who love him.” (James 1:12)

Temptations are often seen as the weight room of the spiritual life. They provide us with something to work against, so that we may be made stronger & better, more ready for the next life, better able to defend against the dark spirits that prowl this world, seeking the ruin of souls. Fighting temptation can be glorified, elevated to a noble spiritual warfare, fulfilling St. Paul’s charge to “fight the good fight” (1 Timothy 6:12).

We humans are made for challenges; games are supposed to be hard, dumbbells are supposed to be heavy, and everything that gives us satisfaction involves overcoming something. So, to enjoy goodness in life, we must overcome the appeal of malevolence; to be able to choose good, we must have evil to resist!


Heroism:
Evil can lead us into some really, really dark places. But at the same time, virtue & goodness can lead us to great heights. What hero existed in a world where everything’s nice & everyone’s happy? Marvel would go bankrupt if they tried to make “Friendly Man”, the superhero who hangs out & says “Hi” to people because there’s no evil to fight!

What would police officers do? Where would the military go? What would disaster relief teams, paramedics, and firefighters do for satisfaction?

I was talking with my friend who spent a summer in Thailand with an anti-human trafficking organization about all the worst samples of mankind we were studying in Forensic Psychology. She said that you do see the worst of mankind in these situations, but you also see the very best of mankind. The people who go out there, trying to rescue people from the sex industry, going undercover to free slaves, tirelessly collecting evidence to free a child from an abusive home; where evil is the heaviest, heroism thrives. No evil, no heroes. While this may not explain why God allows evil to exist, it still shows some of the value of a world where evil is permitted; again, it comes back to love. We can’t be forced to do good, so we’re allowed to do evil; but when we really embrace goodness, we can do amazing things.

We don’t understand God
“He who lives forever created the whole universe;
the Lord alone is just.
To whom has he given power to describe his works,

and who can search out his mighty deeds?
Who can measure his majestic power,

or fully recount his mercies?
No one can lessen, increase,

or fathom the wonders of the Lord.
When mortals finish, they are only beginning,

and when they stop they are still bewildered.” (Sirach 18:1-7)

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:9)

It stands to reason that a God who is infinitely greater & wiser than man (as any religion would say) would be a God who does things that we little mortals can’t understand. Can we really say why God made the universe? Can we really say why God created man? Can we really say why God allows evil? At the end of the day, we really can’t explain why God does anything; even if we go with the Christian idea of God being love & doing everything out of love, can we say why God is love?


Conclusion
Do we understand why God allows evil? God is all good & all powerful; but if God truly loves us, then he’s not going to force us to do anything. By His loving nature, he has to let us choose to do evil, because that frees us to choose love. Free will is something that logically follows from a loving God, because again, love can’t be forced. The evils that exist in the world do serve a purpose, as they provide a challenge for us to strengthen our spirituality and, like any other challenge, resisting evil impulses gives us a sense of satisfaction.

It’s hard to believe in a loving God while you’re being kidnapped & sold as a sex slave; but people have done it, and people will continue to do it. People will go crazy figuring out why God allows such an awful act to happen, but when God’s goodness & the world’s evils are viewed in a rational way, separate from the emotional anguish, it becomes much easier to understand why such acts are allowed to happen.
 

com7fy8

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We can feed on how God used Joseph's situation for His all-loving good > Genesis 37-50.

So, if we have to deal with something evil, we can do best by trusting God to use it for His all-loving good, not only for how He can use it for us; and do not only try to use God to solve the problem for ourselves.

Because God is all-loving.

And as well as we do this, we are being creative with God, in all-caring love, instead of being victims.
 
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Unofficial Reverand Alex

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We can feed on how God used Joseph's situation for His all-loving good > Genesis 37-50.

So, if we have to deal with something evil, we can do best by trusting God to use it for His all-loving good, not only for how He can use it for us; and do not only try to use God to solve the problem for ourselves.

Because God is all-loving.

