There are many good arguments against God. This is not one of them.
It’s a slightly more complicated version of whether God can create a rock so big he cannot lift it. Can God create a universe where I simultaneously have freewill and also don’t have the ability to do anything outside his will (evil)? Can 0 equal 1? The answer to that question isn’t yes/no, it’s that the question is invalid. Freewill does not equal non-freewill. It’ll confuse some unprepared Sunday School teacher, but that’s it.
There are many good arguments against God. This is not one of them.
That is because this isn’t an argument against god. It is simply a question that resulted in a Paradox about the character of god as described by the Church
Can 0 equal 1? The answer to that question isn’t yes/no, it’s that the question is invalid.
What? the question is not invalid. it is a yes/no, the *implications" of that yes or no however can carry significant correlations
Freewill does not equal non-freewill.
yeah, nobody is making this crazy claim…
Yeah, probably would have been better to use dividing by 0 instead of 0=1 as the example, but the point still stands.
Yes/no isn’t a valid answer to a paradox. Can God create a universe where there is freewill and there isn’t freewill? Can God create a rock so large he can’t lift it? Can he shit so big he can’t flush it? All interesting, but in the end invalid questions. But shoehorning in a yes/no when the real answer is just undefined is incorrect.
It’s good fun for an internet comment section, or irritating some youth group leader, but in the end not a useful question.
I don’t get why you say they are not valid questions? I see nothing invalid in them. Instead it seems to me you seem to disagree with the consequences such “yes/no” answers carry and are preemptively dismissing them
Overall this paradox is a thought experiment, as such, even in the absence of a concrete answer, it is still a very valid and valuable question
Alright so your argument about free will only really adds up if you are an absolutist about free will. Imagine a perfect utopian paradise of a world. All are free to do whatever they want so long as it is not “evil.” Your definition of evil can vary but presumably an omniscient god would have a pretty good idea of what that means. Rhe mwans of prevention xouls be literally anything, because y’know omnipotent and omniscient, including just creating people that simply do not have the capacity for evil. Would the people in that world not have free will? Just because there are some things they cannot do does not mean that in my eye. I can’t fly or bite my own finger off or perceive and manipulate the fabric of the universe, does that mean I don’t have free will? IMO the only way your position here is logically consistant is if you do take the absolutist position that in order to have free will you must be omnipotent yourself, otherwise there will always be things you cannot do.
I think I would say that the people living in that utopia do not have free will. Their will is not their own, it’s God’s will imposed on them. They can operate within its confines and limits, but it is externally, not internally defined.
I think you have to separate out two things that are often conflated together, freedom of will and freedom of action. The difference is with freedom of will, I can want to fly, and with freedom of action, I can fly if I want to.
It reminds me of the classic Henry Ford quote about having your car in any color you want, as long as it’s black. If I want a black car, fine. If I want a white car, that’s a problem.
That’s already the case with humans. There are things that a human CAN do that I would never do. The same goes for you and every other human. Are you saying I don’t have free will because there are actions that I COULD do but never would? Because the same goes for evil. God could have made a world where people COULD do evil things but never chose to. Therefore the only reason to have made not only people who COULD choose evil, but also people who DO choose evil, is because he wanted some people to be punished for being made in a way that they would do things he already knew they would do and chose to make them anyways.
In what way is this an argument against God? This is an argument against a god that is all-knowing all-powerful and all-benevolent.
Also your idea of free will is coming loaded with some major baggage.
There are many good arguments against God. This is not one of them.
It’s a slightly more complicated version of whether God can create a rock so big he cannot lift it.
It’s a very good argument against god, and your second statement is a great addition to it. Omnipotence in itself is impossible, as proven by the rock paradox. An omnipotent being can therefore not exist.
Your free will idea however has a very easy counter argument: If free will is the problem, then god has nothing to offer us - since in the afterlife the same rules would apply. Either a world without suffering is possible, or it isn’t. Since the afterlife isn’t known to work by taking away our free will, suffering would therefore continue to prevail there as well. If the idea of an afterlife must be possible (as seen in most organized religions) than the idea of a world without suffering must be possible, without taking away something so valuable as our freedom.
Omnipotence in itself is impossible
The question of God isn’t of perfect omnipotence but relative omnipotence. There’s plenty of room for a “Godlike” being that does not resolve the paradox of omnipotence. Hell, a guy who sits on a cloud and flings lighting bolts has been sufficient to qualify for eons.
