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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!!

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To: Edwarda who wrote (40261)6/13/1999 1:13:00 AM
From: jbe  Read Replies (2) of 108807
 
It sort of addresses the very brief comment in that post, Edwarda, but not more lengthy ones I have made in other posts in the course of this discussion.

The reason the "problem of evil" debate is never-ending is because the questions being asked are much more complex -- and sophisticated, I might add -- than you seem to give them credit for being.

For one thing, nobody is asking, why, "if God is omnipotent and omniscient, human beings can commit sin?"

1) It is not a question of "sin," it is a question of "evil," which can include sin, but is not limited to it. Horrible diseases and earthquakes, for example, are not "sins," but they are "evils."

2) In your question, you left out the key "0" -- omnibenevolent. That is where the crux of the problem is. To quote, yet one more time, Augustine's original formulation of the dilemma: "Either God cannot abolish evil or He will not. If He cannot, He is not all-powerful; if He will not, then He is not all-good."

Augustine solved the problem to his own satisfaction, but I doubt it would satisfy you, even though you are a believer. Others have tried, but there always seems to be a hole in the argument, and eventually the rest of it leaks through.

You mention the "free will" argument, for example. Its most glaring weakness is that it does not deal with evils that are inflicted on an individual from without: what does "free will" have to do with being blown to pieces by a bomb? or with losing a leg in an automobile accident? or with losing a child? or with being born with cerebral palsy? or with getting leprosy? These are the things that make people ask -- if God is so "good", as well as all-powerful, why does he allow such things to happen?

And then there is the question: if this all-good God is also the Creator, why did he create the mate-devouring black widow spider, and other natural horrors, which to us seem like the products of a sick imagination? God's "free will" at work??

And so forth and so on.

Christopher's position is not all that clear to me. At first all he said was that we should shut up about God, because we could never hope to understand Him, that He was indescribable. Well, if he is indescribable, then you cannot ascribe attributes to him, like omniscience, omnibenevolence, and omnipotence. If, indeed, Christopher IS ascribing all three attributes to God, as E seems to think, then I don't think that is quite fair: smuggling the same old God in, and then telling us that we can't talk about Him any more! <g>

Joan

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