Originally posted by whodey
You assume that bad exists. Bad may merely be the rejection of what is good.
The Bible refers to sin as "darkness". In and of iteself, darkness does not exist, rather, the term is simply the refernce of a lack of light which does exist.
No.
What actual reasons do you have for thinking that bad is merely privation of good? Pain, for example, is not merely the privation of pleasure. Suffering is not merely a privation of good. Try telling some rape victim that her experience wasn't really a bad thing, but was more just an instance of being deprived of a good thing. At the end of the day, this seems all irrelevant anyway, with respect to theodicy. Even if so-called bads were in fact a privation of goods, they are still to be avoided, right? So, what difference does this distinction make?
The other problem with your line of reasoning here is that bads do not always come at the hands of willful volition (which is what is implied with your talk of 'rejection' ). There are many bads that have nothing genuine to do with talk of human free will.
This is just another tiresome line of the 'selective reading' that bbarr mentioned previously in this thread. God is responsible for all the good stuff; but all that bad stuff...well that's just the result of
the absence of God. 🙄
Well, the bad stuff still sucks, so maybe your God should start showing up more often.