If you're omnipotent, and you know someone is going to kill thousands of people, then aren't you just as...

Question

guilty as they are?

1. God, being Omniscient, would know when evil was about to occur.
2. God, being Omnipotent, would have the power to prevent it.
3. God, being Omnibenevolent, would want to prevent it.
4. Evil is not prevented.

Conclusion: Either God is unwilling or unable to prevent evil. If God is unwilling, He is not Omnibenevolent. If He is unable, He is either not Omniscient because He doesn't know when it would happen, or He is not Omnipotent because He can't do anything about it, or both. Because evil exists, a God that is defined as omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent cannot exist.

Answer 1

God is omnipresent and does not work on you time table. His creation is not complete and we are not prefected in his righteousness as of yet.

Answer 2

Firstly, i'd like to point out how many of the religious people here have constantly ignored the question... If i was all knowing, i know thousands of "my children" are in danger, i am all powerful, i know i can easily stop this, if i am at the same time all good, i cannot let this evil event occur, so i will stop it.
But it seems im feeling all lazy as well... so ill make up for their horrible deaths when they are killed by bringing them to my side. Ofcourse, only around 10 of these people will qualify for this position, the others will be sent to that other place.
I guess i'd feel a bit guilty looking back on that. So yeh, ill take it as being my bad.

And the guy above me is saying we're just lab rats in an experiment... thanks buddy :)

Answer 3

You've hit on one of the questions debated in theology today. The two popular answers are:

1) Yes, God is guilty of allowing evil because it suits God's perfect purposes. God chooses not to act to allow humans as much Free Will as possible.

2) God is not omnipotent. The bible describes God as the *most* powerful being, but it was Greek tradition that gave us the idea that God was *all* powerful.

The second theory seems to make more sense given your statement of the situation. Open Theology is a thoughtful response that modern Christians have given.

Answer 4

Mankind was not created evil, but perfect. In their original state, Adam and Eve were innocent, ageless and immortal. But from the very beginning--from the time God breathed the breath of life into Adam-- man has had the ability to choose right or wrong. And he made his choice. Had man never sinned, there would have been no resulting curse. But now it's too late. When Adam sinned, sin entered the entire human race. Adam's sin brought death, so death spread to everyone.

The point to keep in mind here is that humanity and Satan-- not God-- is responsible for sin and evil.

Answer 5

I actually heard Penn Jillette (from Penn and Teller, of course) make this same argument during a Nostradamus special on the History channel. He stated something to the effect of: "If I had a list of prophecies, and one of them mentioned the 9/11 disasters, and on 9/10 I did nothing, I would think I'd be just as accountable as those who hijacked the planes. And in fact, I should be in jail right now."

And I agree with him, and (in this case) the fact that "hindsight is 20/20" (as it's been said) .

This is a small part of the reason that I don't believe that God is some controlling aspect of the universe that deals out punishments. In fact, I don't even think of God as a specific being, just as more of a collective consciousness behind everything.

Answer 6

Your logic is very distorted and uneducated. You have left out many important issues which greatly affect your arguments and the logical progression of your statements. For example, you never once discuss free-will. You never discuss God being just or the fact of and results stemming from evil forces (both physical and spiritual) running rampant throughout the world. Finally, you do not discuss God's will and the responsibilities that WE humans have to each other.

Answer 7

No.

This would require a belief that it is what happens that what matters and that what people did does not matter. In other words you have a very selfish view based on your material existence meaning everything.

For example, you get to heaven and tell God, "God, I had a really hard life. My parents were drug addicts, I grew up in a slum. I became an addict because of them and I had to steal and kill people to survive. Then I got cancer and my dog ate my homework. I belong in heaven, right?"

What happens does not matter in the grand scheme of things.

God did sympathize with me when my son died. My life is not based on his death, my life is based on the choices I make. I could be angry about the circumstances or I could thank God for the time I had with him and for taking care of him after his death.

My life depends on my choices no matter what happens.

Answer 8

I see how you would think this, but no not necessarily. God gave us free will, to keep free will he can not intervene when something is about to go wrong if someone thinks something is wrong and wants to make it illegal but another person thinks it is ok then the person will become angry if the law passes and they thought what is now illegal was ok. So not saying that it's ok to killl people but that's sort of why in my opinion things like that are allowed to happen. If you would like to talk about it further you can E-mail me at [e-mail] I will talk to you as long as you are respectful if not then I won't have respect for you. But I would be happy to answer any questions

Answer 9

Very well put, as is this:

God either wants to eliminate bad things and cannot, or can but does not want to, or neither wishes to nor can, or both wants to and can. If he wants to and cannot, he is weak -- and this does not apply to god. If he can but does not want to, then he is spiteful -- which is equally foreign to god's nature. If he neither wants to nor can, he is both weak and spiteful and so not a god. If he wants to and can, which is the only thing fitting for a god, where then do bad things come from? Or why does he not eliminate them?"

-Epicurus (from "The Epicurus Reader", translated and edited by Brad Inwood and L.P. Gerson, Hackett Publishing, 1994, p. 97)

Answer 10

If a god exists and if it has any knowledge or power to stop tragedy, than yes, they are guilty. Think about this Xtians, Muslims and all Theists: Everytime a 9-year old is raped, your god is the invisible Superman in the room that does nothing to stop it.

Answer 11

The really sad thing about this kind of "mentality" that continues to delude itself with this nonsense is that if God interfered directly in human affairs and erased the one planning to do this, there would still be people around like you who would no doubt still spew the same, tired, rhetoric against Him for doing what you originally complained against Him for in the first place. We've all heard this song and dance before and it just doesn't get any goofier than this. Remember- the lake of fire is so unfairrrrr!!!! Oh, God- you cosmic meany!! How could you do this to that poor man?? Please.