[NYU2012]

(Original post by chickenonsteroids)
Is there anyway of coming to a conclusion that hinders one property the most? Or would that involve further argument?

At least it isn't a really strong conclusion.

No. It's equally possible that any of three properties are not true.

If God is not all good, then he doesn't care if bad, etc. things happen.
If he is not all powerful, he may not be able to stop them.
If he is not all knowing, he may not know how to stop them or that some thing X will have a bad consequence.

[pyjamatrousers.]

(Original post by NYU2012)
For God to be all good, that would require that NO action or event involve ANY suffering - causing or allowing suffering is, by definition, not good. Therefore, either God is not all good; or he not all powerful; or he is not all knowing.

If you admit that there is suffering, you accept the argument and must reject one of following: god is all good, god is all knowing, god is all powerful

No, I don't understand why the existence of suffering means that God is not good...?

[NYU2012]

(Original post by pyjamatrousers.)
No, I don't understand why the existence of suffering means that God is not good...?

A premise of the Christian God is that God is ALL good, while also being all powerful and all knowing.

If all three of things are true, suffering cannot exist because suffering is not good.

Since suffering does exist, we know that one of the premises given above is not true. Because if God were all three of those things, he would prevent all suffering in the world because suffering is, by definition, not good - which means if he knew how to prevent it and had the power to prevent it, he would, because he is also supposedly all good. But, suffering does exist and therefore one of those things must be false.

(1) God is all good
(2) God is all knowing
(3) God is all powerful
(4) People suffer everyday

(1)-(3) are premises given by the Christian religion. (4) is a fact.

If (1)-(3) are true, then (4) has to be false - because (1)-(3) would require that no bad actions, suffering, etc. ever happened. But (4) is true and therefore one of (1)-(3) cannot be true.

[pyjamatrousers.]

(Original post by NYU2012)
A premise of the Christian God is that God is ALL good, while also being all powerful and all knowing.

If all three of things are true, suffering cannot exist because suffering is not good.

Since suffering does exist, we know that one of the premises given above is not true. Because if God were all three of those things, he would prevent all suffering in the world because suffering is, by definition, not good - which means if he knew how to prevent it and had the power to prevent it, he would, because he is also supposedly all good. But, suffering does exist and therefore one of those things must be false.

(1) God is all good
(2) God is all knowing
(3) God is all powerful
(4) People suffer everyday

(1)-(3) are premises given by the Christian religion. (4) is a fact.

If (1)-(3) are true, then (4) has to be false - because (1)-(3) would require that no bad actions, suffering, etc. ever happened. But (4) is true and therefore one of (1)-(3) cannot be true.

Isn't that like saying that God can't exist since evil exists? I see what you mean but if you want to believe that God is good then you'd consider that maybe there's a reason why He let's us suffer....and yes He knows how to stop it and He is able to but again there is a reason why He doesn't.. I don't necessarily know the reason but everything has a reason...

[NYU2012]

(Original post by pyjamatrousers.)
Isn't that like saying that God can't exist since evil exists? I see what you mean but if you want to believe that God is good then you'd consider that maybe there's a reason why He let's us suffer....and yes He knows how to stop it and He is able to but again there is a reason why He doesn't.. I don't necessarily know the reason but everything has a reason...

But if God is all good, all knowing and all powerful, he could do whatever he wanted without there being any suffering. That 'reason he lets us suffer', if he is all knowing and all powerful, could be accomplished without any suffering!

So if he is all good, powerful and knowing, then there is no reason for suffering to exist.

[pyjamatrousers.]

but how do you know that what God wants to achieve could be done without suffering?

[NYU2012]

(Original post by pyjamatrousers.)
but how do you know that what God wants to achieve could be done without suffering?

That would be inherent in the meaning of being who is all knowing, all powerful and all good.

If he wanted to achieve X and was all powerful (and therefore could do whatever was needed to accomplish X), was all knowing (would know all the possible ways to accomplish X), and was all good (would not act in any way which caused suffering. All good is a deontological viewpoint. It restricts actions such that no action which is bad can ever be done, regardless of how good the consequence it), then he could do it.

[pyjamatrousers.]

(Original post by NYU2012)
That would be inherent in the meaning of being who is all knowing, all powerful and all good.

If he wanted to achieve X and was all powerful (and therefore could do whatever was needed to accomplish X), was all knowing (would know all the possible ways to accomplish X), and was all good (would not act in any way which caused suffering. All good is a deontological viewpoint. It restricts actions such that no action which is bad can ever be done, regardless of how good the consequence it), then he could do it.

