God, Moral Evil, and Man's Nature

[Cheerful Charlie]

According to Christian theologians, God created man. And man's nature. God then had three choices.
1. Man created with an evil nature.
2. Man created with an indifferent nature.
3. Man created with a good nature.

Why does moral evil exist. Many theologians tell us that if God were to create us with a good nature, we would lose free will. Of course the NT pretty much does not support the idea we have free will to begin with. Predestination from Romans. The idea that God in Romans 11 hardened the hearts of Jews to not believe in the messiah etc.

But there is a more serious objection. If God designs and created us, he must have designed our moral nature. And God had three choices.

1. Create man evil.
2. Create man morally indifferent.
3. Create man morally good.

But no matter our nature, God is responsible for choosing 1., 2. or 3. By choosing 2., moral indifference, we do not gain any sort of free will. We only get a moral nature prone to moral failure. Since we get no choice, all is God's choice. If God is good, then God must choose 3. a god-like moral nature and a god-like free will such as God enjoys.

This to me also calls God's supposed foundation of morality in question. If there is a perfect morality that is derived from God, it would seem God would be a perfect moral being and chose 3. Creating man a moral being as any choice God makes creates our morality. To fail to chose 3. is a moral failing.

Obviously the theologians will choose to deny 2., that as a choice it creates a great deal on immorality due to God's choice.

 

[Bronzeage]

If, for the sake of the discussion, there is an omnipotent being, independent of space and time, who is capable of creating the universe we observe, why would such a being be limited to three choices?

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

If, for the sake of the discussion, there is an omnipotent being, independent of space and time, who is capable of creating the universe we observe, why would such a being be limited to three choices?

Because these are the only logical choices possible. To posit a hypothetical other choice to avoid the possible choices is a mere rhetorical dodge. It is the equivalent of saying any problems we conceive about God do not really exist even if we cannot think of a solution, a dodgy assertion. We can turn that around, any possible assertion theologians make about atheism has an answer, even if we cannot know it..

Theologians have been somewhat divided on if God can make a contradiction true.

Using logic to force theology into such "defences" is a victory. Special pleading is never really a victory.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

If, for the sake of the discussion, there is an omnipotent being, independent of space and time, who is capable of creating the universe we observe, why would such a being be limited to three choices?

Obviously because there is no such cosmic magician. We created it and so it has the same problems we have.

That said, with the knowledge we do have, this god is obviously flawed, as its creation seems to encounter problems at every turn.

 

[Kharakov]

If, for the sake of the discussion, there is an omnipotent being, independent of space and time, who is capable of creating the universe we observe, why would such a being be limited to three choices?

Because these are the only logical choices possible.

So claiming those are the only logical choices possible is.. logical how?

Seriously, what makes you think that it is so easy to constrain a consciousness to having certain characteristics? Is it?

 

[Thomas II]

According to Christian theologians, God created man. And man's nature. God then had three choices.
1. Man created with an evil nature.
2. Man created with an indifferent nature.
3. Man created with a good nature.

Why does moral evil exist. Many theologians tell us that if God were to create us with a good nature, we would lose free will. Of course the NT pretty much does not support the idea we have free will to begin with. Predestination from Romans. The idea that God in Romans 11 hardened the hearts of Jews to not believe in the messiah etc.

But there is a more serious objection. If God designs and created us, he must have designed our moral nature. And God had three choices.

1. Create man evil.
2. Create man morally indifferent.
3. Create man morally good.

But no matter our nature, God is responsible for choosing 1., 2. or 3. By choosing 2., moral indifference, we do not gain any sort of free will. We only get a moral nature prone to moral failure. Since we get no choice, all is God's choice. If God is good, then God must choose 3. a god-like moral nature and a god-like free will such as God enjoys.

This to me also calls God's supposed foundation of morality in question. If there is a perfect morality that is derived from God, it would seem God would be a perfect moral being and chose 3. Creating man a moral being as any choice God makes creates our morality. To fail to chose 3. is a moral failing.

