Philosophically Speaking, "Is Suffering a Challenge to God's Existence?"

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Originally Posted by Virgil

Suffering is part of how we form compassion, and through compassion, love and self sacrifice. Suffering is how God makes us worthy of salvation, and is actually a gift from God. Christ's suffering in His passion is our model for suffering, and many saints embraced suffering to bring themselves closer to Christ. If you're interested, the life and writings of St. Thérèse of Lisieux explains it well.

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Thank you for your perspective, Virgil. I appreciate that it is heartfelt, although it raises some troubling questions. Here are a few:

Were the Jewish children who suffered and perished in the Holocaust receiving "a gift from God" making them "worthy of Salvation"? Why weren't they worthy of Salvation before this? Why didn't God find a less cruel way to give them this gift? Why couldn't they (and others) have been made worthy of Salvation without suffering? Were their deaths really required? Was God really imposing "Christ's suffering and His passion" as a "model of suffering" in the Final Solution? Could that view (which I imagine you reject as indignantly as I do) ever be reconciled with an all-loving God? Why would such a God give this "gift" to innocent children?

These are not meant to be rhetorical questions. If you have answers for them, I'm sure they would advance the conversation. Again, I appreciate your sincerity.

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Originally Posted by Iain Sparrow

...atheists like myself approach human suffering, or for that matter the Meaning of Life, God and Everything.
An atheist believes there is no intrinsic value to any human thought or endeavor, suffering, faith in a God, non belief, justice, redemption, etc, etc. A child dying of cancer is no more or less important than a leaf falling from a tree. It's meaningless.

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Ouch. So, you have no feelings for the dying child (well, no more than a leaf)? Everything is meaningless? You have no purpose for living then? How do you remain sane? Aren't you scared?

There's absolutely no way he upholds that philosophy in his day to day life.

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

Yes, I appreciate the distinction between pantheism and panentheism (we've had the conversation before), but I don't see how either supports the idea of the Judeo-Christian God, either in a general sense or in the details of Biblical literalism. I would say yes (at least in the general sense) if you could show me that this panentheistic divinity is a unitary God of love and justice rather than just a divine essence underlying all things--but I don't think you can. As far as I can see, the God of love and justice requires faith.

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I am not trying to argue for anything more than a cosmic consciousness that has both an immanent and transcendent aspect with respect to the universe. However, that cosmic consciousness does not prevent it from also being described as a God of love and justice. That is where you need to look to your religious tradition for answers. I don't have those answers.

The existence of a cosmic consciousness does invalidate atheism.

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

And for me, that touches the thread's original question: how is a God of love and justice reconcilable to a world of suffering and injustice. As some have already pointed out, that question is not answered by assertions that belief in such a God make suffering and injustice easier to bear. Worse (in my opinion) are appeals to a killer God whose supposed justice is little more than an excuse for the world's problems--including violence, death, and in some cases, even genocide. Since parts of the Bible were written or edited to reflect such apologetic views, an uncritical, "literalist" stitching together of the Bible's many voices, in my opinion, produces a dangerous chimera--one never dreamt of by the Bible's authors.

That controversy notwithstanding, any appeal to "God's perfect plan" needs to account for a mind-boggling degree of inscrutability. Divine inscrutability is, of course, a possibility (as far as I can see it is the solution put forth by the redactors of Job), but it raises its own troubling questions: how can we live moral lives when we are incapable of understanding God's plan? How can we speak with certainty of a God we are not capable of understanding? Can understanding/enlightenment be achieved in this lifetime? Is it attainable after death? And how do we know for sure (assuming that uncritical "proof texting" is off the table)?

One solution (and I'm only throwing it out there) is that we don't understand these things because we are not meant to understand them. In that view, we live in a world where any atrocity might happen and we respond accordingly: moving toward faith in God or away. We may lack full freedom of will, but we do not lack choice. Perhaps the meaning of life is simply to choose God (for the Christian: God-with-us) despite the world's depravity and our own natures; or from an ethical atheist's perspective, to choose the Good despite the temptations of nihilism.

