Perhaps God is flawed.....

[Ivana331]

I am writing a paper on any of the works we have read in our class and I chose to write on a certain scene in Paradise Lost. I have chosen the scene in Book one where Satan is rising up off of the lake of fire and giving his speech to his minions. Anyway, I was just thinking about ways to expand on it and analyze it and all that. My train of thought led me to think that perhaps God is the one who is flawed. I mean, God did create EVERYTHING; he is the ALMIGHTY being, which means he created Lucifer, the archangel, and somewhere along the way things went wrong with him. Anyway, since Lucifer, who becomes Satan, came from God, isn't God flawed in some way? From Satan comes all the evil in the world, and Satan came from God. Would saying this be taking it too far, am I just reading into things too much? Is my reasoning off-kilter somewhere? It makes sense to me that God created Lucifer, Lucifer becomes Satan, Satan creates evil, therefore, God created evil, and God must be flawed in some way.
Any other thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated, I just wanted to share my idea and discuss it with others.

[Miha3la]

What should have God done? Create robots instead? Surely they wouldn't have had the free-will to choose evil instead of good..

[Domer121]

I think the fact that God gave us free-will shows that he is not flawed.. what kind of world would it be if all our lives were made for us?? If we were justv some doll set in Gods great universe.. God created Lucifer, but if you ever read the bible, i believe it is in revelation? that Lucifer was the highest of angels, the most gifted etc.. but he chose to serve himself and not God.. So he fell... I think the fact that we have free will is a way in which God shows us that he loves us etc... And in fact we never really know what the whole world is like, or the afterlife for that matter... I often wonder if it is like Dantes Divine Comedy or not?
I guess when we know the answers we will not be able to share them with others, I guess we just have to wonder...

[Iwillforgetthis]

Please excuse my spelling. My spell check is not working.:flare:

This point is probably moot by now, coming two months late but . . .

The post and replies raise a common question: What is free will?

First, someone posted "I think the fact that God gave us free-will shows that he his not flawed. What kind of world would it be [without it]". If God gave us free will he also gave us the desire for it. To say that God is good because he gave us free-will and free-will is good (when God also gave us the desire for free-will) is circular reasoning. What is so intrinsicly good about free-will? If there was no free-will and we had no desire for free-will (a thing God could easily do) would our lives be any worse or better subjectively?
There is nothing intrinsicly good about free-will. That is why theologens have said that God gave us free-will because it pleases him for some reason. Of course, since God is a mistory to us, we do not know why it pleases him.

Second, Was Satan's choice (to challange God) really freely made? Satan is said to have made the choice because of his pride. Wasn't Satan made by God with this sense of pride? According to Milton (and religious dogma) the angles all have different strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, God created the angles with their own foibles. Is it fair or just to creat a being with a charactoristic which will doom it to make the wrong choice and then condemn it when it makes that choice? Given that Satan was created with this pride was he trully free to choose anything else but to challange God? Did he have the same freedom that say Micheal had?

Many writers consider Satan to be the true hero of Paradise Lost. He chooses to fight what he considers to be wrong eventhough he knows there is a good chance that he will lose. He believes that he and all the immortals (including God) are co-equal, and no one has the right to rule the rest. He says that he knows right from wrong without God telling him which is which. I believe it is Rafeal who tells him that it is better to serve a ruler who is one's superior (morally, ethically, etc. superior). Satan responds that it is better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven. Rafeal smacks him on the chest and the war begins.
JH

[metal134]

The rebuttal, and I've seen it in this thread, is that God created free will, thus, there is evil. But there has to be evil to choose. See, you can create free will, but in order for evil to be chosen, evil has to exist. Now this leads to a quasi-euthyphro argument. Did God create evil? There are two possibilities, both with undermine the idea of God as flawless. For if he created evil (again, he created free will, but evil had to exist as a choice before that choice could even be made), then that undermines the notion of a perfectly good being. The other possibility is that he did not create evil, but if he didn't then evil exists as a abstract ideal that supercedes even God.

[Iwillforgetthis]

Still no spell check, sorry.

Yes, I've heard this rebuttal before: God created freewill so that we could choose. In order to choose we must have something to choose ie. good v/v evil , or God v/v absense of God.

But I think there is a flaw in that logic. Does the creation of free-will to choose good presuppose or necessitate evil. I mean the idea has always been that we were given free-will to choose good so there must be evil as an alternative. (similar to the argument that ultimate good cannot exist without ultimate evil) But must the choice be between two extremes? Did God have to saddle us with Satan and all that it implies. Wouldn't the choice, say, between God, as he is "reveiled" in scripture, and God as defined in some other way, be just as valid? If so, then the freewill/choice explanation that evil is necessary is not valid. For instance: If you want to find out if someone will choose, say a tropical climate in which to live, must you present them with a choice between Tahiti and the South Pole. And if you do, are you testing the love of Tahiti or the fear of the South Pole? Wouldn't Tahiti and Seattle due? In fact, wouldn't it be a better test?

So my counter-point boils down to: Yes, He gave us free-will. Yes, He wants us to choose good. But that does not necessitate evil. Therefore, there must be another explanation for evil.

BTW: I can easily see a perfectly good being creating evil. All I ask is a convincing reason. A convincing reason is something a perfect being could easily come up with. But, I just haven't heard any convincing reasons yet.

[metal134]

So my counter-point boils down to: Yes, He gave us free-will. Yes, He wants us to choose good. But that does not necessitate evil. Therefore, there must be another explanation for evil.
But see, then that takes it back to my backwards Euthyphro argument. Is it evil because God forbids it (In which case, it IS created by God and furthermore, arbitrary) or does God forbid it because it is evil (in which cause, the concept of good and evil supercede even God and undermine his presence as the Supreme Being of the Universe)

[kilted exile]

Some thoughts on a similar vein:

http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25207

[Scuzzy]

First of all, I'm not the most religious person in the world and disagree with most points of Catholicism and other religions when it comes to their view on God and the devil, etc.

I would say that the creation of earth, man, and the angels was more of an experiment by God. And what God must have learned from this experiment is that there is always an opposite to everything that will always exist. Just like there is always light and dark, there will always be good and evil.

The sun gives us much of the support we need for life. It helps our crops grow, but it also fuels the weeds that destroy the crop. Everything has a check and a balance, including good and evil. If Satan did not exist, or any of the other evils that are in the world, what lessons would we learn?

[ashnagesh]

there's always the danger of getting so concerned with theology that you have an essay full of paradoxical ramblings, eventually ending up at an inconclusive dead end... just remember not to think about god as we know god, but god as is presented by milton. also think about felix culpa (fortunate fall), where the fall is considered good, as it allowed for the incarnation and the redemption of man...