Christianity versus the epicurean paradox?

Question

It goes as follows:

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence cometh evil then? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"

God could stop giving kids cancer and stuff, but he doesn't. He allows things like the holocaust. There is way too much evil and suffering for there to be an omniscient caring creator. And if God created the devil and allows him to operate, God is complicit in all evil.

When I came to this conclusion on my own at about age 20 I became an agnostic. Have you pondered this question?

Answer 1

God is both willing and able and yet he respects his creation enough to allow it choice. He sets up a perfect system that if everyone would follow everything would be perfect. However, people decide not to follow it and evil comes into the equation because evil is simply not God. It is because God loves us so much that he allows us to keep free will and make a choice that evil is in the world. One day the time of decision will end and then God will step in and end evil, but that is the last day and so we have to deal with the evil of men's choices and the forgiveness of God.

Answer 2

I am coming at this from a religious but non-Christian perspective. I had the same questions that led me first to agnosticism, and then to my present Goddess path. My answers may not be yours, but...*puts on her philosopher's hat*

All right, first lets make a distinction between 'bad things that happen' and 'bad things we do.' When the Goddess created the world, She set up a set of natural laws whereby the old is gradually replaced by the new. Animals, trees--even the land and the waters--are in this constant cycle of return and renewal. Left to itself, the system works, balancing the needs of all the earth within it. But some of the things that are necessary for the system to work are not always pleasant for those involved. Illness, aging, floods, storms--these are all part of how the world works. They are not evil--there is no malicious intent. "Natural disasters", however unpleasant at the time, ALWAYS have a purpose above and beyond their effects on the inhabitants of an area. Floods deposit better soil, fires clear out deadfall, snow and ice storms deposit much-needed water in an area without washing the soil away. Animals--and people are animals, too--become ill, or old--and they die, allowing others to take their places. Again, there is no malice in this, though it is heart-wrenching when it happens to a loved one. But in the end, it's just how the world works.

Now, for the 'bad things we do' part. This is where we talk about free will, and the Goddess as Mother.

She is a Mother, and like all mothers, She wants what's best for her children. Ultimately, She wants us to "grow up"--and to do that She must let us exercise our right to choose. Even when we make bad choices. Even when we do terrible things to each other. She must allow this, because if we did ONLY as She desired us too, we wouldn't be men, we would still be monkeys in the garden, slaves to our instincts and knowing nothing of good or evil or right or wrong. It is up to US to look at the result of our choices, and fix the mistakes we make. (Fossil fuel emissions, endangered/extinct animals, war...the list is huge.)

*takes off hat and pulls up a soap box*
These days, the effects of those mistakes are so huge, and so wide-spread, that many people either despair of ever fixing them or deny they exist at all. But we CAN fix them, IF we all agree to try. That's not an easy goal, I know. But we'll destroy ourselves if we don't, and likely we'll take a good chunk of the world with us. And I don't fancy trying to explain to Her just how we managed THAT.

To sum it all up, the Goddess is not complicit in evil. Evil does exist, yes--but a lot of what we sometimes consider evil actually isn't, and the true evil in the world is only what we create. And She allows us to create evil, because otherwise we would not have the choice to create good.

Merry met, and blessed be. I hope this helps.

Answer 3

God didn't create man as mindless robots or automatons. He gave us free will agency to choose between good and evil. Sometimes people choose evil (say dump toxic chemicals in the river) which can adversely affect an innocent good person causing them cancers. OTOH a good person can create a drug or find some cure for cancer and save many evil people.

Is this fair? Perhaps not in THIS LIFE. As a Christian though, we know of a payback coming. The final judgment day where all receive their just recompense. That may be a leap of faith for an unbeliever and hard to grasp, yet it is a ray of hope for the believer.

Yes there is suffering in this life, it sucks... no two ways about it. But consider a brief suffering in this life compared to an eternity of happiness... and all the suffering in this life will seek like a fleeting nightmare... gone and forgotten.

The justice, the fairness of it all... comes after the judgment. If God were to banish all evil today, we would not have free will agency. We would not have the opportunity to choose God or reject Him. If we have no free will agency we would just be robots... doomed to whatever fate our builder made us for. OTOH God's plan gives us the free choice, we may suffer good or evil because of our choices and those around us, and our fate is then determined by those choices.

After all... if you wanted your wife to love you would you force her to love you by some means, or let her love you on her own free will? Which would be true love? Those who choose happiness... no matter what trials they face in this life... will have an eternity of happiness. Those who knowingly cause others to suffer because of their selfishness, will behold what they have done at the judgment and face an eternity of guilt and shame... their life will have been wasted. Justice will be served.

Answer 4

GOD made a Contract with Adam.
For 6,000 Years.
Times bout' up.

Also, if GOD got rid of satan, EveryBody connected to him spiritually---

(everybody who has been born on the Earth since Adam--this is not Demon Possession, just having a Lost Spirit)

would Cease to Exist too.
Adam changed gods to satan when he sinned.
GOD Almighty is trying to get us to Change Back to HIM.

No, babys and little children (under the Age of Accountability) get there Spirits Recreated (Saved) and are Taken to Heaven--if they Leave the Earth for Good befor they grow-up.

GOD don't miss a one of them, they're all on Planet Heaven.

Answer 5

In the Biblical paradigm:

When man does harm to man, that's freewill used for evil (the Holocaust). When natural disaster and disease harm man, that's God's will. God is not always willing to prevent suffering, he works in mysterious ways. I think we need to put away this tribal diety and seek a higher spiritual paradigm, one that incorporates both science and spiritual searching as approaches to the truth.

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Answer 6

Yes, many times. It's one of the reasons I'm an atheist.

Answer 7

The atheist presupposes that God cannot have morally sufficient reasons for permitting the evil in the world. But this assumption is not necessarily true. So long as it is even possible that God has morally sufficient reasons for permitting evil, it follows that God and evil are logically consistent. It is widely agreed among contemporary philosophers that the logical problem of evil has been dissolved. The co-existence of God and evil is logically possible.

The chief purpose of life is not happiness, but the knowledge of God. One reason that the problem of evil seems so puzzling is that we tend to think that if God exists, then His goal for human life is happiness in this world. God’s role is to provide comfortable environment for His human pets. But on the Christian view this is false. We are not God’s pets, and man’s end is not happiness in this world, but the knowledge of God, which will ultimately bring true and everlasting human fulfillment. Many evils occur in life which maybe utterly pointless with respect to the goal of producing human happiness in this world, but they may not be unjustified with respect to producing the knowledge of God. Innocent human suffering provides an occasion for deeper dependency and trust in God, either on the part of the sufferer or those around him. Of course, whether God's purpose is achieved through our suffering will depend on our response. Do we respond with anger and bitterness toward God, or do we turn to Him in faith for strength to endure?

Answer 8

I every time spend my half an hour to read this blog's posts daily along with a mug of coffee.

Answer 9

If you've resolved it you're free at 21 1/2.

Fly!!!!

Answer 10

Actually, it gets more complicated when one considers the THREE basic characteristics of God : omnipresence, omnipotent, and omniscience.

It's a philosophical dilemma but then, how does someone UNDERSTAND God?

You chose to reject the concept that God exists; I choose to accept it.