Problem of Evil

[depauw2004]

Evil is wiping out all Egyptian children because you're mad at their parents.

Evil is asking your disciple to gut his own children to prove his devotion.

Evil is endorsing slavery and second-class citizenship for women

[MichaelLougas]

I think I stand to disagree. He's working in absolutes. "Not good, means evil"

I'm a Pure Mathematics major, so it could be that I've incorporated too much logic in all my thinking but when something is "Non-positive", that doesn't implicate that it is negative. There is a zero value. So too can there not exist a state of neutrality on the scale that is good and evil? The math says it seems plausible..

x=0 or x<0. X is non-positive.

[aaronstately]

@MichaelLougas interesting. I was also thinking that there was not so much a good either... more it just is.

ie: if you are not doing evil....are you doing good? well maybe? i dont know.

So we know evil is harm... good cant simply be not harm? not harm would be normal surely?

We need a name for the state you are in when you are doing neither good nor evil.

[Hufflewaffle]

If God is omni-present He occupies ALL states, ALL space, ALL time. There is no such thing as the absence of His presence. Either God is not omni-present, OR there is no such thing as 'evil' OR God is responsible for evil.

[snuju1]

It is irrelevant whether evil is an absence of something or not. A creater of everything is responsible for the conditions in which cold, dark and donut holes play their part in our reality. The problem of evil still remains.

[shaloop007]

I found a nice lecture series called "Christianity and the problem of Evil" by Dr. Bruce Little. It's on the cross.tv website. Worth a look!

this is the link: cross.tv/tvshows/1252

[jfinite]

Evil is just a word people use to describe various things that we find disgusting, hateful, gruesome, etc. What you describe as evil will be different from what the next person describes as evil, and so on.

[RedOrangeSystem]

If god knows everything, how come he created us knowing that we will choose evil and suffer so greatly.

[otur1]

I would argue that all is naturally "good" and then "evil" is added, whos responsible for that?

You are NOT the first one thinking this way, try again....

[EXALTEDDIRT]

Free-will? huh?! Only Adam and Eve had freewill! Once the fall took place then every son and daughter of Adam's will is in bondage to sin. Now, you have the freewill so far as to choose what kind of evil you will partake in, but you cannot choose good apart from the saving grace of GOD! Romans ch.3v12 says; "they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one" 2 Tim. 2v26 ;"recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by HIM at his will"

[masktstar]

yea, that works

[mentalistor]

"I know of no greater absurdity than that, propounded by most systems of philosophy in declaring evil to be negative in its character. Evil is just what is positive, it makes its own existence felt. Leibnitz is particularly concerned to defend this absurdidty and he seeks to strengthen his position by using a palpable and paltry sophism

It is the good which is negative, ... , happiness and satisfaction always imply some desired fulfilled; some state of pain brought to an end"

Arthur Schopenhauer

[Entershikarifan99]

why do you feel the need to put emphasis on every 3 words u say it gets really annoying after a while

[AceofDimonds0]

i can agree with you that evil is simply the absance of good.

but god is inherently good so what do we call it when god comits evil acts?

[EXALTEDDIRT]

@AceofDimonds0.........GOD does NOT commit evil acts and cannot; it is not in his character to do so! the bible says that GOD is not a man that he should lie! 1st John ch 1v5 says; "This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all"

[AceofDimonds0]

@EXALTEDDIRT

so because the one who is commiting evil says he cannot commit evil, you believe him? thats a double standard if i ever saw one.

god killing hundreds of egyptians

god denying the hebrews the promise land after 40 years in the desert

god turning a woman to salt for looking back on her burning home

god sending jesus to be sacrificed, when god had the power to forgive our sins, without someone dieing for the cause.

[zlkimagenX]

@AceofDimonds0

God does commit some strange acts I'll give you that. We however do not know the big picture like god does. We don't know what would of happened if god say did not flood the world killing everyone.

When we get to heaven however we will have 1000 years to ask him qeustions. and all I have to say is he's got some exsplianing to do XD

He promises that everything he does is for our good.so i guess this is were my faith is tested. In anycase he has done alout of good too.

[Gnomefro]

@zlkimagenX You also have failed to grasp the issue here. Were are talking about a claimed omnipotent being here. If you seriously can not imagine any possible better way of dealing with the fact that the humans you created don't act as you want than murdering innocent babies and kittens by the millions you don't have a lot of imagination.

