God works in mysterious ways.

Originally posted by LemonJello
i see some appeals to free will in the near future. been there, done that, don't think such appeals work.

Why? I can see no other way for an omniscient, omnipotent God to allow evil.

Originally posted by Halitose
Why? I can see no other way for an omniscient, omnipotent God to allow evil.

what in the world are you talking about? he's omnipotent for pete's sake! he can inflict any type of logically possible evil that he wants to! but then he of course becomes a morally repugnant monster. so what you really meant is that you see no other way such a god can allow evil and not be a morally repugnant monster.

my thinking is that he is morally responsible if any evil occurs whatsoever, no matter how you slice it, and no matter whether free will exists or not. i just don't think free will can successfully relieve this god of moral responsibility. the attributes of omniscience and omnipotence are incredibly strong: essentially, if he exercises these attributes, absolutely nothing can just happen spuriously against his will. absolutely any specific event that takes place does so because, at the very least, this god did not deem it necessary to prevent said event from occurring. thus, every event is at least willfully allowed to occur by this god; additionally, in every case, he could have (very easily mind you) acted otherwise to prevent the event from occurring, and he knows that. these constitute a pretty solid foundation for moral responsibility.

it really doesn't matter whether we have free will or not in my opinion. there are many other further reasons why i don't think free will gets around the problem of evil, but i have already expounded on many of them in other threads. as an aside, everybody seems to think free will is a good of supreme importance, and i tend to agree that the existence of free will would be superior to the non-existence of free will on at least an aesthetic level; however, why is there reason to think that the good afforded by free will necessarily outweighs the good that would result from an absence of suffering, or simply the existence of less suffering (if indeed free will does necessitate suffering, which i am not convinced it does)? in other words, if free will does necessitate suffering, why is there reason to think such suffering is logically necessary? this question is of course crucial if you are trying to use free will to get around the problem of evil.

of course, free will has nothing to do with natural evils. all you have to do is look at the devastation left by katrina, and i think it's pretty apparent what conclusion will emerge: IF an omniscient, omnipotent god exists, THEN he is morally repugnant, at least some of the time. i certainly hope that if god exists, he is not omniscient and omnipotent (or at least does not exercise such capacities). such attributes are so absurdly strong anyway, that we would do just fine with a god who is only pretty darn powerful and only pretty darn smart. if, on the other hand, he's an omni-whatnot god who also happens to be callous, then fine. that would actually explain a lot. but i would just like to hear a christian admit his callousness. given the lack of evidence for His existence to begin with, i tend to just see katrina as a natural occurrence which just happens to be very unfortunate and very sad for very many.

Originally posted by LemonJello
what in the world are you talking about? he's omnipotent for pete's sake! he can inflict any type of logically possible evil that he wants to! but then he of course becomes a morally repugnant monster. so what you really meant is that you see no other way such a god can allow evil and not be a morally repugnant monster.

my thinking is that he is ...[text shortened]... na as a natural occurrence which just happens to be very unfortunate and very sad for very many.

what in the world are you talking about? he's omnipotent for pete's sake! he can inflict any type of logically possible evil that he wants to! but then he of course becomes a morally repugnant monster. so what you really meant is that you see no other way such a god can allow evil and not be a morally repugnant monster.

Right. I keep forgeting that you're not a mind reader like some of the others on the forum 😛 I shant mention any names.

my thinking is that he is morally responsible if any evil occurs whatsoever, no matter how you slice it, and no matter whether free will exists or not. i just don't think free will can successfully relieve this god of moral responsibility. the attributes of omniscience and omnipotence are incredibly strong: essentially, if he exercises these attributes, absolutely nothing can just happen spuriously against his will.

Okay. If I follow you correctly, you are saying that because God allows evil, He is morally responsible for it.

I'm sure you are familiar with the biblical arguments for free will, so I won't bother explaining the why of the why (unless you want me to).

