Dear Paidion,
Thanks for another very thoughtful reply; I think we are covering some good, important principles here with respect to God’s power, human free will, etc.
Before addressing your points, I want to first give a reminder to all of us that the original question we started to investigate was the “Problem of Evil” (actually, the original question was, “Does God exist?”, to which I gave five traditional philosophical/theological arguments in support of His existence, and this “Problem of Evil” is simply one objection to His existence with which we are dealing). That is, we are dealing with the question: If God is all-good, all-knowing, and all-powerful, how can evil exist? Shouldn’t an all-good God WANT to prevent all evil? And, if He is all-knowing, shouldn’t He KNOW how to prevent all evil? And, if He is all powerful, shouldn’t He be ABLE to prevent all evil? So, how can there be evil in the world?
Augustine’s proposed answer is that God has all these attributes, but allows/permits certain evils to exist to bring about a greater good.
Some feel that this explanation is not quite adequate, and some of the reasons for holding it as not adequate have led us to a discussion on human free will, and how human free will is related to God’s omnipotence, His power.
I have stated that God’s Power is such that He is able to move the human free will to choose good WHILE MAINTAINING the freedom of the individual; I have not (yet) tried to offer a direct explanation of how we can know that this is done (nor how this is done). However, I brought us to what I think is a more fundamental question: Is, or is not, God the source of all good?
So, that is where we were at as you responded to my question…in which you wrote:
Brother Alan, God created man in His image, the chief of which is free will—the ability to choose. Clearly man chooses his actions apart from any direct action on God's part. Atheists, Buddhists, God-haters, etc. have performed good acts, some of them risking or even GIVING their lives to save others. In my understanding every person with a normal brain chooses his own acts, and thus the source of these acts is in the person himself.
Of course, we could affirm that God is even the ultimate source of these peoples' good acts since He created man with the ability to perform those good acts. But that might be treading on dangerous territory. For on the same grounds, we could affirm that God is the ultimate source of evil as well. Some may object, saying that Satan is the ultimate source of evil. But did not God create Satan (even though he was not evil when created)?
So in conclusion, I think it is safe to say that the source of good as well as evil is in the free-will agent himself, for God created him as an independent free-will agent.
Okay, so, there is a lot of good stuff here. I’ll try to be concise in responding.
I don’t think there is any disagreement here (among us, anyway) in asserting that man has free-will (given to him by God). So, we’re in agreement on that.
And a free-will is that faculty which enables man to make choices between different goods (or between evil and good). Man has this; God gave it to him. We’re all in agreement on this. So, what Paidion said at the end of his last post, I heartily also assert: “I think it is safe to say that the source of good as well as evil is in the free-will agent himself, for God created him as an independent free-will agent.” (Though, I will just throw this out as a question to ponder in the back of our minds: Does the statement, “Even if the source of good is also in the free-will agent himself, God remains the ULTIMATE source of GOOD in the free-will agent,” contradict Paidion’s—and, now, MY—statement I just made here?)
Now, before going too deep into whether, and/or how, God and the free-will interact together (and whether this interaction can be done so that the human free-will maintains its freedom), I want to still get back to the question of whether or not the ULTIMATE source of ALL good is in GOD Himself? Why do I want to bring it back to this? Because, well, we are dealing with the GOOD of
human acts/choices. If God is the ULTIMATE (and, I stress this word, “ultimate”) source of ALL good, then He is the source of the goodness, EVEN of the goodness which are in human acts (whether the human acting is a Christian, a Buddhist, and atheist, or something else). But, if God is not the source of goodness in human acts—if the goodness of human acts belongs, ultimately, to the man acting—then God is not the ultimate source of ALL goodness (for, we would have found some goodness—namely, the goodness in human acts, which would not belong to God). Of course, this presents a big problem: for, if God is truly God, then all goodness would have to come from Him, no? Even the goodness found in human acts? Something to really think about…
The Holy Scriptures DO shed some light on this issue. First, we have statements from Our Lord which, at least, touch on this issue. Our Lord will say things like, “I am the vine, you are the branches; without me, you can do nothing.” He said this, of course, with reference to the fruit that the vine and branches produce, and the spiritual fruit that Christ’s disciples produce. Is the branch responsible for the generation of its fruit? Yes. Is the vine responsible for the generation of the branch’s fruit? Yes. Both the vine, and the branch, are responsible for the fruit generated by the branch (but, the vine is primary to the branch, which is secondary in relation to the vine). In like manner, the good works of Christians ARE
their good works: but, they are also—and even MORESO-- CHRIST’S good works, as He is acting through His followers, as a vine works through branches to generate fruit. (And similar things can be said about how God works through even non-Christians in the natural order, as opposed to the supernatural order, in how they produce naturally good choices).
