A few of these are actually pretty common Christian points.
part of the bargain
God doesn’t have to bargain with physical laws. He can do literally anything. He could make a universe where everything explodes randomly for no reason but wills earth to not explode because he loves us. That would be fantastic evidence for his existence and basically disprove a natural universe.
omnipotence and omnibenevolence don’t necessarily preclude suffering
I agree, that’s why I specified unnecessary suffering.
Would you really want to live in a world where you didn’t even feel sad when a loved one dies?
There’s allegedly no suffering at all in heaven, and that’s the end goal for Christianity. So if you’re looking down and see your descendants getting melted by a volcano you wouldn’t be sad. Doesn’t seem great.
There was also allegedly little or no suffering on earth in the garden if you take Genesis literally.
I’m confused. You began your comment by saying my points are commonly made in Christianity, and then you spent the rest of your comment explaining why those same points are incompatible with Christianity?
It’s like you’re trying to squeeze my words into a box they don’t fit in, and then pointing out how they don’t fit in that box.
I’m not arguing from a Christian perspective. I took “the problem of evil” from the philosophy of religion as a launching point, because that was the topic of this thread. But I made it pretty clear I wasn’t making a theistic argument; the closest it could have been to that would simply be in the role of devil’s advocate.
But if you look at the substance of my analysis, it’s not “Some all-powerful deity can snap his fingers and change anything/everything instantaneously.” It’s “there are certain immutable laws of the universe which make life and existence possible, but because of those same laws, suffering and death are a package deal when you enter this world.”
The bargain isn’t between “God and the Universe.” It’s between “You and Life.” And it’s this: to live within the universe is to be subject to those immutable laws. And one of those laws is entropy.
There’s no need for an omnipotent god to hold the universe together so that it doesn’t explode. The laws of gravity, inertia, electromagnetism, strong and weak nuclear forces, etc., they take care of that already.
I’m not sure what you’re trying to argue then. I’m talking about the problem of evil, as posted in the top level comment. The problem of evil only is a problem if you believe in a tri-omni God. Otherwise, you can say “things just be like that.”
A few of these are actually pretty common Christian points.
God doesn’t have to bargain with physical laws. He can do literally anything. He could make a universe where everything explodes randomly for no reason but wills earth to not explode because he loves us. That would be fantastic evidence for his existence and basically disprove a natural universe.
I agree, that’s why I specified unnecessary suffering.
There’s allegedly no suffering at all in heaven, and that’s the end goal for Christianity. So if you’re looking down and see your descendants getting melted by a volcano you wouldn’t be sad. Doesn’t seem great.
There was also allegedly little or no suffering on earth in the garden if you take Genesis literally.
So all of this is fully within God’s abilities.
I’m confused. You began your comment by saying my points are commonly made in Christianity, and then you spent the rest of your comment explaining why those same points are incompatible with Christianity?
It’s like you’re trying to squeeze my words into a box they don’t fit in, and then pointing out how they don’t fit in that box.
I’m not arguing from a Christian perspective. I took “the problem of evil” from the philosophy of religion as a launching point, because that was the topic of this thread. But I made it pretty clear I wasn’t making a theistic argument; the closest it could have been to that would simply be in the role of devil’s advocate.
But if you look at the substance of my analysis, it’s not “Some all-powerful deity can snap his fingers and change anything/everything instantaneously.” It’s “there are certain immutable laws of the universe which make life and existence possible, but because of those same laws, suffering and death are a package deal when you enter this world.”
The bargain isn’t between “God and the Universe.” It’s between “You and Life.” And it’s this: to live within the universe is to be subject to those immutable laws. And one of those laws is entropy.
There’s no need for an omnipotent god to hold the universe together so that it doesn’t explode. The laws of gravity, inertia, electromagnetism, strong and weak nuclear forces, etc., they take care of that already.
I’m not sure what you’re trying to argue then. I’m talking about the problem of evil, as posted in the top level comment. The problem of evil only is a problem if you believe in a tri-omni God. Otherwise, you can say “things just be like that.”
Conversations have a natural flow to them, and it’s quite normal for comment chains to deviate slightly from the original topic.
You should try more train-of-thought writing, you may find it liberating.