It seems to me that people use this bad world as an excuse to disbelieve in a good God, but does a bad world necessitate the absence of a good God?
I don't think it's reasonable
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It seems to me that people use this bad world as an excuse to disbelieve in a good God, but does a bad world necessitate the absence of a good God?
I don't think it's reasonable
I guess the reasoning behind it lies in God's omnipotence.
God is omnipotent - God is thus capable of everything - God is capable of defeating evil.
If God is Good, why does he allow evil to exist? Why does he let the world suffer? Why doesn't he just bring Heaven to earth and be done with it?
I don't say this is right, I don't say omnipotence means that God is capable of everything, I just say that I think this might be the reasoning behind using the Bad World as an argument to claim the non-existence of a Good God.
Yes that would definately be the reason, but does that nature of God necessitate that he change the world? What if his good nature were compromised in destroying all evil? perhaps there is a greater good to be achieved in allowing it to run its course.
Its just as though if you and I and everyone on this board lived in a perfect world and I was God(its not perfect because of that, but for arguments sake...) and you decided to rebel against my authority. You assembled the people of the board together and conspired against me, telling all sorts of lies about my nature. Would I then prove myself true and good by destroying you?
Perhaps evil needs to run its course to show the goodness of God's nature
In your example:
No. But you would proof* yourself true and good by destroying the evil in me.
Or maybe, if you think "destroy" and "good" don't go together, by making me see rebellion is bad, BEFORE I go about and kill and plunder and rape and whatever else you can imagine.
I can see the idea of opposites you use: for good to be truly good, we must see what truly bad is like. I just don't see why this has to be the case. We have the gift of imagination, we can imagine what bad is like without the world to really be that bad.
And after all, if we're talking about a Good God - why can't he just be good without us having to realise he is being Good? Do we really need to be thankful - can't we just live in a Good world without knowing how Good it is?
There is of course always the possibility that this is the Best of all possible Worlds... I highly doubt it though.
It reminds me of Gabriel in the movie Constantine. That character (in my interpretation of the movie) wanted evil to rule the land, so more people would turn to God...
Ok, maybe not exactly... but that is how the last scene struck me to be: Gabriel choosing to help evil to make God more popular...Quote:
[Gabriel holds Constantine helpless]
Gabriel: You're handed this precious gift, right? Each one of you granted redemption from the Creator - murderers, rapists, and molesters - all of you, you just have to repent, and God takes you into His bosom. In all the worlds in all the universe, no other creature can make such a boast, save man. It's not fair.
[leans closer]
Gabriel: If sweet, sweet God loves you so, then I will make you worthy of His love. I've been watching for a long time. It's only in the face of horror that you truly find your nobler selves. And you can be so noble. So, I'll bring you pain, I'll bring you horror, so that you may rise above it. So that those of you who survive this reign of hell on earth will be worthy of God's love.
John Constantine: Gabriel, you're insane!
*not sure, proof or prove :confused:
Maybe it isn't reasonable. However, it has nothing to do with literature either.
There are enough writers and poets who have touched directly/indirectly on this subject. But I guess you can say that of anything - and saying this would make anything literature would be unreasonable...
OK, it is not stated here in a way that it would have something to do with literature. And this is a literature forum, thus... http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/c.../tapedshut.gif
Well God did destroy the human race except for Noah and his family because the world was growing too evil. The world is the way it is because we are given free choice to be the way we want to be. It is possible that there must be a breaking point because there was before.
God is indeed a good God, but I dont think that is a valid argument for the evil world in which we live. Not at all.
I agree with Sapphire in that evil is a way to put more emphasis on God, simply because there must be polar opposites that reflect each other. We think the world is bad because we have a good God, but would we feel the same way if we did not believe in a God? Or if we belived in an evil God? Could that be possible?
I disagree very much with the "necessity of evil" argument - that position makes evil necessary, and I do not believe it is. The only "necessary" thing in existence needs to be God - everything else (evil included) is unnecessary. Evil is a consequence of our free will. Simply eliminating it won't work in God's plan. If God is good - as the Bible asserts Him to be, then it follows that there must be a reason He allows it to exist. And, this is something we should be greatful for, for if God simply eliminated all evil then all of us would cease to exist; by God's pure and holy standard, we are all sinners. That's part of the catch. Those who insist that God eliminate all evil must have the audacity to assume that they are exempt from that classification entirely. How can that be?Quote:
Originally Posted by verum
I do not think evil needs to exist for me to appreciate good; obviously, though, because evil does exist, it does tend to heighten our awareness of good, and by contrast, to increase its value - but I don't think good needs evil in order to be understood.
