The Problem of Evil
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- Опубліковано 25 вер 2024
- An impartial presentation of the Logical and Evidential Problems of Evil (an argument against the existence of God).
Information for this video gathered from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy and more!
Information for this video gathered from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy and more!
Excellent! I'm practicing writing notes while also studying something I love, and your videos are superb for both purposes! Thank you very much for your hard work!
Thank you for your nice summary of the "Problem of Evil". Actually I don't believe the problem of evil exists. I only believe in the existence or fact of evil. I theorize however that the existence of evil and the shortness of life gave rise to the existence of Religion and spirituality. I surmise that Stone age men realized the dangers of survival and the shortness of their desperate lives so imagined there must be a BETTER existence some where ELSE. I'm still a Deist however. Maybe a Creator designed a universe self-operating and left to create other types of universes.
Evil is the destruction of something of value ( unique, preciious, and what encourages the flourishing of other valuable things and beings)
Natural evil is when blind forces without volition cause the destruction.
Personal evil is destruction for the pleasure of the destroyer (M. SCcott Peck MD, paraphrased)
Thats a really good video, like wow
Thanks!
It depends on how you define God. If the universe or all of reality is defined as God, then God seems to exist based on first order experience and meets all criteria. Another problem is how you define "good". That is very subjective and may not be obvious in every situation. But even if we agree on a common definition of good, in the case of a murder, you could say good was a higher product of that act that is not obvious such as a person learning lessons and advancing in life, or forgiveness, or saving the person who was murdered from something worse happening to them later, or there are many possibilities.
How about this?
The Afterlife is eternally good, and therefore outweighs any finite evil that exists in the prior world.
Even if there is more good than evil, it does not follow that there is any reason for evil in the first place. Only a sadistic evil god would torture millions of babies before giving them happiness, no matter how great that happiness. Why not just give happiness? The question, at least of the logical problem of evil is why is there evil at all, not whether evil outweighs good.
Put another way, if you give someone infinite happiness after raping them, does it justify the rape? Of course not. If an all powerful God exists, he has the power to stop the hundreds of rapes committed each day, but does nothing. He's complicit at best, and at worst he is the rapist. Giving you infinite happiness afterward does not justify or logically explain torture.
For the evidentiary problem, the point is that there is absolutely no evidence of a good afterlife, but there is plenty of evidence of suffering and evil here on earth.
When a mean person stomach is full ,he starts like this kind of logic ,,,
The quote at the end of the video is by Epicurus, I think.
It is often attributed to him, yes. Most famously by David Hume.
Add the 5th one, "Free will exists" and the 6th one "God allows evil" and the problem is solved. In fact evil is not component, it's the lack of good, so we basically have the "problem of good" rather.
I always find it superfluous to say omniscient after saying omnipotent. Since if a being a omnipotent, it is capable of doing everything, meaning that "knowing everything" must also be part of its capability.
louisng114 Interesting idea. This raises the question of is it possible to have some omnipotent being that did not know something? It seems to me that there is a difference between being able to do something and actually doing it. Just because I can know anything does not mean that I do. There might be some God that has the ability to know anything, but does not know that he has that ability. He does not know that he is omnipotent, so he does not realize that he could know those things if he wanted to. Therefore he does not try to know them, therefore he does not know them. It seems that omnipotence is possible without omniscience. Just because God could look and see any point in existence, does not mean that he knows that he can, or does so at all times.
Carneades.org theoretically I'd say the two are connected... you'd have to be omnipotent to obtain and remain omniscient and you'd clearly have to be omniscient to be omnipotent (although omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience and omnisapience would have other connections and be co-justifications for things involving will). there are other justifications often not mentioned at university philosophy classes.
Even though God is behind creation, that doesn't mean that God is behind everything that happens within creation.
Since certain creations, such as ourselves, have been given free will and are capable of being creators in our own right; including creating suffering for ourselves and others.
This particular misunderstanding, that God is causing our suffering and perhaps punishing us, is one of the most dangerous misunderstanding promoted by religious teachers; for how can we become free from suffering if we don't understand what's causing it?
As long as we believe that lie, we will blame God or others, or our circumstances for our suffering and not see that we are responsible for our suffering.
Our mistaken thinking, and the negative emotions and negative actions that flow from our thoughts causes our suffering.
