A Just God Cannot Exist

if you take God to be omniscient then God has a better understanding of what is just than you do (as your knowledge is not perfect, God's is). And as such it make no sense for you to judge God's actions as unjust, this is merely your limited human mind not being able to comprehend true Godly justness.

to play devils advocate (in a post about God!), if you take God to be omniscient then God has a better understanding of what is just than you do (as your knowledge is not perfect, God's is). And as such it make no sense for you to judge God's actions as unjust, this is merely your limited human mind not being able to comprehend true Godly justness.

If I find God to be unjust by my understanding of justness - this means my understanding of what is just and God's understanding of what is just differ. As God cannot be wrong in his understanding of anything, it is my understanding of justness that is wrong.

choose

Then we have to accept that God is an insane asshole that actually believes that serial rapists should not be punished except when caught?

Then everything ethical and just is absolutely arbitrary. Or we don't need God. Read this for clarification.

In that frame work, we would have to assume that your understanding of who is an asshole is wrong compared to God's superior understanding of who is an asshole.

Or that everything ethical or just is what god understands as ethical and just, regardless of whether humanity understands it as ethical or just.

But from my point of view, this is all moot as I see no reason to believe an omniscient God in the first place.

Then I'm not alone here.

1. If God is just then there should be no injustice
2. There is injustice
Ergo,
3. God is not just [1, 2, MT]

Not really, unless God were threatening me with death, or an eternity of damnation for defying him.

Are we referring to God as a person here or god as the universe?
Because god as a person could be just. They have free will to make good or bad decisions. God as the universe cannot be just as the universe is everything: thus including both justices and injustices as a whole.

It would be arbitrary if God said what is ethical is ethical merely because he says so.

Are we referring to God as a person here or god as the universe?
Because god as a person could be just. They have free will to make good or bad decisions. God as the universe cannot be just as the universe is everything: thus including both justices and injustices as a whole.

Exactly. He or she would have to demonstrate it instead of just saying so/dictating. They would have to show everyone what it means to be ethical (good) or unethical (bad) by utilising themselves (the truth - if they are indeed omniscient).

If God desires to even be ethical, that is.

I think no one good wants the second type of God to exist.

What I am saying is that if you are starting off with an omniscient God (as you did mention in your OP), then by the very attribute you ascribed to God, God has a superior understanding of what is just than you.

Indeed. I just really doubt that a good God exists

So if there is such a good God and they are able to be a person for a limited time and speak the truth now would be a good time for them to reveal themselves

That's a terrible shame. I do agree that probably most people at this stage in time would have to "see it to believe it" rather than blindly trust that such a good god exists.

What an odd thing to say. I doubt God would suddenly intervene now of all times.

Maybe it's time to give up on notions of being guided by some benevolent, all-powerful, cosmic father-figure? I honestly think we are on our own.

However if I did believe in an omniscient God, perhaps the bitterness would be palatable and I would avoid the arguments I was making. Funny that.

It makes sense to explore scenarios, sure. What I have explored has not led to any reason to believe in a God, but who knows if I may one day find something

a. If God exists, they are at least unjust, and have the potential to effect just outcomes if such just outcomes exist.
b. Just outcomes exist.
c. God must always effect just outcomes to be perfectly just.
d. God does not always effect just outcomes.
e. Therefore, God is merely unjust.

a - If god exists we seem to have no demonstrable way of knowing what their nature is, or if god is even present in the physical world.

I guess I would ask, what exactly is the correlation between our world and the reality (or not) of a deity?

I guess I would ask, what exactly is the correlation between our world and the reality (or not) of a deity?

b) We have no good evidence about the nature of any god/s.

a) It is unwise to reach conclusions in the absence of good evidence.

c) Therefore we can make no claims about god/s as being just or unjust.

The problem for me is that these kinds of formulations only really work if God is a person - some old guy in the sky, with a personality and an almost human approach and is subject to a literalist/fundamentalist interpretation.

We have plenty of evidence, however, that God does not give a flying fuck about people getting what they deserve, at least as we understand it.

You need to address my definition, because, according to that, we can indeed declare him to be unjust.

Mainly just for the kinds of anthropomorphic, cartoon gods of evangelicals.

