Toy Worlds and the Problem of Evil

[Meow Mix]

Polytheist here, because I can't explain things, either. I believe in the possibility of a God that's very much tied to the universe, and then lots of spirit-gods. The powerful God tied to the universe, is most powerful, but really isn't even all that powerful, and doesn't interfere for whatever reason.

Picture a video game. It has a creator. But then the creator says, I've done all I can do with this game, and so doesn't release updates. But the players all play the game anyway. And you end up with a whole bunch of member accounts on this never-updated game.

Unless...

Okay, it's never that simple.

The game is programmed to update itself through evolution. I think the programming term for it in a game though, would be something like Machine Learning?

So this God of mine. He's unimpressive. He doesn't sound worthy of worship, really. But in my thoughts, he probably never wanted to be worshipped anyway. This God is probably an introvert.

I'm not sure what other conclusions to make yet, other than I think some traditional views of God may not work.

Sounds similar to the Demiurge of Gnosticism.

The Problem of Evil does not apply to anything that doesn't fulfill the premises though, so it sounds like the Problem of Evil does not apply to your beliefs.

 

[BilliardsBall]

It is possible to build a world in which there is no physical suffering, yet in which there is still free will (or the illusion thereof, depending on where you sit with that particular debate -- key takeaway, with the same amount of free agency we employ now, however much that is. I will henceforth just be using the term "free" and "free agency," but understand this still applies to objectors to causa sui or libertarian free agency).

To convince you of this, I'd like to draw an analogy. There are multiple video games where it's possible to (by various means: cheat codes, console commands, unlockables, whatever) shrug off any damage dealt to the player. It doesn't take a big stretch of imagination to imagine a more complex situation until you end up with something like the world of The Matrix, where a world is simulated so accurately that its (conscious, sapient) occupants don't even realize that they're in a simulation.

It's easy to imagine how The Matrix could be programmed such that an occupant is literally unable to be physically harmed. Any situation you can imagine where they would be bodily harmed, there is an easily accessible solution that a programmer could come up with to prevent it.

Perhaps this could work with conditional physics: for instance, if you're wanting to cut up a potato, your knife is happy to oblige. If you try to sink your knife into your neighbor, the programmed physics of the world automatically drain all inertia from the knife, stopping it harmlessly against living skin. (And so on. This works for natural suffering, suffering from other people, anything involving bodily harm or violation).

Now, anything that can be simulated is necessarily logically possible. So we should agree that it's logically possible for a world to exist where physical suffering is made impossible by that world's physics. You can imagine where I'm going next.

An omnipotent being is capable of actualizing any logically possible state of affairs. So, it stands to reason that the same God from the Problem of Evil premises (omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent) should be able to create such a world.

One might object, "But Erin, then people wouldn't be free! I could no longer stab my neighbor if I wanted to!"

I would find this objection odd (why would this "freedom" existing be a good thing?), and have several responses:

1. We already "aren't free" to perform a multitude of physical actions, yet we consider ourselves to be free agents. I can't bring the remote control to my hand with the power of my mind, or walk on the bottoms of clouds, or teleport myself to Andromeda. The mere state of being unable to do some things does not make one "not free." Conversely, we are also "not free" already from doing terrible things: I can't turn you inside out with my mind, or pretty much any of the things Freddy Krueger or Pinhead have done in fiction. (Are they "more free" than me? Is that good?)
2. In such a world, you would still be free to decide what to eat for lunch, which movie you want to see tonight, with which friends. Literally all free actions would still be available to you; even writing fiction in which there are conflicts and bodily harm for entertainment purposes. It does not make sense to argue that you would "not be free."
3. If it's argued that we need terrible things in order to have some good things, then I agree: with the strong caveat that we'd be better without either. For instance, if there are no houses burning down, then we wouldn't have the undeniably good thing of the existence of firefighters. If there were no smallpox, the undeniably good thing of a smallpox vaccine wouldn't exist. But is it really better to have smallpox just so that we might have a vaccine? Wouldn't it be better to have no smallpox and no need for a vaccine?

To close out my argument, the theist that believes in a deity that fulfills the premises of the Problem of Evil must be able to account for why physical suffering exists, if we agree that it's possible for said God to create a world in which it's impossible.

(Addendum: I do not argue that ALL suffering is preventable while maintaining free will, just physical suffering. For instance, I do not see how it would be possible to maintain free will while preventing the possibility of things like broken friendships, unrequited love, and things of that nature.

Still, those things are telling: they are not things God would be culpable for, whereas God is culpable for the physics of the world beings inhabit.)

The OP's assumption is that all suffering is wrong. It isn't. In every area of human achievement, suffering is usually needed (consider learning new facts or building body muscle, for two examples).

Indeed, the Bible describes over 30 blessings from suffering (although most of these are earmarked for born again believers).

Thanks.

 

[Link]

God could've stopped Iblis in his tracks and stopped Adam. We would be in a perfect world in that case too. And indeed he wished Adam didn't eat of it and that he didn't look towards the exalted ones with envy.

The question is not about why can't he create a perfect world, by what hasn't he. And the reason why he hasn't, is because he can't create with a high purpose and disallow his creation from doing evil. They have to have freedom of choice.

He can create it with low purpose and have guided all of his creation, yes. But for high purpose, where as worshiping him is of high form, there has to be room for his creation to screw things up.

 

[thomas loebel]

evil is so that must be to reach relative good that remains at second coming. moses was the great whore at our times end [who re]