Depending on what we choose to believe, and how we choose to respond to life; we create more Love in the world or the opposite.
When we choose to express the opposite of Love or cause harm, it is not God that is at fault.
God gifted us with the freedom to choose and to create, and we eventually learn from our choices to be better creators; to create happiness instead of suffering, and it is suffering that teaches us this; suffering points us away from what is anti-life, anti-Love.
Our own personal suffering is the so-called "punishment" we receive when we make choices that are not aligned with Love; that is the only "punishment," if we will, meted out by God.
We are designed to suffer whenever we miss the mark, which is the meaning of sin; the mark, the target or goal, is Love. We suffer whenever we fall out of alignment with Love.
Suffering and joy are part of the guidance system we've been given; the homing device, which when followed, will bring us back home to Love.
Suffering tells us that we are believing a lie or taking a wrong direction; while joy tells us the opposite.
If we don't want to suffer, then we must stop believing and doing what causes us and others suffering; and start believing and doing what brings peace, Love and joy.
Good video thank you. If we *limit* the discussion to whether it is even possible to reconcile that KIND of God with what we see:
1. It’s relevant that omnipotent doesnt mean the trite “infinite power yay!” that people often jump to. Perhaps it means having all the power and capacity there is. Even regardless of that and it meant infinite power (whatever that could mean), it still certainly wouldn’t mean able to do logically contradictory things. And Id say there must be other inherent limits or constraints, beyond our understanding, to making realities. Can we even have love and life and beings where everything is perfect. Do movies like that entertain, or have meaning? Video games like that? If the goal is holiness or meaning, rather than endless, meaningless bliss balls, then maybe we aren’t understanding the plan. Especially if physicalism is false (which it must be and certainly is in our limited discussion of God), then we don’t even know what life or a creature is. Our capacity to judge is way more limited than we can even see. Maybe this is the only or best way to make meaning or love or whatever the goal is.
2. We are also deciding based on a limited TIME window, especially if we are eternal. Maybe the horrible earthly experiences of someone could bother them for the first five million years of the next life, but they’ll probably have a deeper and holier character from the experience and maybe even be grateful for it by the billion-year mark. Too many Christians tackle poe with attempts to say it is ok even on an earthly time scale. That’s a mistake. Eternal life changes everything. Finally, I am an annihilationist and believe that is Biblical and supported other ways (early students of the apostle).
I don’t think we can reject an all-loving all-powerful God. Perhaps He is maximizing something we aren’t even considering across many creatures and a long or infinite time (if eternal even means “forever” rather than something else like “beyond time”). This could be made more rigorous than the vague Idk that Ive painted, esp with desert fathers’ understanding of holiness and with eternal life. But for now just saying there is much more to consider. Which is not a criticism you cant do everything in one video. Is your mentioned platinga video easy for you to find. I cant find it due to how old this is.
What is the music at the end of the clip? I've heard it before and just can't remember.
Sorry, I know this is not a very philosophical question.
Pachelbel - Canon in D major
Thank you
Nice video. Well done.
This is about how God can be all the omnis. I myself am not convinced of the existence of any creator. But if you have convincing arguments for his/her existence you can the below as your head canon.
I shall be using he for god throughout this. Also this is nothing more than a though experiment about how evil can exist even when god is omnibenovalent. The things required to believe in the below are
1)A creator exists *£*
2)He is all the omnis. *€*
Also if you find any fallacious reasoning do let me know.
ARGUMENT BEGINS
The idea of heaven always confused me, i used to think that how can we be happy forever constantly. We need the bad to make the good feel 'good' and other such arguments. Until i realised that by definition God knows everything, he is all powerful and omniscient hence he must know and can create a place where each of us are happy forever.
That still raises some eyebrows, the problem of evil is still one of the most important arguments against God. I personally havent found any convincing theodicy so far.
So this though process started off with me thinking why cant everyone live their lives ezactly the way they want. Why doesnt everybody have the objectively perfect life(since God is omniscient he knows the perfect life for everyone)
Then i thought well maybe it is. Maybe This world is the perfect life for someone/thing and all the rest are simply pawns. Immediately after which i realised i feel pain and so a lot of people i know. How can this be good for the rest of us then? I was going to give up on this idea after finding similar problems.