For me, these possibilities raise the questions: to what end? A better life? A serene death? To "merit" eternal life in Paradise? Because choosing the Good is right regardless of the end? Because choosing to have faith in God is within me--trusting to God for whatever the end will be? To grow in wisdom in preparation for another spin at worldly existence? To be done with such things and find peace.

This is a theology I continue to consider.

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The way I hear evolution described, it is a struggle for survival. Why do species want to survive anyway? I imagine because they find life enjoyable. Why is life enjoyable? Perhaps because they are faced with challenges that they have enough freedom and ability to solve.

The world's depravity causes us to suffer. This causes us to use what freedom we have to look for solutions to the problem. This generates change. We continue evolving. Why bother evolving? I think you answered that with the solution you provided above.

But to what end? That's sounds like another problem we will have the opportunity and pleasure to solve.

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Originally Posted by Virgil

I'm not sure I quite understand your point Melanie in the original post. Suffering is part of how we form compassion, and through compassion, love and self sacrifice. Suffering is how God makes us worthy of salvation, and is actually a gift from God. Christ's suffering in His passion is our model for suffering, and many saints embraced suffering to bring themselves closer to Christ. If you're interested, the life and writings of St. Thérèse of Lisieux explains it well.

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Virgil, when I look around and see poverty and suffering all around me, I just cannot accept that God intended it for our benefit. I feel the instinct of compassion is in us already, that God created us with it, and the only purpose that large scale suffering serves, when we really cannot do anything about it, is to desensitize us and make us less compassionate. We are not all Mother Theresa, nor do I feel God meant us to be, nor would suffering end if we were. Poverty and suffering is just bad, bad for the victims, bad for those around, and to say it's all God's plan sounds like an insult to those who suffer.

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Originally Posted by Melanie

I have found in the "Religious Texts" Forum that many members here believe that IF God our creator existed then he wouldn't allow suffering and therefore, our suffering proves God doesn't exist. Many arguments using Biblical scripture, religious texts, faith, beliefs, and scientific theories have been battled out in the "Religious Texts" Forum ad nauseam. So, my original post and purpose of this thread is to approach God's Existence, as challenged by their argument regarding suffering, from a purely logical and philosophical angle in the "Philosophical Literature" Forum. I began with a compelling view from a Professor of Philosophy from Boston University. You'll notice that Professor Kreeft never used any references to religious texts to make his point that our suffering doesn't disprove God's existence.

Your post, Virgil, is about what you believe to be God's plan for our "worthiness" via suffering, and your belief that our suffering is a gift from God, and using St. Therese's writings as a foundation…but to a non-believer that is not compelling evidence for God's existence, not in the eyes of unbelievers who are driven by logic alone. I agree that there are many reason's listed in scripture for why God allows suffering but I'm not one to believe that our suffering is to make us worthy for God's Kingdom. In the Religious Text Forum I could use my King James Bible to argue against your view and to post my personal view that salvation is by grace and not earned by our suffering to make us worthy of salvation since Christ already paid that price for us by suffering on the cross (why would we have need of a savior if we must earn salvation ourselves through suffering?)…but this argument would belong in the Religious Texts Forum, using scripture verses etc...not here. I appreciate and respect your views though.

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Melanie, as far as I can tell, Kreeft's argument is that just or unjust, good or bad only have meaning if God exists. God is the only standard by which we can judge whether a thing is good or bad. Now I find this completely faulty. I feel that we ourselves are the standard by which we judge whether a thing is good or bad. If we do not want something to happen to us, it's bad. If we do, it's good. Another attempt to prove God's existence by logic fails.

All this is played out wonderfully in the book of Job. Not the question of God's existence which nobody in those days had any doubts about, but why a just and compassionate God would allow suffering. Job's friends come up with some pretty good logical/philosophical arguments which Job rejects outright (and God rebukes them for, in the end). Job accepts the fact that God permits suffering. That good people suffer. That the bad guys often flourish like the green bay tree. He realizes that the ways of God are beyond his understanding, but he still wants to know why. Finally God replies with cosmic grandeur and aplomb, but without really giving any answers. In the end I think it is only through such literary meanings that we can get a faint glimmer of the truth, so that is why it is almost impossible to answer a question about God without referring to the scriptures.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

I am not trying to argue for anything more than a cosmic consciousness that has both an immanent and transcendent aspect with respect to the universe. However, that cosmic consciousness does not prevent it from also being described as a God of love and justice. That is where you need to look to your religious tradition for answers. I don't have those answers.