And as well as we do this, we are being creative with God, in all-caring love, instead of being victims.
I see & agree with what you're saying, but as a devil's advocate question: Do the ends justify the means?
 
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com7fy8

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I see & agree with what you're saying, but as a devil's advocate question: Do the ends justify the means?
Well, the evil is not excused. Jesus said wo to the one who betrayed him.

What I see is that evil is a reality, which God does not cause > James 1:13. But God uses it for His purposes all-loving. So, it is not a means which He produces, and He does not justify evil. But He does use it; so it is a means, but unjustified in its activities but used :)

There is the question that if God is almighty, how come He has not done away with all evil? Ones argue that if God really were all good and almighty, He would not allow evil to continue, and certainly not in the way it has been doing things.

And for me, personally, I first see that there simply is God who is so greatly good and He is love. And the Bible says so.

But, also, there is the reality of evil. And it is simply true, how God has not already done away with any and all evil. But we have such good as God. So, anyone can argue against this, but God is good, according to the Bible and my experience. I keep experiencing what the Bible says is true about God and how He shares with us His children. And I did not make this up and get myself to experience this, I would say. And it is foolish to leave out God who can bless us to do all the good which can be done.

Theologically, I understand there is the spirit of evil > "the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience" (in Ephesians 2:2). And my theo-logic is that God who is good did not bring this evil spirit into existence; and if He could simply remove it from existence, He would. But it is self-existent but so inferior and love-dead, but can not be removed from existence. Even so, God does keep it in check and control, with order, so it is on its way to the flaming sewer which burns with fire and brimstone. So, we are wise not to be sewer buckets of its filth of bitterness and unforgiveness and the corruption of lust!! > helping to carry it to where it is going.

But it is God's destiny to be so superior and to be love and to succeed in all He pleases. So, evil really has no say about there being God and what He does and does not do.

And His grace almighty has us being however God pleases in His love (1 John 4:17-18), and succeeding in whatsoever God really has us doing with Him. So, it is wise to simply trust God to have us doing the good which He makes us able to do, in spite of any evil, at all.
 
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Gregory Thompson

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For Philosophy of Religion, I have to write a final 2,000 word paper on a topic of my choice; I chose Theodicy, the defense of God in the face of evil. Below is what I wrote; please read & see what you think (it's too long for the short attention span many of us let the Internet train us into, but it's divided into headers if you just want to see 1 particular argument for a loving God in the face of evil):
________________________________

“How can a loving God allow so much evil in the world?”

Theodicy is the attempt to defend the existence of God in the face of evil. So many people, religious and non-religious alike, have asked this question: If God is loving, and God is all-powerful, how can there be so much evil? Why doesn’t God stop it? Why is it here in the first place?

This is the faith-shaking question that countless people have had to face. Throughout my college classes, I’ve gotten into a lot of criminology; Forensic Psychology has taken me deep into the worst of mankind, detailing all sorts of awful things people do to each other. Much of it hit close to home for me, because one of my closest friends here has spent a summer in Thailand, learning about & working against human trafficking. I’ve had 2 good friends who have nearly been raped, I grew up surrounded by meth labs & binge drinkers, my neighbors had alcoholic-abusive neighbors, and the news is filled with stories of shootings & sexual abuse.

“Why, Lord, do you stand afar, and provide no heed in times of trouble?” (Psalm 10:1)

My experiences in being surrounded by evil are by no means uncommon; in fact, it’s much lighter than what many other people have experienced. Think of the starving children in Syria, the physically & psychologically wounded women in domestic violence shelters, the men who were diseased & injured in the jungles of Southeast Asia throughout WWII.

Where is God?

There are many different directions to approach this question; I’ll try to break it down into headers to take it 1 direction at a time.

Evil doesn’t invalidate any other theistic argument
Yes, there is evil in the world, and it has confounded us throughout the ages. But that doesn’t change any other evidence of God’s existence! Somebody had to make something instead of nothing; somebody had to make conditions just right to support such an abundance of life; somebody still had to set everything in motion! The more fundamental arguments still hold strong; even if there are people who do awful things, they can only do so if God already created the universe, life, and so on.



