If you’re not familiar with the action/inaction problem, here is a brief summary. Suppose that a particular action has a moral quality associated with it. If you take that action, you’re doing a good (or bad) thing. The question is, if you don’t take that action, can it be fairly said that you are doing a bad (or good) thing? If you think that it is not “bad” to refrain from doing good, you believe in an action/inaction distinction.
This obviously comes up in real world ethical dilemmas, but one good way to start considering it is through thought experiments such as the trolley problem. Imagine a runaway trolley that’s on course to hit and kill five people who have their feet trapped in the tracks. You could flip a switch and divert the trolley to another track, where it would hit and kill only one trapped person. Should you intervene and save four net lives? Or should you refrain from intervening, so as not to be personally responsible for the death of that one person?
In the trolley problem example, I am of the opinion that there is no real distinction between action and inaction as far as responsibility is concerned. Physically moving your arm in order to flip the switch is not required for your behavior to be considered an “action” in this sense; deciding not to flip the switch is an action too. And it’s an action that makes you just as responsible for the death of five people as flipping the lever would make you responsible for the death of one. You did not set this runaway trolley on its course, and you did not trap these people in the tracks, so you are not really “responsible” in the greatest sense. But you are responsible for how you use the opportunities you have. The switch is right there. People’s lives are at stake. You are involved now, whether you want to be or not.
Next, let’s imagine that you are making your way down the street and you happen upon a baby lying face down in a puddle, coughing and spluttering, helpless to turn itself over. You didn’t put that baby in the puddle, but if you refrain from at the very least turning that baby over, you’re basically as bad as the person who did. Not quite as bad, I realize. You do take on some very slight cost to yourself in turning the baby over: the strain to lift the weight of a baby, say, or having to bend over, or being 30 seconds later to wherever you were headed to. But I think we can agree these costs are minimal, and that ethically speaking you ought to bear them.
I don’t claim any special expertise on this, but I’m inclined to say that the action/inaction distinction increases as the action in question runs up against more of our human limitations. We don’t feel that visceral revulsion toward a person who chooses to go out for a burger and fries instead of donating those five dollars to UNICEF, the way we would about a person who strode on while that baby drowned in a puddle. The farther away from us the suffering is, the more of an inconvenience (or, in some cases, impossibility) it is for us to help with it directly. Certainly, the farther away it is, the harder it is for us to know about the suffering in the first place, and even if we do know about it, it is also harder to understand and empathize with it. And sometimes we are too tired, or busy with other things. Sometimes the finite nature of our resources (time, money, and energy) means that we have to pick some suffering to alleviate and other suffering to ignore. And of course, we deserve to take some modicum of pleasure from our hard-earned cash.
The more obstacles come up between us and someone suffering, the less we can really be blamed for not helping them. Of course, it would be nice if we could. It’s still good to help. It’s just less bad not to. The distinction between action and inaction grows. We can keep going to the extreme of, oh I don’t know, a baby lying face-down in a puddle in a deserted region of a distant country. The baby can’t call for help, there’s nobody nearby, there’s no way for you to find out about it and not much you could do even if you somehow did. By the time you hopped a plane there, took a bus through the countryside, and ran through miles of fields to reach the puddle, the baby would already have drowned. No one in their right mind would blame you for not having saved this baby.
But let’s go back to the opposite extreme. Suppose an actor had perfect knowledge of everything, including suffering — omniscience. They could empathize perfectly with suffering individuals, and understand the need to help. Suppose also that that actor had infinite abilities — omnipotence. Helping to alleviate suffering will never make them tired. They can never be too busy with other things. Money is no object. The state of the art of science and technology is no limitation; an omnipotent actor could cure any affliction even if we have not discovered a treatment, or could teleport to any location, could even be in many locations simultaneously. There are, definitionally, no hurdles to action in the way of an omniscient, omnipotent actor. If this actor were to “let something bad happen,” it would be completely morally equivalent to “doing something bad.”
I don’t need to skirt around my real point here — how many omniscient, omnipotent actors are there? Obviously, we’re talking about the concept of God. I don’t just mean the particular deity of any one religion or sect, but rather any god or set of gods typically claimed to be omnipotent and omniscient as well as generally a force for good in the world — whether in Judaism, or Christianity, or Islam, or Hinduism, or any other theistic belief system. Obviously this has important implications for the problem of evil. (I touched on these implications in this post, but I thought it deserved some elaboration.)
