PoE vs. Evolution - creationist's dilemma

Too bad! It is already on the quote!! =D

Now seriously,

"
om·nip·o·tent

adj. Having unlimited or universal power, authority, or force; all-powerful. See Usage Note at infinite.

n. 1. One having unlimited power or authority: the bureaucratic omnipotents.
2. Omnipotent God. Used with the.

[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin omnipotns, omnipotent- : omni-, omni- + potns, present participle of posse, to be able; see poti- in Indo-European roots.]
om·nipo·tence, om·nipo·ten·cy n.
om·nipo·tent·ly adv.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

omnipotent [ɒmˈnɪpətənt]

adj having very great or unlimited power

n (Christian Religious Writings / Theology) the Omnipotent an epithet for God [via Old French from Latin omnipotens all-powerful, from omni- + potens, from posse to be able]

omnipotence n
omnipotently adv


Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003
"

As you can see, unlimited power is also accurate according to these dictionaries.

Koldo said:

Too bad! It is already on the quote!! =D

Now seriously,

"
om·nip·o·tent

adj. Having unlimited or universal power, authority, or force; all-powerful. See Usage Note at infinite.

n. 1. One having unlimited power or authority: the bureaucratic omnipotents.
2. Omnipotent God. Used with the.

[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin omnipotns, omnipotent- : omni-, omni- + potns, present participle of posse, to be able; see poti- in Indo-European roots.]
om·nipo·tence, om·nipo·ten·cy n.
om·nipo·tent·ly adv.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

omnipotent [ɒmˈnɪpətənt]

adj having very great or unlimited power

n (Christian Religious Writings / Theology) the Omnipotent an epithet for God [via Old French from Latin omnipotens all-powerful, from omni- + potens, from posse to be able]

omnipotence n
omnipotently adv


Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003
"

As you can see, unlimited power is also accurate according to these dictionaries.

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claiming that its "also accurate" doesnt mean that is how Theologians use it.

i have highlighted two definitions in your quotations that are firstly how i defined it, and also something that isnt as strong in my definition.

Im retty sure you have legitimised my point, or have potentially made my job easier

tarasan said:

that the point there is a different between a theodicy and a defense, a theodicy is an explanation as to how God and evil exist
a defense is how it might be.

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They both amount to the same thing.

tarasan said:

for the logical problem of evil it must be neccessary that God and evil contradict, so if the thiests uses a defense then what he says

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tarasan said:

true, however if there are things that God cannot do then it is possible that he cannot acutalise a world without causing suffering, remeber just because he is all loving doesnt mean he can do everything as youve claim above, for the logical problem of evil you have to show an explicit contradiction you havnt shown that here.

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I’m afraid it does, if he’s also omnipotent! Even we poor contingent creatures can conceive of a world without suffering without implying any logical contradiction. And if a world without suffering is possible then it follows that there is no necessity in evil. Yet evil exists! Now an omnipotent Being lies under no compunction to send evil into the world, since it would be contradictory to say it must. So God sends evil into the world of his own volition. And therefore God isn’t necessarily good. That is the contradiction.

tarasan said:

his seems to be the emotional problem of evil, you havnt shown how this is meaningless evil a better example i feel is a logical set it cuts out all the "fluff"

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The reason there is a PoE is because of suffering (no suffering, then no evil), not so much because of arcane logical issues. Emotional evil, actual bodily harm – it’s all suffering! And even if I imagine I suffer, it is no less true that I am suffering.(As a student studying the PoE I'll bet you've read Dostoyevsky's words on the matter?)

tarasan said:

I can as well if causal determination is true, but ONLY if causal determination is true not if free will exists, however.

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The free will defence, as an attempt to get around the Problem of Evil, fails for a number of reasons.

1) It is immoral because in order to accommodate evil it makes the notion of free will more important than the alleviation of suffering. And on this account a loving God is the champion of free will rather than love and benevolence.

2) It is also immoral because it assumes evil when evil isn't necessary to the concept of free will; there is no contradiction in conceiving free will without the possibility of suffering. Therefore an existence without suffering is logically possible, and the free will defence must bow to that truth.

3) The supposed free will isn't actually free will at all: it was preordained! We simply did what was known and expected of us.

4) The Bible, for example, establishes the principle that there did not have to be either free will or any suffering. For if heaven is free of evil and suffering, why not earth?

