Epicurean Question

[Ethan Sutton]

I would like to hear some reflections from believers on the Epicurean Question. It goes something like this. This is mostly for people that take the bible literally(I.E every word is true and perfect).

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?

I look forward to all of the responses <3

E.S

 

[Tolworth John]

Or there is what is always ignored.
That God is able to deal with evil, he is willing to deal with evil, but that he has dealt with evil and has only to finalise dealing with evil.

What you ignore is good is only good if it is in line with God's will.

 

[geiroffenberg]

I would like to hear some reflections from believers on the Epicurean Question. It goes something like this. This is mostly for people that take the bible literally(I.E every word is true and perfect).

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?

I look forward to all of the responses <3

E.S

God has dealt with evil before the foundations of the world. Thats revealed by the gospel, none of these arguments can be applied against the gospel because it's based upon a misunderstandsing of the gospel and the nature of evil in the first place.

 

[~Anastasia~]

I would like to hear some reflections from believers on the Epicurean Question. It goes something like this. This is mostly for people that take the bible literally(I.E every word is true and perfect).

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?

I look forward to all of the responses <3

E.S

God is in a no-win situation in this model.

If He allows evil even though He could prevent it, He is judged as evil. However, if He prevented it, at the expense of human free will, making mere puppets of us all, I suspect He would be regarded as evil in that case as well.

What model shall we choose? The argument comes after the fact, in order to allow no way in which God can be judged as good, given the paradigm that is true for us. (Not that we have an actual right to judge Him, but when it is all understood, from an eternal perspective instead of a temporal one, I am confident that we will know it as good, ultimately.)

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

I would like to hear some reflections from believers on the Epicurean Question. It goes something like this. This is mostly for people that take the bible literally(I.E every word is true and perfect).

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.

God has created us with the power of choice between good and evil. Adam and Eve had that choice. In actual fact, Lucifer had that choice as all angels do, but he chose evil and suffered the consequences. Good and evil are not created. They are eternal states.
Because God has given us the choice between good and evil, He has to allow us to make those choices. Otherwise we would be programmable robots and therefore have no moral value in our choices or actions. But because we have the power of choice, our choices for good have moral value, and our choices for evil have consequences. Therefore the Justice of God has to allow us to make our own choices and accept the consequences of them, which are made clear to us.

Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.

God is able to prevent evil, but in order to do that He would have to take the power of choice away from us and lock us into an existence where we would be nothing more than mindless robots. That is not what He created us for. Therefore, God is bound by His own moral law that men and women are created as free beings who can choose their own direction in life. We have seen societies where the power of choice has been taken away from the population. We call them totalitarian societies. The American Independence is based on people able to choose to be free and make their own choices about how they want to live in their own country and not be ruled by a nation on the other side of the Atlantic.

Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?

God is able and willing. Because Justice is part of His essential nature along with Love, He has to have a set of laws by which He is bound Himself. The same moral laws which God freely chooses to comply with, He sets out for everyone else, with benefits for those who choose to abide by them and consequences for those who disobey. Because no human has been able to keep the moral law, everyone was doomed to suffer the consequences. But God was not wiling that any should perish, so He put a plan in place so that His Justice would be satisfied and His Love also satisfied. So He sent Jesus, the only one who kept God's moral law, to die on the cross and to suffer the consequences and God's wrath for our sin. This sets us free from the consequences of failing to keep God's moral law and enables Him to shower His Love upon us. But the condition is that we embrace Jesus Christ as our personal Saviour. Those who refuse will suffer the consequences of disobedience.

Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?

God is not a lawless Person who does what and when He likes. He is bound, by his own character and nature to comply with the moral law which is described in 1 Corinthians 13 and Galatians 5 as the law of Love and the fruit of the Spirit. God cannot go against His own nature and character, and Justice is an attribute of His Love. If evil has no consequences, then where is the Justice of God and where is His Love for those who embrace Christ as their Saviour?

But patience (fruit of the Spirit) is also an attribute of God. There is going to come a time when God will put a stop to the evil that is going on in the world, and will gather all the world before Him in the Judgment. Every person will be Judged to how they lived their lives and what they did with Jesus Christ. If the plan of salvation centred around Jesus Christ, then God is going to ask every person who ever lived, "Did you embrace My Son Jesus Christ as your Saviour?" If the answer is no, then that person's name is not in the book of life, and the consequence for that person is to suffer the full extent of the wrath of God, which is the final consequence of an evil, Christless life. And that person will be banished to a Christless eternity, whatever that state might hold for that person.