Finally i realised what if there trillions upon trillions of universes which exist each of which are tailor made for every single 'living' (you can choose to define living however you wish to here im proceeding with the broadest possible definition) thing, from me to a mosquito to an extraterrestrial(if they exist).
Now this brings up a lot of objections
1)A lot of things are suffering terribly right now. How can giving them 1 universe/life which is perfect for each of them possibly atone for the suffering across all the remaining 'realities' they happen to be a part of which arent tailor made for them. With our axiom of *€* it is guarenteed that god would design all realities in such a way that the 'bad' and the 'good' at the very least would cancel out for everything or at its best be a large positive for the net of every living entity. And adding that up with a perfect life very much leaves us with massive value for every single living being.
2)The world is chaotic in nature what is the guarentee that each of us could have exact replicas? Well again *€* tells us that he is omnipotent ergo he can do literally everything.
3)Me and the other me are very much not the same. How could the other me having his/our perfect existence possibly help *me*. Now this was probably tbe hardest question of them all. The best i can answer it is by saying that God, again by *€* knows exactly what constituents each one of us. So by definition you are the same person. Now a counter objection would be since each one of person X is having different life choices, experiances and memories how can we be the same person. The reponse to this would again be by definition God knows exactly how each of us would react to any particular situation. So its still technically us doing it. This is likely to be the most controversial reply. If you have any objections do let me know.
Now for some clarifications
1)How can all of history exist? If its the perfect tailor made existance for person B who was born in 1978 and dies in 293838 (a random case which again remember since god is omniscient he knows for sure this is the perfect life for person B)
I have a few possible ideas
A)Before he is born/comes/whatever every single event in that reality is explained by Last thurdayism.
B)After he/she/they/it dies/ends/whatever that reality ends(if that was the perfect thing for him/her/they/it/they, if it wasnt then whatever would have been perfect according to them happening happens. This applies to A) as well.
2)Why do we live in this world which has so much going wrong? Why do millions of innocent kids die every year?
A)unfortunately it just so happens we are liviing in the tailor made reality of someone else not us.
B)this is our tailor made reality and its playing out.(again we couldnt possibly know whats perfect for us but by *€* God does.)
3)Why hasnt God made it so that every single entity is perfectly happy in just 1 world? That solves the objection 3) as well since there wont be other versions of us who would be sufferinng.
The solution to this lies in the fact that all of us sadly dont want a pitch perfect everyone is happy life. Some genuinely crave war and see it as an essential thing. Hence they couldnt possibly be happy in a reality where everyone is perfect, cooperative and peaceful. Serial killers who are psychopatic would most certainly not be happy with that since for then a perfect reality would be different. So again if there exists entity W whose perfect life would be everyone in harmony that would be there own reality. And look we added a positive value for all the enitites who like peace.
4)Suppose ones perfect existence is literally being God. What happens then? Well as you can see this creates a pleathora of paradoxes.
Our solution to this well again by definition God is omniscient and omnipotent hopefully(actually not hopefully cause he is literally infinitely intelligent) he will figure it out.
ARGUMENT ENDS
And there you have it. If you have any further objections/comments/thoughts do let me know. Just remember this is purely a though experiment which you can choose to believe in if you agree with the axioms. I personally dont but i also do not think of the problem of evil as such a massive one anymore. I also believe this somewhat half hazardly answeres the 'Why is there something rather than nothing?' Question. Well since a lot of us want to live an omnibenavolent god would create something for us. For those hypothetical entities who wouldnt they would never ever be born(if that were truly perfect for them).
The reason this isnt a complete answer is cause why is there that omni god rather than nothing? I guess we just have to accept russell's statement on that one. 'Its a brute fact'
A theodicy I wrote a year back.
+Carneades.org The sort of evils that someone might ground the [Argument from evil] upon (the sudden or painful death of children) are the sorts of things that Christians overwhelmingly experience as throwing them into a pit so deep that God alone can be found at the end of it. The friends of those thrown “into the depths” feel compelled to speak and know they have nothing to say; compelled to be with them and know they can never be with them. Anyone might descend into Hell, but only Christ has gone there with any hope of returning. God is literally the only consolation one can experience in the depths of suffering, and so he is the only possible solution to the problem of evil. We can respond to this by saying it is all wish-fulfillment, infantilism, or pre-scientific enchanted magical thinking, but this commits us to declaring the [argument from evil] unsound.
