Christianity, Good, Evil, and "Free Will"

[Batman Jr.]

Whenever the subject of evil in the world and the infallible goodness of God come up, Christians stand their ground by resorting invariably to a small group of nebulous defenses: God's will cannot be known, evil people—not God—are the cause of the maladies in the world, and God maintains the presence of a lesser evil so long as that means preventing the effecting a greater one, the most popular rejoinder probably being the second, so I'll tackle that one first.

God and the evil man. Incompatible it seems with the only saving face being that element of "free will," independence from the mind of the "Almighty" as they say, though after careful rumination on the dogma, interjecting the idea even taking for granted all its mysticism amounts to nothing more than grasping at straws. Imagine what Heaven must be like, perfect in every way, glorious and epic in its design. No one is ever sad. There are no perpetrators, no victims—not even of circumstance! According to those who espouse the Christian viewpoint, it is a sumptuous, everlasting and unremitting bliss that you experience when there, but aren't all those who are still possessed of "free wills"? If the vicissitudes of morality rest upon the unfettered soul, where have those vicissitudes gone in Heaven? More importantly, if goodness in people is absolute in Heaven, then why can't it be so here on Earth? Now we are brought to the problems in the second attempt at reconciliation...

Heaven is surely a whole lot better than this miserable planet we live on, to that everyone can agree. But that begs the question: if God could make something better than the Earth, why did he waste his time with the Earth in the first place? So, when someone says that God always favors the lesser evil, wouldn't he first favor the absence of it entirely? Obviously, Heaven is the perfect example of this absence.

Lastly, there is this weird dubiousness about what God is actually doing pervasive in the minds of Christians. "He has a plan," they say. It's a rather hypocritical plan if I may say so given the observations I've previously made. Are we not his most important creations, his "children" whom he loves? If he gave anything any greater precedence than our well-being, wouldn't he be going against his own most basic precepts to live by? And if there really is a plan, didn't he kinda botch it up a long time ago?

I'm getting sick of writing. Comments?

[LettristLoon]

Well, shoogah, the obvious Christian answers are "You can't comprehend it--God's mind is too vast," and "Burn, witch!"

But why worry? They're full of it. There's no sense to it at all. You could point out a million holes in Christian dogma--or any dogma--and they would be greeted with an indulgent smile and a pat on the head. Crazy, but true.

- B

[hammegk]

Apparently allegories, legends, and fables are useful to some.

More to the point why should I, or anyone, heed your personal ramblings? Now Words From God, that's a different matter, huh?

[Robin]

Originally posted by LettristLoon
Well, shoogah, the obvious Christian answers are "You can't comprehend it--God's mind is too vast," and "Burn, witch!"
- B

To be absolutely fair I am pretty sure that the witch burning proclivities of the christian church have been pretty much under control for a while now.

And if there were a god then his mind really would be too vast for us to comprehend, wouldn't it?

I think that the free will argument is that if God made every body good, then they wouldn't actually be good because they wouldn't be doing it of their own free will. Like if someone forced me at gunpoint to give to charity I wouldn't be being charitable. Being good implies the choice of not being good.

So God, by definition, couldn't just make goodness, he had to allow it to appear in an environment of choice.

(Caveat: I have probably botched this one - so go read CS Lewis's "The Problem of Pain" if you are interested. It is actually quite an interesting read, even for an atheist).

The obvious problem with the free-will argument is that a Christian is theoretically not choosing to be good, but is doing so to avoid eternal suffering and in the expectation of an eternal reward.

Can't help with the plan, as far as I can tell it goes something like "oh goodness is that the time! nice chatting with you! must rush ...."

[Batman Jr.]

Originally posted by Robin
I think that the free will argument is that if God made every body good, then they wouldn't actually be good because they wouldn't be doing it of their own free will. Like if someone forced me at gunpoint to give to charity I wouldn't be being charitable. Being good implies the choice of not being good.

So God, by definition, couldn't just make goodness, he had to allow it to appear in an environment of choice.

But, as I said before, a perfect Heaven would imply inhabitation of itself by people of a perfect goodness. If they couldn't maintain their goodness, it is presumable that they could not be a part of Heaven as Heaven must always meet its specifications for perfection. These people still have "free wills." If it is possible for a person to exist with a "free will" and an immaculate sense of morality, then why didn't God just create those people? They would still choose, but always in his favor.