Is evil something God dislikes?
According to common belief, evil is one of the reasons people abandon faith in God as an omnibenevolent and all good being.
It is my opinion that God allowed evil to manifest in the world, according to His divine plan. Yet, God could have not liked evil for He is an all good being. Thus, does it seem true that God dislikes evil; but, allowed it to exist?
It is my opinion that God allowed evil to manifest in the world, according to His divine plan. Yet, God could have not liked evil for He is an all good being. Thus, does it seem true that God dislikes evil; but, allowed it to exist?
Comments (91)
I'm still swayed by Augustine's 'evil as a privation of the good'. To put it another way, evil has the kind of existence that holes, fractures, shadows and illness has.
[quote=St Augustine, The Enchiridion;https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf103.iv.ii.xiii.html]And in the universe, even that which is called evil, when it is regulated and put in its own place, only enhances our admiration of the good; for we enjoy and value the good more when we compare it with the evil. For the Almighty God, who, as even the heathen acknowledge, has supreme power over all things, being Himself supremely good, would never permit the existence of anything evil among His works, if He were not so omnipotent and good that He can bring good even out of evil. For what is that which we call evil but the absence of good? In the bodies of animals, disease and wounds mean nothing but the absence of health; for when a cure is effected, that does not mean that the evils which were presentnamely, the diseases and woundsgo away from the body and dwell elsewhere: they altogether cease to exist; for the wound or disease is not a substance, but a defect in the fleshly substance,the flesh itself being a substance, and therefore something good, of which those evilsthat is, privations of the good which we call healthare accidents. Just in the same way, what are called vices in the soul are nothing but privations of natural good. And when they are cured, they are not transferred elsewhere: when they cease to exist in the healthy soul, they cannot exist anywhere else.[/quote]
The classical theological rationale is that living beings such as ourselves live in a 'between' realm ('metaxy') - between the material world which is subject to decay and death, and the higher reality in which there is no lack or privation of any kind.
Could you have faith in a being who does not make direct contact with you, does not manifest in any way you recognize, is described differently by every cult, each of which has has profound and irreconcilable internal contradictions?
Can you believe in an an omnipotent, omnibenevolent being who not only condones but creates evil? Then, too, as humans have developed a pretty healthy concept of evil themselves, would you continue to have faith in a fabled being whose mythology depicts him as performing and promoting acts that most humans consider evil?
God has clearly given us opportunities to make choices, and so the most he can do to alleviate the suffering of the righteous is to offer comfort and blessings despite challenges. Anything more usually limits others agency.
What we see as God allowing evil is often just the unavoidable result of putting fallible men in bodies capable of harming others, with those men often having the inclination to do so.
I don't know -- I feel -- your idea that "evil is one of the reasons people abandon faith in God as an omnibenevolent and all good being" is not so. I believe that millions abandoned faith in God out of their indifference; secularism; implausible claims by the church; uninspiring preaching and liturgy--stuff like that.
Quoting Shawn
According to the Bible, God very much dislikes evil in its various forms.
One of my Articles of Faith is that we humans can not help but come off as evil) or bad or damned unreliable or a dozen other negative traits). We descended from the trees with animal drives and simple emotions designed for survival, and over a long time built a big brain on top of that. Our emotions may be primitive, but they still drive us. Rationality and emotionality are mixed together between our ears and therein lies our problem: We have an effective executive intelligence to carry out our crazy wishes and absurd urges.
We do OK when we are not striving to get to the top of the heap Then we are neither very bad nor saintly. We are in the safe middle. However, when we are revved up to get to the top of the heap, whatever that heap consists of, we find ourselves throwing the better angels of our nature under the bus (ambition as a primary source of evil). That's when we create evil.
:chin:
[quote=Isaiah 45:7, KJV]I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.[/quote]
[quote=Job 2:10, KJV]But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?[/quote]
Yes, this is something that is ambiguous about the Bible. Does God hand out evil as punishment or does this whole Satan guy do it instead or for Him, whichever it is?
Edit: I mean Job was conspired against by the devil and God, just to test his faith.
Psalms 52:1
1 Why do you boast of evil, you mighty hero? Why do you boast all day long, you who are a disgrace in the eyes of God?
1 Kings 14:9-10
You have done more evil than all who lived before you. You have made for yourself other gods, idols made of metal; you have aroused my anger and turned your back on me. 1- I'll fix you!
2 Chronicles 29:6-7
Our parents were unfaithful; they did evil in the eyes of the LORD our God and forsook him. They turned their faces away from the LORDs dwelling place and turned their backs on him. 7 And God smote them, verily, giving them the royal shaft.
Isaiah 5:20-21
Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. 21 Get it straight, people.
Matthew 12:34-35
34 You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.
It is difficult for me to imagine any priest or scribe, prophet or psalmist, positioning God in a position favoring evil. Still, an all-good all-powerful creator and the vigor of evil are a circle impossible to square.
My solution is to shift the responsibility for evil from God to the smart-assed apes who, like the people addressed in Isaiah 5:20, couldn't tell shit from shinola. But then, why would a good and omnipotent god allow some smart-assed apes to wreck everything? One solution to that problem is divest God of omnipotence. God might be all knowing, but unable to head off trouble at the pass. This is 'God who suffers with us".
@Shawn: It's stuff like this that drives the faithful, screaming and tearing their hair, out of the churches and into the bars.
