The Problem of Evil

steve7150
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Re: The Problem of Evil

Post by steve7150 » Mon Nov 23, 2015 7:54 am

steve7150 ( I would just call you Steve but it seems we have two Steves, I'm looking forward to what other Steve will write. I wonder how you see the opinions of those who feel we didn't need to fall. How do you respond, for instance, to what mattrose wrote?

When it comes to Eve, how could she sin if she did not know right from wrong? Do you think that our intention matters in whether or not something is a sin? When you say that she lusted, what you are describing is thought crime. How does that idea sit with you? I find it appalling. Do you think we should be judged for what we think and do or only what we do? If thinking bad thoughts is bad, then is writing a story where characters sin also a sin?







We all here believe God is Love but sometimes we disagree on how this love manifests itself. So I think Mattrose, Paidion and others believe God would never have anything to do with "evil" but I think evil is a learning tool for mankind and you can not say God had no input into this. So sometimes we have to agree to disagree on certain things. God could have destroyed Satan, or God could have put the tree in a far corner or God could have not tested Eve at all or tested her later. Obviously the problem is not just the evil per se, but the extent of the evil, the mindless, purposeless evil that is all around us in this life. In the parable of the Wheat and Tares we are told that the tares can not be destroyed because it would damage the wheat, so apparently destroying "evil" would damage the "righteous" by some kind of ripple effect that is never explained.
Re Eve , how do you know she didn't know right from wrong? Adam had the responsibility of naming the animals so he must have had the ability to make judgments so I would assume the same ability for Eve?
Yes Eve demonstrated a "thought" crime or rather an intention of the heart. One of the differences between Judaism and Christianity is that in the former you are judged by actions whereas in the latter intentions of the heart matter. Jesus said lustfulness for a woman or anger in your heart toward your brother without cause is sin and we are commanded to love our brother and all these things are intentions of the heart and we are accountable for these. Of course in our own strength we couldn't overcome these tendencies so I think the purpose of these commands is so we pursue the Holy Spirit & God's righteousness.

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steve
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Re: The Problem of Evil

Post by steve » Mon Nov 23, 2015 9:11 am

I'm looking forward to what other Steve will write.
Yes, you may have noticed that I reserved a space earlier in the thread. I was traveling and working on my response. I occupied the entirety of a five-hour plane ride with typing my response, though it grew and grew until it almost seemed to long too post. I am nearly finished with it. I removed my reserved spot for two reasons:

1) Mattrose's response (predictably) covered many of the points that my response makes, though more succinctly. Much of what I wrote seems redundant, as a result; and

2) My response is (also predictably) so lengthy as to almost seem unfair to post. That is, unfair to expect you to read the whole thing, since you did not request such an outpouring of verbiage as I have written. I tend not to read very lengthy posts by others, merely because of my time constraints, and I thought it would be rude for me to post an essay, and expect you to read it.

I will, in fact, finish what I am writing, and post it here with the disclaimer that I will not be offended by anyone finding it too long to justify their time in reading it.
When it comes to Eve, how could she sin if she did not know right from wrong?
According to the record, Eve had been informed not to eat of that tree, and of the consequences for doing so. She knew these things well enough to recite them what asked. She might not have known why such an action was forbidden, or what it meant for something to be "wrong," but she knew who it was who had given the command. This means that, with or without a sophisticated grasp of the rightness or wrongness of the deed, she knew what was her duty. She was expected to trust what God had told her. Her sin was in her neglect of that trust.

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steve
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Re: The Problem of Evil

Post by steve » Mon Nov 23, 2015 10:25 am

Okay, so here it is. I decided to cut it short, and save additional points for the follow-up!

--------------------------------

Hi Apos,

I am going to discuss “suffering” and “evil” as one problem. Though not all suffering is evil, and not all evil entails suffering, the two are overlapping domains, and one is very often the result of the other. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to justify the existence of one to the exclusion of the other. Not all Christians explain the problem of suffering and evil in the cosmos in the same manner, but I suspect this may be due to the simple fact that not all Christians are equally well-informed concerning the teachings of their faith. The Christian’s answer to the problem (as is true of the atheist’s) arises from his entire cosmology and theological paradigm. The subject cannot be waved-off with trite clichés, and I am aware that my answer here is an over-simplification for the sake of getting across a main idea.

