Christians, what is your take on this?

Question

I'm sure you have heard this argument before or something like it. I just want to know what you think of the logic. Or if you have a theory which reconciles it and makes the argument void. Thanks.

God is defines as (1) perfect, (2) omnipotent, and (3) omniscient.

"The gods can either take away evil from the world and will not, or, being willing to do so, cannot; or they neither can nor will, or lastly, they are both able and willing. If they have the will to remove evil and cannot, then they are not omnipotent. If they can, but will not, than they are not benevolent. If they are neither able nor willing, then they are neither omnipotent nor benevolent. Lastly, if they are both able and willing to annihilate evil, how does it exist?"
~Epicures

Smarta*s answers like "I don't have God"s" are worthless. Obviously the quote was referencing multiple deities that have been believed in by different religions. If you can't answer, then just say so. Nitpicking just makes it seem like you have nothing intelligent to say on the matter.

Answer 1

Well, you exchanged, perfect with benevolent. I'm assuming, you consider being benevolent as part of being perfect. Perfect is rather difficult to define from the standpoint of a human. So lets just go with the definition of benevolent from wikipoedia -

---- Benevolence characterizes the true goodness of the mind and spirit, the unbiased kindness to do good. It confers thought and regard for the welfare of other people, and finds expression in sympathy and kindly gentleness and compassion, with charitableness and kindness.

Those who lack benevolence have little, if any, thought or regard for others, and a tendency to help oneself, in neglect of others. It also means mean spirited, and a grouch. But the most popular definition is that of kindness, and pure of heart. ---

So, being benevolent means, you do good, it doesn't mean you don't allow evil to exist. We can assume then, that if evil exists, God is unwilling to erase it - at least for the time being. That doesn't mean he isn't benevolent, it just means he thinks there is a pupose for evil.

Since good and evil are diametrically opposed, one cannot be defined without the other. That is, good is the absence of evil, and evil is the absence of good. Therefore, they must both exist if one is to learn the difference between the two. Of course, since God is omnisient, God knows the difference. Therefore, evil must exist to teach someone else the difference, presumably, humans. Humans do have the ability to learn the difference. Indeed, the fine line line between good and evil resides within every human heart. We all are capable of both.

In the end, God has said he will eliminate evil, but not until humans fully understand it, and he will only keep the ones that reject evil on thier own, without direct interference from him. He gave us free will presumably so we can be empowered to choose one way or the other. There would be no need for Earth, if we were just born good with no capacity for evil. If we are to be given the gift of freedom, then we have to accept the possibility of evil so that we may learn to reject it. Also, since God will destroy all evil, hell cannot exist because there won't be anyone in it. I'm not sure when hell was introduced, but I believe the concept was created by Catholics as a means of motivation. In the original Hebrew text, the word referred to was Hades, which meant "To not exist". So, hell, simply means to not exist.

Speaking of the original text, I don't think the Hebrew language actully had a word as complex as "benevolent". However, the arguement for the purpose of good and evil still exists without needing the word benevolent.

Furthermore, The statement is: God is omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient. That means ever present, all powerfull, all knowing.
The word "perfect" is not mentioned. For good reason, too. As I stated before, perfect has no clear definition in the context. God does state that he is benevolent, however, at least according to the english translation. I don't know what the original Hebrew word used was.

Personally, I'm sceptical of much of the specific transliterations because even scholars today dissagree on Hebrew to English, and Greek to English interpretations. In both ancient languages, all the letters are also numbers, which confuses things. Also, the letters are actually symbols, or pictures, and are subject to many interpretations. For example, the word for father is represented by a picture of an ox and a house, meaning "ox of the house". Ox representing strength in this case. You would litterally have had to be there to really understand how things were interpreted back then. Thus the distrust in English interpretations. Maybe some day I'll learn ancient Hebrew and Greek and make my own study - doubtfull. Also, I really don't trust much of the New Testament because it was written by Paul. He wasn't even a disciple and the cardinals who assembled the New Testament from scrolls written hundreds of years earlier certainly had room for error if not outright manipulation. Much of Paul's work seems to be extreme interpretations from what he read, not what he witnessed. The other disciples , however, gave reasonably consistent, independent testimony of what was said by Christ. I tend to focus on the actual words of Chist as relayed from first hand witnesses.

Answer 2

For God to have a relationship with beings made in his image they have to be free to love and obey him willingly or else they're just robots. If they are free to love him then they must also be free to hate and reject him. If they choose to act contrary to his will then evil and suffering follow. As far as natural processes that result in evil such as earthquakes, hurricanes, etc. are concerned, to disrupt them would be to destroy the world that we live in.