The problem of evil is indirect evidence for God
Curiously, the problem of evil actually speaks for God’s existence!

For evil to be a problem, there has to be some objective standard for evil. Evil simply can’t be an opinion; otherwise, people’s opinions change, and crying out for an answer to why evil is permitted would be solved by relativism; “Well, I think that 9/11 was an evil act, but the hijackers didn’t think so, so it’s alright.” No! Right & wrong must be decided by something beyond personal opinions or societal norms; as history has shown, individuals & societies are really lousy at deciding what’s moral. Every “evil” tyrant had a certain amount of support, sometimes by nearly the entire nation! Militarism is widely regarded as a good idea, as is racism, slavery, selfishness of all kinds, and countless atrocities against any minority. For there to be evil beyond what societies decide on, beyond what humans can put together, there has to be a higher power with a set moral code; in other words, for evil to exist an objective wrong, there has to be an objective set of right & wrong. This objective right & wrong has to come from an objective source—God! And if God has objective right & wrong, and makes it available for us to know, that would point to his loving nature, as well!



Free will
“1730 God created man a rational being, conferring on him the dignity of a person who can initiate and control his own actions. “God willed that man should be 'left in the hand of his own counsel,' so that he might of his own accord seek his Creator and freely attain his full and blessed perfection by cleaving to him."26

Man is rational and therefore like God; he is created with free will and is master over his acts.27” --Catechism of the Catholic Church



Free will is a widely held belief among religious people & philosophers alike; history has shown the sheer amount of force needed to restrain free will, a mission that never works in the long run. Cults can convince very small groups of people that they don’t have free will, with a certain amount of success; militaristic dictatorships can restrain free will with weapons & prisons, but even then people continue to rebel, and such dictators can rarely last beyond a few generations.

If man is “master over his acts”, as the Catechism says, it stands to reason that man can choose to do evil. God could’ve made man into mindless robots, only doing good; but again, that’s not compatible with a loving God! Skeptics question how a loving god can permit evil; how much less loving would be a good who denies us the chance to choose evil! The only way we can truly choose good is to have an alternative; evil happens when we don’t choose to do good!


Love
Theodicy, and the question of God allowing evil, are inherently rooted in the idea of a loving god. If god isn’t loving, then there would be no reason to question evil in the world; an unloving god would simply create evil out of his evil nature!

Love cannot be forced; any attempt to force love would be an evil act unto itself. This makes the argument “A loving God wouldn’t allow evil” self-defeating; a loving God would have to allow evil, or else he isn’t loving at all! If you truly love someone, you will desire to be with them; but if they turn away from you, you will try to call them back, but you won’t force them back. Likewise, a god that truly loves His children will call them back when they leave him, but will not force them to come back; thus, like a good but pained lover, a loving God will allow His children to do what isn’t good, but He will never force them to love.



God already intervenes
In my Ethics class, the professor briefly talked about God. An atheist, he mentioned a few arguments for & against God, and among those arguments was the problem of evil. The professor mentioned the idea of free will, of a parental god allowing His children to do wrong, but he brought up a further argument: “Couldn’t God step in to stop the worst atrocities? Couldn’t He have stopped WWII, or the atrocities in the Middle East, or the tyrants in North Korea?” His belief was that a parent will allow their children to do some bad things, but will step in to stop the really bad things the children would do. So why doesn’t God stop the worst things His children would do?

My argument is: Who says He hasn’t?

Think about how close the world has been to nuclear destruction in the past 80 years. Suppose Nazi Germany had developed the nuclear bomb before we did; would they have stopped after the enemy surrendered? Or the Cuban Missile Crisis; Global Superpower #2 has the ability to annihilate the US before we could send nuclear missiles to retaliate, and nothing happens? Or in current times, when a lunatic in a small country with nothing to lose has a nuclear arsenal and only sends missiles into the ocean? Humans have had such abundant opportunities to completely destroy each other, and yet, it never happens. The people most hell-bent on world domination can never get the nuke quite right, as the only country who successfully developed the nuke only used to it end the war.

