Only for those who have earned it.
WTFFF? I don’t enjoy chocolate ice cream because it isn’t covered in shit, and if the possibility of such a thing happening never occurred to me I would enjoy it just as much.
I never said I believed in heaven. I do not believe in heaven.
- So it IS possible.
- I don’t jump through hoops if I don’t know what is on the other side.
God could have prevented evil by not creating anything in the first place. If there is Nothing, there is no evil.
OK, I see.
Is that the only way a benevolent and all-powerful god could prevent evil?
That’s the question, isn’t it? Could there be a world without evil, or even with less evil, while still preserving other desirable qualities? We’re back to whether this is “the best of all possible worlds.”
I am of the opinion that God’s power does not extend to doing what is logically impossible. So, for example, even God could not find a map that is not four-colorable. God could not find positive integer solutions to a^n + b^n = c^n with n > 2. God could not produce a formal axiomatic system capable of modeling basic arithmetic in which all true propositions are provable. And I am at least open to the possibility that a world without evil (but with the other qualities we want in a world) is similarly logically impossible.
Perhaps, but that still leaves the possibility of a world with less evil…and if that isn’t possible, then why should we even try to better our lives and the lives of others? If God can’t do it, who am I to even try?
“Evil” is a bit of a simplification here. It would be trivial to have a world where cancer doesn’t exist, for instance. It wouldn’t change anything meaningful about our world.
Or how about those parasites that burrow into children’s eyes blinding them? That isn’t logically impossible to exclude from an otherwise identical world.
That’s a great question. The problem lies in definition of God’s benevolence. I’d argue that if God is truly omnipotent and benevolent it would be God’s duty to stop individuals from hurting others (i.e. punish evil).
And it seems like this would be pretty easy for an omnipotent being to do. God could simply stop the individual right before they committed the evil actions each time. Or stop the evil action for having any effect. Or even just remove all desire to do things which would hurt others.
Existence in this universe would be very different than our own. We would, in effect, have our actions or thoughts partially controlled by the omnipotent being. If we tried to make a choice which hurt others it ‘wouldn’t count.’ The action would be impossible in one form or another.
The Christian view is that God refuses to control humans’ behavior in this way. And because He refuses to do so His remaining choice is to punish those who hurt others after the fact. But God (being benevolent) didn’t like this option so He came up with the concept of one individual taking the punishment for someone else. This way the evil actions (hurting others) still get punished but only one person has to suffer rather than everyone. The problem then becomes who should be the one who suffers for everyone else?
Which goes against everything we are taught about the concept of justice.
Again, by “world” I mean the totality throughout time, not just the present situation. So, arguably, a world in which we have the ability to better our lives and the lives of others is preferable to a world in which we cannot.
I’m not so sure that would be trivial, but I don’t know the science. How would that work? Cells can’t mutate? Then what drives evolution?
Yes, it seems terribly unfair. But if (as Christianity teaches) He chooses Himself to be the one who gets punished He is still benevolent. He’s allowing his benevolence to ‘bend the rules’ and taking the punishment on Himself so humans don’t have to endure it.
You think an omnipotent God can’t create a universe without cancer? What a worthless God that would be.
Cancer is a part of what makes it so great.
I was feeling really down, and questioning my faith, but then I remembered that children regularly die gasping in absolute agony of an unnecessary disease, then I felt at peace.
Praise be.
Sorry I should have said “what if Cancer is a part of what makes it so great.”
How?
If I pull a Truman Show and raise someone in a fake reality where cancer doesn’t exist, can they know happiness?