The Problem of Evil and Free Will

[Chriliman]

Saying "potential desire" seems weird. I wouldn't say I have a potential desire to torture puppies, but that I have a potential to desire to torture puppies. It feels like an important distinction. God doesn't have the potential to change His desires, at least not when it comes to evil though, right?

Agreed.

Neither. I'm looking for a better understanding of Christianity without expecting that anyone will be able to make it all make sense. It seems that I'm waiting for a personal revelation/experience in order to start being a believer (and some Christians have posited that is the case as well) so I don't expect our conversation to ever convert me. But that doesn't mean I haven't been shown to be wrong about a few things I thought of Christianity in the past on these boards and I have a better understanding now because of it.

Nor do I. It's clear to me that God is responsible for the change in people's hearts, not me.

I'm glad to hear that your open to important truths about Christianity and God.

I'm starting to get the impression that you don't want to bother with this conversation unless a conversion is the driving force behind it, so feel free to let me know if you don't want to continue.

I don't expect to convert people, but I do expect God to and if he can speak through me then that's great!

 

[Moral Orel]

Agreed.

So is that what Q is? A lack of any desire to do evil, and an unchanging nature?

 

[Chriliman]

So is that what Q is? A lack of any desire to do evil, and an unchanging nature?

There's many scriptures that speak of God's unchanging nature and his lack of desire to do evil. This scripture in James sums it up pretty well:

James 1:13-18
"When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created."

God is like light. Light can never mix with darkness, it always removes darkness wherever it shines and it's nature never changes. If light fills all space then darkness can't exist, not even shadows. In the same sense, if God fills all things in heaven and on earth then evil can't exist there and this is God's will, to be all in all.

1 Corinthians 15:25-28
"For he(Jesus) must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all."

So I guess that could be Q, sure why not

 

[bling]

I remember all of that. But when I asked what the difference is between God and humans that ensures He will never sin, you didn't simply say "Godly type love". You said before that He might choose to get rid of His Godly type love. You keep trying to answer the whole thread at once, and I'm trying to slow this down because we muddled everything up. You want a definition for Q and that's what I'm trying to get from you.

Is "Godly type love" Q? Because God has "Godly type love" there is 0% chance He will ever sin at any point in the future. There is 0% chance He will ever not have "Godly type love" because He does not change. He is love, and He will never cease to be love. Are these statements true? You still haven't confirmed, directly, that there is 0% chance God will ever do anything evil.

I might have at first said my Q was “Godly type Love”, but tried to be more specific and show where God’s free will comes into play. “Q” would then be God’s free will choice to allow Godly type Love to compel His actions and thoughts. Humans not only need that kind of commitment to a free will choice for Love, but also need the Godly type Love.

How would you “confirm” the fact God does not lie?

Why would God even need to lie?

 

[Moral Orel]

How would you “confirm” the fact God does not lie?

So you take it on faith/trust that God doesn't lie or do evil deeds? You don't know for sure?

You don't believe that if there is a God, that God must be exactly as described in the Bible and that there is always the possibility, however small, that God will go evil?

 

[fatboys]

Where do you think evil came from?

 

[Chriliman]

Where do you think evil came from?

Evil comes from disobeying God.

 

[bling]

So you take it on faith/trust that God doesn't lie or do evil deeds? You don't know for sure?

You don't believe that if there is a God, that God must be exactly as described in the Bible and that there is always the possibility, however small, that God will go evil?

It is not “only” faith, but the fact that everything around me and all of history is consistent with man’s objective and God being totally selfless.

I also have the indwelling Holy Spirit as my assurance of God keeping His promises.

Where do you think evil came from?

Man's need to sin.

 

[Moral Orel]

It is not “only” faith, but the fact that everything around me and all of history is consistent with man’s objective and God being totally selfless.

"Everything" and "all" are pretty big concepts. You don't know enough about everything around you or enough about all of history to make a claim that it is all "consistent". That isn't a dig on you being dumb, no one knows that much about everything. If we took all the history books in the world and compiled them together, and compared them against everything that's ever happened, how much do you think those books would cover? Even 1% of all history?

