Why Does God Allow Suffering? Soteriological Drama

The Free Will Defense is offered by Christian apologists as an answer to any sort of atheist argument such as the problem of pain or the problem of evil. The argument runs something like: God values free will because "he" ("she"?) doesn't want robots. The problem with this approach is that it often stops short in analysis as to why free will would be a higher value than anything else. This leaves the atheist in a position of arguing any number of pains and evil deeds and then crying that God had to know these things would happen, thus God must be cruel for creating anything at all knowing the total absolute pain (which usually includes hell in most atheist arguments) would result from creation.

The apologists answers usually fail to satisfy the atheist, because in their minds noting can outweigh the actual inflicting of pain. Something atheists evoke omnipotence and play it off against the value of free will, making the assumption that an "all powerful God" could do anything, thus God should be able to cancel any sort of moral debt, make sin beyond our natures, create a pain free universe, and surely if God were all loving, God would have done so.

The better twist on the free will defense would be to start from a different position. We should start with the basis for creation, in so far as we can understand it, and then to show how the logical and non self contradictory requirements of the logic of creation require free will. What is usually missing or not pointed out is the necessity of free will in the making of moral choices. This is the step that atheists and Christian apologists alike sometimes overlook; that it is absolutely essential in a non-self contradictory way, that humanity have free will. Thus, free will must out weight any other value. At that point, since it is a matter of self contradiction, omnipotence cannot be played off against free will, because God's omnipotence does not allow God to dispense with Free will!

Before moving to the argument I want to make it clear that I deal with two separate issues: the problem of pain (not a moral issue--tornadoes and diseases and the like) becasue it doesn't involve human choice. Pain, inflicted by accident and nature is not a moral issue, because it involves no choices. Thus I will not deal with that here. I am only concerned in this argument with the the problem of evil that is, the problem of moral choice. The free will defense cannot apply to makes where the will does not apply.


Basic assumptions


There are three basic assumptions that are hidden, or perhaps not so obivioius, but nevertheless must be dealt with here.

(1) The assumption that God wants a "moral universe" and that this value outweighs all others.


The idea that God wants a moral universe I take from my basic view of God and morality. Following in the footsteps of Joseph Fletcher (Situation Ethics) I assume that love is the background of the moral universe (this is also an Augustinian view). I also assume that there is a deeply ontological connection between love and Being. Axiomatically, in my view point, love is the basic impitus of Being itself. Thus, it seems reasonable to me that, if morality is an upshot of love, or if love motivates moral behavior, then the creation of a moral universe is essential.


(2) that internal "seeking" leads to greater internalization of values than forced compliance or complaisance that would be the result of intimidation.

That's a pretty fair assumption. We all know that people will a lot more to achieve a goal they truly beileve in than one they merely feel forced or obligated to follow but couldn't care less about.

(3)the the drama or the big mystery is the only way to accomplish that end.

The pursuit of the value system becomes a search of the heart for ultimate meaning,that ensures that people continue to seek it until it has been fully internalized.

The argument would look like this:


(1)God's purpose in creation: to create a Moral Universe, that is one in which free moral agents willingly choose the Good.

(2) Moral choice requires absolutely that choice be free (thus free will is necessitated).

(3) Allowance of free choices requires the risk that the chooser will make evil choices

(4)The possibility of evil choices is a risk God must run, thus the value of free outweighs all other considerations, since without there would be no moral universe and the purpose of creation would be thwarted.


This leaves the atheist in the position of demanding to know why God doesn't just tell everyone that he's there, and that he requires moral behavior, and what that entails. Thus there would be no mystery and people would be much less inclined to sin.

This is the point where Soteriological Drama figures into it. Argument on Soteriological Drama:


(5) Life is a "Drama" not for the sake of entertainment, but in the sense that a dramatic tension exists between our ordinary observations of life on a daily basis, and the ultiamte goals, ends and purposes for which we are on this earth.

(6) Clearly God wants us to seek on a level other than the obvious, daily, demonstrative level or he would have made the situation more plain to us

(7) We can assume that the reason for the "big mystery" is the internalization of choices. If God appeared to the world in open objective fashion and laid down the rules, we would probably all try to follow them, but we would not want to follow them. Thus our obedience would be lip service and not from the heart.

(8) therefore, God wants a heart felt response which is internationalized value system that comes through the search for existential answers; that search is phenomenological; introspective, internal, not amenable to ordinary demonstrative evidence.


