God of Love and the problem of Evil

[Yata Mirror]

I'm glad we sorted that out, if this is all we're gonna be discussing I'll just save my response for the bottom paragraphs of my post so no more confusion arises.



How do I know an inanimate object isn't sentinent? Well, perhaps because it doesn't show any characteristics of sentinence. Sure, you could say that for all we know it may have some sort of sentinence, but this is awfully contradictive to the rest of your post in which you insist that a possibility be proven to be considered. (As you say here the problem with free will is that it isn't proven.)

Even if I were to concede that a machine is a sentinent being it is still greatly different from the sentinence and personhood we hold. So again, there is a disanalogy in the fact that we function differently and exhibit different properties. Atleast this should be self-evident.

And again, whether libertarian freedom is proven isn't important here since the argument from evil looks at the case of a hypothetical God. You don't need to prove a hypothetical in order to consider it as a genuine possibility because if you proved it it would no longer be any question about what is probable - the hypothetical would obviously be true!

If you were to concede the machine is sentient, there's nothing to show it's sentience is different from us. You used our supposed sentience to buttress your point regarding free will. So if the machine has sentience wouldn't that also mean it has Free Will?
About it's sentience being different, where are you getting that from. You'd have to analyse it's sentence and compare it to us to know if there's any difference. You can't just say it's different because well you think it's different.

Re-read what I just said. The conclusion is a parodical jump from "may be" to "is". I feel like you're more hung up on the presence of this parody in the OP rather than the actual position presented. I'll try to make it easy for you:

We're not in a good position to make a probability estimate on gratituous evil, therefore the atheist cannot make such a probability estimate. In the abscence of this probability estimate, the atheist cannot say the probability of there being gratutious evil is more likely than not, therefore preventing the atheist from using the evidential argument from evil.

You can ignore the parody presented in the OP completely (honestly I'm starting to regret putting it there lol) and you'd be left with a functional position which makes no claims to knowledge besides the self-evident cognitive limitations. The burden of proof is not equal.

Okay so let's eliminate the parody and then skeptical atheist only claims we are limited and hence can't know for sure, right?
So it accepts that without the probability estimate there may or may not be gratuitous evil correct?
That's what I've been saying. When neither sides have prove, we settle for neutrality accepting that either party could be right.

If the concept of God were true there would be no need for any derivations as it doesn't make sense to wonder how probable it is that something which is true is true.

You failed to grasp what I'm saying.
I'm saying if you use premise that is just an assumption, then conclusions can only be probable and not certain.
So if you use the concept of your God to explain and conclude that people are morally culpable and mentally ill people are not accountable for what they do, then it would mean your conclusion hangs on the fact that your premise is true. If your premise proves untrue then your conclusions fails.
That is why your concept of God has to be true first before, you can claim God made people morally culpable or the mentally ill are not judged the same way.

@bold: There is a difference between us being unable to discern the true manual and there really being no true manual.

Okay.
I already explained this. There exist the possibility of a true manual being among the rest but the existence of a loving God would not allow that possibility to exist because He/She would have shown us. Since He/She didn't show us (at least hasn't shown me) would mean there's no such true manual.

Why should there be proof for a manual? As I said in my last post, even if we cannot decide which religion is true (and I disagree with this, I think we can do so) there is a universal moral law which most of these religions do follow and we as rational beings are able, from a purely secular position (which I assume you don't deny) construct a moral code which most of us won't dispute. (For example, we all agree that we shouldn't kill, steal or rape, that we should be kind and help each other etc.) It's not like humans are completely blind to moral truths, in fact it is on the very foundation that we can discover moral realities that many people argue for the existence of God.

In fact, the whole project of Natural Theology (as I said in the OP) is dedicated to this and in order for the evidential argument to work, these arguments for God must be false. Whether they are false or not is another topic (which if you wish to discuss you can see

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) but to simply claim it as obvious that they are is unjustified.

1. There's no such universal moral law as you claim
2. Not all of us agree we shouldn't kill, rape or steal
3. Humans are not completely blind to moral truths? What moral truths?? Who established those??

Again, your lack of understanding of the type of discussion we're having betrays you. I need not prove that Abraham and Moses existed or let alone were saved, all I need to do is point your attention to the fact that Christianity needs not assume all who didn't abide to a specific set of rules declared by the Church today are doomed. (Which is basically what you said by bringing the problem of "being born in the wrong religion" to the table.)

