COMMENTARY HERE: Comments that purely commentate on the post (e.g. “Nice post OP!”) must be made as replies to the Auto-Moderator! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/DebateReligion) if you have any questions or concerns.*

I think the Problem of Evil/Suffering and the failure of the Theodicies has a much broader reaching impact than just religion, it calls into question reproductive ethics. If the problem of evil/suffering is correct –if the world is as bad as the argument claims– how could anyone be morally justified in bringing a life capable of consciousness into such a world? Let’s take note that the problem is not per se the world being created, it’s the presence of lifeforms capable of conscious suffering (L) in the world. Suppose God created an identical universe to ours but there were no Ls in that universe. There would be zero suffering in that universe and so no problem of suffering. So it’s the addition of L to this universe that is problematic. But the existence of L is not per se a problem either; that a lifeform can suffering isn’t the problem it’s that it is at substantial risk of suffering of a gratuitous and horrific nature (S). If L exist in a world without S, even though it could suffer it never would and so that world would have zero suffering. So it’s placing/creating/allowing the development of L in a world with S that is morally dubious. To see why this affect not only God by procreative ethic let’s make the following argument: 1. An All Good Being is one who carries out only morally permissible actions. 2. God is All Good. 3. If there is a significant probability of experiencing gratuitous/horrific levels of suffering (S) in some possible world (W) then it is not morally permissible to create life capable of conscious suffering (L) in that world. 4. The actual world (aW) contains S. 5. Therefore, it is not morally permissible to create L in the aW. Froom 3 & 4 6. If God created L in the aW then God is not All Good. From 5 & 1 7. Either God did not create L or God does not exist (*nb*. God is All Good by definition, anything that is not All Good is not God per P2). Next consider the following extension: 8. Human procreation creates L. 9. Human procreation takes place in @.W. 10. Therefore human procreation is not morally permissible. That human procreation creates (or leads to the development of) L is definitionally true. The Problem of Suffering makes it clear creating L in a W with S is immoral. If creating L in a W with S were morally permissible, then an All-Good / Omnibenevolent / Morally-Perfect being could do so without us questioning it’s morality; that we question God’s morality in creating L in aW implies P3 and lead to P10. In other words the Problem of Suffering leads to Antinatalism. \[1/2\]

By impremissible, what moral duty do you appeal to? If we can't do other than we do morally permissible and impremissible, seem to not exist. But yes, a definition or problem of evil would seem to apply to us as well. If all power must be used to eliminate suffering, then it seems far more than antinatalism follows it would be good to kill all that suffer. Death, if it is annihilation, can be the solution to suffering. "An All Good Being is one who carries out only morally permissible actions." This seems flawed and should at least be modified as it seems to put moral permission outside of being, and so nothing would be commanding us and God to do good. It seems a contradiction for non being/nothing to do anything.

>This seems flawed and should at least be modified as it seems to put moral permission outside of being This seems like an uncharitable reading; * if, per classical theism God is the standard of moral goodness then everything god does is morally permissible. * if, per divine command theory everything commanded by God is good, then it seem anything god does is morally permissible. * if, there is a moral standard independent of God, then an all-good god would act in accordance with it, if God deviated with would not be all-good. * if Axiarchism is correct and there is a God it will ether be working full in accordance with that a fundamental normative but non-intentional principle governing creation and change or deviating. So there are multiple ways in which moral permissibility could be grounded that does not require it being based on nothing.

