You ask the question, “If evil in the world exists because of free will, then what about the harm created by natural disasters?” Well, you see, that’s not EVIL; that’s what we in the Dungeons and Dragons world call CHAOS. See, people think that because God has a “plan”, that means that everything that happens is part of the plan. Well, the way I figure it, God is the ultimate Dungeon Master. He created a set of rules by which the universe operates; however, those rules sometimes dictate that dice must be rolled. It’s important to realize that chaos is NOT the same thing as evil. If you roll three 6-sided dice, you have exactly the same odds of rolling a 3 as you do an 18. In real life, you might have the same odds of winning the lottery as you do of being struck by lightning. I agree with the idea that this puts some limitations on God. For chaos to truly exist, either God does not know the outcome of the dice roll beforehand and/or God cannot alter the roll once it has been made. That may go against traditional theology, but it does make sense.
Going back to the OP. Anyone surviving a car accident today should be thanking the engineers who invented airbags, three-point seat belts, safety glass, crumple zones, roll bars…etc.
Before anyone jumps in with a comment about this being God’s plan to have the engineers invent the safety features, let me just point out that the safety features were engineered only after the dangers were identified by the real victims of terrible accidents.
Did “God” decide to sacrifice a few (thousands) people in order to send a message to the auto engineers to come up with the crumple zone? How mysterious is that?
I suppose you could “Thank God” that you are living in an age where auto safety has improved. On the other hand God must hate you cause you die of cancer the day before the cure is discovered. Is it God or is it Science and Engineering?
It’s time to leave the dark ages!
Reality check please.
*Originally posted by NiceGuyJack *
God didn’t design the first cars that caused these accidents did he? They were the product of man were they not? So now you’re blaming God for something man designed wrong in the first place? Doesn’t seem fair.
But, surely God have ordered His angels to prevent the accidents, right? By the way, I have to compliment on you on your thoughtful and well-written answer to my query on the Problem of Evil.
Wow, nice simple questions for me to answer! :rolleyes:
First, to get a canard out of the way:
Proposition: As of now, Deacons Trucked has not posted to this thread.
Analysis: This is a negative statement. Examining its content, we find the name of a poster and a specific thread to which it is asserted that he has not made posts. Examining the left column, we discover that posters’ names are listed alongside their posts. Reviewing these names, we discover that Deacons Trucked is not among them. To make our review complete, we consult with TubaDiva, Gaudere, and David B and establish that (1) Deacons Trucked has never created a sock puppet under which to post, and (2) no one has deleted a post by him from this thread.
Conclusion: It is proven that Deacons Trucked has never posted to this thread. (Nor have he or his brother or sister-in-law to the Raleigh Dopefest thread. :()
What is generally impossible to prove is a universal negative. “There are no white crows” would be an example. This asserts that nowhere in the universe is there such a thing as a crow which is colored white. Even if one were to examine every crow on Earth and conclude that none of them are colored white, one cannot disprove the possibility that somewhere there exists a place inhabited by crows indistinguishable from those on Earth but for the white coloration of at least one of them.
Jodi’s assumption regarding my intent about natural disasters and free will was on target. One exposes oneself to natural disasters at all times and in all places, but can find places which rarely experience any given combination of them. (I think Cecil once did a column on the safest place to move to.) Deciding what risks to take and when is an exercise of free will.
And I will concur that a world in which natural disasters occur is certainly not the ideal place, and therefore suggests evil other than human creation. However, one must consider that such things are only evil from a human perspective, not in some universal sense. One of the strangest things I ran into in geology is that vulcanism is considered anabolic rather than catabolic – it builds rather than tearing down as does erosion. Certainly someone whose home and livelihood has been destroyed, and perhaps family killed, by vulcanism would think otherwise. There are numerous plants and animals which have evolved to occupy ecoroles where forest fires are required for their continued growth. And one might even suggest beneficial effects from hurricanes – certainly if they are a concomitant of the Gulf Stream, then they become a necessary evil for much of the world. Imagine Europe without the Gulf Stream – no, add a few more glaciers; you haven’t got it yet. Not just Norway and Murmansk; even England and Scotland are only habitable because of the climatic amelioration of the Gulf Stream.
