April 11, 2005

  • Ok, so there's a "debate" about whether God causes, or only allows, suffering in our lives.  It may be splitting hairs, but here's a thought.  If a day-care center hired a worker, knowing that he had a record of child abuse, but hired him anyway, and if he then abused a child, would that day-care center be liable for damages?


    If God, knowing that Satan would fall, knowing that he'd take 1/3 of the angels with him, knowing that he'd successfully lead millions of men astray, and knowing that they'd cause immesurable suffering, but created all things anyway, should he not be held liable for his knowledgable actions?

Comments (7)

  • Hehe, and no fair pointing out that no one can hold him liable. This question is about his culpablility, not his vulnerabliity

  • C.S. Lewis dealt with this issue at length. It's very closely related to the problem of evil, and a bit indirectly, but fundamentally, related to the "too heavy rock" problem.

    Our attempt at a logical system has established some fundamental axioms that we can hold to be universal. That system should, if valid, describe some universal abstract logic. One such axiom is "a claim can't be both fully true and fully false at the same time."

    We can extend that to logical natures. For instance a square, whatever you want to call it, has a certain nature. A shape cannot be both fully a circle and fully a square at the same time -- it doesn't make logical sense.

    God is providential and benevolent, encapsulated in "love" or charity. He not only expresses these traits in our lives, but these traits are necessary for God to have. God must logically have these traits, so our revelation states. Just as it is a square's logical nature to have four equal sides, God must be love.

    Both the problem of evil and the problem of pain require as premises that God has the ability, due to his omnipotence, to both provide genuine free will (as much as is possible without abstract barriers like "fate") and to provide alleviation from pain/evil.

    But providing genuine free will while also providing absolute alleviation from pain/evil is not logically possible! It's like demanding that God, being all-powerful, create a rock he can't lift. Or like demanding that God create a truly circular square in every sense. They aren't matters of strength at all -- they're matters of logical impossibility!

    And that's the great thing about omnipotence. It's strictly limited to the *real*. Abstract barriers, like logic, are still able to "limit" that omnipotence, because they aren't *real* limits.

    So we've solved the problems of evil and pain. But we're still left with the nagging intuition that a loving God should be doing everything he can to alleviate evil and pain -- yet it doesn't seem to be happening.

    But it is happening. And that's the whole reason for God's plan of salvation, from the very beginning of man. He had the genius to create a process where the end result would be not only a creation free of evil and pain, but also with genuine free will -- yet without the lurking shadow of sin. The provision of absolute inviolability from pain/evil with absolute free will is a logical impossibility. But God's setting up a system, thousands of years in the making, that will make both come into fruition through the *voluntary* annihilation of sin's influence.

  • I have such trouble with this, and have tried to view it from both camps, neither is satisfactory. But it sure does play havoc with trusting in God.

    Heather

  • you know, i don't know.  and you know what else, i'm learning just how much i don't know.  the logic argument makes a lot of sense (no pun intended), but it's not emotionally satisfying.  it is emotionally satisfying to be pissed off at God for allowing all the crap in my life (or your life, or his or her lives), but it doesn't make sense logically.  i know i will never understand it, because i can't fully understand eternal truth with my mortal mind.

  • I guess what I'm chasing is the answer to this question:  Can a God of love create a world filled with sin and suffering without violating his character?  And I don't mean can he create one that COULD go awry, but can he create one that WOULD go awry, and still be motivated by love?  More pointedly, is the suffering and sin of our world somehow an intrinsic part of God's expression of love for mankind?

  • God is a morally perfect, all-knowing, and all-powerful being.

    A morally perfect, all-knowing, all-powerful being always chooses the best of all possible alternatives.

    God chose to create this world.

    Therefore, this is the best of all possible worlds.

    Why is there evil in the best possible world? It must be that the sufferings of it's creatures must somehow contribute to the overall good of the total system.

  • Well stated FF1!!!  So we, in america particularly, need to find that intrinsic "good of the system" whenever we suffer, as a means to see the larger picture, and as a means of seeing reasons to praise that "morally perfect, all-knowing, and all-powerful being who chose the best alternative."

    The illustration of fire purifying gold comes to mind, and without the fire, the gold is not purified.  Can God not "harvest" the righteous from the creation without the fires of sin, temptation, and suffering?

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