By this very same token, I cannot back it up any more than pointing you to the fact that, according to (for example) Christianity, God does treat people exactly like that. So if the atheist insists a God who doesn't treat people like this is unfair, the christian will wholeheartedly agree since this isn't the God they believe in!

Not if it brings a paradoxical case from just the Christians believe.
The Christian believes in an Omniscient Omni-benevolent God. Such a God cannot allow Evil to exist because it would go against his nature (I explained this in the previous comment) thus either evil or the god doesn't exist. Since evil is present, the god doesn't exist.
If the god doesn't exist, everything the Christian claims fails.

You see my problem here is that, what the Christian shows from their religious book are assumptions, no proof.
If I bring forth a problem and the Christian attempts to explain using the Bible, the Christian cannot say with certainty that their answer is correct because it would require that the Bible be true. Do you follow?

So telling me God would judge people on a 1:1 relation means nothing to me. It may or may not be true.

 

[Marin]

If you were to concede the machine is sentient, there's nothing to show it's sentience is different from us. You used our supposed sentience to buttress your point regarding free will. So if the machine has sentience wouldn't that also mean it has Free Will?
About it's sentience being different, where are you getting that from. You'd have to analyse it's sentence and compare it to us to know if there's any difference. You can't just say it's different because well you think it's different.

What do you mean that if something is sentinent it's sentinence would be the same as ours? There surely are examples of different levels of sentinence, just look at human sentinence and that of other animals. You would have to be crazy to say that an ant holds the same perception of the world as a human would! I simply don't see where you're going with this as it is patently-false. The very fact that you don't see the ants or birds using the internet along side of us goes to show that there is a huge difference in cognition between species.

How much greater the difference should be between animate and inanimate objects?

Okay so let's eliminate the parody and then skeptical atheist only claims we are limited and hence can't know for sure, right?
So it accepts that without the probability estimate there may or may not be gratuitous evil correct?
That's what I've been saying. When neither sides have prove, we settle for neutrality accepting that either party could be right.

Yes, this is exactly what sceptical theism is about - making things neutral.

You failed to grasp what I'm saying.
I'm saying if you use premise that is just an assumption, then conclusions can only be probable and not certain.
So if you use the concept of your God to explain and conclude that people are morally culpable and mentally ill people are not accountable for what they do, then it would mean your conclusion hangs on the fact that your premise is true. If your premise proves untrue then your conclusions fails.
That is why your concept of God has to be true first before, you can claim God made people morally culpable or the mentally ill are not judged the same way.

I think you should check what I said about hypotheticals. If there were a God then it would follow that we are morally culpable. God's justice would ensure this, if God were real. Now, you were saying that God would be unjust to bring people to a certain situation (such as not knowing about Him) but this makes no sense because you're considering the hypothetical that God is real and are saying that if He were real He wouldn't be just. This however is false since if God were real, it would follow logically that He is just.

Read carefully what I said here, if God were real it would follow that people are morally culpable. Therefore, to doubt human moral culpability in the scenario that God is real is meaningless.

What I'm saying is that you can't look at the scenario in which a just God does injustice. You can only say that there is no such God, but for this you cannot say that such a God permits injustice. No, if we're exploring a hypothetical in which there is such a God (which we are) we need to consider the implications of such a hypothetical. We can't cherrypick some elements of it while leaving others out.

I'm afraid this is exactly what you're doing here by saying that God cannot hold people morally culpable and is unjust.

Okay.
I already explained this. There exist the possibility of a true manual being among the rest but the existence of a loving God would not allow that possibility to exist because He/She would have shown us. Since He/She didn't show us (at least hasn't shown me) would mean there's no such true manual.

This is exactly what I was reffering to above. A loving God would, even in abscence of a direct revalation (which I do not agree on) make sure people are morally culpable through other means such as the 1:1 measure I explored earlier. And I don't think He hasn't shown you how to live, do you think it is right to kill? Would you go to a kidnegarden with a machinegun and slaughter the children there? Now, I don't know you, but I don't think you would. This tells me that you do in fact have a feeling of right and wrong which is exactly the manual for living we're talking about.

1. There's no such universal moral law as you claim
2. Not all of us agree we shouldn't kill, rape or steal
3. Humans are not completely blind to moral truths? What moral truths?? Who established those??

But if you think that we shouldn't do what I've illustrated in the above question you do infact think there is something that is wrong to do. Unless you consider morals to be merely a matter of voting, you would (in recognising something as wrong) discover an instance of this moral law.