Remember that the Bible was not, after all, written by the Holy Spirit in one go. It's a collection of diverse narratives for various purposes--NOT a unitary whole.
If so, then why call it "God"? (Epicurus)
Which also tells someone was thinking that just how important the written word would be (in the New Testament). Still, even if we do have this evident way to put things into perspective, people just pick the most convenient part for them.
To the OP, every religion and deity (or group of them) is a solution for our moral and ethical problems on good and evil, which is a problem that we cannot find and objective solution. Hence the monotheistic religion portray God as good. A smart move compared to the troublesome gods of for example of Antiquity, where at least I would be confused just what the message is about.
Yes, and sometimes by making evil succeed it allows it to be built up to something great and then destroyed all at once. Assyria is described in such a way. As a more modern example, if wasn't for Nazism being so utterly discredited eugenics may very well continue to have a positive reputation. God will raise up evil and that evil will often destroy other evil like what Babylon did to Assyria.
On an individual level, we all have free will and evil is the consequence of that. In the Hebrew Bible righteousness is associated with long life, progeny, and prosperity while evil is associated with death and/or exile and misfortune. Promises of heavenly reward don't make it in until the Jesus Expansion Pack.
We all know the story of Adam and Eve. Knowing that they fall but allowing them to commit evil is evil.
Augustine mixed Positive (by positive I mean consisting in or characterized by the presence rather than the absence of distinguishing features, such as vision), and negative (such as blindness) with good (such as love) and evil (such as hate).
God didn't allow anything. He just induced Adam and Eve to eat the apple with the aim of tasting if they would resist the greed or not.
Correct. I should have said God gave them access to eat the fruit.
Quoting javi2541997
God knew that they would fail since He is omniscient. God prohibited them not eating but He gave them access to the tree whether they eat the fruit or not. There was the serpent who intervened as well. The serpent said that you will not die if you eat the fruit. So there was not only the element of greed. There was confusion due to what the serpent said as well.
According to Genesis, God created Adam and Eve with free will too weak to resist temptation and not disobey. God also created the serpent and the Tree of Knowledge. Adam and Eve are set up to fail by God then, when they do fail, God punishes them for His failure to make their free wills strong enough as well as for His failure to tell them that He, not the forbidden fruit, would cause them to die (i.e. denied access by God to the fruit of the Tree of Life). Adam and Eve didn't Fall, God set the trap for them and all of their descendants; thus, Evil was created "allowed" by God in the first book of the Torah. :fire: :eyes: :pray:
:100: :up:
Quoting MoK
Good points from you, too. But I liked to quote that specific phrase of your text with the aim of analysing the following: I guess we agree with the fact that interpreting Genesis is complex because it is full of metaphors and contradictions. You claim that Adam and Eve acted with confusion, I rather think that they acted doing what a large number of people also do: greed (why did they eat the apple when there were other foods?) and disobedience (why do they listen to the serpent when they should have obeyed God blindly?).
It is a metaphor. People always want more than they need and also disobey the authority when they don't need to in most cases.
I think they were simply in a situation to believe God's or the serpent's words. They wouldn't eat the fruit if they believed in God's words. They ate the fruit therefore they believed in the serpant's words. It is important to notice the passage from Genesis which is about the serpent telling Eve that you certainly will not die after she says that God said that you will die if you eat the fruit. This means that they were resisting their temptation to eat the fruit before the serpent's intervention.
Quoting javi2541997
If you treat the story of the fall as a metaphor then one could also argue the act of creation is a metaphor. The same applies to the existence of God as an agent so that is a metaphor as well.
From what other sources can we learn the nature and desires of God?
But, sadly, Genesis is not opened to a philosophical interpretation. God is truth, law, and moral. We should obey him because it is the correct way to act. Why did they listen to the serpent then? Humans are a weak animal and a complete failure. TheyAdam and Eveshowed that we can't repress our emotions like greed, lust, ambition, disobedience, etc.
I think this is the biggest thing to remember when approaching "The Bible" (aka the Hebrew Scriptures). That is to say, they were works that were compiled, redacted, and edited from previous/original iterations. Most likely, the original materials were less ethical and more to do with the exhortations to do as the national god, Yahweh asks. The main goal was to keep the Kingdom of Israel and Judah prosperous and secure from foreigners (e.g. Assyria, Egypt, Moab, Edom, and Babylonia). Prophets were a class, perhaps even a "guild" of sorts attached to the kingly court. These original oracular writings written by the prophets and or their scribes were probably elaborated upon, especially after catastrophic events already happened to give more ethical underpinnings to the "why" it happened. These writings were originally only circulated amongst the elites of Israel and Judah, perhaps the priests, the aristocratic/royal lineages, and the scribes themselves. There is no evidence that true "monotheism" even took hold in Jerusalem as late as the Persian period (300s BCE). Look at the letters back and forth between Elaphantine Island, a Jewish outpost guarding Persia's southern flank. Elephantine had a long thriving community of Jews there to serve the Persian king. They were so big they formed their own temple to Yahweh. There were letters back and forth between Jerusalem and Elephantine whereby Elephantine asked questions on holidays and rituals. Jerusalem's experts had no problem with Elephantine's apparent tendency for a polytheistic/henotheistic system with an "Anat-Yahu" consort and child.
See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephantine_papyri_and_ostraca#Jewish_temple_at_Elephantine
https://www.biu.ac.il/en/article/11073#:~:text=In%20one%20of%20the%20letters,of%20Nisan%20until%20the%2021st.