Obviously the theologians will choose to deny 2., that as a choice it creates a great deal on immorality due to God's choice.

I perceive "evil" as a developmental evolutionary problem. "Evil" is a dysfunction, a lack of refined development, not because it has a "bad nature", but it has a primitive nature, an underdeveloped nature. The basic nature is good and the basic morality is good, as a social animal with a natural sense of fairness but it is still primitive and unrefined.



I don't see a "God" figure. What I see is a natural evolutionary process.

 

[Draconis]

Surely this proposed creator God can only choose "2" if he wants us to have this much-vaunted (and limited) free will.

I would characterize "2" as being some of the time evil and some of the time good (50-50).

Possibly there's another option of humans being programmed to do nothing in the face of moral choices, although maybe that's included in "2". I'm not sure that this alleged 4th option exists. Is doing nothing evil, or good? I suppose it depends on the situation, and as such, sounds suspiciously like "2".

 

[Valjean]

Why not create man pragmatic, fearful or apophenic?

I don't see human behavior and motivation confined to a single feature. People can be evil in some situations and good in others. People can be driven by fear of short-term consequences while being indifferent to long term disaster.

Our psychology and behavior are products of millions of years of hunting-gathering in small, wandering bands; competing with neighboring bands, in a dangerous, indifferent world. If you want to predict human behavior in the aggregate just ask yourself "what would a hunting ape do?"

 

[Bronzeage]

If, for the sake of the discussion, there is an omnipotent being, independent of space and time, who is capable of creating the universe we observe, why would such a being be limited to three choices?

Because these are the only logical choices possible. To posit a hypothetical other choice to avoid the possible choices is a mere rhetorical dodge. It is the equivalent of saying any problems we conceive about God do not really exist even if we cannot think of a solution, a dodgy assertion. We can turn that around, any possible assertion theologians make about atheism has an answer, even if we cannot know it..

Theologians have been somewhat divided on if God can make a contradiction true.

Using logic to force theology into such "defences" is a victory. Special pleading is never really a victory.

Your entire proposition is a rhetorical dodge. You want to discuss an omnipotent being and then immediately make him ruled by the limits of a human brain.

Of course, any question has an answer, even if it is unknown, or unknowable. Rhetorical dodges abound.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

My thesis is based on claims God created us and thus our nature. I just take the claims of Christian theologians to their logical conclusion. The problem is, why is there moral evil? Many theologians claim it is because we are given free will. But we have no free will if our actions are based on our nature, created by God. If the theists take refuge, to save appearances, in intellectual nihilism, where logic and words no longer have meaning, then we are back to what I in earlier posts called the problem of super omnipotence. God creates the logic, the regularities, the metaphysical necessities of the Universe. Since God is defined as good, why with all his super omnipotent power is there moral evil? We should then live in a far different Universe than the one we observe. If as you suggest, for sake of argument that we define God as unlimited or above mere human logic, we still have a problem of why evil is tolerated by a super omnipotent morally perfect God.Go

Going that way just digs a deeper hole for the concept of God. Again, we are still created by God as is our nature. Here we are dangerously close to defining what is obvious moral evil as not evil, divine command. Which is the way Jean Calvin went.

Saying, as did Descartes, that God is truly omnipotent and could make 2 + 2 = 5 if he so desired, simply creates more problems, not solves any.

God creates us and has the three choices offered. If from there we move to an all powerful God who is above logic and can do anything, we must admit God is still evil, since he allows evil to exist, or is non-existent, or is not, as defined by Christian theology good. Or we abandon all logic and meaning of words altogether in a form of intellectual nihilism.

 

[Bronzeage]

Since you are apparently a being with free will, you can do anything you like. If you want to argue with other similarly willed beings, that is one of your options.

