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[jimwalton]

> Knowledge alone doesn't necessarily mean causation, but knowledge combined with omnipotence and sovereignty in creation does, in my opinion.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Are you implying that (1) everything is determined or (2) God causes all evil and suffering or (3) something else. Some explanation would help me.

> you might take an open theist position

I'm not an open theist.

> The problem remains of evil being perpetuated as it occurs however.

Evil is perpetrated mostly by sinful people, and I explained why I believe there is justification for why God doesn't stop most of it.

> I wouldn't allow certain atrocities to continue for months or years, as many acts of evil do.

Again, we must consider the larger argument of the burden of proof on you to show either that (1) it's impossible that certain goods and benefits come from that, (2) it's indicative of a problem in the grand scheme of things because evil is outweighing good in the universe, or (3) all evil is unjustified.

> If he shares in suffering then he will have intuitive knowledge of how bad it is.

Correct. God Himself suffers, feels grief, knows rejection, etc. And, of course, we believe that Jesus experienced intense suffering at the hands of evil in his crucifixion.

> His lack of aloofness in this domain would conflict with his elusiveness elsewhere

I don't perceive a problem between God being separate from creation in his nature and yet choosing to participate in it by experience. I think we can all empathize with a ruler (king, president, prime minister) who knows what it's like to be a normal person and yet has the authority do help as reason allows. (I say "as reason allows" because part of what I was claiming is that it would be unreasonable to God to eliminate many evils.)

> Simply sharing in suffering doesn't cure the problem for many issues around the world.

This is true, and I didn't claim that it did.

> You might argue that a price must be paid for evil, but punishment should be preventative more than retributive, in my opinion.

The whole point of Christianity is that God will enter a human soul and re-create that soul. I would assert that Christ in a person's life is tremendously preventative, both for that individual and his/her actions, but also in the influence that person has on others. I would say that 2 millennia of Christianity has been profoundly preventative in removing evil before it begins.

But then you talk about "retributive." We seem to have jumped suddenly from a conversation about the justification for evil on the Earth to a conversation about punishment in the afterlife. It seems to me an odd logical (or conversational) leap.

I would contend that God, being omniscience and righteous, will treat everyone exactly fairly.

[Book Mitten]

> But we are not to think that God delights in evil, perpetrates it, or ignores it. The Bible tells a very different tale—that God treats evil not as a compatriot but instead as an enemy. When something bad happens, God is right in the mix to show a noble way through it, to teach strength and courage by it, to bring people together in the midst of it, and to bring whatever good is possible out of even the most horrific events and experiences.

I don't see where God is in the mix to "show a noble way through it" in cases like kidnapping, suicide, and other prolonged cases of evil occuring today. You could argue that he did so in biblical times, but today doesn't seem to hold the same kind of revelation, at least not universally.

If God treats evil as an enemy, then how can it be seen as necessary, as you later claim in passages like these?

> God allows evil to happen because a world that allows evil is in many respects far superior than a world that does not, and as long as evil and suffering are ultimately outweighed by good in the universe, an “omni-“ God would choose no other path.

> For instance, a surgeon causes great pain and suffering, but his aim is to heal. Isn’t this surgeon both benevolent and the cause of suffering? The same is true of an oncologist who uses radiation and chemotherapy. These doctors can cause severe pain and suffering to achieve their ends. Yet I would assert that God is not the cause of suffering, but can still allow it to exist as long as there is the possibility of some good or benefit from it, which there is.

Firstly, surgeons would use pain killers and sedatives if they could where necessary. They are also not omnipotent and therefore work with what they have, as imperfect beings with imperfect ends.

There are certain evils (which I've mentioned so won't continue to list) which do not bring any possibility of good. Moreover, if such an evil is necessary for a certain good, how can it really be seen as an evil? And why should it be punished?

[jimwalton]

> I don't see where God is in the mix to "show a noble way through it" in cases like kidnapping, suicide, and other prolonged cases of evil occuring today.

I see this all the time. I have personally intervened for people about to commit suicide to assure them of meaning in life, that all hope is not lost, that there's a reason to live, and that they are loved (all ideas that come from God). I know Christians around the world for many years (and still at work today) to reduce, punish, and eliminate human trafficking (kidnapping and prolonged cases of evil). I know Christians around the world today working in China (both explicitly and covertly) to subvert their governmentally-approved human rights abuses. There are Christian in North Korea, Iran, The Democratic Republic of Congo, and Somalia to relieve human suffering. God is "in the mix" in the lives, work, and example of His people, and is effecting great change.