I'm not sure how you have determined god's state of mind to conclude it doesn't give a fuck. :smile:

I get that, but I think this narrows the scope and nature of both god and evil. That's all I am saying. The world may be much vaster than this small fence around matters moral and metaphysical would suggest.

If God cared, you don't think they would do something? Would God pussyfoot around so that we can have arguments like these? I think not.

You've probably missed the argument about the nature of god then. You're approaching this in human terms and thinking of god as a kind of very special human, with the same frame of reference.

No. I haven't. God could be that unfathomably complex machine yet still be a being that cares not for enacting justice at all.

Just in saying that demonstrates to me you don't understand the argument.

Do you want to keep going in circles or have we reached the end for now?

Are you even trying to understand what I am saying?

Have we taken up too much time on this?

Is this an insult? We are exploring an argument, not trying to slight each other, right?

We disagree (partly) in a discussion forum - nothing wrong with that, right?

I'll concede one thing here - you're right to say God may not be just by a human understanding of what is just.

My problem is not this part of the argument, rather the implication that god is in some way a moral monster or 'choosing not to intervene'.

From the perspective of omniscience what humans understand as injustice might look to be something utterly different. God may not consider intervention to be appropriate.

They just claim that either God's plan is incomprehensible or that he has special reasons for suspending justice (the guilty will be judged in the afterlife, the existence of original sin, etc.).

Why does God potentially being totally incomprehensible mean that he isn't responsible for the injustices we suffer? I'm saying that relative to any human idea of justness God is not just. How is that wrong?

Then we should stop drawing any sort of positive wisdom or assurance from any personal ideas of what God is too

. If God is just then there should be no injustice
2. There is injustice
Ergo,
3. God is not just [1, 2, MT]

cartoon gods

You're going to have to define God in your syllogism as that which eliminates the possibility of injustice. I'm not sure that is a generally accepted notion of God. Most religions accept that there is injustice.

We have free will and it is our responsibility to create just outcomes in society.

Expecting God to do everything for us so we needn't do anything is lumping the means by which we show God who we are onto God's lap, which would be pointless because God created creation to see how we react to life.

But largely that is the God people actually argue for, not some deistic/agnostic formulation, and, thus, that is what I am addressing

Could god not be both a person and the universe simultaneously?

you cannot have justice and good without its opposite

But sadly in this duality god as the universe is ambivalent - because the system contains both good and evil, both chaos/destruction and order/creation - you cannot have justice and good without its opposite, and you cannot have free will either if only one or the other existed in isolation.

He could make any two contradictory things possible at the same time if he so desires.

could even just be a human with no powers if he so desired, and could just make himself God again whenever.

everyone must just get what they deserve.

Sounds sort of fun. To live powerless for a while and allow others have the power and then resume control when needed - for example when there is too much abuse of his/her power and to restore the natural balance of things

I don't think you can make a logical argument against an entity that can make two contradictory thing possible at the same time, as such a being would be able to invalidate the most perfect piece of human logic.

For instance, if we can verify the claim that donkeys are small separately from the claim that they are gray to come to the conclusion that they are indeed both small and gray, then we know that the statements "donkeys are small", and "donkeys are gray" are non-contradictory.

That might seem pretty basic, but it demonstrates that we have a means of knowing if God has made two logical statements contradictory.

I suppose if people are cool with God not caring about justice my argument would do little to persuade anyone to think critically about God or their religion.

Then that we see donkeys are grey and donkeys are small can both happen at the same time, does not mean they are non-contradictory. I.e if a being exists that can make contradictory things happen, then the very basis of logic that we use everyday, would be suspect.

If the logic didn't work, we wouldn't be able to combine the separate statements that donkeys are both small and gray to describe a donkey. The logic is just as necessary to the donkey example as the fact that they are indeed observably small and gray. If God had changed the rules of logic in such a way as to make the combined statement about donkeys false, we would not be able to use the donkey logic to come to any conclusions about donkeys or other things at all. But we can - merely with the premises that donkeys are small and gray.

If I'm wrong on this one, someone who knows more about logic correct me, please.

If the logic still can be used to describe reality, is it even faulty?

But if we can confirm that the appropriate application of logic always leads to correct outcomes, or almost always, then why do we have reason to doubt its integrity?