If an omniscient, omnipotent God sees suffering and does nothing to stop it, it is morally equivalent to that God having caused the suffering in the first place. An omnipotent God is by definition not powerless to prevent suffering; God must want that suffering to happen, if it happens. Positing the existence of Satan or other demons who cause this suffering does not help. God must have created these evil beings in the first place, or must at least have the ability to stop them. Choosing not to exercise that ability, like choosing not to flip the switch on the trolley tracks, means actively choosing the outcome.
Jojo the hun on 
Wesley
/ August 3, 2010 at 7:11 pmNFQ -
I still have yet to respond to our past conversation but saw this today and was intrigued; i hope too that some of what i say here will speak to things we spoke of in that conversation.
You have put together an excellent argument here; well thought out and articulated. There are no simple answers to give to questions like this to either hypothetical or real people in the midst of suffering and, sadly, too often people do give trite or incomplete answers either out of ignorance/an uncomfortable desire to “say something” or out of pride/an inability NOT to “say something”. Don’t have the time available at the moment to give a nice, long response but i do want to pose two questions that may get you thinking in a different direction on this issue.
1. a good deal of what you’ve written here about this issue, and in some of our past conversations, reveals a fundamental worldview that, in my opinion, forces many of the conclusions you come to. That worldview is simply this: that MAN (or humanity) is at the center of the universe and therefore any action or inaction that does not come in line with that worldview seems oppressive or (would you use this word?) evil. Basically, the concept that i hold myself viz. that God is at the center of all things and all things are under and subordinate to Him, including myself (see Col. 1:15-20 particularly vs. 17 and 18) does violence to any secular humanist view that tries to place itself at the center of the universe.
2. your comment, “God must want that suffering to happen, if it happens” has the distinction of being both right and wrong all at once. To speak of God “desiring” children to die as parents plead for it’s life, or a woman to be raped, or to have planes fly into the World Trade center is backward and wrong. The reality that the world we live in is not as He created it is obvious everywhere we look around us and see injustice and suferring. That said, it is my belief that God is both omniscient and omnipotent as well as sovereign so that nothing comes to pass that He does not either cause or allow to happen. So while He is certainly powerful enough to stop these things from happening, there is a sense that He does will those things to happen for some purpose either plain or unfathomable to us. But again, this then ties back to the first point: if we are at the center of the universe and there is this omniscient, omnipotent God, how DARE He not employ His power for my benefit!!! See my point?
The idea of two wills in God has been well illustrated in this way:
“Man sometimes with a goodwill wishes something which God does not will, as when a good son wishes his father to live, while God wills him to die. Again, it may happen that man with a bad will wishes what God wills righteously, as when a bad son wishes his father to die, and God also wills it. The former wishes what God wills not, the latter wishes what God also wills. And yet the filial affection of the former is more consonant to the good will of God, though willing differently, than the unnatural affection of the latter, though willing the same thing; so much does approbation or condemnation depend on what it is befitting in man, and what in God to will, and to what end the will of each has respect. For the things which God rightly wills, he sometimes accomplishes by the evil wills of bad men,”
– Augustine.
NFQ
/ August 3, 2010 at 10:50 pmThanks, Wesley. Glad you liked it.
1. I don’t think that humanity is at the center of the universe; I don’t think the universe has a center. In a more poetic sense rather than a geometric one, I see myself and humanity in general as little more than dust specks. Humanity is at the center of my life, though, because I am a human and that makes me care about human things.
I am not sure I follow the nature of your criticism here, though. Christianity teaches than man was made in God’s own image, that God is personally concerned with our well-being, and that the entirety of the universe was given by God to humans for their own use. For centuries, most Western astronomers did not question the assumption that the Earth was the literal center of the universe (and those that did were shunned, or punished more severely) because of the strength of their belief in these ideas.
2. I’m sorry, but your paragraph here reads to me as just alternation between sentences that say “God is in charge of everything” and “God isn’t in charge of the bad stuff.” When you ask, “See my point?” I have to say, “No, not really.” Unless your point is the same as mine — that God either wants humanity to suffer, or is not omnipotent, and neither outcome jives with Christianity’s (and other religions’) worldview.
jorge alvarado
/ August 4, 2010 at 5:57 pm“An omnipotent God is by definition not powerless to prevent suffering; God must want that suffering to happen, if it happens.”