Kyber and NGJack – I fully understand your point that there are psychological causes for (some people’s) belief in God. There are also psychological causes for (some people’s) need to disbelieve. Neither proves anything. Jodi, Bill and I and a number of others have adequate evidence to bring us to accept His existence and goodwill; Gaudere and numerous others do not. Flat-out affirmations that someone is being superstitious, failing to reason properly, etc., are beyond the pale, especially when combined with supercilious innuendo – not that I’m accusing you of this. But it’s a matter where we’ve agreed to disagree and discuss consequences. The hypothesis of the OP questions, not the existence of God or the problem of evil, which got brought into the discussion as semi-tangents (secants?), but whether the attribution of the saving from trouble/disaster/death of certain people to the intervention of God is justifiable under any circumstances.
My response would be “No.” But that’s because of my weird worldview – God does not intervene; He acts. Most of his actions are explicable by natural law; He, after all, legislated it. (All of his actions are explicable in this way, IMHO, but after we learn more about how He legislated. Any “miracle story” which is true rather than midrash or falsification/mythopoeia requires such a further learning.
In short, the world we observe is the one in which He operates, and no superstition about supernatural intervention is required to show His hand at work in it. Jesus, after all, did not descend on the clouds from Heaven on that First Christmas; He was born a human baby. (And let’s not get into His nature or historicity, please; that’s fodder for a new thread.)
Kyberneticist asked:
That’s what you get, too. He hasn’t seen fit to gift me with the answer to every question man has asked about why down through the ages yet. I can’t understand why! :o
Just one quick, slightly off the thread, comment to add on this point:
More from Kyber:
I don’t think either is necessarily true. As I suggested in an earlier post, for “free will” to have meaning, then the possibility of evil with consequences must exist. What might a truly omnibenevolent God do with a person who knowingly chooses to reject Him, to say, “I want nothing to do with you”? If He fails to honor this attitude and give the person what he wishes, then He is not truly being omnibenevolent. Obviously this can leave the door open for repentance as it is classically understood, that the person may change his mind and turn to Him. But at the time and place of the decision, God must either allow the freedom to reject or completely void free will.
Now, in a world where physical consequences do exist, things that people see as evil will occur (unless some sort of divine intervention prevents them from occurring). That is where we find ourselves. And most modern religionists of all stripes see God as walking with us through our troubles rather than lifting us out of them – a more mature sort of faith, if you will, than one in the Almighty Daddy who keeps his kids away from the playground lest they hurt themselves on the monkey bars.
Gundhilde, what your analysis fails to take into account is Eternity. You have to understand this, not a perpetual time, but as transcending time – God is not subject to anything, including time constraints. He sees all times and places as present at once. And just as you, playing cards with someone else, may decide, “If he plays his Ace, then I’ll play this four, but if he plays anything else, I’ll play my king,” so God can take into account your free choice to “play your Ace” or not, and, knowing what you’ve freely chosen to do, respond accordingly. So the Divine Plan can, and does, take human free will into account.
Whew! Tough workout for a Thursday morning! Hope this makes sense to everyone (but I know somebody’s got objections…) 
So you are saying that god cannot do anything to abridge freewill. If that is true, then god is not omnipotent (there is something he cannot do: freewill is the boulder god has created which he cannot lift).
In order for freewill to be meaningfull, the actions of any individual cannot be preordained by god. This leads to two conclusions. Firstly, god cannot be omniscient, since he does not know in advance what action an individual will make (he might be able to know all the possible choices, but not which one will be selected). Secondly, god cannot have a plan which involves each individual, as any individual is free to act in a way which is not within the plan.
As for the decision to take risks being an exercise in freewill, I would like to point out that, so far as I know, there isn’t anywhere that I could choose to live where there is zero risk of natural disaster. And even if there were, there would be some risk involved in moving from where I am to where that is! A more “evil” lose-lose proposition I can’t imagine 
Of course I have objections!
You mention volcanoes as being useful to the cycle of life (was just waiting for that). Obviously life on this planet has evolved to take advantage of what is here. I wouldn’t be surprised if you could find some examples of life taking advantage of hurricanes (spiders riding the breeze?), earthquakes (umm, stirring up the land? ), and tornadoes (sure they are immensely destructive, but then of this one particular species of kansas plant that uses them to spread!). Whatever massive harm is occuring, I’m sure there is some miniscule benefit…
By the same token life evolving protections against these natural disasters is God looking out for us?
So I presume, Polycarp, that if we found a way to somehow stop volcanism, you would object on environmental reasons… our gain is outweighed by some species’ loss.
However, this rather thin argument probably does not help in the case of larger scale disasters.
Why did God set up a planet that has almost complete Ice Ages (oh wait, some animals learn to adapt - damn, must be good?)?