Not if it brings a paradoxical case from just the Christians believe.
The Christian believes in an Omniscient Omni-benevolent God. Such a God cannot allow Evil to exist because it would go against his nature (I explained this in the previous comment) thus either evil or the god doesn't exist. Since evil is present, the god doesn't exist.
If the god doesn't exist, everything the Christian claims fails.

You see my problem here is that, what the Christian shows from their religious book are assumptions, no proof.
If I bring forth a problem and the Christian attempts to explain using the Bible, the Christian cannot say with certainty that their answer is correct because it would require that the Bible be true. Do you follow?

So telling me God would judge people on a 1:1 relation means nothing to me. It may or may not be true.

You see, what you're doing now is exactly the thing you denied doing a few posts ago. After I said you're claiming the two to be incompatible you said:

"I didn't act as if they're mutually exclusive"

You denied that you're proposing a paradox but now you are again bringing it to the table. I'm beginning to think you're not sure what it is you're claiming. (For more clarification on this issue click

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.) The supposed is resolved in an illustration I presented about the Fall of Man and the consequences of it. Having given you a logically possible scenario I've refuted your argument that the union of two is logically impossible.

Why exactly are you going this route again?

 

[Deadlift]

Whew, I can say it's been great to read the discussion in this thread.

@nefraiko I've never considered you stupid and I'm definitely not going to start now. However, in one of the comments of yours that have been deleted, you claimed, as far as I could remember, that Islam is the only religion which makes sense. Now, I don't know why you think Christianity doesn't make sense but it would be great if you clarified your position in this regard (not in this thread, obviously).
Oh and you're right, Westworld is pretty cool

OT:

@Yata Mirror while you started off strong, especially you did a good job pointing out the problems with skeptical theism, it seems to me that your case gets weaker reply by reply.
As LaGrim told you, you can't speak of probabilities in the face of a skeptical theist, because all he's saying is that we aren't even in the position to do that! What skeptical theism is all about is that we have no way to figure out God's reasons for doing, allowing or refraining from doing something.
Now, you're bringing to the table a lot of irrelevant stuff, namely:
God's existence, irrelevant because we're talking about the coherence of the concept of the God of classical theism, not His actual existence.
The "one god further" objection, irrelevant because we're not talking about God being more probable than Zeus, Thor etc.

You claim that if God knows in advance what I'll don in my life, then I have no free will. But by doing that you carry a huge burden of proof on your shoulders, because you must justify that foreknowledge means intervention and, as far as I could read you've yet to begin to do that.

@LaGrim great post. Anyway I think we ought to be careful in defending skeptical theism so much.
First, because it is incompatible with Christianity, which requires a certain amount of trust from us. Under skeptical theism, how can you say that the Gospel, the Incarnation and everything else couldn't be a "trick" from God?
Second, in the problem of evil it is rather problematic because you'd run right into the evil god challenge.

Let me spend two words about it.

If you are dealing with the problem of natural evil (natural catastrophes, diseases, earthquakes etc.) skeptical theism can save you because you'd say to the proponent of the problem of natural evil that he would need to justify why God couldn't have morally sufficient reasons to allow such events to occur, and that we're not in the position to judge God's actions.
But at this point, imagine that one who believes in an evil god approaches you, and posits the same question in reverse, asking for a justification from you to such indiscriminate good in the world? If you don't use skeptical theism here too you're guilty of taxicab fallacy, and if you do you're conceding that there is as much probability of the existence of God as there is of the existence of evil god.
Finally, since skeptical theism has been brought to a dead point, it doesn't refute the problem of evil anymore.

 

[Marin]

@LaGrim great post. Anyway I think we ought to be careful in defending skeptical theism so much.
First, because it is incompatible with Christianity, which requires a certain amount of trust from us. Under skeptical theism, how can you say that the Gospel, the Incarnation and everything else couldn't be a "trick" from God?
Second, in the problem of evil it is rather problematic because you'd run right into the evil god challenge.

I don't think skeptical theism is incompatible with Christianity because Christianity itself states clearly that the "thoughts of God are different from the thoughts of Man". The Church plays to God's transcendence quite a bit so if there is an inconsistency it should be treated as an inherent problem of the belief system and not something brought on to the table by skeptical theism.