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Here's my problem with all this, YesNo: you say that this cosmic consciousness invalidates atheism. I'm not dismissive of that (although imagine many physical scientists would beg to differ); neither am I an atheist. But you then say--although you are "not trying to argue for anything more"---"that cosmic consciousness does not prevent it from also being described as a God of love and justice."

And why on earth would that be? Because once we've hypothesized a cosmic consciousness we are free to call it anything we like? Is it also a god of fear and desperation like Pan? Or of madness and violence like Dionysus? Is it Loki? Or Sun Wukong? Or Beelzebub? What evidence do you have that it is the God of love and justice? Or the Hebrew God? Or the Holy Trinity? Am I correct in saying that you have none?

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Originally Posted by YesNo

The way I hear evolution described, it is a struggle for survival. Why do species want to survive anyway? I imagine because they find life enjoyable. Why is life enjoyable? Perhaps because they are faced with challenges that they have enough freedom and ability to solve.

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Survival and reproduction are biological imperatives (with big pleasure payoffs) engineered by natural selection. Critters who don't like to eat and date have passed on very little genetic material over the eons. Likewise those who prefer being killed to killing. You may find having the freedom to solve cool puzzles entertaining, YesNo, but if you were in a lifeboat on the open sea with nine men, and there was only food and water enough for three, you would find new sources of joy--and problem solving--soon enough.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

The world's depravity causes us to suffer. This causes us to use what freedom we have to look for solutions to the problem. This generates change. We continue evolving. Why bother evolving? I think you answered that with the solution you provided above.

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I don't know how to break this to you (I admit it's a religious view, so I'll try not to force it down your throat), but we ARE that depravity. And it is evolution that makes us so; because natural selection agrees with Iain: blind, stupid, and cruel, a child dying of cancer is no more important to it than a leaf falling from a tree. That is our Original Sin--bred in the bone. We don't need fables of Eden to understand the Fall. What we need is to be saved. How that happens is for us to work out--with fear and trembling or not. For me it means choosing God.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

But to what end? That's sounds like another problem we will have the opportunity and pleasure to solve.

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Okay, I'm in, although given the rancorous and bloody history of religious debate, I wouldn't hold your breath. :)

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Originally Posted by mona amon

Melanie, as far as I can tell, Kreeft's argument is that just or unjust, good or bad only have meaning if God exists. God is the only standard by which we can judge whether a thing is good or bad. Now I find this completely faulty. I feel that we ourselves are the standard by which we judge whether a thing is good or bad. If we do not want something to happen to us, it's bad. If we do, it's good. Another attempt to prove God's existence by logic fails.

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That makes sense on the surface, mona, but here's the thing: You say we ourselves are the standard for judging what is good and evil but you're using subjective taste for the standard…like whether we don't like something that happens to us or we do like something that happens to us. There is no basis for saying it was good or bad, "only that we don't like it". When we don't like something bad happening to us it's understandable but illogical if God doesn't exist as a standard.

Kreeft says, "your subjective feelings are the only basis upon which you can object to natural suffering. OK, you don't like it. But how is your not liking something evidence for God not existing? Think about it. It's just the opposite. Our judgments of good and evil, natural as well as human, presuppose God as the standard. If there's no God, there's neither good nor evil. There's just nature doing what it does. If nature is all there is, there is absolutely no need to explain why one person suffers and another doesn't. Unjust suffering is a problem only because we have a sense of what is just and unjust. But where does this sense come from? Certainly, not from Nature. There's nothing just about nature. Nature is only about survival."

So, against what standard is good and evil determined? Our private, subjective standard means nothing. Good and evil can only be determined if a standard for right and wrong exists. And if that standard really exists, that means God exists.