It is plain that the notion of free will was introduced for no other reason than to address the uncomfortable fact of evil in the presence of a supposedly good and wise God; it has no other purpose. The Bible's writers knew they could say or claim anything: talking snakes, a man rounding up two of every animal on the globe and putting them in a boat, feeding five thousand with five loaves and two fish, etc, etc, but for all their imagination they couldn't deny the unfortunate fact of evil. The New Testament and Jesus was an imaginative attempt to deal with the problem - but it only compounded it. Jesus came and went and suffering continues unabated.

5) We don't have a choice. There never was any 'choice'. We are error-prone, imperfect creatures who acted exactly as God knew we would. The choice was simply a mechanism contrived by believers to insulate God from the evil in the world. And it fails because the world is God's creation: no God, no world, no evil. And even if we go along with the ‘choice’ apologetic, it must still be the case that if God is the creator of all things and evil exists, then God is the cause of evil, since it cannot be the cause of itself if God is omnipotent.

How theologians use it is of no importance. A word is what it is. People may try to bend it any way they wish, but it is what it is. Just like an apple is an apple no matter if you wanna call it an ORANGE, for example, it is still an apple because it is what it is.

Now, actually, i picked that second dictionary translation on purpose to show that i understand how some may see the word "omnipotent" as meaning "having very great power", and mostly importantly to show that you can not ignore the possibility of "unlimited power" even if you are agreement with "having very great power".

Like i said in my previous topic, anyone can approach to solve the PoE by either (a) or (b).

If (a) is chosen, one of possibilities is to understand the Omnipotent God (1) as having a very great power instead of having unlimited power. If you pick this choice of argument though, you may be already making a concession. Why? Most Christians believe that God has unlimited power, that he can do EVERYTHING at all. Imagine what happens in their head when they have to argument that their God can't in fact do everything! If you are one them you will have to change one of your beliefs, which is a big win for the proposer of PoE problem. Also, after you engage in this argument you may be left with some questions as : "What is the problem with dealing with evil exactly?", "Couldn't God have created only plants to prevent evil?", "If evil resides within human race alone, why did he create it, or rather why didn't he destroy the humanity and turned us all into something else?", "Couldn't God have predicted the future after he created what he did as he is Omniscient? If yes, why did he still do it?". So you see, you are still left wondering with a new main problem. What can God do, and what can't he do, now that you admit he can't do everything? Also, many could state you are just trying to make God fit in our world, giving such a excuse that he doesn't have unlimited power.

tarasan said:

i never claimed you werent entitaled to your point of view i just found it a little rude so i spoke up, most acedemic athiests treat thiests claims very seriously (especially on the logical problem of evil, because of how little the thiest has to do to rebuke it) so i found your way of treating the problem of evil as you did annoying. something ive only found on popular athiest sites.

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I'm sorry to come back to this but from what you've written about being 'annoyed' it appears that you think that the subject is somehow beyond criticism? No philosophical position is entitled to special respect but must answer to critical appraisal - and I will always support and follow up what I say with argument, especially on this particular subject. Hope we understand one another now.

Cottage

Playing devil's advocate for a minute, I'd say the field is pretty wide open for someone explaining the objective world and scientific data, while preserving their view of the bible as infallible.

(1) the bible is the word of God and cannot be altered in any way, because it is the moral guide to living in the world, not the technical guide. God (although omnipotent and omniscient) did not feel inclined to tell us about little things like "Plasmodium" because He did not think we needed to know everything, just enough to follow His commands.

(2) Plasmodium was created by God for some purpose He alone knows. Maybe its to cause doubt, so that people have to rely only on faith to know He exists? Because, after all, if God were proven to exist there would no longer be a need for faith, and then why would there need to be a religion that worships Him?

...I could think of a few more, but that last one has convinced me. Plasmodium was created by God to cast doubt on His existence, thus making faith even more important. :angel2:

I know this is a totally different issue, but not everyone views the bible as the "word of God". And , in fact, to argument it is you would have to use something other than "it is because it is written in the bible".

Interesting discussion, although we seem to have drifted away from MM's more narrow concern about her debate with Plantinga, as mentioned in the OP.

I would just like to interject a few points here:

1) It is probably better to couch the argument in terms of suffering than evil. A tornado is "evil" only if it is caused by a malevolent agency, but it is still an issue with respect to theodicy.

2) The theist can almost always beat an attempt to prove impossibility by appealing to our ignorance of God's goals. Suffering and God may need to co-exist for some reason that we are unaware of (i.e. Troublemane's point 2). However, if the real argument is over God's plausibility, then the burden of proof lies with the theist to come up with potential motives. In the end, people lose their faith if they find God merely implausible. They do not have to find him impossible.

