This is going to be a stretch, but hear me out. In my most recent PoE thread (Special Pleading and the PoE (Part 3)), I put forth an argument based on the incongruence between certain theodicies and the way our moral compasses register things.
For background:
- By "moral compass," I mean that faculty by which we judge things to be morally good or morally bad under the assumption that theism is true, God is omnipotent, God is omniscient, God is responsible for giving us cognitive faculties that are geared towards finding the truth (they aren't just random nonsense), and that God is ostensibly responsible for having given us our moral compasses.
- In the PoE (part 3) post, I pointed out that if God is in charge of our moral faculties being geared towards correctly detecting moral good and bad (that a benevolent God would not bestow a faulty faculty), there is a problem in that we look at something like a child suffering and dying from leukemia and our moral compass usually points to "if someone caused or allowed this when it could have been otherwise, that would be bad."
- Now the theodicy in question retorts: "Suffering that God allows isn't bad because God has some unknown reason for it that actually justifies it in a way that's congruent with benevolence." The argument would be that just as a child doesn't understand why they're being stabbed with a needle during a vaccine to ultimately foster some greater good (gaining immunity to something much worse), perhaps God has some reason for setting up the world in such a way that children get leukemia and suffer and die that's congruent with benevolence.
Last bit of background regarding Baye's Theorem:
- Baye's Theorem lets us calculate a probability based on prior probabilities and the probabilities of components of some state of affairs, such as if we want to know the probability that somebody in the room was born before a certain year given some other factor like the usual demographics that attend the type of meeting held in that room.
- It's expressed thusly: P(A|B) = [P(B|A)*P(A)]/P(B) (read as: the probability of A given B...)
Now, moving on.
Let's say that the proposition "our moral faculties are geared towards correctly detecting moral good and bad" is equivalent to the proposition "our moral faculties are not faulty," and call this proposition K.
Then let's say that the proposition "our moral faculties tell us that giving or allowing children to get leukemia when it's possible not to give/let children have leukemia" is called L.
Then let's say that the proposition "God has a good reason for giving/letting kids have leukemia" is called G, and keep in mind we have sub-premises that God is omnipotent and omniscient.
The argument is simply this: P(G|K&L) is low or inscrutable: someone arguing G is arguing up a massive hill and will need to have really good justification for their argument.
That's it, all that background for that simple argument.
I recently came across this term "PoE". I still don't know what the "problem of Evil" argument really attempts to show. But lets say it attempts to show a logical contradiction between two concepts. In one concept a omnibenevolent God exists and in another concept Evil exists but these two concepts cannot intertwine.
Meaning - Evil cannot coexist with an omnibenevolent God because an omnibenevolent God couldn't and wouldn't allow it to exist because he is all loving and all good and therefore by nature he shouldn't allow any sufferings, otherwise he cannot call himself "omnibenevolent".
I think some Atheists are using this conundrum to justify that there cannot be a omnibenevolent God behind our creation because Evil exists!
However, this can easily be resolved if only we knew a bit more about God. What we do know from some of the primary religions is that - God is omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent.
But how about omnipresent? Does God has a choice regarding his "omnipresent" status? Does he need to be present in all of the realms that he created at the same time and all the time?
If we go with a God that does have a choice whether or not to be omnipresent and he decides not to be present at a particular section of the universe then we will see that - the existence of Evil in that particular realm where God temporarily choose not to be around (for whatever reason) -
does not violate the hypothesis that God is omnibenevolent, omniscient and omnipotent because he can be all that on a different realm (his realm!). Of course God would have a good reason for his absence from any particular realm for any given amount of time but it should be within God's power to not be omnipresent in a particular realm if he so chooses. May be he can get busy elsewhere creating another universe or maybe he just choose to be absent to see how certain aspects of his creation play out!
Does God's voluntary absence from a particular realm where Evil is manifesting - cancel out the hypothesis that he is omnibenevolent?
I would argue that it won't because if he is not actively present in a particular realm then he is not required to stop the Evil or sufferings that is taking place in that particular realm. He doesn't need to stop anything to stay in compliance with his omnibenevolent standing in his original realm!
In other words - he is still an omnibenevolent God in his realm.