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

Here's my problem with all this, YesNo: you say that this cosmic consciousness invalidates atheism. I'm not dismissive of that (although imagine many physical scientists would beg to differ); neither am I an atheist. But you then say--although you are "not trying to argue for anything more"---"that cosmic consciousness does not prevent it from also being described as a God of love and justice."

And why on earth would that be? Because once we've hypothesized a cosmic consciousness we are free to call it anything we like? Is it also a god of fear and desperation like Pan? Or of madness and violence like Dionysus? Is it Loki? Or Sun Wukong? Or Beelzebub? What evidence do you have that it is the God of love and justice? Or the Hebrew God? Or the Holy Trinity? Am I correct in saying that you have none?

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It could be any of those. Only it's existence is not worth questioning anymore given the big bang, quantum physics and relativity.

There is other information. For example, consider near and shared death experiences. What do they tell us about who we are and indirectly about that cosmic consciousness?

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

Survival and reproduction are biological imperatives (with big pleasure payoffs) engineered by natural selection. Critters who don't like to eat and date have passed on very little genetic material over the eons. Likewise those who prefer being killed to killing. You may find having the freedom to solve cool puzzles entertaining, YesNo, but if you were in a lifeboat on the open sea with nine men, and there was only food and water enough for three, you would find new sources of joy--and problem solving--soon enough.

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So I've heard, but I wonder how true that perspective is. Is passing on specific genetic material really that important? We need to procreate for life to continue. That's all I think is necessary. But even creatures who don't procreate can provide benefits for the next generation by making the environment safer for the young.

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

I don't know how to break this to you (I admit it's a religious view, so I'll try not to force it down your throat), but we ARE that depravity. And it is evolution that makes us so; because natural selection agrees with Iain: blind, stupid, and cruel, a child dying of cancer is no more important to it than a leaf falling from a tree. That is our Original Sin--bred in the bone. We don't need fables of Eden to understand the Fall. What we need is to be saved. How that happens is for us to work out--with fear and trembling or not. For me it means choosing God.

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Why does natural selection make us depraved? One problem with the way we see natural selection is that it looks as if there is no intentionality involved. But the environment is full of species with the intention to live (not unconscious, selfish genes trying to replicate). Evolution for the most part does nothing unless something or someone punctuates the equilibrium. This causes suffering and demands a response from living, conscious organisms (not randomly mutating, unconscious genes) which leads to change.

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

Okay, I'm in, although given the rancorous and bloody history of religious debate, I wouldn't hold your breath. :)

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People make mistakes. That causes suffering. That leads to change.

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Originally Posted by Melanie

So, against what standard is good and evil determined? Our private, subjective standard means nothing. Good and evil can only be determined if a standard for right and wrong exists. And if that standard really exists, that means God exists.

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Suppose God doesn't exist. Nonetheless, YOUR standard of right and wrong -- determined by your interpretation of the Bible and the Christian religion -- would be EXACTLY THE SAME as it is now. If God is a cultural construct (instead of -- what? -- a noncorporeal being Who is not a cultural construct?) He is equally able to determine human morality as if He is an ACTUAL noncorporeal being (whatever that is).

At best, the argument that good and evil cannot exist without God is a distinction without a difference. God "exists" as a cultural construct whether or not He exists in any other way. This cultural construct creates a distinction between good and evil that is -- surprise! -- EXACTLY THE SAME as the one created by the Bible and other culturally constructed religious writings and rituals.

Of course there are also other ways to distinguish between good and evil, but it's absolutely clear that the Christian ability to objectively distinguish between good and evil is exactly the same whether God exists or not.

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Originally Posted by Melanie

Ouch. So, you have no feelings for the dying child (well, no more than a leaf)? Everything is meaningless? You have no purpose for living then? How do you remain sane? Aren't you scared?

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Like anyone else with a brain that works within a normal "healthy" range of emotions, I'm deeply effected by tragedy just like you are. Whereas you may feel some relief to that sorrow by believing a child lost to cancer is now in a better place, I can ease my mind that we all travel the same road and that the journey ends all too soon for some. I will join that child soon enough, in a year or ten years, or twenty, or who knows when. The metaphors we use to make sense of the universe are different, but the results are pretty much the same; we feel more comfortable within our being, that we are more than a falling leaf. I also understand that in a cosmic sense, in the grand scheme of things in which there is no grand scheme, that you and I and all of us feel these emotions simply because we can. Evolution has predisposed us to these emotions, a survival mechanism.