In other words, we are part of a great drama and our actions and our dilemmas and our choices are all part of the way we respond to the situation as characters in a drama.

This theory also explains why God doesn't often regenerate limbs in healing the sick. That would be a dead giveaway. God creates criteria under which healing takes place, that criteria can't negate the overall plan of a search.

Objection:

One might object that this couldn't outweigh babies dying or the horrors of war or the all the countless injustices and outrages that must be allowed and that permeate human history. It may seem at first glance that free will is petty compared to human suffering. But I am advocating free will for the sake any sort of pleasure or imagined moral victory that accrues from having free will, it's a totally pragmatic issue; that internalizing the value of the good requires that one choose to do so, and free will is essential if choice is required. Thus it is not a capricious or selfish defense of free will, not a matter of choosing our advantage or our pleasure over that of dying babies, but of choosing the key to saving the babies in the long run,and to understanding why we want to save them, and to care about saving them, and to actually choosing their saving over our own good.

In deciding what values outweigh other values we have to be clear about our decision making paradigm. From a utilitarian standpoint the determinate of lexically ordered values would be utility, what is the greatest good for the greatest number? This would be determined by means of outcome, what is the final tally sheet in terms of pleasure over pain to the greatest aggregate? But why that be the value system we decide by? It's just one value system and much has been written about the bankruptcy of consequentialist ethics. If one uses a deontological standard it might be a different thing to consider the lexically ordered values. Free will predominates because it allows internalization of the good. The good is the key to any moral value system. This could be justified on both deontolgoical and teleological premises.

My own moral decision making paradigm is deontological, because I believe that teleological ethics reduces morality to the decision making of a ledger sheet and forces the individual to do immoral things in the name of "the greatest good for the greatest number." I find most atheists are utilitarians so this will make no sense to them. They can't help but think of the greatest good/greatest number as the ultaimte adage, and deontology as empty duty with no logic to it. But that is not the case. Deontology is not just rule keeping, it is also duty oriented ethics. The duty that we must internalize is that ultimate duty that love demands of any action. Robots don't love. One must freely choose to give up self and make a selfless act in order to act from Love. Thus we cannot have a loved oriented ethics, or we cannot have love as the background of the moral universe without free will, because love involves the will.

The choice of free will at the expense of countless lives and untold suffering cannot be an easy thing, but it is essential and can be justified from either deontolgoical or teleological perspective. Although I think the deontologcial makes more sense. From the teleological stand point, free will ultimately leads to the greatest good for the greatest number because in the long run it assumes us that one is willing to die for the other, or sacrifice for the other, or live for the other. That is essential to promoting a good beyond ourselves. The individual sacrifices for the good of the whole, very utilitarian. It is also deontolgocially justifiable since duty would tell us that we must give of ourselves for the good of the other.

Thus anyway you slice it free will outweighs all other concerns because it makes available the values of the good and of love. Free will is the key to ultimately saving the babies, and saving them because we care about them, a triumph of the heart, not just action from wrote. It's internalization of a value system without which other and greater injustices could be foisted upon an unsuspecting humanity that has not been tought to choose to lay down one's own life for the other.


Objection 2: questions


(from "UCOA" On CARM boards (atheism)

Quote:


In addition, there is no explanation of why god randomly decided to make a "moral universe".


Why do you describe the decision as random? Of course all of this is second guessing God, so the real answer is "I don't know, duh" But far be it form me to give-up without an opinion. My opinion as to why God would create moral universe:
to understand this you must understand my view of God, and that will take some doing. I'll try to just put it in a nut shell. In my view love is the background of the moral universe. The essence of "the good" or of what is moral is that which conforms to "lug." But love in the apogee sense, the will to the good of the other. I do not believe that that this is just derived arbitrarily, but is the outpouring of the wellspring of God's character. God is love, thus love is the background of the moral universe because God is the background of the moral universe.

Now I also describe God as "being itself." Meaning God is the foundation of all that is. I see a connection between love and being. Both are positive and giving and turning on in the face of nothingness, which is negativity. To say that another way, if we think of nothingness as a big drain pipe, it is threatening to **** all that exits into it. Being is the power to resist nothingness, being the stopper in the great cosmic drain pipe of non existence.

The act of bestowing being upon the beings is the nature of God because God is being. Those the two things God does because that's what he is, he "BES" (um, exists) and he gives out being bestowing it upon other beings. This is connected to love which also gives out and bestows. So being and love are connected, thus the moral universe is an outgrowth of the nature of God as giving and bestowing and being and loving.

