Religious morality has maintained a powerful grip on the human psyche for two millennia through the concept of "free will." Without the notion of free will granted by an omniscient and omnipotent god, religion would run into an immediate and insurmountable conundrum. Humans would be automatons, doing god's bidding with no choice. By definition, with no free will, all actions by all people would be a direct expression of god's will. That would clearly pose a problem, with war atrocities, rape, torture, genocide, and the full repertoire of human debauchery reflecting poorly on the almighty. No religion would tolerate such a grim view of the creator, so there must be a way to reconcile the reality of ugly human behavior with an all-powerful, all-knowing god. David Hume nicely summarized this tension between a kind god and the unkind reality of human existence, saying, "Our natural terrors present the notion of a devilish and malicious deity: Our propensity to adulation leads us to acknowledge an excellent and divine. And the influence of these opposite principles are various, according to the different situation of the human understanding."
Here is the central dilemma: religion must somehow explain the existence of evil in the presence of god, an endeavor known as theodicy. Despite heroic efforts, all attempts at theodicy have failed completely. The bottom line is clear. In a world that knows evil, an all-powerful god responsible for all creation must be evil. That interpretation is unavoidable and certain. But given that many people will wish to dispute the claim, I will show next how no other conclusion is possible.
Some who oppose the notion of a brutish ugly deity propose that god did not intentionally create evil. If so, that begs the question of evil's origin if not from the hand of god. In one scenario, god allowed evil to flourish as an unintended consequence once his newly-minted Adam and Eve started roaming the earth; in another, evil sprang to life without god's permission, as a rude cosmic surprise. Both scenarios would give god a pass on being evil, but would at the same time mean he was not omnipotent. None of the three scenarios is looking too good for the big guy. Let's review: in the first case, an all-powerful god must be evil since evil exists and god created all, including evil; in the second case, god's work got beyond his control, a mistake not typically associated with an all-powerful thing; in the third case, god not only does not control our fate, he is incapable of peering into the future, a decidedly un-god-like attribute.
Religion solves this conundrum the old-fashioned way: by making up an answer with truly contorted logic. The answer in this case is free will, but only for human beings. Somehow, when god gathered his last strength to make people, before taking a one-day vacation, he decided, unlike with beavers or parrots, to give his new creation the ability to choose a path not preordained by god. This divine grant of free will solves the dilemma because people can choose to be evil without implicating god. Whew!
Unfortunately, the idea does not hold water. Even the briefest examination lays waste to the claim that free will was or could be granted by an all-powerful god. The idea is an absurd oxymoron: the very act of granting free will would destroy the power do so. Let's see why by looking at the combination of free will, evil, and prayer in the presence of an omniscient god.
We can start with prayer. If god has a plan for everything and everyone, prayer could not affect his behavior. If he changed his plan according to a prayer, that would be an admission that god's original plan was flawed, making him fallible. If only those prayers that fit into god's original plan are answered, then the purpose of praying is defeated. With preordained fate, prayer could not change any outcome, which is the very purpose of a prayer.
"Ah-ha!" you might say. "The trick is that god gave mankind free will -- that allows for the legitimacy of prayer." But prayer cannot work in the case of free will, either. If we have the power to choose our own destiny, prayer has no role to play. If I pray to god for a certain outcome, just the act of praying is an admission that I do not determine my fate; I admit my fate is in the hands of god, that god can change the outcome of my life, making the notion of free will moot. The idea of free will is religion's version of having your cake and eating it, too. You can have a god who already preordained everything, and you can pray for a different outcome anyway, and you have free will to change your destiny. The wishful thinking that a pastry can be consumed without being depleted is no more viable than the notion that free will and prayer are compatible.
An argument often provided to counter this line of reasoning says that god knows what every person will choose beforehand, but the person does not; the person is still making a choice. How oddly tautological. Whatever we choose, our choice is according to god's plan because we chose it! But if god already knows what we will choose, already knows the outcome of every choice, that is not free will, only the cruel illusion of free will. The choice was already made at the beginning of time, meaning there never was any choice.
