An argument for free will/suffering and evil.

Originally posted by bbarr
[b]The act of loving God also entails loving His Creation. In order to be truly free to love God, one must also be free to love His Creation. Conversely, in order to be truly free to reject God, one must also be free to do those acts that would be displeasing to God - including violating His Creation. This does not make the act any less evil (because 'evil' ...[text shortened]... s disanalogous to fluid dynamics. God can choose which "ripples" effect which "fishes".[/b]

No, loving God does not entail loving his creation, unless you take God to be identical to His creation. If so, then loving God entails loving everything about His creation.

No, I am not taking God to be identical to His Creation.

To love God is to love that being whose essence is Existence itself. All beings derive their existence by participation in that Divine Essence. To love God is to love Creation because all things that exist reflect His Essence.

It is similar to the case where one loves one's brother's/sister's children precisely because they are one's brother's/sister's children.

If so, then loving God entails loving things like pestilence, disease and starvation.

Which is only true if they were created. Take starvation, for instance. Starvation does not have being - it is the absence of something that does (food). IIRC, these are called 'privations' in classical metaphysics.

Further, you have provided no reason for thinking that the ability to freely love God necessarily brings with it the ability to choose to do any sort of evil.

The ability to freely love God implies the ability to freely reject Him. The ability to freely reject Him implies the ability to freely choose those actions that that constitute such rejection - in other words, evil.

Love cannot said to be 'free' if one cannot act on that love. Same with rejection.

Yes, and I’ve already pointed out repeatedly your rudimentary logical error in that thread.

No. You've said that an error exists, you've not actually demonstrated it. To be precise (and please feel free to resurrect that thread to continue the discussion), you've given me no reason to think that the function M() cannot have a fixed point.

No, this is false. Human character stems from genetic endowment, uterine environment, early experience, and the feedback from choices and actions.

We are talking about human character as 'empirical facts' here. Empirically, you can only determine what a person's character is by looking at his/her choices and actions. You cannot know any person's intrinsic character but your own.

So, quite simply, you do not know (at least as far as initial acts of good/evil go) that it was easier for your sister to choose good than it was for you.

First, if man had dominion both legal and spiritual dominion over Eden, then God has no right to cast man from Eden.

I said "spiritual dominion over Nature in Eden", not "spiritual dominion over Eden". Btw, I do not think Eden was a literal place; but a state of the human soul.

Second, God had it within his power to ensure that the transgression in Eden would not result in harm befalling those innocent of the transgression. Third, the assertion that it is something like a natural law that “man offends, man suffers”, ignores that God is causally responsible for the obtaining of said law and that God could have restricted the application of the law only to those morally responsible for the transgression.

Both of these objections are really the same. Man's dominion over Nature cannot be said to exist unless Nature reflects what Man does to it and himself. Hence, the "natural law" mentioned above is nothing but existence itself applied to that dominion.

God can choose which "ripples" effect which "fishes".

Yes, he can - but he won't unless Man asks him to and it leads to a better state of affairs.

Originally posted by bbarr
This is because you think, in error, that the mystery is effable.

The Mystery itself may not be fully communicable, but people can communicate some information about it (even if it is only how they found it).

Originally posted by Halitose
:'( Darn

I wish I had said "darn" 🙁 sadly now my attempts at recreating such a spiritual meaningful message all just sound like mundane human drivel like all the rest of the posts in this forum🙁

Originally posted by frogstomp
I wish I had said "darn" 🙁 sadly now my attempts at recreating such a spiritual meaningful message all just sound like mundane human drivel like all the rest of the posts in this forum🙁

LOL.

Note to Bbarr etc: still working on my response...

Originally posted by lucifershammer
The Mystery itself may not be fully communicable, but people can communicate some information about it (even if it is only how they found it).

Why is it that my 30-second responses are always the ones that get recced?

Oh well ...

Originally posted by Halitose
LOL.

Note to Bbarr etc: still working on my response...

I must add : your present dialogue with bbarr is an exception of the mundane drivel rule.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
Why is it that my 30-second responses are always the ones that get recced?

Oh well ...

..... always ? 😉

Originally posted by bbarr
So, in essence, your point is as follows:

[b]God created humanity so that a loving relationship could obtain.

A loving relationship can obtain if and only if the loving parties can freely choose to love one another.

The freedom of choice required for a loving relationship does not merely extend to the choice of loving or not, but to the choice as to d ...[text shortened]... no reason to think that God's being "good" is actually morally important.

Best,

Bennett

God created humanity so that a loving relationship could obtain.

A loving relationship can obtain if and only if the loving parties can freely choose to love one another.

The freedom of choice required for a loving relationship does not merely extend to the choice of loving or not, but to the choice as to do good or evil.

So, humanity necessarily has the freedom of choice to do good or evil.

So, if one seeks to explain the existence of evil in the world, and reconcile this evil with the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient and morally perfect God, one should look towards the free choices made by humanity.

So, there is an explanation of evil consistent with the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient and morally perfect God.

Is that about right?[/b]

Yes. I think that would be a good summation of my main points.

First, I see no reason to think that having the property of being free to choose whether to love God entails having the unrestricted property of being free to choose to do evil. It may entail having the property to freely reject God, and God may take this as an evil, but this does not entail that one have the property of being able to freely choose to rape or murder.

I agree with LH that by needing to love God one would by default need to love His creation. As His creation is the biggest part of our current interaction, I believe free-will would also apply.

If man is to be able to spontaniously lend himself to acts of courtesy, respect, and unselfishness of his free will, this opens the possibility of malicious competition and hostility.

