This post in no way intentionally offends anyone. It is just an interesting subject.


The Problem of Evil has existed for quite some time. The Standard Theistic Notion (STN) of God is that He is All-Powerful, All-Knowing, and All-Good. Thus being said, how can Evil exist in the world? Numerous people have tried to answer this and there are several ways. I would like to look at the Soul-making Defense presented by Hick. I'd first like to say that i am a Broad Theist.

Soul-Making Defense: (summed up) Human beins are still in the process of maturing into their fully developed state. God allowed evil into the world in order to make us suffer so that we could grow as a result of our experiance of suffering. Thus, evil is beneficial insofar as it is "soul making".

If you look at World War II and War as being evil, then it is obvious to see that the Soul-Making Defense does make sense. We have learnt from the mistakes etc we made during the War. War claims lives, but the inventions made during World War II have saved countless lives (penicillin for instance) and it has also effected the way things are done today. Assembly-Line Production, new technologies that otherwise would lie undiscovered. The Holocaust taught us about Genocide and the tell-tale signs of it so that we can prevent it in the future.

Going along the same lines, Disease can be seen as an evil. From disease we gain a new understanding and new methods for dealing with them. Famine too is evil, and we have developed ways to produce more food and have industrialized.

Anyone have any thoughts or is this out of place?

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you forgot one important figure in your statements. The personification of ALL evil = Satan

The forces of good battling evil are all around us though we cannot see much of it most of the time. If we only knew what the angels and demons are doing it would be mind-boggling.

you now have my opinion, now be a WARRIOR !

Erich ♠

To add to my first post though, it is logical to come to the conclusion that evil is good because it makes us grow, then it would be bad to eliminate evil.

Evil isnt always the evil especially to the people who do it. Look at the Holocaust for instance. Those who were in charge and carried out the actions (for the most part) thought that they were doing a good thing. The rest of the world on the other hand saw the Holocaust as a bad thing. Not everyones definition of evil is the same.

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Here is my take on this. God did not create evil. Lucifer turned evil and God banished him. Now, we are here temporarily. God does not bestow evil upon us. Evil happens. God gives us guidance but it is up to us to follow that. Being human, we tend to mess up. Look at the garden of eden. If we have faith, we may still feel pain and go through rough times but in the end, we will be saved and end up in a better place which is our final destination. So WWII and disease are things we had to and must go through in this world but god is not the blame. Satan can throw evil at us but our faith is what will keep us from giving in. Look at it this way. It is the clash of the Titans and we are just the pawns. How we react determines which team we end up with. for me, I am aiming towards God and not the other dude.

How's that?

[ 26. March 2004, 07:41 AM: Message edited by: PzJgr ]

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American by birth, TEXAN by the grace of GOD!

When our acestors drew up all these stories about GOD being all-powerful it soon dawned on them that then it follows GOD must be also be responsible for evil. Quickly a patsy was found and Lucifer was invented. Now all the blame could be shifted-to the Devil. Pretty neat trick eh?
Seriously what power woud Lucifer have compared to this all-knowing being. Surely it would be simple to get rid of him and let us all live in perfect harmony. I know if I had such power I would make everyones lives wonderful.
There are very few pure evil people, most evil is done unintentionaly.

Yes - but if God created the Universe (He is the Creator afterall) that also means he created Lucifer - thus he also created Evil since anything that has been created has been created by God. He also created Man in the Likeness and Image of God (Himself) - if man can commit sin and evil, then so can God meaning that he is not All-good.

Anyone have any comments on the War aspect of things?

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and this is why there is suffering because as humans, we have the luxury of making choices. I believe otherwise. If you look hard, you can find fault in anything. I choose to be positive and keep the faith.

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American by birth, TEXAN by the grace of GOD!

I would argue with that on the basis that it wasn't the first genocide, then again as am important figure of the 30's and 40's (yes, you guessed it) once said, 'Who remembers the armenians?' One has to wonder why one genocide wasn't enough, why did we need something bigger to learn? Then again I have heard it suggested that the Armenians were not the first, considering all the native peoples that we have massacred over the years.

The thing that I am left wondering is to what extent do the gains made during the war justify the suffering it caused. Penecillin saved lives, but it and many other medical procedures that were developed during the war, would have been developed later without the war. I can't help wondering if the lives saved beteen the medical advances and the time they would have been invented without the war makes it worth it.

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There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.

So you believe Humans have free-will?