It was slowly over time, probably around the time of the Hasmonean/Maccabean dynasty* that "The Bible" (mainly the Torah itself) became "Law of the land", and true monotheism started to take hold through synagogues that spread throughout the land. This gets more complicated between the various sects such as the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes (possibly Dead Sea Scroll Sect), that had their own versions of authority circling around similar themes.
So it is good to keep in mind that the history and development of these writings are often based on contexts of a people during a certain time/place. To cherry-pick any particular passage, even from something like "Psalms" and not understand at which "layer" of scribal addition it comes from, its main context and purpose (usually dealing with events in the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel, or its leaders), and THEN understanding the redactions to put a certain "spin" on it- perhaps Priestly layer added in the Persian/Greek period adding an ethical/ritual spin on a more generic/historical one), would seem highly misleading to its intent and origins.
*The Levite family from the Hannukah story headed by Judas Maccabeaus that led a guerilla war campaign against the Greek forces.
Does an all good being like evil?
Did you put much time or effort into this OP?
Did the conspiracy between good and evil against Job make any sense to you?
On the one hand, we created God so we can know everything about God. On the other hand, our God character says He is unknowable, and not like us. Thus we can have it both ways: When it is convenient, we know what God wants, doesn't want, what God likes, what God hates, etc. Or, when it is convenient, God can be an unknowable mystery.
When I say "we created God", I do not mean that we cynically, duplicitously, created God as some sort of great scam. The millennia-long dead authors of god-tales were likely in great earnest. They lived in a pre-scientific world where there was a lot of unexplained, unexplainable events that needed some sort of explanation. Not least was the very existence of the authors and all his kin, friends, enemies--the whole world.
We don't have any problem accepting that gods like Zeus or Odin don't have an objective existence, because those gods were officially retired. There are quite a few gods that various peoples still believe exist. In the fulness of time, millennia, these too will be retired or replaced.
That's what I mean by 'diverse narratives'. The story of Job is like the story of Adam and Eve or Noah and the ark. It's not an historical narrative, it's a literary narrative which tells the story of one man's unshakable faith in goodness of God.
It's difficult to understand the Bible if it is flattened out into a simple story of conflict between abstract 'good' and 'evil' and frosted with a layer of literalism. I highly doubt that you are a biblical literalist.
:up:
Adam and Eve also showed that they were courageous, capable, nurturing, and persistent since they survived the expulsion from the paradisiacal Eden and managed to produce successful (flawed, for sure) children from which we all figuratively descended. Of course, there was that later genetic bottleneck of Noah and his wife who were presumably the only human survivors of the flood. So we are simultaneously sons of Adam and sons of Noah.
I might be completely wrong, but it's possible that the editors of Genesis weren't concerned with the problem of genetic bottlenecks.
Which "we" is that? I had no part in the creation of any gods. My only sources of information are documents written by men, long dead, about gods they may or may not have had some part in creating. All I know about their gods is what they tell me, and that's far from everything.
Quoting BC
That "we" not only excludes myself, but the majority of people. Who has it every way they want are the manipulators of faith and credulity; the manipulated have no such power.
Quoting BC
I very much doubt that was their motivation. I allow that as part of the motivation of people who made up stories of origin and causation in the unrecorded eras before writing. But by the time of clay tablets, papyrus and alphabets, civilizations were hierarchical and stratified; there was rulership and obedience, law and punishment.
Scripture was purposeful. Obviously, the authors incorporated all the elements of myth, legend and traditional folklore as an institutional religion would carry - and they themselves may even have believed some or most of it. That didn't prevent them depicting the hierarchy of their pantheons as a reflection of their own realms, or identifying the deities with their own ruling class, or setting out divine laws that serves the good order of their own social system.
I don't call that cynical, exactly, but neither is it the kind of organic belief system that evolves along with the people who operate in it. Organized religion, with a king-god on top and expediters, enforcers and interpreters below is imposed on a people from above.
@BC
Indeed the purpose was to maintain a people without a king/kingdom.
Thus you have to work backwards and forwards in time from the Kingdoms of Judah an Israel for you to get the gist of what the authors/scribes/redactors of the texts (that became the Torah, Prophets, and Writings) were doing...
The Kingdom Narrative would be the first strata.. That would be various histories as represented in Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles. These would be more about the wars, conflicts, successions, of kings. It would have been compiled by Judah with the help of Israelite scribes around the 700s BCE.
Israel was destroyed by Assyria in 722 BCE. At exactly the same time, the Kingdom of Judah doubled in size. This isn't a coincidence. The story is of the "Lost 10 tribes of Israel". Some were indeed taken. But many fled as refugees to their southern brethren. These scribes, priests, and artisans from cities like Samaria to the north (which was much more educated and powerful than the rinky dink Judah to the south) could be employed in the service to the kings of Judah now.
Here you have an interesting addition by Judhaite scribes to the Kingdom Narrative. Now you get Judah's semi-mythical kings of David and Solomon as not just Kings of Judah, but Kings of a UNITED Israel and Judah. Why would they want this? It would be easier to welcome the incoming Northerners to the kingdom and have them incorporated as ALWAYS being in someway united in some mythological past. The reason they were similar but different was the wayward ways of Solomon's descendants. It also squarely puts JERUSALEM (not Samaria) as the center of BOTH Israel AND Judah (not just Judah).