The bottom line of the free will argument is that God allows mankind the freedom to basically do what he likes within the confines of the physical laws of our universe. By allowing this, God obviously doesn't interfere with our actions. That doesn't mean that God callously sits and watches. The onus just shifts from one of prevention to one of justice. Lets take a common example, where most people would agree that it is evil: rape.

God allows the rapist to exercise his free will without interfering, but that is not where this ends. Justice will always be served. I think as humans with our myopic, three-dimentional, perspective that is trapped in time and space, we can't grasp eternity. We can look at a glass of water and understand what we see, but we can't really fathom all the water in the oceans. That rapist will be judged by God for his action and I don't think we can grasp an eternity without God.

So too with the raped woman. From an eternal perspective the psychological effect of a rape is like a drop in the bucket. That doesn't mean we shouldn't help these women and give them as much love and support as possible.

absolutely any specific event that takes place does so because, at the very least, this god did not deem it necessary to prevent said event from occurring. thus, every event is at least willfully allowed to occur by this god; additionally, in every case, he could have (very easily mind you) acted otherwise to prevent the event from occurring, and he knows that. these constitute a pretty solid foundation for moral responsibility.

True. But God is above our petty laws of moral responsibility. Surely the created would be responsible to the creator, not the other way around.

it really doesn't matter whether we have free will or not in my opinion. there are many other further reasons why i don't think free will gets around the problem of evil, but i have already expounded on many of them in other threads.

Darn. As a newbie I missed em.

as an aside, everybody seems to think free will is a good of supreme importance, and i tend to agree that the existence of free will would be superior to the non-existence of free will on at least an aesthetic level; however, why is there reason to think that the good afforded by free will necessarily outweighs the good that would result from an absence of suffering, or simply the existence of less suffering (if indeed free will does necessitate suffering, which i am not convinced it does)? in other words, if free will does necessitate suffering, why is there reason to think such suffering is logically necessary?

The reason why IMHO it is logically necessary is because in a world without free will, love would not exist. You cannot program something to love you. For example, one could program a computer to say "I love you" - but naturally that would not be real love. I believe God created humans to love Him and so He could have eternal fellowship with them.

of course, free will has nothing to do with natural evils. all you have to do is look at the devastation left by katrina, and i think it's pretty apparent what conclusion will emerge: IF an omniscient, omnipotent god exists, THEN he is morally repugnant, at least some of the time.

Right. Katrina is perfectly explained scientifically as a natural event caused by meteorological phenomenon. God allowed nature to take its course. My reasoning here is again that from an eternal perspective life here on earth is but a drop in the ocean. I think many people are happier now than they would have been.

i certainly hope that if god exists, he is not omniscient and omnipotent (or at least does not exercise such capacities). such attributes are so absurdly strong anyway, that we would do just fine with a god who is only pretty darn powerful and only pretty darn smart.

Hmmm... 😕

if, on the other hand, he's an omni-whatnot god who also happens to be callous, then fine. that would actually explain a lot. but i would just like to hear a christian admit his callousness.

Well that is where I think we might interpret the pardox of God's love and justice as callous.

given the lack of evidence for His existence to begin with, i tend to just see katrina as a natural occurrence which just happens to be very unfortunate and very sad for very many.

Sure.

Originally posted by STANG
God made terrorists.

First you have to prove that god exists, second for every terrorist there are many pacifists

jay
are you trying to set a new thread bumping record or something??

Originally posted by aspviper666
jay
are you trying to set a new thread bumping record or something??

No of course not 🙂

Brightly Lit Arms
My mother has told me this story several times, and believe it or not, I can remember it vividly. I was two years old, and like any curious two year old I was exploring the glass objects my mother had on an unsturdy shelf. I remember pulling the shelf over towards me, and falling down. The glass items and the shelf came crashing towards me as I layed helpless on the floor. Suddenly, I saw these two brightly lit strong arms come up over me as though they were my own, and pushed the shelf over to the left of me, where it crashed to the ground. The glass shattered completely. I should have been hurt badly, and covered with glass! I didn't have a speck on me. I know this was an angel, and I have never forgotten that God is watching over us all.

