• Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    and probably a dead head !!!Rank Amateur

    Yes, although I like all music, really. But the Dead are one of my favorite artists.
  • adhomienem
    15
    If God did have this knowledge, and still made humans the way she did, then she is not omnibenevolent.Yajur

    I'd like to argue against your conclusion by denying this premise. Here's my counterargument:

    1. God is omnibenevolent.
    2. It is better for people to exist and receive maximal love than to not exist.
    3. Therefore God created people in order to be the recipients of her maximal love.
    4. It is better for the people to be able to reciprocate the love than to not be able to.
    5. The ability to reciprocate God's love requires free will.
    6. Therefore God created people with free will.
    7. Free will is only possible if one can make real choices between multiple options.
    8. Humans must be able to choose between good and evil then.
    9. One cannot make a real choice unless all options are real options (all options exist).
    10. Therefore, evil must exist.

    So, evil must exist in order for humans to have free will, and free will actually aligns with God's omnibenevolence more so than not having free will. I offer the following to support my premises:

    Premise 2: it is better to exist than to not exist. It is better to be loved than not to be loved.
    Premise 3 follows from this under the assumption that God is the GCB and will thus always choose the better of two options.
    Premise 4 uses the same reasoning as Premise 2.
    Premise 5 is based off the definition of free will that I lay out in Premise 7: free will cannot exist without the ability to make a real choice between multiple options. In order to truly reciprocate someone's love and love them back, one must have the choice to not love them as well. Forced love is not love.
    Premise 8 just applies the general definition of free will to the circumstance of choosing between good and evil.
    Premise 9 states that the ability to choose is contingent on the options actually existing--if evil didn't exist, I could not choose to do it. If I can't choose to do evil, then I'm resigned to doing good, and therefore not choosing it of my own free will.

    Hopefully, this shows how God can be omniscient and still choose to "make humans the way that she did."
12Next
bold
italic
underline
strike
code
quote
ulist
image
url
mention
reveal
youtube
tweet
Add a Comment

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum!

Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.