Another common argument is that free will allowed humans to fall from god's grace, without impugning god's character. That is simply defining away the problem without solving anything. If god is all-powerful, he could have created a species of humans who chose to use the gift of free will only for good. That his creations chose to behave badly means that such behavior was either god's original intent, or that god is not all-knowing.
Perhaps a benevolent god created a world with evil, but he chose to do so for good reasons. He created evil but is not evil himself. Assuming this logic, some argue that evil and suffering are necessary in order to know god. Well, that is simply another example of solving the problem by defining it away, and ultimately contributes nothing. Since god is all-powerful, he could have just as easily designed the world such that suffering was not required to know him.
Let's look at a real case of evil, that of Slobodan Milošević and his choice of genocide: only three scenarios are possible. One, god knew beforehand the choice Milošević would make and did nothing to prevent the outcome; two, god knew beforehand but could do nothing to change the outcome; or three, god did not know what choice Milošević would make. From these three possibilities we must come to a conclusion that is irrefutable, undeniable, and logically immune to any counterargument. In a world in which evil and suffering exist, god is either all-powerful and is responsible for that evil and suffering, through design or neglect, or god is benevolent but not all-powerful. Nothing else is possible, other than the obvious conclusion that god does not exit. With evil in the world, an all-powerful god cannot be benevolent. Whether god's power is diminished either as an original state of being or as a consequence of voluntarily relinquishing his power to human free will, the effect is the same. If god is benevolent and not culpable of evil, he has no control over evil. If god is not evil, he cannot alter our fate. No amount of twisted or convoluted logic can change that immutable conclusion. Saying "God works in mysterious ways" or "We are humble enough to admit that we will never understand god" just do not cut it.
That conclusion yields an obvious and terminal problem for prayer. If your baby is seriously ill, you pray to god for her recovery. Why? If god is all-powerful, he would already know the fate of your baby, and your prayers would be for naught. Whether you prayed or not, your baby's fate is already sealed, pre-ordained, for better or worse, by the all-powerful god. Plus, since an all-powerful god must be evil, since he is responsible for everything in the universe, including evil, he might take joy in your suffering, since he allowed so much grief to visit the human condition long before your child became ill.
Alternatively, if god is benevolent, he is not responsible for the evil and suffering in the world, meaning he has diminished powers since forces exist in the universe for which he has no responsibility and no hand in their creation. You would be praying to a being without the ability to control human fate, rendering the prayer useless. If god has no control over evil, praying to him to stop evil and suffering makes no sense. Prayers to an all-powerful and evil god are futile; prayers to a benevolent god are useless. You might as well pray to the tooth fairy. At least with the tooth fairy you get a dollar under the pillow.
The flip-side of human free will is also important to examine; that is, does god himself have free will? If not, can god grant what he himself does not have? An all-powerful god is all-knowing, meaning god knows all of his future actions, and all of the choices he would make. Here is the rub: god could not change those choices, otherwise his earlier knowledge would have been wrong, meaning god would not be all-knowing! All-omniscient god therefore has no free will to choose actions, since all actions must be preordained. God becomes an observer of his own omniscience since all knowledge of the future precludes any changes to that future. Any god with free will would have to be imperfect, and would by definition not be all-knowing.
So an all-knowing god, who cannot possess free will, cannot grant something he himself does not have. But a bigger problem remains. Free will implies a future with no predestination. A god who knows all, about everything past, present, and future, could not create any free will that would prevent that knowledge of the future; the very act of creating free will would destroy the fact of omniscience.
The notion that an all-powerful god granted humans free will is one of the most egregious examples of religion's absurdity. But the situation becomes positively surreal when people believe that praying to an all-powerful god can alter the outcome of events according to the entreaties of the prayer. Holding three mutually exclusive ideas at the same time is a sign of insanity.