 

[Adstar]

I would like to hear some reflections from believers on the Epicurean Question. It goes something like this. This is mostly for people that take the bible literally(I.E every word is true and perfect).

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?

I look forward to all of the responses <3

E.S

God is able to prevent evil, but for the time being is long suffering towards evil because evil serves a purpose.. God shall remove all evil in eternity..

 

[miamited]

I would like to hear some reflections from believers on the Epicurean Question. It goes something like this. This is mostly for people that take the bible literally(I.E every word is true and perfect).

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?

I look forward to all of the responses <3

E.S

Hi Ethan,

As I understand the Scriptures, God is both willing and able, but it is not yet time. Peter explains that we now live in the era of God's patience. Allowing all things to take their natural course so that some may be saved. But lest we not forget, God has established a day in which He will bring judgment. The question for yourself and everyone else, is, where will I stand when that day draws to a close?

Everything that God does in working out His great plan of salvation among us, is done when the time is right. Jesus didn't just come to die for our sins one unplanned day. No! The Scriptures that foretold of him had to be written before he came to pay the sacrifice that the Scriptures tell us that he was to do. The day that you are looking forward to when God does deal finally and forever with evil, is coming just as it is foretold also.

God bless you
In Christ, ted

 

[mark kennedy]

The Epicureans are among these; they deny that there is any Mind behind the universe at all. This view is contrary to all the facts of experience, their own existence included. For if all things had come into being in this automatic fashion, instead of being the outcome of Mind, though they existed, they would all be uniform and without distinction. (On the Incarnation De Incarnatione Verbi Dei. St. Athanasius)

I would like to hear some reflections from believers on the Epicurean Question. It goes something like this. This is mostly for people that take the bible literally(I.E every word is true and perfect).

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.

God is willing, able and destined to vanquish evil completely at the end of the age. Why he doesn't goes to the purpose of his will, something beyond the natural mind.

Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.

It can and will be done but God has decided to let the wheat and the tares to grow up alongside one another until the end of the age.

Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?

Evil is actually willful sin.

How art thou fallen from heaven, O day-star, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, that laid low the nations! And you said in thy heart,

• I will ascend into heaven,
• I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; and
• I will sit upon the mount of congregation, in the uttermost parts of the north;
• I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
  
• I will make myself like the Most High. (Isaiah 14:12-14)

The last one is telling, to be like the Most High. This is the essence of the temptation in the garden of Eden.

Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse (Romans 1:20)
​

As many times as I have encounter atheists and agnostics, not once have they asked me what God is like. There is a reason for that, they already know. God is self existing and self evident. God does not give an account of himself to us, we must give an account to him.

 

[Ethan Sutton]

God is in a no-win situation in this model.

If He allows evil even though He could prevent it, He is judged as evil. However, if He prevented it, at the expense of human free will, making mere puppets of us all, I suspect He would be regarded as evil in that case as well.

What model shall we choose? The argument comes after the fact, in order to allow no way in which God can be judged as good, given the paradigm that is true for us. (Not that we have an actual right to judge Him, but when it is all understood, from an eternal perspective instead of a temporal one, I am confident that we will know it as good, ultimately.)

I can't speak for how others would judge, to me the one who stops suffering is good. Full stop, so if God isn't stopping suffering, (it does not appear that he is in any detectable way) then he must be ok with it. It isn't a no win scenario because if he took away our choice and created a utopia then he could do so without our knowledge and functionally nothing would have changed from our perspective. Other than we wouldn't be suffering and dying by the millions. The nature of having all power is you have all responsibility. You cannot have one without the other.
Thank you for your thoughts Anastasia. <3

 

[Ethan Sutton]

Hi Ethan,

As I understand the Scriptures, God is both willing and able, but it is not yet time. Peter explains that we now live in the era of God's patience. Allowing all things to take their natural course so that some may be saved. But lest we not forget, God has established a day in which He will bring judgment. The question for yourself and everyone else, is, where will I stand when that day draws to a close?

Everything that God does in working out His great plan of salvation among us, is done when the time is right. Jesus didn't just come to die for our sins one unplanned day. No! The Scriptures that foretold of him had to be written before he came to pay the sacrifice that the Scriptures tell us that he was to do. The day that you are looking forward to when God does deal finally and forever with evil, is coming just as it is foretold also.

God bless you
In Christ, ted

Hello Ted and thank you for your response.
For me your point seems to be he just hasn't taken care of evil yet. I must ask , do you find that answer satisfying ? If you had all power would you not end childhood cancer today ?