Quote:
Thus the question isn't really answered. Why does god allow/create evil? To create a "moral universe". Why? The only answer that is given is, because he wants to. Putting it together, Why does god allow/create evil? Because he wants to?

In a nut shell, God allows evil as an inherent risk in allowing moral agency. (the reason for which is given above).


There is a big difference in doing something and allowing it to be done. God does not create evil, he allows the risk of evil to be run by the beings, because that risk is required to have free moral agency. The answer is not "because he wants to" the answer is because he wants free moral agency so that free moral agents will internatize the values of love. To have free moral agency he must allow them to:

(1)run the risk of evil choices

(2) live in a real world where hurt is part of the dice throw.


 objection 3:

Originally Posted by Darth Pringle

Short response.

It can never be the case that an eternal being must allow evil because it is never the case that an eternal being must create anything.

Yes it obviously is. This is anther one of my "caaaAAAAAAaaasy" Idea tha NOOOOOOO body would eVVER consider!'

(1) If God is real, then God created the world (why he's called "God")

(2) If God is real and created the world we can assume that God is good an axiom of belief and as an empirical conclusion drawn postorori from the sense of the numinous.

(3) If God created the universe we assume he's smart.

(3) if God created the world (and he's smart) and if God is good, then he must have created the world with a calculation of good vs. evil in mind.

(4) Given what's been said above if we assume God is real we just assume he knows best based upon the calculation and had tabulated the results and found that creation is worth it.


see my answers to atheist attacks on this idea in my essay: "Twelve Angry Stereotypes"

Why Does God Allow It?

 

......After the recent tragedy I was, like everyone, moved to tears and sick of hearing about it, sick of being outraged.  I think everyone is asking "why does God allow this." I realize that answers are not satisfying in the sense that they don't stop the tragedy. I still insight that the best time to think about such things and to ask "why does God allow this" is not right after the tragedy sticks but when one is safe and happy and there's no tragedy on the horizon. That way we can think in a raitonal and detached manner about it.
.....During the tragedy when we are grieving and outraged, this school shooting was a total outrage, is not the time to ask the question and expect an intellectual answer. During such a time we have to blame God becuase we have to blame reality. Reality is what it is and we can't change it. When those things strike that we can't stand all we can do is blame the basis of reality for ordering things in such a manner. This answer is basically not for now but it may make more sense latter.
.....The basic question why doesn't  God intervene to stop such things? That's something we can't know. We can say some things are so bad God should just stop them regardless of why he doesn't stop other things. Surely gunning down a first grade class counts as one of those things that must be stopped, yet it wasn't stopped. We can't know the perimeters for God's intervention. We faith is part of it but surely those children had faith, the faith of children. Yet we can theorize as to why God doesn't intervene. We may not undrstand why he does at times and not most of the time, but we can theorize about why he does not as a general rule. That's because if he did there intervene every time there would be no need to search for truth.
.....To set the stage, my take on the whole question of theodicy is the free will defense, but I have augmented that with my view about the need for internalizing the values of the good, to me this is the bottom line. It goes like this: God wants us to have free will so we will have a moral universe. Moral universe doesn't necessarily mean one in which nothing immoral ever happens, but one in which free moral agents willing choose the good. Now that is important because without that you don't really have a moral universe, you have to allow free will, meaning allow the risk of evil choices, in order to have a moral universe. So ironically to have a moral universe you have to risk a screwed up universe in which immoral things happen. This is because "moral universe" means " universe where moral decision making is part of the deal.
,,,,,,The reason it's important to allow moral decision making is because it's part of growth. God could make a world of robots who never disobey but that would not be a moral universe, because they would not be free moral agents, there would be no moral decision making. Through moral decisions we internalize the values of the good. To make moral decisions we must seek truth and answers to major questions all of which requires more internalizing of values. So the real bottom line of what God seems to want in creation is a universe in which free moral agents grow in their heart's choices of good over evil and in which they come to be wise, progressive, adult, mature citizens of the kingdom. The price God pays for that is the world has to be screwed up:

(1) The possibility of evil choices must be constant

(2) God can't end all threats of pain and suffering all the time or there would be no search. No search for what one already knows. If every time we almost hurt ourselves some magic force prevented it we would not to search for truth because we would know obviously what the truth is; vis God's existence at any rate. We would figure it all out.