Even so, I don't think that skeptical theism undermines our general judgement about God if the God we're talking about has revealed Himself. Correct me if I'm wrong, but what you're saying here seems to be that the revalation in general could be merely a noble lie on God's part. We could be simply believing God to be one thing which He revealed to us even though He is something else entirely. But this seems to me a general risk present regardless of whether you endorse skeptical theism or not and I think it is on the same level as all of us being merely brains in a vat.

Let me spend two words about it.

If you are dealing with the problem of natural evil (natural catastrophes, diseases, earthquakes etc.) skeptical theism can save you because you'd say to the proponent of the problem of natural evil that he would need to justify why God couldn't have morally sufficient reasons to allow such events to occur, and that we're not in the position to judge God's actions.
But at this point, imagine that one who believes in an evil god approaches you, and posits the same question in reverse, asking for a justification from you to such indiscriminate good in the world? If you don't use skeptical theism here too you're guilty of taxicab fallacy, and if you do you're conceding that there is as much probability of the existence of God as there is of the existence of evil god.
Finally, since skeptical theism has been brought to a dead point, it doesn't refute the problem of evil anymore.

The skeptical theism would apply equally well in the case of an evil God or simply a diety that isn't all-loving, but this would hardly make a case for atheism. All this does is introduce a rival deity as an obstacle to the belief in a good God. Any God, however, would be a defeater for atheism so from there on it becomes a matter of which God we should believe in not whether we should believe in any God.

Here we move on to what is more plausible, the good God or the evil God? Given the truth of the moral and ontological arguments one could conclude there is a good God. Either way atheism is out of the question and which God is real is up for the theists to decide.

 

[Legendary Saiyan]

I don't think skeptical theism is incompatible with Christianity because Christianity itself states clearly that the "thoughts of God are different from the thoughts of Man". The Church plays to God's transcendence quite a bit so if there is an inconsistency it should be treated as an inherent problem of the belief system and not something brought on to the table by skeptical theism.

Even so, I don't think that skeptical theism undermines our general judgement about God if the God we're talking about has revealed Himself. Correct me if I'm wrong, but what you're saying here seems to be that the revalation in general could be merely a noble lie on God's part. We could be simply believing God to be one thing which He revealed to us even though He is something else entirely. But this seems to me a general risk present regardless of whether you endorse skeptical theism or not and I think it is on the same level as all of us being merely brains in a vat.



The skeptical theism would apply equally well in the case of an evil God or simply a diety that isn't all-loving, but this would hardly make a case for atheism. All this does is introduce a rival deity as an obstacle to the belief in a good God. Any God, however, would be a defeater for atheism so from there on it becomes a matter of which God we should believe in not whether we should believe in any God.

Here we move on to what is more plausible, the good God or the evil God? Given the truth of the moral and ontological arguments one could conclude there is a good God. Either way atheism is out of the question and which God is real is up for the theists to decide.

I think the reason why some people would consider God evil is because of how "God allows suffering" which I personally think is ridiculous to say. All the chaos like the crisis in Syria is a humanity issue that people refuse to help out. Blaming on God wouldn't even help lol

There's more to what I can say but I don't feel like being replied to someone who thinks he/she can "humiliate" me in a debate.

 

[Marin]

I think the reason why some people would consider God evil is because of how "God allows suffering" which I personally think is ridiculous to say. All the chaos like the crisis in Syria is a humanity issue that people refuse to help out. Blaming on God wouldn't even help lol

There's more to what I can say but I don't feel like being replied to someone who thinks he/she can "humiliate" me in a debate.

Are you reffering to the "evil God" deal? If so, that's not what's being meant here. What is being said is that evil God is no less likely to exist than a good God (given the theist's logic), noone is saying that the God you or I believe in is evil.

 

[Legendary Saiyan]

Are you reffering to the "evil God" deal? If so, that's not what's being meant here. What is being said is that evil God is no less likely to exist than a good God (given the theist's logic), noone is saying that the God you or I believe in is evil.

You right but I was just pointing out why it was ridiculous. I guess it's irrelevant to the thread xd

Another good read btw looking forward to more of this.

 

[Marin]

You right but I was just pointing out why it was ridiculous. I guess it's irrelevant to the thread xd

Another good read btw looking forward to more of this.

Oh I see. Well, while I am glad people are interested in what I have to say, I don't plan on making any more threads like this. (I was hesitant to even make this one.) Though if you are interested in material like this, I suggest you visit some apologetics websites which explain the matter far better than I could ever hope to.