Anyone ever read A Clockwork Orange?
prove it, pleaseQuote:
Originally Posted by Redzeppelin
Why do you assume God is a separate entity from you or the rest of the world for that matter? An entity that some how will set everything all right?
In a total view, everything is as it needs to be and adding valuation and dualism to the mix is what creates the debate. You can not have good with out its opposite evil, just as you can’t have black without white or wet without dry. To pick only one proves the definition and existence of the other. To defend one, immediately makes you acknowledge the other.
So if there is a “good” God in your eyes, then there is also it’s opposite, a “bad” God.
I completely disagree. Without evil you CANNOT appreciate good.Quote:
Originally Posted by Redzeppelin
Not if bad entered the world due to Satans' fall from grace and man & woman's desire to follow Satan to achieve their desire to be their own god. At that point, God gave his creation what they "wanted," that is, a world system of self-actualization. Hence, death, sickness, misery, sadness, etc. God also gave us a savior, and the following promise:Quote:
Originally Posted by Christian
Romans 8:28 "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."
God gave man free will. God allows man to choose evil, if that's what he wants. It's not God who created evil, it's not God who perpetuates evil, but man by choosing it over good.
I definitely think so. Think about it. What good would summer be if you hadn't been in school all year? It would just be more of the same. It's the concept of yin and yang. A hot shower would just get boring and steamy if you hadn't ever been in the cold to feel the contrast.
Bitter-Sweet by George Herbert
Ah, my dear angry Lord,
Since thou dost love, yet strike;
Cast down, yet help afford;
Sure I will do the like.
I will complain, yet praise;
I will bewail, approve;
And all my sour-sweet days
I will lament and love.
i am a bit confused to tell the truth...
define "bad world"
does that just mean our world having evil thrown in there with good or.... a separate world that's all evil? other than hell?
So tell me, do I first need to whack you with a 2x4 for you to appreciate the goodness of a hug or kiss? Do you need to eat a piece of rotting cheese in order to appreciate the taste of chocolate? Really? Must I yell at you first so that you can appreciate a whisper in your ear?Quote:
Originally Posted by Mathor
Do babies need to eat sour things so that they'll appreciate the sweet? Must you be abused before you can understand the beauty of being loved?
Really? Really? Do we only understand by contrast? Nothing out there is good or bad IN AND OF ITSELF without having to be evaluated in contrast to something else?
This is a very intriguing question, and of course God is over and above all these worldly attributes.
God is not an entity we associate attributes like good or bad, and of course God remains untouched by all these things.
Our understandings about God are based on what we read in books or they have their roots in what our parents have told us and it does not go beyond this periphery at all.
In fact it is hard to describe God, and we human beings are subject to angers, joys and the like and to try to understand God from this perspective is really a wrong course.
not solely by contrast, but it is a huge factor if it is there. It is a way to compare things against each other and evaluate them on a personal level.Quote:
Originally Posted by Redzeppelin
The 2x4 example doesn't work anyways lol
Bad/evil accentuates our appreciation of good, but it does not define it. To give it such weight is to suggest that it is as equally valid and necessary as good. That simply cannot be. As well, to argue thusly would also put an end to those arguments people wish to put forth as to the problem with God not eradicating evil from this world; if it's equally valid and necessary, why should He do so?Quote:
Originally Posted by jakobmuller
Another thing is that "good" and "bad" are such relative terms. They basically lie only on a personal level, and how we interpret them.
We have no universal measurement of good and bad.
There's no metaphorical scale of 1 to 10 of righteousness, no numerical value we can assign.