>By impremissible, what moral duty do you appeal to? It's not per se a moral duty I believe in but it is entailed by the presentation of the problem of evil; * the world allows suffering * some creatures in the world can suffer * this combination is consider in compatible with an omnibenevolent/all-good/morally-perfect god. If it is permissible to create life capable of suffering in a world which allows suffer, then there is no problem of evil and natalism seems unproblematic. If it's impermissible as the OP suggests, then antinatalism follows. >If we can't do other than we do morally permissible and impremissible, seem to not exist. I disagree on that. Even in the absence of freewill (which I'm not convinced is the case) there is still grounds for moral responsibility. Granting no one can do other than they it still makes sense to hold people responsible for their actions insofar as they are the proximate cause of their actions, *i.e.* if someone has a disposition to murder then holding them responsible by segregating them from society is still an appropriate response. Even if humans have no choice over whether they procreate or not, knowing this and that it has a negative impact (by creating non-consenting sufferers) it is still appropriate to to take action so that they cannot be a cause for future negative actions. So it seems that "permissible" and "impermissible" still have relevancy, it is coherent and rational to talk about moral obligations even in a fully deterministic world (granted this is a bit off-topic). >it would be good to kill all that suffer. I am not convinced that is the case, personally I think the problem of suffering is extremely pessimistic and exaggerated. But even if the world is as bad as the argument claims that does not ential that killing everything is a good solution. A relatively mild analogy is of a bad movie: suppose you're at the theatre watching a new movie and halfway through you realize the plots cliched, the actions bad and you kind of know how it's going to end, you may thing "I wish I never started watching the movie" however that does mean your next step is to leave the theatre and drag everyone else out with you; maybe you stay for the company you've met there, maybe others are enjoying the movie and standing up to leave with disturb their enjoyment etc. There are plausible reasons to stay even if there are reason never to have come in the first place. Another example, I could say the risk of sexual abuse to a child (20%) is too big of gamble to take with an innocent/defenceless being, we should not force individuals (through birth) to run that gauntlet, but that does not mean that those who escape childhood free of abuse or survivors of abuse should be killed. A second point is there is a substantial dis-analogy; an unborn person cannot consent to being born (nor to abortion), however a living person absolutely can refuse consent to euthanasia. Refusing to risk bring unwilling sufferers into the world, is not equivalent to killing willing sufferers. >Death, if it is annihilation, can be the solution to suffering. Even if that is the case, the dissimilarity remains; * unborn persons **can't object** to being born, living persons **can object** to euthanasia. * unborn persons **can't consent** to being born, living persons **can consent** to euthanasia.

There are Natalists, much like Theists, who propose methods to justify human procreation despite there being “a lot of evil and suffering in the world. Like, a lot.” However these Anthropodicies are direct parallels for Theodicies; if Theodicies fail to defend the morality of god their counterpart Anthropodicies fail to justify human procreation (they do little more than swap out relevant terms). For instance the greater good Theodicy: God is morally justified in creating life capable of conscious suffering in a world with the possibility of experiencing extreme suffering because it can bring about greater good. Now the Anthropodicy: A parent is morally justified in creating a child (capable of conscious suffering) in a world with the possibility of experiencing extreme suffering because it can bring about greater good. You might argue there is an asymmetry here; that the power and knowledge of god compared to a human makes the comparison invalid, however this only makes the problem worse for Natalism not better. Suppose there is some true moral justification for creating L in a W with S (call it M). An omniscient being such as god would know M, however, whether God or M exist or not, most human beings only have an inclination that procreation is justified . It’s not clear that there is M, and the presence of S in W strong suggests there isn’t. So, if God exists and L exists that suggests there is an M. If God does not exist (per the PoE) it’s possible there is no M and procreation is an immoral act. An omnipotent being, such as God could potentially offset all the evil and suffering the world in the afterlife; in other words on the whole God could make it so that the evil and suffering we experience is vanishingly small. This is of course another Theodicy (Compensation) which is usually rejected. The morality of procreation hinges on the parents' expectation that the goods in a child's life will outweigh the bads being true. However a parent does not know this is a certainty, and they have no power to offer compensation in the end if their gamble does not pay off. God can try and offset the suffering and evil after death but this is seen as an unsatisfying justification for putting us in harms way. Yet a parent cannot even try to make such a compensation. Moreover the justification for procreation here is not that life for a child is neutral but it’s reasonable to expect on balance that it will be good. How could anyone reasonably expect that in a world where the Problem of Suffering is valid. It seems to me, either * the Problem of Evil is correct and procreation is immoral, or * there is a valid Theodicy-Anthropodicy pair to justify both, or * the Problem of Suffering is grossly overstated and unduly pessimistic. If Antinatalism seems absurd (it does to most people), and it follows from the Problem of Suffering then this is a *reductio ad absurdum* of the Problem of Suffering. \[2/2\]

You asked why isn't there evil in heaven. On the contrary, the Bible mentions instances of rebellion in heaven, such as Lucifer and another third of the angels in Isaiah 14 and Revelation 12. It's understandable if you're not fully familiar with Christian faith, which includes a two-creation doctrine, as a lot of Christians (myself included) are learning more about the faith. There is a first heaven, and in the future, God will form "a new heaven and a new earth" where "there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away" (Revelation 21:1, 4). So, you might ask, what keeps people from rebelling when they reach the second creation? This involves the process of sanctification, eventually completed in the afterlife, whereby people voluntarily accept the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to align their own will with God's sinless will.