A great place to start would be

You must be registered for see links

, a website hosted by William Lane Craig, a veteran apologist who is easily one of the best debaters (if not the best debater) I've ever seen. It's a christian website, but a fair share of it could help a general theist position so it can help a lot.

Though if you want a muslim perspective, I heard Shabir Ally is good.

 

[Hyun ryu]

Oh I see. Well, while I am glad people are interested in what I have to say, .

And here you were worried that your thread wouldn't get enough replies kun:

 

[Legendary Saiyan]

Oh I see. Well, while I am glad people are interested in what I have to say, I don't plan on making any more threads like this. (I was hesitant to even make this one.) Though if you are interested in material like this, I suggest you visit some apologetics websites which explain the matter far better than I could ever hope to.

A great place to start would be

You must be registered for see links

, a website hosted by William Lane Craig, a veteran apologist who is easily one of the best debaters (if not the best debater) I've ever seen. It's a christian website, but a fair share of it could help a general theist position so it can help a lot.

Though if you want a muslim perspective, I heard Shabir Ally is good.

Yeah I watch Shabir sometimes. He's very educated and has a nice voice.

I also heard of William. He actually debated with Shabir. I'll take a look at that.

 

[King Richard]

I believe God's name in the Hebrew explains it best, He is who He is, what makes God unique is not the belief that he alone is the creator and absolute ruler of the universe but he is supposed to be a being above us in every literal sense of the word.

 

[Marin]

I believe God's name in the Hebrew explains it best, He is who He is, what makes God unique is not the belief that he alone is the creator and absolute ruler of the universe but he is supposed to be a being above us in every literal sense of the word.

Oh you're a jew?

Well, then there isn't really a problem of evil for you guys since our goodness need not hold for God's goodness. God's goodness is far beyond our own.

And here you were worried that your thread wouldn't get enough replies kun:

Worried is a strong word. lol

 

[Deadlift]

I don't think skeptical theism is incompatible with Christianity because Christianity itself states clearly that the "thoughts of God are different from the thoughts of Man". The Church plays to God's transcendence quite a bit so if there is an inconsistency it should be treated as an inherent problem of the belief system and not something brought on to the table by skeptical theism.

Even so, I don't think that skeptical theism undermines our general judgement about God if the God we're talking about has revealed Himself. Correct me if I'm wrong, but what you're saying here seems to be that the revalation in general could be merely a noble lie on God's part. We could be simply believing God to be one thing which He revealed to us even though He is something else entirely. But this seems to me a general risk present regardless of whether you endorse skeptical theism or not and I think it is on the same level as all of us being merely brains in a vat.

I know, and that's exactly what skeptical theism entails, if taken to its extreme consequences. One thing is to say that the thoughts of God are different from the thoughts of men, another is that even if God reveals something about Himself to us we ought to remain skeptical because, as far as we can know, God could simply be lying and have some other plan in mind.

You say that this is on the same level as us being merely brains in a vat and I agree, it's an unfalsifiable hypothesis, but so is skeptical theism, a position that leaves us with no grounds for understanding God's will, nature, persons and so forth.

With this I'm not trying to say that we must try to figure out everything of God's plan about humanity, but that extreme skepticism is pretty much as bad as that when it's about compatibility with Christianity.

The skeptical theism would apply equally well in the case of an evil God or simply a diety that isn't all-loving, but this would hardly make a case for atheism. All this does is introduce a rival deity as an obstacle to the belief in a good God. Any God, however, would be a defeater for atheism so from there on it becomes a matter of which God we should believe in not whether we should believe in any God.

Here we move on to what is more plausible, the good God or the evil God? Given the truth of the moral and ontological arguments one could conclude there is a good God. Either way atheism is out of the question and which God is real is up for the theists to decide.

Granted, as you know I'm the last person who would be interested in bringing an arugment for atheism here xd
I wasn't trying to do that and neither to prove the existence of evil god, but only to show why skeptical theism can work for God as well as evil god, because, as I said, it is just a system of reversed theodicies meant to show that -in a skeptical theistic scenario- everything you can say to solve the problem of evil you can say in reverse to solve the problem of good if you presuppose the existence of an evil god.
All the evil god challenge does is to bring theodicy to a dead point, and thus render the problem of evil valid again.

Yeah I watch Shabir sometimes. He's very educated and has a nice voice.

I also heard of William. He actually debated with Shabir. I'll take a look at that.

