If god is omnipotent, why does he let you suffer?

Great Debates
81

That’s the weird part about threads like this: once or twice during the debate I’m compelled to switch camps and play devil’s advocate for God.

Thing one
Singledad:

Huh? You mean there is in fact a way of objectively, rationally, determining the difference between “perfect” and “imperfect” in this context? Without spinning hopelessly into self-reference, presumptions and subjectivity? That I’d like to hear.

Thing two
I think pain is a moot issue in this thread. It’s the * suffering * that has everyone’s undies in a bundle, and I want emphasis a subtle but important distinction: pain and suffering are related, but * they’re not the same thing*.
There are a number of humans walking around on the planet right now who experience intense physical pain * but it doesn’t bother them*. They’ve had a brain operation (anterior cingulate cortex, if I recall) which otherwise does not impair their cognitive function, memory, emotional processing, etc. And, apparently, the same thing has been achieved by the use of so-called hypnotic induction – no scalpel required.
If physical suffering is such a god-awful (heh) problem, why isn’t there some big push to perfect these techniques and make them cheap and accessible? Everyone would still have the advantages of feeling pain (notification that something’s wrong with your body-state, etc.) but it wouldn’t * hurt*. Imagine that world… what would empathy or coercion look like? Wouldn’t a world like that eliminate the basis of this thread? If not, why not?
(I’m purposely not addressing the idea of “mental”, as opposed to physical, suffering because “mental” suffering is as malleable and subjective as it gets: if someone purposely tries to “hurt my feelings”, will I be angry? Sad? Amused? Horny? My choices are many and varied… and no one’s holding a gun to my head.)

82

Grim_Beaker wrote:

I have already dealt with the Ineffability Argument above. Beside the problem I’ve already raised, there’s the fact that even accepting a principle of ineffability, there’s no reason to assume that God’s ineffable design is beneficient rather than malicious.

83

Do any of you want to find out if God is real, on your own time? Didn’t you ever want to find out for yourself if we Christians are telling the truth? Ever want to search for answers?

Or, is this how you do that? By having these loooooonnng draaaaaaaaawwwn out debates?

Just some thoughts.

Adam

84

ra·tion·al (rsh-nl)
adj.

Having or exercising the ability to reason

rea·son (rzn)
n.

The basis or motive for an action, a decision, or a conviction. See Usage Note at why.
why (hw, w)
adv.

For what purpose, reason, or cause; with what intention, justification, or motive: Why is the door shut? Why do birds sing?

I note that the word ‘rational’ is used frequently here. It seems to mean that a concept is only valid if you understand the reason (or purpose) for it. Since we cannot seem to determine the purpose we are here, we cannot rationally substantiate a God, or creator. Or, said another way, our powers of reason/analysis are limited.

::

85

I would direct all of you to an excellent book on this very subject.

God at War by Greg Boyd.
Basically his point is that not all that happens is according to Gods plan. God has allow us and the Angelic/Demonic Free Will.
There are forces trying to defeat God and they are allowed the attempt…for now.

Read the book, its about 382 pages long (happen to have it here) and you dont want we coping all 380 pages here…

86

CalifBoomer: Theology is rational in the same sense that mathematics is rational. The underlying assumptions my be arbirarty, but the process of reasoning from those assumptions provides the interest.

We have these “long winded debates” because it we’re interested in debating for its own sake, and because many people do accept the non-emprical premise of God, and thus have every reason (pun intended) to examine the consequences of their beliefs using reason and logic.

If you don’t find this debate interesting, don’t read it. If you find it objectionable, and your objection is based soley on your personal faith, well, I’m not interested. If you have something to contribute, please do so.

If Cecil Adams did not exist, we would be obliged to create Him.

87

ARG:

Just for the record, this debate is not a dig at Chrisitianity, nor does it apply specifically to Christians. The problem of evil arises in any monothiestic religion. The original poster seemed to want to do a little Christian-baiting, but the rest of us have refused to oblige him.

Second, there is no reason to assume someone is not a believer just because they participate in debates like this—on either side. Those of us that find the problem of evil to be an insurmountable paradox are not saying “Humph! See, I have proved God does not exist!”. Instead, we are saying “If you believe in God, you must have blind faith, for His works are opaque to human reason.” This is hardly an impious position to take.

Lastly, hundreds of people whose creditdentials as “good christians” are unimpeachable–everyone from Augustine of Hippo, to Anselm, to Thomas Aquinas, to C.S. Lewis–have tackled this problem at one point or another. We are in good company.