> If God treats evil as an enemy, then how can it be seen as necessary, as you later claim in passages like these?

Evil is an enemy, but it can still be used for benefit. Do you remember what Qui Gon Jinn said in "Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace"? He said, "Greed can be a very powerful ally." He knew greed was bad, and he wasn't approving of it, but since it was there, it could be used to achieve noble ends. This is not an ends-justify-the-means argument, but that there can be benefit even in some of the worst behaviors and circumstances.

> They are also not omnipotent and therefore work with what they have, as imperfect beings with imperfect ends.

I had hoped that I explained that even a perfect being must work within non-self-contradiction and within the confines of reality and logic. I had hoped that I explained there were potentially many reasons why God could allow evil even as He maintained being all-powerful and all-good.

> There are certain evils (which I've mentioned so won't continue to list) which do not bring any possibility of good.

So it seems. But the burden of proof against my case would be to show evil can never bring the possibility of good, and only with that proof could you show that evil is unjustified. And since we can never know what strength, courage, hope, compassion, or life changes are truly happening because of any particular evil situation or person, I think that proving that "evil can never bring the possibility of good" is impossible. If that is the case, then it is possible that God is all-good and all-powerful, and that He can allow evil to exist.

> Moreover, if such an evil is necessary for a certain good, how can it really be seen as an evil? And why should it be punished?

It can be seen as evil because that is its nature, and it's a utilitarian argument (the ends justify the means) to which I don't agree. I'm a deontologists, meaning that the rightness or wrongness of an act derives from the action itself and not from solely the consequence of the act. If a person is ethical and seeking a justifiably ethical end, then he should be ethical at all times without exception. The means are just as important as the ends. It is self-contradictory for some who claims to have high moral standards and a moral goal to engage in morally dubious behavior to achieve a moral end. Instead, we look for moral means to moral ends so there is no self-contradiction.

I'm not sure I said evil was necessary. Evil is evil, and it is not good. But it's there and does play a part in life and can be redeemed—used for ultimate good. I mentioned what Frodo said about Gollum: he was evil, and trouble, but he had a part to play in their quest. We could debate for a while whether Gollum was necessary or not. it's very possible that Frodo and Sam could have found their way on their own. But he was certainly useful and helpful, despite his evil.

The Bible says that a time will come when all things that need to be have been accomplished, and evil will be purged from the world.

[Book Mitten]

> Evil and suffering can be allowed by an “omni-“ God where free will is necessary for humanity, which it is. Most suffering is caused by man’s inhumanity to man. What is required for God to stop that—the decision not to relieve the suffering? He must take control of our bodies lest we cause harm to another. He must drive for us so no one is injured. He must make sure we never punch, trip, shoot, etc. another. We by necessity need to be robots in God’s hands if there is never to be any inhumanity or accident (pain and suffering).

I don't believe free will exists. That doesn't mean I don't believe in freedom, volition, and so on. People can make decisions and be conscious without free will. The robot analogy does not hold as far as I'm concerned, as robots are not (yet) conscious. Furthermore, certain robots can either malfunction and develop their own patterns beyond the understanding of some humans, so God controlling our bodies is a separate issue. God does not have to steer our bodies mechanically either. He can simply convince us that evil is bad, through conversation, so that we don't do it.

> Those who argue against this would be required to show that evil and suffering NEVER bring benefit, a position that is simply untenable.

I'm not arguing that it never brings benefit, simply that it sometimes doesn't. That's enough to justify my doubt, I think. Also, evil leading to benefit is a result of our own adaptions and efforts, which are ours alone. To the extent that they are not if God grants us a certain trait of strength, discovery, fortitude, etc, God is then responsible for deficiency of such things, or an excess of their opposite.

> He must also control our minds, for much suffering is caused by words, insults, deprecation, verbal abuse, and even misunderstanding of innocent speech. God has to control our minds, our thoughts and attitudes, our speech, and our responses to decide to relieve suffering

If I convince someone not to do something, am I really controlling their mind? I think God could convince people with wisdom and compel them without some act of "hypnotism" or something similar.

