This question is directed specifically to Christians and other theists, but anyone who feels moved to answer may.
Hereabouts it seems unnecessary to define the central question of theodicy, but just to be safe I will: Given that God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving, how can evil and suffering exist? Off the top of my head, it seems to me that the various answers break down into four categories:
Denying the implicit assumption of the second clause of the bolded sentence: i.e., asserting that what we mortals perceive as wickedness and pain are illusory, because God sees truths opaque to us;
Asserting that while wickedness and pain do exist, they are justified for reasons that we do not understand;
Asserting that God lacks at least one of the characteristics of omnipotence, omniscience, or omnibevolence; or
Denying the existence of God.
For the sake of argument, let’s grant the validity of solution 3; to be specific, let’s say that God exists, but lacks omnipotence. By that I mean this:
A sentient, singular, uncreated Person exists who, through a conscious and deliberate exercise of power, created the universe and its creatures. This Person furthermore intends the best possible existence for the creatures. But the Person’s might is not illimitable; much of its power was either exhausted by the act of creation, or is occupied by the effort of sustaining, or is somehow limited, by logic if nothing else. Put differently, the act of creating the universe with consistent natural laws makes inevitable natural evil, and that the act of making creatures with free will makes inevitable moral evil; and that the only way to avoid the existence of both sorts of evil was not to create the universe at all.
Is this Person worthy of worship–worthy of the name God? If so, why? If not, why not?
I’d call such an incredible being God, sure. He’d also have my most profound admiration and gratitude. I’m not sure I’d worship Him in the same sense Christians worship their God, as I’d have lower expectations from Him, but if he had any moral directives I’d pay attention.
Frankly, I’d be a lot happier with a God that admitted that he was doing the best that He can, than one that insists that He’s perfect but has given us this imperfect world.
Well, my own position differs significantly from your specifications for God-building, but does have some things in common with it.
God is not strictly omnipotent nor omniscient – but His limitations are self-imposed, in pursuit of what He considers a greater good.
For reasons known best to Him, He prizes free will – so much so that He created a universe in which His creations are able to make meaningful choices, to willingly love Him or not.
For “good” to be a meaningful concept, evil has to exist – as its alternative. For people to freely turn to God, it must be possible not to For the virtue of ministring to others to exist, it must be possible for others to have unmet needs to be ministered to. And so on.
If a greatly superior being is worthy of worship, it seems to me it doesn’t matter if it’s infinitely superior or really, really, . . . ( repeat a few thousand times ), . . . really, really superior. And really, a less powerful God is likely to be morally superior to an omni- God, because it’s more likely that the evils of the world are due to him being unable to do better.
Now, my personal answer to whether one is more worthy of worship or not is “No”. Not the standard tri-omni God; not a limited God; not any kind of God. I really don’t see why worship is an emotionally healthy or in any way admirable response to anything. Nothing is, or can be, worthy of worship in my eyes. That’s a personal preference, of course.
Worthy of the name God? Sure - lots of peoples have had limited Gods before, it’s not so unusual. There’s nothing special about the omnimax God that invalidated the term for other limited deities like Odin, Zeus or Heitsi-Eibib.
Worthy of worship? Hell no. I’m with Der Trihs on this one.
If a God created beings so He could be worshiped he is not a being worthy of worship but an egotist. If He created beings so they would share in His glory than that would be another story.
To me loving someone means wanting the best for another and doing all in my power to help one to have the best of what is good for them and not allowing or giving anything that would be harmful. Of course a human cannot know this so we can only do the best we can, based on our limited knowledge.
I do not believe a God who is all powerful and knows all things needs people to beg for their daily bread,He would give what is necessay and hold back anything that would bring harm.
The questions seems a bit odd from a Christian perspective (which I am not). The whole point of Christianity is that it is, anthropologically speaking, a death cult based on the unprovable belief of persistent conscious life after death. They worship god so that they may avoid consequences and have a pleasant afterlife, expecting at some point a physical resurrection into a permanent pleasurable eternal state. Considering that the “god” in question of the OP is not what they would expect it to be, then I would not think it worthy of worship.
I am a Shintoist, so it would certainly qualify as a godly being. I don’t particularly worship any Kami though, so I suppose it would be as good as any other Kami in that respect. It would certainly get a shrine built to it if it proved it’s existence.
True, but Christianity grew out of Judaism, in which one worshiped God to obtain blessings in this life for you and your children. From the early Israelite perspective, a God who created the universe, is the only god, is powerful enough to help out his chosen people, but is not technically omnipotent, would be barely distinguishable from the omnipotent version.
I think the definition of “worship” is indeed relevant here. To some of our posters it seems to have unpleasant connotations of cringing in some terrorized, guilt-ridden state and repeating “We’re not worthy! We’re not worthy!”. If we define “worship” more broadly as engaging in various tradition-sanctioned rituals designed to help us communicate with the God of our choice (which might encompass such techniques as meditation, study and dance as well as prayer), and if we grant that such communication has the potential to benefit us significantly, even though such benefit might take the form of increased subjective well-being rather than any objectively quantifiable gain, I would think it would be self-evident that “worshipping God” (or, if you prefer, “meditating on the Void”, or whatever) would be a worthwhile activity, despite the fact that the Entity in question is clearly either unable or unwilling to arrange our lives exactly as we think we would prefer them to be.
I think a good analogy for such a God might be a good football coach; he can be an invaluable source of knowledge about how to play the game, and give great pep talks – but he isn’t going to come onto the field and block or tackle for you. But is it worth having him on your side? Absolutely.
Could you expand on that? I suspect that you are simply unwilling to accept the postulate that worship is actually beneficial to the worshipper, which is a reasonable position. But if you are saying that even if you were convinced that saying some prayer to some God would result in good things happening to you, you would still refuse to do so, I would be interested in hearing your rationale.
It looks to me like they have summed up Christianity quite succinctly. A “death cult” based on “the unprovable belief of persistent conscious life after death”, fear of punishment via Hell, and bribery with the promise of Heaven is exactly what it is.
No, I understand it just fine, there is nothing incorrect scientifically speaking about my analysis. When you remove the feel-good platitudes of post reformation catholicism, and recent protestant charismatic movements, Christianity is quite aptly summed up in my previous post. Anthropologically, those types of Christians that engage in the ritual of communion, are participating in symbolic ritual cannibalism as well.
The “For the sake of argument” paragraph sufficiently redefines the Judeo Christian God enough that the OP could easily qualify for The Game Room forum. It’s simply not the God that’s described in the bible.
And so far Acid Lamp hasn’t given any indication that it would be a worthwhile effort.