3) Not all theologians or philosophers use terms like "omnipotent" and "omniscient" consistently. One ought not to jump to the conclusion that there is only one possible special usage for these terms among theologians and philosophers.

cottage said:

I'm sorry to come back to this but from what you've written about being 'annoyed' it appears that you think that the subject is somehow beyond criticism? No philosophical position is entitled to special respect but must answer to critical appraisal - and I will always support and follow up what I say with argument, especially on this particular subject. Hope we understand one another now.

Cottage

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when did i cliaim it was beyond critique please dont put words in my mouth.

I have a feeling that i should jump onto the one on one debate with Meow Im sure you can all ask questions or re ask questions on the discussion thread above,

ill probably have a response out tommorow

Man of Faith said:

I believe that we need to separate the problem of evil, with the problem of suffering, they are different. The perspective that I have is God isn’t evil, but he is just. Evil comes from man, so suffering is allowed by God because of that evil. The lost cannot see how evil their deeds and thoughts are. Imagine standing in a courtyard of a temple with a knife in your hand and thousands of families lined up with a lamb. As each lamb is given to you, you slit its throat, one after the other, until the blood is like a stream flowing ankle deep. Then imagine giving up your child to be nailed to a cross and suffering there until death for a murderer like Hitler. That is how bad sin is to God, he showed us how bad it is by how it has to be forgiven. When I see the cross, I say to myself, I put Jesus up there, my sins did.

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Why are rivers of blood required? Why would an omnipotent being require any sort of means to an end, especially ones involving sacrifice and blood? When you put it this way, it sounds more like you worship a demon than anything -- and that's not to sound rude, I just seriously have trouble with my intuition associating an omnibenevolent/omnipotent/omniscient God demanding or requiring sacrifices of anything.

Man of Faith said:

I believe that complex forms such as microbes and parasites were created fully formed, however their nature changed after the fall. We do see that bacteria can have chemistry changes.

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Man of Faith said:

Most microbes are beneficial to man and nature. Without fungi, bacteria, algae and protozoans, life on earth could not last. The removal of God’s sustaining power could be the reason that neutral or beneficial bacterial or microbes become pathogens or parasites.

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I can understand the mechanism between putting my hand on a hot burner and recoiling in pain -- that's perfectly intelligible.

But what is the cause/effect relationship between eating forbidden fruit and Plasmodium falciparum becoming so specifically adapted to torturing humans?

Man of Faith said:

I believe that we need to separate the problem of evil, with the problem of suffering, they are different...

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I agree that they are very different, and that is why I suggested that the statement of the problem needs to be broadened out to human suffering in general, regardless of whether it is human-caused. After natural disasters, there are always people who praise God for saving them and people who ask why God would allow the catastrophe in the first place. The cause of the suffering does not really matter from the perspective of the victim.

In his book God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question--Why We Suffer, Bart Ehrman explained what drove him ultimately to abandon his Christian faith. He could not reconcile human suffering with the concept of a maximally benevolent God. One of the questions he examined was this common rationalization that we must suffer because humans are responsible for the evils of the world. His rejoinder to that was that so much human suffering had nothing at all to do with human behavior. Hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, etc.--all the natural disasters that humans have experienced throughout history--had nothing at all to do with human behavior. Nevertheless, God has not intervened, and does not intervene, to alleviate that sort of suffering. Why do people have to starve to death and die of horrible diseases? None of that is explained by the concept of the free will defense.

Of course, there will always be the rationalization that God has a secret motive--something beyond human understanding--to justify his lack of intervention to prevent the suffering. That is a good excuse for people who find it otherwise difficult to reconcile their belief with the reality of suffering. It just isn't good enough for every Christian, and this question of why God permits suffering will continue to drive people to question their belief in God. It is important to note that Meow Mix has posed the problem in terms of a human malady that has nothing at all to do with the bad behavior of humans. One can call a disease "evil" because it produces such terrible suffering, but the reality is that we usually associate the concept of evil with malicious intent.

I , actually, prefer to approach this matter with the evil part than the suffering part.


"suffering

1. Experiencing pain. syn."

The ability to feel pain is nowadays seen as an important trait to grant our survival. In fact, there is even a condition where the person can not feel any pain at all : An SCN9A channelopathy that causes congenital inability to experience pain. And guess what? The people with this sort of disorder can have all the sorts of problems for not being able to feel pain. Some boys , for example, were known to jump from the roof of houses or from the top of trees just for the fun of it. Of course, just because they can not feel the pain it doesn't mean their body was fine. And some of them ended up dead.

