Why does God allow suffering? Bear in mind, those that don't need a perfect distraction, suffer less

timothyu said:

Not really. It contrasted the Kingdom with the world of man and showed us for who we really are... self absorbed.

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I don’t get how God’s self flagellation shows us anything about our selves. Please explain.

Mink61 said:

How do you know that?

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Because God is capable of anything. If he deems suffering unnecessary it is unnecessary.

That’s how I know. Unless you are claiming that God is constrained and has to obey certain inviolable rules of reality.

Larnievc said:

Because God is capable of anything. If he deems suffering unnecessary it is unnecessary.

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But you said, "So his suffering was unnecessary." But, God deemed it to be necessary.

But you don't seem to accept that.

That’s how I know. Unless you are claiming that God is constrained and has to obey certain inviolable rules of reality.

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Not saying that, either.

timothyu said:

Sin , including the original sin was/is putting our will ahead of the will of God.

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I realize that this is the popular opinion, I just happen to think that it's wrong. I think that humanity is doing exactly what God hoped we'd do. We could've foregone the knowledge of good and evil, and remained blissfully ignorant in the garden. But the plan was for a bride equal to the groom, and so shall they be. Both making a choice in a garden, each sacrificing something for the other.

But that's just my opinion. You're free to disagree.

partinobodycular said:

I realize that this is the popular opinion, I just happen to think that it's wrong. I think that humanity is doing exactly what God hoped we'd do. We could've foregone the knowledge of good and evil, and remained blissfully ignorant in the garden. But the plan was for a bride equal to the groom, and so shall they be. Both making a choice in a garden, each sacrificing something for the other.

But that's just my opinion. You're free to disagree.

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No, it's not that God "hoped" we humanity would screw up. It's that He knew ahead of time, that some of us would screw up...all the way to the beginning with Adam and Eve.

Mink61 said:

No, it's not that God "hoped" we humanity would screw up. It's that He knew ahead of time, that some of us would screw up...all the way to the beginning with Adam and Eve.

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Yeah, I knew the word 'hoped' wouldn't go over too well with some people, especially Catholics. But I wanted to make sure to convey the idea of free will. It's difficult to reconcile the concept of Adam and Eve's free will choice with God's dominion over His creation. But in Judaism the bride must freely consent to the marriage, and the idea of dominion would seem to negate that free choice.

But if you would like to substitute the words "intended us to" for "hoped we'd" I don't have a problem with that.

partinobodycular said:

Yeah, I knew the word 'hoped' wouldn't go over too well with some people, especially Catholics.

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Why "especially" Catholics? Catholics may be the largest branch of Christianity, but they're certainly not the ONLY branch, nor do they have a unique view about free will that's different than non-Catholic Cristians.

But I wanted to make sure to convey the idea of free will. It's difficult to reconcile the concept of Adam and Eve's free will choice with God's dominion over His creation. But in Judaism the bride must freely consent to the marriage, and the idea of dominion would seem to negate that free choice.

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Why?

But if you would like to substitute the words "intended us to" for "hoped we'd" I don't have a problem with that.

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God didn't "hope for", nor did He "intend us to" do anything. Just because knew ahead of time that SOME people --having free will--would misuse their free will, doesn't cause them to do so.

zippy2006 said:

But why would you think that? And do you have an argument for such a claim?

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Let's do a quick rough sketch.

God can do anything logically possible
Having free will and having zero desire to do evil are not mutually exclusive properties
God can create a being with free will and with zero desire to do evil
A being with zero desire to do evil is better than a being that has a non-zero desire to do evil
God chose to create an inferior product.

zippy2006 said:

It seems to me that your line of argument in post #445 and elsewhere depends on the idea that those with free will will necessarily sin (i.e. sin is a necessary consequence of free will). That's just to say that those with free will are not free to not-sin, or more simply: those with free will are not free. Hence the contradiction arises,

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That's Christian doctrine, no? Every single human will do evil. *God, who does not have free will when it comes to good and evil choices, will never do evil because of a lack of free will in that regard. It seems free will is a built in flaw since the perfect being lacks it. So the only being we know of that won't do evil doesn't have free will, and every being we know of that does have free will will do evil, it seems that free will leads to evil doing by necessity, no?

* I'm taking this license from our previous discussions. For the sake of brevity, whenever I refer to "free will" I'm only talking about the ability to choose between good and evil acts. Having a free will to choose between hamburgers and hotdogs is inconsequential and irrelevant, so I'm not going to keep typing "with regards to good and evil choices" o'er and o'er, k?

zippy2006 said:

Once we accept free will what I said in #450 follows naturally. Free will means that one's actions flow from oneself, and are contingent. Thus once God grants a creature free will the creature itself is responsible for its actions, not God, and the actions do not come about by way of necessity.

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Just to be clear, my angle here isn't related to my doubts about free will being real. What I see is a tangled web of contradictions where Christians have painted themselves into a corner using free will as an excuse for the existence of suffering.

Mink61 said:

But you don't seem to accept that.

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Don’t get me wrong, I do accept that God decided that he had to make himself suffer (even when he did not need to).

I just don’t know why he would do so.