[jimwalton]

> I don't believe free will exists. That doesn't mean I don't believe in freedom, volition, and so on. People can make decisions and be conscious without free will.

To me this is a contradiction. Without free will, we're not really thinking, but following a course determined by our biology. A scientist isn't really doing science, because he can't truly be evaluating data, considering patterns, weighing alternatives, and arriving at conclusions. Without free will, he's just being a blind biological organism. Without free will, there can be no reasoning and no science.

How can you have volition without free will? Any organism that is self-aware is also necessarily self-determined, and therefore also making real choices (free will). We decide if a belief is true by comparing it to the reality to which it refers, and compare it with competing ideas, and by choosing which idea best fits reality. This requires some level of free will.

My nephew was recently on a panel at a conference called Philcon, where the subject of discussion was "The Robot Other," i.e., Artificial Intelligence. A question from the audience prompted this response from the panel: "In our cultural dialogue, we are moving more and more toward the consensus that humans are essentially machines—evolved biological machines that execute our programming on the data that comes in through our senses. The logical conclusion, if we are nothing more than material bodies, is that our sense of conscious agency is an illusion. After all, each neuron in our brains that fires was directly caused by a previous neuron that fired, which was caused by another, or by some external stimulus. It's all deterministic, or at least probabilistic at the quantum level. This belief creates a certain amount of angst, however, because it flies in the face of our most basic human experience—that we make real choices that matter. To come to grips with this unsettling notion that we are nothing but machines, we eagerly devour stories about AIs—machines that we suddenly fear we have a lot more in common with that we might previously have thought."

> simply that it sometimes doesn't.

You're right that sometimes it doesn't (or certainly not that we know of). Sometimes it's simply awful and horrific with no light to be found (as far as we know). But that doesn't mean that evil is unjustified. Since we know there is actually benefit to a lot of evil that goes on, what it tells us is that that our knowledge of these matters is truly insufficient.

> To the extent that they are not if God grants us a certain trait of strength, discovery, fortitude, etc, God is then responsible for deficiency of such things, or an excess of their opposite.

If darkness is not an entity in itself, but instead an absence of light, and if evil is not an entity in itself, but rather an absence of good, how is God responsible for deficiency of such things? God is the reason we see good, have good, and can hope for good. God addresses the deficiency with something real.

> If I convince someone not to do something, am I really controlling their mind?

No. There is a difference between influence and control. My powers to persuade (as minimal as those might be) are completely distinct from what is true control.

> I think God could convince people with wisdom and compel them without some act of "hypnotism" or something similar.

This is exactly what He does. The Bible is that: God's revealed wisdom. It attempts to woo and convince, never force. Since it's a relationship of love that God desires, such has to be chosen, not coerced.

Hypnotism???

[Book Mitten]

> God has to steal away all of what makes us human to preserve us from man-to-man suffering. We cannot think on our own, move on our own, decide on our own, love, forgive, be generous, etc. All of these things become meaningless because we’re not doing them—God is making us do it.

Again I'll put forward the idea that we might be compelled towards God if he interacts with us in the right way. It doesn't need coercion/force or some kind of hypnotism or physical manipulation (another kind of force perhaps).

I would argue that love cannot be coerced (this is why I argue against a hellfire and brimstone God, literal or not, as such threats can't create a loving relationship). I don't think love is freely willed however. It comes about through being compelled by the nature of the subjects (i.e. people) and through experience as well.

Regarding being generous, we can do so as an action that cancels out the evil from occurring. For example, I have done volunteer work, and asked why God does not deal with issues often seen to by volunteers. I discussed this with a religious person once, and they said "How do you know God isn't doing so through you?". Make of that what you will. I think it's an example to consider.

[jimwalton]

> Again I'll put forward the idea that we might be compelled towards God if he interacts with us in the right way.

This is exactly what God does. He reveals Himself to us. He makes Himself known through verbal communication, signs and wonders, by coming to Earth Himself, and by indwelling us. No force, no hypnotism, just the persuasive weight of truth.

> I would argue that love cannot be coerced

I agree.

> this is why I argue against a hellfire and brimstone God, literal or not, as such threats can't create a loving relationship

If there were a danger on the road ahead, wouldn't you want to be warned? That's what the teachings about hell are: you are headed for disaster. It's loving that you are being told so you can do something about it. What would be unloving is silence, and then when you experienced the consequences, you could honestly say, "What a jerk! You knew but never told me this was coming?"