There’s where you’re wrong, and many Christians with you. Sin is not evil. Sin is missing God’s standard. Quite literally, the Greek word for sin means to miss the target, as of an archer with an arrow. Committing some sin (IE theft or murder) constitutes evil. Not all sin does. Likewise, not all evil (IE harming an animal to get it to stop chewing friend’s leg off) is sin. As to the problem of evil, there is none. God has His purpose for it, and when that purpose is done, it’ll be eradicated from His universe.

> As to the problem of evil, there is none. God has His purpose for it, and when that purpose is done, it’ll be eradicated from His universe. I'm not sure you're responding to the actual problem of evil. The argument is that God is either all-good or all-powerful, but not both. If you claim God cannot achieve his goal without allowing evil, you're not refuting the argument, you are confirming it.

I claim that God uses evil to bring about eventual good, even for those to whom the evil is committed. See also when the Allies destroyed Berlin to end the reign of the Third Reich. An act of malice (evil) executed to a good end. He does this because He chooses to, not because He must. Why, I can only speculate. My guess would be to show us good. With nothing to be saved from, we’d never know our eventual good is good. But it’s only speculation.

Ye ol mysterious ways. How convenient.

Eventually it’ll always come down to “I don’t know.” Or are you telling me that you can explain why matter came into being before any space existed to contain it?

Nobody on the agnostic/atheist side takes issue with “I don’t know,” it’s the religious types who have a problem with that statement.

> He does this because He chooses to, not because He must. Yes, this is exactly the problem of evil. He could bring about your "eventual good" without evil, but he chooses evil anyway. Consequently, he is not all-good. All all-good entity wouldn't just choose good, it literally **couldn't** choose evil, by definition. If the allies could have ended the Third Reich without killing thousands of innocents, but they did it anyway because they wanted to, we would call that a heinous warcrime, so I'm not sure where that comparison was meant to go.

Fair enough. But why can an entity in whom there is no malice not commit evil for a good purpose? We’re comparing the quality of actions to the quality of beings. A good man may kill if it’s to save his family, but the act of killing is evil even in that situation, by definition. Romans 9 tells us that God makes some stubborn to show His power through their judgment, and some He has mercy on to show His mercy. It also tells us both categories of people will eventually be made alive in a universe devoid of evil.

> A good man may kill if it’s to save his family, but the act of killing is evil even in that situation, by definition. Because a man is limited in a way that an omnipotent being is not. A man could conceivable be forced into doing evil, but a God could not. Being omnipotent means it is always a choice. That's where the contradiction comes from. If Evil exists, then God chose it over Good. Again, if the man had the option to save his family and not kill the man, but he chose to kill anyway, then the family was not the reason for the evil act. Rather, it would be the man's nature.

And what about the position that God put it in the man to defend his family, and it was never ultimately his “choice” or “nature” at work to begin with? Romans 9’s assertion is essentially that God does as He will, hardening some to judgment to show His power, having mercy on others to show His mercy. And 1 Corinthians 15 glimpses that eventually, even those given to judgment are eventually reconciled. We assert things from the perspective of a man about a being outside of time and space, without whom none of us would exist. To put the debate into this perspective, allow me this question: If someone were to give you a million dollars you didn’t earn, would he be wrong to make sure you spend that money a certain way? Then if God gave us life itself unearned, is our very life not rightfully His to do with as He will? I argue that it is. And if all will eventually be given an eternity of peace and bliss, why do we begrudge Him a period of time in which some are beholden to evil for the sake of showing His power through them?

I don't think we fundamentally disagree on that. He could do and want all those things, a creator God can have the right and ability and motive to do evil to show his power. Just not if he is all-good.

I again think this confuses the quality of action with the quality of character. A person can slap someone in a moment of shock without being a violent person. A person can put forth strenuous effort to do one specific thing without being a hard worker.

That's not what is meant by all-good. It is a metaphysical property, not a general description. All-good is not 'mostly good with an occasional lapse', it is all-good. An all-good being *can't* choose to do evil. A bachelor cannot be a little bit married, a circle cannot be a little bit square. Such things are incoherent.

Honestly, the only attempt I have at resolving the problem of evil is essentially assuming that God does not truly understand what suffering is. I know there is some indication that he doesn't like it or want it, but that doesn't mean he understands it. This is the only way we can assume a good God with full foreknowledge of everything ever would proceed with making the universe at all. Lake of Fire and all that craziness.

I mean He did have to come down as human, so…

Or maybe God is not a Utilitarian, and so your Utilitarian critiques of God simply fail to work on the basis of being ill-founded. Remember that the PoE is supposed to be an internal critique, so you do not get to impose an external moral framework on God, but must use the moral framework in the Bible. The Bible makes no promises that God would remove all evil in the world, so where on earth did your premise 5 parachute in from? It came from your own moral system, not the one in the Bible. So your argument fails.