Think of all the mass shooters whose guns locked up, all the bioweapons that can’t be made on a mass scale, the Columbine shooters whose bombs didn’t go off; could all of this be coincidences, or is this the divine intervention that my Ethics professor said didn’t happen?

It’s always difficult to look at what didn’t happen; alternative histories can be interesting, but little more than speculation. However, let’s suppose that my Ethics professor’s wishes were granted; God stopped His children from committing WWII, the atrocities in the Middle East, and the tyranny in North Korea. He would still say, “Couldn’t God step in & stop the worst atrocities? Couldn’t He have stopped WWI, all the starvation in Kazakhstan, and all the slavery in world history?”

But suppose God stopped all that, too. Then my Ethics professor could say, “Couldn’t God step in & stop the worst atrocities? Couldn’t He have stopped the Thirty Years’ War, all the sex trafficking, and all the drug violence in South America?”

No matter what God steps in to stop, there will still be people who point to what He allows as evidence that’s He’s malevolent, impotent, or simply doesn’t exist. While the problem of evil is laden with emotional confusion, there are legitimate reasons for why He would allow evil, even if we despair.



Temptations exist to strengthen us


Trials are nothing else but the forge that purifies the soul of all its imperfections. (St. Mary Magdalen de'Pazzi)

“Blessed is the man who perseveres in temptation, for when he has been proved he will receive the crown of life that he promised to those who love him.” (James 1:12)

Temptations are often seen as the weight room of the spiritual life. They provide us with something to work against, so that we may be made stronger & better, more ready for the next life, better able to defend against the dark spirits that prowl this world, seeking the ruin of souls. Fighting temptation can be glorified, elevated to a noble spiritual warfare, fulfilling St. Paul’s charge to “fight the good fight” (1 Timothy 6:12).

We humans are made for challenges; games are supposed to be hard, dumbbells are supposed to be heavy, and everything that gives us satisfaction involves overcoming something. So, to enjoy goodness in life, we must overcome the appeal of malevolence; to be able to choose good, we must have evil to resist!


Heroism:
Evil can lead us into some really, really dark places. But at the same time, virtue & goodness can lead us to great heights. What hero existed in a world where everything’s nice & everyone’s happy? Marvel would go bankrupt if they tried to make “Friendly Man”, the superhero who hangs out & says “Hi” to people because there’s no evil to fight!

What would police officers do? Where would the military go? What would disaster relief teams, paramedics, and firefighters do for satisfaction?

I was talking with my friend who spent a summer in Thailand with an anti-human trafficking organization about all the worst samples of mankind we were studying in Forensic Psychology. She said that you do see the worst of mankind in these situations, but you also see the very best of mankind. The people who go out there, trying to rescue people from the sex industry, going undercover to free slaves, tirelessly collecting evidence to free a child from an abusive home; where evil is the heaviest, heroism thrives. No evil, no heroes. While this may not explain why God allows evil to exist, it still shows some of the value of a world where evil is permitted; again, it comes back to love. We can’t be forced to do good, so we’re allowed to do evil; but when we really embrace goodness, we can do amazing things.

We don’t understand God
“He who lives forever created the whole universe;
the Lord alone is just.
To whom has he given power to describe his works,

and who can search out his mighty deeds?
Who can measure his majestic power,

or fully recount his mercies?
No one can lessen, increase,

or fathom the wonders of the Lord.
When mortals finish, they are only beginning,

and when they stop they are still bewildered.” (Sirach 18:1-7)

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:9)

It stands to reason that a God who is infinitely greater & wiser than man (as any religion would say) would be a God who does things that we little mortals can’t understand. Can we really say why God made the universe? Can we really say why God created man? Can we really say why God allows evil? At the end of the day, we really can’t explain why God does anything; even if we go with the Christian idea of God being love & doing everything out of love, can we say why God is love?