This is a flat out refutation of the idea that the omnipotent being in question has human interests in mind at all(That is, our definition of "good").

[mandangalo18]

this is a nice example of the existential fallacy. We know about dark because it's the absence of light, we know about sky because it's the absence of ground. The problem is that we can demonstrate that light and ground exist. God has not been demonstrated to exist. Hah looking at the other comments you already know this. And the video is still up. try googling "integrity"

[LetReasonPrevail1]

Wow, I just had an epiphany of my own. All this talk about "absense" has made me realize that religious faith isn't a "thing" but is essentially best understood as the absense of other things such as:

The absense of reason,

The absense of unfallacious logic

The absense of intellectual integrity

The absens of evidence

Thanks, Randall, for providing me with this moment of clarity!!!

[LetReasonPrevail1]

And actually, Randall, saying that evil isn't considered an "ontology" doesn't make sense.

Ontology is defined as the branch of metaphysics that deals with the nature of being.

You shoudl have stuck with simply saying that early christian apologetics didn't consider evil to be a 'thing".

Unless you did in fact mean to say that they didn't consider "evil" to be a branch of metaphysical study. Now that would be hilariously stupid!

[xXtmXx7393]

@ daniel

he answered the question of how could god create evil he probably should have put a better title

@ moyga

based on my perception of what the bible says about heaven we do have free choice in heaven it's just that we are so surrounded by God's love and affection that we will want to do no evil in heaven.

[moyga]

Answer me this then, if evil is just the absence of good and it exists because we have free will does that mean that we don't have free will in heaven where there is supposed to be no evil?

I see this as a huge problem for your argument.

[daniel0B]

"there's a whole different discussion to be had on why god allowed for bad things to happen, why he allowed the ability for evil to enter into the world"

soooo, basically you didn't answer the problem of evil at all. way to go

[TuplaPekka]

he didnt create us perfect so we wouldnt allow evil. he created us with the posibility of evil and in hes omniscient he knew the out come which makes him responsible even though by some convenient loopholes hes pinning it on us.

[TuplaPekka]

you cant explain evil just by stating it to be absence of good. it simply leads to the question what is good? you havent answered anything. to tie evil with free will doesnt work with such evils as famine. what free choices were made to bring forth famine? even if god didnt create evil he created the possibility of evil then the question is why?

[6sully8391]

the absence of heat would be absolute zero, which doesn't really exist, because then you just wouldn't have matter at all. But as timshuit pointed out, since when is "good" a thing? these are just words invented for a paradigm, good follows the paradigm, evil blazes off the path of the paradigm; I like evil.

[timschuit]

This is a stupid argument. I could just as well say that evil is the absence of good.

NEITHER good or evil are things that exist. They are words that correspond to emotions we feel.

[ClumsyRoot]

If there is no God, or if God exists but is indifferent to human affairs, then the existence of evil is not problematic.

The "problem of evil" emerges only when the theist tries to shoehorn his theological presuppositions--that there exists an all-powerful, loving Creator--into an unaccommodating reality. The theist thus creates a mystery where none exists.

And the mental gymnastics that apologists resort to in order rationalize away this inconsistency are truly mind-boggling.

[gonyea12]

Free will is actually Satan's gift to man, not God's.

"God didn't create evil"

Isaiah 45:7 begs to differ, God himself admits responsibility for all of the evil and darkness in the world.

[TheOddFinn]

Oh yeah, quite true... But God being omniscient, he knew of that and allowed, and so is passively also giving free will to man.

How I just love to insist that God has his hands everywhere...=P And please, don't get me wrong, I'm just too lazy to make it clear that I don't believe in gods...

[Riste1986]

No, No, free will is Gods gift to man so the man can choose what to do:

1 Is he going to be with God or...

2 With the satan.

If there is no free will you will be controlled. Free will gives you the ability to choose. You are free man, Gods creation, choose Him.

[gonyea12]

Wow! You really like digging through comments!!

To clarify what I meant about free will being Satan's gift, think about the Garden of Eden. God told man not to eat from the "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil" however man did at the behest of the serpent. Before eating of that tree, Adam & Eve had no knowledge of good and evil, therefor they could not have known that it was wrong to disobey God. They had no knowledge of good & evil.

Satan gave us the knowledge and therefor; free will.