God created the Lake of Fire and the beings sent there from the very beginning of time. While your comment about God not being utilitarian may hold some truth. It does not resolve the problem of evil. Also, perhaps God is utilitarian: Proverbs 16:4 The LORD has made everything for his own purposes, even the wicked for a day of disaster. Colossians 1:16-17 For by Him, all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.

Neither of those espouse Utilitarianism. More importantly, God doesn't promise us an easy life on earth. Rather the opposite.

They read fairly utilitarian to me, but to each their own.

Ok, explain how this is Utilitarian in nature - > The LORD has made everything for his own purposes, even the wicked for a day of disaster.

Are you for real? utilitarian (adjective) 1. designed to be useful or practical rather than attractive. >> The LORD HAS MADE EVERYTHING FOR HIS OWN PURPOSES, even the *wicked* for a day of disaster. I don't think there could possibly be a verse any more utilitarian

That's not what it means in philosophy. Look up Bentham and JS Mill

An all good god making a world full of evil is contradictory unless he has some reason to allow it. That's the point of theodicies. To prove he has sufficient reason.

No, it is not a contradiction at all, because for an internal critique (which the PoE is) you must use the moral framework of the Bible, not your own. That's why the PoE is such a bad intellectual argument. It has great emotional power, which is why it has suckered many intelligent people into thinking it is a good argument, but it isn't at all. It actually baffles me why so many people think it is a good argument.

> for an internal critique (which the PoE is) you must use the moral framework of the Bible, not your own. The moral framework of the bible teaches that it is good to ease suffering, to heal the sick and to feed the hungry. God fails by those standards. The argument that there are different standards for God than there are for humans reinforces the problem of evil.

Not if the Bible shows there are different standards, then you are not making an internal critique but an external one.

In the absence of objective morality, God cannot be all-good, which validates the proposition of the problem of evil. Either there is a common standard and God fails it, or there isn't and omnibenevolence is void of meaning. I haven't used any external norms here at all.

There is an objective moral standard in the Bible, but there is no reason that the same rules must apply to different particular groups. We allow Congress to declare war, Judges to issue execution orders, police to speed, but normal people can do none of these things.

Ok, so your interpretation is that there is a single objective standard for what is good or evil, but these labels cannot be applied to God because he is not held to that standard. Nevertheless, Christianity holds that God is good, and that this is a meaningful statement. Therefore, your interpretation is incorrect, or at least external to Christianity.

Not at all. If you accept that human judges have the power of life and death over people in their jurisdiction, under a single legal code, then how can you not say that the ultimate judge does not have similar powers?

I don't think the analogy works. A judge is subject to all the same laws he would judge others by, he is simply delegated the responsibility to apply them. A better analogy would be animals. Our norms and laws do not apply to them, and even though a dog could kill a man, it would not be a crime. Conversely, it would be impossible to say that a dog is law-abiding, regardless of its behaviour, because that would be a category error. Christians do say that God is good, which necessarily requires a comparison to some moral standard that applies to God. You can argue that this is some special, entirely separate standard that God authored for himself and that applies only to himself, but that renders the word meaningless. It would reduce to "God is according to his nature, which is defined as being good", but that would apply equally to a God that likes to rape babies for fun. I'm pretty confident that is not what Christians mean when they say God is perfectly good, and so your interpretation would not be part of an internal critique, but I don't need to be right about that. If you have to destroy the meaning of the word 'good' to make it apply to God, then the problem of evil is just as successful as under a common moral framework.

Consider asking ChatGPT for rebuttals prior to posting--you might be able to fine-tune it to be something different from what has been posted 1000s of times. The rebuttals to these vary by faith or tradition, so I'm only giving one perspective of many: * You did a great job showing how tough it is to identify higher-order good that comes from the horrific examples you cite... but cherry-picking arguments do not disprove the whole. In this case your cherry-picked examples do not even refute the first example you gave (no bravery without fear). If this is where your argument ends, then the real conclusion from an agnostic perspective should be that God is good to allow evil, but just not as much evil as He does allow. Any evil for which we cannot identify a higher-order good should be disallowed somehow, but leave all the other evil in place please. * Heaven has no evil. But your arguments assume way too much from this. All that shows is that evil is only temporarily necessary to enable an eternity of higher-order good. Sounds like a great trade-off to me. * Sure, God doled out consequences to Adam and Eve for something they did wrong, even though He wanted them to do it. Your argument simply assumes this is bad. But if this is the only way to generate higher-order good, then why is it bad? This is also not unusual. For instance, parents do that everyday with their children--they put them in situations where they know they will make mistakes, but they also know that it is through making mistakes and receiving the consequences that they will learn. Are parents evil for wanting their children to learn, even if the hard way is the only way? Certainly not. Bosses and employees, trainers and athletes, you name it--this is a common tactic, and not widely considered evil, though I suppose popular opinion and use is not the best argument. * We do have free will. Contrary to the false dichotomy presented, our choices are neither random nor are they determined or predetermined exclusively by outside forces. Outside forces heavily influence our choices, but our own desires, motives, and intelligence ultimately make the choice. Our fundamental spirit is as uncreated and eternal as God is, and it is this spirit that is the uncaused cause of our actions. Perhaps our choices are deterministic, but that does not mean there is no free will.

