But the moment you break the law, you are no longer a law abiding citizen. If LB is defined as an entity who 1) can do anything, and 2) is law abiding, then we have a similar contradiction, because LB cannot do something to break the law and still meet the definition 2 of being LB. Therefore LB, as LB, cannot do some things, and is not LB because definition 1) is broken. What LB does is of no consequence - what matters is what LB can do.
Clearly an omnipotent god does not actually do all the things he is capable of. That does not reduce his omnipotence, which defined by the possibility, not the actuality.
Assuming omnipotence, why does omnibenevolence contradict natural evil or suffering? Benevolence is doing good - but there are many things that we consider good - pleasure, lack of suffering, living, free will, freedom, security, privacy, health. The problem is not that there is a lack of good, the problem is that the things that we consider good are often in opposition.
Maybe you could say then, why would God allow a universe where these things are not all mutually possible, but then you get into the question of whether omnipotence includes the ability to defy logic itself. And whether omnipotence includes the ability to stop being omnibenevolent. Is omnibenevolence choosing to always be good, or the inability to stop doing good?
Some of those I would list as merely desireable, not “good” in a benevolent sense, like free will (which I don’t believe exists), freedom, security, privacy, definitely pleasure. Health I would have as a subset of lack of suffering, and I see living as an iffy issue on the “good” scale if you drag immortal souls into things. So I guess what I’m saying is that , at least with the problem of evil, lack of suffering is the only good we need consider. I would argue that it’s the only one applicable when considering omnibenevolence in any case.
I’m not sure I agree
Designing a working world where no-one dies or is hurt by disease or natural disaster is not against logic. HArd, yes, but not illogical. Hell, many SF authors make a good living doing that sort of thing.
That doesn’t enter into the argument, though - that’s not the exercise of omnipotence that’s under contention
That would make sense, but that doesn’t mean the undesirable things have to be or cause suffering.
If we say that God is unknowable on one issue, that we cannot understand his motives, then likewise we cannot know we understand his motives on other issues. If we accept that there are motivations or depths that we do not or even cannot understand on one issue, then we can’t assume those motivations and depths apply solely to that one issue, and that on the things we do think we know he’s an open book. It’s only logical to say that if there’s an issue with God that we do not think we can understand, and if that issue is innate to God and not just innate to that one issue, then we cannot truly say we know anything about God.
Before I get started I’d like to thanks to the participants. This is a discussion we’ve had before but this time getting down to the nut of it, the logical thought behind it, makes it more interesting and challenging to me. Although we will likely come to an impasse again, it has already given me a lot of food for thought and it’s appreciated.
**McDibble **, to save time I’ll try to respond to your points within this post or possibly my next one. If I miss something you’d like a direct response to please remind me and I’ll address it.
Not familiar with that one.
Then we’ll stick with it.
It’s clearly based on reasoning and I agree that it’s an exercise in logic. I didn’t mean to imply it was *all *emotion and no logic. I think emotions and preference are skewing the logic and crucial considerations are being left out.
Something occurred to me today that may help explain my thinking. When considering what is good , the crux of benevolence, omni or otherwise, we must consider who is included in that good. If I’m thinking only of myself I only have to consider what is good for me. If I have a wife and kids My considerations of what is good changes to include them. What is good for them now becomes factored into what is good for me. Then there’s my community, my town, my state, my country, etc. The more people that are included the more complex the concept of what is good becomes.
An omnimax God encompasses all of creation. Every sparrow, every hair on my head and all that. As I’ve said before. God knows how it all fits together and how every action, every cause and effect work toward the end purpose. Ultimate good.
That omniscience that sees all creation and how it all works is something we cannot comprehend. Can we agree that if there is an ultimate good that God comprehends and we don’t , and all creation and all events are working toward that ultimate good, then God remains omnibenevolent throughout? It’s like all of creation is a trip to the dentist
Now to omnipotent. I think I understand this argument better now as well. An omnipotent God could create something different and just implant knowledge in us without any of the suffering. Yes. I still maintain this speaks to the purpose of creation.