Also, the Israelite scribes that fled to Judah started creating the Family Narrative. That is to say piecing together the separate stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob into a cohesive story of the creation of Israel WITHOUT a kingdom as the start (the real story) but rather a much more distant start in the Bronze Age.
The Israelite scribes also probably created the Exodus-Conquest Narrative which also conferred authority NOT to kings (theirs were destroyed), but also to Bronze Age heroes (Moses, Joshua, various Judges). Thus the intent here is to bypass Kingly authority for various other ones, generally between the "people in general" or "priests" to the deity.
Once the Kingdom of Judah itself was destroyed, this time by the Babylonians, it too had an identity crisis. Just as the Northern Kingdom had to reconfigure its mythical origins, Judah too had to do this as they were now a people in exile without a king. They incorporated the northern stories of the Family Narrative and Exodus-Conquest narrative and tacked that at the beginning of the story. These group of scribes were starting to form an identity without a king. They saw in the cards that Babylonia was itself going to be conquered by Persia and the possibility of reestablishing a new order with a second Temple in Jerusalem, now firmly under the rule of priests.
And that brings us to the final redaction/layer, the Priestly Scribal one. In this one, not only do we have the story begin at the start of the Israelite/Judahite tribal history (Abraham et al), but we have it start at the beginning of creation itself. Here, there are remnants of the Sumerian/Assyrian/Babylonian myths transformed. And along with these additions in Genesis you have the Priestly Code (mainly Leviticus, some of Exodus and Numbers, and much of Deuteronomy).
At this point, this stratified document, starting from pre-exilic time, and working of myths and accounts and writings from even earlier, was redacted in much of the final form. This version was the one probably referenced in Ezra-Nehemiah when it depicts Ezra presenting the books to the Judeans, teaching (or "reteaching in the orthodox account") them the Laws (as if they were there but lost). That was in the 400s BCE. However, as the archaeological evidence shows, this event, if it happened at all was still very small, probably amongst a group of priests/prophets that returned to Jerusalem from Babylonia to reform the institutions there under the graces of the Darius II. Either way, this still wasn't when the "Bible became holy".. That was more an idealized goal of the scribes written into the story. Rather, more likely, as I was saying, it was around the time of the Greeks, and specifically the rise of the Hasmonean rulers, that once and for all a formalized "Judaism" took shape. That didn't mean there weren't priests sacrificing to the national deity in the Second Temple throughout the Persian and early Greek period. It's just that, they weren't necessarily formalized along the exact confines of a written Torah as we know it. Again, some of the priests surely had early versions of it, some possibly had very different notions, even henotheistic ones.. But the faction with the Torah as the basis "won out" amongst the other variations (like the one perhaps exemplified in Elephantine Island). We can call this strand that won out "Ezra's Vision", because it seems he was around the time that that version was compiled (the last books of the Bible basically explain this through its own lens of how it happened).
They didn't all need the series of prophets predicting a very predictable conquest by a much bigger power and blaming the disobedience by their king to of god's edicts. So, the god is secure, and the nation will be okay under the guidance of the priesthood ... nothing self-serving there!
I never said it wasn't :D! But you mentioned a purpose, and I gave you some purpose(s) from the many layers. Those purposes certainly had the intent of keeping authority in the hands of certain people (the priests.. as envisioned by Ezra-Nehemiah). However, they were along the way creating an identity outside the original context of a kingdom-state. It was also creating from the ashes of destruction a way of uniting a nation without state, or without a king at least.
Yes, you supplied some specifics that I hadn't known, and I appreciate it.
Quoting schopenhauer1
In that instance. Which supplied a nice underpinning for the eventual king-making power of the RCC, and the theocracies of Islam.
I was referring to the general purpose common to all organized religions - which, of course, began as state religions - which was to reinforce the authority of whoever was already in power, and ensure the continuity of the regime.
E.g., as noted above, the divine right of kings as a doctrine, and then the custom of archbishops anointing kings - lest they forget which side their power is buttered. Without the clergy and its revenue-generating carrot, they would have to rely on expensive the military stick alone.
Yep, but there is a crucial difference here. Your theory in essence is saying that "The state is in search of a way to legitimize power". However, the Bible itself in the context of why/when it was written, contradicts some of that. Rather, it distinctly chastises kings, and then promotes covenants of the deity with "the people" (and the priests for sure). The Bible was written when Israel and Judah were defeated, and Judah was reconstituted as a small province under the satraps of the Persian Empire. Nehemiah himself was a governor. Before him was Zerubbabel (actually a descendent from the original Judean/Davidic lineage) and Joshua ben Johazadek. These figures could not officially claim "kingship" however, lest they become enemies of the mostly tolerant Persian Empire. So the Bible in a way was a group of writings that were redacted and strung together to present the case that the national deity could be made sans Kingship.. However, I will agree, that Second Temple Judaism did revolve around one official place for Yahweh to be worshipped with one official set of priesthood (that became contested over time). The Levites and Koheins were certainly the main authority during this period.
When the Maccabees took up the cause against Antiochus IV Hellenizing efforts (they made the Judeans sacrifice pigs on the alter in Jerusalem and worship Zeus instead!), they probably sided with the most monotheistic variant (as I said "Ezra's Vision" as evinced in Ezra-Nehemiah), and this one, that included the writings of the Torah, now well-known in those circles since the 400s BCE when it was compiled, was the one that became the "state religion". It legitimized their role, giving the Sadducean party (the Priestly elites from which they themselves descended), the most authority (and were opposed by the Pharisees who saw this as an usurpation of their authority). Anyways, in this way, religion might be said to legitimize their rule.