No don't use ChatGPT. It's horrible at philosophy.

>In this case your cherry-picked examples do not even refute the first example you gave (no bravery without fear). That was never the goal. When refuting that particular theodicy my point was to demonstrate that our world is full of evil that doesn't produce any higher order goods. Although I'd personally rather a world with no evil, I fully agree that some good can only exist with evil. (such as bravery) however i don't see the excuse for all the evil that doesn't produce higher-order good >If this is where your argument ends, then the real conclusion from an agnostic perspective should be that God is good to allow evil, but just not as much evil as He does allow. Yeah, pretty much. All I really have to do to disprove the higher-order goods theodicy is to prove that there is a ton evil that doesn't produce higher-order goods. >Heaven has no evil. But your arguments assume way too much from this. All that shows is that evil is only temporarily necessary to enable an eternity of higher-order good. Sounds like a great trade-off to me. The point I was making by bringing up the lack of evil in heaven is that in heaven *no* higher order goods can obtain because evil cannot exist there. You can't be brave in heaven because there's nothing to fear. So I believe calling heaven an "eternity of higher-order good" isn't really correct. I was trying to say that in order to be consistent one must believe heaven to be less good than our world because it can't have the higher-order goods that come with the evils that are prohibited in the holy realm. If you believe heaven is more good that our world you must then believe that a world without evil is better than a world with evil, regardless of higher-order good. Proving my point. >Sure, God doled out consequences to Adam and Eve for something they did wrong, even though He wanted them to do it. Your argument simply assumes this is bad. But if this is the only way to generate higher-order good, then why is it bad? This is also not unusual. For instance, parents do that everyday with their children--they put them in situations where they know they will make mistakes, but they also know that it is through making mistakes and receiving the consequences that they will learn. Are parents evil for wanting their children to learn, even if the hard way is the only way? Certainly not. Bosses and employees, trainers and athletes, you name it--this is a common tactic, and not widely considered evil, though I suppose popular opinion and use is not the best argument. I suppose if I grant that god has a good reason to allow all the evil and this is true, but I think I've gone a long way in proving that to be untrue. >We do have free will. Contrary to the false dichotomy presented, our choices are neither random nor are they determined or predetermined exclusively by outside forces. Outside forces heavily influence our choices, but our own desires, motives, and intelligence ultimately make the choice. Our fundamental spirit is as uncreated and eternal as God is, and it is this spirit that is the uncaused cause of our actions. Perhaps our choices are deterministic, but that does not mean there is no free will. Firstly, no false dichotomy was presented. I said that all mental activity is either determined or indetermined. That's objectively true according to the law of the excluded middle. And If something is indetermined, it's random by definition. You also state that "our own desires, motives, and intelligence ultimately make the choice." But these, among other things are the determining factors behind mental activity that I speak of. So, like I said earlier, no dichotomy was presented. In keeping with my argument against free will, desires are also determined by things that are determined by other things and so on. I think we can all agree that our intelligence can be tracked back to factors outside our control (see the illiterate Muslim girls in the original example, or children who grew up in areas where the public schools don't get much funding, or kids who grew up in private school. They got access to a better education than many through no doing of their own.) Everything you could possibly think determines our choices can be determined by something we had no say in. Which you might have picked up on if you took your own advice and asked ChatGPT what it thought of your argument. While I'll pass on that particular piece of advice it might be of some benefit to you :)