Also, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, etc. are not natural disasters so to say. They are ,rather, natural events. We are the ones perceiving them as disasters. I find it rather interesting to note that if one can not perceive the meaning of "pain" then the "pain" does not exist in their reality.

A interesting question flourish from that line of thought: "Couldn't God allow us to live in a reality where pain is not needed to exist to grant our survival?". I am not talking about diseases when i make this question, rather i am talking about the whole ability to feel physical suffering, in general.

The reason of why i like to look it at this matter more from the "evil" side of it is because God created everything. God created the humans and if humans are capable of evil then that is how God intended it to be because he is the perfect creator. God is the root of ALL evil. It doesn't matter if free will was necessary to create a greater good to prove this point. All that matters is that God from all choices decided to create the humans even knowing the evil would be part of our existence. While people can create all sorts of excuses as to why the evil has to exist due to the free will for the good to appear, they can not deny that God still created it nonetheless, it's God's the responsability for all the evil that exists.

Also, i don't believe you can disprove God existence with PoE. Given it is always possible to create such a scenario where God's existence is still possible. The big win here is to make your opponent concede about something that wasn't part of his original beliefs. Even Platinga had to concede the existence of powerfull nonhuman agents to make God's existence possible. And those concessions are , in my point of view, a very important win.

Now, talking about the OP:

Platinga believes that free will is needed to reach a greater good, correct?

Follow this logic using these statements:

(1) Free Will is needed just to be be able to reach greater good.
(2) Fallen Angels are only capable of evil, and have Free Will.

Do you see where i am taking this argument into?

This proves that if Fallen Angels exist, they either will do a greater good (which is contrary to popular belief), or they don't have free will. For the matter of it, no being capable of only evil may have free will. I would take even a step further and say that any being has , in the end of its existence, to reach the greater good.

This implies an interesting thing about Lucifer/Satan. Doesn't it? A being not going to do greater good can not be allowed to have free will. Unless...

Unless you think of the evil existence as necessary to reach the greater good, rather than just the need of free will to do it. Which would in turn make Lucifer/Satan and all other fallen angels, in fact, good beings to some extent....

Now, about the powerful nonhuman free creatures, this is actually a possibility. In fact, these PNFC could as well be just Spirits of humans which would make them able to do both good and bad things with their free will. Meaning that (c) in the OP is actually in accordance to the beliefs of Spiritism.

Copernicus said:

I agree that they are very different, and that is why I suggested that the statement of the problem needs to be broadened out to human suffering in general, regardless of whether it is human-caused. After natural disasters, there are always people who praise God for saving them and people who ask why God would allow the catastrophe in the first place. The cause of the suffering does not really matter from the perspective of the victim.

In his book God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question--Why We Suffer, Bart Ehrman explained what drove him ultimately to abandon his Christian faith. He could not reconcile human suffering with the concept of a maximally benevolent God. One of the questions he examined was this common rationalization that we must suffer because humans are responsible for the evils of the world. His rejoinder to that was that so much human suffering had nothing at all to do with human behavior. Hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, etc.--all the natural disasters that humans have experienced throughout history--had nothing at all to do with human behavior. Nevertheless, God has not intervened, and does not intervene, to alleviate that sort of suffering. Why do people have to starve to death and die of horrible diseases? None of that is explained by the concept of the free will defense.

Of course, there will always be the rationalization that God has a secret motive--something beyond human understanding--to justify his lack of intervention to prevent the suffering. That is a good excuse for people who find it otherwise difficult to reconcile their belief with the reality of suffering. It just isn't good enough for every Christian, and this question of why God permits suffering will continue to drive people to question their belief in God. It is important to note that Meow Mix has posed the problem in terms of a human malady that has nothing at all to do with the bad behavior of humans. One can call a disease "evil" because it produces such terrible suffering, but the reality is that we usually associate the concept of evil with malicious intent.

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The Bible does answer the question of why we suffer. It is because of our disobedience which resulted in the curse of God. In Genesis 3 it says that because of mans disobedience, woman will have pain in child birth, the ground is cursed, thorns and thistles will now grow, we will have to work by the sweat of our brow and we will die. And in Romans 8 20 “Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, 21 the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. 22 For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us…”

I think people get confused about the nature of God. Whenever I see someone say “a benevolent God wouldn’t allow this…” I think to myself, “a just God would.” God isn’t just benevolent, he is just and holy and doesn’t let sin go unpunished. He is also benevolent in that he lets everyone do what they want and reap the benefits or consequences they produce within themselves. He doesn’t treat the atheist any different than the Christian in the sense that our sowing determines our reaping. If an atheist or a believer drink alcohol and get behind the wheel they both have a wreck. If an atheist or a believer are in the same town when a hurricane hits they both can get hurt or die. He is also benevolent in being patient with me, giving me a life to enjoy, showing me the way, preparing a place for me for eternal life, and sacrificing his son for me, even though my thoughts are evil, even though I am proud and have feet quick to do evil.