Ok, what about those cosmic pool shots battering the Earth? Mass extinction is good?
Finally, in the post above you restate the free will argument (calling it a more mature philosophy). Yes, as we have developed, our concept of God has developed as well. As we can control more and more aspects of our environment, the set of things we call out for help to God on has reduced too. Suddenly God isn’t needed to protect us from unexplained disasters, diseases and wild animals as much.
Still, I wasn’t trying to attack free will, but examining why there are design issues with the world itself that cause suffering - and I don’t think you’ve properly answered that.
Oh! Two more. Ebola and birth defects. Ebola I think you would be hard pressed to call a living thing, no? We have almost no way of stopping viruses, and certainly haven’t for millenia. Is God refusing to step in there because it wants to see how we handle the situation (by bleeding from all orifices)? Or was he just waiting for the (still future) day when we eventually figure out how to manipulate our genome on the fly?
Birth defects. Yes, mutation is part of evolution. But is the suffering evolution causes really necessary? Isn’t special creation so much more orderly?
I think it would be easiest to concede omnibenevolence, or concede that free will does not answer the problem of evil.
Does this mean I can expand your “I don’t know” to cover pretty much the whole thrust of the thread?
Oh, btw Polycarp, thought you might appreciate this.
http://cuvc.bio.cornell.edu/mcgowan/whitecrows.htm
And I think that claiming that atheism is based as much on belief as theism (as you implied earlier) is painting a great big target for a long and heated off-topic discussion.
But in that discussion I would be most interested in hearing your evidence for God’s existence. Perhaps another thread?
(Sorry, feelings don’t count. We have strange feelings about all sorts of completely unverifiable things. IPUs for instance 
)
Nope. Not cannot. Will not.
Because of love. He didn’t pick the Father metaphor for Himself for no good reason. He wants to free us to grow into something we cannot even fathom yet, not be robots programmed to do His will and nothing but. (Look up the creation of the dwarves in the Silmarillion.)
Kyber, you misinterpret some of what I said. (Not said in objection, but to simply let you know that, e.g., I am not interested in seeing people die from volcanic eruptions jst to enable later soil fertility – talk about human sacrifice to the Fire Gods!) But let me think on what might best answer your objections a while.
Polycarp wrote:
Those random mechanical paintmixer daubs sold for $250,000 at the last Paris art auction.
I understand the idea you presented with the “card game” example…that if you do A, God will fit it into his plan, and if you do B, God will fit it into his plan. What I am saying is if God is omniscient, in the sense that he truly knows every little thing that has, is, or will happen, knows all of this at every single point in time throughout eternity, these things must, necessarily, happen. If they don’t, then God didn’t really know they would happen, and there goes his omniscience. With an omniscient god, you may be given the illusion of choice, but you don’t truly have a choice. You can think “Should I have chocolate or vanilla ice cream?” and mull over the question, finally deciding on chocolate. But if God knew you were going to choose chocolate, by God (ha!) you had to choose chocolate. You can’t render an omniscient being wrong, without sacrificing his omniscience. This doesn’t necessarily mean that God planned for you to choose chocolate – he just knew it would happen. Just because he’s omniscient doesn’t mean he planned the things he knows. Then again, if he’s omniscient and omnipotent, he can change his beliefs (since an omniscient being’s beliefs are necessarily true).
In other words, if he’s just omniscient but not omnipotent, we wouldn’t have true free will, but he wouldn’t have made us “robots programmed to do His will and nothing but.” He would know all our actions, and we would have to perform those actions because he knew them, but he may not have the power to change what our actions are.
If is not omniscient, there is a step toward true free will. If he is omnipotent, in this case, that is where he can choose to give us the gift of free will by not using his power to force us to do his will.
Let me know if I misunderstood your explanation to me. Or if I’m not making sense. (I’m not the best in debating – I usually just read this forum, but figured I’d expand my horizons this time).
Now, what were we talking about before? A dead truck driver?
You keep worrying about the topic being diverted, but the dead truck driver was intended as a segue into the problem of evil.
So really, this topic has stayed more or less firmly on track…
Good deal. I retract my worries.
