The Third Question Answered

In an earlier post I discussed the nature of God. There were three main questions/objections posed to his existence. I answered the first two then but left third for a later time. The problem of evil is what I will discuss here in this post.

How can God allow evil to exist and even be responsible for its creation if He is an omni-benevolent God?

A common response to this question is that God did not create evil but Satan did. The classic comeback to that statement is God is omniscient and would have known that Satan would create evil and, therefor, by proxy be party to its creation.

This thinking that God could do something evil is wrong headed. I originally thought this problem would be much more complicated but it is not. God could not have committed an evil act when creating evil because it doesn't follow logically. If God created evil then the act of doing so would predate evil's existence and therefore not be subject to being considered an evil act.

That solves the part of the question involving the creation of evil but now we are left with, "Why would God allow evil to continue to exist?"

The answer to this seems a little more complicated. The simplest explanation would be that it is required for evil to exist in order for there to be such a thing as good. Without evil humanity could not recognize the good. This is slightly problematic thought since now that evil exists the question becomes "But isn't God committing an evil act by allowing evil to exist?"

The answer to that is much more difficult. I would think that the answer is no. Otherwise we are all committing an unbelievable number of evil acts by not helping others simply because we have the ability to. The U.S. has the amount of wealth necessary to end starvation and cure disease in Africa but in order to do so we would have to give most of it up. The average American is not willing to do this. U.S. citizens are, for the most part, not responsible for all the evil things happening to others around the world but we refrain from interfering to stop them from occurring. This is in the same vain as God not interfering to end all evil even though he has the ability to. There seems to me to be more to the world than just good and evil or there are maybe more types of good and evil. Not causing evil could be said to be good but interfering to stop evil can also be said to be good. The question here is "Is putting an end to evil a greater act of good than simply refraining from committing evil acts?"

If the answer is yes then while God is good allowing evil to continue to exist is not the greatest possible good act available to Him. However, it is not evil so He can still be considered to be omni-benevolent. One would like to think that God exemplifies the highest possible good and allowing evil to exist when there is a greater possible good in eliminating it makes Him seem less great. However, evil is necessary for good so it may be that He is justified in not eliminating it and is thereby engaging in the greatest possible good by allowing it to continue to exist. Humanity on the other hand has no possible objection on the grounds of necessity to not choose the greater of the two goods and help others as much as they possibly can. The only answer to humanity's faults is that we are human and not angels or God. There is a good argument here that we should try to be though. There does not seem to be a straight answer to why God or humanity should not do the greatest good possible. It is also conceivable that there is nothing in this universe but good and evil and I am wrong in assuming that there is something other or more than one type of good. If this is the case, then I see no way to say that God is omni-benevolent since allowing evil to exist does not seem to be an act of great goodness and more closely resembles evil if there is no neutrality.

What can you expect from people who threw perfectly good tea overboard?

Its amazing to me just how stupid people can be when they are fed propaganda day and night instilling an unreasonable fear of terrorism. Take a look at the things that caused all the problems in Boston this week. Link

It doesn't look like a bomb to me. Besides, what terrorist is stupid enough to put flashing lights on his IED (Improvised Explosive Device) to attract attention to it? Surely, any good terrorist wouldn't want people to notice that he's placed a bomb so that no one tries to escape it. On a more interesting not the media is editing the image of the cartoon in the pictures so as to make it more presentable to the public. I find this highly unethical. If you show an image it should be as it originally was or you are distorting how the public sees reality. Its just wrong to do that. If you'd prefer not to show it period thats fine but if you show it it better be unchanged.

The supposed "bombs" were placed two to three weeks ago in ten cities including Boston and only just late this week got noticed as suspicious. Obviously, no one thought they were a problem for a few weeks and the other cities didn't consider them a threat at all. This whole mess is a result of overactive imaginations on the part of Boston officials. They should just admit they made a bad judgment call and leave the poor guys who set up the cartoon billboards alone. Its really nice that Turner Broadcasting offered to pay for the city's expenses since I don't think they are liable for a public official's stupidity.

The lesson to take out of this is cartoons do not equal bombs. Stop being paranoid, accept your mistakes, and move on. Good Luck to Peter Berdovsky, 27, and Sean Stevens, 28, in getting the charges dropped. This whole thing is ridiculous.

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