I intend to address the question in the OP, but this cannot be done without first laying a foundation upon which to build an explanation. We should bear in mind that we are creatures who are both emotional and rational. Suffering is an emotion, related to feeling—but the justification of suffering is a rational enterprise. Those seeking a response to the emotional problem of suffering, often, are desiring an explanation that is emotionally satisfying. Any explanation that seems overly rational may be viewed as too “clinical,” and heartless to be valid.

This is one reason why Christianity has always seemed to me the more rational option of the two—while atheism is clearly the more emotional. Every argument against the existence of God that one hears from Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, et al, is an emotional one—usually an emotional reaction to injustice, seemingly needless suffering, reaction to Christian judgments about sin, the hypocrisy or stupidity of religious nuts, etc.—emotional arguments, every one. Only a person unskilled in assessing logical arguments can fail to see that none of these arguments disprove the existence of God. They prove only that, if God exists, the atheist does not like Him—yet another emotional reaction.

Though atheist arguments sometimes refer to scientific factoids and theories (giving the appearance of rationality), upon examination, every cited fact is equally capable of accommodation to a theistic position. Given the choice of a theistic or an atheistic explanation of such facts, I believe, the atheist has only emotional reasons—usually his/her disgust or disillusionment with religion—as an arbiter. An atheist may deny my analysis, but the denial is likely to be yet another emotional reaction.

Atheists don’t seem to realize that Christians experience all the same emotional reactions to suffering, hypocrisy, self-denial, etc., as do the atheists. The difference is that Christians feel they must subject emotional first impressions to rational analysis. I believe that the majority of crimes of passion are committed because a failure to observe this necessity. I personally am not lacking in strong emotions, and am no stranger to suffering—but in choosing a governing system of belief for my life, I prefer not to rely entirely on subjective criteria. Once we have subjected our emotional reactions to critical analysis, we will be able to determine which of our emotional reactions are misguided, and which are really telling us something about reality.

In addition to their emotions, Christians have rational, scientific and philosophical explanations, a non-prejudicial approach to historical data, statistical probabilities, common sense, and holistic worldview adequacy, to tilt the scales toward theistic explanations of otherwise ambiguous facts and feelings.

Discussing emotional issues, such as our present topic, with an atheist is seldom fruitful, and rarely moves either participant toward agreement with the other, for the simple reason that ultimate answers to the really big questions invariably arise from one’s chosen worldview. Every worldview generates its own premises from which conclusions are reached. Sadly, there is such disparity between the worldviews of Christians and atheists as to leave very few shared premises from which to argue toward mutually satisfying conclusions.

The Christian’s worldview includes a number of assumptions that atheists will not admit to. There are two worldview premises, in particular (and the sub-points logically drawn from them), that Christians assume at the outset:

1) There is a good and loving God who made all things;

1a. God’s purposes are greater and more significant than the agendas of any created being;

1b. God is more powerful than any force He has created, and can, therefore, prevent any occurrence in which He chooses to intervene;

1c. A good and loving God will always act in accordance with His loving nature;

1d. This being so, God can be trusted to have a good and loving purpose (whether or not perceived by us) in all that He enacts or allows.


2) Mankind is fatally infected with sin, which is an unacceptable condition;

2a. When an all-good God is confronted with helpless victims infected with, and enslaved by, sin, He is compelled to seek their liberation and complete recovery;

2b. It is consistent with God’s loving nature to subject us to brief displeasure or pain, if this is the only way in which this greater and more permanent healing can be procured;

2c. Man, being clueless of the above facts—not understanding the gravity of his condition, nor the severity of the method required for the cure, is prone to react negatively—even angrily under the treatment;

2d. In any dispute between God and His critics, it is always wise to side with the only Person whose omniscience renders Him incapable of being wrong.


While the atheist does not accept any of these premises, he/she must evaluate the logic of the Christian’s argument with an awareness that these are the starting points for Christian reasoning—and an acknowledgement that none of them is irrational, nor demonstrably wrong.

Similarly, the atheist’s belief, (let us say) that the existence of morality can reasonably be accounted for by atheism, must be evaluated on the basis of the premises the atheist accepts. Since the existence of morality and suffering is acknowledged by both camps, the validity of the diverse worldviews can be assessed by their ability to explain these phenomena from their respective premises.

It must be acknowledged that, whatever one thinks about my arguments and conclusions, they do necessarily arise from my acknowledged worldview premises. It is impossible to enforce universal agreement concerning all of these premises, but none of them is either irrational or inconsistent with modern knowledge.