Conclusion
Do we understand why God allows evil? God is all good & all powerful; but if God truly loves us, then he’s not going to force us to do anything. By His loving nature, he has to let us choose to do evil, because that frees us to choose love. Free will is something that logically follows from a loving God, because again, love can’t be forced. The evils that exist in the world do serve a purpose, as they provide a challenge for us to strengthen our spirituality and, like any other challenge, resisting evil impulses gives us a sense of satisfaction.

It’s hard to believe in a loving God while you’re being kidnapped & sold as a sex slave; but people have done it, and people will continue to do it. People will go crazy figuring out why God allows such an awful act to happen, but when God’s goodness & the world’s evils are viewed in a rational way, separate from the emotional anguish, it becomes much easier to understand why such acts are allowed to happen.
God allows evil into the world for the sake of the good. The parable of the wheat and the tares indicates, in order to pull out all the weeds, all the good fruit bearing plants would be pulled as well ... so it's left this way until the time of the judgment.
 
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zippy2006

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For Philosophy of Religion, I have to write a final 2,000 word paper...

Interesting paper, Alex. It seems like we could sum up your theodicies: free will, soul-making, and God's incomprehensibility. God's desire for love supports the free will argument, and temptations and heroism support the soul-making (or character building) argument.

Did you learn anything new while writing the paper?
 
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trophy33

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Not all evil has something to do with "free" will.

There are much more evils than just moral ones (sins). Diseases, earthquakes, floods, injuries, mistakes, losts, car accidents, a painful treatment in a dentist surgery etc. No free will required.

Therefore we need more general explanation for the existence of evil than just free will.

I recommend you to read Theodicy by G.W. Leibniz, its a very useful source regarding this topic.
 
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Tanj

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Well, two paragraphs in:

Evil doesn’t invalidate any other theistic argument
Yes, there is evil in the world, and it has confounded us throughout the ages. But that doesn’t change any other evidence of God’s existence! Somebody had to make something instead of nothing; somebody had to make conditions just right to support such an abundance of life; somebody still had to set everything in motion! The more fundamental arguments still hold strong; even if there are people who do awful things, they can only do so if God already created the universe, life, and so on.

These arguments are incredibly weak and quite the opposite of holding strong. You just have to look at a bit of quantum physics or even radioactive decay to find uncaused events. Furthermore, a theory that supports some of the evidence but is invalidated by the rest is poor.



The problem of evil is indirect evidence for God
Curiously, the problem of evil actually speaks for God’s existence!

For evil to be a problem, there has to be some objective standard for evil. Evil simply can’t be an opinion; otherwise, people’s opinions change, and crying out for an answer to why evil is permitted would be solved by relativism; “Well, I think that 9/11 was an evil act, but the hijackers didn’t think so, so it’s alright.”

You misunderstand how relativism and subjective morality works. But to give you an example, thousands of people had their hearts ripped from their chests with blunt stone daggers by the Aztec and related empires, none of the heart removers nor any of their citizenry considered themselves evil. Societal standards of evil change over time. If they didn't there'd never have been slavery in the USA.


Avoid emotive punctuation in essays.

In short and too be critically blunt, this is a simplistic and shallow treatment of the topic which retreats almost from word 1 into tired tropes used countless of times by others. I'd not have marked it highly. Especially bad is the lack of referencing.
 
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Unofficial Reverand Alex

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Did you learn anything new while writing the paper?
The whole section of "Love" isn't something I had thought about until I wrote this.

A lot of what I wrote is derived from Cold Case Christianity. It's a fascinating book, where a cold case homicide detective (self-described as an "angry atheist") starts looking at Christianity in the same way that he looked at countless cold cases; examine the evidence, test the witnesses, consider a vast amount of alternatives, and see what you get. It examines Christianity in a purely rational manner, and this examination led to the author's conversion. I highly recommend it to anyone.