Beyond absurd. It is logically impossible to maintain this position.Quote:
Originally Posted by jakobmuller
How so? What makes this absurd and illogical? What is illogical about relativism, as apposed to a naturalist belief, which in itself is built on an assumption, and therefore is, in itself, illogical. Where does logic fail here?Quote:
Originally Posted by Redzeppelin
There is a story of the RamBam, when he was looking for appointment as a doctor in Cairo, how one of his competitors tried to demonstrate how he could cure blindness. After the long treatment, filled with bandages and prayers, for which RamBam was present, the doctor took off the bandages, and the patient exclaimed how he could see colors, and how this was blue, and that yellow. RamBam of course, being who he was, looked at the king and merely remarked, "If he was blind, how could he know colors", for which, the other doctor was dismissed as a fraud, and RamBam was appointed. The moral of the story? Even something as central to us, such as color, is only central because we see it. In that sense, we can only know the feeling of bad once we have experienced the good. Kindness cannot be fully understood unless one has experienced selfishness.
Is that not what the moral of the Garden of Eden chapter in Genesis is about? How by eating the apple, they experience going against the will of God, and then are opened to the knowledge of right and wrong, because they finally know what wrong is? Isn't that the message, how without the knowledge, everything is flat, and there is no good.
Certainly, Aquinas, when justifying the fall used the notion of it being "Fortunate" ("Felix Culpa"). What is so wrong with that?
The notion of a natural Good, and a natural bad is far more illogical than a relative one to my view at least. If you are going to accuse someone of faulty logic, don't just accuse, at least give some substantial evidence to support such a rigorous claim.
alrighty then... i guess that's that. :lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by Redzeppelin
Maybe the purpose of "Bad" is to accentuate "good" (assuming that's all it does), as in that's the reason for an all-powerful God allowing its existence.
Relativism is illogical because it suggests that there is no absolute truth - and yet, its very definitional statement IS a statement of "absolute truth" - ISN'T IT?Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
Although the nature of life means that some things may be good/bad due to context, we cannot extend that out to mean that there is NO absolute truths whatsoever: that position is madness because then we must allow for the validity of ALL moralities - not just ones of which we approve. I am certainly thankful that moral relativism wasn't in style during WWII. I'm also very thankful that it wasn't the prevailing philosophy for those who stepped forward to abolish slavery.
Completely wrong. The presence of the tree was to provide Adam and Eve with freedom of choice. They could not willingly serve God without the option to NOT serve him. The tree provided that option. "Knowing" good and evil was not something we were designed to do - only God can "know" evil without it affecting him - we can't handle it - it's like radiation - the minute it touches us, we begin to die. We were never created to possess that knowledge.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
The problem with your position is that history and culture argue against it, as does human experience and human nature:Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
1. Throughout history and culture, certain values have been stable: all cultures have valued honesty, fidelity to one's word, loyalty, courage, love; similarly, all cultures do not value murder, rape, lying, theft, cowardice, betrayal. This alone suggests that there are certain things that are universally recognized as "good" and "bad."
2. If I do not believe theft is morally wrong and you don't - I guess you're out of luck when I car jack you; the only CONSISTENT response you can have as a moral relativist is "Well, guess I'll have to go get a new car - I can't condemn you Red for your alternative morality - which postmodern relativism suggests is just as valid as mine."
3. There is something in human nature that recoils against certain things - and this is observable in very young children that suggests that we have encoded within us some rudimentary ideas of right and wrong.
I hadn't thought of it like that before.Quote:
Originally Posted by jakobmuller
Hitler came to power, with much popular support from Germany. He then expanded his domain, and massacred millions of people. To those who elected him, fought for him, supported him, and pulled the triggers, he was somewhat of a superman. To them, the murder of millions of people was justified, and thought of as a great service to humanity and science.Quote:
Originally Posted by Redzeppelin
Beyond that though, was theft condoned? Well, in Auschwitz for example, how much gold was stolen from people's mouths alone? How much property and cash was confiscated? I don't see the Swiss handing back any of it either.
Society functions not to uphold a moral law, but to stabilize itself through a social contract, in a means of maintaining the status quo, or establishing a new status quo. That's why, when countries are poorer, they tend to be against free trade, whereas when they are richer, they are all for it. The changing infrastructure changes the values and opinions of the population, and their moral outlook on what is acceptable and what isn't.
For thousands of years in the West, Homosexuality was a crime, and for a large enough chunk of that, punishable by death. Does that mean homosexuality is now against the moral code?
What about women's rights. For large portions of time, they as good as didn't exist. Women weren't even considered people in many places of the world until recently - does that mean they were always people?