I look forward to your response <3

Ethan

 

[Ethan Sutton]

Or there is what is always ignored.
That God is able to deal with evil, he is willing to deal with evil, but that he has dealt with evil and has only to finalise dealing with evil.

What you ignore is good is only good if it is in line with God's will.

John thank you for the response, Two small reflections.
1. If God has dealt with evil, being all powerful he wouldn't have to wait thousands of years to finish the job ?
2. "Good is what is in line with God's will." Can you name for me a terrible thing this reasoning cannot justify? 25,000 children die daily. Many of whom are Christians. Many of them their parents are crying out to God right now and their prayers won't be answered. If that is good, then this is a definition of good that your average mass murderer would have found chilling I think.

I look forward to your response.

Ethan

 

[Ethan Sutton]

The Epicureans are among these; they deny that there is any Mind behind the universe at all. This view is contrary to all the facts of experience, their own existence included. For if all things had come into being in this automatic fashion, instead of being the outcome of Mind, though they existed, they would all be uniform and without distinction. (On the Incarnation De Incarnatione Verbi Dei. St. Athanasius)

God is willing, able and destined to vanquish evil completely at the end of the age. Why he doesn't goes to the purpose of his will, something beyond the natural mind.


It can and will be done but God has decided to let the wheat and the tares to grow up alongside one another until the end of the age.

Evil is actually willful sin.

How art thou fallen from heaven, O day-star, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, that laid low the nations! And you said in thy heart,

• I will ascend into heaven,
• I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; and
• I will sit upon the mount of congregation, in the uttermost parts of the north;
• I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
  
• I will make myself like the Most High. (Isaiah 14:12-14)

The last one is telling, to be like the Most High. This is the essence of the temptation in the garden of Eden.

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse (Romans 1:20)
​

As many times as I have encounter atheists and agnostics, not once have they asked me what God is like. There is a reason for that, they already know. God is self existing and self evident. God does not give an account of himself to us, we must give an account to him.

Hi Mark, St. Athanasius is an interesting place to start. How did Saint Athanasius know that without the universe springing from a mind that nothing would be distinct ? I don't think he did, considering you would need several universes to examine to come to that conclusion.
Definition of evil, our certainly differ, does a child willfully get drowned by a tsunami ? No obviously but it is still evil that this happens. My definition of evil is needless and preventable human suffering that is allowed to continue. And if God exists in the Christian sense then he has the sceptre and the crown. Not one person can hold blame besides him.

Thank you for your thoughts.

Ethan

 

[Ethan Sutton]

God has dealt with evil before the foundations of the world. Thats revealed by the gospel, none of these arguments can be applied against the gospel because it's based upon a misunderstandsing of the gospel and the nature of evil in the first place.

I usually don't work with any holy book unless asked to by my interlocutor. The bibles description of evil has way too much baggage for me. I define evil as being preventable unessasary human suffering. You would agree I think that God allows this on the daily.

Thanks for the response

Ethan

 

[Ethan Sutton]

God is able to prevent evil, but for the time being is long suffering towards evil because evil serves a purpose.. God shall remove all evil in eternity..

If evil serves a purpose is it possible that an all powerful diety could have fulfilled that purpose another way ?

 

[Adstar]

If evil serves a purpose is it possible that an all powerful diety could have fulfilled that purpose another way ?

Evidently not..

For one to have the genuine opportunity to choose Gods Will.. ( That which is Holy )
One must have the option of choosing what is not Gods Will ( that which is evil )

God has his Eternal Plan and He decided to bring it about the best way possible.. Because God is perfect and this has the perfect eternal plan..

 

[Ethan Sutton]

God has created us with the power of choice between good and evil. Adam and Eve had that choice. In actual fact, Lucifer had that choice as all angels do, but he chose evil and suffered the consequences. Good and evil are not created. They are eternal states.
Because God has given us the choice between good and evil, He has to allow us to make those choices. Otherwise we would be programmable robots and therefore have no moral value in our choices or actions. But because we have the power of choice, our choices for good have moral value, and our choices for evil have consequences. Therefore the Justice of God has to allow us to make our own choices and accept the consequences of them, which are made clear to us.


God is able to prevent evil, but in order to do that He would have to take the power of choice away from us and lock us into an existence where we would be nothing more than mindless robots. That is not what He created us for. Therefore, God is bound by His own moral law that men and women are created as free beings who can choose their own direction in life. We have seen societies where the power of choice has been taken away from the population. We call them totalitarian societies. The American Independence is based on people able to choose to be free and make their own choices about how they want to live in their own country and not be ruled by a nation on the other side of the Atlantic.