We don't think of evil as anything other than evil until we see that something good has come out of something evil, for instance if I have an accident and because of it someone else avoids having one. And we don't know how much evil God doesn't allow to happen.

Concerning omniscience, God knowing the end from the beginning doesn't mean that he plans it. Anything that he does is done according to his omniscience and in accordance with perfect justice because he is able to see the ramifications of every action he takes into infinity .

Answer 3

First of all, you have to think beyond just this life. There is more beyond now. Which makes some "tradgedies" such as death not tragic, but just sad because we will simply miss those we love for a while. And which makes our trials here in life very small in comparison.
Also, God is our father (a loving one at that). Don't you think he wants us to be a little bit better than we are now? Think of the children you know who have never had to want for anything. Who always got what they wanted, when they wanted it. Who never had to suffer anything, and whose parents protected them from everything: responsibility, etc. How do those people act? I don't know about you, but the ones I know are brats. Not only brats, but they have no idea about what is socially appropriate. They think they can get everything (those who have learned some have had pressure from society and learned from that). I don't know, as a parent, I wouldn't want my kids to be that way. I don't think God wants us to be that way, either.
Besides, those kids don't look too happy to me, either. I think to be happy, we have to know what it is like to not be happy. Thus creating a whole well-rounded life experience, one which really makes life worth living.
I can go more into detail on agency, etc. if you would like more. But I'm sure someone else will talk about that.

Answer 4

Epicures assumes perfection is "benevolent"...Notice how his argument substitutes one for the other. Second assumption: That a being who is perfect, all-powerful, and everywhere would not allow evil to continue existing for a time, for some inscrutable purpose...

(e.g., anthropomorphicly: I might be able and willing to spank my son for hitting his sister, yet I might hold back for a while because I'm hoping he will apologize to his sister without that spanking, and I'm giving him a chance to do the right thing before I smack him.)

We humans always want our benevolent God to wipe out "evil" right now; we never take into consideration that the evil might be US.

Answer 5

God is the author of love and by this we mean perfect love,from this love comes two attributes,Mercy and Justice without anyone of these God could not be God, it would be a contradiction.
God made all life Angelic and Human to share in His love and joy, this we call Gods natural order, evil as we call it is disobedience to this order and is a rebellion against it.
Satan rebelled because of pride and so he is the instigator of all evil against Gods order,humanity which was represented by Adam and Eve followed suit and so God had every right to undo all that He made and would have been justly entitled,His loving mercy however decided not to do this and instead He put into effect His plan to redeem us, to enable if you like our reinstatement into His divine order again.
Christ was the solution and the way for this to happen and this is the Redemptive sacrifice,God did not force His plan on us but we can choose to cooperate with it by uniting ourselves to Christ.
God in His mercy has given us the remedy for eternal unity with Himself but He will not ever force this on His creatures,He has to honor our free will choice.

Answer 6

If they can, but will not, than they are not benevolent.

That is the flaw in his logic. He assumes that it would be benevolent to remove evil in the world. Since human beings are evil, the only way for God to remove evil would be to remove all of humanity or by removing our capacity for freewill and we'd be walking robots.

It is in our capacity for freewill, the very fact that God allows us to choose to commit evil, that He is being His most benevolent. It is through the victory of evil (in the end, God WILL remove evil from the world) that God's glory is defined and revealed to us.

Answer 7

God is perfect, omnipotent, and omniscient. He doesn't take away evil because of a little thing called Free Will. He allows us to make our own choices and some of those are to do evil. One day evil will be destroyed on the day of judgment.

Answer 8

There is a purpose behind the tolerance of "evil". I believe the gods(or God)allow(s) it to see how we react to it. It's one way to determine a person's true nature and see what is really in their heart.

Answer 9

Epicurious had more wisdom than any bible scholar. But then agian you were looking for a christian response? Im sorry i dont feed the egos of others. I work on breaking down ego, because it gets in the way of real understanding.

Do not believe something simply because you have heard it. Do not believe anything simply because it has been handed down for many generations. Do not believe anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe anything simply because it is written in Holy Scriptures. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of teachers, elders, or wise men. Believe only after careful observation and analysis, when you find that it agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all. Then accept it, and live up to it.

~The Buddha~

Answer 10

Epicures fails to mention how good can exist without evil. Good is the absence of evil. Would you want to live in a world without good?