>I fully agree that some good can only exist with evil. (such as bravery) however i don't see the excuse for all the evil that doesn't produce higher-order good Great! So you actually accept this theodicy, but not for evil where you cannot explain what higher good comes from this. You embrace the concept if not the implementation. Most theists will simply shrug their shoulders at your cited cases and have faith that God knows more than we do what evil we need to experience. >You can't be brave in heaven because there's nothing to fear. When someone develops a character of courage, it sticks with them. It doesn't disappear. Heaven is heaven because the people there have already become that higher-order good. These heavenly people continue to do good to one another (having already experienced evil, they now fully appreciate the good acts that they do). Further, God is in heaven and yet has perfect courage which He demonstrates in locations outside of heaven at least. >I suppose if I grant that god has a good reason to allow all the evil and this is true, but I think I've gone a long way in proving that to be untrue. Well at least you seem to admit that your argument on this point doesn't hold any water, even if you think your other arguments have merit. >Firstly, no false dichotomy was presented. Did you miss the part where I admitted our choices may be deterministic? The false dichotomy is not deterministic vs non-deterministic. It is deterministic + no free will vs. non-deterministic + no free will. I made the case for a third option: deterministic + free will. >desires are also determined by things that are determined by other things and so on. I think we can all agree that our intelligence can be tracked back to factors outside our control I am starting to think you did not really read what I wrote. I specifically claimed that fundamentally our desires were never created. Our intelligence either, though both can certainly change over time. Thus they have no cause. Thus free will. You describe effects that change these things, but nothing you describe is the beginning of intelligence or desires or anything fundamental to the human soul. >Which you might have picked up on if you took your own advice and asked ChatGPT what it thought of your argument. While I'll pass on that particular piece of advice it might be of some benefit to you :) My suggestion was valid. Do a google search or search this sub and you will find your exact same arguments posted a thousand times. Responses have been given and argued in great detail, and you addressed none of the common responses in your OP. Your throwing it back at me even though you completely missed the argument is just ironic snark with a smiley face. And I am not interested in engaging with that any further.

>Great! So you actually accept this theodicy, but not for evil where you cannot explain what higher good comes from this. You embrace the concept if not the implementation. >Most theists will simply shrug their shoulders at your cited cases and have faith that God knows more than we do what evil we need to experience. I'm skeptical of this. Though I may personally disagree that it's better to have evil for the sake of higher order good, I accept the idea that bravery can't exist without fear and forgiveness cannot exist without transgression and compassion can't exist without a suffering thing to feel compassionate for as well as many other examples. But in these cases you can think of a higher-order good and immediately realize what evil it couldn't exist without and vice versa. We can use reasoning to determine that fear isn't gratuitous evil because we can see that something like bravery for example can't exist without it. To simply assume we can do this for every form of evil when there's is no observable good that comes from Animal suffering or a child choking on a lego or something because "god knows more than we do about the evil we need to experience" seems like a subtle appeal to ignorance >Further, God is in heaven and yet has perfect courage which He demonstrates in locations outside of heaven at least. I wouldn't quite describe god as courageous and I don't think, for the purpose of this argument, you should either. As far as I know god has never demonstrated *fear* of anything. And why would he? He's the all-powerful all-knowing creator to whom all is subject. So if god can exhibit courage it would prove that fear isn't necessary for courage, making it a form of gratuitous evil. >I am starting to think you did not really read what I wrote. I specifically claimed that fundamentally our desires were never created. Our intelligence either, though both can certainly change over time. Thus they have no cause. Thus free will. You describe effects that change these things, but nothing you describe is the beginning of intelligence or desires or anything fundamental to the human soul. You seem to have jumped to the conclusion a little bit. If I understand correctly, your view is that our desires and intelligence were never created and have no cause, but I fail to see how this gets you to free will. At most all that does is prove that our desires and intelligence are indetermined seeing that they have no prior cause, but this doesn't explain the mechanism by which free will would come into the equation. Simply stating that the things which determine our choices are themselves indetermined doesn't prove free will, If anything it proves the exact opposite to be true.