However, one can view the apocalyptic writings during this period, like Daniel as threatening to the Hasmonean dynasty as they were priests, and the Daniel prophecies were about a future king (messiah) who would restore order.. That would be the type of literature they would downplay. I would speculate this makes sense if we look at the fact that the Sadducees ONLY viewed the Torah as legitimate, and not the later Prophets... Why? Perhaps because later prophetic writings like Daniel speak against the current (priestly) authority for an immanent "return of the king" to reestablish a better way of life.
Very informative, educational posts on this subject as always. I must provide a little pushback.
Ok, but there is clearly material that pre-dates this. Some of the poems like Song of the Sea and Song of Moses are very ancient and I've seen these dated to the ~11th/12th century BC. Scholarship traditionally places the Y and E sources at around the 10th and 9th century BC respectively. Y and E have always been the most interesting to me. IMHO they write without a clear political agenda. They two have their theological perspectives, but one portrays God as immanent while the other portrays his as transcendent.
I wouldn't trace them that far back, but yes the Song of Miriam (Song of the Sea) and the Song of Moses and the Song of Deborah- basically small poems embedded in the text are probably the oldest substrata, as I noted here (though not clearly enough):
Quoting schopenhauer1
So this would represent some of the very first layers of collections of poems. As a side note, and much more speculative, I am willing to entertain the notion that the earliest strata of the Moses story came from a tribe (such as the Shasu) that were a Midianite tribe and were associated or alternatively known to by their nickname Levi (a variant on the Hebrew "to join").. The theory goes that the Levites coming up from Midian (possibly actually escaping Egypt in some manner), brought Yahweh with them and even some rituals (nothing like the full blown Torah), and that when they encountered the tribes in Canaan, they "joined" them becoming their priestly class.. One evidence for this is the obvious emphasis on Levites (especially Moses.. an Egyptian name), and if you look at almost all the Levites names in the Torah, they are all Egyptian while the other tribes are usual Canaanite/Israelite names. Anyways, that is just speculation, but even if only part of that is true (the Midianite origins), that makes some sense based on the archaeological evidence.
Edit: Also the burning bush, Jethro in land of Midian.. Even depictions not redacted smoothly where Moses seems like he had nothing to do with the people he's rescuing.. etc.).
Every religion differs in some respects from all the others. And every state religion nevertheless supports the hierarchy. Chastising a king is not the same as advocating for a republic; they just want a new and stronger king, once they've had time to recover and regroup. That happens in most nations from time to time.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Parts of it were written then.
The main difference between the religion of Judah/Israel and all the others is that no other nation's scribe-recorded chronicles ended up as the Holy Book of a very different, much more powerful nation.
That was a fluke, which also influenced the evolution of Jehovah, from tribal deity to Lord Of the Universe. But his most powerful churches never stopped supporting the earthly power structure.
Why would you use the singular here? First off, it was the Roman Empire a huge empire, not just a "nation", unless you're being real liberal with that word. And yes, one can say that Constantine saw it as a way to unify an empire in fracture. He himself didn't seem to really believe in it as much as endorsed it. The original cultic network of the Roman Republic/Empire was not as useful. Vestal Virgins and Roman oracles and priests weren't cutting it. With the rise of Near Eastern religions, Christianity was the best contender for an already-existent infrastructure. It just took him to coopt it. And it wasn't until Theodosius I that it actually became the "official" religion (thus starting the official banning of pagan ones, until the final pagan academy was destroyed in Athens in 529 CE).
Edit: But mind you I come from the school of thought whereby historical context DOES matter. The Bible was meant for a time and place (basically Persian Period Judah, perhaps into the Hellenistic and Roman Era). The minute Pauline Christianity infused a Platonized, mystery cult-based religion into an apocalyptic Jewish sect (the John the Baptist/Jesus one), it became something different. So when Rome was coopting that infrastructure of bishops and various church communities, he was coopting something that was divorced from the the context of the Bible (the Hebrew Scriptures at least).
I find it artificial, though it is kind of...neat.
Absence of love isn't hate, absence of hate isn't love.
However, one would be unable to hate in the presence of love. Holes, shadows, illnesses. I find it a compelling metaphor, at the very least.
Something I notice in the (generally futile) discussions of theodicy on this forum, is that God is expected to be something like a perfect hotel manager. The fact that there is suffering, inequality, disease and catastrophe is something for which God is attributed executive responsibility. But none of the religions ever promised that 'the world' would be, well, a Garden of Eden. Everything in it is by its nature subject to death, decay and misadventure. 'There is no sickness toil or danger in the place to which I go' (Poor Wayfaring Stranger, trad. hymn.) Whereas for us moderns, 'this life' is the only realm there is, and the fact that it's less than perfect provokes a sense of outrage and frustration.
I concede. All general comments on the nature of organized religions hereby withdrawn.
You mean this sarcastically?
Isnt that the point?
:smirk: :up:
Not at all. I simply mean that any merit there may have been in distinguishing the purpose and function of organized, civilized religions from grass-roots, primitive religions has been lost in the Judeo-Christian history and is no longer relevant.