Unlike a very few Christians at this forum, I do not think that all suffering and evil in the world is caused by man's sinful behavior (or free will). The Bible says that God Himself brings many disasters upon humans. However, these are in the nature of surgeries, or rehabilitative therapies. While I don't believe that all unpleasantness is caused by man's sinfulness, I believe all suffering exists because of it (with the exception of the simple phenomenon of physical pain, which is useful and would exist even in a sinless world). This thesis is not self-contradictory, but is analogous to saying that a radical surgical procedure was not caused by the patient's condition, but occurs because of the patient's condition. What causes the surgery is the necessity of it and the intervention of a caring surgeon, desiring to save the patient.

In speaking of suffering as therapy or surgery for the cure of our sinfulness, we are recognizing that the nature of the disease (i.e., excessive self-interest) renders it impossible to treat otherwise than by challenging and displeasing the self’s demands. All forms of suffering, however great or small, involve the introduction of circumstances that are displeasing to the self-obsessed nature of the one subjected to them. This is the one thing that is true of everything called “suffering.” The sinful self-interest is confronted with feelings or facts that displease it, and which are sensed as one kind of suffering or another. God is not the direct cause of all kinds of suffering, because there are various categories that fall under this general rubric—each having its own separate cause—though He often does not intervene to prevent it. I want to consider, briefly, different kinds of “suffering” and their causes:

1) Physical pain: Some pain would need to exist even in a perfect world (which is why man was blessed, even before “the fall,” with nerves). If a man had no ability to sense pain, he would soon destroy himself by cluelessly eating dangerously hot foods that burn the mouth, by continuing to kick or strike hard objects that eventually damage tissue, by bleeding to death from a neglected wound that was never felt, by continuing to walk on a sprained ankle that needs to be favored, by failing to notice (and therefore to treat) broken bones, by contracting fatal infection from a bad tooth that needs to be removed—and hundreds of other little ways.

It is not hard to understand why a loving Creator would hardwire into us a capacity for experiencing such pain. Lepers feel no pain in their extremities, and end up destroying them by injurious actions, which occur without sensation. Thus, even in an unfallen world, there would still be value in the phenomenon of pain, since only such pain induces us to treat and subsequently avoid such injuries.

This observation provides an insight that may reasonably be extrapolated to the causes of all suffering, including those considered below. Pain provides incentive to avoid and remedy the undesirable behaviors that cause harm. It is the way in which we are disciplined by life itself to modify certain careless and self-destructive behaviors. It is equally true of behaviors that are not merely physically, but socially, psychologically, and spiritually, self-destructive. This is why adolescents who are well trained, and socially well-adjusted, have usually experienced, as part of their upbringing, discipline that was temporarily painful. In self-centered people, pain is a great motivator for behavior modification.

2) Suffering caused by human agents: Much (though by no means all) evil and suffering—i.e., physical violation, injustice, injury, property loss or damage, or death—is caused directly by human crimes against one another. In such cases, the primary blame falls on human agents, though the Christian still must explain why God does not intervene more often than He does to prevent such crimes from occurring. It is ironic to see humans, who are invariably jealous over their own unimpeded freedom of choice, complain that God has not specially intervened to prevent the wrongful exercise of another person’s freedom of choice against them;

3) Emotional suffering: A great deal of suffering is emotional. This is caused, primarily by loss of some sort or other—bereavement, betrayal, rejection, unrequited love, etc.—or by anticipation of the same. It is hard to imagine any world, especially one full of free agents, in which one would be immune to all such disappointments. Sinful people (who share our world with us) are capable of ingratitude, hatred, jealousy, vengefulness, criminal aggression, etc. If self-centered people are permitted to exercise their free will, then others are going to be on the receiving end of such grief.

But sin is not the whole cause of emotional pain. Even where no wrong is done to another (e.g., a desired woman chooses one suitor over another), someone is going to experience rejection, which can hurt. Emotional pain can be every bit as severe and disheartening as physical pain, and must be included in our consideration of suffering.