Shabir is very competent and educated, but idk if he has a nice voice, he sounds super grumpy lol

And anyway yes, those two debated four or five times. My favorite of their debates is "The concept of God in Islam and Christianity", you might want to check it out

 

[Marin]

I know, and that's exactly what skeptical theism entails, if taken to its extreme consequences. One thing is to say that the thoughts of God are different from the thoughts of men, another is that even if God reveals something about Himself to us we ought to remain skeptical because, as far as we can know, God could simply be lying and have some other plan in mind.

You say that this is on the same level as us being merely brains in a vat and I agree, it's an unfalsifiable hypothesis, but so is skeptical theism, a position that leaves us with no grounds for understanding God's will, nature, persons and so forth.

With this I'm not trying to say that we must try to figure out everything of God's plan about humanity, but that extreme skepticism is pretty much as bad as that when it's about compatibility with Christianity.

@bold: That's a pretty big if there. There is a paper by Michael C. Rea which deals with precisely this objection to skeptical theism and I think it does well to highlight the fact that there are different version of skeptical theism and how only a specific kind is commited to such a global skepticism.

You can find the paper

You must be registered for see links

.

Granted, as you know I'm the last person who would be interested in bringing an arugment for atheism here xd
I wasn't trying to do that and neither to prove the existence of evil god, but only to show why skeptical theism can work for God as well as evil god, because, as I said, it is just a system of reversed theodicies meant to show that -in a skeptical theistic scenario- everything you can say to solve the problem of evil you can say in reverse to solve the problem of good if you presuppose the existence of an evil god.
All the evil god challenge does is to bring theodicy to a dead point, and thus render the problem of evil valid again.

That's the point - pressuposing. On the event that the moral or ontological arguments are succesful, there is no evil god and the EGC collapses to incoherence. The EGC only works in the case the good and evil God enjoy the same amount of support, but I don't agree with this so the EGC is hardly a challenge.

Shabir is very competent and educated, but idk if he has a nice voice, he sounds super grumpy lol

And anyway yes, those two debated four or five times. My favorite of their debates is "The concept of God in Islam and Christianity", you might want to check it out

I recommend this debate too, especially to you Legendary Saiyan since it does well to clarify the differences between the christian God and the islamic God, differences which I have noticed you tend to overlook.

 

[King Richard]

Oh you're a jew?

How did you come to that conclusion?

 

[Marin]

How did you come to that conclusion?

You mentioned Hebrew, so I thought you were reffering to the God Yahweh of Judaism. (And yes, there is a difference between this God, the christian God and the islamic God.)

 

[King Richard]

You mentioned Hebrew, so I thought you were reffering to the God Yahweh of Judaism. (And yes, there is a difference between this God, the christian God and the islamic God.)

I see.

 

[Punk Hazard]

Theistic Answers​

Libertarian Optimism

More commonly known as "The Free Will Defense", this will be the first position I'll explore here. Before explaining the position in itself, it is necessary to explain two things. First is Libertarianism which is a philosophical position that humans have free will. The second is Optimism which is that the world we live in is the best world of all Libertarian optimism combines the two above mentioned positions into a view that God's freedom in creating the world was limited by human free will.

It is because humans have free will to act in themselves that there is evil in the world and therefore suffering, both human and natural, in all it's measure is the result of humanity's misuse of their freedom. This is what libertarian optimism is. In a summed version the counter to the argument from evil is as follows:

1) Humanity misuses free will
2) The misuse of free will prevents God from creating an ideal world
3) God has chosen the world with least possible amount of evil in it
4) Therefore, an all-loving God and evil can plausibly co-exist

The argument's first premise is based on libertarianism while the third premise is based on philosophical optimism. Second premise relies on the fact that it is impossible to make someone freely do something (for example you cannot make someone freely do good when they desire to do evil) thus rendering an ideal world impossible as well. Given these three premises it follows that God could in all his omnibenevolence create the best possible world even though this world holds a great amount of evil in it. While gratituous evil does exist, it is the smallest possible amount.

When we go back to the argument from evil we see that the problem discounts the possibility of God not being able to stop this amount of gratituous evil. Given such a God it's not at all improbable that (all things same) the this God would coexist with evil. As such the argument fails.

The problem with this is that this answer establishes its own problematic consequence: God values free will over lives.