(3) Pain and suffering must exist in such a world Because for God to act to stop them all the time would be a dead give away.

(4) It's no good saying but God could lessen the degree because perhaps he has. We don't have a really horrible planet to compare it to so we don't know what we've been spared.

The Typical Atheist answer to all of this is to multiply examples. They seem to think if they find the most heart rending ironic seeming form of pain then they have proved that God can't really be good. But that doesn't work because it doesn't answer the exact point about internalizing and the need for search. With that understood the point of allowing a world of suffering is always outweighed by negation of the greater harm of being robots. The problem of not having free will would always be a greater evil and you can't multiple enough examples to stack up to outweighing that.

There are a couple of other points to be made:

I1) Only God can calculate the pay off.

There are too many variables and we don't have the complexity (much less the location outside time) to understand the future and what the facts that must be weighed really are. Only God could figure out if loss of free will would outweigh the evils.

(2) We can trust God to make the best decision

We have no choice for one thing, but for another, God is proved worthy of out trust in the atonement and the things he's done in our lives (for those who are willing to corporate long enough to build trust). So we can trust that God is the only true and fair judge who could weight the balance sheet between harms and goods and choose if creation is worth it.

(3) Counter balancing pleasures.

You have the problem of pain you also have the problem of pleasure. Why are we able to indulge in a seemingly unlimited capacity for small and simple pleasures? We we can appreciate them seeming to a greater extent than other animals. we can philosophize about them and develop them, we can even enjoy their deprivation or delayed gratification. There are a veritable unlimited range of good things in life. This is not a night mare planet. Yet nightmarish things happen, but so do you wonderful things. Only God can judge the balance sheet.


......Of cousre none of this is satisfying right now. I'm as clueless as anyone.

Why doesn't God make it all more obvious?

 



 .......My friend Mike left a comment on the comment section for the last piece. He raised the issue "why don't God make it all more obvious?" That's a good point. If God so desired we could have a totally different sort of world, one in which there as no question of God's existence. God could have created a world where he held press conferences every day and everyone always knew he was real from birth to death. Often times skeptics will even go so far as to impose the idea "why can't God just cancel sin let me do whatever I want?" He's not supposed to have other ideas. We can't let God be God, we should be God, he should do our bidding!
........Obviously, then, God has a reason for making a world in which we have to seek truth. This is usually just assumed to be due to the fall. After all he used walk with man in the garden in the cool of the evening and it was the sin of the fall that separated us. Well since I view the story as a myth, (myth doesn't mean lie or foolishness--but psychological communication) it's a story about how we are separated from God in coming of age. This means that there is a natural barrier that breaks communication something more embed in the human condition than can be  accounted for in the simple story of the fall, but something that nonetheless the story of the fall is communicating to us.
........The concept of the Fall that St. Augustine developed that Reinhold Niebuhr modernized (see Nature and Destiny of Man Vol I). The fall is not the genetic result of a choice Adam and Eve made one summer afternoon in picking fruit the fruit picking is a metaphor for what happens in all of us as we come of age and develop the understanding of right and wrong. That is we can understand the future by calculating or projecting, extrapolating, based upon experience of the past. This creates anxiety, which is already building becuase we have discovered the concept of right and wrong, which you recall was one of the major effects of Eve's fruit picking. In the attempt to resolve the anxiety about the future we choose to feather our own nests at the expense of others. Since we now understand right form wrong, we do wrong. We are now blameworthy. That creates more anxiety and causes us to seek the good. That creates more guilt so sets the cycle going again. 
........The problem with just letting it go is that God's own character is the prototype of the good so he can't allow that. We have to good but we have to secure ourselves in ways that require that we put ourseves fist. This means we are going to resent being told what to do. We are going to resent to rpocess of being held accountable and feeling guilt. You don't bleieve that? Just look at an atheist. they have no shortage of resentment toward God for just such things. So the point is that God wants us to search. The search means we seek truth, when we find it we are committed to it, we don't resent it. Jesus said "he who is forgivenven much loves much."

This is all contained within my free will defense on the theodicy problem which I call "Soteriological Drama." Here are the assumptions and the basic argument:  


Basic assumptions


There are three basic assumptions that are hidden, or perhaps not so obvious, but nevertheless must be dealt with here.

(1) The assumption that God wants a "moral universe" and that this value outweighs all others.