But in this scenario, God is not really powerless, is he? For he has the power to take back his all encompassing powers, otherwise he will be stuck forevermore as a mere human.

It would just mean that our logic system is faulty. What we use as a logical system, is a flawed system.

Here is an example of a piece of logic.

Premise 1: I get letters if and only if the postman visited
Premise 2: I got letters today

Conclusion: The postman visited

If the two premises are true, then logically the conclusions must be true as we understand it.

Now what about if contradictory things can happen? "I get letters if and only if the postman visited" and "I got letter without the postman visiting" can both be true in such a world. The two premises no longer logically result that the conclusion must be true.

But our system of logic cannot cope with contradictions. See my above post with an example.

A question I have would be, can anyone else in the position of the God-who-is-for-now-human, also go through the same learning process and gain the same powers?

But our system of logic cannot cope with contradictions

I'm saying that we wouldn't be able to use the donkey logic at all, but we reliably can, and that would indicate that our logic is not faulty. If the logic is faulty then why would one be able to use that logic to come to correct conclusions? And if you are saying faulty logic would have no effect on our ability to form arguments then why would there be an issue for the arguments applied to God?

So if contradictory things can really happen, then there is reason to suspect the world painted by logic.

Yes our system of logic can't cope with contradiction... But

our system of logic

Premise 1: God is capable of making contradictions true
Premise 2: X is unjust
Premise 3: God let X happen even though he could have prevented it

Conclusion: God is unjust

Would you say that adults should allow their children to suffer injustices at each other's hands merely so they can be judged by adults? That we should allow children to suffer so we can test them?

And what about good people that get cancer? How are we supposed to enact justness there? If we can't enact justness, then shouldn't God protect good people from injustices we cannot rectify if he is even remotely just?

Expecting God to do everything for us so we needn't do anything is lumping the means by which we show God who we are onto God's lap, which would be pointless because God created creation to see how we react to life. — Hallucinogen

Then God really half-assed creation. We could demonstrate our worth, compassion, bravery, ingenuity etc. in a world with significantly less suffering.

I said it was our responsibility to create just outcomes in society; allowing our children to suffer injustices would be the opposite of that.

People don't have the power to decide the fate and destination of other people's spirits, unlike God.

From the rest of your comment, I'm getting a strong impression of left-wing idealism and bitterness about inequality, which tells me that your moral intuitions here are just expressions of your personality rather than moral statements I have to acknowledge as being objective or factual.

No, this is just your moral intuition/outrage again. I don't have to accept the assertion that God should do anything. Intervening to cure every person of cancer would make creating a world with cancer in it pointless.

Cancer gives the sufferer (who is ultimately an alter-ego of God) the opportunity to experience and learn from mortality in a particular way, and it gives a unique experience to their loved ones and anyone trying to help them as well.

This is yet again you repeating the insistence there should be significantly less suffering, which I don't have to accept because it is an expression of your personality.

I'm curious how you think we could demonstrate our compassion in a world with significantly less suffering, though. Wouldn't that mean significantly less compassion?

The analogy just went over your head. I understand letting children suffer would be an injustice - thus I pointed it out.

We have free will and it is our responsibility to create just outcomes in society.

If we allow those whose condition we have control over to suffer, then we are guilty for not preventing that suffering, no matter how, as I have had to point out many times in this thread, unfathomable God is

Then God is even more culpable than the parent who lets their child suffer, as he has absolute control over our outcomes and whether or not they are just.

We could just try to arrange society in such a way that people get what they deserve? Do you honestly believe that someone could only be rewarded with a Nobel Prize if someone else falls off a cliff? What connection is there between some people's suffering, or the lack of just outcomes, and the just outcomes others receive, and why couldn't we all at least mostly get what we deserve?

Hello left-wing utopianism. Everyone gets a participation trophy, and anything less than that is all God's fault! I'm concluding here that you're just angry at reality for containing suffering and that you're just going to keep insisting that the responsibility lies in God's lap instead of in the laps of people who make those decisions

We create a God ourselves, and then we realize that He is not just and then compalin about that.

We create a God ourselves, and then we realize that He is not just and then compalin about that.