What you might mean is that everything you know is consistent, but you have to consider how much you know versus how much there is to know in order to make a claim that everything is consistent.

At this point, I'm not sure how to continue the conversation. No matter how unlikely you find it, there is always the possibility, no matter how small, that God is actually malevolent because you can't "confirm" anything. If it's always possible that God might do something evil, then it's possible He already has, and that He is doing something evil right now, and that He does evil things all the time.

 

[Moral Orel]

This was neat. Fatboys asked:

Where do you think evil came from?

Chriliman responded:

Evil comes from disobeying God.

Which begs the question, "why do people disobey God?". So Bling answers that:

Man's need to sin.

But that begs the question, "Why did God make man with a need to sin?". Which is what I'm getting at with the thread. You can try to pass the buck to Adam since he didn't need to sin, but we do because he did, but since God designed sin to be hereditary, it ultimately falls back to God's design choices, not Adam's actions that cause us to "need" to sin.

My opinion on the origin of evil though is different. It comes from a more naturalistic perspective though. In the OP I defined evil as anything undesirable, such as death and pain as well as evil deeds. But without theology I wouldn't call everything evil that I would with theology.

It seems to me that the universe is so big, and full of so much stuff (despite all the emptiness) and things combine together in so many ways, and interact in so many ways, that the universe just makes lots of variety. Once we were smart enough to, we started labeling things as bad (evil) because we didn't like them; pain, suffering, death, etc. I don't consider those things "evil", they just are. I could go into more detail, but it's mostly derived from evolution both biologically and socially, and I'm sure you've heard most of that stuff before.

 

[Moral Orel]

There's many scriptures that speak of God's unchanging nature and his lack of desire to do evil. This scripture in James sums it up pretty well:

James 1:13-18
"When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created."

God is like light. Light can never mix with darkness, it always removes darkness wherever it shines and it's nature never changes. If light fills all space then darkness can't exist, not even shadows. In the same sense, if God fills all things in heaven and on earth then evil can't exist there and this is God's will, to be all in all.

1 Corinthians 15:25-28
"For he(Jesus) must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all."

So I guess that could be Q, sure why not

Okay, so if Q is "a lack of any desire to do evil, and an unchanging nature" so that a desire will never develop, then I'm going to keep calling it Q because that's a mouthful to type every time I want to mention it.

Now that we know what Q is, then why didn't God make Adam with Q? Better yet, why didn't He make Lucifer with Q?

Remember, God didn't develop Q over time, He didn't choose to have Q, having Q doesn't mean God doesn't have free will simply because He will never desire to do anything evil. So why not give it to people and angels from the beginning?

You'll probably want to go back to the space/time/process thing we were talking about earlier, so I'll preempt you with a bit of info on that.

Space doesn't matter. It doesn't have any effect on any part of our discussion that I can see. Maybe it's necessary, maybe it isn't. I can imagine people being like computer code in a machine, and that doesn't take up "space" so maybe it isn't. But who cares either way, right? Does it have a bearing in any way that I don't see?

Time, on the other hand, you're going to put more importance into than I am. I'll give it to you that time is necessary to the point that a created thing has to have a beginning, and that makes time necessary. That's as far as I can see it being needed though, and that has no bearing that I can see either. It would serve as a distinction between us and God if He made us omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, as I've posited is possible, but not an important one when we're talking about morally good actions.

Now the process part is the important bit. You say there must be a process, but I disagree. There was no process involved in us gaining the ability to speak, or walk, or reason. These were instilled in us at the moment of our creation. God does not need to follow a process to instill qualities in the things He creates necessarily. You may have some reason to think that this particular instance requires a process, but it is not de facto necessary.

 

[Chriliman]

Space doesn't matter.

I'd say it does matter a great deal. How can anything take shape or begin if it has no space to do so? God would logically use space to achieve His creation.

It doesn't have any effect on any part of our discussion that I can see.