Follow Jeff Schweitzer on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JeffSchweitzer
Sherman A. Jackson: The Problem of Suffering: Muslim Theological Reflections
Word-count limits a more in depth challenge to this article. I’m certain there are things Mr. Schweitzer could learn from my upcoming publication. As evident from the denigrating statements about the God some of us revere: “prayer could not change any outcome, which is the very purpose of a prayer,†prayer does have more than one ‘very purpose’. It seems egotistical for someone to shred the faith / hope of someone who might sit at a hospital bedside or who suddenly becomes unemployed, and find it an unburdening relief to whisper a prayer to whom he or she considers God. Sometimes such folks get receive they don’t pray for; they get courage, solace, perspective.
Not really. Omnipotent, like “all-powerful†by it’s very definition includes both good and evil. In that evidence exists that good exists, as well as evil, it cannot be said that, “an all powerful god responsible for all creation must be evil. If “contorted logic†exists surely it is contorted logic to say that, an all powerful god responsible for all creation must be evil, unless one also argues that good does not exist in any form or manner anywhere. Who can argue that?
Omnipotent by its very definition includes all forms of potent; good and evil; right and wrong; knowledge and ignorance; existence and non existence; past and future; belief and denial; presence and absence; freewill and bondage; benevolence and malevolence; mistakes and corrections; justice and injustice; gratitude and ingratitude; selfishness and generosity.
Can God create a rock so heavy that even God could not lift it? Yes. One could argue that in that moment of omnipotence, omniscience sprang forth, and from there omnipresence. I rather imagine that in that moment of omnipotence, aka, the big bang, all forms of Omni existed and I exist as a witness.
Dr. Lanza in another story today [What Are We? New Experiments Suggest We're Not Purely Physical] has this to say about existence. Perhaps it is relevent to your concept of God's existence outside of existence, space, time, etc. "entirely beyond our comprehension."
"It was startling to realize, after studying neurobiology, that objects, indeed our own bodies, are nothing but representations in our mind -− that we can't see anything through the bone surrounding the brain.
We assume there's a universe "out there" separate from what we are, and that we play no role in its appearance. Yet since the 1920s, experiments have shown just the opposite; results do depend on whether anyone is observing. This is most vividly illustrated by the famous two-hole experiment. When you watch a particle go through the holes, it behaves like a bullet, passing through one hole or the other. But if no one observes the particle, it exhibits the behavior of a wave and can pass through both holes at the same time.
This and other experiments tell us that unobserved particles exist only as "waves of probability" as Max Born demonstrated in 1926. They're statistical predictions -- nothing but a likely [outcome]"
My only problem with "God has a plan" is that certain religionists use that as a weapon to force others to abandon their own free will for the "will" of the religionist and that religionist's intepretation of morality. Tea Party candidate, Sharron Angle's using that weapon this very day.
...doesn't it give at least a LITTLE more appeal to the simple notion, "No God, Stuff Happens"? Sure saves a lot of typing...
Nothingness = The Void that always was.
Somethingness = The harmony, original sound, order, presence, known appeal, preference, pleasing to experience, the LIGHT, accordance, common experience.
Evil = A force that would silence the music, forcing Nothingness, detune, force antagonism, deny the Sometningness, decay, entropy, discordance.
Prayer = Tuning, atonement, to come into harmony, synchronize, match, appreciate, contemplation, reflection, to resonate.
All the best
Knute
TR Knudtson
I forgot. FREE WILL = I choose to SING!
All the best
Knute
TR Knudtson
I believe we come fully equipped with all we need to experience the Divine.
Let’s just take music as one example. We know tone, or sense tonal quality as an accordance. Is something in TUNE. Who set these standards? Yet we are share them. Another oddity of music, why do we call them octaves? When in truth there 7 notes to the sacle, 7 the number of completion. Where does the register end? Have we run out of notes when we run out of keys on a piano? Both Elephants at the low scale, and dogs at the upper register would tell us NO! So, it is fair to say that all species here on earth can appreciate music, some better than others???