Let me see if I can explain the theist viewpoint of God’s omniscience, Gunhilde. Now, God sees all time at once, right? He knows you will choose chocolate ice cream not because you have no choice to do otherwise, but because he looks “forward” and sees what you actually chose. For example, let’s say I pick up a newspaper that shows a picture of you eating chocolate ice cream. I therefore know you chose chocolate ice cream yesterday. Does the fact that I know what you did mean that you could not have chosen otherwise? Theoretically, at the end of time I could look back and know everything that everyone had ever done (I could be “omniscient”), yet I only know this because they did it–had they chosen differently, I would “know” differently as well. Knowing what will happen does not force the choices of a person anymore than knowing what did happen forces people in the past to have chosen a certain thing.
God’s omniscient is not: “I know Gunhilde will eat a bowl of chocolate ice cream, therefore she cannot eat a bowl of vanilla” It is instead: “If I know that Gunhilde ate a bowl of chocolate ice cream, then it must be because she ate a bowl of chocolate ice cream.” God’s knowledge is wholly dependent on what you in fact choose; just as I can read the newspaper and see you either eating vanilla or chocolate and my knowledge does not “make” you choose one or the other, so God can look back at any point in the timeline and see what you choose. If you choose vanilla, he’ll see that, if you choose chocolate he’ll see that. God’s knowledge is dependent on your choices, not your choices on his knowledge.
Or so I’ve heard.
So, wait. Omniscience does not extend into the future? I’m saying that if he is truly omniscient, and knew at the beginning of time, before I even existed to make the choice, that I would eat chocolate ice cream today, I would have to do that or he would not be omniscient. He would not have known that I would do that, so he wouldn’t know absolutely everything.
Unless you are saying that I, in a way, made that choice long before I even existed, at the very beginning of time (whether there is one is a debate all in itself). If there is an omniscient being, at that very moment he would have known that at 4:11:35pm on January 11, 2000AD Gundhilde would be eating chocolate ice cream.
Sorry if my explanations are confusing or simply wacko, but I understand omniscience to mean “knowing everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen at every point in time as long as there is ‘time’”
OK, OK, sorry. I just reread that and now I fully see what you mean, but I still don’t quite get how I could have made that choice before I existed to make the choice. Could you explain this, please?
Perfect, Gaudere!! Truly the IPU must have touched you with Her Holy Horn of Wisdom! [sub]Evangelism Rule #43: Always speak of God to your potential convert using the terminology under which He is known to him or her.[/sub]
You get into a real mess when you start analyzing whether the universe is deterministic or not, particularly in view of the fact that we are organisms inhabiting it and subject to its rules, which means that our exercise of free will is dependent on electrochemical interactions going on in our brains, which are part of a deterministic universe… (At points like these, a little chardonnay clarifies matters.)
Consider, too, that your free choice is not a totally random one. While you freely choose, your choice is constrained on being who you are. I venture to predict, for example, that David B. will not go to an Assembly of God revival in Springfield this weekend, though he remains totally free to do so. It would be contrary to his personal desires to do so, so he will choose not to. As I see it, such self-imposed limitation of choice does not impede true freedom, but it does modify the overall viewpoint – Godel to the contrary, the old saying that if one knew everything to date, one could predict everything for the rest of time may just hold true – and would not violate free will in the process, given what you clarified above and my comments in this paragraph.
Well, let’s try this. You choose to eat a bowl of chocolate ice cream. I see a picture of you eating it the next day. I hop into my time machine and travel back in time to before you existed. Does the fact that I know you ate a bowl of chocolate X years later mean that you could not have chosen vanilla? No, you could have chosen vanilla, and if you had, then I would remember you eating vanilla. I know what you did, and even if I know what you will do, I only know that because it is in fact what you chose to do.
If you want a slightly more formal work on the problem of foreknowledge (it’s a easy read, though), check out Norman Swartz - Biography (halfway down the page) and Norman Swartz - Biography
It’s easier for me to visualize God’s omniscience as if he is sitting at the end of time and sees everything that happened. It’s is still a massive headache, though, and I wish theists didn’t have omniscient God–it’s a pain to deal with. (I have yet to see a satisfactory answer resolving omniscience and God’s free will and his action in the world, but that’s an even more complex issue.)
Don’t buy it. Quantum physics shows that nature seems to be inherently probilistic, therefore you cannot predict with certainty everything for the rest of time even if you know everything to date. No way, no how.
Perhaps not for me or you or the IPU (hmm, wasn’t there a '60s song that went something like that?
But
With God all things are possible!
Gaudere wrote:
There was an episode of Davey and Goliath in which Davey got lost at an amusement park, and when reunited with his dad, Davey’s dad used the experience as a metaphor, explaining that God occasionally loses track of people and has to go looking for them.
This proves that God is not, in fact, omniscient.