The most you can do is point out inconsistencies in their logic, in a matter in which logic does not actually apply.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Again, if logic does not apply here, it still is a problem for God. If you elevate God to above logic to not be subject to logic, God is then a magic being who can do anything without limit. Then if by revelation, that God claims to be good, why does moral evil exist? If you go to the extreme that what exists is caused by God but is not, by God's logic, evil, we achieve a bizarre species of special pleading, metaphysical nihilism. Again, its not new. Jean Calvin actually does this in his theology. God's secret providence causes all things, including moral evil, but Calvin assures even so, God is blameless. The concept of "good" in Calvin's theology becomes a mockery, an empty word with no meaning to save appearances. When you through all logic out the window, you end up nothing much at all one can say for God. Except for the Atheist to note that God as a concept doesn't work and undermines logic and language to such a degree that its obviously incapable of coherent argument.

 

[Bronzeage]

Again, if logic does not apply here, it still is a problem for God. If you elevate God to above logic to not be subject to logic, God is then a magic being who can do anything without limit. Then if by revelation, that God claims to be good, why does moral evil exist? If you go to the extreme that what exists is caused by God but is not, by God's logic, evil, we achieve a bizarre species of special pleading, metaphysical nihilism. Again, its not new. Jean Calvin actually does this in his theology. God's secret providence causes all things, including moral evil, but Calvin assures even so, God is blameless. The concept of "good" in Calvin's theology becomes a mockery, an empty word with no meaning to save appearances. When you through all logic out the window, you end up nothing much at all one can say for God. Except for the Atheist to note that God as a concept doesn't work and undermines logic and language to such a degree that its obviously incapable of coherent argument.

Okay, I'll make it as simple as possible.

God is a magic being who can do anything without limit. That's what omnipotent means. It also means God is independent of space and time. This means he is everywhere all the time. He spends most of that non-time, creating a rock so big he can't lift it. Just kidding.

If by revelation, God is good, but evil still exists, someone got the revelation wrong. This is an argument with a human, not an Omnipotent being. There's nothing startling in finding errors in human thought and behavior.

But one question does appear to be relevant. Why would the thoughts of a non-omnipotent human, whose experience is limited to a linear passage of time, all while existing in one place at a time, combined with a fairly limited view of the universe, be considered adequate to label something as moral evil, on the scale of creation of the universe?

The the aphid, a ladybug is the ultimate evil.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Again, revelation. Christians are stuck with that. God is good. God is merciful, compassionate, just and righteous. If, to save appearances, logic is abandoned, good is redefined, intellectual nihilism is achieved, the atheist has won the argument. Any God who's supposed revelation defines that God as good with a number of explicit sub-goodnesses and creates us and our nature, falls afoul of this question, why did God create us to fail? If God is good and not bound by logic, moral evil should be impossible, since God by fiat, unlimited by logic, can have any state of affairs God wants. A good God would by definition, wish to eliminate moral evil.

In the end, the concept of God is based on rhetorical games that abandon all logic but still fails.

 

[Bronzeage]

Again, revelation. Christians are stuck with that. God is good. God is merciful, compassionate, just and righteous. If, to save appearances, logic is abandoned, good is redefined, intellectual nihilism is achieved, the atheist has won the argument. Any God who's supposed revelation defines that God as good with a number of explicit sub-goodnesses and creates us and our nature, falls afoul of this question, why did God create us to fail? If God is good and not bound by logic, moral evil should be impossible, since God by fiat, unlimited by logic, can have any state of affairs God wants. A good God would by definition, wish to eliminate moral evil.

In the end, the concept of God is based on rhetorical games that abandon all logic but still fails.

Again you have that problem of judging creation by the standards and limitations of a human brain. You have an idea that a good God would conform to your standards, but such a thing is not implicit. It's just your assumptions, along with a lot of wishful thinking.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Again, revelation. Christians are stuck with that. God is good. God is merciful, compassionate, just and righteous. If, to save appearances, logic is abandoned, good is redefined, intellectual nihilism is achieved, the atheist has won the argument. Any God who's supposed revelation defines that God as good with a number of explicit sub-goodnesses and creates us and our nature, falls afoul of this question, why did God create us to fail? If God is good and not bound by logic, moral evil should be impossible, since God by fiat, unlimited by logic, can have any state of affairs God wants. A good God would by definition, wish to eliminate moral evil.