But back to your initial question: It's hard to say if I "learned" anything, because theodicy isn't something that can really be "studied" like chemistry or history, but it was interesting seeing how God's loving nature explained so much of this, and tying it all together into a cohesive conclusion was satisfying. I'm very glad this is the topic I chose; I've never thought about it so in-depth, and I feel like I did a good job on the paper.

May God bless us all, especially the skeptics, the wicked, and the victims!
 
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Unofficial Reverand Alex

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These arguments are incredibly weak and quite the opposite of holding strong. You just have to look at a bit of quantum physics or even radioactive decay to find uncaused events. Furthermore, a theory that supports some of the evidence but is invalidated by the rest is poor.
What caused quantum physics? What caused radioactive decay? What set it all in motion in the first place? Science is a beautiful tool for explaining so much of creation: the Catechism of the Catholic Church has some great things to say on science. I'll include a paragraph & a link to all that the Catechism says on science:

2293 Basic scientific research, as well as applied research, is a significant expression of man’s dominion over creation. Science and technology are precious resources when placed at the service of man and promote his integral development for the benefit of all. By themselves however they cannot disclose the meaning of existence and of human progress. Science and technology are ordered to man, from whom they take their origin and development; hence they find in the person and in his moral values both evidence of their purpose and awareness of their limits.

Catechism of the Catholic Church - References to Science - Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

I include all this to say that I am by no means anti-science; I love it, I used to be an engineering major, and I hold it in high regard for getting more out of this beautiful Creation we've been given. However, science is limited in scope--science can never explain why science works! Matter cannot be created or destroyed; neither can energy. It only changes forms. But the natural world is based on cause & effect; the first cause is, as Aquinas would put it, God!

So I ask again: Why does quantum physics work? Where did science come from? Science is limited in scope, and cannot explain it's own existence; otherwise, we would fall into some sort of science-ism.

I do appreciate your criticisms, though; I put this thread in a subforum that isn't exclusively Christian for a reason. I don't like being trapped in "Christian bubbles", only hearing Christian ideas. I'll address your other points later, but I wanted to address this point & hear a response before going further.

May God bless us all!
 
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Tanj

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What caused quantum physics? What caused radioactive decay? What set it all in motion in the first place?

Doesn't matter. the fact remains that both contain probabilistic events with no cause. More broadly, there's a host of uncaused cause arguments out there with regards to the cosmological argument, and that's not even touching on the fact that the first cause doesn't have to be your God.

You asked me to PEACH your essay. I did. On rereading it came of a bit harsh for which I apologise, but I critique stuff as a part of my living. At any rate, not really looking to argue the points, especially not this one. The cosmological argument has been done to death and beyond, even on Wikipedia.

Cosmological argument - Wikipedia
 
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RestoreTheJoy

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God allows evil into the world for the sake of the good. The parable of the wheat and the tares indicates, in order to pull out all the weeds, all the good fruit bearing plants would be pulled as well ... so it's left this way until the time of the judgment.

Well, I see it more as God gave all authority to Jesus, who gave it all to the believers. What would we see instead if we were united, as He told us to be, and we could change the world with our prayers and authority. But we don't. We sit back, thinking we are powerless alone and watch evil take over. God knows this is the case, hence, the whole wheat and tares thing. He knows it is happening, but it is not what He said to do.

Lev 26:2-8 If you follow My statutes and faithfully observe My commands, I will give you rain at the right time, and the land will yield its produce… You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall before you by the sword.

Five of you will pursue 100, and 100 of you will pursue 10,000; your enemies will fall before you by the sword.”

Joshua23:10 One man of you puts to flight a thousand, since it is the Lord your God who fights for you, as he promised you.
 
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jayem

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Love
Theodicy, and the question of God allowing evil, are inherently rooted in the idea of a loving god. If god isn’t loving, then there would be no reason to question evil in the world; an unloving god would simply create evil out of his evil nature!

Yes, that's the most salient point. Other than faith in what the Bible and religious tradition claims, how do you know that God is truly loving?