In the metaphor of Adam and Eve they were in the garden and had everything they needed but also no knowledge of good and evil. No duality at all. It was up to them to choose whether they would gain the knowledge of good and evil and in doing so, resigned themselves to the mortal experience and a world of duality. How do we know joy without having something to compare it to?
We can say that an omnipotent God could create a world with less or even no suffering but IMO that may mean no creation at all. Remaining in a state where there is no suffering because there is no duality, we avoid suffering completely.
That brings me back to the experience itself is the purpose of creation and a God who knows how it all fits and works together. Or in another approach, if we posit that God could plant the knowledge in our minds without us actually suffering, we might consider that is what’s happening right now. If we are primarily spiritual being rather than physical then what we are experiencing now is that knowledge being given to us.
Regardless, if a God who knows all creation is working toward an ultimate good and the experience itself, duality, is the purpose of creation then IMHO there is no contradiction between God’s omnipotence and omnibenevolence.
If we start by proposing a creation with less suffering the alternative to me seems to get back to no creation at all.
Ah HA!! Yes I agree. We do not see how everything fits together so we struggle with a concept of what is good or just. IMHO the purpose of creation is to move us toward seeing how it all fits. That seems to be the lesson that most great spiritual teachers are pointing toward. The Bible uses the analogy of the body as if we are all part of one big living thing. We don’t behave as if that were an essential truth.
It was the principle I was referring to. I am not limiting God in any way. I’m trying to allude to principles we can understand from our human perspective that relate. Not doing it well I guess.
I’m not trying to get around logic by saying God is mysterious. I’m saying that to make a truly logical argument about God we need to know certain things that we do not know. Obviously you disagree. Let me state clearly that I believe all theistic beliefs have to be in line with scientific truths and logic and reason. Truth is truth. When considering these things we have to be aware of the things we don’t know as well.
I don’t agree that if God is unknowable then that’s all we can say about him. We seek knowledge and to make the unknown known. We do that by pursuing a theory or a concept and using new information to refine and revise our theories and concepts. I agree that all theistic beliefs should be held provisionally, but in order to gain knowledge we have to start somewhere. I believe X and we go forward from there to gain knowledge.
I hate to see you set yourself up for disappointment.
I know. Just an example. It was the proof word that I objected to. An exercise in logic is one thing. A claim to logical proof is another.
Not in my view. I’m saying the experience of duality and the spectrum of experiences available do not violate either of those because of the ultimate good that is the purpose of creation. A tri omni God knows exactly what to do with his omnipotence to get to that ultimate good {his omnibenevolence}
Gotta run for now but I’ll get back to this tonight or tomorrow am. I appreciate your input. **Voyager ** made a great logical formula that I want to examine closer. I consider myself logical but have no formal training so I’ll make the commitment to do some research on that although the results will have to wait for some future thread because of time restraints.
No - I would say that again, you are confusing “ultimately benevolent” with “omnibenevolent”
No, I’d say it was up to god, who chose to put the tree there even though he knew (being omniscient) that they would eat of it.
By how the emotion makes us feel. Emotions like joy aren’t absolutely relative, after all - endorphins make us feel good in-and-of-themselves, not in relation to previous feelings of sadness, for example.
I still think you’re making an illogical, completely unsupported leap from “suffering can build you up” to “suffering is neccessary to build you up”, BTW.
…again, you’re guessing without evidence for what god wants…I’d love to see even textual evidence for that stance…
No, since suffering is mental, if we are suffering now, that’s real suffering, and spiritual-brain-in-the-jar experiences count against omnibenevolence. You can’t say its not real because it happens to the meat not the puppet. Certainly, all variants of Western god scripture I have read, showed at least some, if not equal, concern for physical as well as mental suffering. I can’t think of a one that said physical suffering absolutely doesn’t count.
Like I said, I think you are still confusing ultimate with omni.
