But when it comes to an omnipotent god, that doesn’t answer the “Why?” question at all.
It does. Look, He could make us all mindless worshipping automatons, but instead he gave us Free Will and Choices.
Referring back to Numbers 21:4-9, would you say the Israelites had Free Will and/or Choices?
And why does free will mean suffering?
I mean, free will means that you can punch me in the nose, but what is the reason that I have to feel pain when you do?
What does free will have to do with the suffering that comes of natural causes, of disease or genetic disorder?
Sure, they did. If you backslide you get bitten by snakes. if you repent you get cured.
Early on there were penalties for not worshipping properly, but you could ignore those. Many did.
Do note all those penalties were just for the Chosen People, to keep them in line.
Because that is the way the natural world works, which he set up and let run. Not to mention, a great number of those disasters are in some way or the other man made.
Covid was likely caused by Wet Markets eating weird traif shit and cramming live animals together in horrible conditions.
Usually problems with the program are blamed on the Programmer, not the program itself…even if the Programmer claims to be incapable of making mistakes.
One possible answer is along the lines of: If there were no suffering, would any of the choices we make actually matter?
According to the rules that he chose.
Some are. Many aren’t. If they were all man made, you’d have a point. Since they are not, you kinda don’t.
Why not? There may be other things that are problematic about that story, but I don’t see anything in it that says the Israelites didn’t choose to respond to the situation the way they did.
But if there is suffering regardless of our choices, do any of the choices that we make actually matter?
If we only have free will for the tiniest fraction of our eternal lives, do any of the choices really matter and, if they do matter, should the choices we make for the tiniest fraction of our eternal lives determine what happens for the rest of our eternal lives?
There seems to be ample conduits between heaven and earth according to source material. It would seem during post end times even more so as some will be living on the new earth, others in heaven.
As for free will, I’m not entirely sure what that actually means. Biblically the closest I got is what spirit to act in and with, or to translate that to a more human level, what emotion to act in. This is opposed to how it is commonly interpreted as should I kill this person or not, and more should I be angry at this person or forgiving or indifferent. The Lord’s angels are commonly said to have no free will, but I’m not sure that is justifiable. They take on missions, come to earth for a purpose of helping people. They can even have people change their mind such as Lot did.
One such scripture reads “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”
1 It does not say what happens if someone believes and is not baptized
2 It does not say that someone who believes and is baptized will not spend some time in Hell either.
The concept of salvation seems more tied up with belief than baptism. The Bible does not state if an infant believes in or knows God, but hints that it is a mystery of sorts, with Ps 8:2 stating infants praise God, that sort of indicates free will and belief.
The choices arent to reduce suffering- the choices are Heaven or Hell.
If I am held up and, with a gun held to my head, I am asked “Your money or your life?”, should I tell the police I gave the money over of my own free will?
Thanks for all the replies. I will respond to some, but some are repetitive or have been addressed.
The closest you get to answering the question is “We have lessons to learn and some of them will be hard.” I think an omnipotent God could figure out ways to teach us lessons, even hard lessons, without causing a painful death for thousands of infants a year. Why exactly is this not possible?
I agree that intent matters, but other than God’s word on this, we do not actually know His intent, we only know His actions as we see what Nature (not people) do in this world.
@cardboardbox,
Force-feeding a dog his pills is not the same as killing babies. Your dog may at some level understand that after the pills, he feels better. Babies who die after two weeks do not get the same opportunity for understanding.
Also, were we omnipotent, we would have no excuse for force feeding pills to dogs.
@Johnny_Bravo
“If our puny human minds are incapable of understanding the ineffable plan, they’re equally incapable of dictating how our omnibenevolent deity should act.”
But why exactly should we assume the seemingly horrible act of painfully killing infants is in fact benevolent? What evidence do we have? Would you assume benevolence in any similar but non-religious context? And why would an omnipotent God give us puny incapable minds when he could have given us minds sufficient to understand the seemingly horrible act? Or why not create a universe where such acts are not necessary at all?
I save the response to Bootb for last:
“The Bible is VERY clear that ALL forms of pain, suffering, and general unpleasantness in the world are a direct result of sin–something that entered the world as a direct result of free will.”
Please tell me how creating a baby with Meckel-Gruber syndrome is a direct result of sin. If not the newborn infant’s sin, whose sin? And why inflict the punishment on the infant?
Thousands died in a tsunami. Whose sin exactly was the cause of that? How does free-will come into play?
I don’t ignore the source material. I believe all the parts of it that have evidence to support them.
More soon.
So why, when we’ve been made unable to choose whether to sleep or not, unable in most cases to choose whether to be horny or not, unable to choose whether to feel pain or not, should some of us (under particular circumstances, very many of us) have been made able to take pleasure in the pain of others?
That has nothing to do with being able to make a free choice whether to worship God or not.
And that one fractional change – not to make us incapable of causing pain, just to not make us capable of enjoying the pain itself – would hugely change the human world for the better; and would result in far fewer people having cause in their lives to lose their faith in a God who permits the results of humans who take joy in torture.
Many people who have studied the biblical depictions (which are multiple) of God have found no such thing.
And the suffering of infants, who have never had a chance to exert free will about anything, would not in any case be excused by a free will argument.
Yup. But (as may have been part of your point) I don’t think anybody’s claiming evolution is benevolent and omnipotent.
I think there are other threads for free will that we can avail ourselves of if we want to continue that conversation explicitly.
I understand your statements, and am inclined to agree to a large extent.
In your philosophy, is God omnipotent? If not, then there is no relation to the OP, which is fine.
I am not denying that there are many aspects of the world that, if we attribute them to God, would demonstrate benevolence. But there are clearly aspects that contradict that description. A cruel teacher who goes home and hugs his dog is still a cruel teacher.
If God is omnipotent in your view, then despite all your statements, there is no apparent reason for bad things to happen to any particular manifestation of God. I care for another human being, only to see them cruelly killed in an earthquake. I spend my life caring for others, and those who want to follow my example see me and my entire family killed by a lightning strike while helping others, and they change their view. How can any of this have an explanation that includes benevolence and omnipotence?
My right hand cuts off my left hand. They are both the same entity. Does that make it benevolent?
Sure, I see suffering makes sure life something we take seriously. If I screw up and do damage to myself or others, the consequences may help me grow.
But, if a newborn baby dies a horrible death without human cause, what exactly is the point?
Thanks for the book recommendations. I will see if I can get my hands on those. It sounds a little like Job: A Comedy of Justice by Heinlein.
I loved that book. Blameless is much less surreal than Job, and really on-point for this thread. I read the review of Only Begotten Daughter and it also seems to cover this territory. I read that one a long time ago and don’t remember too much of it. They all cover theodicy, which is exactly what this thread is about.
Job was fun. I remember reading it in my 20s and loving it, but being less impressed when I read it years later.
I just put a hold on Towing Jehovah at my library. I like to start at the beginning. 