In the end, the concept of God is based on rhetorical games that abandon all logic but still fails.

Again you have that problem of judging creation by the standards and limitations of a human brain. You have an idea that a good God would conform to your standards, but such a thing is not implicit. It's just your assumptions, along with a lot of wishful thinking.

1. Logic applies to God. Thus we can apply logic to God and see that God is a logically self contradictory concept.
or
2. God is not bound by logic at all and creates logic, reality. But if God is good, merciful, compassionate et al as per revelation, not being bound by logic means he can have an state of affairs he wants, and nothing can prevent the good god from achieving moral goodness for all.
Heads I win, tails, God loses.

If you are saying God who is supposedly good need not be good and can redefine his evil as goodness, divine command theory, then the Bible, Quran et al are not true revelation, God is evil and a liar. But without revelation, what you have us a bizarre God divorced from all reason to accept its existence.

We then throw out the Bible, reason, rationality which demonstrates God as a concept exacts too high a price for any sensible person to believe in. According to your claims, the Universe and God are without sense, logic or reason.

 

[Bronzeage]

Again you have that problem of judging creation by the standards and limitations of a human brain. You have an idea that a good God would conform to your standards, but such a thing is not implicit. It's just your assumptions, along with a lot of wishful thinking.

1. Logic applies to God. Thus we can apply logic to God and see that God is a logically self contradictory concept.
or
2. God is not bound by logic at all and creates logic, reality. But if God is good, merciful, compassionate et al as per revelation, not being bound by logic means he can have an state of affairs he wants, and nothing can prevent the good god from achieving moral goodness for all.
Heads I win, tails, God loses.

If you are saying God who is supposedly good need not be good and can redefine his evil as goodness, divine command theory, then the Bible, Quran et al are not true revelation, God is evil and a liar. But without revelation, what you have us a bizarre God divorced from all reason to accept its existence.

We then throw out the Bible, reason, rationality which demonstrates God as a concept exacts too high a price for any sensible person to believe in. According to your claims, the Universe and God are without sense, logic or reason.

You keep equivocating.

As I said at the beginning of this useless conversation, if the concept of an omnipotent being is accepted(even for the sake of argument) it is not sensible to apply human limitations to such a thing. You can only define evil in human terms and there is no way to escape making a subjective definition.

I consider myself to be a moral person, within reason, but there are few things I enjoy more than a good steak. Imagine a cow who happened to have enough self awareness to realize, not only had he been castrated at a young age, but it was done so when he was killed and all his muscles flayed from his body, the resulting cuts of meat would be better pleasing in my mouth. That cow would certainly find me quite evil.

Of course, by most human standards, I've done nothing wrong. A few vegans will empathize with the cow, but I'm above all that.

I don't claim the universe is without logic or reason. I point out, logic and reason are human constructs, just as good and evil. We have created these concepts to explain the world we live in and to which we are confined. If we are going to construct models of God, those constraints do not apply, unless we are searching for a foregone conclusion.

If that's the case, simply use your human mind to declare that a bad God cannot exist, and since evil is loose in the world, there is no God. Don't worry about defining bad and evil. Your argument boils down to a simple statement, "Since God didn't do things in a way to please me, there is no God." This is a totally human sentiment.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I don't claim the universe is without logic or reason. I point out, logic and reason are human constructs, just as good and evil. We have created these concepts to explain the world we live in and to which we are confined. If we are going to construct models of God, those constraints do not apply, unless we are searching for a foregone conclusion.

If there is nothing of this creator being in us or in anything it creates that would certainly be a conversation stopper. Stating that this is so simply because a creator being is omnipotent hardly makes that case, however.

So we're left with a disagreement over whether there is anything of this being that we can discern from its creations. Theologians certainly have made their decisions, which leads me to believe that this creator being is therefore evil in part. It is the only conclusion that makes observational sense. To argue otherwise is to begin with "if abracadabra ..."