Either a world without suffering is possible, or it isn’t
Suffering without purpose. And that’s where things get sticky. Because the argument from Evil needs to assume the recipients of suffering are innocent and undeserving. Otherwise it’s not evil, just karma.
Suffering without purpose. And that’s where things get sticky. Because the argument from Evil needs to assume the recipients of suffering are innocent and undeserving. Otherwise it’s not evil, just karma.
There’s plenty of undeserved suffering in our world, I don’t think we have to debate that. Either evil is the consequence of our free will in some convoluted way - then the same will be true in the afterlife - or a paradise without suffering is possible - then an all-loving and omnipotent god would have been able to create just that. It simply disproves the idea that our suffering was somehow unavoidable to an all-powerful god, because that doesn’t make sense withing the ideological framework of the abrahamic religions. It must be avoidable. Otherwise paradise would be unthinkable.
I agree, this is not a good argument against the existence of god, but it seems to be a fine argument against certain models of god. To get out of the paradox, one must be willing to give up certain notions about god. Either:
- God isn’t all knowing, so it’s unaware of all the evil in the universe.
- God doesn’t have infinite power, making god unable to create a universe without evil (perhaps due to limitations of what god can and cannot do.
- God is not entirely good or god’s definition of good does not align with what us humans have been taught. God doesn’t see evil where we see evil so it does not use its infinite power and knowledge to change it.
I think there are a lot of theists who would have trouble accepting one of these notions, which would keep them stuck within this paradox.
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The Orthodox Christian God is all knowing. Evil is the absence of Good. (e.g. darkness is the absence of light)
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Similarly this God is all powerful and has already defeated evil through the sanctification of man’s nature through the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. Faith and cooperation with the Holy Spirit is how man communes with God.
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Evil is the absence of good. So wherever people sin against God evil exists. Fallen beings exist as well because they too sinned against God but are eternally damned whereas man is redeemable.
God is indescribable and inconceivable. He created a church on Earth so that we can worship him. Worshipping God is good for us not just because God is good to us but because he literally is “good”. In a world without God good and evil don’t exist.
I appreciate you sharing the model of god suggested by Orthodox Christians, but I fail to see how this information alleviates the Paradox.Could you present your information in a way that relates to the Paradox? I am discussing with good faith, so I am actually curious how a person who believes the Christian model of god would find a way to solve this Paradox.
This being said, I do have some questions and comments regarding your statements.
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If god has already defeated evil through Christ, then why is evil so prevalent today, even among those who worship him? God would rather damn people to burn in hell for eternity for doing evil than remove evil from the universe all together? To me, this is, in and of itself, an evil course of action which puts to question god’s goodness.
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I am not sure if I am understanding you here. If evil is the absence of good, then does this mean that evil and good cannot coexist? In other words, can an action be both evil and good, or does every action fit in a bucket of either good or evil?
As for your final statement regarding how god is good and without god, neither good or evil can exists: I can’t help but relate this to the concept in Eastern Philosophy of ying and yang. Not sure if you are familiar with it, but the basic premise is that when you have two opposite concepts (for example, good and evil), one cannot exist without the other. For instance, if we lived in a universe that was only “good” then “good” would not exist, because without “evil” then there doesn’t exist a concept of “good”. In other words, if everything is “good” then the concept of “good” is irrelevant.
Reading your closing statement and relating it to ying/yang made me think that it kind of goes both ways. If god is good, then evil must exist for god to exist, since evil must be present for good to be present.
0 and 1 are not the same thing. Can an all powerful being make them the same thing? Yes, but doing so would destroy the very concept of logic and render this whole exercise that is existence pointless. The theoretical world in which 0 and 1 are the same thing (or true and false, or hot and cold) does not rely on the rules of logic that underpin all human thought. You are looking at a return to the Ginnungagap; the void before reality. The darkness that existed before the first day.
Of course, the “free will” thingy doesn’t explain away all the bad stuff in the world. It explains why we have adultery and murder and nazis. But it doesn’t explain why babies get cancer. And the reason that babies get cancer is that the gods do not know everything, they can’t fix everything, and besides, they wouldn’t if they could because they don’t care. The paradox of baby cancer only works on monotheistic religions, and even then only a tiny percentage of them.