Evolution has bestowed us with the capacity to feel such things. We share over 98% of our DNA with our closest relative, the Chimpanzee. Recently it was found that long ago in our evolutionary track, that a virus wrote its rna into our dna... not surprisingly that very same virus' rna was also discovered in chimp dna. What was a surprise however, is that in both human and chimp dna, that virus remnant is located in the same position. That can only mean one thing, we branched off from a common ancestor. Is there a God or Creator?.. perhaps so, but most definitely not the one portrayed by mainstream religions. If there is such a God that created the universe and everything in it, than that God has left a hallmark on all creation. In fact that means God works within a rational and natural realm, one that we can quantify and experience through Science. Or it's all just bull****, which I suspect it is.

So of course I'm sane, so far as I know :), with a purpose in life and feel all the emotions that go with living life, just like you. Scared?, sure, sometimes I am scared.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

It could be any of those. Only it's existence is not worth questioning anymore given the big bang, quantum physics and relativity.

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I need clarification on what you mean by that. Does "it could be any of those" mean that you are unable to say which it might be? If that is the case, it is not a correct statement since you have no evidence to show that it is any of them. In that case, you cannot say that the existence of Judeo-Christian God is supported by the Big Bang, Relativity, and Quantum Physics. God in that sense means something very specific.

Or are you saying that it doesn't matter what name you give your panentheistic divinity because this is simply what God turns out to be, so hey, call it whatever you like. That of course is the same thing as saying that the Judeo-Christian God does not exist; so it cannot also support that God's existence. (It's the ol' "Great news! Your God exists, but He turns out to be my God!")

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Originally Posted by YesNo

There is other information. For example, consider near and shared death experiences. What do they tell us about who we are and indirectly about that cosmic consciousness?

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Oh yes, I heard Bigfoot had one of those, YesNo. ;-)

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Originally Posted by YesNo

So I've heard, but I wonder how true that perspective is. Is passing on specific genetic material really that important? We need to procreate for life to continue. That's all I think is necessary. But even creatures who don't procreate can provide benefits for the next generation by making the environment safer for the young.

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Sure, which may account for female longevity after menopause. Or not. It's easy to speculate and difficult to know. That doesn't mean that organisms haven't inherited traits that led to more successful reproduction over time (that's why they inherited them).

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Originally Posted by YesNo

Why does natural selection make us depraved?

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Because it produces responses like rage, jealousy, fear, envy, aggression, and revenge (to name but a few) which can reduce humans to barbarity. Harvard professor Niall Ferguson has suggested that soldiers commit mass rape during combat (which is an odd thing to do, when you think about it) as an evolutionary vestige of millennia of prehistoric ancestors' impregnating females from adversarial groups while killing off the males. Others have noted the gruesome detail that women conceive more readily after aggressive sexual intercourse, especially rape. Homo antecessor, the first known humans in Europe, were cannibals despite clear fossil evidence that they were simultaneously accessing a great abundance of non-human food (in other words, they weren't starving). The humans they were eating were mostly children and young teenagers, probably taken from territorial interlopers. Chimps do the same thing. But even if natural selection is not responsible for these depravities, violence, rage, and the will to domination are still part of our shared nature. (Perhaps it was Eden after all :)).

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Originally Posted by YesNo

One problem with the way we see natural selection is that it looks as if there is no intentionality involved. But the environment is full of species with the intention to live (not unconscious, selfish genes trying to replicate).

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1. Traits inherited from ancestors: no intentionality
2. Random genetic mutation at conception: no intentionality
3. Changing environment: no intentionality (or limited)

Those are the variables of natural selection, are they not?

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Originally Posted by YesNo

Evolution for the most part does nothing unless something or someone punctuates the equilibrium. This causes suffering and demands a response from living, conscious organisms (not randomly mutating, unconscious genes) which leads to change.