The idea that God wants a moral universe I take from my basic view of God and morality. Following in the footsteps of Joseph Fletcher (Situation Ethics) I assume that love is the background of the moral universe (this is also an Augustinian view). I also assume that there is a deeply ontological connection between love and Being. Axiomatically, in my view point, love is the basic impetus of Being itself. Thus, it seems reasonable to me that, if morality is an upshot of love, or if love motivates moral behavior, then the creation of a moral universe is essential.


(2) that internal "seeking" leads to greater internalization of values than forced compliance or complaisance that would be the result of intimidation.

That's a pretty fair assumption. We all know that people will a lot more to achieve a goal they truly believe in than one they merely feel forced or obligated to follow but couldn't care less about.

(3)the the drama or the big mystery is the only way to accomplish that end.

The pursuit of the value system becomes a search of the heart for ultimate meaning,that ensures that people continue to seek it until it has been fully internalized.

The argument would look like this:


(1)God's purpose in creation: to create a Moral Universe, that is one in which free moral agents willingly choose the Good.

(2) Moral choice requires absolutely that choice be free (thus free will is necessitated).

(3) Allowance of free choices requires the risk that the chooser will make evil choices

(4)The possibility of evil choices is a risk God must run, thus the value of free outweighs all other considerations, since without there would be no moral universe and the purpose of creation would be thwarted.


This leaves the atheist in the position of demanding to know why God doesn't just tell everyone that he's there, and that he requires moral behavior, and what that entails. Thus there would be no mystery and people would be much less inclined to sin.

This is the point where Soteriological Drama figures into it. Argument on Soteriological Drama:


(5) Life is a "Drama" not for the sake of entertainment, but in the sense that a dramatic tension exists between our ordinary observations of life on a daily basis, and the ultiamte goals, ends and purposes for which we are on this earth.

(6) Clearly God wants us to seek on a level other than the obvious, daily, demonstrative level or he would have made the situation more plain to us

(7) We can assume that the reason for the "big mystery" is the internalization of choices. If God appeared to the world in open objective fashion and laid down the rules, we would probably all try to follow them, but we would not want to follow them. Thus our obedience would be lip service and not from the heart.

(8) therefore, God wants a heart felt response which is internationalized value system that comes through the search for existential answers; that search is phenomenological; introspective, internal, not amenable to ordinary demonstrative evidence.


In a sense it's a bit a socialization process. We could say this God's way of socializing us into the seeking of the good. He wants us to conduct our own search for truth. He's given us the means to find it, its' there but we have to make a leap of faith to be assured that we have found it. Once we do that we are fine, but we have to do it to receive the pay off. Then because we did search and find we love and we are not resentful and continue to seek God more.

Answering Maybrick's objection to Soteriolgoical Drama: free will defense

This was an exchange on CARM message board with an atheist named "Maybrick." It's about the free will defense. I feel that there's a self religiousness in frantic hatred of God that is born of pain and suffering. It's something I want to be sensitive to but there's a point at which it goes too far. This question was brought on by a discussion of "natural evil." By that is meant bad things that are not moral choices such as drought and storms, car wrecks.

Originally Posted by Metacrock View Post

(1) Natural "evil" isn't' evil it's just unfortunate. It's necessary as a result of real world

(2) God can't stop all calamity or unfortunate things or the search would be violated.

(3) the search is the point of of our lives.

Notice: I think there's also an implication that he doesn't understand the concept of natural evil. He seems to think it's denouncing it's pain more to call it "evil." If you don't call it evil then you somehow don't mind it as much. The reality is "evil" is a moral designation and "natural" "evil" means things that are moral choices, things of a painful nature, such as tornado, pain caused by them. No moral choice is involved, so its' not "evil" morally.

Maybrick

To me this is insulting, a little.

You reduce a fairly significant portion of pretty much all living organisms existance (of those have nervous systems) to a fairly simple and wholly unnecessary (if God exists) statement that, essentially, suffering is needed.

Metacrock:

I don't see it that way. you are basing that on my statement that we have pain because we have a real world. what I mean by that is we have nervous systems so we can feel pain. That's an evolutionary adaption that serves a positive function. God didn't have to design it specifically he just needed to have the basic concept of evolutionary life and then let it develop.

Nor did I attach a value to pain. I didn't say "people get pain because they did wrong." I said nothing of the kind.