[Riste1986]

Satan has no power over human except if it`s given by God.

[gonyea12]

Isiah 45:7 ?

Remember, God does lie sometimes.

[Riste1986]

45:7 means that God allows this stuff to happen again, that he does not stop bad thing to happen when it comes to that because He is God allowing us to see everything. If we don't see the darkness how we will know the light, if we don't see evil how we will know good?? So He allows, not creates.

[anguirusreturns]

Something evil can do just as much as something good can.

Yeah? So? I didnt' say evil doesn't do anything. Dehydration- again, a lack of water- certainly *does* something just as well as hydration does. Starvation- a lack of food- certainly *does* something just as well as nourishment does.

[richie3622]

"If something's complete, it can't lack anything."

"Evil is the lack of God."

"God is complete."

Ugh.

And for, what, the third time now? I'm trying to tell you that NEITHER good or evil are "things" - they are BOTH properties. Qualities. A state of dehydration and a state of hydration are BOTH properties.

This whole, "good is a THING, but evil is not" makes 0 sense.

[anguirusreturns]

Evil is the lack of good.

God is complete. So, God does not lack good. Therefore, God is not evil.

Good means it has self-giving love.

Take a cup. Pour milk in it till it's full. Guess what? The cup is complete. There isn't a spot of emptiness. So it's 'complete'ly full of milk.

It's completely filled with milk, so we'd call it "full".

If someone's completely filled with selfless love, they are "good".

If the cup has no milk, it is "empty".

If a person has no love, they are "evil".

[richie3622]

EXACTLY.

The THINGS are the CUP and the MILK.

"Full" and "empty" are not THINGS, they are PROPERTIES.

Good and evil are properties.

"Evil is the lack of good," as if good WAS a "thing", is just a play on words.

You might as well say that "empty" is the lack of "full" as if FULL were a THING. But it's not. No more than "empty" is.

The "things" in this regard are God and His/Her/Its creation. THOSE are the "things". These things have properties - good, evil, dehydrated, silent, full, etc. .

[anguirusreturns]

Dehydration is a lack of water.

What does a land in drought look like compared to a fertile land? A droughted land has no food. A droughted land has a lack of food.

So yes, it is possible for "evil" to be a "lack of" something else. Just like dehydration is a lack of water, silence is a lack of sound, and droughts are a lack of food.

[richie3622]

You still don't get it.

In a drought, the water that isn't there can't DO anything to the droughted land - because the water ISN'T THERE.

In silence, the sound that isn't there can't DO anything to the area, because the sound ISN'T THERE.

However, something EVIL can DO just as much as something GOOD can.

You're mixing up properties with parts, just like the guy in this video is.

[anguirusreturns]

What are you talking about?

I was just saying that's how God is all good.

Like you said, he's omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient. He's completeness. If something's complete, it can't lack anything. Evil is when there is a lack in good. So evil can't be present in God.

Evil's present in us people. We're not totally evil- we do have some good but not all goodness in us.

[smpunditz]

Evil is not the absence of good. That's just absurd. If that was the case then just not doing anything would be considered evil.

[richie3622]

How can anything be "absent" of an omnipotent, omnipresent being?

[anguirusreturns]

there's your proof that god is all good. he's omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent- he cannot lack good.

humans are finite. they can lack heat (they can freeze). they can lack food (starve). they can lack love (and be evil).

[richie3622]

You're not getting it. How can something be non-present in an omnipresent being?

And besides, smpunditz is right - this guy is reaching for straws. Evil is a property, just like good is a property, as is cold to heat. Good is not a "thing" either.

[anguirusreturns]

How can something be non-present in an omnipresent being?

I just answered that. Evil is when good is not present. God is all good. God does not lack goodness at all. So God is not evil.

Evil isn't a thing. It's a lack of goodness.

Here- picture what silence looks like. What, it's just a general area where there aren't any sound waves? Exactly. Silence is a lack of sound.

What's the difference between a living person and a dehydrated person? A dehydrated person has no water.

[TheOddFinn]

Please read this comment completely before giving thumbs anywhere.

I am indeed sorry, but it seems that you and anguirus both have misunderstood the definition of omnipresence, which is "being present everywhere at the same time", not "having everything present in the subject that is omnipresent"

But then, to critizise this video. 2 things I find missing or unanswered:

#1 fails to answed for the existance of natural evil (earthquakes etc.)