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I believe you are confusing evolution by natural selection with a (historically naive) version of social progress.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

People make mistakes. That causes suffering. That leads to change.

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See above.

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

I need clarification on what you mean by that. Does "it could be any of those" mean that you are unable to say which it might be? If that is the case, it is not a correct statement since you have no evidence to show that it is any of them. In that case, you cannot say that the existence of Judeo-Christian God is supported by the Big Bang, Relativity, and Quantum Physics. God in that sense means something very specific.

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Why not? The Judeo-Christian deity is panentheistic. Support for something does not have to account for every particular.

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

Or are you saying that it doesn't matter what name you give your panentheistic divinity because this is simply what God turns out to be, so hey, call it whatever you like. That of course is the same thing as saying that the Judeo-Christian God does not exist; so it cannot also support that God's existence. (It's the ol' "Great news! Your God exists, but He turns out to be my God!")

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I don't know what you are trying to argue here. The second sentence does not follow from the first.

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

Oh yes, I heard Bigfoot had one of those, YesNo. ;-)

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Ah, where did you hear that?

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

Sure, which may account for female longevity after menopause. Or not. It's easy to speculate and difficult to know. That doesn't mean that organisms haven't inherited traits that led to more successful reproduction over time (that's why they inherited them).

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Speculation is easy.

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

Because it produced responses like rage, jealousy, fear, aggression, envy, revenge (to name a few) which can reduce humans to barbarity. Harvard professor Niall Ferguson has suggested that soldiers commit mass rape during combat (which is an odd thing to do when you think of it) as an evolutionary vestige of millennia of our ancestors' impregnating females from adversarial groups while killing off the males. Others have noted the gruesome detail that women conceive more readily after aggressive sexual intercourse, especially rape. Homo antecessor, the first known humans in Europe, are known to have been cannibals despite clear fossil evidence that they were simultaneously accessing a great abundance of non-human food. The humans they were eating were mostly children and young teenagers--probably from territorial interlopers. Chimps do the same thing. But if even natural selection is not responsible for these depravities, violence, rage, and the will to domination are still part of our shared nature. (Perhaps it was Eden after all :)).

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I just finished the movie "The Voices" (http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_voices/) which reminded me of this thread.

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Originally Posted by Pompey Bum

1. Traits inherited from ancestors: no intentionality
2. Random genetic mutation at conception: no intentionality
3. Changing environment: no intentionality (or limited)

Those are the variables of natural selection, are they not?

I believe you are confusing evolution by natural selection with a (historically naive) version of social progress.

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What I am trying to do is reason from the perspective of punctuated equilibrium which I think fits the facts from paleontology better than neo-Darwinism.

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Originally Posted by Melanie

That makes sense on the surface, mona, but here's the thing: You say we ourselves are the standard for judging what is good and evil but you're using subjective taste for the standard…like whether we don't like something that happens to us or we do like something that happens to us. There is no basis for saying it was good or bad, "only that we don't like it". When we don't like something bad happening to us it's understandable but illogical if God doesn't exist as a standard.

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In what way is God the standard? Please clarify, as I do not see it at all. We do not like something bad happening to us because it is either painful (torture), or against our survival instincts (murder), or against our proprietary feelings (someone stealing from us what we slogged hard to get). All human morality can be traced back to some basic instinct or the other - to survive, to ensure the survival of the race, to avoid pain and so on.

As Darwin says - "“ Actions regarded by savages, and were probably so regarded by primeval man, are good or bad, solely as they obviously affect the welfare of the tribe." We instinctively know that when we protest against bad things happening to other members of society, we also ensure the same benefit to ourselves. This is not subjective, it is instinctive.

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Originally Posted by Melanie

Kreeft says, "your subjective feelings are the only basis upon which you can object to natural suffering. OK, you don't like it. But how is your not liking something evidence for God not existing? Think about it. It's just the opposite. Our judgments of good and evil, natural as well as human, presuppose God as the standard. If there's no God, there's neither good nor evil. There's just nature doing what it does. If nature is all there is, there is absolutely no need to explain why one person suffers and another doesn't. Unjust suffering is a problem only because we have a sense of what is just and unjust. But where does this sense come from? Certainly, not from Nature. There's nothing just about nature. Nature is only about survival."