We may inquire whether God could have made us differently—in such a way as to keep us callous in the face of such losses and betrayals. That is, could He have made us in such a way as to allow us to love and care deeply for others, but also to not care about losing them? It is not at all obvious that this could be done without sacrificing a great deal of what it means to be human—nor that such an uncaring world would be a better place than the one we have now. Just as the pain of hunger gives incentive to seek necessary nourishment, the pain of loneliness motivates us to seek relationships—all of which are eventually lost one way or another, if only through mortality. Would the world really be a better place without this motivation to relationships? We may think so, but God apparently does not—and I see nothing to indicate an error in His judgment.

Emotional pain also allows us to empathize with God Himself, who, because of our rejecting Him, has been subjected to such emotional pain at the hands of His creatures. There would seem to be no way for us to empathize deeply with God's own emotions without our having been given that very "human" capacity of love and loss. People who value intimacy with God welcome such opportunities for empathy with Him.

4) Natural causes: A major category of suffering is what is often termed (whether literally or only idiomatically) “acts of God.” This usually refers to instances of natural forces (weather, tsunamis, fire, gravity, volcanic eruptions, and the like) bringing harm, and consequent suffering, into the lives of humans and animals. Christians usually explain that the disordered (and hostile) state of nature is a result of the sins of humanity, without knowing exactly why or how this would be the case.

You have wondered, above, why human sin would have any effect on these forces that are beyond human control or influence. It is a good question, not easily answered. Whether such events would have occurred in a sin-free world or not must remain a matter of speculation. The Bible teaches that God has power to direct or overrule natural laws, whenever He may choose. When He does so, we call this a miracle. However, both the Bible and experience tell us that miracles are relatively infrequent occurrences. Special reasons seem to be required for God to intervene in the natural order that He has established, and those reasons do not seem to come up very often.

It is possible that the movement of tectonic plates and the flow of magma toward the surface of the earth would not be occurring if the world had remained in its pristine state (I am not saying that this is so), but, once again, even in a disordered world, God could, if He wished, intervene to prevent such destructive phenomena—or He could at least arrange that, when they occur, people are kept safe from their effects (as when He made provision for Noah to survive the flood). The reason that He does not always intervene in these ways is not clearly explained in scripture, but I suspect the explanation would be in the same general category as that of God allowing any suffering from any other cause—namely, we are patients threatened by a deadly spiritual disease, and we are under the knife of a wise and caring surgeon.

One of our Christian participants here does not appreciate my saying such things. He recognizes the value of ordinary disciplinary actions and of necessary curative procedures. However, he regularly asks, “But how can this theory justify such things as the murder and rape of young children, or the slow and agonizing death brought on by certain parasites, genetic abnormalities, prolonged starvation or torture?”

While all will acknowledge that our feeling a burning pain when we touch a hot stove may be a helpful phenomenon, mustn’t we draw the line when the suffering becomes intense—whether physically or emotionally? I think this objection misses the point. The difference between small pains and intense ones, between brief pains and persistent ones, between slight injustices and total violations, is a difference in degree, not kind. Some sufferings are minor, some major, but they are all the same thing—suffering. If we cannot justify the greater, we will be equally at a loss to justify the lesser. Some degrees of pain may seem disproportionate—especially when the pain is great and the victim relatively innocent—but disproportionate to what?

If we were arguing that suffering is justifiable because it is deserved, we would be in trouble on this point. People suffer disproportionately to what they seem to deserve. However, I am not arguing that suffering is justified by the guilt of the sufferer, but by the results sought by the surgeon. We don’t have complete information or insight into the specific goals God has for each patient, but we know they are good ones. No one, except those who resist the therapy, will look back, when God is finished with them, and complain, “That was definitely not worth it!”

When we say, “This degree of suffering is justified in securing future health, but this other degree is not,” we are suggesting that we have an authoritative scale by which we can evaluate the correct degrees of necessary suffering. This complaint cannot be lodged unless we have a proper standard defining what constitutes the proper “norms” for human suffering, beyond which suffering must not go without being regarded as “excessive.”

A policeman recently lost his job over a videotaped incident where he wrestled a rebellious student onto the classroom floor. His actions were said to be “excessive.” But have we seen enough footage of the recording to know what the student may have done to warrant discipline (After all, what was the student doing that required the intervention of a policeman in the classroom, in the first place?)? To say that the policeman’s treatment of the offender was “excessive” seems to acknowledge that some degree of disciplinary action was called for—just not that much!