If you elaborate on this, it only becomes worse. This argument dictates that the reason God doesn't get rid of all evil is because he regards the free will of the one performing such evil more important that preserving the sanctity of life for the person who's subjected to this evil. If a man rapes a 7 year old girl, tortures her, beats her, and decapitates her slowly, then this argument dictates that God could have stopped it but didn't because he cared more about the man's choice to do so more than he cared about the girl.

While that wouldn't disprove God's existence, it does support the notion that he doesn't deserve to be worshipped.

Skeptical theism

The skeptical theist position goes as follows: given God's omniscience and our own cognitive limitations, it is impossible for us to know that God doesn't have a sufficient reason for permitting certain amount of suffering. The evil we consider pointless or gratitutious, the skeptical theist says, actually has a purpose which only God knows.

Unlike libertarian optimism which concedes that there is gratituous suffering (suffering which has no goal) but this suffering couldn't have been prevented even by God, the skeptical theist denies the claim that there is gratituous suffering at all. All there is, it is argued, is evil which God has a good reason to permit. The reasons, however, are only known to God, so humans in all their incapacity cannot understand them. The counter to the argument from evil would be:

1) God is omniscient and all-loving
2) All evil serves a purpose
3) Due to human limitations we cannot know this purpose
4) Therefore, there is no gratituous evil

This position insists that the atheist justifies the jump from „we cannot see the purpose“ to „there is no purpose“ and due to the inability of the atheist to do this the argument from evil fails because one of its premises is not justified.

This is a cop-out. A claim given with no evidence is a claim that can be rejected with no evidence. Unless you can provide proof beyond a reasonable doubt that evil serves a purpose, then this is just someone trying to present a claim as more probable to be true than false with zero evidence to act as support.

Theological Probability

The final position I will go over here is the one from theological probability. Namely, this argument says that given certain theological dogmas and truths about God the existence of evil (gratituous or not) isn't something we wouldn't expect to see, therefore it doesn't make sense to say that since evil exists, God's existence is improbable.

This position is, a lot more than the first two, dependant on the exact concept of God we're talking about. In the case of God I argue for (the christian God) this works quite well for there is an established set of dogmas that deal with the existence of evil such as the Fall according to which in there was originally no suffering, but after rejecting God humanity caused the ideal world to be impossible.

The point is, this side would say, since evil is an integral part of a certain worldview it doesn't make sense to say that the existence of evil provides evidence against that worldview. The argument here would go as follows:

1) If evil were something that doesn't fit with Christianity it would be evidence against it
2) Evil fits very well with Christianity
3) Therefore, evil doesn't make Christianity improbable

This in a way shoots everything you just said in the foot. The bolded part establishes that it IS indeed possible and acceptable to God's standards to have an ideal world without any evil and suffering because that's what he had the world set as before. The fact that there was no suffering before the Fall of Man in the Garden not only establishes that there is no greater purpose for evil existing in the world.

The only way these two answers remain consistent with each other(otherwise, they disprove each other) is that God created and conceptualized that purpose for evil afterwards, which is problematic in of itself. If God conceptualized the need for evil, then he's a prick. That means there was no good reason for it, and he just forced it when he could have easily just kept the previous state of the universe, which was without the need, and spare mankind from suffering(also bare in mind that mankind as a whole did not deserve punishment, only Adam and Eve and even then, their deserving of punishment is highly debatable).

While these may not disprove God, them and even with the answers just leads support to the notion that God shouldn't be worshipped.

 

[Marin]

The problem with this is that this answer establishes its own problematic consequence: God values free will over lives.

If you elaborate on this, it only becomes worse. This argument dictates that the reason God doesn't get rid of all evil is because he regards the free will of the one performing such evil more important that preserving the sanctity of life for the person who's subjected to this evil. If a man rapes a 7 year old girl, tortures her, beats her, and decapitates her slowly, then this argument dictates that God could have stopped it but didn't because he cared more about the man's choice to do so more than he cared about the girl.

While that wouldn't disprove God's existence, it does support the notion that he doesn't deserve to be worshipped.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that you're claiming God to be immoral or unjust for giving humanity free will if this free will results in huge amounts of suffering. I have 3 things to say about this.

1) God values free will over earthly well-being, not life itself. This is to say that if (as the theist believes) there is an afterlife, our life doesn't end at the grave. Instead, this life is there to give rise to the next and given one's actions in their earthly dwellings, one will see a truly blissful life and (the theist would believe) the completeness of knowing God in this life utterly twarfs any suffering in one's earthly life, no matter how grotesque it may be.

