Epicurus God quote - theist response?
How would a theist respond to Epicurus' God quote?
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call call him God?"
Tags: Epicurus
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Nelson on -
in my experience, more often than not they reply with free-will as a defense. something along the lines of "god endows us with free-will and therefore each of us has the choice of whether or not to perform evil acts or not."
obviously this doesn't solve the problem but it is my experience that this is their favored response.
-
Permalink Reply by Mario Rodgers on -
Free will actually exacerbates the problem.
-
Permalink Reply by Nelson on
-
you'll get no argument from me there as i quite agree. all it does is move the question back one step. why did god, in having the foreknowledge that the result would be evil and misery and the power to have done otherwise, create us with free will at all? if he didn't have the foreknowledge then he's not omniscient. if he didn't have the power then he's not omnipotent. and if he had the foreknowledge and the power but didn't act then he's not omnibenevolent.
-
Permalink Reply by Wesley on -
The question should be.. Does God have free will?
If God is all good without a shred of evil.....Then how did he fore-knowingly create billions of people that were going to make the 'wrong' choices? If God is purely good..then how did he create SOME people that would make wrong choices and some that would make the right ones?
Isn't He responsible for the eternal suffering and misery of billions that he KNOWINGLY created by his OWN FREE WILL to go to hell forever and ever? He KNOWINGLY did this by creating the kind of system this supposedly is.
Why did he create a system of eternal incarceration....instead of one of rehabilitation and growth?
Why couldn't God create an afterlife where people can learn from their mistakes and have the possibility to atone for them and then to continue to grow in wisdom and in stature?
How can anyone have peace in heaven knowing that a large portion of humanity, their fellow brothers and sisters, are DOOMED to eternal suffering?
Why did God create a system that demanded a blood sacrifice to save it?
Why?... Because 'God' comes from the minds of men...and not the other way around.
-
Permalink Reply by Galen on -
The free will argument does still work, I think. If God is truly 100% good with no evil, then he could not prevent a life from existing, even knowing that the life would cause evil. It's like how the cliche good guy will save the bad guy's life, even knowing that the bad guy will still go on to do more evil. Just because the bad guy does evil things, the good guy CAN'T just let him die OR not allow him to be created OR remove his freedom to do evil. Only a BAD guy would do that and God is a GOOD guy.
So, the free will argument does work, but only because it's the simplistic morality of an 80s childrens' cartoon, lol. Of course, we could just blow the whole thing out of the water by pointing out that if the Christian doctrine were true, then free will is an illusion (when your choices are to obey a dictator or burn forever, you don't ACTUALLY have any real "choice" at all).
-
Permalink Reply by Mario Rodgers on
-
(when your choices are to obey a dictator or burn forever, you don't ACTUALLY have any real "choice" at all).
That's what I've been trying to say. Free will is IMPOSSIBLE inside of religion. If free will is to exist, then you CAN'T have an "all-everything and everywhere" kind of god. He must be either neutral or non-existent. If God is neutral, then he may as well be as close to looking like the natural laws of the universe as possible. Such a creature can't interfere with our lives here on this planet.
OR you can have a god that is COMPLETELY good and helpful and actually involved with people's lives but has limits to his powers and isn't omniscient.
But this isn't what we see! We see people proclaiming a god who's all-knowing, and all-loving, and omnipotent, and who's personal and involved in the tiniest detail of your life(and that's actually pretty creepy) despite being invisible and mysterious. His worshipers claim that prayers work, despite evidence to the contrary. And if prayers ARE to work, that means God has to manipulate the chain of events and thus the people in them. Actually, prayers suggest that God screwed up somewhere or YOU don't trust the original plan enough and want things changed.
None of this crap makes sense and free will doesn't jive with any of it. If we have free will, then God has to be limited in what he can do. If God is a neutral god, then fine. Say he's a neutral god. Don't say he's kind. Don't say he's good. Don't say he's personal. Don't say he loves you. And don't say prayers work. Because I'm not seeing it.
Free will is worse in heaven. Are you happy because you're honestly happy? Is that your real dog that you lost as a kid? Or is only a facsimile? Or maybe God will go "screw your wants, this is about me"? Or maybe you're only happy because God has wiped your memory and everything that makes you who you are and wants you to forget about all the innocent people suffering in hell.
And that brings us to the original point. How are we to have free will if we can't even choose what we're to believe, especially since everybody is confused on what we're supposed to believe and none of the evidence adds up? Imagine living in a country where the government wants you to buy only their product when will raid your house and shoot you if you buy anybody else's. Would a good God who created free will create a crime for merely existing, remain invisible, and not give you a choice on what to do with your brain concerning belief systems and punish you if you choose wrong? Imagine a test in school that works this way where the kids are being asked what kind of job they'd be most suitable for, and the chairs of every kid is rigged to toss the child into a furnace below if they wind up with the wrong choice, which is every choice but one.
-
Permalink Reply by Nelson on
-
but then Wesley's point above is where you're left. if god could not prevent a life from existing then that's a limit on his power. in that case he's not omnipotent. if he's not omnipotent then that solves the Epicurean dilemma. god may like to create individuals differently such that they don't perform evil acts but his power is limited in such a way as to prevent him from doing so.
so the free will argument does work but only if you're willing to abandon a description of god's attributes that characterizes classical theism. but with that caveat the problem isn't solved. it's acknowledged and then the description of god's attributes are modified accordingly. once understood we see that the free will argument does not work.
certainly you're perfectly correct when you point out that our choice isn't so much free as it is coercion.
-
Permalink Reply by Galen on
-
Not that he couldn't prevent a life from existing, merely that he *wouldn't* do so. I COULD grab my gun and go shoot my wife in the face right now, but I WOULDN'T do that and indeed have no desire to do so.
-
Permalink Reply by Wesley on
-
The deal is, if life originates from a perfectly good source with no evil in it and it comes into a system created by This perfectly good source with no evil in it,, Where does evil originate from?
How can this evil come from something that was only PURE and GOOD?
The system that was created is as responsible for the evil within it as those making the so-called 'free-will' choices within it.
All things being equal, what causes one perfectly created being to make the correct positive choice and another perfectly created being to make the wrong negative choice?
Remember, when looking at the creation we cannot ignore the source matter from which it sprung.
All Powerful and All knowing...he could have made a system in which beings could make mistakes and eventually learn from them...instead of making a system in which they make mistakes and never learn and never grow but only suffer forever and ever and ever.
Why did a perfect being in which dwelt no evil create such a limited and unfair horror of a system into which he placed people with 'Free will'.
Our will isn't truly FREE unless we have as many options and possibilities as the so-called creator.
What's new today
Forum
Friend doesn't believe in dinosaurs.
Started by Redlilly Pond in Welcome to Think Atheist. Last reply by archaeopteryx 3 hours ago. 49 Replies 0 Likes
Blog Posts
God spared our church...
Posted by Keith Konecny on May 24, 2013 at 9:30pm 0 Comments 0 Likes
Events
Services we love
Check out our new mobile/tablet version of Think Atheist! www.ThinkAtheist.com/m
© 2013 Created by Morgan Matthew.