But to properly make this judgment would require that we know the nature and magnitude of the student’s offense (which we do not). What if we were to learn that the student was wielding a knife and determinedly trying to kill herself (I have heard no such report, but that's the point! I don't know the circumstances)? If we knew the whole story, we might decide that the actions of the policeman, under the circumstances, were exceptionally restrained and mild. Student actions can certainly be imagined which would warrant rougher treatment than being subdued on the floor.

When we say that certain human suffering is too extreme to be a valid spiritual therapeutic, we are suggesting that we actually know the magnitude of the disease, and can suggest a more humane and effective alternative to acquire the desired results. Do we know, really, how sick we are, or what it may take to cure us? If we actually knew this, we might be arguing the opposite direction, asking, “Why doesn’t God subject all of us to greater suffering?”

We moderns are wimps. We don’t live in times or lands where barbaric invaders regularly skinned their victims alive, disemboweled and dismembered them, raped and enslaved them, burned them, dragged them into exile with hooks in their noses. We don’t see a more-than-fifty-percent infant mortality rate in our countries, or a similar percentage of our neighbors stricken down by the black plague. We will probably never meet a person who needed to undergo an appendectomy or an amputation without anesthesia. This was the real world, in which children grew up, throughout the vast majority of human history, and it is a reality from which only ultra-modern, developed nations have made themselves immune. In deciding what “normative” human suffering looks like, we are, no doubt, using a scale calibrated by our chronological and geographical provincialism—not to universal reality.

It is always possible that we are much "sicker" than we imagine. Sin and rebellion against God are deeply ingrained characteristics of our nature that destroy our relationships, our acquaintances, our society, our world and our own souls. Sin is like an unrelenting cancer—only more difficult to cure, because it seems to inhere in the very fiber of human nature. The proper question may not be, “Why do so many people suffer horribly?” but, “Why does anyone escape such horrible suffering?”

The greatest horror to contemplate is that someone might suffer throughout this entire lifetime in stubborn resistance, ultimately refusing the cure, and may pass into the next life, where sterner measures may be employed (I don’t claim to know anything about this). What I do know is that our subjective and provincial frame of reference totally disqualifies us to be the arbiters of what degree of rehabilitative suffering can be regarded as acceptable and necessary—and what degree as “excessive.”

One of the primary, original Christian spokesmen, the Apostle Paul, suffered in ways that any of us modern wimps would call “excessive.” He was repeatedly and unjustly subjected to Third-World imprisonment, gratuitously tortured, flogged with stripes beyond counting, afflicted with a painful and disfiguring disease, betrayed and rejected by those most indebted to him, and, eventually (like many Christians today), was decapitated.

Few human beings have a more impressive resume of excessive and undeserved sufferings. Yet, from his Christian point of view, he wrote, “I am persuaded that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed in us” (Rom.8:18), and “Our light affliction, which is only for a moment, works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Cor.4:17). If we are looking for a proper “scale" to determine normative suffering, we should notice that Paul’s sufferings were said to be “light.” One is left to wonder what he might have regarded as average or normal sufferings, if his were on the light side of the scale. It would seem his scale was calibrated differently from ours!

It is notable, also, that Paul’s afflictions were not viewed as a punishment, but as preparation for something he called “the glory.” This is something he knew more about than we do, but what he knew convinced him that it was something so excellent as to more than justify the painful preparation program. A child seldom understands the magnitude of his own misbehavior, and may tend to resent the discipline that his better-informed parents consider necessary for his correction. However, those who have been wisely disciplined in their upbringing come to appreciate that behavioral training, once they are mature. If God is true, then this applies to our training as well. We understand its purpose little better than do children, but we are informed that it yields extremely desirable results. Our present assessment of the need for, or legitimacy of, present sufferings is too ill-informed to be of much help in judging God’s motives for allowing it.

Paul went on to say that the Christian’s proper perspective is to see these sufferings (regardless how severe) in their true light as temporary and finite, but their intended benefit is infinite and eternal. An atheist may regard Paul as deluded, but no one can prove him wrong, nor impugn his logic, as argued from his premises. Upon Christian premises, he was absolutely reasonable—and enviably content.

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ApostateltsopA
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Re: The Problem of Evil

Post by ApostateltsopA » Mon Nov 23, 2015 1:33 pm

Thanks for the replies. Steve were you aware that I am an atheist? Reading the introduction and first few paragraphs of your post I'm not certain you are. I'll did into the meat above once I'm back home and off my phone.