History shows one thing - people do not wish to die, and people wish to gain power. I cannot see how that has anything to do with natural morality.
Please, saying a statement that professes rationalism is illogical because it says a statement is not true. Language is limited, because it is rational, therefore the fact that it is illogical or not is irrelevant. The paradox is relative to the language used to convey it.
It is claimed that evil is a consequence of our freewill. I assume that this does not mean that evil originated with man. Nor that all evil is as a result of man.
Some might say there are many cases where evil occurs despite man's freewill, such as natural disasters.
Some might say that men and women are often not in a suitably informed position to avoid making evil decisions. Greek tragedy surely highlights that.
I, for one, do not consider evil to be anything substantial. I believe evil is nothing less than a construct to denote those things we prefer to avoid, the things we hate about the world, life etc.
The existence of God for me is the infinite, and the infinite is real. Actually, the infinite is the source of all. The material universe is like a dream in relation to the absolute. This is what I believe, but not in the interests of arguing over it. Arguing and getting upset doesn't help or create anything. It doesn't help us be more perfect. Life in this world is so different for so many different people. Some are suffering, some are not; some are suffering for good reasons, some by their own actions... the world is infinitely complex.
And yet there is simplicity among the complexity, and unity among the multiplicity. That simplicity and that unity is truth. I prefer to live a simple and happy life, try to live well and wholesomely, and be as much of a joy and help to others as possible. I try to live a meaningful life! My view that God is infinite, and the source, comes from my whole life of experience, and certain revelatory experiences, as well as all I've read and so on. Emily Dickinson in a short poem describes it well.
The Infinite a sudden Guest
Has been assumed to be-
But how can that stupendous come
Which never went away?
It describes certain ideas which are sacred within Hinduism. You never left, you were never separate, you were never bound by Maya. It's a feeling so profound, when one feels it, which may not be in this life, one may know it is true.
God has little to do with badness and goodness. These are humans' attributes not God'sQuote:
Originally Posted by Christian
There is contradicting statements in your writing and I think this is the first thing we should look at: ourselves. Adding, how we think and how we express ourselves.Quote:
Originally Posted by verum
If the evil is used to put more emphasis on God, then evil is either a servant of God or exactly like God in nature. Maybe both. If God is so good, and Satan wants to be "like God", then whose got the problem? Us or God? God wants us to be like him but Satan is bannished for trying to be exactly like God wants us to be.
How much of free choice can there be in the Bible? If Nedbank sends me a letter saying I qualified for a R20 000 loan without me even asking for it, do they send hitmen to sort me out if I say no? Well, I hope not.
This my (admittedly biased :P) christian view.
God is Good.
The world is bad..well: sinful.
I'm probably repating what someone said...if so, sorry.
Well when God made the world it was Good. But Satan, and ex-angel who rebelled against God, wanted to have power over humankind. So he tempted Eve, the first woman, to disobey God. She did, and her husband Adam followed her.
This was the fist sin...but it ruined man forever.
This sin became know as "the fall of man."
Since then, mankind has been sinning...and we are all born with "sin nature", the tendancy to sin.
God can only accept perfection. And since mankind was no longer perfect, it meant that they would have to "die" (not only physically...bit spiritually, meaning they would go to hell)
But God also loved People. So he decided to make them perfect again.
But to attone for all the sin in the world, there would have to be a perfect sacrifice.
Someone who had never sinned would have to die in the place off all the people who had...and that someone was Jesus. He died on the cross, giving his life for ours. Becasue he died, according to my belief, if we accept him as our savior and admit that we are sinners, our sins will be washed away, and we will, again, be perfect in Gods eyes. We will die physically, but we will be spared spiritual death, and we will go to heaven.
"But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought our peace was on him; and by his wounds we are healed."
-Isaiah 53:5
"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life." -Romans 6:23
The world is a bad place, but God is good, and gives us a way out.
I know thats not very well written, and most likely many people won't agree with me. But its what I think on this subject, and I'm interested to hear what other people think, too.
The story of Satan's fall is not viewed in the same way by all 2.1 billion Christians. Neither is Adam and Eve's sin. If evil is necessary in understanding good (Genesis 1 & 3), then evil must be God-given.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lynne Fees
Isa 45:7 "..I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.."Quote:
Originally Posted by MissScarlett
How much of what we think we read, we don't actually read?