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

1. Logic applies to God. Thus we can apply logic to God and see that God is a logically self contradictory concept.
or
2. God is not bound by logic at all and creates logic, reality. But if God is good, merciful, compassionate et al as per revelation, not being bound by logic means he can have an state of affairs he wants, and nothing can prevent the good god from achieving moral goodness for all.
Heads I win, tails, God loses.

If you are saying God who is supposedly good need not be good and can redefine his evil as goodness, divine command theory, then the Bible, Quran et al are not true revelation, God is evil and a liar. But without revelation, what you have us a bizarre God divorced from all reason to accept its existence.

We then throw out the Bible, reason, rationality which demonstrates God as a concept exacts too high a price for any sensible person to believe in. According to your claims, the Universe and God are without sense, logic or reason.

You keep equivocating.

As I said at the beginning of this useless conversation, if the concept of an omnipotent being is accepted(even for the sake of argument) it is not sensible to apply human limitations to such a thing. You can only define evil in human terms and there is no way to escape making a subjective definition.

I consider myself to be a moral person, within reason, but there are few things I enjoy more than a good steak. Imagine a cow who happened to have enough self awareness to realize, not only had he been castrated at a young age, but it was done so when he was killed and all his muscles flayed from his body, the resulting cuts of meat would be better pleasing in my mouth. That cow would certainly find me quite evil.

Of course, by most human standards, I've done nothing wrong. A few vegans will empathize with the cow, but I'm above all that.

I don't claim the universe is without logic or reason. I point out, logic and reason are human constructs, just as good and evil. We have created these concepts to explain the world we live in and to which we are confined. If we are going to construct models of God, those constraints do not apply, unless we are searching for a foregone conclusion.

If that's the case, simply use your human mind to declare that a bad God cannot exist, and since evil is loose in the world, there is no God. Don't worry about defining bad and evil. Your argument boils down to a simple statement, "Since God didn't do things in a way to please me, there is no God." This is a totally human sentiment.

Again, my OP was aimed squarely at those religions that claim God is good via revelation. God is supposedly, morally good. And these books, especially the Bible list numerous sub-goodness and gives numerous examples of what this supposed God tells us these sub-goodnesses mean. You seem to not take that into account.

I do not really apply the fact the self same revelations paint God as a pretty bad character, rather, I aim at a higher logical level to demonstrate the logical failings of their self describe good god of revelation.

And if God is divorced from logic and can make the Universe any way God wants to by fiat, that just makes the logical disconnect even more serious. You seem to be saying a God theoretically divorced from "human logic", a super-omnipotent God not limited by logic escapes the problem of revelation supposedly spelling out in no uncertain terms what God means when it comes to being good.

Supposedly, these "constructs" are God's constructs, not ours. Every sura of the Quran starts with "Allah, the merciful and compassionate", for example.

As I started in the OP, God creates our nature. He has three logical choices. Its a matter of why a supposedly good God creates us prone to failure. When logically he could avoid that. Its not a matter of free will. Any thing God chooses constrains our free will. You seem to think that saying God is not bound by "human logic" makes the problem go away, it doesn't It merely strips God of any excuse not to act logically in this matter for the sake of moral goodness.

It tuns the supposed revelations into immense lies. And that fails on that account. Do sub-goodness like mercy and compassion all of sudden have no real meaning? This is a bizarre nihilism, extreme sort of divine command theory gone wild.

Logic is merely a human construct? I don't believe that. Try being illogical in a Universe where being so will get you killed. Look both ways before crossing the road.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Via negativa, apophatic theology. God is so incomprehensible, so beyond understanding, we cannot really reason about God to understand God. So much for natural theology. An old, old idea. All we can possibly know about God is from revelation, the Bible, or Quran et al. But the idea that means the Bible or Quran et al are utterly without meaning is not they way that sort of reasoning goes. So we can look at what these revelations say about God and reason about them.

Which is the game I am playing here from an atheist point of view.