It’s similar to the “unstoppable force meets an immovable object” thought experiment.
They can’t both exist, just like 0 can’t be the same as 1. If you somehow “forced” it to be true because an all powerful deity made it so, the logic breaks, and the answer is effectively useless to us.
So then if a deity made freewill, there MUST be evil, or at least the capability of it. My metaphor is sorta inverted, but hopefully it makes sense.
It very quickly gets into philosophy. We consider the ability to do evil to be part of our free will, but we don’t consider the ability for us to do djskwjejrj to be part of our free will. We still have free will, even though we cannot djskwjejrj.
Likewise, if we lived in a world that God created without the ability to do evil, but otherwise we had free will, we wouldn’t know of the limitations to our free will - therefore we’d believe we still had it. And in that world, we may also be able to djskwjejrj.
(I just keyboard-smashed to come up with that term, hopefully the metaphor carries.)
I think the fundamental issue with this is that it presumes that our understanding of morality is perfect. If an all-knowing, all-powerful God acted contrary to our understanding of morality, or allowed something to happen contrary to our understanding of morality it would make sense for us to perceive that as undermining our understanding of God, making him imperfect. An all-knowing, all-encomposing God may have an understanding that we as mortals are incapable of understanding or perceiving.
It presumes to know a perfect morality while also arguing that morality can be subjective. It doesn’t make sense, just like an irrational belief in a God. I think the best way to go about this is to allow people to believe how they want and stop trying to convince people one way another about their beliefs. People get to believe differently and that is not wrong.
Edit: holy shit those reddit comments are full of /r/iamverysmart material lmfao
But God told humans what good and evil is, therefore human’s evil is at least a subset of God’s evil.
I think the fundamental issue with this is that it presumes that our understanding of morality is perfect.
By that measure, all religions have the fundamental issue of presuming that they have any actual knowledge or understanding of their god(s).
But not all religions claim to have perfect knowledge of their god? Some acknowledge that god is greater and beyond our understanding
My point is that none of it makes sense. Our existence and consciousness in a vast universe doesn’t make sense. So at the end of the day, who cares what someone else believes to cope with that? Bad shit happens, people will explain it was for one purpose or another, but at the end of the day bad shit just happens and we should do our best to stop it, regardless of whos fault it is.
It’s so weird. Athiests claim to not believe in a god but then blame a god for when bad things happen, asking believers why their god would let it happen. Why do they care about what an imaginary god lets happen? Some sick fuck murdered a bunch of people, who gives a flying fuck what some random religon’s god says about it?
Conveniently, they claim to know what their god wants when they’re telling you want to do, but also claim not to understand their gods ways when challenged on parts of their faith.
If you skip the “evil” part and just start talking about “things that are bad for us humans” it’s still true though. Sure, maybe child cancer is somehow moral or good from the perspective of an immortal entity, but in this case this entity is obviously operating on a basis that is completely detached from what’s meaningful to us. Our lives, our suffering, our hardship - obviously none of all this is relevant enough to a potential god to do anything about it. Or he would, but can’t. Hence the Epicurean paradox.
One answer I’ve heard from religious people is that life after death will make up for it all. But that doesn’t make sense either. If heaven/paradise/whatever puts life into such small perspective that our suffering doesn’t matter, then our lives truly don’t mean anything. It’s just a feelgood way of saying god couldn’t care less about child cancer - because in the grand scheme of things it’s irrelevant anyway.
To us humans, our lives aren’t meaningless. Child cancer isn’t irrelevant. We care about what’s happening in this life and to the people we care about. How could a god be of any relevance to us if our understanding of importance, of value, of good and bad, is so meaningless to them? Why would we ever construct and celebrate organized religion around something so detached from ourselves? The answer is: We wouldn’t.
Either god is relevant to our lives or he isn’t. Reality tells us: He isn’t. Prayers don’t work, hardship isn’t helped, suffering isn’t stopped. Thought through to it’s inevitable conclusion the Epicurean paradox is logical proof that god as humans used to think about him doesn’t exist, and if something of the sorts exists, it’s entirely irrelevant to us.
You may be right.
