Friday, July 21, 2023

Hasty Theodicy II

 

 Evil exists and yet theists insist that God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-loving, and yet humans brought evil into the world, and it is all their fault because evil is their rebellion against and distance from God and God’s grace. God is blameless for the existence of evil in the world, and we must accept this contradiction of faith as a mystery to be experienced and through which we build or faith, but do not answer without our skeptical, logical minds.

 

Atheists might counter that the contradiction must be resolved, so they posit that there is only the material world, and that humans are part-good and part bad (or all-good) with free will, and that evil is a learned behavior to be treated as a mere if unfortunate social pathology.

 

These are serious doubts and honest, solid criticisms about theodicy and how to resolve the contradiction. If God knows all, is all good, and controls all, how can evil exist? How can we have free will when God knew four million years ago what we will do with our lives and choices?

 

These questions are tough maybe impossible to answer. In part, God is a bit evil, so God could create, allow, or use evil for good purposes, such as making free will for human agents real and significant.

 

If God is powerful but not all-powerful, then Fate is credited with being the author of all that is good and evil, and we do not know how or why this is the case. If God is part evil, but did not create evil, then we have a good deity to worship, without obsessing about while evil and suffering are such ineradicable parts of human existing. It is not a copout to accept some of this on faith. It is practical and realistic to resolve this doubts and questions as best we can so that we can get one with living, while enjoying talking go God and building a moral life for ourselves, our families and the community

No comments:

Post a Comment