God is able and willing. Because Justice is part of His essential nature along with Love, He has to have a set of laws by which He is bound Himself. The same moral laws which God freely chooses to comply with, He sets out for everyone else, with benefits for those who choose to abide by them and consequences for those who disobey. Because no human has been able to keep the moral law, everyone was doomed to suffer the consequences. But God was not wiling that any should perish, so He put a plan in place so that His Justice would be satisfied and His Love also satisfied. So He sent Jesus, the only one who kept God's moral law, to die on the cross and to suffer the consequences and God's wrath for our sin. This sets us free from the consequences of failing to keep God's moral law and enables Him to shower His Love upon us. But the condition is that we embrace Jesus Christ as our personal Saviour. Those who refuse will suffer the consequences of disobedience.

God is not a lawless Person who does what and when He likes. He is bound, by his own character and nature to comply with the moral law which is described in 1 Corinthians 13 and Galatians 5 as the law of Love and the fruit of the Spirit. God cannot go against His own nature and character, and Justice is an attribute of His Love. If evil has no consequences, then where is the Justice of God and where is His Love for those who embrace Christ as their Saviour?

But patience (fruit of the Spirit) is also an attribute of God. There is going to come a time when God will put a stop to the evil that is going on in the world, and will gather all the world before Him in the Judgment. Every person will be Judged to how they lived their lives and what they did with Jesus Christ. If the plan of salvation centred around Jesus Christ, then God is going to ask every person who ever lived, "Did you embrace My Son Jesus Christ as your Saviour?" If the answer is no, then that person's name is not in the book of life, and the consequence for that person is to suffer the full extent of the wrath of God, which is the final consequence of an evil, Christless life. And that person will be banished to a Christless eternity, whatever that state might hold for that person.

Oscar,
I would need some clarification on several thousand thing there but I'll get it down to one because most of this I have addressed already in other replies.
The concept that an all knowing all powerful God exists and you still have choice. So if God knows what Adam will do (he did) and puts him in that position anyway (he did) then who's fault is it when Adam fails. The all powerful all knowing God who engineered the rules and the circumstances of his life ? Or the creation with no discernable powers whatsoever ?

Let me know what you think.

Ethan

 

[Ethan Sutton]

Evidently not..

For one to have the genuine opportunity to choose Gods Will.. ( That which is Holy )
One must have the option of choosing what is not Gods Will ( that which is evil )

God has his Eternal Plan and He decided to bring it about the best way possible.. Because God is perfect and this has the perfect eternal plan..

Adstar
I think we need to check what all powerfull really means before you can answer this question in this manner. When something is all powerful the question "could he have done X" Is always a yes.

 

[Adstar]

Adstar
I think we need to check what all powerfull really means before you can answer this question in this manner. When something is all powerful the question "could he have done X" Is always a yes.

Nope.. God has His will to do it the Way He deems the best way.. And He has done it the best way.. He will perfectly achieve His eternal goal...

God can do anything that can be done..

Human derived definitions are not to be declared infallible..

 

[Ethan Sutton]

Nope.. God has His will to do it the Way He deems the best way.. And He has done it the best way.. He will perfectly achieve His eternal goal...

God can do anything that can be done..

Human derived definitions are not to be declared infallible..

Ok, I don't think I claimed my definition to be infallible. If I can imagine a better path with less human suffering what could God have done ? My point is that God is very unlikely as a hypothesis with this taken into account. Stating that God did it perfectly. The world seems pretty imperfect to me. So obviously there is some room for improvement.

Thank you for the response.

Ethan

 

[Adstar]

Ok, I don't think I claimed my definition to be infallible. If I can imagine a better path with less human suffering what could God have done ? My point is that God is very unlikely as a hypothesis with this taken into account. Stating that God did it perfectly. The world seems pretty imperfect to me. So obviously there is some room for improvement.

Thank you for the response.

Ethan

The imperfection is not a permanent state, But a temporary state of being on earth.. It performs a necessary purpose for God to achieve his eternal goal in the best way.. So yes this world is very imperfect and so are we who dwell in this world.. But being imperfect does not mean we do not have the ability to know we are imperfect and to know there is perfection..

The perfecting of us humans comes on the day of the resurrection and judgement.. Then we shall be perfect . Then we shall be eternal. Then we shall exist in Gods perfect eternal existence.