If a god does exist, then bad things are part of its higher morality, or evil design. If a god doesn’t exist, then who cares? Why waste so much energy disproving its existence? Just ignore the crazy religious people, and try and help make the world better. Those people may waste time praying, or not doing anything to help suffering and then act high and mighty, but that will NEVER stop. Religion has and always will exist. It’s a way for people to cope with their insignificance, cope with unfairness, and grapple with the concept of death and accepting its inevitablity. If you want to feel and be better than them by actually helping humanity go for it. But at the end of the day people can believe what they will and that’s ok. But whether or not there is a god, despising or looking down on people for believing is just as productive as you believe praying is.
Why waste so much energy disproving its existence?
I hope it doesn’t annoy you, as I said in it other subcomment trees already, but I feel the need to say it for potential other readers:
Because organised religion has caused and does still cause a tremendous amount of suffering.
Just ignore the crazy religious people
That is easier said than done if the crazy religious, spiritual, superstituous people don’t ignore you and murder you for supposedly being a witch. Sounds medieval, but it isn’t. https://www.dw.com/en/witch-hunts-a-global-problem-in-the-21st-century/a-54495289 Or if you are being beaten and killed for being homosexual. https://www.dw.com/en/iran-defends-execution-of-gay-people/a-49144899 Or if you are being “honour killed” because you didn’t want to live in a forced marriage and wear a head scarf. https://www.dw.com/en/honor-killings-in-germany-when-families-turn-executioners/a-42511928
Long story short: too many religious people suck a lot. Worsened by their need to expand their religion by proselytizing the naive and thereby nurturing more maniacs.
Why waste so much energy disproving its existence?
To mitigate suffering and save lives in the long run.
Religion has and always will exist.
Probably true but changeable by peacefully reducing member counts of religions.
It’s a way for people to cope with their insignificance, cope with unfairness, and grapple with the concept of death and accepting its inevitablity
Which shows the need for further societal support solutions on a larger scale which do not need religion to function. Think of better education, better access to medical and psychological help as a start.
I don’t know if I misunderstood you, but “making millions of people suffer horribly and needlessly for no fault of their own might just be the most ethical thing there is, you never know, so let’s not draw any conclusions about God allowing that to happen.” just seems like a rather unconvincing line of thought to me. It’s essentially just saying “God is always right, accept that”
I guess god just gave us the moral understanding that his (in)actions are insanely immoral to test our unquestioned loyalty to him, or he just likes a little trolling. Or maybe he just doesn’t exist…
Or maybe they have an afterlife of imeserable bliss to offset the injustice they experienced in life. There can always be a different reason thought of, but to conclude to one or the other side is illogical. As humans we want to know definitively and either side accepts their position as truth because it’s most comfortable. But in reality it’s ok to accept people’s beliefs one way or another because at the end of the day we’re just trying to make sense of our illogical and improbable existence.
Or maybe they have an afterlife of imeserable bliss to offset the injustice they experienced in life. There can always be a different reason thought of, but to conclude to one or the other side is illogical.
It’s important to set clear definitions of what one understands as “truth”, “reality” and therefore “logical” to be able to have a meaningful discussion about this. And on the level of credibility, believing in stuff one religion preaches is as much worth as the other religion which at the end of the day is worth shit as there is no way to verify those. If I would say Iwe were giant pink elephants, hopping around on the moon and only imagining the world around us as we believe it to be, there would be no way to prove or disprove this as it is unverifyable in its nature.
Therefore, I prefer to label conceptions as truths which can be proven by the scientific method as its the best tool we have to produce verifiable facts about us and the world around us. Even if that would be an illusion, it’s at least a reasonable attempt.
I’d rather admit that I don’t know something than to just assume some sky grandpa or transcendal elephant goddess did it that way.
A shame you didn’t reply to my comment from earlier, since the afterlife argument is used quite often in this instance while not actually resolving the underlying problem:
One answer I’ve heard from religious people is that life after death will make up for it all. But that doesn’t make sense either. If heaven/paradise/whatever puts life into such small perspective that our suffering doesn’t matter, then our lives truly don’t mean anything. It’s just a feelgood way of saying god couldn’t care less about child cancer - because in the grand scheme of things it’s irrelevant anyway.