Well, nothing's stopping you. The gods we care about were first created 2 or 3 millennia ago. However, every believer (and many non-believers) recreates god(s) in their own mind. We do the same thing when we read fiction: We let the characters in the story into our head, and we add details (like appearance, voice, etc.) which weren't in the text. We may create additions to the plot in our imaginations.
The biblical God is sufficiently misty that believers have plenty of room for invention, and there's nothing wrong with that (in my deviant view). Indeed, imagining God helps produce the reality that IS God for many believers. The kind of god that results depends on the personality and imagination of the believer: Hateful bastards produce a wrathful, vindictive, punishing god, while gentle, weepy souls turn out a god who is mild, lamb like, and pacifistic.
Quoting Vera Mont
So, make up the rest. They made up their information; you can make up yours.
Quoting Vera Mont
Me and thee, and most believers. A good god fits the lifestyle of the believer. What your god is most concerned about is likely what any given believer is most concerned about. What's your thing? Refugees? Then god is the rescuer, comforter, and principle advocate for refugees. Balanced budgets? Then god is prudent, looks to the future, wastes not/wants not. Gay liberation? Then god blesses whatever one and one's local gay brethren get up to. Peace? Then god is against war, against the bombing (whatever bombing wherever), against unprovoked aggression, etc. Justice? God's always up for justice! Let justice roll down like the water! But whose justice for whom?
Interesting.
As a child I lived with monsters at the window, under my bed, in the attic, cellar, and barn. They required darkness to exist, and I found them terrifying, well beyond pre-school age. Even as an adult I felt one of them behind me once in a great while. At some point, the monsters all went away, and darkness no longer contained their dreary presence.
I didn't blame anybody for their menaces. They were like the discomfort of very cold weather: one shivered. I didn't talk about these fears at the time. (I suspected that I would be blamed for scaring myself.)
Maybe. Where it goes askew, though, is when casting it all in terms of good alone. (Or hate alone.)
Quoting Wayfarer
Isn't the sum of good bad neutral prosperity hardship humdrum indifference ... and everything in between, what you might expect without an omni* overseer?
Not to be a stickler, but shivering in the cold: if there is a God, It might stand responsible for that, and for the cold. But if I imagined the cold to be anything beyond the temperature and a potentially painful experience; if I imagined it to be, for example, a curse, or a sign, then I'm to "blame" for that.
But not for the purpose of explaining thunder and lightning because they didn't know science.
I don't actually care what each believer believes or pretends to; only about how they treat other people. I don't actually care whether they think their god created evil, condones evil or is evil; I only care whether they do evil. Because I don't think evil has anything to do with gods or faiths: it's a human concept, a human attribute.
:up:
Quoting BC
@Wayfarer
I think this is why Schopenhauer is one of the best synthesizers of a non-theistic understanding of a Ground of Being (I won't go as far to say "God" here). The world has something going on here. There is a will in each of us that propels us forward. There is some dissatisfaction as marked by our own needs of survival and entertainment. There are external factors of harm that befall us. There are frustrations.
Questioning this situation, its necessity, is the most paramount of philosophical pursuits.
Quoting Arthur Schopenhauer- Religion: A Dialogue
How can God be omnipotent and good when men who are 5'4 exist?
Quoting bert1
But why wouldn't an all powerful/knowing god not be able to take on the perspective of a (or any given) human and see suffering from that perspective? In fact all suffering at all moments should be accessible to such a god and known.
Rather, this indicates that either god has values that include allowing countless suffering (not all good in the human sense), or god is not in the picture at all.. or that god wants suffering.
Now if god wants suffering, that is an interesting notion we must explore..
But there is another possibility, that suffering is not a concept/thing that god understands. Then the all knowing element is out of the picture. It's a god that doesn't really take into account what a human may feel. This is akin to a sort of Cthulu Mythos.. gods that are indifferent to humans one way or the other.
Certainly, the god of the Abrahamic religion has a god that cares about the outcome (messianic age, following X, Y, Z edicts, etc.). THAT god knows SOMETHING about humans..
I don't know, but maybe because in doing so it would cease to be God. If God isn't made of parts (as dogma has it) it has to do things wholly. So maybe God can take on the perspective of a human, but in doings so becomes human. I don't know. Theology is a bit guessy.
I think we can all agree that suffering can teach us things. It's the idea of "unnecessary" suffering that the philosopher objects to as if he can finely discern different sorts of suffering into "necessary" and "unnecessary." Who knows what is necessary for the soul.
Then the omnipotent problem..
1. Right but it's the need to see other people suffer, necessarily or not that seems interesting here. Why would an all good god care to see any suffering? The problem is any answer requires you to explain in a very human perspective. Even the standard theological reasons are rehashed human terms attributed to the deity. It's BitconnectCarlos' interpretation of a religious interpretation of suffering.
2, This goes back to another thread that discussed how god having needs (like seeing the game of "necessary suffering" carried out) is problematic.
3 Even the term "necessary" in front of suffering is problematic, as that implies that God is limited by some sort of super-force (necessity) that he can't help but WANT to see played out (by his human subjects??).
4 And then human subjects- why does he NEED an audience/players to play his game? This goes back to necessity.. An all powerful/knowing/perfect god and NEED doesn't seem to fit unless we go back to my Point number 1..
[hide]Even the standard theological reasons are rehashed human terms attributed to the deity. It's BitconnectCarlos' interpretation of a religious interpretation of suffering.