I will say I think the discussions are fruitful. Whether or not anyone converts anyone I think a large amount of misunderstanding and tribal behavior on both sides can be eliminated by the experience and that it can be enriching for all involved.

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steve
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Re: The Problem of Evil

Post by steve » Mon Nov 23, 2015 3:55 pm

Hi Apos,

Yes, I was aware that you are a professing atheist. That is why I addressed the opening paragraphs to the differences between Christians and atheists.

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Re: The Problem of Evil

Post by Paidion » Mon Nov 23, 2015 3:56 pm

Hi Apos, you wrote:Paidion, do you see my cake or torture example as a choice with free will even though there is significant compulsion involved?
I don't deny that there are many influences on the choices that people freely make, some of them strong, and others weaker. Possession of free will does not imply that your choices are random.

Suppose your favorite pies are pumpkin and blueberry. You like them equally well. You are invited to dinner, and the dessert is pumpkin and blueberry pie. You are asked which one you choose. You decide on blueberry—not because you prefer it to pumpkin. So why did you choose blueberry? Did you flip a coin? Was your choice random? You could have made a random choice, but you didn't. The last time you had pie, it was pumpkin. So you decided on blueberry this time. The fact that you had pumpkin last time had a slight influence on your choice. But that fact didn't cause you to choose blueberry. You could have chosen pumpkin.

If someone holds a gun to your head and demands your money, this is a very strong influence on you to give your money to him. But it is not a cause. You still have a free will, and thus it is possible for you to choose not to give him your money, even though you are risking your life.

If you are offered cake or torture and no other alternative, and you presume the offer is genuine, this is a strong influence on you to choose the cake, because you are aware of the consequences of eating cake, as well as those of experiencing torture. But the influence of your knowledge is not the cause of your choosing the cake. It is still possible to choose the torture. Perhaps the man is bluffing about the torture. Or perhaps the cake is poisonous. But even if you were convinced that the offer is above board, it is still possible for you to choose the torture. You have a free will. It would not be a random choice, of course. Every choice, unless it is random, has a basis of some sort, but no cause other than the person himself who does the choosing.
Paidion

Man judges a person by his past deeds, and administers penalties for his wrongdoing. God judges a person by his present character, and disciplines him that he may become righteous.

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Re: The Problem of Evil

Post by mattrose » Mon Nov 23, 2015 6:39 pm

Hello again Apos :)

I discern two MAJOR and 2 MINOR issues brought up by your follow up post

MAJOR ISSUE #1... what was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?

You "discount that they [Adam & Eve] are to blame" because "they are incapable of making an informed decision" as they "do not know of good and evil." It was wrong for God to judge them (in your view) as capable and informed "adults" when, in reality, we are right to " see [them] as children." In sum, you believe the story "suggests strongly that they are not capable of making a moral decision."

All of these quotes stem from what I would consider a misunderstanding of what the tree of the knowledge of good and evil represents. You seem to be assuming that without eating of that tree, they had no knowledge of good and evil. But that is contradicted by the story itself. They had been told specifically what was good (all the trees but one) and what was evil (eating from that one specific tree). Not eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil didn't mean one failed to possess knowledge of good and evil any more than not eating from the tree of life didn't mean one failed to posses life. Or, to eliminate the double negatives, Adam was alive before eating from the Tree of Life just like he had knowledge of good and evil before eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, it seems to me, was not about possessing knowledge of good and evil... it was about about having the authority to decide for ones self what is good or evil. God had clearly said He didn't want them to eat from that tree. Was God their authority or not? By eating of it, they decided they had the right to decide for themselves... to make their own standards. Of course, this is exactly what the story says the problem was.

I don't think it is completely your fault for making this mistake. For one, it is common. Many atheists interpret the story (wrongly) to suggest that God (and therefore, religion) is simply against knowledge (as if God was banning them from intelligence). This reading of the text has led to the mythical antagonism between science and faith. For two, I think the name of the tree is rather confusing. Reading the story carefully makes clear what I said above... but with a surface level reading I could see people reaching similar conclusions to what you came up with.

Once we understand the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil as the choice of Human Autonomy over and against God's Sovereignty, the objections that you raised may be easily dismissed. Adam & Eve may be legitimately blamed specifically because they were CAPABLE of not eating from that true, INFORMED that they shouldn't, and thus AWARE of what was right and what was wrong in that specific case.