Larnievc said:

Don’t get me wrong, I do accept that God decided that he had to make himself suffer (even when he did not need to).

I just don’t know why he would do so.

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But that's just it, Larnievc. God didn't "have" to "make" himself suffer. He chose to--voluntarily--, for OUR sake, out of LOVE for us.

Mink61 said:

He chose to--voluntarily--, for OUR sake, out of LOVE for us.

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In what way does that benefit anyone? If someone walked up to you and set their arm on fire and said that they did it for your sake out of love for you would that be a good thing?

Larnievc said:

In what way does that benefit anyone? If someone walked up to you and set their arm on fire and said that they did it for your sake out of love for you would that be a good thing?

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A fireman doesn't set his own arm on fire.

But he DOES voluntarily rush into a burning building to save others, at the risk of his own life.

Is that a good thing?

Mink61 said:

A fireman doesn't set his own arm on fire.

But he DOES voluntarily rush into a burning building to save others, at the risk of his own life.

Is that a good thing?

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I’m sorry but you don’t get to ignore my analogy by redefining it. He caused himself to suffer and told you it was because he loves you. How does hurting himself show he loves you?

And to your analogy: his life is never at risk and the only reason why we are in the burning house is because he set it on fire. And even further- he could put the fire out in an instant. Yet he chooses to burn himself up instead of just exercising his unlimited power.

What is so attractive to God about suffering? Christians seem to have reframed suffering as somehow noble.

Larnievc said:

Then why create the possibility of evil in the first place?

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God gave us free will to love him or not. We have a choice.

RileyG said:

God gave us free will to love him or not. We have a choice.

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Does God provide punishment for those who choose not to love him? If so, by definition it's not free will.

Moral Orel said:

Let's do a quick rough sketch.

God can do anything logically possible
Having free will and having zero desire to do evil are not mutually exclusive properties
God can create a being with free will and with zero desire to do evil
A being with zero desire to do evil is better than a being that has a non-zero desire to do evil
God chose to create an inferior product.

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Okay, but your argument still results in the contradiction noted in my last post. You would say that one can have free will with no desire to do evil, and therefore have free will with no ability to do evil. If this is accurate, then you have contradicted your own definition of free will ("the ability to choose between good and evil acts").

In other words, in post #450 I could be read as saying that the theist can point to free will as the sufficient cause of moral evil, for free will explains the ability to do evil (whether or not it explains the desire to do evil).

That's Christian doctrine, no? Every single human will do evil.

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Oh, no. Jesus did not do evil. Catholics and Orthodox believe that Mary never sinned. Some Christians extend this to John the Baptist, etc.

...It seems free will is a built in flaw since the perfect being lacks it...

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Not everything which God lacks is a "flaw." Things such as finitude and materiality are not flaws, for example.

* I'm taking this license from our previous discussions. For the sake of brevity, whenever I refer to "free will" I'm only talking about the ability to choose between good and evil acts. Having a free will to choose between hamburgers and hotdogs is inconsequential and irrelevant, so I'm not going to keep typing "with regards to good and evil choices" o'er and o'er, k?

Just to be clear, my angle here isn't related to my doubts about free will being real. What I see is a tangled web of contradictions where Christians have painted themselves into a corner using free will as an excuse for the existence of suffering.

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Fair enough!

zippy2006 said:

Oh, no. Jesus did not do evil. Catholics and Orthodox believe that Mary never sinned. Some Christians extend this to John the Baptist, etc.

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The sin was putting human will ahead of the will of God. Still is. Mary found favour with God because she was obedient to God, His will first. Likewise Jesus.

As for evil "And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil:" Even God knew what it was.

zippy2006 said:

Okay, but your argument still results in the contradiction noted in my last post. You would say that one can have free will with no desire to do evil, and therefore have free will with no ability to do evil. If this is accurate, then you have contradicted your own definition of free will ("the ability to choose between good and evil acts").

In other words, in post #450 I could be read as saying that the theist can point to free will as the sufficient cause of moral evil, for free will explains the ability to do evil (whether or not it explains the desire to do evil).

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Well, I never said you have to have a desire to have an ability. But I'll run with that if you say so.

One must have the ability to do evil if one is to have free will
One must have the desire to do evil if one is to have the ability to do evil
One must have the desire to do evil if one is to have free will
Having free will means having the desire to do evil
God gave man free will
God gave man the desire to do evil

See, my angle isn't the free will bit here. I'm not offering my own definition of free will, I'm using pretty much whatever you guys throw at me (until the special pleading fallacies start). You jumped in to a conversation with someone who insists God has free will but won't do evil. You say a desire to do evil is necessary for free will, and you're consistent by saying that God lacks the desire to do evil, so He also lacks free will, and that's fine. But this means that God made us want to do evil. God is the tempter. God created evil by creating evil desires before man ever acted on them.

zippy2006 said:

Okay, but your argument still results in the contradiction noted in my last post. You would say that one can have free will with no desire to do evil, and therefore have free will with no ability to do evil.

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Perhaps I'm missing something here, but just because you have no desire to do evil does not mean you do not have the ability to do evil

Ken-1122 said:

does not mean you do not have the ability to do evil

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We always had the ability but at the beginning we did not know we had it.