[/hide]
Then I will lead you to this:
Quoting schopenhauer1
Quoting schopenhauer1
Suffering is an important mechanism through which we grow. I'm not going to comment on whether God "needs" us to suffer. I also find distinguishing between "necessary" and "unnecessary" suffering to be troublesome.
Here's a word from Wittgenstein: "I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves."
Why are we here? What is our goal? Possibly for self-development. Or improve the world. But I agree with Wittgenstein -- probably not to have the most blissful experience possible. So if the goal is self-development then suffering can be a tool towards that end.
You fail to get beyond comment 1, doubling down on it even, quoting other humans even.
I agreed with points 2 and 3. I would go back to Job on this one: As humans our perspective is incredibly limited. Some suffering is understandable and can be attributed to bad deeds, other suffering isn't. Ultimately, suffering is just another state of being. One among many. One can even experience bliss within suffering - see near death experiences.
Good is relative then. That is to say, can good for humans be at odds for good for God? The answer is harder than offhand references to medievalist Concordia and apology.
God needs/wants suffering. Humans rather not.
Quoting schopenhauer1
In the biblical worldview they are one and the same. A free will is a will aligned with God. If we become something else, say hedonists, then our "good" can differ from God's good. Thus the hatred of idolatry.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worship
And what's your worldview, or do you dare not to have an original thought? Just punt to dogma?
Anyways, this is now tripling down on point 1:
Quoting schopenhauer1
You still have not managed to bypass it. You have literally "Dwight Schruted" your answer (pedantic, petty, dogmatic... You are playing a caricature of your own profile pic.. at least true to form to your own hero).
If we are to go down this "biblical worldview", we are to go down a road whereby suffering for humans is warranted. This is deemed as good, but then this does not bypass the dilemma of two views of suffering.. The subjects of suffering (humans), and the one who wants to see the suffering.
Many times the abused identifies with the abuser- they deserve it. It's their fault. They should have done better.
Many times the abused excuses the abuser- it's their nature. Who are we to disagree.
The point of the dilemma is thus: Suffering might not be good for US, but rather, for the one who imposed the suffering.. How do you square this difference? You really haven't. Only tripled down on point 1. Betterment for humans seems awfully unnecessary. This seems like someone else is getting satisfaction from the suffering.. Are we but divine tools then? To be used for this game? Is that not questionable? And again, the mentality of the victim- are we to identify with this? Is this in our interest? And most importantly, out of all possibilities, why would suffering be the tool for growth?
I think you nailed it. Certainly this seems how one of the more prominent theistic fictions would have it.
By human standards (do we know of any others?), the Biblical god is often evil and seems to be compelled to do evil. Why else would he drown all men, women and children with a great flood - just one example? His omnipotence gave him the power to end all life painlessly, but he decided to opt for cruelty and drown them all, babies included. We really only know this god is good because he tells us he is. But isn't that what an abusive parent/spouse says? 'I'm doing this, because I love you.'
Of course many who defend such a malevolent deity will argue that humans don't have the capacity to judge god and that he has his own special wisdom or celestial discernment, which humans couldn't possibly understand. It's that kind of thinking, I suspect, which leads to mass murdering children because god says it's ok.
And before anyone says it is only crass atheists who argue like this, I have met more than my share of Christians who consider Yahweh to be a cosmic berserker and scourge. My favourite (now dead) Episcopal bishop, formerly of Newark, John Shelby Spong, viewed the Bible as a collection of frequently awful stories which should be ignored:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worship
Yes, which is where the "dilemma" of two views of suffering come from. There is the viewpoint from humans (suffering is bad). There is the view from God (suffering is good). The job of apologists is to make the two views align (suffering SEEMS bad to us, but is REALLY good in the grand scheme of things that we can never understand).
And then there is this underlying/hidden understanding of necessity and its relation to God. Here we have an all powerful/knowing being, but somehow it is NECESSARY that humans play this game of suffering, as if God couldn't have done it any other way. As if the rules of X goal/value are confined for God himself. He has his hands tied, he's just working with what he's got.
And these bring up the problems I said earlier:
1) God doesn't care about our suffering other than as a tool for a broader goal
2) God likes/wants suffering as a tool that he preferred for a tool for his goal
3) God doesn't know that what suffering is for humans
All of these things would indicate problems for an all powerful/good/knowing/perfect godhead. Good is relativized as a sort of "all too human" quality. Good is not reflective of divine good, which obviously is indifferent to or even likes suffering.
Then of course you have the notion that God "wants". Once you put "wants" in the equation, you have something that "lacks" in the first place. Lacking seems imperfect.
But there's more.. Then there is the gaslighting aspect whereby it isn't god that is making you suffer. YOU are making you suffer by not following God's commands. God has a plan, and divine command. You must follow this plan or suffer the consequences. This is just a sophisticated version of the whole "God lacks, therefore he wants this game of free willed people to see how good he is". This is problematic as it goes way back to point 1 here:
Quoting schopenhauer1
That is to say, the deity now looks all too human, like us. A king that has created his subjects and now wants them to see the manifest greatness of his creation, and if they don't recognize this, they will be cursed, damned, obliterated, laid waste... The ancients saw their own kings and projected their propensities onto their deity. This is how kings act, no? Why not the king of the whole universe? Just a bigger version of this.. And just like a king sometimes grants mercy for those who see that he is indeed the just and righteous ruler that he is (narcissistic self-fulfilling prophecy when fear is involved), then the king of the universe all the same grants clemency.