God does not “want” suffering to happen. There is a difference between “wanting” something to happen and “allowing” it happen.
I, as a christian, see it as horrible what the romans did to Jesus before crucifying Him (and even the crucifixion itself). Yet, God was right there (as the Father),watching and “allowing” it. That fact that God “allowed” it to happen tells me He is in control. Everything was going according to His plan for redemption for my very own soul.
In questioning why God does things the way He does, we christians know this:
Rom 11:33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
Rom 11:34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?”
We, in our humanness, can (and do), choose to do what we consider “right or wrong”. Or we can choose to not “act” at all, as you put it, and can justify our actions either way.
Your statement: “If this actor ( God ) were to “let something bad happen,” it would be completely morally equivalent to “doing something bad.” is inaccurate in that you apply a human characteristic to an Almighty God who is well above humanity (and questioning).
NFQ
/ August 4, 2010 at 9:55 pmJorge, you wrote:
My entire post above is my argument against this statement. You have not explained what the difference is, but merely asserted that it is there. What can it possibly mean to say that an omnipotent God didn’t want something to happen, but allowed it to happen? If God really didn’t want it, he would have stopped it.
If you think that what the Romans did to Jesus was horrible, then why is it okay that it was all according to God’s plan and that God was in control? It seems to me that that means God’s plan is horrible, and that his choices about how to exert his control are similarly horrible. By your own description of events, I mean. After all, if it was God’s plan, shouldn’t you believe it was lovely by definition?
Wesley
/ August 4, 2010 at 11:54 pmOk …
not sure where we got off here but i think i was trying to say the same thing as you were about you, personally, being the center of your world. You stated that as, ” Humanity is at the center of my life, though, because I am a human and that makes me care about human things.” I thought it was clear that i wasn’t speaking in literal, geographic terms but in metaphorical and sociological terms: basically, your day and your life are centered around you in general and are ordered by you, as such, in order to acieve the most comfort, enjoyment, etc. For the Christian, this should not be so, and i say “should” b/c there are many who claim to be Christians who don’t seem to get this. All of life should begin with God and His glory and preeminence and our lives should be then ordered as such. It’s been classically illustrated as the “throne of your heart/life” picture where you have a circle representing your life and then a chair in the middle and stuff like work and spouse and God (if He’s part of your life at all), etc all around the chair. Where you place yourself and God and all these other things then has significance for how you order yourt life. The secular humanist would have themselves (perhaps) on the throne and God outside the circle if at all in the picture. Is that more clear what i meant by humanity being at the center of your universe?
You wrote, “Christianity teaches than man was made in God’s own image, that God is personally concerned with our well-being, and that the entirety of the universe was given by God to humans for their own use.”
1. Yes, humans were made in the image of God.
2. Yes, God is personally concerned with our well being, most clearly demonstated by dying for our sins.
3. The earth was not “given” to humans to “do whatever we liked” to it. The specific wording is we were given “dominion” over the earth while the ownership of earth was and still remains God’s – we become a viceroy of sorts then but not owners.
Not sure what your point was in saying that except if you’re trying to say if God made us and gave us the world and wants us to be happy, why would He ever let us not be happy or suffer or not get everything we want?
The quick answer is included in my response to your last sentence, “God either wants humanity to suffer, or is not omnipotent” or basically God either does want us to suffer or can’t do anything about it. The parallel is not complete to be sure, but much of the way God deal with His kids is like a dad. Did your dad love you? Did he give you lots of stuff? Did he do everything he could to make you happy? not perfectly but, probably. Now, did he ever punnish you? did he ever NOT give yousomething you REALLY wanted b/c he knew it wasn’t good for you or would kill you? Did he ever put limits on your freedoms for your own benefit? again, probably. Was that cruel? Was that unjust? Did he not love you in those actions as well as the gifts and hugs?
So on the one hand, sometimes we suffer b/c we want something that will kill us and God says no and we try to do it anyways and suffer b/c of that – this i would say is a big factor in a lot of the suffering we see today; self-inflicted misery b/c we don’t want to do things/live life the way God designed it to be. On the other hand, we are all sinners/rebels by nature and by choice viz. we are born with Adam’s sin AND we also commit sin by comission or omission. It’s easy to get lost in all the warm, fuzzy “God is love” talk and forget that He is also perfectly Just and Holy and cannot tolerate treason. In ANY nation you can name, treason is punnishable by either death or lots of bad stuff. so when we say to the Creator, “I’ll take and use your stuff but i won’t submit to You” we are commiting treason on a cosmic level and God is therfore Just in either detroying us or witholding good from us. The very fact that we are still alive right now and breathing is the mercy of God b/c what we deserve is death.