You really can’t conceive of a universe exactly like this one, only humans don’t suffer? I can. That’s the argument from incredulity logical fallacy again.
Absolutely. This contradiction is only about omnibenevolence. There is no contradiction without it. There would be a similar problem for a being that is both omnipotent and omnimalevolent, though.
“Your arms are too short to box with god” was the title of a play or musical running off-Broadway when I was a teenager. I never saw it, but I think the title expresses the sentiment that we’re inferior to god very well - the same sentiment as in the end of Job. So I’m not surprised you’ve never heard of the argument, as I just made it up.
I don’t think so. I’ve had an overly happy life, with a minimum of tragedy. My experience with religion as a kid was very positive. If God exists, he does horrible things to other people, which I’m sorry to say doesn’t work me up the way it should. My atheism is purely rational, in fact you can say it comes from a genetic lack of religious devotion. I’ve read that there is a certain class of people more prone to having religious or spiritual experiences - I’m totally the opposite of this class.
Indeed, an omnibenevolent god minimizes the sum of evil. He might indeed let a person destined to be a mass murderer die without violating omnibenevolence. But we see evidence of suffering which cannot further the common good, unless you define it so.
Which sums up the “arms too short” argument nicely. “Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?” You’d never let a person trying to sell you stock get away with that, why let God get away with it?
No suffering? Probably impossible, since things like pain receptors, which serve a useful purpose, also imply pain from other things where pain is not necessary. But less suffering? Sorry, Dr. Pangloss, I have a hard time believing we live in a world with minimal suffering and that reducing the suffering is logically impossible. And what useful knowledge is the drowning child acquiring a second before she becomes a spiritual being?
I think I demonstrated a contradiction which did not depend on God’s purpose in allowing suffering. I still don’t see why a requirement of less suffering leads to no creation. Was it really impossible to point that tidal wave someplace else?
BTW, I just had the thought that “natural evil” is not a good term. It implies conscious activity. Tidal waves and volcanoes and earthquakes are not evil, they just are. They are only evil if initiated by someone.
You seem to have a problem with absolutes. If God is truly unknowable, trying to get to know him is a waste of time by definition. You might as well spend your time squaring a circle or inventing a perpetual motion machine.
If God were truly unknowable, then you are wasting your time trying to satisfy him. He can tell you to do X, directly or indirectly, and then punish you for it for inscrutable reasons of his own. Living your life by ethical principles you can find by reason seems far more productive.
First, that’s blatantly untrue. We mere humans can and have improved dramatically on the hand we were dealt. We have created societies far more just and with far less suffering than in a state of nature. An omnipotent God could simply have made us start at that point, not force us to spend millennia clawing our way up. We’ve done a much better job than God; therefore assuming there is one he is either less powerful than us or less benevolent.
And second, assuming you ARE right, then yes ethically speaking God shouldn’t have created the world. Not if this is the best he can do.
Ah, but the way it works for believers is that God is only unknowable when it comes to criticisms of him. cosmosdan “knows” God’s benevolent, but you can’t know that he isn’t.
But they are - an omniscient, omnipotent creator god. From the long view. of course. In other words, natural disasters are only natural evil* if there is a god*.
I took that to mean I really think I know but don’t , which is false. Perhaps I’m mistaken. In this thread the discussion starts with “if God is” meaning we don’t know. I didn’t think it was necessary to preface every post with that.
I think I follow. It’s been pointed out from the strict definition of unknowable isn’t really what I meant. We see science still discovering things but there are things that won’t be discovered within my physical lifetime. Those things are unknowable to me but not unknowable by the strict definition.
The truth shall set us free and the spirit will lead us into all truth. The journey goes on and we can discover and understand more but a lot of things remain unknown and trying to grasp God’s qualities from a single mortal perspective is still beyond us.
I’d say since we can’t truly say God exists other than as a statement of personal belief it’s also true we can’t say we know anything about God. We go forward based on our belief system , however flawed, in hopes that new experience and information will help us learn and grow.