But let's not go too far here. In the post-Enlightenment, God has become simply the backdrop for holidays and rituals, not the main character. So really it's window dressing with a wink and a smirk, not fire and brimstone.
Either way, if we go way back to what I was saying on how the Bible was constructed, it was meant for a time and place. It was only under historical contingency that a small nation's deity became THE deity of the Western world. Even so, THE deity taken by the "Western" (Roman Empire) world, was one that wasn't even the same as the one from the Hebrew Scriptures (Ezra's Vision fully implemented by at least the Hasmonean dynasty in Judea vs. the Pauline mutation of a god-man that dies for your sins, more amenable to the mystery cults already flourishing in gentile non-Jewish communities around the Mediterranean).
I do not know whether the view from God is that "suffering is good." I think you go a little too far with that assumption. Some suffering is clearly caused by us. Other suffering is not understandable by us. God's ways are mostly inscrutable but the only way we gain any understanding of it is through his relationship with this world.
We observe suffering and try to make sense of it. In some cases it's much clearer than others. E.g. go off and fuck a bunch of midianite women and don't use protection and catch an std -- here we can clearly tie misbehavior to suffering. Same with an evil person who goes around killing and stealing from those around him -- worldly justice will likely catch up to him.
So it's not that "God likes to see suffering" it's that the world has a certain general way of operating that occurs throughout the generations that ancient writers take note of. Now if you want to go and say "God loves that suffering!" or that suffering is "good for God" now you're engaging in your theology. You are going beyond the pattern recognition and engaging in your own theology when you say that this suffering is "good" for God or that God "likes" the suffering.
The general biblical attitude is that God would rather see someone repent from evil than continue with it and suffer.
As you asked earlier, I am someone who is interested in the biblical worldview but I don't claim to have all the answers nor do I subscribe to any dogmas.
You ignored almost every argument I made in the last two posts.. Go back and read again and come back and do better if you want me to take you seriously and not just falling into the exact problems that I brought up.. This tells me you had a ready-made answer, and did not grapple with what I presented:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/935954
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
See especially what I said about necessity and the gaslighting (it's YOUR fault evil exists). But really, the whole argument must be taken into consideration from that post..Lest you cherry-pick and take out of context as is perhaps your wont.
Quoting schopenhauer1
It's ultimately humans discussing a text, so yes, we'll have our own interpretations of it. We'll tend to personify/humanize God in one sense or another to make sense of him.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Within the biblical worldview we all need to have a general trust in God. That doesn't mean that all suffering needs to be deemed as good. It could be punishment. But it all happens under God's purview. Job lays out the proper way to dealing with unexplainable suffering e.g. you can curse the day you were born, but you can't curse God.
Just because suffering happens under God's purview doesn't mean that he delights in it or wants to see it.
Ok, so I am just going to refer you again to the post I made to Tom Storm here, as all of this was addressed in some way:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/935954
Quoting schopenhauer1
Among the first ways we know God is that we fear him. God is terrifying. Reality is terrifying. So cross your Ts and dot your Is. It's not "gas lighting" and until you understand this point this discussion is futile. If you act in certain ways your suffering may very well be essentially "on you." We must first accept that this world has rules and if you violate these you hurt yourself.
This really goes back to Adam and Eve but we see it over and over again. Certain things are permitted, others are not, and quite frequently doing that which is unpermitted carries consequences.
Going back to Adam and Eve - life/nature/reality can be enjoyed, but there is always at least one rule which one must abide by.
Quoting schopenhauer1
But even more perplexing, why would a supreme deity need things like "a game of justice of right and wrong to be carried out by various lower beings who can choose right and wrong whilst sometimes being rewarded and sometimes arbitrarily suffer (Job)"? Besides the inconsistency of the Job ("seemingly unnecessary" suffering), the whole game itself is very much similar to what a human would construct.
The biblical authors do say humans are a reflection of god, but isn't this just more evidence of the human construction of the godhead? And yet, when this parallel comes too close to home (that god is all too human), the apologist moves to make god transcendental and unknowable again.. Thus cherry-picking when it is convenient. God is "sort of" like humans (until tricky questions of morality come into play about suffering and why even implement this game in the first place? So it's for human growth.. but why would a deity care? That also seems too human. Yet, the "why is suffering necessary IN THE FIRST PLACE" is unknown and transcendental somehow. You're selling hollow, tired, arguments. Why not just drop them all? If you say, fear of X, I then will direct you back to questioning a being that wants this kind of love out of fear... And if you say because you want to be close to your god-daddy.. again goes back to the human qualities of want and need. You are in a pickle Dwight.
Right, the unknown greater good defense.
Suppose that the unknown greater good was the reason that Anya Martinez died from cancer at the age of 10 in 2018, after years of suffering.
A question is then what business people have interfering. Such an appeal to the unknown can equally mean that the efforts of doctors and medical researchers are wrong, the will of men against said greater good.
It's not entirely inconceivable... Jehovah's Witnesses and blood transfusions, Deuteronomy 1:31-36, Proverbs 3:5-6, Luke 8:50, Titus 3:6-8, ...
In 2013, Alex Radita died at the age of 15 due to complications from diabetes, weighing about 17kg. His parents intentionally left it to God; they were charged with severe neglect.
Can we say they were wrong? Well, some can and some can't.
By the assumption an unknown greater good created/known by such a deity Martinez' and Radita's predicaments were good. The assumption can mean that non-interference is good just the same.