Another Scripture verse: “What good have you that you have not received? If you have received it, then why do you boast?” Paul wrote this somewhere. The point is that if we have a good, we have RECEIVED it; from whom have we received it? Ultimately, from God (even if we have received it, as is usually the case, through secondary instruments, as God usually communicates His gifts to us through secondary instrumental causes, eg., our very lives were given to us by God
but through our parents). Does this include the good of our good choices? Well, again, Paul says, “What good have you that you have not received?” He is saying that ALL good that we have—INCLUDING the good of our good choices—comes ULTIMATELY from, yes, God! Thus, we must not boast—even the good of our good choices comes, ULTIMATELY and PRIMARILY, from God (even if, yes, they truly are OUR *free* choices).
Well, does this mean our evil comes from God, too? Absolutely not! Why? Well, because evil is, if we think about it, nothing but a PRIVATION of a due good. The reason why the good of even our good choices MUST be, ultimately, from God (even it is, ALSO, from us, as we DO certainly have free-will), is because, again, ALL
good comes from God. But, evil does not come from God. From where does the evil of our free choices come? From, yes, US. ONLY from us? YES, ONLY from us…not God. Because evil is a LACK, a PRIVATION of a due good; lack of good, privation of good does not come from the all-good God, as the good of our good choices comes, but from the evil use of our free-wills. So, once again, while the good of our good choices comes, yes, from us and the good use of our free wills—no doubt about that—the evil use of our free-wills to choose evil comes from, and only from, us. As that old saying goes, “The only things that we [human beings] own ALL by ourselves are our sins and our lies!” Sobering stuff; our evil choices belongs solely to us, but our good choices belong to both us and God, though more to God. Sobering and HUMBLING stuff (but, I think if one thinks long and hard about these things, one will see that these things are, in fact, true).
How does this all tie in to our question about the “Problem of Evil”? Well, again, the objection raised by the Problem of Evil recognizes all of these things that I have just stated, namely, that God COULD move the human free will to choose good ALWAYS (WHILE ALSO respecting the freedom of the free-will; though, I realize I have not, at least as of yet, delved much into exactly HOW that is possible, though I have laid out some general principles which, if carried to their logical conclusions, will lead one to see THAT it is possible, and, in fact, necessary); but, He doesn’t. Or, He could, in other ways, prevent evil things from happening (eg., He COULD, if He wanted to, physically prevent a person from carrying out evil in all sorts of ways, such as making the person, who is intent on doing evil, physically unable to do evil by, say, afflicting such a person with instant paralysis or death or something like that—God COULD do that, if He wanted to…and this is a point aside from the other assertion already made that He could also, if He wanted, move the person to
freely CHOOSE to do good, He could, in the first place, if He wanted, move the free-will of the man to choose the good, while respecting the man's own freedom, for His Power enables Him to do that, and to say, "God moves my free-will," is not contradictory to, "I move my free-will"-- just as it is not contradictory to say, "The branch produces the fruit," and, "The vine produces the fruit."). Thus, if God doesn’t, in one way or another, prevent evil from happening, either by moving the free-will to freely choose good all the time, or, else, by simply physically preventing an evil choice from being carried out physically, then He is either not all-powerful, not all-good, or not all-knowing.
But, this brings us back to Augustine’s general solution (a solution that covers the Problem of Evil in general, even if it is not able to give a particular reason for why any particular given evil occurs, i.e., is allowed by God to occur), which is that the all-good, all-knowing, all-powerful God would not allow any evil to occur, unless if He was able, by His power, to bring about a greater good which otherwise would/could not be brought about if that evil was not permitted to occur.
So, I think what we need to see here is the real FORCE of the first objection, the force of the “Problem of Evil”: those who use this objection against God’s existence truly do realize that an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good God would want and be able to stop ALL evil; but, if there is evil, then there can’t be such a God. I think we need to realize the validity of the logic used in this objection (and, I think, if we do realize that, then, well, I really do not think there is any other answer we can give other than the one Augustine has given, although, certainly, I, for one, am open to hearing other responses to this real objection of the “Problem of Evil” which would improve upon Augustine’s answer).
Sorry, that was not so concise. Oh well…hope it still provided some helpful food for thought (and I look forward to hearing any responses in turn).
God bless you all.
In Christ,
BrotherAlan