Consider this as a thought experiment: If God's nature was evil, it's also possible that God would be deceptive. God could have inspired the Bible authors to describe him falsely, in order to hide his true nature. He would allow some love, happiness, goodness, and answered prayers to exist. If everything in life was unmitigated misery, we wouldn't know anything different. Looking objectively at how the world operates, it's much more logical to conclude that God is either evil and deceitful, or dualistic--acting both malevolently and benevolently according to his will. The idea that God's moral nature is all-good is not supported evidentially. It can only be believed by faith.
 
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HitchSlap

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Lev 26:2-8 If you follow My statutes and faithfully observe My commands, I will give you rain at the right time, and the land will yield its produce… You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall before you by the sword.
Are you seriously suggesting using violence is a reward for following commands from your god?
 
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VCR-2000

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If man is “master over his acts”, as the Catechism says, it stands to reason that man can choose to do evil. God could’ve made man into mindless robots, only doing good; but again, that’s not compatible with a loving God! Skeptics question how a loving god can permit evil; how much less loving would be a good who denies us the chance to choose evil! The only way we can truly choose good is to have an alternative; evil happens when we don’t choose to do good!
... ...
If God is infinite, it didn't have to be either one or the other. He could have created us differently if he wanted to, even if the design was absurd like walking or sentient noodles.
Why do you also believe God being loving necessarily has to do with the way he made or didn't make man?
 
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Gregory Thompson

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Well, I see it more as God gave all authority to Jesus, who gave it all to the believers. What would we see instead if we were united, as He told us to be, and we could change the world with our prayers and authority. But we don't.
Yepp, if the church would be one, a lot of change would happen. Regrettably, the way the denominations and traditions are set up, the church is engineered to not ascend past a certain level of maturity so seminary novices can rule over them.
 
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VCR-2000

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Yepp, if the church would be one, a lot of change would happen. Regrettably, the way the denominations and traditions are set up, the church is engineered to not ascend past a certain level of maturity so seminary novices can rule over them.
I still don't think it's a fair system. So if somebody was born into a society where everyone else was wish-wash that person has evil imposed on him, that world cannot get blessing anymore unless they conditionally submit to God?
 
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com7fy8

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The whole section of "Love" isn't something I had thought about until I wrote this.
There is the idea that God has humans capable of sinning so we can choose to love Him. But Jesus is incapable of choosing to sin, and He loves our Father and does what our Father pleases. And Jesus is very pleasing to our Father ! ! !

And Jesus is the most genuinely loving Being of all, as God.

And if a human is choosing out of one's own human will, this can not be love like there is in Jesus; because it is of human capability. So, we need how God changes our nature to be like Jesus, so our willing and loving can be fragrantly pleasing to our Father like Jesus is, more and more as we grow in Christ > Galatians 4:19.

And this is the focus of God's all-working > to change us so we are ready to spend eternity with Him, while at the same time God has evil and its vessels organized on their way to the flaming sewer which burns with fire and brimstone.
 
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RichardY

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Not all evil has something to do with "free" will.

There are much more evils than just moral ones (sins). Diseases, earthquakes, floods, injuries, mistakes, losts, car accidents, a painful treatment in a dentist surgery etc. No free will required.

Therefore we need more general explanation for the existence of evil than just free will.

I recommend you to read Theodicy by G.W. Leibniz, its a very useful source regarding this topic.

There's an audiobook of Leibniz "Discourse on Metaphysics" on Audible. I was initially quite persuaded by his explanation of Freewill. I later realised, however, it only applied as far as taste. If you follow through Leibniz's reasoning it leads to pretty absurd outcomes. As Lampooned in Candide.

Leibniz has God as perfect, and only allowing evil, in so far as it will result in a greater good. "God permits Evil, and not that he desires it." He also draws a distinction between necessity(to God what is necessarily good) and certainty(as far as things can be predicted). A bit like that zen/tao story, about bad things seemingly happening to an old villager leading to, perhaps avoiding a worse outcome.

Leibniz's being "really satisfied" when Evil [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] happens, is bizarre.
 
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