Look around the world we live in - do we see God actively present here? Of course not! But of course I am not considering modern NT version of Christianity where Jesus is wrongfully portrayed as a deity IMO because I sincerely believe Jesus was just a prophet and was not Devine in any shape or form! I also don't accept that Jesus died erasing any future Christians' sins either. A God doesn't need to do that! I believe the only sin Jesus erased was the one particular sin of his disciples who started the false rumor that he was god or son of god. So, I think Jesus went through the crucifixion process just to erase that misconception (that one particular sin). He was accused of blasphemy and he was asked to save himself if he was really a God/god. So, when someone finds himself in that predicament then the only way to show he is not God - was to go through the crucifixion process. If the real God saved him and Jesus walked out of there unharmed then everyone including Romans and Jews would have wrongfully accepted him as God/god. Anyhow, so Jesus/god concept doesn't add up, it doesn't count! In my opinion God never came to this world as a human being.
He has been operating from another realm without actively getting involved. We were the rebellious souls. He is allowing this world to take its course. He has decided not to be omnipresent here! But of course he can tap in anytime.
So, once again, since history shows that - God has only been sending prophets and Angels here with his messages for us and that he is not directly communicating with each and everyone of us - it is fair to say that - God is not directly involved with the affairs of this world. I believe Angels are assigned with us and they are taking accounts of everything we do. God will collect all data from his Angels (and from our companions) on judgement day to make a ruling. I believe we are the rejects - so we are not worthy for God's "round the clock" presence!
So, in a world where God is not actively present - it is not impossible for Evil to be present. Thus no PoE! (No problem of Evil!) No coexisting issues! Since God is not omnipresent in this realm - he can still be omnibenevolent in his primary realm!
There is also a history of why God is not actively involved here and why Evil is allowed. As I wrote earlier in the other thread - I believe we all have a history with God prior to our coming to this world. We rebelled, we questioned his absolute authority. Each and every one of us has our own history.
Our offense was from mild to severe and I think we are placed on this world accordingly. Even a child that suffers and dies with leukemia had a history prior to being born into this world. No one is born good IMO. With all the distortions in the Bible it got some of the things right! It rightfully states that "no one is good".
[Mark 10:18] & [Luke 18:19]. For the child that dies early - it was probably a symbolic visit but he/she had to come into this world to be redeemed. For the rest of us - we have to go through a tougher process. We have to maintain a covenant that
we won't question the absolute authority of God ever again and furthermore we would need to lead a honest and good life by using our moral compass that God gave us. Incidentally
[Quran 2:62] states that followers of some religions other than Islam (Christians, Jews etc.) can also make it if they maintain the covenant I just mentioned... which is - belief in one God concept, leading a righteous life and believing in the final judgment day. I like that verse from Quran because it applies to anyone who believes in a singular God concept.
If we don't uphold that promise that we made to God then we cannot complain if God takes a harsher ruling against us next time we face him. I think that is what the Angels wanted in the first place when we first rebelled. They didn't want the impure, sinful and wicked ones back among them without some sort of retribution. I am not talking about Crucifixion. I already mentioned that I don't believe Jesus died to erase any future Christians sins at all. We are responsible for our own sins and we have to redeem ourselves by our own merit!
Our moral compass correctly detects a child's early demise as a sad and bad thing from earth's prospective - but from God prospective no permanent damage was done to the soul of that child. Surely God would forgive him/her and put him/her back in the heavens.
Angels will be happy that some sort of reparation was made by the child and thus everyone happy in heavens!
Parents' sufferings may or may not have any direct correlation with the child dying from leukemia. We are all sentenced to this world. While in confinement - one person's fault can cause some others to share the burden sometimes! But I am not saying that is the case! But everything has a reason. Sometimes we can figure out the reason and sometimes we can't!
We cannot compute God.
Our brain is like a cash register or a simple calculator and we are trying to compute complex mathematics problems with that. We are trying to compute Logarithms, Binary functions, Sine, cosine, and tangent functions with a brain that is like a cash register. It can only do addition and subtraction. We need a scientific calculator! In other words - we need more data and a superior brain to process the data regarding God! So, IMO it is pointless to try and calculate God or worry about God's attributes because we can only process so much data with our limited brain.