Regarding your first paragraph:
According to the christian bible their God literally told them that for example killing is evil. And yet, it exists and God is a mass murderer according to bible accounts. There are various explicit and implicit definitions of good and evil available in that book which is supposedly written by their God in some way or another. Therefore, the omnipotent being defined clear rules of morality which it doesn’t even uphold itself.
allow people to believe how they want and stop trying to convince people one way another about their beliefs
Although I agree in principle with the notion of “live and let live”, organised religion has caused unfathomable suffering and it still does. In a lot of religions it is sadly incorporated into their very core. That’s something which I can not tolerate and will speak out against.
An all-knowing, all-encomposing God may have an understanding that we as mortals are incapable of understanding or perceiving.
That being could make us understand.
Sure, but the concept itself is that whatever entity it is knows better, so the fact you don’t undetstand has a purpose in the entity’s “grand scheme”.
What I’m saying is that it doesn’t matter because as humans we’re all just trying to make sense of ourselves and our place in the universe. The fact we exist is perplexing, and however we decide to deal with that fact is up to each individual, and that’s ok.
Are you 16 and this is deep?
There is a few problems with this diagram:
- Why should God want only the good? What is the paradox of God wanted to do whatever it want with its creation? The all-powerful, all-knowing God would have create Satan and wanted that he did all bad things he did.
- Why should the test be to let God know about us? It could be about letting us know about ourself.
Also the branch that are not yes/no does not cover all possibility. Therefore, this is not a paradox but rather an incomplet thought. I know that much from UML.
I don’t know much about history but didn’t Epicure lived at a time where people believe their was multiple gods? Why is it not mentioned in the scheme? Did he believe that there was only one god?
- Why should God want only the good?
Because otherwise god could not be considered all-god or all benevolent
- Why should the test be to let God know about us? It could be about letting us know about ourself.
Because if his is all powerful, god could have made us with that knowledge already acquired
Also the branch that are not yes/no does not cover all possibility. Therefore, this is not a paradox but rather an incomplet thought
Can you add any that would actually not end up conflicting with “not all powerful”, “not all knowing” or “not all good”?
otherwise god could not be considered all-god or all benevolent
But that is an assumption that was not proved. And an assumption that’s again many religion believe. I assume from his time that Epicure was not Christian so why would he made this assumption?
Can you add any that would actually not end up conflicting with “not all powerful”, “not all knowing” or “not all good”?
If you mean without falling back to the paradox, no. But the point is not to find a solution that let us out. It is to observe every option to rule out every things that is illogical and see if there could be one or more logicial possibility.
Among possibility we are missing and that bring to a solution that is not written on the diagramme :
When its said “Then why is their evil?”, we could add “because God will it”. Then God is all-powerful to create everything he want, and of course he knows everything, because it is what he will and he created.
This way, God is “all knowing” “all powerfull” has “unstopable will” but is not all-loving". This solution is not in the diagram.
Still, a good pratice when making any conditional is to cover every cases, the original schema and my addings do not cover every case so the thought is not finish.
But that is an assumption that was not proved. And an assumption that’s again many religion believe. I assume from his time that Epicure was not Christian so why would he made this assumption?
Well no, that is just a logical conclusion. If an entity is OK or even wants “bad things”, such entity cannot be considered “all-good”. And this is a thought exercise that would follow any “god” that claims to be “all good, all knowing, all powerful” regardless of religion
If you mean without falling back to the paradox, no
Then your claim this paradox is just an incomplete thought is voided.
But the point is not to find a solution that let us out. It is to observe every option to rule out every things that is illogical and see if there could be one or more logicial possibility.
And you claimed you could not find any, same as countless people since the time of the paradox. Ergo, until we can brake the paradox, it will remain a valid question.
Among possibility we are missing and that bring to a solution that is not written on the diagramme : When its said “Then why is their evil?”, we could add “because God will it”. Then God is all-powerful to create everything he want, and of course he knows everything, because it is what he will and he created. This way, God is “all knowing” “all powerfull” has “unstopable will” but is not all-loving". This solution is not in the diagram.
This is not a new “solution”, it is simply another way of reaching the “god is not all-good” (all loving, all benevolent), end of the diagram.
Still, a good pratice when making any conditional is to cover every cases, the original schema and my addings do not cover every case so the thought is not finish.
Sorry but that one is simply another “god is not all good” ending. Clearly included in the diagram and paradox
What if I disagree with the premise?
