The ‘Problem of Evil’–if there’s an OOO (omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent) God, why is there natural (non-manmade) evil in the world?–is an ancient and hoary one.
My suggested topic of debate is not the problem of evil per se, but rather why Manicheism and Zoroastrianism, which postulate (forgive me if I mangle their doctrines) a counterbalancing anti-God who is OOO- (omnipotent, omniscient, omnimalevolent), aren’t more popular.
After all, you can imagine a Manichean Christianity, so that there’s a personal intermediary who looks out for you. But by having an anti-God, you make God and the rest of the Trinity more attractive.
If they’re equal there is stasis. Most people seem to be attracted to the whole ‘evil will be smited in an apocalypse’ type religions/cults. If the god and the anti-god are equal then neither could win.
Zoroastrianism does not postulate an equal dualism, but an unequal one. Ultimately Zoroastrians are monotheists that believe God will triumph over the ( lesser ) spirit of evil in the end - a notion not all that different from some brands of Christianity, especially many versions of fundamentalist Protestantism in the U.S., that seems to put a lot of emphasis on the pervasive corrupting influence of Satan.
Manicheism is more truly dualistic, in that it postulates equal worlds of light and darkness in the pre-history of the universe. Of course it too postulates the eventual triumph of light, but only in the context of repelling the invading darkness and banishing it back to its proper place.
The reason neither flourishes now is simply a matter of history. Manicheism in particular was frequently strongly opressed ( by Christians, Muslims AND Zoroastrians ) and eventually virtually extirpated. Zoroastrianism in its classical/mature form was largely non-proselytizing, ethnic and strongly tied to the state, and thus ill-suited to recover from decline in the face of Muslim dominance.
However both arguably had a significant impact on Judaeo-Christian thought and as I noted, “weak dualism” of the Adversary-of-God type is a pretty widespread notion in Christianity and Islam at least.
I think you still run into serious philosophical problems.
If God and Anti-god are equal, then good will never win: who wants to believe in that?
If God is more powerful than Anti-god, then why hasn’t Anti-god already been vanquished? What’s God waiting for?
There is another variation, seen in Zurvanism and some forms of Christian Gnosticism, where some fundamental unity gives birth to both God and Anti-god. In Zurvanism (a form of Persian religion related to Zoroastrianism), Zurvan creates Ahura Mazda, then, in a moment of doubt, Anra Mainyu (= Ahriman, the evil one) springs out. OK, but how can Zurvan have a moment of doubt? The myth gives no answer.
The bottom line is that all of these systems are flawed.
indeed. it takes some deliberate ignorance of these issues to make even modern religions palatable. i think it’s much easier to pretend the problem of evil doesn’t exist than to introduce the problems of an equally powerful evil god.
What about equal Gods of Good and Evil, with the ballance heald by humanity?
If Humanity does more good than evil then good god will win and banish evil, but if Humanity does more evil than good, then Evil will triumph.
Does any religion give this scenario as a solution for the problem of evil. It seems to me that this just needs humanity to at some point reach a level of evilness or goodness that swings the ballance sufficiently for one of the gods to win. And it only assumes that humanity isn’t insignificant compared to god, which I don’t see as an unattractive idea.
I forgot to mention Mithraism, which I believe was also dualistic.
I was thinking in terms of what Bippy just proposed.
Equally powerful Gods of Good and Evil, with Humanity being some kind of mixture with free will, and with the ability to tip the balance. As Bippy pointed out, this gives (IMHO) Humanity a dignity and importance in the scheme of things that’s lacking in Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
I suppose this would lead to the disturbing possibility that humanity might use its free will badly, thus dooming the universe.
The type of explanation I’m looking for is more of the psychological kind, obviously, not a literal historical explanation.
There were 3 more dualistic religions (Zoroastrianism, Mithraism, Manicheism) and 3 more monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). There’s some proverb from the journalism business that 3 instances make a story, somehow crossing some kind anti-coincidence hurdle. All the more dualistic religions ‘struck out’ compared to more monotheistic religions.
Therefore, I’m tempted to conclude there’s some psychological flaw to the more dualistic systems that I’m not seeing.
I’ve always dug the David Eddings take in the Belgariad (and the lesser sequels). He sets up his gods as fairly well matched. In fact, if I recall correctly (it has been many years since I read those books) all of reality exists as sort of a chess board. It is suggested that the opponents don’t even hate each other and look at all of this as a game. After it is over they may well set up a new board.
As for the problem of evil in the case of an O3G, I like one of the ideas I read in some comic book years ago. There was a relic called “The Infinity Gauntlet” which made the wearer an O3 badass with complete power over reality as well as full knowledge of the past/future. An evil mofo gets his hands (or hand, as it were) on the gauntlet and the whole universe of superheroes shows up to stop him. He could have defeated them easily given his complete knowledge of the future, but there was no joy in such an easy victory, so he chose to make himself aware of 99.99% of what was going to happen next - allowing for at least a slim chance for him to be defeated (which, of course, he was). He spiced things up to fight off boredom.
So, the question becomes can an O3 hide information from itself? Does the power to do anything include the power to limit your power (the old “a burrito so large god can’t eat it” debate)? If the answer is yes (again, assuming a universe created and controlled by an O3G), then free will and evil can be explained by this entity intentionally placing limits on its own powers. Otherwise an O3G is directly responsible for everything (including evil) and free will disappears in a poof of logic.