I also reject your objection that they could not have understood the consequences of rebellion. You said "They have been threatened with death for disobeying, however they may as well be threatened with jimshoobalahamomgrub. Death was not in the garden, they had no experience of it at all." I don't think it is necessary to have experienced or witnessed death to have a sufficient understanding of the possibility of extinction.

MAJOR ISSUE #2... Why did God put the tree (or allow the serpent to be) in the Garden to begin with?

You asked: "At a meta level, why is the tree where these people can get to it?" "Why is the serpent in existence at all? If the garden is a perfect place, then imperfection is introduced in the form of the serpent, so how does it get there?"

Given what I said above about how the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil represents the freedom Adam & Eve possessed to choose between personal autonomy and submission to Divinity, the reason for its placement in the garden seems clear. God, it seems, WANTS people to have the freedom to choose between love for God or rejection of that love. It seems that love, in order to be real, must be chosen. If "God is love" (1 John 4:8+16), then entering into loving relationships with creatures must be God's greatest desire for creation. But since true love must be chosen it was necessary for choice to exist in the Garden of Eden. Both the tree and the serpent present this choice in tandem.

So when you say: "If the universe is created, and the creator is perfect, than the universe must be exactly what was intended" you are not making a thorough enough statement. If a perfect God [A God who is Love] created a universe, then what God intended by doing so was to make a world where creatures could enter into that divine love and that, of necessity, demands the presence of choice and the possibility of evil.

I will respond to minor issues below:
However, lots of human cultures have no taboo over nudity. It is not explained how Eve picked up a cultural taboo, without having a culture to pick it up from. Nakedness in and of itself is not shameful. (If it were then we should not have cultures who do not share the taboo.)"
The story has nothing to do with cultural taboos. The reason they are ashamed is not b/c they are suddenly cultured. It is a spiritual problem, not a social problem. The story is communicating a lack of intimacy between Adam & Eve. As the story unfolds, we see that Adam blames Eve for what happened. They are no longer in harmony with one another. They literally covered themselves up because they were spiritually separated from each other.
"Furthermore he makes their sin an inherited trait. All future generations are punished, severely, for a decision they were baited into. That seems deeply immoral to me."
As was said by a fellow poster, not all Christian agree with the doctrine of 'original sin' (or at least not the Augustinian understanding of it). The Bible specifically says each person is accountable for their own sins only. So, thankfully for you, your sense that Augustine's doctrine is "Deeply immoral" need not prevent your becoming a Christian.

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steve
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Re: The Problem of Evil

Post by steve » Mon Nov 23, 2015 6:44 pm

As I am posting this, I notice that Mattrose has posted something on some of these points, but I have not yet read his post. I apologize in advance if I end up (again) simply echoing a great thinker who got here ahead of me.


Apos,

You seem to be seeking honest answers, so I would like to give my understanding about some of the questions you raised. I should say, at the outset, that there's gobs of theological meanings to everything in the story that you have asked about. I take the story as historical, but I would not be bothered if it turned out to be allegorical. While I accept it as a true account, my life would not be affected in any practical sense if it turned out to be a myth, since the theological importance of its teaching would remain the same. If you want fuller explanations of all these points, feel free to listen to my lectures on Genesis.
They do not posses knowledge of good and evil. To me that suggests strongly that they are not capable of making a moral decision… The people do not know of good and evil, they are incapable of making an informed decision.
What they lacked was moral sophistication. They were new to the world, and had had very little opportunity to learn the ropes (they apparently didn’t even know, yet, that snakes generally do not hold conversations with humans!). Their education had begun, but had not progressed very far. However, they had been told enough to know that they were forbidden to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Thus, it cannot be said that they did not know enough to be responsible for their actions. They knew who made them, and what His will was for them with reference to the trees. Theirs was a choice to be loyal to their Creator, or to rebel against Him. Their rebellion was avoidable (they could have chosen loyalty), so they were culpable in their betrayal of the One who had given them every gift, including existence. They knew this much.

They have been threatened with death for disobeying, however they may as well be threatened with jimshoobalahamomgrub. Death was not in the garden, they had no experience of it at all.


First, whether they understood the exact nature of the penalty or not is irrelevant to their guilt. One should obey his Creator, whether he knows the consequences or not—or even if there are no consequences at all! The ingratitude of betrayal is the great thing to avoid and is the great tragedy in the story—not the nature of the penalty.

