A Theological Question

[chvysb350]

I would like to pose this question to theistic evolutionists in particular:

Why is there suffering and death in the world and how is this consistent with a God of love?

Cheers.

We as humans living with humans outside of God's will, suffer. I believe that society has bred in us alot of ideas that are simply not Gods ideas. The jews believe that all of creation has been finished from the sixth day. This planet and everything in it has a perfectly balanced cycle of life, it is a perfect machine that doesn't need winding up to last as long as it is intended to. I believe that life and death are part of this cycle of things which must take place. Death is not always bad. The second death is what we are to fear. It doesn't really matter if you believe in creationism or evolution, both theories are to complex to just have happened. I think both ideas have merrit, but all I really care about is who gets the glory!!!!

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

The problem of evil is something I've worked on over the past few weeks in my spare time. In order to pose a solution, the problem should first be drawn out in detail.

The first thing to be clear on is that we're talking about the logical problem of evil (how can an omnibenevolent, omnipotent God cooexist alongside evil), not the religious problem of evil- the personal angush a person feels while sitting by the bedside of a dying child. What that person needs is pastoral care, not logical proofs.

So the logical problem of evil goes like this:

1. God exists. (premise)
2. God is omnipotent and omniscient. (premise — or true by definition of the word "God")
3. God is all-benevolent. (premise — or true by definition)
4. All-benevolent beings are opposed to all evil. (premise — or true by definition)
5. All-benevolent beings who can eliminate evil will do so immediately when they become aware of it. (premise)
6. God is opposed to all evil. (conclusion from 3 and 4)
7. God can eliminate evil completely and immediately. (conclusion from 2)
   1. Whatever the end result of suffering is, God can bring it about by ways that do not include suffering. (conclusion from 2)
   2. God has no reason not to eliminate evil. (conclusion from 7.1)
   3. God has no reason not to act immediately. (conclusion from 5)
8. God will eliminate evil completely and immediately. (conclusion from 6, 7.2 and 7.3)
9. Evil exists, has existed, and probably will always exist. (premise)
10. Items 8 and 9 are contradictory; therefore, one or more of the premises is false: either God does not exist, evil does not exist, or God is not simultaneously omnipotent, omniscient, and all-benevolent (i.e. God is omnipotent and omniscient but not all-benevolent, omnipotent and all-benevolent but not omniscient, or omniscient and all-benevolent but not omnipotent).

Hope that makes sense to everyone. God cannot be both omnipotent and omnibenevolent alongside evil.

One theodicy, or solution to the problem of evil, is the theodicy of privation:

This was proposed by St. Augustine. It says that evil is not a real thing, not a positive substance. Rather, it is a lack of being, or substance, or reality. The evil of premarital sex is the lack of marriage; the evil of murder is the taking of life.

This solution has God creating everything and declaring it 'good,' so that anything that deviates from that original creative plan is really some form of destruction. Evil is thus not created by God, because it the result of acts by Satan and humanity that take away from God's original design.

Personally, I think this is a crummy solution. It explains brilliantly how evil could come about in a universe created and declared 'good' without it being the work of God; however, it fails to explain how it could continue to exist in a universe ruled over by an omnipotent, omnibenevolent being.

The second theodicy, then, is the free will defense:

Augustine put forward, then, a second reconcilliation of evil with an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God. A recent defender of Christian orthodoxy, analytic philosopher Alvin Plantinga, formulates the defense this way:

1. Creatures who are significantly free cannot be causally determined to do only what is right.
2. Thus, if God creates creatures who are significantly free, He cannot causally determine them to do only what is right. (from 1)
3. Thus, if God creates creatures who are significantly free, he must create creatures who are capable of moral evil. (from 2)
4. Thus, if God creates a world containing creatures who are significantly free, it will contain creatures who are capable of moral evil. (from 3)
5. If God creates a world containing creatures who are capable of moral evil, He cannot guarantee that there will not be evil in that world.
6. Thus, if God creates a world containing creatures who are significantly free, He cannot guarantee that there will not be evil in that world. (from 4 and 5)
7. A world containing creatures who are significantly free (and freely perform more morally good than evil actions) is more valuable, all else being equal, than a world containing no free creatures at all.
8. Thus, God has good reason to create a world containing creatures who are significantly free. (from 7)
9. Thus, God has good reason to create a world, which He cannot guarantee will not contain evil. (from 6 and 8)

What Plantinga is basically saying here is that in order to create a world where there are creatures with morally significant freedom (freedom such that they can make choices of right and wrong), he must run the risk of allowing the creatures to introduce moral evil into their universe

Far from an omnibenevolent, omnipotent God cooexisting with evil being a logical impossiblility, it is absolutely necessary that God, in creating a universe with any significant moral creatures (ie, beings in his own image), must run the risk of allowing those creatures to choose evil.