Nic, Washington

God works in mysterious ways indeed. God bless.

My Sons Angels
I have had two encounters with angels, the first on February 25th, 1995, when my oldest son Brian was 5 years old. On that particular day, we were out on I-80 when suddenly a huge snowstorm started falling, being new to the area, I had no idea what it was like to drive in a storm like that so I stayed behind an eighteen-wheeler.

When my turn came to exit I hit a patch of black ice and my car started spinning and flipped over twice. The brakes were locked and there was no way to control the car. Suddenly the car straightened out and started gaining speed, when I looked up I saw we were headed straight for a trailer parked on the other side of the road, I knew at that moment we were going to die. I yelled for my son to get down on the floor of the back seat and lie as flat as he could, at least I would try for him to survive.

That's when I started praying. Suddenly as we were a few inches away from hitting the trailer I felt as if a huge hand came out of the sky and literally pushed the car into the median, we flipped over a few more times and when the car finally came to a stop I yelled for my son to run away as fast as he could. I never looked back. When the police finally came, the officer asked if there was anybody else in the car because he couldn't believe we had actually walked away from that wreck.

The truck driver said that it was as if something had shoved the car as we were about to hit the trailer. The car was a total loss. The amazing thing was not what the car looked like on the outside, when I finally looked inside the car was untouched, as if there had been a protective shield around the inside that kept us from being hurt.

The second time was last October 26th, when my youngest son Joey, also 5 at the time was ill. He had been sick with a throat infection for a few days and we had been battling intermitently high fevers. On the day in question my husband came over at 7 pm (he works the evening shift in a cab) to see if everything was OK, Joey had been fine all day and seemed to be getting better, so my husband went back to work and told me he wouldn't be home again until 2:30 am. By 10 o'clock Joey was suffocating, he couldn't breathe and he was turning blue around his mouth and the tips of his fingers. I ran to my neighbors house to ask her to take us to the hospital but she said no.

I had no telephone at the time and no car either, so my brain just locked up and I couldn't think of anything. As I sat on my couch holding my baby begging God to send me one of his angels to hold my son until his father arrived and to let me breathe for him, I knew my little boy was dying. He was almost unconscious when suddenly a voice in my head told me everything would be fine and this enormous peace just came over me. At 10:45 my husband at break-neck speed came running into the house yelling and asking what was wrong.

On the way to the hospital he told me that around 10:15 as he was picking up an out of town fare a voice in his head started telling him to get home because something was very wrong, he tried to ignore it but the voice insisted, so he got scared and sped home as fast as he could. When we got to the hospital the doctor diagnosed Joey's first asthma crisis (he had never had one before) but since it was of such a severe magnitude they did not know if he would get through it and we were told to prepare for the worst. He was in the crisis for 16 hours. And suddenly as fast as it came it disappeared.

I knew then my son had not been alone. When he woke up he told me about a pretty lady who had stood at the foot of his bed during the whole time and sung beautiful songs to him, and kept telling him everything would be fine, that she would help him breathe. I had sat next to my son's bed in the ICU all night, I never saw anybody at the foot of his bed. None of the nurses or doctors stood in that place. I think it must have been his guardian angel sent by God to let his father know he was in danger and to help him through his crisis.

I know now, no matter what, there is somebody looking after my children besides me.

Thanks
Tracy

Originally posted by The Chess Express
[b]My Sons Angels
I have had two encounters with angels,[/b]

I'll bet if you sent these two stories to Reader's Digest, they'd pay you good money for them. Lots of good money.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
I'll bet if you sent these two stories to Reader's Digest, they'd pay you good money for them. Lots of good money.

Here is the website.

http://www.angels-online.com/index.html

Originally posted by The Chess Express
Here is the website.

http://www.angels-online.com/index.html

And what were these people drinking at the time? Too much holy wine I think.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
And what were these people drinking at the time? Too much holy wine I think.

That’s your scientific explanation is it?