Cont.

[TheOddFinn]

#2 the gift of free will is partially evil, for it makes the existance of evil possible. Thusly I argue that God has done an evil deed.

I now must fill my arguments further:

#1 in this natural evil can be seen as lack of good (preventation of event that causes misery)

#2 God gave ability to decide not to do good i.e. do evil.

[havock89]

we must consider the absence of good as the alternative; not that evil is in and of its self in existence.

[bigwhammyRocks]

If evil or disobedience to God wasn't an available option - then free will wouldn't really be free...

I think the abcense of good analogy has some merit - yet their also seems to be a very proactive and intentional evil that is a "thing" in my mind. God allows it... for now.

Make your choices wisely (Jesus) - he won't allow it forever- he's coming back to clean house.

[Leiflton]

yeah, God created Lucifer, an angel...then iniquity, covetousness and pride was found in Lucifer, and Lucifer became Satan.

God created man. disobedience was found in him, he transgressed, and brought about a cursed realm. our own fault. we reap what we sow.

when we sow seeds of destruction, why are we surprised when we reap those seeds?

also, like the cross...that's the worst evil imaginable....creatures tortured the creator...but God brought a greater good out of it.

[Leiflton]

also, evil is almost necessary to a certain extent, because o free will etc...

how would we know light without darkness? for the one is defined by the other.

so now is set before us "good and evil, blessing and cursing."

let us choose the good, that we may live.

[daltriani]

leifiton

'God brought a greater good out of it.'

god created adam in his own image. man is flawed, god curses adam, eve and all their subsequent offspring. then he tries to drown the offspring years later leaving noah's small family to repopulate the earth. later still he sends himself down in the guise of his son(?) and sacrifices himself for the sins he himself accused man of. then he rises from the dead anyway because he's god.

your religion sucks! sorry!

[Leiflton]

beliefs are of no consequence when it comes to the truth.

you might dislike Jesus Christ, but it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.

one day you will confess Jesus as Lord.

"at the name of Jesus every knee should bow...And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord."

[daltriani]

leifi

it's not that i don't like him, i simply don't know him because whoever he was died 2000 years ago. some of his teachings probably can be accredited to him but like ALL religions, others have added bits until the faith is more important than the man. i certainly don't think he was the son of god as god himself does not seem to exist except in the minds of some men and women. i don't need him to be good and i don't really care about living forever. sounds like a nightmare to be honest!

[djgreene1003]

Great video Randall.

[HumanitysAdvocate]

Wow, I just ate a donut hole - or was that just the absence of dough and sugar I ate?

Evil must be tangible.

[LotusGreenX]

Ok where did man's "free will" to be able to do evil come from? I mean we could have been created free to only do good; as many say heaven will be like. Further, it is evident by physchology and sociology that at least a lot of how humans act and behave has a lot to do with things they can't control. So if there is some free will, why are so many important things determined by where you live and who your parents are?

[djgreene1003]

Where you live and who your parents are doesn't make your decisions for you. Everything you do is your own decision.

[LotusGreenX]

"Everything you do is your own decision."

That is completely false. Is it your decision to give a robber the money? Sure in a sense, but when the alternative is death it really isn't a choice.

There are many things in life where basic human motives will enevitably choose one way.

[havock89]

This is true for most people.

But christians spend their life not following their instincts and continually trying (although oft' failing) to rise above their basic instinct and be loyal to God and emulate Jesus.

If you reach for the stars you may just get the moon!

[LotusGreenX]

So do you believe people are predestined to go to heaven and hell? I mean what is the difference between one person who chooses God and one who doesn't? If there is no difference then God is the one responsible for where we go.

[havock89]

This question has been asked quite a bit.

Theology explains how its the quality of our ability to embrace Gods nature that is the crucial thing about whether we are capable of being saved. Embracing Gods nature as our own results in us being "a new creation" and producing Good works, as a product of that nature. Gods nature is one of universal grace (unselfish love). He loves all his creations, but not equally.

[somecomputergeek]

I disagree. I believe evil IS "ontological", especially if you consider "good" to be.

"Good" is helping a man when he is being mugged.

NOT helping the man is the "absence" of good.

MUGGING the man is "evil".

IF we are to consider "good" as having an ontological status that we deem important, we must conclude that "evil" exists, as well, for the very same reason: our experience of both sides of this dichotomy.