Is a single tone, no mater how clear, Music? If tone accordance (Frequency) is so important to music appreciation, why a Minor Seventh? If we ever do find the LOST CHORD, (Harmony) would we ever want to stop singing?
What is in the values of notes? Amplitude and Frequency, but also intonation, attack, sustain resonance, vibrato, and termination.
OMG,,, lookie there! Nothingness! Termination, or how long a note is held, or not held, or the space between notes, is Nothingness added to Somethingness to shape a reality. Tempo, time, syncopation, up-beat, down beat, Nothingness, or the absence of tone or frequency or amplitude is functional and essential, the absence of, the Darkness dispelled by the light??
Continued
You see,, when the Emperor saw the calming and soothing effects that Musical Scales in the Western Traditions had on the human soul, in fear that the people would become bewitched and lethargic, weepy and passive, the Emperor OUTLAWED several Harmonics (Pleasing Chords) to ever be played again.
So NO,, there are indeed, difference in traditions of register and scale.
All the best
Knute
TR Knudtson
There is an appeal to Hume above, but Hume's conclusion was that the amount of evil in the world is consistent with the existence of God, but not suggestive of a God who cares about us. That is a rather different thing. Evil does not make the existence of God impossible. But the level of evil in the world does mean that we have good reason to believe that the world was not created by a caring God. For me this is enough to justify atheism. The fact that one needs to explain away the existence of God to make room for his existence is a good reason for disbelieving. But it should not be confused for a logical proof against. Given strong enough reason for belief, this reason could be outweighed. Judgement is about weighing reasons, not simplifying in order to dismiss.
This is just meant as an example and not as the only place in which contradictory interests can produce an odd optimum result. Leibniz famously saw a conflict between order and variety.
There are no syllogistic knockouts here, and a big mistake in trying to understand issues like this in these terms.
And do you really think that going from omnipotence to powerful beyond comprehension removes one of God's most endearing qualities? I would think that if there is a single entity responsible for the creation of the world through an act of will, that that entity has plenty enough endearing qualities to count as God. Well that and a generally benevoletn nature.
The problem of evil is a serious problem for religion, although not quite as available to a knock down argument as presented here. There are a few problems.
one: Someone who allows (or does) evil and good is not simply evil. This is actually a mistake Christians make in thinking that people need supernatural salvation because nobody is without sin. there is no reason why atheists should make the same mistakes in response. Whether God is good or bad is a question of what choices were made given the options available. I certainly see no sense in dismissing the value of the gift of free will as done above. I am not sure the concept of free will is coherent, but it is a valuable gift if real.
If a god created some people knowing that they would not believe in him, and would be destined for a heII, that would mean he created some people only to suffer.
And, even if you took the heaven/heII beliefs out of it ... there are some people who live entire lives in misery, though no choice ("free will") of their own.
If the god knew what the results of his actions would be ... then he would be responsible for those results.
If the action was creating flawed human beings (knowing what the result would be), and the result was suffering ... then he would be responsible for the suffering.
If the god didn't know what the results of his actions would be ... then he is not omniscient ... and would be responsible ... for carelessness.
As for hell, I believe people can make choices even after they die if they find the reality of what happens after death different than they had expected. And, if there are still people alive in biological reality and thus in time, those people can pray for the dead person (and there prayers have already been offered outside of time, before any biological existence (since it is bound to time) Also, I firmly believe that God would understand and deeply love people who didn't believe in him because were given the completely wrong teachings about God through abusive, perhaps fanatical, perhaps confused "teachers". They perhaps needed to reject God to preserve their own sanity and mental health. I don't believe in anything like "irresistible grace." Those are all Orthodox teachings not just cherrypicking by me as a believer.