[Book Mitten]

> Evil and suffering can be allowed by an "omni-“ God because a dynamic world is superior to a static one. We will never truly be able to flawlessly predict weather because there will always be variables in the system we can’t see or control (the Butterfly Effect).

Dynamism can exist without unnecessary evil, I think. In fact, certain kinds of evil, like disease, can lead to a lack of dynamism and takes away people's freedom where they would otherwise have the chance to be healthy and mobile.

We may not be able to predict weather, but an omniscient God will have a better chance of doing so. Also, if you argue in favour of the butterfly effect, wouldn't God be able to predict based on this? On the idea of one action leading to another? Perhaps you might again argue for open theism. An issue would arise in such a case with explaining what God does in fact know prior to creation, and why such knowledge would not allow him to have knowledge that leads logically from that.

> We wouldn’t be able to think because all brain activity would be static and determined.

Static and determined don't entail each other. You can have the nature of something be determined by it being in a state of flux.

[jimwalton]

> Dynamism can exist without unnecessary evil

Well, now we're left trying to define "unnecessary" and to explain by what standard it is defined.

> certain kinds of evil, like disease, can lead to a lack of dynamism and takes away people's freedom where they would otherwise have the chance to be healthy and mobile.

Again, these complexities are taught to rein in. Certainly one effect of particular causes, like a specific disease, is a lack of freedom, but we're looking at the forest here. If the contention is that God cannot be good and allow evil, finding one tree as a contrary example doesn't refute the case.

> We may not be able to predict weather, but an omniscient God will have a better chance of doing so.

Of course He would, but the case I have presented is that it would be detrimental for Him to have designed a static world rather than a dynamic one, and a dynamic one, by definition, allows for variation (and even sometimes chaos, but even that chaos can be part of the beneficial outworking of the system). If we are looking at the whole picture, there is reason to believe God can be all-good, all-knowing, and all-powerful and still allow evil as long as good outweighs evil as a whole and as long as evil can be at times turned to produce good.

[Book Mitten]

> Earthquakes relieve pressure in the tectonic plates—necessary for our survival. Sometimes people get injured in earthquakes, but that doesn’t make earthquakes evil. Without earthquakes we’d pop like a cork and all die. Same with volcanoes and tornadoes. They serve a dynamic function, and can’t be removed without removing life.

These are all examples of adaptions of an ecosystem. The ecosystem is not omnipotent, but God supposedly is. He can therefore iron out the worst parts, can he not?

> We can look at the horrible aspects of the Roman Empire (slave pens), but we can also see the benefits that Rome brought to culture and history (Law, travel, trade). While evil is always with us, and horrific it is, without the Roman Empire we would miss out on all the good it brought that outweighed the awful (slavery went away, law did not). Some of the most evil parts of history have actually brought about the most benefit (Nazi Germany motivated an alliance of good nations and resulted in NATO and the United Nations). Surgery brings healing; radiation destroys cancer; dynamism allows science, free will allows love. Love conquers evil. Is is just possible that evil is not the malefaction of an immoral God, or a testament to his un-beneficence, destructive knowledge, or impotent power, but a necessary element in life that makes good rise to what it is? As Frodo said about Gollum: he was evil, and trouble, but he had a part to play in their quest.

The issue is, are these things contingent by necessity on the occurrence of evil? Why can't NATO and the UN exist without Nazi Germany? Why is evil necessary for a healthy unity? Likewise with Rome. Is slavery needed for Law, travel and trade? These things exist in modern societies that don't have slavery. (Obviously there are some who argue slavery exists in different forms, but I'm talking about a specific type for now).

> a beneficent, knowledgeable, and powerful person can allow the dark side as long as ultimately the good outweighs the bad, the dynamism is of more benefit than harm, suffering can possibly lead to growth and good, and my humanity allows me to truly think, to love, to forgive, and to learn

Again, I don't think Nazism and so on is necessary for the goodness of humanity to flourish. As for the good outweighing the bad, as I said before, I think that there are certain things that don't lead to any restorative good. Moreover, the amount of good being higher on a general level in the universe doesn't change or justify this. Why not make the universe more good by not having the unnecessary evil?

That's my responses for now. I look forward to hearing from you.