People are suggested by the religion to do good deeds, as it'll grant them heaven in their after life. Yet in this world where we live in there are conditions and situations sometimes where survival instinct completely overtakes us and it becomes more important to save ourself than what is morally correct or not. This factor is very important for the advancement of our species.
For example:-
If a particular position in an ABC company can only be reached by a cut throat competition of lying, manipulation and backstabs, but that company does public welfare. You as an individual dont want to do all those things mentioned above as you feel they are, 'sins' but you are 100 percent confident that nobody could perform this job of public welfare better than you.
(you can also input the other factors like, you were working hard for this seat
The pay is also better, so why not? But your major motivation is public welfare that will somehow contribute to advancement of humanity)
then whats right or wrong here ?
Due to butterfly effect the things happening right now are out of my control. I know I can't reach there without sinning and I have to so people can have better lives.
Also, how can be one factor omnibenevolence when almost every religion mentions a hell where torture methods are practiced. Does inflicting a huge amount of pain on one person makes them realise their guilt? Or the only way of repaying for your sins is pain or torture? Does God is omnibenevolent on this plane (where humans are alive) and not in after life? And if he's also omniscient and loves man because he's omnibenevolent on this plane then why I am free to sin? I can right now go out and stab/murder/steal from anyone. Why is God letting me sin after all those properties of him/her?
0:42
A Basic Intorduction? Introduction I think you mean :)
+DJK5364 Haha yes. Thanks for the correction.
I think evidantial problem of evil destroys theism.
Were you testing us to see if anyone would notice you spelled introduction "introduction"? In the Basic Caveat slide?
Literally what I came to the comments for!😂😂👌👌
8:00 What about "God never existed in the first place"?
It seems to me that we don't have sufficient evidence to justify that claim: ua-cam.com/video/8yPaXcHX5fs/v-deo.html
The *real* problem of evil (within a Christian world view) is NOT in explaining it, but rather how moral evil is danger to cognitive beings who have an ability to commit it... when there is a Holy Creator Who is perfect Who will logically to deal with them (with His righteousness/justice) unless they are forgiven (have their moral evil atoned for).
5. The 4 points are not contradictory because the concision of such points is missing further explanation and justifications.
Breckmin Let me be clear, are you claiming that evil is a necessary consequence of good, in the sense of justice requiring some evil to work? Or are you saying that by "good" you mean that God likes people to suffer until he gets to forgive them?
Carneades.org
Neither. God is absolutely Holy and nothing will change that. Sin taints (and justice/punishment is a perfect response on God's part) and this makes possessing free will a danger to the cognitive being who has it... but free will is necessary for genuine love, relationship, genuine self-generated obedience, forgiveness, agreement, genuine worship etc.
The problem here is probably a failure to distinguish between "evil" collectively and "sinful action/intentionality" as specific actions of cognitive beings created within the schema. This action is a potential byproduct of free will but not a necessary component of it (IOW you don't have to have both (good and evil) in a system in order to have free will... you can choose freely between two or more "good" options as well... in a closed system). In the open system you would clearly have to have knowledge of contrast in order to identify that you are still being good...but that is just one small part of the puzzle.
Evil is not a necessary consequence of good, but in order to know what good is you have to be able to contrast it with something (different from good) in order to have such knowledge that it IS good.
Clearly there is a justifiable special case with an omniscient Creator who knows the future of what will exist. Once again, we have to distinguish between what is an action from what is a classification or we have equivocation on the word "evil" (happens all the time in these discussions).
And no to the second question. That would be absurd to express anything that way. Suffering for what is right temporarily can be something that finds God's favor (and God's reward), but not everyone suffers in such a way... so it would not be universal...but would only be exclusive to those who suffered for what was righteous.
Breckmin Once again our disagreement will come down to what you mean by free will. It seems to me that your concept makes no sense if there is no criteria to determine if something has free will or not. What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for Free Will?
the necessary conditions are a creature who can self-generate thought, self-generate creativity, self-generate agreement and love, self-determine the outcome in a valid choice between two or more options. Free will is a "will that is free" to choose between options... or self-create thoughts... However, circumstances which "limit" options are distinct from a "will that is free."