Jeff wrote: “Holding three mutually exclusive ideas at the same time is a sign of insanityâ€
Now, in this statement is his indictment of others, YES,,, BUT also, his honest admission of his own personal limitations. The Sphere of TIME or the Circle of TIME would have no meaning to Jeff.
This is NOT a condemnation,,, only an observation. His ways are by differentiation, not inclusion or evaluative comparison. The conundrum of absolutes; For the specific there is always the generality, for the general there is always the specific. Round and Round and Round.
All the best
Knute
TR Knudtson
What I find as odd, that many of the faithful today will condemn Science, blame Science for every evil we see, then turn right around and when stricken with cancer, will demand, CAT Scans, MRIs, the best of pain relief, every product of Modern Science that even hold out a slim chance of recovery. Chemistry, Radiology, Hematology, Oncology, Surgery, even the Ambulance that takes from one appointment to the other, contains about 50 different CORE scientific discoveries, just to move one foot off the dime. And call 911, of a CELL PHONE to get the whole process going.
What is that all about?
All the best
Knute
TR Knudtson
You introduce this common defense, but you do not actually explore its plausibility. You jump from this statement to “he created evil but is not evil himself,†and then directly to “suffering is necessary to know him.†You list these defenses as if they are connected, but I did not see the connection. Briefly, regarding the latter statement, I do not agree that suffering is necessary to know God, but I will suggest that, given evil and sin, suffering was necessary for God to know us, hence Christ. The middle statement I will let pass, tempted though I am to question your ontology of evil as a created entity vs. a privation. But the initial statement is what really deserves some exploration on your part. I understand that these are not your views, but what you perceive as shoddy defenses of silly Christians, but you haven’t told me why it can’t be that God would have one or more good reasons for permitting evil. Because you said so? Because it’s illogical? Because he is supposed to be benevolent? It actually follows logically that if God is omnibenevolent (as well as omnipotent and omniscient) and if he has chosen to allow evil in his world, then, insofar as he is benevolent, there would have to be a good reason for that allowance, our capacity to grasp it notwithstanding.
Free will and omniscience aren’t as diametrical as you suppose. God’s foreknowledge of a choice does not negate the choice itself. Just because God knew I would choose A doesn’t mean I didn’t really choose A. I still chose A; I just did it with God’s foreknowledge in the background. In fact, God’s foreknowledge of my choosing A is contingent on… my choosing A. Could I have chosen B instead? Yes, but God would have known that I would’ve have done that. Free will is jeopardized if God forces me to choose A, but omniscience is about prevision not puppeterring.
I actually think the free will debate is irrelevant. The crux of the matter is that you cannot conceive of a God who would permit evil in his world. For you, there is no good or logical reason for an omnibenevolent, omniscient, omnipotent God to allow for evil in his world. But does that mean there isn’t a good reason? Does the fact that your cognitive faculties cannot grasp the sense of it necessarily mean that there is no sense of it? Therein lies the fundamental worldview clash which undergirds the Christian-atheist dialogue. The Christian acknowledges a power greater than his own cognition; the atheist acknowledges his own cognition as the greatest power.
“The bottom line is clear. In a world that knows evil, an all-powerful god responsible for all creation must be evil.â€
Your bottom line is flawed, because its converse must also follow, namely, in a world that knows good, an all-powerful god responsible for all creation must be good. Just as it cannot be denied that there is evil in the world, neither can it be denied that there is good. But according to your bottom line, either the world knows only evil or the evil it knows negates the good it also knows. If you do not deny the presence of good in the world, then your bottom line suggests that God must be good and evil. Perhaps that leads to a glorious cosmic cancellation for you, but that is not what you wrote. The argument as it stands is simply flawed. (This also weakens other aspects of your article, such as your suggestion that God might take delight in a sick baby, since he must be evil. From your line of reasoning, God must be both evil and good, so a prayer for that baby should have a 50-50 shot!)