Okay well maybe there is a greater good that comes from our suffering?

[NYU2012]

(Original post by pyjamatrousers.)
Okay well maybe there is a greater good that comes from our suffering?

Again, "all good" is a deontological view, not a Consequentialist views.

On deontolgoical views, you cannot violate one's rights or create or allowing suffering to achieve a greater good. Deontology does not care if you can create a "greater good", it cares how you arrive at the end result. All good means that they cannot act in any bad ways, regardless of how good the end-result would be.

Saying that suffering allows for a greater good is a Consequentialist view and would agree that God is not all good. A requisite for agreeing to a Consequentialist view would be agreeing that God is either not all good, not all powerful or not all knowing.

[pyjamatrousers.]

Okay if you say so. I don't agree with you but you seem set on your opinion so that's fine!

[NYU2012]

(Original post by pyjamatrousers.)
Okay if you say so. I don't agree with you but you seem set on your opinion so that's fine!

This is just a fact of logic... This isn't something you can contest.... This isn't an opinion; it's merely a fact of how deontology functions.

This is very basic ethics. You could simply do a Google search and find the literature on this subject.

[Strawberrycayk]

(Original post by Flyteryder)
If God stopped bad things and evil happening like tsunamis, earthquakes, murderers etc, everyone would believe in him because he revealed himself. There would then be no faith, which goes against the idea of free will, as God would have forced everyone to believe in him through this proof. Faith is the only way to get into Heaven apparently, which nobody would have if God proved himself.

Of course God can stop these things happening, but if he wants people to have faith in him, with faith meaning continuous belief without solid evidence, he cannot intervene in anything on Earth. Only people who choose to have faith in God are 'saved', so if God revealed himself and forced people to believe in him, taking away people's free will, nobody could be saved.

Sinners and atheists who never believed in God and never would unless he revealed himself would then just believe in God, because they saw him and there's proof, rather than thtrough their own free will.

I'm not religious either.

This is one of the many things which confuses and puts me off religion What kind of God would put a decent person in hell just because they didn't believe in him? It's not entirely fair is it? It's like your best friend putting an invisibility cloak on and then hating you for not being able to see him.

[Strawberrycayk]

(Original post by Dragonfly07)
You don't need to have faith to have free will. You believe in many things when you have proof of their existence, but you have the free will to interact with those things whichever way you want.

As for faith being the only way to get into heaven - that also contradicts the notion of an all loving, all knowing and all powerful god (he could just choose to put everyone in heaven). Heaven and hell as concepts of reward and punishment which are only decided on the basis of faith have nothing to do with morality. It's more like a sick game than anything else.

This, it's depressing when you think about it.

[mc1000]

(Original post by mwells1996)
So we were looking at this dilemma in our Philosophy class a while back, and I've been thinking about it a fair bit lately and wanted a place to discuss it.

Evil exists, in one way or another - bad things happen. Hypothetically speaking, God should be able to stop it. He knows everything, so he would know how to eradicate it. He is all powerful, so if he knew a way he would be able to do it. He is all loving, so he must surely want to get rid of the bad things in the world. So why doesn't he? The only answer must be that God does not exist as many believe he does - he cannot be all loving, all powerful, and all knowing because evil exists. So where does that leave religion?

[Just want to say, I'm not religious at all. I just think this is a pretty interesting problem]

Yep, I'm a Christian who believes in a God who is very evenly matched with Satan. Satan's power can overpower God's to create evil; conversely, God's power can overpower Satan's - which results in acts of love and kindness in the face of adversity.

It does trouble me, though, that God can't possibly be all-powerful if he is good. So I arranged to meet up with the minister of my church (she's a decent, intelligent person), to ask her how it's possible for God to be good, all-knowing AND all-powerful. Her explanation? God is all three; but he put humans on this planet and gave them free will to basically see what would happen - she basically just admitted that God isn't all-knowing - yet that's exactly what she believes...

I'm so confused.

She did, however, admit that Satan's power shouldn't be under-estimated; I was glad she admitted this, because - if Satan exists - it's so true.

[mwells1996]

NYU2012 has pretty much argued this whole thing for me and saved me the trouble of repeating myself :L they're right, bottom line is evil exists. Because we know this, the three things mentioned about god cannot be true because if god is all knowing he would know a way of achieving the purpose of our suffering without causing us any pain, even if we cannot see this ourselves. And, to top it all off if it was a matter of punishment he would only cause suffering to those of us who have sinned (unless we're counting the original sin here, but then childbirth is supposed to be the punishment for Adam and Eve's sin so I don't think there would need to be another punishment).


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