Do you also believe in the STN God? (All-powerful, all-good, all-knowing)

Saying yes to both would be a contradiction. God knows everything, so he knows what choices you are going to make so then humans do not have free-will as it has already been determined what they are going to do.

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slightly incorrect friend. We do have free will to make the right or the wrong choices. The Father knows of course the outcome which is mind-boggling..........

We just finished stuyding this in philosophy at college, and I'd have to say that I'm on the fence on this one. Evil does exist, and there's no other way to look at it, but I have to agree with Erich on the matter of free will.

DUCE

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"Tolerance has never brought civil war; intolerance has covered the earth with carnage" Voltaire
"War is the fruit of man's depravity; it is a convulsive and violent sickness of the body politic.." Diderot

How can it be called Free-Will if He already knows what we are going to do? If he is All-Knowing, then He knows what choices we will make. He will know that we have to chose A B or C, and he will know which one we will choose before we even know. That, my friends, is not free-will. You may think it is, but by Him knowing the outcome of our choices already, it is not.

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I'm not sure why you are confused ? Yes HE does know everything but HE allows us a choice, whether it is right or wrong. We have the free will to do whatever we feel. And if wrong we have to accept the consquences. The Father does not make us do anything, we have the human will to control our actions...........point clear ? maybe not.......

So then we have a person who was absolutely perfect in every respect (i.e.honest, generous, kind, ever helpful ect)and lived a life precisely matching the highest ideals of the Christian faith-except in one crucial area. This man does not believe in a God. He thinks belief in a primitive superstition is beneath him and he makes it known that he believes there is no God and even if such a being existed why should he need the constant adoration of such creatures as ourselves. He openly curses such a petty God. Would this man, perfect in every sense but not in cow-towing to the creator, would he go to heaven?
Is abject subservience to this being absolutely neccesary to get to heaven?

The problem is that it assumes evil to be an entity as opposed to a concept. There is no such 'thing' as evil, it is simply the name we give to a way of acting. A volcano that destroys a city isn't 'evil', the only reason that a man who does the same is seen as evil is because we judge him. Evil is a concept not an entity and thus really this debate is purely academic, what you should be asking is 'why do people act in a way we consider evil' or even 'why do we consider certain acts evil'.

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There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.

mkenny. In a word NO !

Read John 3:16 sorry man we are all sinners. but if we accept the Fathers Son into our hearts then we have a way paved for us.

E

I am probably going too deep here as I am sure Mussolini did not want the threads to go this avenue / in essence no-one living on this earth is perfect. But one came as a man to change the world - Passion, go see it !

No worries guys. I am a Broad Theist - meaning that i believe in some sort of Supreme Being, something that is far greater then man (that could even mean an alien) who is more knowledgeable and more powerful then man. I do not believe that a God created the World, etc etc etc. I am in a Philosophy of Religion Class (to fill a core requirement) and this is the current topic we are debating. There are about 40 people in the class. 3 people are Aetheist (one claims to be buddhist). 10 people believe in the STN God and the other 37 all stand somehwere where i do.

We have looked at several ways people have tried to 'solve' the Problem of Evil - The Ontological Defense by Leibniz, The Knowledge Defense by Dostoevsky (i think), The Free-will Defense by St Augustine, the Soul-making Defense by Hick and the MOrally-Sufficient Reason Defense by Pike.

All have there strong points, but all have their weaknessed (such as ones that you point out). Even so, no matter which one you believe to be true, i feel that they all disprove the Standard Theistic Notion of God in some way, by disproving one of the attributes of the STN GOD which have been afore mentioned.

If you look at it at like Erich i believe has said, that man has the choice between picking good and evil then you can say that God is not all-good, as he created man in the likeness and image of God. If man has the capability of doing something that is judged to be evil, then God can do something that is judged to be Evil. I was not trying to say that anyone or anything is perfect, but the STN of God (how everyone sees good) can not be true given the Problem of Evil and the ways in which it has been tried to have been solved.

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you're quite mixed up friend and sound like friends I had in the psycho 60's. did you know the angles are given free choice, the prime reason Satan fell from grace with a host of angels behind him. God is all powerful and knowledgeable and HE is good. He did not create evil as you seem to think. The fallen angel did-Satan-who is still roaming around with his fallen angels-demons to harrass and probe us into making the wrong decisions.
Believeing in a supreme being is all fine and good on paper but believe in the ture LORD and Saviour of this world is the truth. Hopefully you will one day be content and find HIS love for U. I am sincerely praying so !

Erich