Hello Steve, thanks for responding.
I appreciate the thoroughness of your thought, and the care with which you’ve developed your belief system. These are the kinds of conversations I relish.
Let me respond to what you’ve written. You said:
“I was going with the problem of evil argument. Which is one of the best pieces of evidence to show that the Christian omni god doesn’t exist.”
Interesting. Let’s dig into this.
You said:
“I guess we can say it’s possible that some god exists, in which case you’d have to give reasons to believe in such a deity. We don’t know the possibility or probably of a god existing, because I’ve seen nothing strong enough to rule it in as an explanation.”
It is indeed possible.
I would say that, given our scientific observation of the universe we live in, it is logically necessary that an infinite God exists.
I work through that here: https://medium.com/hope-youre-curious/beyond-doubt-logical-arguments-and-scientific-evidence-of-the-abrahamic-god-b9b3657eea0b?sk=b95c983cdd41454af3cae124f2c46439
You said:
“You are very thorough with questioning, which makes it hard to follow and answer all of your queries. But I’ll try. It doesn’t make sense in any of these scenarios for suffering to exist, unless this god is incapable of stopping it, or encourages it to happen. Which would mean he is not all-loving…or omni-benevolent.”
I agree that if God is incapable of stopping suffering, then He is not a God to be worshiped.
I agree that if God encourages suffering, perhaps out of some sadistic pleasure in others’ pain, then He is not a God to be worshiped.
But these are not our only options.
The case laid out in Genesis 1-3 is that God created humanity for the purpose of exercising dominion over the world.
Exercising dominion requires that we have wills that are independent of God. We have to be able to think and analyze and choose on our own, or else we have no real dominion. Without independent minds and wills, we would be robots, doing only what we were programmed. God would have dominion, and we would be puppets.
But Genesis 1 states twice that God created humanity to exercise dominion over this world.
Dominion, by itself, is good. It is good that we have minds. It is good that we have independent wills. It is good that we are able to think for ourselves, analyze, question, reason, create, and innovate.
But for our dominion to be real, we have to have consequences for wrong choices. If we can’t choose anything wrong, we have no real dominion. We have no real will if we can’t make the wrong choice and suffer for it.
This boils down to a simple dichotomy:
God can give us genuine dominion, with the abilities to make our own choices, which requires us to suffer the consequences of wrong choices
Or
God could deny us dominion, giving us no independent will, no ability to think or analyze or decide for ourselves. We would never suffer for making the wrong choices, because we would never make a choice at all.
Between the two, which would you choose?
It’s not even close, for me.
In the first option, I have personhood. I have a mind. I have a will.
I’m the second, I’m not a person. I have no mind, no will, no choice. How could you even have any appreciable awareness or consciousness if you have no ability to think independently or make choices?
So, could God remove suffering? Sure. He could snap His fingers and remove all of us, removing every last human, removing every last mind that can think for itself.
But could God leave us all in place, with our free minds, abilities to reason, abilities to choose, abilities to think and reason and obey or rebel — could God leave all of that in place and remove suffering?
No. That’s a logical impossibility, in the same way God cannot make a round square.
You can’t have creatures who can make choices, who simultaneously cannot make choices.
As long as we’re able to choose, we’re able to choose wrong.
As long as we’re able to choose wrong, we’ll be suffering the consequences of wrong choices.
Therefore, we’re not dealing with a God unable or unwilling to remove suffering.
We’re dealing with a God who cares about giving us dominion. It’s far better to have the ability to choose, and occasionally choose wrong, than it is to not be able to choose at all.
You said:
“If it’s the “original sin” version…it’s nonsensical to punish anyone for not having the knowledge of good and evil, until they were able to achieve the knowledge of good and evil. You wouldn’t punish a baby for breaking rules they were incapable of understanding.”
True. And God doesn’t.
There is no verse that teaches original sin.
Rather, children are presumed innocent.
In the Exodus, children aged 20 and under are not held responsible for their beliefs or actions, but the adults 20 and over are.
Likewise, in Acts 17:30, Paul reminds his audience that “The times of ignorance God overlooked.”
God doesn’t judge us for things we don’t know, or aren’t able to understand.
You said:
“If it’s the “not liking suffering” or “losing someone and being mad at a god” version…I do not believe any such deities exists. It’s an internal critique of your worldview. I’ve had plenty of losses, but I understand that the universe doesn’t care about us and therefore I mourn them with a genuine understanding that all I now have of them are memories…since there is no promise that I’ll see them again.”
And what if there was?
What if there was the hope of seeing them again?
What if there’s a God so good that He would shed His own blood to save us? That He was so committing to SAVING as many as possible that dying in our place was not too much to ask?
If there was even the slightest chance of seeing your loved ones again, wouldn’t you want to take it?
My friend, there is hope available to you — real, genuine hope in a real, genuine God who loves to save.
You said:
“Obviously I don’t like suffering because it is the antithesis to well-being, which forms the basis for my morality. Which has evolved over time through natural instincts and processes of humans being a social species.”
It’s true that no one likes suffering.
Yet suffering isn’t the antithesis to well-being. Often it’s the catalyst for it.
A child can suffer a failing grade on a test, and that suffering might propell them to study and ace the next test.
An athlete can suffer extreme physical anguish in training because they know that suffering produces incredible physical strength.
A romantic partner can suffer losing someone they love because they were selfish and out of touch. That loss could prompt them to work on themselves, such that in their next relationship, they are self-less and caring, and end up in a beautiful, mutually-loving relationship.
If we never suffered for our bad choices and bad conditions, we’d have precious little to compel us to do the hard work of growth.
You said:
“Any god worth their salt and worthy of being worshipped would not cause needless suffering, chaos, murder, genocide, etc.”
True.
And God never causes needless suffering, chaos, murder, or genocide.
From the first page of the Bible to the last, God is against suffering.
God creates a Paradise free from suffering.
At the end of time, God restores that Paradise, a world full of people free from the horrors we inflict upon each other.
God writes extensive laws, all of which are designed to promote life and love. As Jesus and Paul summarize, the entire Law is designed to help us “love our neighbor as ourselves.”
God doesn’t leave us in our suffering with no hope, but takes on flesh and dies in our place to rescue us from suffering, to give us an eternity of life and love and joy instead of suffering.
That salvation begins working itself out in us even now, such that we experience steadily increasing love, joy, and peace as God’s Spirit reshapes us from within. As we live it out, we bring His Kingdom here, so that all those around us experience the love we live out, and our world becomes steadily more Heavenly as we live like Jesus did.
Suffering comes from us, my friend.
God seeks to save us from that suffering.
That’s why Jesus is the Savior — not the Condemner.
