Board index ‹ The Problem of Evil and Suffering

[Keith]

It is mentioned that God despises evil and he himself is holy, without blemish. The funny thing about that is God is actually the source of evil himself. If nothing can exist without God, and evil is 'something', evil cannot exist without God, either. I mean, where would it come from? If evil can exist independent of God, how is he the 'One and Only Creator', when something can be brought into being without his doing?

God had to create evil along with good. If he did not create the evil in the world today, and he is nothing but good, how could it possibly exist? The funny thing is, he now had to kill his own son to save you from his own mess...

[jimwalton]

Evil is not "something," but the absence of something, like darkness is the absence of light. Darkness is not "something." Therefore God is not the source of evil Himself. God didn't create evil, for evil is a lack. He had to kill His Son to save us from OUR mess, not from His.

[Keith]

This is semantics. Evil can be “something” comparing it to darkness is just wordplay, evil can have actual manifestable attributes. And I’m sorry but if he created everything, knows all and is the master of the universe then he should be the cause of that “lack”

[jimwalton]

It's neither semantics nor wordplay. You're the one who chose to define evil as "something," and I think you're wrong. We are mistaken to think of evil as a substance that has to have had a divine creator. True evil is an absence, or a lack of its opposite. By way of analogy, we know that light is both a wave and a particle. Light has a velocity and properties that can be studied. Darkness, on the other hand, is none of the above. Darkness is instead the absence of light, or the shadow where light is blocked. It has no form or essence of itself. It is not a negative particle or a contrasting wave in opposition to light. In the same way that darkness is not an entity unto itself but is instead the state of being when light is deficient, so also evil is not an entity in its own right but the state of being where other essences, such as goodness or right, are absent. Evil is an abstraction, not an entity.

[Keith]

Why are you assuming darkness is a good metaphor for evil? If you “think I’m wrong” I’m extremely curious how rape, abuse, torture, etc etc are not “something”

[Keith]

Why are you assuming darkness is a good metaphor for evil? If you “think I’m wrong” I’m extremely curious how rape, abuse, torture, etc etc are not “something”

That argument doesn't really hold for me because of two reasons. Firstly, there can't be any lack of any kind that God did not allow. So if he allows the lack causing evil to exist, he is still tied to it. Secondly, if God is good and if he is truly omnipresent, that means good is everywhere in everyway. There cannot be a lack of good anywhere in any way or form (leading to the existence of evil). If the lack existed, God (and his goodness) was not present in that moment, which should raise eyebrows.

[jimwalton]

None of these abstractions are entities: peace, justice, calm, hostility, goodness, evil, or love. They "exist" as the result of behavioral choices, but not as entities in themselves. God didn't create any of these things. Now, to be fair, since you are conversing with a Christian, God IS love, goodness, peace, and just; He didn't have to create them—they exist by virtue of His nature. The other abstractions (hostility, evil, etc.) don't exist by virtue of God's nature or as a result of His creative activity. Instead, they exist as the result of choices made by people.

[Mango]

God being "tied to" evil by way of allowing such privations to exist and being the creator of evil as a metaphysical substance are absolutely critically different conceptions of God and Evil that are philosophically significant. If you still see this as an issue then your problem would be more akin to the classical Problem of Evil which has many responses that you can look into to see if they are satisfactory. But I think there are issues with how you are framing the problem here.

Most Christians do not hold God to be omnipresent as that would lead to pantheism or panentheism. The metaphysical distinction between creator and creation is very important to Christian Philosophy. Most Christians would probably say something similar to "God is present in all places but not present in all things."

If we view evil as a privation (as Christians have since at least the 5th century and likely earlier) then something can be good and not good at the same time. Or to put it another way, something can be good in some ways and deficient in others. So a human may be good by virtue of their existence, actions, etc. but could also be deficient because humans are not omniscient, immortal, etc. Thus something can lack good and still be "good" in a broad sense, just not the highest good without any deficiencies. This is why Christians ought to love our enemies. Even if they do evil and are deficient in spiritual and moral virtues they are still good because they are created beings made in the image of God. So being deficient in good in some ways does not make something evil in totality, meaning there is nothing logically incoherent in stating that God could be present in a place where there is evil without also being the source of that evil or that evil compromising the goodness of God. In fact, simply because evil is a particular kind of privation does not mean that all privations are evil. The more interesting question is why God would be present in this way or create things with particular kinds of privations and what purpose it would serve but that question is more theological than philosophical.

[Bufford]

> None of these abstractions are entities: peace, justice, calm, hostility, goodness, evil, or love. They "exist" as the result of behavioral choices, but not as entities in themselves.

…and? They still exist as “things” in the sense of being an existential phenomenon, basic English

> God didn't create any of these things.

Didn’t he create everything? If he created everything and did so with ultimate knowledge and power, why would any of these things not be his fault? He would have known his creations would go on to do them based on the way he created them.

> Now, to be fair, since you are conversing with a Christian, God IS love, goodness, peace, and just; He didn't have to create them—they exist by virtue of His nature.

Then why are his creations and the universe he created with infinite knowledge of how they/it would turn out so evil and awful all the time?

> The other abstractions (hostility, evil, etc.) don't exist by virtue of God's nature or as a result of His creative activity.

Again, doesn’t really pan out. How do things exist in an omnipotent all knowing gods universe that he created without his intention?

> Instead, they exist as the result of choices made by people.

…who were created by god

[jimwalton]

> …and? They still exist as “things” in the sense of being an existential phenomenon, basic English

If you want to go to "basic English" (and, by the way, the Bible wasn't written in basic English nor in our modern worldview), "existence" is a tricky thing to identify and define. Does the past "exist"? Does math? What about surprise? Consciousness? I'm guessing that what the OP meant by "existence," since he/she said as much, is that it is "something." Well, that's just as oblique. For a materialist, to say that the past (or any of my other examples) "exists" is a problem. What is a memory? An intuition? Do intuitions "exist"? This gets squirrely real fast. Are they "existential phenomena"? That's extremely dubious and debatable.

> Didn’t he create everything?

Materially, yes. Abstractly, no. There are many "things" God did not create: lying, cheating, sin, adultery, and innumerable others.

> why would any of these things not be his fault?

These "things" would not be His fault because they are not truly "things." And if you truly believe that they are, then I can assume you are thanking God every day for the air you breathe, the food you eat, any health and strength you have, every opportunity you are given, each success you experience, and every smile on your face. If you are consistent, God is to be credited as much as faulted.

> Then why are his creations and the universe he created with infinite knowledge of how they/it would turn out so evil and awful all the time?

This is a different conversation, but briefly, they are not so "evil and awful all the time." We have friends, food, laughter, love, science, doctors, beauty, and purpose. Life is a balance of "evil and awful" and "beautiful and joyful."

> How do things exist in an omnipotent all knowing gods universe that he created without his intention?

When someone drives recklessly and crashes their car, is that Ford's fault? Is Louisville Slugger to blame if you choose to use their bat to slug someone in the head rather than play baseball? People choose to use items outside of their intention; the manufacturer is not to blame if you choose to use a car to drive into a group of people standing on the sidewalk. Intentions and use are completely different things.

> …who were created by god

Of course people as a human race were created by God, but each individual was not precisely designed so that we are mere automatons playing out a devious scheme. Instead, we are biologically born, shaped by nature and nurture, our choices and our experiences, and God is not to be blamed for the experiences we have or the choices we make.