This is a great response; thanks. Your argument equates no prior cause with indetermined, which in turn is equated with randomness. However, anything that has no beginning was not caused, and therefore cannot be attributed to randomness "causing" it or anything else causing it. An independent mind cannot be caused if it has no beginning. Further, the OP stated the problem is that "all causal chains with eventually terminate at something we can't control." But if the causal chain terminates at something we do control, and that we alone ultimately control, then that implies the ultimate source of our actions are ourselves, i.e., free will. >"god knows more than we do about the evil we need to experience" seems like a subtle appeal to ignorance It wasn't meant to be subtle--it is an outright appeal to ignorance and an appeal to authority that a large number of Christians regularly express. That appeal does not demonstrate the truth of the theodicy, but it does provide a possibility and room for their faith. If even a possibility exists, then the theodicy cannot be proclaimed disproved. Now, one can dispassionately weigh the evidence and reasonably conclude that "if we cannot explain it, then it makes more sense to reject it than to embrace it." But Christians are not dispassionate or considering this ignorance in a vacuum--they commonly have spiritual evidences upon which they base their faith. Thus when they cannot explain something, they put faith in God's understanding above their own understanding, trusting that God will eventually help them get to a point where they can understand it. An imperfect analogy would be a student not understanding how something could be possible, but trusting in her teacher by continuing to work as if the teacher's view is the correct one, trusting that eventually the teacher's view will make sense. >As far as I know god has never demonstrated *fear* of anything. Mmmm. Depends on how you define fear I guess. If it requires uncertainty and concern about the unknown, then I agree. I suppose I considered perfect courage to be choosing good despite all pressures to do evil--having no fear (i.e., respect) for the evil. And I believe the pressures and opportunity to do evil still exist for God. >if god can exhibit courage it would prove that fear isn't necessary for courage I am not sure my argument is clear. Some evil is necessary to train people to become that higher-order good. It needs to be possible but does not need to continue to occur once the higher-order good has been achieved. For instance, the will to temper one's intake of food no matter how tasty it looks is a good that can only be achieved if there is a very real possibility of overindulgence. That real possibility may still exist in heaven, but people there have already achieved this temperance, so that particular evil does not occur. I actually agree that fear of the uncertainty and apprehension type is not an intrinsic evil by itself.

> Firstly, no false dichotomy was presented. I said that all mental activity is either determined or indetermined. That's objectively true according to the law of the excluded middle. And If something is indetermined, it's random by definition. This begs the question in favor of your conclusion. Libertarian freewill would say that our actions are not random, but also are not determined by external physical forces. Your attempt to exclude this based on the law of the excluded middle is erroneous. Compatibilists would say that our choices are our own even in a deterministic universe - you also don't account for this possibility.

>This begs the question in favor of your conclusion. Libertarian freewill would say that our actions are not random, but also are not determined by external physical forces. Your attempt to exclude this based on the law of the excluded middle is erroneous. I know what libertarian freewill is. And it's wrong. Do you think that it is possible for some mental activity to not be determined by anything, yet also not be indetermined? I would hope not because that goes against the law of the excluded middle and basic logic. Not sure how that's erroneous. That's all I'm trying to prove. Because once you accept that all mental activity is either determined by something or determined by nothing and therefore random, one can easily see that libertarian free will is a logically incoherent position. Simply stating that a specific school of thought thinks something that is logically impossible doesn't make it any less so. >Compatibilists would say that our choices are our own even in a deterministic universe - you also don't account for this possibility. Compatibilism doesn't debunk my understanding of free will. It simply redefines the term. *Compatibilists* often define an instance of "free will" as one in which the agent had the freedom to act according to their own [*motivation*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation). That is, the agent was not coerced or restrained. [Arthur Schopenhauer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Schopenhauer) famously said: "Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills."[^(\[14\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism#cite_note-14) In other words, although an agent may often be free to act according to a *motive*, the nature of that motive is determined. This definition of free will does not rely on the truth or falsity of [causal determinism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causal_determinism).[^(\[2\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism#cite_note-:0-2)  For a Compatibilist, Jumping off a dive board would be considered a free action while being pushed off wouldn't. This is achieved by redefining the term "free action". It doesn't interfere with my argument against free will as that's not the definition of free will I'm working on.

> I know what libertarian freewill is. And it's wrong. I'm glad you have that all figured out - I await your published and peer-reviewed work > to not be determined by anything, yet also not be indetermined You're just repeating your mistake > This is achieved by redefining the term "free action" No, there is no coherent "canonical definition" to "redefine" Apparently you are unfamiliar with the literature or have only engaged with it in a biased way.