Now, assuming the power can be intentionally limited, the question becomes can an O3 who would limit its own power be considered to be benevolent? Especially when those limits result in pain, suffering, and evil! Either way, I come out of it with the feeling that just because a sentient being is extremely powerful does not necessarily make it good or worthy of worship. How the entity wields these powers must be taken into consideration. I do not feel that a BO3G is possible given the existence of suffering and evil. Benevolence is admittedly subjective, so it’s a tough sell. I find the idea of a very powerful (but not infinitely powerful) benevolent god to be among the possible, but once you give it unlimited resources and all knowledge you must take away the possibility of it being universally benevolent (even if it is still capable of the occasional benevolent gesture). This of course is all assuming there is an intelligent god of any sorts - an assumption which is not really reasonable given current data (IMO).
i think people would have problems with this, too. for many people, god is a means of assuring justice. if you are bad, when you die, you go to hell, and burn forever, even if you don’t come to trouble for it in your human life. i think having any kind of evil god that is as powerful as the good god would eliminate this possibility of eternal justice, and wouldn’t satisfy all of man’s religious needs.
Part of the “Problem of Evil” is what exactly Evil is. Take for instance a tornado that destroys a small town, killing many people. Is the tornado evil? Does the answer depend on the people killed (were they good or bad people, young or old, healthy or sick)?
Or, for another example, a tiger that kills a human. Is the tiger evil? Does it matter if the tiger eats the human, or merely killed and abandoned the carcass? What if the tiger “played” with the human before finally making the kill? Does the motive of the tiger (hunger, self-defense, or territoriality) make a difference?
Once we better understand what evil actually is, we’re more capable of answering why evil exists.
there is no theology that can give any meaningful definition to free will. people who believe humans have free will generally don’t know what they mean by free will, but they feel they are in control of their own desitinies, and that comforts them. however, i don’t know if they have any clue who exactly is in control. so as far as i’m concerned, free will disapears in a poof of logic one way or the other.
now, supposing a O3 god could limit its powers, i don’t think that helps with the problem of evil at all. i think that a god would limit its powers to combat evil goes against the omnibenevolence assumption.
the only real weakness in the problem of evil is an assumption that basically no one attacks. that is the assumption that a wholly benevolent being would stomp out evil wherever it could. this is just dependent on one’s definition of benevolence, and i think it could easily be defined so that it allowed evil to exist.
i agree in sentiment, if not in fact. i don’t think we necessarily have to define evil precisely, so long as we know that:
evil exists, and
a wholly benevolent being would eliminate evil where it could.
if we agree that those two things are true, a precise definition of evil is unnecessary. i grant that it might be necessary to have a better definition of evil to accept the validity of (1) and (2), though.
I’m afraid the two cannot be divorced in any meaningful way :). The simple truth is that there may be NO superiority to Judeo-Christian beliefs from a psychological/philosophical point of view and it is all just down to historical forces, not prevailing arguments.
Again, why?
One can point to structural weaknesses vis-a-vis Judeo-Christianity, i.e. Zoroastrianism as largely non-proselytizing ( you’ll notice that non-proselytizing Judaism isn’t terribly big either, in that Zoroastrianism was relatively much more successful up until about the tenth century ), Mithriasm was hampered perhaps by its ‘mysteries’ approach, limited franchise ( apparent exclusion of women, promotion of celibacy ) and non-exclusivism ( it does not appear to have claimed to be the only revealed truth, arguably a great strength of the proselytizing faiths ). But these need not have any relationship, necessarily, of the appeal of “dualism” vs. “monotheism” ( and again, I’d argue the difference between Christianity with its heaven and hell, Satan vs. God and mainstream Zoroastrian cosmology is paper-thin ).
I actually agree with the poster who pointed out that a benevolent god may not want to wholly destroy evil for perfectly good reasons. This concept appears even in some Christian theology and really holds water against some of the paradoxes which plague religion otherwise.
For example, what would we be as a species had our ancestors not experienced dangers and, yes, what we would subjectivelly term “evil” these days? Would we be quite as wise? As knowledgeble? As thoughtful? Perhaps God is not a parent as we imagine, shielding from all harm, which is not what most adults do with their children. Perhaps God is a parent who, despite regret for it, sometimes allows you to put your hand on the metaphorical stove because that is the only way you would get the lesson truly through your head. Note that when I say “you” I mean the vast organism that is Humanity as well as individuals within that species.
The inevitable question to this premise comes up as “Why wouldn’t an omnipotent God just make us born with all that knowledge? Why does it need suffering to do that?” Thats a tough question but not, I think, completely unanswerable. One possibility is simply that God didn’t want everybody acting the same way, as perfection would cause. Would a parent truly want all their children to be absolutely uniform in personality? Where is the joy in interacting with perfection? Perhaps God wanted interesting creatures to talk with, to watch over and knew the price for such creatures would be suffering. Or perhaps God isn’t always completely benevolent, but sometimes selfish.
Then doesn’t that put the power solely in the hands of humanity and not the gods themselves? What would the purpose of the gods serve if humanity determines who wins in the first place?
That’s the ‘winning point’ fallacy. That is, when there’s a tie score and 15 seconds left on the clock, people say that the last point scored is the winning point. But all the previous points are also necessary, yes?
I personally can’t believe in a perfect duality of good and evil.
Suppose you have a perfect duality of good/evil, there has to be something greater than both that created them. Otherwise they’re unequal if one is the creator of the other.
To put it another way: if there can be nothing greater than God it follows that God created both good and evil.
I don’t think a dualistic system is more complicated than a monotheistic system as far as Meta-Grumble’s point.
I mean, if there didn’t have to be something prior to and greater than God that created God, why does there have to be something prior to and greater than the duality which created the duality?