The "problem of evil" is an argument against the existence of an omnipotent, omni-benevolent God. Basically, this proposes that an omnipotent and omni-benevolent God and evil existing in our world contradict and that because there is clearly evil in the world, God cannot exist.

The logical problem of evil argument, I personally think, does the best job of making what the problem of evil is proposing clear.


On the flip side, one of the most popular defenses is proposed by Augustine of Hippo, a Christian, which basically goes that evil is only the complete deprivation of good.

I personally think that argument is relatively weak, so I'll also throw in the free will argument (which basically states that God gave us free will as to not have us as "mindless robots") just to have the topic start out somewhat neutral.
Discuss.

Funny. I was actually having this discussion with my boyfriend today on the Yin Yang theory. They believe that Yin & Yang are the balance of Good & Evil and my boyfriend came to the conclusion that without one or the other, the world would be chaotic.

I believe in God and yes he does exist but just because he's all powerful doesn't imply that there can't be Evil. There can be because of the Devil...evil is created by the Devil not God. And since he gives all free will, if he stopped things from happening, it would no longer be free will.

Well, what do you personally think about the Yin & Yang theory?Right-o, but it's not his all powerful-ness that implies that there can't be evil, it's his omni-benevolence that implies that there can't be evil.The "Devil" is practically irrelevant here. If the "Devil" was affecting God's creations in a way that God does not approve, He should easily be able to rid of the Devil (due to his omnipotence).

However, there can still be free will without the "Devil".

Personally, I really don't know much about the Yin & Yang theory until I studied it today. It is basically believed as I said to be the balance between good and evil. Other then that I can't really say.

Explain to me what omni-benevolence is?

No, because if God were to rid of the Devil no one would have a choice in following God or the Devil because he wouldn't exist therefore free will wouldn't really exist, we'd all be taught to follow God but if the Devil was destroyed there would be no evil in our world because it's the devil who created evil in the first place so if he didn't exist, everything would be good and like I said before everyone would follow God but since he gave us free will, we can choose evil over good if we wanted to.

How come no one else is responding to this? LOL.

Because everyone knew that you would ruin our fun.
Read a book.

Learn some respect

HAHAHAHAHA. That's what I told her.



Well, I think it would be wise to give Augustine a little credit. He was a philosopher and theologian. Was he not? No, seriously. I could be wrong. I don't know much about him.

Evil: In religion and ethics, evil refers to the morally objectionable aspects of the behaviour and reasoning of human beings — those which are deliberately void of conscience, and show a wanton penchant for destruction. Evil is sometimes defined as the absence of a good which could and should be present; the absence of which is a void in what should be.

Firstly, God exists out of time. He dwells in eternity. What is eternity? Anything not bound by time and space, really. So, we have a time line for example. Eternity can't be measure, but for the sake of our own sanity, I'll just put a timeline.

|ETERNITY--------------------------------------|TIME-AND-SPACE|-ETERNITY--------------|

When God is confronted with evil in the Bible, it cannot be present for long. The devil is evil, because he is prideful. He was the most beautiful angel in Heaven, and he thought he was as good as God. What does this tell us. Angels at least had free will. So, the presence of free will determines that evil must be present also.

I read them all the time. You know I wasn't going to mention this before but now I think it's okay to say this because I believe this has gone far enough. All I've gotten from you is disrespect. You sit there and call yourself a Christian, you say you believe in the Bible yet you disrespect me and my friend. How can you call yourself a Christian, follow the Bible and think it's okay to disrespect another human being. Jesus asked us to love our neighbor which you are going against.

So learn some respect, read the Bible again and learn what it says and follow it's laws and what it says, don't claim you do and pretend to follow it and then don't...that is what you call a hypocrit.

Hey, right now I don't even know if I do follow the Bible. I'm going off what I've been taught.

The Bible isn't real enough for me. Why should it be, it's a book. I've never seen God, never heard His voice, never had any shred of evidence come from His way, and I got people telling me they believe Creation and Evolution which only makes me think...Wow, what a corrupt religion. Look how the liberal media has gotten inside the church and in about fifty years will be eradicated from our nation.

