Why do most people assume God is benevolent?

[logician]

God, by definition, is immortal. God, by definition, exists outside of our understanding of time. Your argument is moot.

I didn't know anyone understood time, some scientists insist it doesn't exist.

The multiverse is eternal, a god is superfluous.

 

[sojourner]

Didn't Jesus die, even if it was for three days?

Yes because Jesus was fully human.

 

[sojourner]

Is this thread intended to be limited to the Hebraic understanding of “God”?

Lets face it, “God” is usually defined very poorly. It is a vague nebulous concept.

That's the only understanding to which I can speak.

 

[sojourner]

So, if Adam and Eve had eaten from the Tree of Life as well, we would be God's equals?

the whole garden thing was a blurring of the line between humanity and Divinity.
Yes, you're essentially right -- even though the story is allegorical and literal.

 

[sojourner]

Again, no problem with that. The Problem of Evil only exists when it is insisted upon that God is both omnipotent and benevolent. A Necessary Being is not harmed in the least by the removal of the notion of benevolence, unlike omnipotence, which is necessary to the concept.

You say the problem of evil will always exist. Well, forgive me, but that is not true, anymore than it is to claim the material world, or the world in any form, will always exist.

Cottage


Cottage

I disagree. God can be benevolent, omnipotent, and still watch the universe play out. In order to understand God as "allowing evil to happen, therefore God is not benevolent (or omnipotent)" is to be egocentric in POV. This is God's universe, in which we are created beings. In comparison to God, our lives are but a drop in the ocean. We will understand that when we finally fall into God.

Even good human parents don't wrap their children in cotton-wool and shelter them from the vagaries of the world. They let them fall, suffer with them, and help clean them up again. Why should God smother us?

 

[sojourner]

I didn't know anyone understood time, some scientists insist it doesn't exist.

The multiverse is eternal, a god is superfluous.

The multiverse is an expression of God.

 

[Falvlun]

Even good human parents don't wrap their children in cotton-wool and shelter them from the vagaries of the world. They let them fall, suffer with them, and help clean them up again. Why should God smother us?

Interesting. But would parents have to let their children fall and suffer if there wasn't any suffering? Would parents be smothering their children by not letting their children experience a fall they couldn't have? The analogy doesn't make sense because it presupposes the very condition we are questioning the need for.

 

[logician]

The multiverse is an expression of God.

It's only an expression of matter and energy.

 

[sojourner]

Interesting. But would parents have to let their children fall and suffer if there wasn't any suffering? Would parents be smothering their children by not letting their children experience a fall they couldn't have? The analogy doesn't make sense because it presupposes the very condition we are questioning the need for.

But it exists. What good does it do to question it? It's a non-question. Kids fall down. That's reality. In order for kids to not fall down, gravity would need to not work. I think we know that gravity is in the best interest of all of us, regardless of whether it works on little children, too.

We suppose the thing, because the thing exists.

 

[sojourner]

It's only an expression of matter and energy.

which is, itself, an expression of God.

 

[linwood]

The multiverse is eternal, a god is superfluous.

The multiverse is an expression of God.

It's only an expression of matter and energy.

which is, itself, an expression of God.

Quit while you`re behind logician.
This one can`t be won.

 

[cottage]

I disagree. God can be benevolent, omnipotent, and still watch the universe play out. In order to understand God as "allowing evil to happen, therefore God is not benevolent (or omnipotent)" is to be egocentric in POV. This is God's universe, in which we are created beings. In comparison to God, our lives are but a drop in the ocean. We will understand that when we finally fall into God.

There are three fallacies rolled into one there: special pleading, an appeal to ignorance and circular reasoning! You are saying something is the case but we don’t know it is the case; however we will know it is the case when it is revealed to us! If that sort of fallacious reasoning is acceptable then any logical arguments to God can also be dismissed – by appeal to exactly the same understanding.


Even good human parents don't wrap their children in cotton-wool and shelter them from the vagaries of the world. They let them fall, suffer with them, and help clean them up again. Why should God smother us?

This is the classic Parent/Child analogy. For the analogy to work, suffering has to exist. So, it is either saying that suffering must exists or that God had to necessarily cause its existence. The first position is demonstrably false, and second is impossible – that is if God is omnipotent.
Cottage

 

[Falvlun]

But it exists. What good does it do to question it? It's a non-question. Kids fall down. That's reality. In order for kids to not fall down, gravity would need to not work. I think we know that gravity is in the best interest of all of us, regardless of whether it works on little children, too.