As much as I appreciate you, Smith, you should probably stop posting irrelevant one-offs and non-sequiturs.

He told his freshly minted humuns "Go, cavort in the garden and amuse me, but don't touch my special fruit... because, if you do, I'll kill you." No further reason or explanation given. Indeed, it would have a been wasted effort to talk to them about fairness, since they had no knowledge of good and evil.

We can make every act we do serve truth if we want to.

Tell me if you were God for a day ...

Would you spread your knowledge, your truth of truths, with the intent to save strangers that you have never met?[/img]
Of course I would. But this is the ideal scene. The actual scene is the opposite: a God that can and does punish us. Just listen to the priests as well as the devotional, God-fearing people. Imagine that you create a puppet --because this is supposedly the relation of God to Man-- and then you get angry and throw it down, insult it, etc. And, as a puppet it doesn't undestand why you do that. Yet, it is you who created it. Isn't that ironical if not insane?

[quote="Benj96;750174"]In all honesty if you aren't prepared to face injustice alone, to carry that burden for others, then you do not practice the truth, you would not know it nor possess its true power/authority.

The God of Genesis wasn't omniscient or particularly fair, and didn't pretend to be.

To the hugely inflated Creator of the whole now-known universe, with all his later add-on superpowers, no logic can apply

To "no logic" I will add "no usefulness".

I think this [the Eden story] is a metaphor, an allegory for innocence, curiosity and revelation.

Gen 3:17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

#:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:

#:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
A little boo-boo in editing. And later transcribers and translators didn't dare to fix it, any more than they dared to remove the alternate creation story from the first chapter - because by the time it was fixed as scripture, the text had become too holy to alter.

Isn't this what Chirst did? If so, it means that he saw that there injustice in the world, which means he believed that His Father (as Son of God) was responsible for that injustice, did he? Because who created everything, including Man with a potential not only to be injust but also to kill his congeners?
Carrying the sins of humanity on one's shoulders is carrying all the injustice and imperfections created by God.

Where does this composite image of the god or God come from?

He's been a wonderfully effective lever to move masses of gullible people into calamitous wars, as well as craven obedience.

But he chose to channel benevolence

he would reveal truth and understanding to others, and they would love him for it, and he would naturally gain popularity and tip the balance of power in his favour.

Of course the courts and governments of the time would be raging at such a person being offered authority and power that had previously been offered to them.

Yes, this is true. Buddha had chosen compassion. Quite similar. But I prefer Buddha's approach. Very "human", simple, direct, practical, no gods or even deities, etc. Christ, and the whole New Testament are very mystical and allow for a lot of interpretations, let aside the self-contraditions and other illogical elements it contains.

These looks like attributes of a revolutionary and politically-oriented person. I have read in the (very) past a few texts with these views in mind. Even that he belonged to Zealots, who I think were also amed!

My "uselessness" refers to the those who are not affected, who are the minority.

I think at the end of the day it doesn't matter what religion one pursues (if they wish to even coin themselves by any dogma at all) because beneath all religions or spiritualities seems to be a common ground. A sacred message about doing the right thing.

And how many of our greatest leaders even just within the last few centuries were a force to be reckoned with, inspiring the masses and being assassinated for it? Or at least attempted assassination.

Did they all know the same thing? Were they all compelled by the same truth? I wonder.

I think at the end of the day it doesn't matter what religion one pursues (if they wish to even coin themselves by any dogma at all) because beneath all religions or spiritualities seems to be a common ground.

I believe Buddha reached his nirvana, his true inner peace, by letting go of his suffering, guilt and shame. By forgiving those who wronged him and by forgiving himself for what wrong he did against others knowing he didn't understand the true way to be, and thus allowing himself the chance to begin anew. Probably as jesus did. And Muhammad.

I don't have much use for deities, either. But I would not turn against them, nor deny access to them to people who need a spiritual reference in their lives

Ironically though, the Churches and the people belonging to dogmatic religions, are intolerant to other beliefs.

Some of us believed that mood would not only continue but expand... a few diehards are still fighting a valiant, doomed rearguard action against the gathering darkness.