Breckmin So according to your definition here, someone that is not creative does not have free will. Someone that is stubborn and refuses to agree does not have free will. Someone that only hates is not free? Someone that does not think for themselves, but expresses the opinions of others is not free? What you are describing is not at all what is meant by anyone when they talk about free will if so. And if not, you need to provide a better definition of your terms. Also define self generate please? I don't understand it. Most people need things like food, water, and air to generate things like thoughts and love. If that's what you mean then nothing has free will.
We haven't defined evil yet. For me evil is something that is not going according to God's plan. If God is knowing, good, and powerful, then everyhing goes according to his plan. Thus evil does not exist. What we think of evil is not really evil. These things we call evil exist because this world is the best the best possible world or the best possible evolutionary world. In other words, a world where these "evils" don't exist is not the best.
okay, I think you need to posit the other entity in antitesys with God: the Evil, the Satan, where he has the characteristics that prevent people to have a wholly good life . However, not sure which charactestics will be enough for Satan to counter the argument...thinking of it:)
carmel Ka The problem is, can God control Satan? If he cannot then he is not omnipotent. If he can, then he is allowing the evil to happen.
Here it can be counter like:
1.Satan is also omnipotent or
2.Satan is not omnipotent, but enough powerfull hence is tacking long time for God to refute him.
carmel Ka Two omnipotent beings working at counter purposes is impossible, or we are working on different definitions of omnipotent. An omnipotent being must be able to do anything, and if he cannot destroy the other omnipotent being he simply is not omnipotent. To the second point, if God is omnipotent then no finite amount of power even matters. He must be able to destroy satan in an instant. You seem to be arguing for a God that is possibly the most powerful being there is but not able to do anything. That is not omnipotence.
One thing, I don't think your examples are evil enough. You assume that life is better than death. Perhaps murder is not as bad as other forms of evil, such as life imprisonment, or extreme torture. What about the Wisdom of Silenus, or the misanthropic principle? I'm sure that the parent who is forced to watch as their entire family is tortured to death in front of them would rather never been born. What of the fact that the majority of people born will go to Hell (where the same family, if not saved by Christ, must then endure equal or greater eternal torture), therefore it would be a greater good that life never existed at all? These seem to be deeper questions to ask an omnibenevolent god.
Andy B I was just going for the generic ones. If you want to deepen the criticism feel free. Different people find different things evil, but one way or another, it seems really unlikely that anyone will deny the claim that evil exists.
Carneades.org I suppose my point is that evil events could happen to someone, but overall their life was good; however, perhaps there are lives so miserable that it is better for them to have never existed. To me this is far more evil than a good life ending in murder or painful disease. Add to that that most people will go to eternal hell under the doctrines of Christianity or Islam, and it seems the creation of life itself is an evil act. Hell was not a component of the original proposition, but if we do include it the problem of evil becomes insurmountable.
Andy B It does seem to me that concepts of heaven and hell are really problematic not only for the problem of evil, but also for Plantinga's solution. If free will is better than forced good, can people do evil in heaven? If being determined is worse than being free, are people not free in hell? There's quite a few problems that appear when you bring in the idea of the afterlife.
Free will?
The Free Will Defense is a strong argument, but there are several responses to it: e.g. The Free Will Dilemma ua-cam.com/video/iSwkBsBARwM/v-deo.html and the Partial Free Will Argument ua-cam.com/video/znh8-N6QYXE/v-deo.html
Evil is a Social construct. If humans never existed there wouldn't be something called Evil. Nor something called God
I don't believe in God. I have an alternative argument for "the problem of evil". What if there is no such thing as "evil" in our universe. I recognize that bad things happen. I recognize that there are things that are generally good(and bad) for most people. I feel that all bad things exist because we(as a species) have not learned all of our lessons yet.
Interesting claim. Do you think that we will ever be able to eliminate all "bad" experiences from the world? Epicurus argued that pleasure is the relief from pain, the movie Plesantville has is an argument for why a world without pain might not be a good thing (perhaps making the idea of an all powerful, all good God internally inconsistent).
@@CarneadesOfCyrene On your question "Do you think that we will ever be able to eliminate all "bad" experiences from the world?". It depends if we survive long enough and learn enough, then yes I think it could happen. I would think that mankind would be a lot more evolved by then. We would probably be a type 3 civilization by then.
God is very rotten and evil for punishing me with singleness.