If we're being logical then yes it does. God uses space to create. If this were not true then space wouldn't exist because God would see no use for it.

Maybe it's necessary, maybe it isn't. I can imagine people being like computer code in a machine, and that doesn't take up "space" so maybe it isn't. But who cares either way, right? Does it have a bearing in any way that I don't see?

Even if humans are just information, you'd still need space to convey that information. Knowledge must be able to flow from the source(God) to the receiver(Us) and this would require space and time.

Time, on the other hand, you're going to put more importance into than I am. I'll give it to you that time is necessary to the point that a created thing has to have a beginning, and that makes time necessary. That's as far as I can see it being needed though, and that has no bearing that I can see either. It would serve as a distinction between us and God if He made us omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, as I've posited is possible, but not an important one when we're talking about morally good actions.

I can't comprehend how anything could be done/created without time or space to do/create it. To say God can create without time or space to do it, seems like a contradiction to me.

Now the process part is the important bit. You say there must be a process, but I disagree. There was no process involved in us gaining the ability to speak, or walk, or reason.

Do you actually think that's true? I disagree and say that learning to do something is actually a process in of itself. Who's to say God isn't in the process of teaching us His ways right now? The question is, are we listening?

These were instilled in us at the moment of our creation. God does not need to follow a process to instill qualities in the things He creates necessarily. You may have some reason to think that this particular instance requires a process, but it is not de facto necessary.

God would know that we need to learn His ways of doing things, so he would set everything up to give us the greatest possible chance to learn all that we can about Him and His creation, while not forcing Himself upon us in an unloving way. This process of learning would be this experience we're having on earth right now. This also conveys the extremely personal nature of God and how patient he is with us. I also think death is a part of the learning process.

Nicholas, I'm sure you'll have rebuttals that you see as possible, but for me, it's not only about what's possible, but more so about what's true. A long time ago, I set out to find the truth of God and the journey has lead me to come to know God as a personal being who really wants the best for us and wants us to be free from all evil that can have power over us, which is why He sent Jesus to remove the powers of evil which can keep us in darkness and falsehood. Coming to know God is an extremely personal experience and when you have that experience there's no turning back to a worldview without Him in it. He becomes the very basis of every critical thought you have regarding both good and bad things in the world.

The question changes from 'Does God exist?' to 'Who is God and what does He have to do with me?' to 'What does God want me to do?' Personal experience of life will result in these questions being answered.

This will be my last post on this thread. Thanks for your time

 

[Moral Orel]

This will be my last post on this thread. Thanks for your time

Thanks for the last word! You knew I'd have to have it, right?

I'd say it does matter a great deal. How can anything take shape or begin if it has no space to do so? God would logically use space to achieve His creation.

If we're being logical then yes it does. God uses space to create. If this were not true then space wouldn't exist because God would see no use for it.

Even if humans are just information, you'd still need space to convey that information. Knowledge must be able to flow from the source(God) to the receiver(Us) and this would require space and time.

But space existing or not existing has no bearing on morality, so it isn't important to our discussion because that's what we're talking about.

I can't comprehend how anything could be done/created without time or space to do/create it. To say God can create without time or space to do it, seems like a contradiction to me.

I agreed time was necessary, to an extent. So no contradiction.

Do you actually think that's true? I disagree and say that learning to do something is actually a process in of itself. Who's to say God isn't in the process of teaching us His ways right now? The question is, are we listening?

That's the claim of Christianity isn't it? That God can create a fully formed intelligent being that is capable of speech, and reason, and mobility in an instant? And sure, learning can be a process, but with an omnipotent God it doesn't have to be. Is God lesser because He didn't learn to have such a good nature? Of course not. Whatever properties are desirable, they can be infused in us at the moment of creation, just like speech, and mobility, and reason. Learning slowly is only necessary without the existence of an omnipotent being.

God would know that we need to learn His ways of doing things, so he would set everything up to give us the greatest possible chance to learn all that we can about Him and His creation, while not forcing Himself upon us in an unloving way. This process of learning would be this experience we're having on earth right now. This also conveys the extremely personal nature of God and how patient he is with us. I also think death is a part of the learning process.