If two seperate "selves" are two be truly free, they cannot be prevented from dealing with a problem by competition instead of courtesy.

Second, even if having the property of being free to choose whether to love God entails having the unrestricted property of being free to choose to do evil, this does not entail that God has no moral obligation to prevent evil. After all, one may freely choose to do evil and be unsuccessful. Suppose I come across a rape in progress. Suppose I physically disable the attacker, thus preventing the rape. I have not thereby prevented the attacker from freely choosing to engage in raping. I have merely prevented the attacker from successfully raping the victim. So, it is completely consistent with humanity being able to choose to do evil that God intervene so as to prevent evil. In short, it is not a necessary condition on freely willing X that one not be prevented from succeeding at X.

We can perhaps concieve of a world in which God corrected the results of free will abuse. I'm not gonna lend my imagination to a rape, but lets say a assault with a wooden beam would render the prospective weapon as soft as grass, or when the air refused to obey if I attempted to send into the sound-waves lies and insults. Such a world would be one in which wrong actions would be impossible and in which the freedom of will would be void. Surely evil thoughts (the initiation of most acts of evil) would then be impossible as our brain would refuse its task.

Third, human beings have, as an empirical fact, particular characters. So, God was morally negligent in his creation of humanity.

I don't boast a conclusive knowledge of human psychology, but I contend that aspects such as introversion or extroversion play a minimal role in the development of our eagerness to choose evil. They would merely dictate which type of evil. I think it is a case of crossed inhibitions and a searing of conscience.

Fourth, the explanation you provide (a version of the "free will theodicy" ) only serves (if successful) as an answer to question of why there exists evil in the world perpetrated by humans. This overlooks all sorts of natural evil (e.g., the massive suffering brought about due to purely natural causes, such as that resulting from tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, viral infections, etc.). This sort of badness in the world cannot be attributed to the free choice of humans, and hence your points above do not suffice as explanations of this sort of natural badness. Of course, you may respond that this sort of natural badness was the direct result of a free choice made in the garden of Eden.

Yes. I concur. Whether taken literaly or figuratively, the Curse is the cause of our wrecked world.

If so, then you will be committed to the claim that it is morally permissible for God to punish the descendants of a person for that person's trespasses. But this is anathema to our moral intuitions. Suppose you stole my wallet, and I not only beat you up for stealing my wallet, but I beat up your whole family, your children and grandchildren, nieces and nephews... You would take such collective punishment to be evidence against the claim that I was morally good.

We are all judged for our own sins. It is true that the rebellion of mankind precipitated God judgement and ultimately a cursed world, but are any of us perfect? Surely we have all rebelled against God and are therefore partakers of the curse. I think your analogy would be more accurate in that the rest of my family keep returning to pickpocket and ridicule.

Best,

Hal.

Originally posted by Halitose
God created humanity so that a loving relationship could obtain.

A loving relationship can obtain if and only if the loving parties can freely choose to love one another.

The freedom of choice required for a loving relationship does not merely extend to the choice of loving or not, but to the choice as to do good or evil.

So, humanity necessaril rate in that the rest of my family keep returning to pickpocket and ridicule.

Best,

Hal.

Hal, try and rise above that judgmental OT stuff, it clouds your vision with stone-age cataracts.
bbarr is pointing out that the rape victim has no reason to love a god that created the evil that caused her suffering , just to see if a rapist loved Him.
And what kind of love could possibly justify visiting a "curse" upon the decendents of somebody that chose to disobey the Being that desired love?

Originally posted by ivanhoe
..... always ? 😉

😵

Originally posted by bbarr
So, in essence, your point is as follows:

[b]God created humanity so that a loving relationship could obtain.

A loving relationship can obtain if and only if the loving parties can freely choose to love one another.

The freedom of choice required for a loving relationship does not merely extend to the choice of loving or not, but to the choice as to d ...[text shortened]... no reason to think that God's being "good" is actually morally important.

Best,

Bennett

But god is not an all good god, god is an all evil god. I thought
you realized that.

Originally posted by frogstomp
Hal, try and rise above that judgmental OT stuff, it clouds your vision with stone-age cataracts.
bbarr is pointing out that the rape victim has no reason to love a god that created the evil that caused her suffering , just to see if a rapist loved Him.
And what kind of love could possibly justify visiting a "curs ...[text shortened]... " upon the decendents of somebody that chose to disobey the Being that desired love?

Currently, FS, its the only way I can meld my believe in a Divine Being and the obvious existance of evil.

I'd be willing to lend a ear...er...or an eye to any other explanation you could offer.

I'm sure its that I.E. crash that is to blame. Where is Noel Godin when you need him?

Originally posted by Halitose
Currently, FS, its the only way I can meld my believe in a Divine Being and the obvious existance of evil.

I'd be willing to lend a ear...er...or an eye to any other explanation you could offer.

I'm sure its that I.E. crash that is to blame. Where is Noel Godin when you need him?

Might that be more of what your conception of a Devine Being is.
Just as a thought experiment, think of the Trinity and plan a 3D world involving all three. What would they look like? And which of the three images is the most difficult to instantiate.

Do the same with the Void and Chaos.

Once done are you really ready to ask your 4 questions?

Originally posted by frogstomp
Might that be more of what your conception of a Devine Being is.
Just as a thought experiment, think of the Trinity and plan a 3D world involving all three. What would they look like? And which of the three images is the most difficult to instantiate.

Do the same with the Void and Chaos.

Once done are you really ready to ask your 4 questions?

?

Originally posted by dj2becker
?

That's probably why that post was addressed to Hal