88

SingleDad

I’m glad you finally cleared up what you mean by “omnibenevolence”.

Let proposition A = “Axiom 4 posits omnibenevolence.”

Let propostion B = “We must show that each and every consequence of God’s creation shows a disposition to do good or is itself an act of kindness.”

We now have a true implication of the form True A Implies False B.

Fine. But useless.

Since you have posited goodness as an attribute of God, (in fact, you have posited it as an absolute attribute of God — omnibenevolence), you are not capable of measuring goodness in any meaningful way, unless you yourself are God. Because you have attributed all goodness to Him, only He is capable of determining what is good. You must therefore measure goodness from His frame of reference.

Suppose God has determined that love among free moral agents (assuming that He is one Himself) is the highest good there is. Suppose further that He has created an amoral context, called nature, into which He can infuse His spirit. Suppose finally that He gives stewardship of His spirit to free moral agents (like Him) who operate in nature.

If goodness exists, and if evil is the absence of goodness, then the potential for evil exists merely upon the basis that goodness exists, just as the existence of light implies the potential for darkness, or the existence of heat implies the potential for cold. This means that the potential for evil has always existed because God Himself has always existed. Since He chooses (perfectly) not to do evil, evil can be realized only if God creates OTHER free moral agents besides Himself.

Imagine a tenant, Mr. Smith, who rents an apartment. Mr. Smith discovers that some of the other tenants have trashed their apartments. Mr. Smith may rightly blame the landlord for this state of affairs (that is, all the other trashed apartments), just as you may rightly blame God that evil exists (since He created man, and thus made evil realized — i.e., some men are evil, and all men are potentially evil).

At least, Mr. Smith may blame the landlord, (and you may blame God), so long as Mr. Smith never trashes his OWN apartment (and you never sin). In other words, you may blame God for the existence of your own evil (assuming you are a free moral agent) only if you are God (that is, you share His frame of reference). If Mr. Smith trashes his own apartment, then he may not blame his landlord because his landlord asked him specifically not to do that.

You might ask, “But what if Mr. Jones trashes Mr. Smith’s apartment?” As it happens, your landlord has made your apartment perfectly secure, just as God has made your consciousness perfectly unique. No one else can share your consciousness. You, and you alone, can experience it. It is uninvadable. All decisions with respect to it are yours and yours alone. It is true libertarian ownership made manifest. You cannot experience mine, and I cannot experience yours.

True moral suffering is when you suffer for His sake. True moral suffering is when you refuse to trash your own apartment even while everyone else is trashing theirs. True moral suffering is an expression of faith.

It has nothing to do with anything physical; nothing at all to do with nerve cells and atoms; nothing at all to do with amoral nature. The Jews who suffered at Hitler’s hand, did not suffer because they were physically tortured; they suffered because they maintained goodness in the face of the torture. It wasn’t their bodies that suffered, not in the moral sense (i.e., in God’s frame of reference). It was their spirits.

The only way to suffer is to do good in the face of evil.

No one suffers more than God.

89

Gaudere

First time I’ve seen it, and you probably won’t like my answer either, and you probably even know already what it is. I’m sorry to keep making this point (before long, y’all will be asking me to start new threads when I mention atoms), but you are fixated on the atoms.

That is only natural :wink: since you are an “atheist”. But if you are going to talk about God, then you must “go whole hog”. God is spirit. Talk about the spirits of the children. Talk about a moral context (the supernatural God), not an amoral one(the natural body).

If a man destroys a child emotionally or physically, the moral context is practically OPPOSITE the physical context. The spirit of the innocent child lives in eternal bliss; the spirit of the evil man lives in the eternal torture of his own vapidity (the spiritual equivalent of death).

All I’m saying is don’t mix up the metaphors. When talking about God things, talk about life, love, and spirit. When talking about nature, talk about DNA, brainwaves, and atoms.

Same for suffering. There is the spiritually irrelevant suffering of nerve endings, and the spiritually relevant suffering of faith in the face of evil.

90

Lib:

I still don’t agree with your definition of evil as the absence of good. It seems as arbitrary as saying good is the absence of evil. In my worldview, there are actively evil deeds as well as actively good ones. If I see a poor man begging for food, it is actively good if I give him my sandwich. If I deliberately run him over with my car, that is actively evil.

Although I have never personally been in a concentration camp, I’m willing to bet that if you asked someone who was there they’d assure you the physical torture did produce some suffering.