We suppose the thing, because the thing exists.

Ok, let's back up. What exactly were you using your analogy to prove? I took it to mean that, just as our parents shouldn't shield us from the world, neither should God smother us by shielding us from evil.

My point was that, yes, in a world with evil, our parents (and God) shouldn't shelter us lest we grow up unable to deal with the world. But if evil didn't exist, there wouldn't be any reason to shelter someone (or not to shelter someone, for that matter). What parent would go out of their way to get a mean dog for the yard, and let the kid just go traipsing up to it? Are the parents sheltering the kid by not getting a big mean dog? Same with God: he would not be in the position of needing to shield us from evil if he had not created evil in the first place.

Who created it? Why does it exist? Why couldn't a different method have been implemented?

These are all questions that are relevant to the idea of a perfectly benevolent God.

 

[cottage]

But it exists. What good does it do to question it? It's a non-question. Kids fall down. That's reality. In order for kids to not fall down, gravity would need to not work. I think we know that gravity is in the best interest of all of us, regardless of whether it works on little children, too.

We suppose the thing, because the thing exists.

You say 'what good does it do to question it?' My answer to you is simply: The Problem of Evil! Gravity is in our best interest only because of the way the world is made. And if God is the cause and sustainer of the world then children suffer as a consequence his creating it. But there need be no suffering; there need be no world. As creatures who had no prior existence there is logically nothing we can gain by being created. Perhaps then we are playthings for the deity?

Cottage

 

[Falvlun]

Every time someone I have known and loved has died, I have grieved. I grieve because I have loved and will miss that individual. In order that grief over loss not exist, love would also have to cease to exist. Your answer is overly simplistic, and I think you know that.

I don't deny that we grieve in this world; I don't even deny that, as the world is, evil might be a necessary evil. What I'm trying to get at is the concept that the world does not need to be the way it is. If God is omnipotent, he could have created any sort of world he wanted; if God is perfectly benevolent, one would think evil would not have been included in the world he wanted.

EDIT:
As for your assertion that love could not exist unless grief over loss existed: Do you not love someone then, until you lose them? Love can exist without grief. It's much more harder, imo, to reconcile the idea of mercy without the idea of cruelty, and some of the other virtues. Personally, I wouldn't pay for all the virtues in the world with the currency of the suffering of one child.

 

[sojourner]

You say 'what good does it do to question it?' My answer to you is simply: The Problem of Evil! Gravity is in our best interest only because of the way the world is made. And if God is the cause and sustainer of the world then children suffer as a consequence his creating it. But there need be no suffering; there need be no world. As creatures who had no prior existence there is logically nothing we can gain by being created. Perhaps then we are playthings for the deity?

Cottage

Your whole argument is moot. "There need be no world," indeed! Shame on you! The facts are these: There is a world, and we suffer in it. You say you don't believe in God, because you don't like suffering. I say I do believe in God because I like life.
You cannot prove or disprove God based upon the presence of evil, nor can you prove God's level of benevolence based upon the presence of evil. The only thing you can prove is that evil exists. Period.

The argument isn't "why evil must exist." That's a smoke screen. Evil does exist. Where theodicy comes in is "how do we deal with it theologically?

God is benevolent, because God has revealed God's Self to us as benevolent. I can't help it if you don't believe it. All I can do is bear witness to it. You don't get ot lay a bunch of "conditions" on God by saying, "if this, then you must be..."
It just don't work that way.

 

[Katzpur]

As for your assertion that love could not exist unless grief over loss existed: Do you not love someone then, until you lose them? Love can exist without grief.

Of course love can exist without grief. That's not what I was saying. The point I was trying to make was that the only way it would be possible to not experience grief when someone you loves dies is for the love not to have existed in the first place. We mourn our loss because we have loved. If we had not loved, there would be no reason to mourn. In order for us to be spared the grief that comes when a loved one dies, we would have to go through life without experiencing love. If that doesn't make sense to you, I don't know how else to put it. If it makes sense, but you disagree with my logic, I guess we just see the world differently.

 

[logician]

Quit while you`re behind logician.
This one can`t be won.

Uh, god = matter and energy, I don't think so.

 

[rojse]

Yes because Jesus was fully human.

Wasn't Jesus also the Son of God?

I'm sorry if I sound confused, but it seems to me to be one of the many things Catholic theology is less than clear on.

 

[logician]

"
Yes because Jesus was fully human."

If he was conceived by the holy spirit, he was only half human.