The statement of “the creation gives perfect knowledge of the creator” is a strawman. I never claimed that. I claimed that a creation gives us some knowledge of the creator.
You misportrayed my contention. I am arguing that a creator does not give absolute knowledge of its creator.
So, while a cake may tell us that a baker makes cakes, the existence of evil likewise tells us that God certainly permits it (the allegory breaks down where I cannot say God Himself is behind all evil, because we have actual examples of created things creating their own evil.) You can even argue, though not 100 percent convincingly, that God makes evil (that is not my position.)
Even if that were the case, the fact alone does not give us a full view of the nature of the creator in that example. We don't know why it is done or what future purpose it serves, anymore than by looking at the cake do I know anything about the man who made the cake, or his attitude as he was putting the ingredients together.
So, making evil does not necessarily make the creator theoretically evil.
However, while it is more accurate to say a baker combines ingredients to make a cake, it is obvious that God combines ingredients per se to make creation. Evil is not the only ingredient any more than salt is the only ingredient in a cake.
Now, if I focused in only on the gross ingredients of the cake, it would be too easy to say the baker must have on purpose made a horrible cake. However, when we see the cake in its fullness, that conclusion is not permitted.
I would say the same logic applies to the existence of evil.
The most evil event ever was, at least to Christians, the murder of the most righteous man ever (Jesus Christ) and that He was killed so horrible people (those in sin) can be made righteous. It was incredibly and unfair that a righteous man was made to suffer for those who are evil.
But, Christians don't hide this part of the story. In fact, the Bible speaks of God enlisting deceptive spirits, allowing Satan to cause Job to suffer, and God Himself is says, "The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the Lord who does all these" (Is 45:7).
To me, the argument should be whether the God Christians believe in is "benevolent" by the definition people think omni-benevolence really is. This to me is a separate debate. Because, the existence of evil does not throw my worldview into contradiction at all. It might if I thought God ought to be Santa Claus.
There are two possible things that can be drawn from an object: the creator has the ability to create the creation and, possibly, the intention of the creator.
The former yes, the latter not with any degree of certainty. If you can show a fair degree of certainty I can concede this point, but I simply cannot based purely upon the assertion that it is so, because I do not know of any examples of created things that can tell me the nature of their creator.
The second point is less obvious, but still there. Take, for instance, a gun. When someone created a gun, they are aware of its possible purposes...Perhaps the creator of the flashy gun thought that the decorations gave the gun power, and were, therefore, necessary in the guns design, which I’ll grant. However, we can still draw a conclusion for this. Either the gunsmith lacked knowledge about reality and proper gunsmithing and honestly thought he was making a practical gun, or he knew what he was doing and created a flashy gun knowing it was really practical.
I do not see a point being proved here, maybe I'm missing it.
This brings me to poolerboy’s point of God being a special case..
Once something becomes a "special case," that's a cute way of saying the normal ways of determining truth such as discerning from the mass historical record of all other things in existence does not apply. So, I hope you don't mind, that any reasonable person should approach such an argument very critically and with a lesser degree of certainty. But okay, let's go.
if a being is omnipotent and omniscient, then there is no barrier in between the creator’s intention and what the creation exhibits.
Based upon what? That would require perfect knowledge of intentionality and perfect knowledge of the future, which we don't have. In fact, all we have to go by is "I think it would be better that bad stuff never happens."
However, we have clear examples where we know that bad stuff leads to good stuff. So, without perfect knowledge of the future, we would never be able to declare with absolute confidence that all bad things ultimately serve some sort of good purpose.
Again, what is even "good" anyhow? Who discerns this? Does he have perfect knowledge of what is good and what is not?
Remember what I said about approaching "special cases" very critically? Already, we are running into make problems such as bad presumptions (bad things never lead to better things) and the blind assertion that omniscience and omnipotence makes all intentionality perfectly predictable. Well, does it? That has not been proven.
Omni-traits are yes and no cases. There is no middle ground. You are either all-powerful or you are not. You are either all-knowing or you’re not. So on and so forth.
You are either "all-loving" or you're not, right? What is "loving"? What is "all loving"? Are you 100% sure that the full capacity of love exists when evil does not exists?
We need to be very critical, again, we are talking about a special case. We have to be very careful about how we reach conclusions.
Oftentimes, the true depths of love are not explored until there is a measure of forgiveness or mercy. The true depths of love in my own marriage have been explored in reaching situations where forgiveness became necessary. So, on a very practical level, I need evidence to dissuade me on this point, because it runs contrary to actual experience.
Because we are talking about a "special case" the need for evidence for your position is very high.
P-All-powerful/omnipotent
L-All-loving/omnibenevolent
KAll-knowing/omniscient
.-and
,-not
Possibilities of God traits, in regard to P,L, and K:
1. P,L,K
2. P,L,~K
3. P,~L,K
4. P,~L,~K
5. ~P,L,K
6. ~P,L,~K
7. ~P,~L,K
8. ~P,~L,~K (not a god and possibly not existent)
Unless you want to prove Epicurus and us true, you don’t want anything with ~P or ~L, as you would admit God is not all-powerful and/or all-loving. 3,4,5,6,7, and 8 are, therefore, out. They would fall into the problem of evil’s riddle.
Two issues. First, as we discussed, your view of omni-benevolence may be flawed. Second, your ability to extrapolate whether or not GOd is benevolent to begin with by looking at the degree of evil in existence, is something else you have not proved you can do either.
Again, we are talking about a "special case." We need to address these things and answer them definitively. Otherwise, we are better off not making any positive assertions pertaining to God's possible nature.
I’m going with nothing, as I don’t understand why there is evil. I can find no reason why evil exists and why the being would not tell us the reason if it cares for us so much.
Personally, though I cannot prove it to you, my opinion is that evil exists because GOd finds it necessary to fulfill some sort of purpose.
The Lord works out everything to its proper end—
even the wicked for a day of disaster. (Prov 16:4)
Again, quoting Scripture does not really prove anything to you, but all I can say is that I cannot substantiate my positive claim and I admit it. However, the burden of proof is on your position because you make a positive claim but don't have the evidence to back it up.
Name one reason evil should exist that an omnipotent and omniscient being could not achieve through some other means?
As I said previously, the existence of mercy. If this were part of God's nature, if this part of His nature was never utilized, then God's creation would be incomplete in some way.
Thanks for reading my responses.