I’m also willing to bet that not all Jews tortured in concentration camps were “good” people; Hitler did not make a special effort to round up good Jews. He killed them whether or not they were good people, merely on the basis of the fact that they were Jews. Furthermore, surely some Jews did not maintain goodness in the face of torture but were tortured anyway. It’s not like they were let off the hook if they said, “Okay! You win! I am no longer Jewish, nor am I of Jewish heritage!”

So, a person who is in a near-vegetative state, who is incapable of making any action but is still experiencing tremendous pain, is not suffering? Since this person is incapable of doing good, is he therefore evil (if evil is the absence of goodness)?

So, if I kill a child, the child’s spirit will receive eternal bliss? What if I repent- will I always be damned? What if I don’t kill the child, but only maim him and he grows up to maim other children? Will his future misdeeds negate the spiritual bliss he would have received?

If this is true, wouldn’t it be a good thing for me to torture and kill my children? By trading my chance at bliss for theirs, I would be selflessly guaranteeing them eternal happiness.

91

All this talk of suffering and sin and of free will makes me wonder ,for what?
Presumably if we do have some divine education/computor system then the end justifies the means ,since those ends seem to include the worst excesses man and nature can come up with I think we deserve an explanation.
What happens if we fail the test?
Does this mean all the grief has been unnecessary?
If God exists throughout all time and space it follows that the result is already known so if we DO fail maybe God can go back in time to change the parameters but then God could have taken a peek at the future before all this to make sure everything would work ok.

92

All this talk of suffering and sin and of free will makes me wonder ,for what?
Presumably if we do have some divine education/computor system then the end justifies the means ,since those ends seem to include the worst excesses man and nature can come up with I think we deserve an explanation.
What happens if we fail the test?
Does this mean all the grief has been unnecessary?
If God exists throughout all time and space it follows that the result is already known so if we DO fail maybe God can go back in time to change the parameters but then God could have taken a peek at the future before all this to make sure everything would work ok.

93

Physical suffering is inconsequential.

By this simple axiom the true believer escapes facing the contradiction of a loving God who visits cruelty upon the innocent.

You may think you have suffered, you who have known pain and torture and and helplessness and strife. But if the causes were natural (God-created & amoral) than you have not suffered truly. You can only suffer by doing good in the face of evil.

The best lack all conviction
The worst are full of passionate intensity.
*

94

Lib:

You contradict yourself in a single breath! If I am not capable of measuring goodness in any way (since I will certainly stipulate I’m not God), I certainly cannot measure it in any frame of reference, His included.

Once you reject the ability to measure goodness, then you no longer can assert that we are moral beings. Neither can we metaphysically ascribe omnibenevolence to God, since we cannot define benevolence.

If we are talking about the Christian God, then we have some additional evidence. In Genesis, God makes man in His image, and Adam and Eve eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowlege of Good and Evil. By that very explicit wording, man has an ability to judge good and evil, and since we are made in His image, that judgement must also be at least in His image.

In any event, in order to discuss metaphysical omnibenevolence, we must have some way of rationally determining “goodness.”

You said to Gaudere, “but you are fixated on the atoms… Talk about a moral context… not an amoral one.”

I’ve already shown that it’s trivial to prove that God must bear responsibility for “natural” events. There are no amoral events, there are only events that obtain from a person’s morality, or events that obtain from God’s responsibility.

If you wish to exit theodicy and declare the concept of omnibenevolence outside the realm of rationality, that’s one thing. But then you can no longer apply it as a metaphysical concept.

If you want to save omnibenevolence as a metaphysical concept you must either show a significant rational difference between a baby that dies of a disease and a man that kills a baby to speed its soul to heaven. You could also assert that the man who kills the baby is performing a morally correct act.

Spiritus:

I’m not sure if you’re being sarcastic or not; regardless, the other obvious implication of that axiom is that the infliction of physical suffering is morally inconsequential.

I’m certainly unwilling to accept this axiom, from either a religious or empirical point of view. I not only hold myself to a standard that the infliction of physical suffering is evil, but I most certainly hold others to the standard that inflicting physical suffering on me is to be avoided as an evil act.

If Cecil Adams did not exist, we would be obliged to create Him.

95

I apparently need to become more blatant in my paradies. Or maybe become proficient in teh art of smiledom.