Yes, because the Bible teaches us contrasts. Light and Darkness. You cannot understand the one without knowing the other.Quote:
Originally Posted by Redzeppelin
Genesis 3:22 "..And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil.."
Who gave us anger, joy and the like? Once we get born, we don't automatically know the Bible or even morality. That we get taught. Knowing God then has to resemble in what our senses perceive and express. The two is thereby closely linked. Do we wait for miracles to happen every five minutes, or do we question the input that tells us how we are supposed to feel about God? It's not wrong to question.Quote:
Originally Posted by blazeofglory
Acts 17:11 "..Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.."
Once you question the input, you can always go back to where you came from, but at least you'll know you made a more informed decision.
God didn't say to Moses that he was good or bad. God just said "He is". That's midway if you may. If there is only beautiful in heaven, how do you define beautiful then? It will be obsolete with no name. The same as a "Good God". The "good" will be obsolete in heaven.Quote:
Originally Posted by Redzeppelin
This might lead someone to argue that "good" in our terms defines what heaven will be like, and not an inbetween. Once we get there we would not know evil anymore but only the security of our "good" fealing we sometimes had when we were still living on this cursed earth.
Denying it might be a form of denial. :D
Jakobmuller suggests the need of empirical evidence. Redzeppelin reckons it's..Quote:
Originally Posted by jakobmuller
..And the parting of the Red Sea? Walking on water? Healing a blind man with spit and clay? Turning water into wine?Quote:
Originally Posted by Redzeppelin
I agree with most of what you are saying but my focus was "apple". You've got no way to prove that it was an apple that was eaten. This is an example of missing some things we still bring from our past beliefs. Identifying the fruit is still important but nothing really concludes it to being an apple. Grapes are more likely due to being more evident and within context.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
No - there is no "midway" between good and evil - Jesus said this: "Why do you call me 'good'? No one is good except God alone." (Mark 10:18)Quote:
Originally Posted by CDJIV
The definition of the word "good" is God Himself; all that characterizes God defines what is good: justice, mercy, love, generosity, kindness, loyalty, courage, compassion, etc. Heaven isn't about a "feeling" - it is about being in the presence of the creator of the universe.
I dislike being misquoted. My statement had nothing to do with empirical evicence; it had to do with the absurdity of making "good" and "evil" fully subjective terms; that is flatly illogical and nobody can long maintain such a position with consistency. Please make sure you do not quote me out of context. Your rhetorical questions put to me are meaningless because I wasn't addressing the possibility of miraculous events.Quote:
Originally Posted by CDJIV
I do not think that pain and suffering preclude the existence of God (by what ever form one gives Him).
Just as I do not think that the existence of God (by any other name would smell as sweet...sorry, couldn't resist) precludes the existence of anything good, bad or otherwise.
~L
The question presented in the thread needs to be examined a little more carefully.
It is certainly not a given that the world is bad. (The position that the world is bad is the position of Manicheism -- a gnostic group.)
Further, it can and has been argued by Augustine and others that there is no such thing as natural evil. Earthquakes may not be pleasant affairs, but are not evil in a universal sense, only from the POV of human beings.
The question of what can be said of moral evil is what is really interesting. Moral evil is the choosing of a lesser good over a greater good, and is a possibility that exists only by creatures that have free will.
LMK is correct that suffering does not preclude the existence of a good God, since suffering in and of itself is not evil in the moral sense.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RichardHresko
I agree to the points here; and all I feel is that what we call bad for us can be good for others. Losing life for deer is bad and getting food for tigers is good. Good and bad are simply points of views or conceptions but not realities in point of fact
Not necessarily true. The problem of evil is a matter of concern to the doubting believer, yet does not have to dwell on the mind of the unbeliever. The unbeliever realises there is no 'problem' of evil, but that there is just life.Quote:
Originally Posted by Christian
I'm a bit ambivilent on my opinion on this matter, but if there is a God, then he certainly doesn't consider suffering to be experienced in vain.
One very interesting opinion is that of Chestov's, who made the paradoxical conclusion that the world was a lot more absurd with God in it, and thus a reason to believe. That, to embrace the absurdity of life, is to embrace God, and that His greatness arises out of his incomprehensibility.