Maybrick:

I suggest you pay a little visit to a cancer ward in your nearest hospital. If you are lucky you might just catch the last few hours/days of a Human being, "loved" by God, whose cancerous vagina has rotted through to her bowels and is dieing in great pain and the knowledge that everyone around her is smelling her crap. You can console her suffering relatives with your logical constructions. Or maybe just give them rubbish phrases like "god has a plan". Or maybe you can explain to them just how Jesus died for them.

I want to be sensitive to the pain that people feel and not dismiss their anger toward God. Not that I think God is blameworthy but I have been angry at God for injustice and pain in my own life I know how this feels. I also sense a certain degree of self righteousness as though this guy thinks he's the only one who has suffered. He seems to be saying "If you don't hate God it must because you have never felt pain." He makes the simplistic equation 'if pain happens, God is unworthy." that comes form the idea that stopping pain is the only valid thing. As much as I sympathize with suffering people, and I do (and I have my share of pain--likely to have more) there tings that are more important than stopping pain.

I would rather have freedom to think and choose and have free will and take the hist and suffer in life than to eleiminate all pain and have no free will. Free will is imporant in the equation because it is for this reason that God risks allowing evil. So we will seek the good freely because we choose to, because we can to be God, not because we are forced to. That extends to natural evil because it means to keep the necessity of a search for the truth viable the question of God can't be so obvious as to remove all doubt. If no one ever suffered in a real world where we have nerve endings hen it would soon be obvious some powerful force prevents pain. Then there would be no search becasue no one searches for what is obvious. The search is important because that's how we internalize the values of the good.

This what I told him on the board:
Meta:

you are trying to say God can't be there because if he was he would never allow anyone to suffer. that's assumption not in evidence. The whole point of a free will defense is to say there are intervening variables that make it necessary to allow pain. you do not have an answer to this. You expect the emotional appeal to sway one to hate God without ratinoal consideration of the logical possibilities.

I lost everything. I lost my home. I lost my parents. I lost my career. every thing I worked for in life was taken away form me and I got a debilitating leg problem that means I can't work. how dare you say that!

I did hate God. I got angry at God. I drove around shouting "YOU LIAR! YOU BASTARD!" I mocked scripture at the top of my lungs shouting "I AM THE RIGHTEOUS iM BEGGING FOR BREAD, YOU LIAR! i DIDN'T DO ANYTHING TO DESERVE THIS JOB STUFF"

When the time came God was there. he picked me up and said "that's ok I still love you. none of this hapepned to hurt you." He made it all ok. It's like he was grining and saying 'I've heard worse."

I feel for you. Hey I would probably feel the same way if I went through that. I did react in anger and self pity. I am very sorry for the pain you have had that does not disprove God. you are trying to dictate to me what I can believe you use your own pain as emotional backtalk. I have had my own share of pain. I choose not to allow that to destroy my relationship with god because want to grow.

maybrick

I cannot conceive of a loving god when you smell the stink of a human rotting alive.

Meta

that's your deficiency not mine and not God's. you refuse to learn and grow. you want the emotion of hurt to stand in your way of knowing God, I don't.

I know hurt. I know pain. my legs are rotting away. my booster is rotting away. god is there and he's good and helping us.

That answer is probalby too insensitive. I can understand that feeling. When you are experiencing it it's penitent and immediate you can't be rational about it. you can only step back from it latter when you are no longer going through it.

Maybrick

And unless you redefine God as Morphine and Fentanyl, I suggest that no God worthy of the name would tolerate a system which allowed that magnitude of pain to exist.

Meta

that's your mistake. you formulating an opinion. that is not soemthing you can prove. It's a personal decision about your respond to life. It's not a positive response I don't think. I choose to grow and learn and know God.

That's going too far. That's that self religiousness I see in his earlier statments. It seems to assume first, that stopping pain is all there is, that's the meaning of life. Secondly, it assumes that those who don't hate god have never felt pain. These are both irresponsible and irrational assumptions.

Answering Mark Sinclair From the Comment Section

Mark Sinclair responds to a recent article on Metacrock's Blog: "Why did God Create: Atheist Assumptions about Free Will Defense."