Note: I think one of the implications of this is that, in order to preserve the omnibenevolence and omnipotence of God in the face of evil, we need to continue to affirm that humans have free will. I'm not saying we need to say that we need to be Arminians, saying that humans choose to believe and are thus saved (not only do I believe in predestination, but no less figures than the aforementioned St. Augustine and Alvin Plantinga believed in it as well). But we do need to have free will to make this work- and so I challenge the strict determinist, hyper-Calvinist to reconcile their system with the problem of evil by some other defense.

 

[holdon]

Number 2.1 and following: A strict determinist does not agree that "significantly free" as the primary objective is what God wants at all. So, the whole argument fails in the face of that premise. Not that I agree with strict determinists either, but this argument doesn't go very far with them.

Therefore one needs to go back to God's intent: "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness". We don't have to speculate here: we have His revelation. This is what God wanted man to be: a creature in His own image and likeness. And that is incompatible with non-freedom, because God Himself is free. So, if you take that as starting point number 2.1. "God wanted man to be free, because He is free" (conclusion from Gen. 1:26) then you're off to a good start.

7. A world containing creatures who are significantly free (and freely perform more morally good than evil actions) is more valuable, all else being equal, than a world containing no free creatures at all.

This would be a disaster in itself. Because that would mean that evil was never to be gotten rid off. Not so per the biblical revelation: A New Creation was needed. Jesus Christ who freely and willingly depended on God. Believers are transformed into that image. Once the good is thus separated from the bad, judgment will take care of evil. No longer some coexistence of good and evil, even if more good would be done thane evil, but Sin will be completely taken away from this world.

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

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7. A world containing creatures who are significantly free (and freely perform more morally good than evil actions) is more valuable, all else being equal, than a world containing no free creatures at all.

This would be a disaster in itself. Because that would mean that evil was never to be gotten rid off.

Well, I certainly see your point, and largely agree. But that's not necessarily the case.

Possible worlds:

W1: (a) God creates persons with morally significant free will; (b) God does not causally determine people in every situation to choose what is right and to avoid what is wrong; and (c) There is evil and suffering in W1. W2: (a) God does not create persons with morally significant free will; (b) God causally determines people in every situation to choose what is right and to avoid what is wrong; and (c) There is no evil or suffering in W2. W3: (a) God creates persons with morally significant free will; (b) God causally determines people in every situation to choose what is right and to avoid what is wrong; and (c) There is no evil or suffering in W3. W4: (a) God creates persons with morally significant free will; (b) God does not causally determine people in every situation to choose what is right and to avoid what is wrong; and (c) There is no evil or suffering in W4.
Note that the premises for world 1 and world 4 are the same, set up such that God creates morally significant free creatures and does not causally determine them to do only right (or, for that matter, wrong). However, if they are truly free, then there remains the possibility that they could always choose rightly. Hence why it would not necessarily be a disaster-in-itself.

 

[holdon]

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Well, I certainly see your point, and largely agree. But that's not necessarily the case.

Possible worlds:

W1: (a) God creates persons with morally significant free will; (b) God does not causally determine people in every situation to choose what is right and to avoid what is wrong; and (c) There is evil and suffering in W1. W2: (a) God does not create persons with morally significant free will; (b) God causally determines people in every situation to choose what is right and to avoid what is wrong; and (c) There is no evil or suffering in W2. W3: (a) God creates persons with morally significant free will; (b) God causally determines people in every situation to choose what is right and to avoid what is wrong; and (c) There is no evil or suffering in W3. W4: (a) God creates persons with morally significant free will; (b) God does not causally determine people in every situation to choose what is right and to avoid what is wrong; and (c) There is no evil or suffering in W4.
Note that the premises for world 1 and world 4 are the same, set up such that God creates morally significant free creatures and does not causally determine them to do only right (or, for that matter, wrong). However, if they are truly free, then there remains the possibility that they could always choose rightly. Hence why it would not necessarily be a disaster-in-itself.

Of course the question is why God did not create man in the first place like Christ, who by definition always does God's will freely. But I think He couldn't. In order for the Word to become flesh, flesh must first exist and the World must be received. And then you're back to Gen 1:26, with the inherent possibility that something might go wrong.

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

In my view (and I borrow this from Karl Barth), God, in order to create creatures in his own image, needed to create creatures that were truly free. God, we know, is sovereign- he is utterly free to do whatever he wishes. So, too, were we created, in his image, free.

 

[holdon]

In my view (and I borrow this from Karl Barth), God, in order to create creatures in his own image, needed to create creatures that were truly free. God, we know, is sovereign- he is utterly free to do whatever he wishes. So, too, were we created, in his image, free.

Of course the creatures cannot rise to same status as the creator. They cannot become God. God cannot create God, because He is the Absolute. Therefore Man was created in His image and His likeness, and free. But he doesn't look like that anymore. He chose and chose wrongly and since then he is a slave to sin.