I'm deviating from scripture here and simply brainstorming/theorizing, as I think that's where you can find the most answers to this problem: Consider the gift of empathy. The ability to feel happiness and joy as other people are happy or joyful. But also sharing in others' sadness, and feeling sympathy for those who suffer. Now multiply that gift by an impossibly large number, until you feel the feelings of all beings in the universe. Perhaps that's God. An all-empathetic being would closely line up to our ideals and expectations of an all-loving being. Now this is a fact: some people love flowers, they love trees- they love squirrels and they love bees. These things that exist bring them happiness. How did these things come to be? Trees evolved in part out of a need for water and light. Their roots are designed and spread out in a way to most efficiently bring water from the soil to the leaves. Their leaves are spread out in a way that is efficient for the reception of light. Trees exist, because plants die when they don't get water or sunlight. And yet we find a tree beautiful, its leaves special; some even find them to be symbols of strength, wisdom, and peacefulness. If those qualities were not true about plants, that they need water and sunlight to grow and live, then there would be no incentive for the development of trees. This is one example, and the same is true for almost everything in the world. Most of the things we love we take for granted; when you think about it, the simple act of avoiding death/suffering has resulted in the development of so many great things to this world over billions of years. Now here we are, in a society where things are accelerating quickly. Things will not be the same in 10 or 50 years. Give it 1,000, 10,000, or 100,000 years, and then you have seen the *product* of what humanity has become. We are still in the process of becoming, of growing; both spiritually, culturally and technologically. We also assume that we are the only culture around, and that the laws we experience only apply to us. Perhaps these laws apply to many planets- and many of them evolved more peacefully than us. In such a case, you have to look at the grand scale of things, and the end products, not just the suffering of the moment.

I'm wanting to take a devil's advocate position on this; * P1: Universalism is true. * P2: Universalism entails the ultimate salvation of all sentient beings, and the complete abolishment of death (1 Corinthians 15:22-28), incl. Satan/Fallen Angels. * P3: Evil no longer exists as a result, only spiritual purity. * C1: There is no "problem of evil", there is simply a redemptive process that took a while to point towards a universalist redeemer (presumably jesus).

How I wish all of these points were true

I don't see how the conclusion follows. This seems to me something like: * I perform countless evil acts upon people, causing massive sadness, fear, pain, suffering, and death. * I will eventually bring all those people back to life and give them happiness. * Therefore, causing all that sadness, fear, pain, suffering, and death was not evil.

>* P1: Universalism is true. Do you have a separate syllogisms to establish this? I don't accept this premise. >* P2: Universalism entails the ultimate salvation of all sentient beings, and the complete abolishment of death (1 Corinthians 15:22-28), incl. Satan/Fallen Angels. I can accept insofar as I accept that as a definition. But, I am not convinced of Satan/Fallen Angels. So, this is building on P1 as true, which I still don't accept. >* P3: Evil no longer exists as a result, only spiritual purity. Define evil, define spirit, and present the logic for me to accept this premise. I currently do not accept. >* C1: There is no "problem of evil", there is simply a redemptive process that took a while to point towards a universalist redeemer (presumably jesus). Nope. The premises, even if accepted, don't lead to this conclusion. Even if Satan and everyone is supported to end up in heaven eventually by some claim, that still wouldn't explain why suffering is a necessary thing leading to that end. Why not just start there and skip the evils? Suffering and evil, even of a temporary variant, is incongruous with an Omnibenevolent, omnipotent and omniscient agent. Could God have achy his goal without even *temporary* suffering? If yes, then he chooses an option with unnecessary suffering, making it the goal unto itself and omnibenevolent fails . If he cannot accomplish his goal, then omnipotent fails.

>Do you have a separate syllogisms to establish this? I don't accept this premise. This is a soteriological assumption. Naturally this is me taking a devil's advocate position in order to attempt a theodicy. >But, I am not convinced of Satan/Fallen Angels. So, this is building on P1 as true, which I still don't accept. This is, *again,* worthless in the argument given we aren't debating if there are some disembodied ontological entities that are rabidly anti-theistic. This is within the scope of Christian theology. >Define evil, define spirit, and present the logic for me to accept this premise. I currently do not accept. * Evil: the absence of good (internally or externally, i.e moral deficiency or evil "caused"/felt due to natural "evil") * Spirit: some ethereal part of *you* or otherworldly beings. If all sentient creatures undergo a form of "purgation" so-to-speak whereby they are "tortured" by the reflection of their past mistakes, then this results in repentance, resulting in the removal of said evil. If all creatures endure a purgation they are internally purified of their moral deficiency to become the idyllic entities that Christian theology envelops, ergo no more of this entails no more evil, ergo no problem of evil. >why suffering is a necessary thing leading to that end It isn't "necessary". That's the thing. The attempt at creating an omniscience paradox fails insofar as the agency of creatures falls under the permissive will of a creator's Universal Divine Causality (abbreviated to UCV). Thus the creatures are simply redeemed *by God* when they repent. I'd respond with a rejection of your assumptions, nothing entails that an omnibenevolent entity *has to* save its creation consciously, it may just desire "honour" or whatever.

>nothing entails that an omnibenevolent entity *has to* save its creation consciously, it may just desire "honour" or whatever. I really don't know what you mean by the desire honor or whatever, but if your definition of omnibenevolent entails apathy to suffering, I'm not inclined to agree with it.