I wouldn't consider being made perfectly well to be Him "forcing Himself" on us any more than you think His nature forces Him to act in any given way.

Nicholas, I'm sure you'll have rebuttals that you see as possible, but for me, it's not only about what's possible, but more so about what's true.

Of course. But if it's possible to create us perfect, without hindering our free will, then it is not true that free will has anything to do with God's decision making process when choosing what to do with us.

 

[bling]

But that begs the question, "Why did God make man with a need to sin?". Which is what I'm getting at with the thread. You can try to pass the buck to Adam since he didn't need to sin, but we do because he did, but since God designed sin to be hereditary, it ultimately falls back to God's design choices, not Adam's actions that cause us to "need" to sin.

My opinion on the origin of evil though is different. It comes from a more naturalistic perspective though. In the OP I defined evil as anything undesirable, such as death and pain as well as evil deeds. But without theology I wouldn't call everything evil that I would with theology.

It seems to me that the universe is so big, and full of so much stuff (despite all the emptiness) and things combine together in so many ways, and interact in so many ways, that the universe just makes lots of variety. Once we were smart enough to, we started labeling things as bad (evil) because we didn't like them; pain, suffering, death, etc. I don't consider those things "evil", they just are. I could go into more detail, but it's mostly derived from evolution both biologically and socially, and I'm sure you've heard most of that stuff before.

“The need to sin”, comes from the fact man (including Adam) cannot accept God’s charity as pure charity without the need for charity. Prior to sinning Adam had no “need” to accept charity from God since He as a child of God had done nothing wrong and God as Adam’s Creator had a “given”/natural responsibility to what He has created. God and everyone else is responsible for what we have done.

 

[Moral Orel]

“The need to sin”, comes from the fact man (including Adam) cannot accept God’s charity as pure charity without the need for charity. Prior to sinning Adam had no “need” to accept charity from God since He as a child of God had done nothing wrong and God as Adam’s Creator had a “given”/natural responsibility to what He has created. God and everyone else is responsible for what we have done.

I'm not sure where you get the idea that we can't accept charity unless we need charity. I don't need a million dollars, and I haven't done anything that makes me deserve a million dollars, but I'll gladly take a million dollars if anyone wants to give it to me.

 

[Hawkins]

Right, I get that. So to completely oversimplify, let's pretend God is a yardstick. God is not just a yardstick, He is the yardstick. We know that all the measurements on that yardstick are always going to be perfect, and we check all other yardsticks for accuracy against the original. Sound good so far? Now just make all the other yardsticks that come later start out at the exact measurements of the original yardstick instead of taking sticks and bending and stretching them until they come as close as you can, but never quite right. Does God lack the ability to make perfect yardsticks? If so, why? If He can, but chooses not to, why not?

And just to be crystal clear, there is 0% chance His nature will ever change, right? Ours change all the time. I used to hate peanuts when I was growing up, but now I kind of like them. But that doesn't ever, ever happen with God, correct?

You forgot that He can foresee! He can make ready all possible changes before hand. You may have a problem understanding as you, as a human, are not made with that sense.

That's why you have the question that "how about the changes in the future". That's not a question of God but a question of you as a man.

This category of questions are all because you insist on reasoning as a man without any futuric sense.

That being said. The Bible actually says that God as being perceived by those chosen witnesses as a God doesn't change easily. He's persistently the same God with persistent characteristics. Then why do you have to portray God using the changing characteristic of man.

Moreover, unlike yardstick humans have the freewill to sin. Freewill simply means when giving the option of 0 and 1, humans can choose between 0 and 1. Why should God ban you from choosing what you will choose?

 

[Moral Orel]

You forgot that He can foresee! He can make ready all possible changes before hand. You may have a problem understanding as you, as a human, are not made with that sense.

That's why you have the question that "how about the changes in the future". That's not a question of God but a question of you as a man.