I do not agree, however, that the word “die” would carry no meaning to them. They were created with language software installed. We might ask how it was that they assigned any intelligible meaning to the word “die”, but we could equally ask how it was that they assigned meaning to any other word. They had not learned language gradually, from experience, as all of their descendants had to. I imagine the word “die” had intelligible meaning before they had seen death, even as the words “eat” and “propagate” were intelligible prior to their eating or having babies.

I am not even sure that they had not seen death. The New Testament says that death entered the world through Adam’s sin, it is true, but the context clearly identifies “human death” as the topic under discussion. There is no certainty that Adam and Eve had not seen the death of a cockroach or a housefly prior to the fall. There is no suggestion in scripture that animals were created immortal (nor even that humans were!).

The serpent tempts Eve, who then eats of the fruit and sees they are naked. However, lots of human cultures have no taboo over nudity. It is not explained how Eve picked up a cultural taboo, without having a culture to pick it up from. Nakedness in and of itself is not shameful.
You admit that there was no culture to affect Eve’s sensitivities, but then you say that her modesty and shame were a cultural taboo. I believe that the shame was not due to nakedness alone (since they were previously equally naked, but not ashamed). I think nakedness combined with a sense of guilt produce shame. Nakedness was physical, but has spiritual ramifications.

When people feel guilty, their natural response to the shame of guilt is to engage in a cover-up. This is observable in human nature. Little children, even today, do not feel shame during that period of their lives when they still lack moral sophistication (in the time of their pristine innocence). They naturally begin to show signs of modesty around the same time that they become capable of moral sense. A person with a clean conscience does not feel shame at being publicly transparent (naked, if you will). Only those who know guilt feel ashamed at public exposure.

At a meta level, why is the tree where these people can get to it?
It is where it belonged. It was clearly a test. It could have been something other than a tree, but it could not have been something beyond the range of their experience. The tree had to be where they could encounter it, and the test of loyalty to God that its allure represented.
Why is the serpent in existence at all?
Same reason. He was the tester. The first couple were to be tested in this manner. God told them one thing; the devil told them the opposite. Now there was an actual choice to be made: believe God or disbelieve Him—just like everyone else since them.
If the garden is a perfect place, then imperfection is introduced in the form of the serpent, so how does it get there?
For the garden to be described as “perfect” requires that it be “perfectly suited” to the purpose God had in mind in making it. This purpose was the testing of God’s children. The tree and the serpent are both important players in this testing. It would be less perfect without them.
However God judges them, who we would see as children, as though they are adults.
Their range of experiences was no greater than that of children, due to the brevity of the time they had been on earth. However, they were adults with every adult capacity—including speech, rational thought, reproductive capacity, personal responsibility, etc. They had been given the only key that was necessary to succeed under testing—God had clearly given them the one right answer prior to the administration of the one-question exam. If that is not setting them up for success, I don’t know what is.
Furthermore he makes their sin an inherited trait. All future generations are punished, severely, for a decision they were baited into.
Whether sin is inherited or not is not a doctrine clearly taught in scripture, and which did not appear in the church prior to Augustine (AD 400). It may or may not be true, but it is irrelevant to individual salvation.

No one will be judged for sins Adam committed, but only for one’s own sins. It is probable that Adam’s sin caused us to be born under the burden of alienation from God (when Adam was expelled from the Garden, we all were), but not with an inability to turn back to God and be saved (as Abel, Enoch, Noah, and others clearly illustrate). Those who think they inherited Adam’s sin may complain all they wish about the unfairness of it all, but, in the final analysis, no one will be judged for any sin that is not his own, and which he could not have avoided.

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steve
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Re: The Problem of Evil

Post by steve » Mon Nov 23, 2015 6:53 pm

Having just read Matt's post, I obviously find myself in full agreement. It may seem as if he and I compared notes! We didn't, and I think our two explanations make many of the same points, using different terminology. Thanks, Matt! You know I'm a big fan!

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Re: The Problem of Evil

Post by mattrose » Mon Nov 23, 2015 7:32 pm

steve wrote:Having just read Matt's post, I obviously find myself in full agreement. It may seem as if he and I compared notes! We didn't, and I think our two explanations make many of the same points, using different terminology. Thanks, Matt! You know I'm a big fan!
Haha, Yeah, after reading your post I was about to comment how cool I thought it was that they were so similar... but you beat me to it!

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