2) Freedom is (at least in the theological context) the essence of humanity, it isn't merely a composite part of a human but an essential part. So for you to imply that it would be better to just remove free will and leave us robots would mean no humanity. In this case there are only two option: either make humans or don't. Now, if as I said in (1) earthly existence isn't all there is to life (as it isn't if we're looking at the hypothetical scenario in which there is a God) and God grants people who suffered bliss that compensates for all the suffering they endured with these individuals achieving their purpose of perfect union with God, it is a far more noble option to actually create humanity and let it endure finite suffering in order to get an infinite blessing than it is to cut this blessing away. At least, as far as the sanctity of life goes.

3) God does in fact, eliminate a great amount of evil by choosing to actualize a world with the least amount of evil. This way, even though no amount of evil could overcome the bliss that one enjoys beyond this world, God chooses to expose the world to a minimum amount of evil. This, if anything, is actually a sign of love and care and not something detestable.

This is a cop-out. A claim given with no evidence is a claim that can be rejected with no evidence. Unless you can provide proof beyond a reasonable doubt that evil serves a purpose, then this is just someone trying to present a claim as more probable to be true than false with zero evidence to act as support.

For a theist to commit a cop-out would imply that the theist had some burden of proof to bear which he supposedly didn't meet. However, to say that skeptical theism shoulders such a burden of proof as to demonstrate there is a purpose behind every evil (as you do here) is simply to miss the point of skeptical theism and/or burden of proof in general.

The skeptical theist doesn't attempt to show that there is a purpose behind every occurence of evil. Instead, the skeptical theist replies to the atheist who proposes the evidential argument from evil by saying that due to our cognitive limitations we are simply not in a good position to say what evil is gratuitous - it does not say there is no gratuitous evil!

This is important because the burden of proof lies on the one making a claim to knowledge, but the skeptical theist's only claim is that due to our severe cognitive limitations we are simply in no good position to assess the probability of there being gratuitous evil. This however is exactly what the atheist assumes and hence it is actually the atheist who is making a claim to knowledge - that there (probably) is gratuitous evil. Hence, the burden of proof is on the atheist to justify this probability.

This in a way shoots everything you just said in the foot. The bolded part establishes that it IS indeed possible and acceptable to God's standards to have an ideal world without any evil and suffering because that's what he had the world set as before. The fact that there was no suffering before the Fall of Man in the Garden not only establishes that there is no greater purpose for evil existing in the world.

The only way these two answers remain consistent with each other(otherwise, they disprove each other) is that God created and conceptualized that purpose for evil afterwards, which is problematic in of itself. If God conceptualized the need for evil, then he's a prick. That means there was no good reason for it, and he just forced it when he could have easily just kept the previous state of the universe, which was without the need, and spare mankind from suffering(also bare in mind that mankind as a whole did not deserve punishment, only Adam and Eve and even then, their deserving of punishment is highly debatable).

While these may not disprove God, them and even with the answers just leads support to the notion that God shouldn't be worshipped.

I don't think it does. The pre-Fall world I mentioned wasn't a perfect Earth on which humanity existed in bliss while being free. Instead, it was state of affairs in which humanity had not yet made any sin. In the abscence of sin there was no suffering as suffering is a consequence of sin. However, after sinning against God for the first time, humanity fell out of God's grace in their willing rejection of God, or so the theist believes. In doing so humanity has brought ruin upon itself for by rejecting God they rejected goodness and bliss (since these 2 are a part of God's essence). From then on, the perfect world was no longer an option. It wasn't God who arbitrarly changed the rules of the game, it was humanity who upon rejecting God doomed itself.

Also, you talk about the suffering in the world as if it's a matter of God's standards - something God desires. I don't think this at all. In fact, I believe God desires there to be no evil which is why there originally was no evil, but given humanity's free will a world without suffering is not realisable in the same way it once was. Humanity now has to go back to God on its own free will - the same way they rejected Him. I asked Yata Mirror this so I will ask you too, do I need to explain my interpretive view of the Fall (as I pressupose you know it)?

As for punishment, well I don't think God does punish people in the sense of vengefully inflicting suffering on them or dooming them in hell to fix the injustice done upon Him. Instead, I take the fall and it's consequences as a necessary reaction to human rejection of God, rather than God actively expelling humanity from a perfect relationship as the Genesis account reads.