Philosophers biting the bullet?

So in my few philosophy courses we’ve learned a lot about famous philosophers’ painful contortions to solve the problem of evil - I mean the “God’s omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, and yet bad things happen to good people” problem.

This isn’t a philosophy-discussion thread; I just want to know about the philosopher throughout history who bit the bullet and admitted that God doesn’t have one of those characteristics. I realise people may hold this as a religious belief, but I’m interested specifically in philosophers. Did anyone ever do this, and if so, which divine quality did they choose to get rid of?

In my long-ago Philosophy 101 in college, the prof told us that the philosophers of Taoism are not at all sure there is a God, and if there is, He doesn’t care a fig for our troubles. It’s up to us to behave in an enlightened way.

I never encountered a theodicy produced by a theist that did not contain assumptions about God that could neither be substantiated or refuted, whether their particular theology posits a loving God or not.

Even though professing atheism or repudiating elements of a predominant religion has often been very risky in history (It could cost you your professorship if not your skin) “God” is only found in a subset of philosophy, and the God you describe is predominantly found in the Abrahamic God of the “Big Three” Middle Eastern religion (though there are other religions that have a similar God). You won’t find these properties attributed to God [in a material sense] in Buddhism, Taoism, Jainisn, Hinduism, etc,

Even some of the greatest Jewish (e.g. Maimonides), Christian (e.g. Aquinas) and possibly Islamic (e.g. Al-Farabi) theologians have written of a God that does not have the traits that you ascribe. I will acknowledge that each of them has been careful to bury or hide that fact, using what is called the "esoteric style, but they have all also explicitly written that they would do so – and why (e.g. the Introduction to Maimonides’ “Guide of the Perplexed”).

Why be “esoteric”? There are times when it would be dangerous [the the masses] to declare such a belief, and the philosophers above all felt that it was beneficial to “the common man” to believe in in the Omni-everything God you mention. It was even considered potentially dangerous to the faith of the relative few who had the minds, education, and reverent diligence to pursue the truth., so these "deeper truths were made deliberately hard to find.

The esoteric style is real, it is not the imagination of cross-eyed academics. There are solid reasons why it has been used throughout history. This is why (eventually crucified) Jesus spoke in (often misleading) parables even when his his disciples repeatedly complained. I could name many examples, but here’s just one: In the parable of the Unjust Judge and the Importunate Widow, Jesus seems to say that God answers our prayers because he gets sick of us nagging him, but he also says tha the judge doesn’t love justice, the law, God or his fellow man. To the enquiring mind, this suggests the question “How would a just God, with a Higher Plan, behave?” --but it gives the unthinking masses an apparent answer which is much more reassuring to them.

If you’d prefer a more recent example, look back to the USSR: I often read letters in Pravda in he late 1970s that said “If all our Five Year Plans had fallen short, if we still stood in line for razor blades, then Comminism could have been said to have failed – but it hasn’t! Today we have good aplenty, and our workers are far better off than then they are in the West.” Now, I’d traveled to the USSR; I knew that most Soviet workers routinely carried a folded bag, to stock up (or trade with friends and family), if they stumbled across a store with a recent shipment of hard-to-find goods like razors – if you saw a line outside a shop, you jumped in, and then found out what it was for (often those ahead of you didn’t know, wither). Certainly every Soviet citizen knew it too, so the letter would draw their attention to the problems of Soviet Communism. An openly critical letter would never be published, and would only get the author in very serious hot water, a letter written in the esoteric style would not only get past the censors by spouting the “party line”, but would earn respect and praise from their boss and office Party leaders. It is no accident that the USSR fell a decade later.

There are also quite a few “modern” European philosophers (e.g. from the late 18th century on) whose names you’d easily recognize, who were deeply spiritual, but whose God did not have the traits you describe. Spinoza’s God, for example, was essentially the sum of natural forces – as inviolable as one might hope God’s laws would be, but not “omnibenevolent” in the petty human sense.

Humans have their own definition of “Good” which not only varies between groups, but clearly isn’t in accord with any God that might exist. In the Judeo- Christian tradition, Mankind was cast out of Eden for “eating of the Tree of the Judgement of Good and Evil” (setting our own standards, like the nudity taboo, which were clearly not the standards God himself had set). When we say that God isn’t om,nibenevolent, we’re saying that He isn’t measuring up to our (imagined) expectations. I’d be pissed, too.

Gee, I’ve never heard of that last one. Wouldn’t that imply that nothing bad could ever happen to anyone ever? Seems clearly contradicted…

I’ve always heard the “omni-trio” as omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent.

Ayn Rand just got rid of god.

Yes, I should have clarified: I meant a philosopher in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition. If the omnis aren’t traditionally ascribed to God in a religion, it’s no big deal for the philosophers within that religion.

Aquinas? Really?..Jewish and Islamic philosophers aren’t covered in general philosophy courses here (:() so I’ll have to check out those two. Haven’t even heard of Al-Farabi.

(snip explanation of “esoteric style”)

Oy, should have thought of Spinoza. Thanks for the help!