How can we know that sin is abhorrent to God, because of how it has to be forgiven. If God was to say, “just snap your fingers three times and you are forgiven for sin”, then we wouldn’t think sin was a big deal. It would be like taking the morning after pill, no big deal, I can sin and everything is fine in the morning. No, sin is a bid deal to God and he shows us that by the way it has to be forgiven by the shedding of innocent blood.

What you don't want to understand is that everything came from God. Even the sins.
When God created the humans he knew they would be desobedient!
How could he possibly blame them for it?

Here is an analogy: If you are a perfect being and create a robot from the scratch, and it does something wrong, who's to blame for the robot's doing? YOU! The robot was created by you alone, so you are the one to blame if it does anything wrong. Nobody else. You could predict what would happen with the robot, but you still did it!

Also,

Man of Faith said:

sin is a bid deal to God and he shows us that by the way it has to be forgiven by the shedding of innocent blood

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What does make you think that way?

Man of Faith said:

The Bible does answer the question of why we suffer. It is because of our disobedience which resulted in the curse of God. In Genesis 3 it says that because of mans disobedience, woman will have pain in child birth, the ground is cursed, thorns and thistles will now grow, we will have to work by the sweat of our brow and we will die. And in Romans 8 20 “Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, 21 the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. 22 For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us…”

I think people get confused about the nature of God. Whenever I see someone say “a benevolent God wouldn’t allow this…” I think to myself, “a just God would.” God isn’t just benevolent, he is just and holy and doesn’t let sin go unpunished. He is also benevolent in that he lets everyone do what they want and reap the benefits or consequences they produce within themselves. He doesn’t treat the atheist any different than the Christian in the sense that our sowing determines our reaping. If an atheist or a believer drink alcohol and get behind the wheel they both have a wreck. If an atheist or a believer are in the same town when a hurricane hits they both can get hurt or die. He is also benevolent in being patient with me, giving me a life to enjoy, showing me the way, preparing a place for me for eternal life, and sacrificing his son for me, even though my thoughts are evil, even though I am proud and have feet quick to do evil.

How can we know that sin is abhorrent to God, because of how it has to be forgiven. If God was to say, “just snap your fingers three times and you are forgiven for sin”, then we wouldn’t think sin was a big deal. It would be like taking the morning after pill, no big deal, I can sin and everything is fine in the morning. No, sin is a bid deal to God and he shows us that by the way it has to be forgiven by the shedding of innocent blood.

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So, what did leukemia kids do that was so bad that God tortures them with perpetual pain and misery, since your theory seems to be that everyone in pain is only in pain because they deserve it?

Meow Mix said:

So, what did leukemia kids do that was so bad that God tortures them with perpetual pain and misery, since your theory seems to be that everyone in pain is only in pain because they deserve it?

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It's all from original sin and the curse, everything bad, getting old, sickness, death, disease, dying young, pain, cancer, parasites, earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, storms, you name it. We can trace it all back to our sin. Any child that grows up will do evil continually their whole lives.

Man of Faith said:

It's all from original sin and the curse, everything bad, getting old, sickness, death, disease, dying young, pain, cancer, parasites, earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, storms, you name it. We can trace it all back to our sin. Any child that grows up will do evil continually their whole lives.

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So, god's a failure.

Let me ask you a question MoF. If your father or mother, committed a crime, lets say, they murdered someone. Would it be just, for the courts to send you to prison for their crime? And in this scenerio you haven't even been born at the time the crime took place. If your answer is no, as I would hope that it would be. Then why is it just for god to do the same? And by the way, eating a fruit from a tree, is a far cry away from murder.

Tristesse said:

So, god's a failure.

Let me ask you a question MoF. If your father or mother, committed a crime, lets say, they murdered someone. Would it be just, for the courts to send you to prison for their crime? And in this scenerio you haven't even been born at the time the crime took place. If your answer is no, as I would hope that it would be. Then why is it just for god to do the same? And by the way, eating a fruit from a tree, is a far cry away from murder.

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Like I said, every child that grows up will do sin continually. Eating a fruit from a tree is the same as murder in the sense that it is a rebellion from God, a rejection of God's commands. Eating the fruit was just the beginning of what man is capable of, and we see that now. The first murder was from the first children on earth.