Much, if not most, of the plentiful violence committed by humankind is against God’s animals, their blood literally shed and bodies eaten in mind-boggling quantities by people. [It leaves me wondering whether the metaphorical forbidden fruit of Eden eaten by Adam and Eve was actually God’s four-legged creation.]
I can see that really angering the Almighty – a lot more than the couple’s eating non-sentient, non-living, non-bloodied fruit. I’ve yet to hear a monotheist speak out against what has collectively been done to animals for so long.

And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.

Leviticus 17:14 For it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof: therefore I said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh: for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof: whosoever eateth it shall be cut off.

It is necessary, in order to keep the established elite in power, for the rank and file to hold a rigid sense of their own rightness

Thus the RC vs Jews and heretics; the Anglican kings vs the papists; the Stalin regime vs reactionaries; the Repub... well, you know.

...the triumphs of science and rational thought

.[the triumphs of science and rational thought — Vera Mont]
Yes, at last! The war lasted for too long!

The war is back? In what way? Have I missed the news?

I'm starting to doubt I understand what it would mean for logic to not work because of your arguments. If God made logic stop working, how could we use it to come to any correct conclusions?

Thanks. Wow! That's a lot of homework!

The issue I have with logical arguments about a omnipotent/omniscient/can make contradictions true God can be seen using an (imperfect) analogy.

people in a hierarchy tend to rise to "a level of respective incompetence":

But this confusion comes from assigning a characteristic to God that I don't think you fully understand the consequences. What are the consequences of a being who can make contradiction true? I don't think you even understand such a scenario, nor do I, nor do I think anyone does. I'm not sure you, or I, are fully capable of understanding a world in which a contradiction are true.

The issue I have with logical arguments about a omnipotent/omniscient/can make contradictions true God can be seen using an (imperfect) analogy.

I have a being locked in a room. He has real magical superpowers and can make anything happen. I will argue he can't escape.

-The room has walls that are so thick it is impossible to escape
-The door is secure in a way that it can never be opened
-There are no windows
-There is no other escape route

Therefore the being cannot escape.

Have I proved my case? No of course not! For a normal human, sure if the above is true then he is not escaping. For a magical being with superpowers who can make anything happen? He can make anything happen, so of course he can still escape!

And he can escape not only any physical cage I put him in, but also any logical cage. For he can do anything - I have said so myself!

You must have. Religious terrorism; systemic denial of scientific evidence; curtailment of human rights; racial strife; economic disparity; and of course... actual war.
Other than that, we're just squabbling, polluting the landscape, spreading disease and accelerating climate change. IOW, BAU.

What is all this? I was talking about the war between science and religion.

There never has been and never can be any war between ideologies, methodologies or belief systems. Wars take place between factions of armed humans.

They're usually fighting over resources and territory, but that's usually masked by an appeal to the superior value of one ideology, methodology or belief

In most cases turf, flags, resources, are all held on behalf of an ideology which usually takes itself very seriously, whether it be Islamic State or the United States.

Sure. Christianity goaded Spain into invading America so that it

Ideologies must have power to embed their ideology -

Are you one of those cynics who thinks that no one believes in anything, it's just about money?

So, you think abstract concepts [s]are not merely alive and have a will of their own, but also[/s] have [s]agency and[/s] power to manipulate people? Ho-kay...

I'm one of those cynics

There never has been and never can be any war between ideologies, methodologies or belief systems.

4,380,000

But this confusion comes from assigning a characteristic to God that I don't think you fully understand the consequences. What are the consequences of a being who can make contradiction true? I don't think you even understand such a scenario, nor do I, nor do I think anyone does. I'm not sure you, or I, are fully capable of understanding a world in which a contradiction are true.

Googling warfare of science with theology, one gets 4,380,000 results! I have a whole folder in my PC about this subject from a time in the past that I was interested in the subject. Most probably, this subject --although of a huge importance-- has never come to your attention. Strangely enough.

Are contradictions not the basis for self reference and agency. For example two humans must be in contradiction with one another's beliefs otherwise they would operate as a unanimous hive mind. Thinking and acting as one. No individualism.

I don't see two humans having two different beliefs as contradictory. They are two different people, and thus there is no contradiction if they have two different beliefs any more than two different cars being two different colors.

1. The color of the car is blue and only blue
2. The color of the car is not blue

They both can't be true at the same time based on the way we currently view the world.