Chapter 1... Who created evil?

[shhhnake_eyes]

so basically in short terms ur saying
god is all knowing
god is all good
god gave us free will
even though god created evil he is all good

God giving us free will > God creating evil

so therefore God is ALL good because he gave us free will over not giving us evil


does god know the future?

[Matt R.]

Just a couple little nit-picks.

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even though god created evil he is all good

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I think saying it like this is a little misleading. God created evil because he created what *directly* creates evil (on a human choice level, I mean) -- consciousness and free will. An analogy: suppose I drop a glass and break it. Does that mean my father broke the glass? I guess you could say he did indirectly, as the glass would never have been broken if he didn't create me. Similarly, you can only really say God indirectly creates evil through free will (this is of course going by your definition of evil... your example with Lucifer, etc.)

[ QUOTE ]
God giving us free will > God creating evil

so therefore God is ALL good because he gave us free will over not giving us evil


[/ QUOTE ]

I just want to point out that God is not necessarily all good *because* he chooses free will over evil. It's just a choice, and he would be all good if he chose the other way as well. The universe would probably just be a lot more boring.

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does god know the future?

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I would say yes. As well as most religions (I think). Keep in mind though that our perception of time, and thus our ideas of past/present/future is vastly different than how it actually works (re, theory of relativity).

[miketurner]

What we consider to be cold, is really an absence of heat. Absolute zero is when there is absolutely no heat, but cold does not really exist. We have only created that term to describe how we feel when heat is not there.

Darkness is really only the absence of light. Darkness is only a term developed to describe what happens when there is no light present.

Evil is simply the absence of God. Evil is a term developed to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. It isn't like truth, or love which exist as virtues like heat or light. Evil is simply the state where God is not present, like cold without heat, or darkness without light.

[Jeff W]

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It's not conflicting because God chose to make free will a priority. The downside of that is of course an individual can choose evil.

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Assumptions:
1. God is Omniscient.
2. God is Omnipotent.
3. God created everything.

If God created you(and everything about you, because he created everything you interact with and he knew the results of those interactions before he created you) and He knows everything that's going to happen before it happens, then He, not you, chose for you to be evil or good.

One counterargument is that we can't understand the will of God. I totally agree, but in that case we might as well throw out religion as a whole. If God's will is unfathomable then it is possible that The Holy Bible is a deception intended to lead us off the righteous path of murdering, raping and pillaging and that only those who reject it will be given a seat in the kingdom of heaven.

[keikiwai]

[ QUOTE ]

a. God created everything
b. God is all good


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Just because God is all good doesn't mean that everything God creates is all good.

For example:

Assume you are the only helmet maker in the world, and you are all good. You try to ensure your helmets are up to snuff w/ quality control; however, you know that the quality control is only 99.9% good, so 0.1% of the helmets are essentially not being tested. This 0.1% may be defective and kill someone by malfunctioning.

If you are all good, you would still make helmets, cognizant of the fact that your actions may result in "evil" (the death of someone from a bad helmet) because it is better that you make helmets that protect many people than that you make no helmets and protect no people. Since you know how to make helmets.

----------------------------------------------------

Your axioms and "observations" actually imply that God is not omnipotent. (God could still be omniscient).

[Matt R.]

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If God created you(and everything about you, because he created everything you interact with and he knew the results of those interactions before he created you) and He knows everything that's going to happen before it happens, then He, not you, chose for you to be evil or good.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think this conclusion follows. Let's say God created a conscious being and gave this being free will. If he is faced with a choice A or B and he has free will then he can clearly choose A or B. He is not constrained to pick one or the other. I have heard the argument that this means God cannot see the future and therefore is not omniscient, but I disagree. Einstein has shown us that our conception of time is relative, therefore I think it is reasonable to assume that God is not constrained by our human conceptions of past/present/future. Therefore God's knowledge of our future actions is dependent upon what we choose or will choose, not the other way around. Since time is not absolute as we perceive it, I think it is reasonable to assume that an omniscient God "sees" both our choice and the result of our choice simultaneously. It is simply our perception that one comes before the other that makes it appear that God's knowledge forced our hand into being "good" or "evil".

[Jeff W]

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Einstein has shown us that our conception of time is relative...

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You mean time dilation? T=t*(1-(v^2)(c^-2))^(-1/2) where T is time in a stationary reference frame, t is time in the moving reference frame and v is the velocity of the moving reference frame? What does this have to do with the argument at hand?

I suggest you either clarify your argument or learn more about the science you reference before you use it to draw questionable conclusions...

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...therefore, I think it is reasonable to assume that an omniscient God "sees" both our choice and the result of our choice simultaneously.

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Leaving aside that this doesn't follow from the preceding statement: How does this refute my argument? If God created us, God created everything we interact with and God knows everything, then we do not have the free will to choose between Good and Evil...God already chose it for us.

He constructed us in such a way that when put into the environment we exist in, we will choose either Good or Evil. If He built us another way, we would choose the opposite. If we had the capacity to choose for ourselves, that would imply one or more of the following:

A. God isn't omniscient.
B. God isn't omnipotent.
C. God didn't create everything.
D. Humans don't have free will.
E. The paradox is not a paradox but only appears to be so because of humanity's fundamental inability to understand the motive or actions of a supreme being.

[NotReady]

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He constructed us in such a way that when put into the environment we exist in, we will choose either Good or Evil. If He built us another way, we would choose the opposite.


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The opposite of what? Do you mean if He built us another way we would choose good instead of evil or vice versa? That denies the premise of free will.

[Matt R.]

Jeff W,
I'm not just talking about time dilation. I'm talking about the nature of time in general -- the distortions seen in large graviational fields, as well as other weird postulated phenomena such as tachyons which move backwards in time. This is why I kept the statement as general as possible, "time doesn't operate how we perceive it to operate". If "time's arrow" can be treated as a fourth dimension that can be altered simply through changes in fields or changes in relative velocity, I think it reasonable to assume a hypothesized creator of our universe not be restricted by our little notion of "time".

You are telling me that an omnipotent creator does not have the power to create a being of free will, tell that being "choose A or B", and know what he will choose ahead of time. If all events look like they occur simultaneously for him, I see no reason why this should be true. He creates and knows the choice his creation will make simultaneously, even BEFORE we make the choice. It is not because he is forcing us to make the choice, it is because he perceives time totally differently than us. Again, his knowledge of our choice depends on OUR CHOICE, not the other way around. The reason this seems odd is because God's notion of time is very likely completely different than a human's notion of time.

And I didn't "clarify" my argument before because this is an internet message board and I fully expected someone to draw faulty conclusions and write random time dilation equations no matter what I wrote. That's why I made my statement regarding time as general as possible, but I see this tactic failed.

Edit -- Just to "clarify" so you don't write a Lorentz contraction equation for your next post or something. I am saying that God can create a being of free will with the ability to choose good or evil. God's knowledge of the choice can come before the choice is made, and yet God's knowledge of the choice can still *depend* on the choice the individual will make. A can depend on B even if A comes before B. The non-intuitive nature of time is what allows for this. The rest of your argument is simply saying "God cannot create a being of free will" (as NotReady pointed out), which I disagree with especially since I think we've taken God as being omnipotent in this thread.

[Matt R.]

Post deleted by Matt R.