So, you know what? What you say about disrespect means nothing to me. It would really mean nothing to me whoever said it, besides my few close friends and family.

I really have to respect no body except my elders. And when I say that I don't mean those who are a month, a year or two older than me. They have nothing more to share than I do. So, really, quit it with your disrespect bullshit, please.

Your in my prayers. Truly you are.

Ps: btw..being that you were born in 1988 by your profile info and I was born in 1982, I would say I'm a lot more than just 2 years old than you hun

^ I thought you were only in your early twenties?

I've probably already said this, but age doesnt necessarily bring wisdom. According to your other posts in a different thread, you've mentioned that you've never taken a Chemistry or Biology class. Assuming that he has, wouldnt that mean he has more experience / knowledge in the area? That doesnt mean that he's automatically any more intelligent, you probably have equal experience in other areas. Eeek just a thought.

No, I'm 24 turning 25 in September

As for biology or chemistry, like I stated before I never had the option to take it like other people have. And you can't base on what someone has taken in school as how experienced they are..just like your age factor.

Omni-benevolence is the property of being absolutely, and perfectly good.So, I guess "good" and "evil" will have to be defined here.

Yeah, Augustine was a philosopher and theologian, and mostly known as a saint.

So, I suppose you're saying God's choice of giving us free will would be the reason He does not act immediately in ridding evil? (Which would answer the logical problem of evil.)

Well, that's what I guess. I mean it makes total sense because afterall he is powerful and can do anything with snap of his fingers but he chooses not to. But like I said if the Devil didn't exist, evil wouldn't exist because the Devil is what created Evil from the beginning.

There doesn't need to be a Devil in order for there to be evil. Evil (here, I'll go with the definition most regarded to by humans, which could be translated to suffering) pretty much comes with the free will bundle.

By the "Devil" I assume you would follow the story that Jake described, saying that the Devil was prideful and such?

Jesus!

I thought she was ten!

I follow the story of the Bible and what it says about the Devil. The serpent tricked Eve into eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil so by eating that she brought sin into our world but the Devil was the one who created evil like I said in the first place. If the Devil hadn't of existed they wouldn't of eaten from the tree, sin wouldn't exist and neither would evil.

You didn't answer my question. Do you or do you not believe that...
What I'm trying to get at is that if you follow that the Devil was once the beautiful angel in Heaven and became prideful and thought of himself equivalent to God (showing that angels at least had free will), then "evil" would have originated from free will, not from the Devil.

Oh okay I get what your saying now but I honestly do not know how to answer that since I always believed it's the Devil that caused evil. Yes, he was a beautiful angel, he wanted God's power and tried to throw God off his own throne but was banished from Heaven and since that happend he's been the cause of evil. So in a sense yes we had free will but evil wasn't created until lucifer was casted out of Heaven.

Ps: other angels were banished also not just the devil but the devil is the one that is talked about the most because he's the one that thought he was higher than God and tried to take over.

Well. I guess it could go like this.

In a possible Christian view, the Devil didn't necessarily create "evil," but rather, brought it into God's created world.
In a possible non-Christian, but still theistic view, the "Devil" is strictly be symbolic.

My main point, however, is that "evil" (in a human's view, suffering) is not contingent on the "Devil's" existence.

Alright, I'm going to tell you what I think (keep in mind, I have skimmed over the current posts... I just want to say whatever I'm saying in my own words.):



Alright, this may be difficult to wrap your mind around.

Here's how I see it. First of all, you have to understand the concept of Love. Love is making the best choice, and the only way you can make the best choice in every situation every single time is if you have "infinite wisdom". Pure Love requires the best choices and is something that only God can do because He is the only Being ever to be able to make the best decision in every situation every single time.

The best decision is the perfect decision. Perfection is relative, and cannot be defined. The only Being who knows true perfection is God Himself, and the only reason He knows true perfection is because He is infinitely wise. You cannot make the "best" choices if the worst choices do not exist, and the only different between the perfect choice (if you know what it is) and the alternative is the worst choice. Meaning, any other alternative is just as bad as the worst choice if the best known alternative is purposely avoided even though it is the known best choice because the worst choice is also relative. The Greek philosopher Plato argued, "evil is merely ignorance." I agree, any decision aside from the best decision is a decision tainted by evil (A.K.A: "the ignorance of the best decision".)