This category of questions are all because you insist on reasoning as a man without any futuric sense.

That being said. The Bible actually says that God as being perceived by those chosen witnesses as a God doesn't change easily. He's persistently the same God with persistent characteristics. Then why do you have to portray God using the changing characteristic of man.

I'm not saying God changes. I'm just trying to get people to confirm that God doesn't change. If the Bible is true, then God doesn't change. But people won't acknowledge that God can't change Himself into something else, i.e. malevolent. Now you've even said that He "doesn't change easily". Does that mean He does change or not?

I'm not trying to convince you God changes. It's quite the opposite. I say God doesn't change, ever, because He can't. It would like getting a square to be round. God is love, and He cannot cease to be love. Do you agree or is it just difficult?

Moreover, unlike yardstick humans have the freewill to sin. Freewill simply means when giving the option of 0 and 1, humans can choose between 0 and 1. Why should God ban you from choosing what you will choose?

I've got to know with absolute certainty and clarity whether you believe there is a chance that God would choose evil before we can get back into this stuff. Your answer is still murky. Is there any chance whatsoever that God would choose evil?

ETA I was thinking about it, and I think I know why I'm being unclear. When I say things like "in the future" I really just mean "in our future". If God is outside of time itself, then He doesn't really have a future or past, He just is. And that's fine. So what I mean is, will God ever doing anything evil in our future, and if not, what is it about Him that ensures He won't?

 

[bling]

I'm not sure where you get the idea that we can't accept charity unless we need charity. I don't need a million dollars, and I haven't done anything that makes me deserve a million dollars, but I'll gladly take a million dollars if anyone wants to give it to me.

People do not like to humble themselves to the point of accepting pure charity as charity from a giver that has made a huge personal sacrifice to provide this charitable gift.

People will take a million dollars from a rich person that they suspect has some alternative good reason for doing it (the rich person conscience maybe satisfied from all the wrong the rich man did in becoming rich). People will take (steal) money from the poor and justify it someway in their own minds (a fool and his money are soon divided).

It is easy to give value to a million dollars, but how many people want to be loved (accept the gift of Love from God) for who they really are and in spite of who they are since most people want to be “loved” for how they want others to perceive them to be.

What value do you place on having God forgive you of your sins?

What value do you place on going to a Love Feast (heaven), where there is only charitable type Love being exchanged (the desire to serve others without expecting anything in return)?

 

[Moral Orel]

People do not like to humble themselves to the point of accepting pure charity as charity from a giver that has made a huge personal sacrifice to provide this charitable gift.

You're changing the "gift" that we've been talking about from simply God's love to Jesus' sacrifice. If we stick to what we've been talking about, then Jesus never needed to die, and God wouldn't have to sacrifice anything to give us that love.

It is easy to give value to a million dollars, but how many people want to be loved (accept the gift of Love from God) for who they really are and in spite of who they are since most people want to be “loved” for how they want others to perceive them to be.

You've got that all wrong. Everyone wants to be loved for who they really are. People try to change other people's perception of them because they think that they can't be loved for who they really are. That doesn't mean they want the fake-them to be loved and not the real-them to be loved.

 

[bling]

You're changing the "gift" that we've been talking about from simply God's love to Jesus' sacrifice. If we stick to what we've been talking about, then Jesus never needed to die, and God wouldn't have to sacrifice anything to give us that love.

No I did not, the gift is still God’s Love. But for humans to accept that gift as it is given, God makes some huge sacrifices which includes: Christ going to the cross, Satan roaming the earth, tragedies of all kinds, death of some innocent people, the existence of hell, evil in the world and man sinning.

You've got that all wrong. Everyone wants to be loved for who they really are. People try to change other people's perception of them because they think that they can't be loved for who they really are. That doesn't mean they want the fake-them to be loved and not the real-them to be loved.

Accepting being “Loved” the way you are is to accept pure charity. Would you prefer to be rewarded a million dollars for doing some great accomplishment or inherit a million dollars from a hard working generous person you looked down upon and abused all your life?