In that discussion I defended by version of the free will defense, Soteriolgoical Drama in which I argue that God must allow the world to run on in a neutral fashion with traces of the ultimate truth available but they must be dug out in an all out search for truth. The reason for this is that only such a search allows one to internalize the values of the good. What I mean by this is that unless we experience the search ourselves they wont be our values. The values we come to learn and hold as a result of seeking truth must be obtained personally, they can't be spoon fed because they would not be our values. When Jesus said "he who has been forgiven much, loves much" he's getting at the idea that unless you really experience the journey yourself its not as meaningful. God can't prescribe that we get into sinful paths in order to experience redemption, that's how Rasputin got started. The next thing over from that is search for the truth, which does not necessitate sin. Mark Sinclair requires further elucidation.

None of your explanations work. If God wanted us to truly internalize our beliefs or choices, since He is all powerful, could He simply not make it so? Does He not have the ability to do anything? If so why not, accomplish all His goals simply through His will? Why does He watch us suffer, when by definition, He could accomplish his goals, simply by willing it so.

I'm not mocking, I desperately want an answer, I want to believe, but it's so hard with all these logical inconsistencies and doubts.

In answer to this earnest plea I will go into greater detail than I did in the answer box of the comment section. Let's break it down:

If God wanted us to truly internalize our beliefs or choices, since He is all powerful, could He simply not make it so?

Obviously if God wanted us to hold certain values in a superficial way, just knowing the concepts, he could put the concepts in us. That would not be the same thing. You cant' have your cake and eat it too. you can't think for yourself and have others spoon feed your ideas to you. In order to learn the values of the good we must experience the search for the truth. Hidden behind Mark's talk of "all powerful God" is probably the assumptino that all powerful means being able to do nonsense like have your cake and eat it too. This is why modern theologians don't use the "omnis" they speak of "maximal greatness" rather than "allow powerful" becasue it communicates more. Why should "all powerful" be construed as the ability to do nonsense or the arability to violate deductive logic?

The notion that God should be able to violate logical necessity is not mandated by scripture and there's just no reason to accept it. A lot of atheists think it's cleaver to propose ideas like this.

Skeptic: Can god smell next Thursday?

Believer: days of the week don't have smells

Skeptic: so God can't smell next Thursday right?

Believer: I guess

Skeptic: Then there's soemthing God can't do so he's not God.


I don't find that cleaver I think it's silly. Nothing in the Bible says "God can violate logical necessity." Nothing in the Bible says "God is 'all powerful' in the sense of doing nonsense." It implies that God is able to do anything logically doable that doesn't mean God can do nonsense or violate logical necessity. No reason to think God can create square circles. That's not reasonable. That sort of thinknig that says "yes, God can smell next Thursday," is not Biblical but comes from Aristotle's unmoved mover. There's no reason to think that God can put personal experiences in us without us experiencing them and no reason for us to avoid the search. Jesus says "seek and ye shall find." Not only is the search mandated by Christ but it's also promised that if we are sincere we ill find the answer.

Sinclair again:

Does He not have the ability to do anything?

Not if by anything you mean logically contradictory stuff and nonsense.

If so why not, accomplish all His goals simply through His will?

Because smelling next Thrusday is not one of his goals. God as the wisdom to set goals he can accomplish, that means all of his goals make sense. "Redeem mankind, move humans along the road of progress until the make the world a decent place, crate an online privacy policy that doesn't' born one to tears in the reading, create a modern version of old sixties tv shows that done tear the heart out of the original concept. Although that latter one might be beyond the pale of logical necessity.

Why does He watch us suffer, when by definition, He could accomplish his goals, simply by willing it so.

Because he can't, because it's a nonsense goal. To have a moral universe there must be free will. To have free will one must actually be free. If your will is given you and it only has the appearance of freedom then it's not truly free. moralty is decision making, so it must done freely. That means God must risk the realty of people screwing themselves over with bad choices. That the risk comes to fruition is not a defeater for the plan. It doesn't negate the purpose. Free will is met and those who choose the good freely choose the good and the purpose of creation has been reached. The reality of a moral universe comes at the expense of human pain and suffering.

fortunately God is in the redemption business. All pain and suffering will be redeemed and we have a whole eternity to do it in. Now one might say, as the atheitws my previous blog spot said (see above)

(1) If God exists, then he would ensure that the best possible world exists.
(2) Because God is maximally great, the possible world containing God and nothing else is the best possible world.
(3) Therefore, if God exists, he would not create anything.

That's not a valid conclusion. That would only be the case if we could calculate all variables and weigh every reality and every possibly. Only God can do that. that's not a logcial contradiction so maximally great creator can do it. We must have the faith to assume that he did and that he knows the price of creation is worth it. We can know that too by placing our faith in Christ.