So, against what standard is good and evil determined? Our private, subjective standard means nothing. Good and evil can only be determined if a standard for right and wrong exists. And if that standard really exists, that means God exists.

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Once again, it is instinctive feeling, not subjective feeling. But there is a lot of circular reasoning going on here. Everyone, believer or non-believer, knows that nature is neither just nor unjust, but a collection of amoral forces. If 1720 people die because of an earthquake, we think it is a bad thing because it goes against our basic survival instincts (as explained in my first paragraph) but we do not blame nature. The non believer does not have to explain anything, since he accepts that nature's destructive force strikes at random. To him it is bad luck rather than bad morals. It is the believer, who feels that God has the power to protect us from nature's amoral destructive forces, who has to explain why he does not do so.

So why does a good God permit suffering? I think the only answer is that we do not know. I do not believe for a moment that it can be proved through scientific or philosophical reasoning. Certainly Kreeft has not succeeded, and has in fact fallen way short of the mark. If we believe in the existence of a good God, it has to be through faith alone.

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Originally Posted by mona amon

...people die because of an earthquake, we think it is a bad thing because it goes against our basic survival instincts...but [non-believers] do not blame nature. The non believer does not have to explain anything, since he accepts that nature's destructive force strikes at random. To him it is bad luck rather than bad morals. It is the believer, who feels that God has the power to protect us from nature's amoral destructive forces, who has to explain why he does not do so.

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Believers don't blame natural disasters on morals unless you're referring to occasional events like Noah and the flood. There are many other reasons such as natural consequences from environmental pollution caused by man, and "nature doing what nature does" like earthquakes and volcanic eruptions from a planet full of hot gases.

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Originally Posted by mona amon

So why does a good God permit suffering? I think the only answer is that we do not know. I do not believe for a moment that it can be proved through scientific or philosophical reasoning...If we believe in the existence of a good God, it has to be through faith alone.

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I agree. There are over 50 different reasons listed in the Bible for why a good God allows suffering…all of which make sense through faith. But this thread isn't about why God allows suffering, it's about whether or not suffering is a challenge to God's existence.

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Originally Posted by mona amon

In what way is God the standard? Please clarify, as I do not see it at all. We do not like something bad happening to us because it is either painful (torture), or against our survival instincts (murder), or against our proprietary feelings (someone stealing from us what we slogged hard to get). All human morality can be traced back to some basic instinct or the other - to survive, to ensure the survival of the race, to avoid pain and so on.

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Whether instinctive or subjective, our feelings about pain and survival don't prove that God doesn't exist. It only proves that it's nature doing what nature does. Speaking of instincts and feelings…another example of God's existence.

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Originally Posted by Melanie

Believers don't blame natural disasters on morals unless you're referring to occasional events like Noah and the flood. There are many other reasons such as natural consequences from environmental pollution caused by man, and "nature doing what nature does" like earthquakes and volcanic eruptions from a planet full of hot gases.

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That's what I said - Both believers and non believers do not blame natural disasters on morals, and I'm talking about pure natural disasters like tsunamis and volcanic eruptions, not Noah or global warming.

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Originally Posted by Melanie

I agree. There are over 50 different reasons listed in the Bible for why a good God allows suffering…all of which make sense through faith. But this thread isn't about why God allows suffering, it's about whether or not suffering is a challenge to God's existence.

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Since suffering certainly exists, the only way we can answer the question is to show how suffering is compatible with God's existence, or in other words, why God allows suffering. As if this isn't enough of a challenge, Kreeft goes a step further and says that suffering, or rather our perception of suffering as something bad, actually proves God's existence. How?

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Originally Posted by Melanie

Whether instinctive or subjective, our feelings about pain and survival don't prove that God doesn't exist. It only proves that it's nature doing what nature does.

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No, but neither do they prove that God exists, and that's the main point, or at least the point Kreeft is trying to make.

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Originally Posted by Melanie

Speaking of instincts and feelings…another example of God's existence.

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I agree, but I do not know if that is enough to convince a non-believer. :)