:rolleyes:

The best lack all conviction
The worst are full of passionate intensity.
*

96

Well, Holly already asked a bunch of good questions, but I have a few points to bring up:

So are we back at “suffering is good”, then? Besides, I do not think I suffer AT ALL when I do not torture children even though other people do so. I do not think I suffer when I choose not to steal when other people do so. Doing or being good in the face of evil is not nearly as traumatic to me as the evil that is done to me in the first place. The fact that if I were raped I would choose to not horribly kill my attacker would not make me suffer unduly, but the rape itself would.

I am wondering, if physical suffering is irrelevant, then corollary seems to be whether you physically suffer or not is irrelevant. Which means we don’t need to suffer physical pain. So why do we? Was it an arbitrary choice?

And y’know, if I hear that evil is the absence of good like cold is the absence of heat thing one more time…every time it comes up I argue against it. It could just as easily be that good is the absence of evil. And it seems far more reasonable to me that both good and evil are separate things, and one is not merely the absence of another. I could never do an evil deed, but that does not make me good; it makes me indifferent.

Like all religions, the Faith of the Invisible Pink Unicorn is based upon both logic and faith. We have faith that She is pink; logically, we know She is invisible because we can’t see Her.

97

Another point to Lib from me, for whatever it’s worth.

Forgive me, but I believe it’s arrogant to label another person’s experience as true suffering or not true suffering. Suffering is quite subjective.

One of the first things I was taught as a nursing student is the definition of “pain”. Pain is whatever the patient says it is. If the patient says he is hurting, he is hurting. Some nurses forget this simple fact. They say, “He’s just a big whiner”, or “maybe she’s an addict if she needs more drugs”. No; the patient is hurting. As a nurse, it is my job to do whatever is necessary to stop that hurting.

Suffering can be physical, like pain, or emotional. The way I see it, emotional pain IS physical pain: it has a physiological basis. There is nothing magical about it, though it may be harder to understand and treat than purely physical pain. Both types are valid. Both cause suffering.

Another problem I have with the above quote is that I just don’t buy it. Most suffering does NOT involve doing good in the face of evil. It involves dealing with the cards life deals us. If anything, doing good in the face of evil is less truly suffering because that feeling of self-righteousness is a vindication for the good deeds.

Lib, could you give an example of a situation where doing good in the face of evil is true suffering?

98

Singledad, Spiritus, Gaudere, Holly:

RE: Physical Suffering

(From my previous post)
I think pain is a moot *that has everyone’s undies in a bundle, and I want to emphasize a subtle but important distinction: pain and suffering are related, but they’re not the same thing.
There are a number of humans walking around on the planet right now who experience intense physical pain but it doesn’t bother them. They’ve had a brain operation (anterior cingulate cortex, if I recall) which otherwise does not impair their cognitive function, memory, emotional processing, etc. And, apparently, the same thing has been achieved by the use of so-called hypnotic induction – no scalpel required.

If physical suffering is such a god-awful (heh) problem, why isn’t there some big push to perfect these techniques and make them cheap and accessible? Everyone would still have the advantages of feeling pain (notification that something’s wrong with your body-state, etc.) but it wouldn’t hurt. Imagine that world… what would empathy or coercion look like? Wouldn’t a world like that eliminate the basis of this thread? If not, why not?

Physical suffering keeps popping up in your posts as one of the (if not THE) prime evils in the world, but no one has addressed this aspect of the subject. I really don’t understand why.

99

‘Everyone would still have the advantages of feeling pain
(notification that something’s wrong with your body-state, etc.) but it
wouldn’t hurt. Imagine that world…’
Sure, just take some heroin. You won’t feel pain, but you’ll know its happening.

The big question is, is pain unfair? Would people feel better knowing the pain they felt was just & deserved?

100

This is the best answer to your question.

This is my opinion as a Christian:

If you have not excepted Jesus into your life it is impossible for you to begin to understand the wisdom of God. Without faith in God, you are not exposed to the power of the Holy Spirit to help you to begin to understand.

It really does amaze me though, you all know for sure that you and I and everyone on this message board are not perfect. Yet for some reason you believe that it is possible for you to disprove the existance of a perfect being. None of us will ever be able to explain God’s plan. We are not perfect. We do not understand, because we cannot understand. We can make informed guesses. My guesses are based upon my personal faith in God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. My Faith is what makes my life worth living. I have faced some of the “cruel” things listed here. As a child, I faced abuse. As a young adult I was without a home or food. As an adult, I have cervical cancer. These things have made me the Christian I am today and the mother I am to my children. Without Jesus to carry me through my life, those things would surely have made me as cynical and unhappy with your very existance as many of you seem here. Each morning that I wake up, I thank God for all of my blessings!