Rick Bobby - Talladega Knights: "If you're not first, you're last."

"All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" - Romans 3:23

For God to have the ability to love, He has to have the ability to do all things or in other words make all choices (including sin). Without the ability to sin He wouldn't need infinite wisdom, because without evil, imperfections wouldn't exist. The perfect choice wouldn't need infinite wisdom. If evil didn't exist then perfect choices would simply happen. It's not that God cannot sin, He just chooses not to and never will.

Interesting Observation: If you believe in God then, if God didn't have the ability to do something then it would not exist because he has the ability to accomplish all things (including contradictions).

When God placed the "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil" into the word He gave us the ability to love. When He told Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit of the tree, He gave them the ability to make a choice. He gave them the ability to choose Love by obeying him (the best choice) or choose evil by taking the fruit of the tree (the alternative).

Eve chose to take the fruit out because she was selfish.

"When the woman saw that the tree was good for eating and a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable as a source of wisdom, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave some to her husband, and he ate" (Genesis 3:6)

Often times, people tend to think that the tree had magical properties that unlocked "wisdom". I personally don't think so. Before Adam and Eve had even seen the tree, Lucifer had already fallen from heaven. Beings were already making evil choices. The tree was more of a lesson than a magic turning point in humanity.

I don't think that the tree gave them wisdom. Wisdom already existed. The tree taught them that they had the ability to make choices. It taught them to use applied knowledge to the decisions they make in their lives. The tree was a tool that indirectly gave Adam and Eve the knowledge of wisdom existing.

Giving us the ability to Love without infinite wisdom makes us imperfect or evil by nature. Because we don't have infinite wisdom, we learn from our surroundings. We learn to make decisions based upon the effect they will have on our lives. We make decisions based upon opportunity costs. To many, "perfect" decisions would effect our lives in the most positive way possible. In reality, perfect decisions effect eternity in the best way possible. The best decisions end up being self-less because we don't know all things. Perhaps this is why:

"No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends" - John 15.13

This is not to say that laying down ones life for one's friend is a perfect decision, but that it is the greatest love humans are capable of showing due to the fact that we do not know all things. God is the only one who can truly love, for He is Love. We can only do our best.

"Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love." - John 4:8

I have so much more I want to say. Please, don't reply to this quite yet... I haven't said it all yet...

Well, evil was created before Adam and Eve sinned so if the Devil didn't cause the Evil then who or what did? God didn't create Evil, you got to remember that.

I really don't believe the Devil is symbolic, my friend has seen out of this world happen in front of her eyes. I could give you examples if you want. So, I think the Devil is more than just a symbol.

As for suffering, sometimes things just happen, I believe everything happends for a reason and it's human nature, it's part of human life. I am not saying that every little bad thing in life is a test by God or even Devil-related but a lot of it is tests from God or Devil-related.

As stated previously, evil comes with free will. (Id est, without "evil", there would be no such thing as free will, as the argument goes.)You mean the supernatural happen in front of her eyes? Sure, examples are always nice.I'll give my two cents on suffering a little later.

Yessir. I'm personally interested in what else you have to say.

Sorta. The first one was seen by some of her friends supposedly at the same time. They were outside talking when a garbage can lid was spinning by itself on top of a garbage can with nothing holding it up or nothing even around it to cause it..this was outside of her home.

Second. She was home alone one night with her cats in her dark living room when she felt something really scary come over her (you know the feeling when you feel like someone is watching you or that something bad is going to hapen? that feeling)...her cats began looking up at the ceiling hissing..the very next day she had her pastor come over with holy water and sprinkle it on the house, it never happend again.

Third. 2 young guys who were friends with her and her husband came to her church, the pastor believed them to be possessed by demons...when they were prayed for and had holy water sprinkled on them they hissed and yelled but afterwards became calm and it never happend again.

Those are just three, there are other things but I can't remember them right now. And since the Bible says theres no inbetween, you either go to Heaven or Hell, ghosts don't exist, but the devil and his demons do.

True.