Then to continue your point about God being omniscient, it seems you must want to make the same claim about yourself b/c if He really is omniscient that means He knows EVERYTHING; even the deepest, darkest secret that we tell no one. So to talk of “innocent people” being detroyed assumes that you know everything down to the most minute detail.
Along with that, if God is rulling and controlling all things and knows everything, then to call something He does wrong or unjust puts you in judgement over God and, again, assumes you see more clearly than He does. It’s the same as someone seeing a rug or a tapestry from behind and seeing a massive tangle of thread andlines with no clear order and saying, “SEE! You have no clue what you’re doing! This is a mess!” all the while not seeing the beautiful artwork on the other side. There are times when the “why” of suffering is not answered but we can be sure there is a purpose to it all and that it is good even if it looks like a mess to us sometimes. You have to claim to know and see as much as He does first though before you can say it is wrong, bad, unjust, etc.
jorge alvarado
/ August 5, 2010 at 1:11 amRe “God does not “want” suffering to happen. There is a difference between “wanting” something to happen and “allowing” it happen.”
Because the world is in a fallen state (I’ll assume you know about the “fall of man” for the sake of time and space here),bad things WILL happen (death, sickness, rebellion, etc.). Not because God wants them to happen but because they are a consequence of man’s disobedience (and we are all cursed by it). Some bad things happen because of recklessness, others from premeditated outright evil by someone, others by accident (remember we have our “free will”). God is not, like in your “trolley problem” scenario just sitting around asking Himself: “what should I do?, what to do?. He’s under no obligation to interfere and “keep us safe” always (again, because of the rebellion). But still, by His grace, He does sometimes.
Re: “If you think that what the Romans did to Jesus was horrible, then why is it okay that it was all according to God’s plan and that God was in control?”
It was OK, and I’m thankful for it, because even though being crucified is a horrible thing, that sacrifice of Jesus is the only thing that allows me to reconcile with God for the aforementioned “fall of man”. It was the blood sacrifice God demanded for my ransom. God’s plan may seem “horrible” to you from a human perspective, but in reality it was the most loving thing Jesus could have done for humanity. Hope this helps clarify.
TC
/ August 5, 2010 at 8:48 amI was absolutely floored by this post. I followed the logic with no preconceived notions of what it could be about, or what its purpose was (I just came across this blog not twenty minutes ago) and was struck by how complete it was. A closed loop, wonderful. Granted, I am an atheist and agree with you on that basic point, but I’m not prone to taking illogical information because it fits with my point of view. This was beautiful, and I’m excited to see what else you have here.
–ThinkingCap
NFQ
/ August 5, 2010 at 11:03 am@Wesley: If your point was that I, an atheist, do not prioritize God above humanity, you’re obviously right. It wouldn’t make sense for me to prioritize something I think is imaginary. It has nothing to do with being selfish or self-centered.
@Wesley and Jorge: If you believe that God is “ruling and controlling all things and knows everything,” then everything that has ever happened is part of his design, and happened by his choice. Including “the fall.” You cannot argue both that your omnipotent, omniscient God is completely in control and that someone one time made an independent decision God didn’t like and now has to react to. That is the entire point of this post.
@ThinkingCap: Thank you! Your comment really made my day. I look forward to seeing you around here in the future! Out of curiosity, how did you find me?
jorge alvarado
/ August 5, 2010 at 1:36 pm“You cannot argue both that your omnipotent, omniscient God is completely in control and that someone one time made an independent decision God didn’t like and now has to react to.”
But that is exactly what happened! (in a nutshell). You got it almost exactly right. You seem to believe that God’s “inaction” when something bad is about to happen speaks of his “inability” or “unwillingness” to do something to stop it (maybe hinting at His being uncaring at best, evil at worst?) is a reason to NOT believe in Him.
As I pointed out, bad things HAD to begin happening once “man” rebelled against God. The fact that God knew Adam would rebel doesn’t mean His plan was flawed, because it happened in keeping with His ultimate plan for redemption. If anything, it affirms my believing even MORE in Him since I know He will keep His “end of the bargain” (meaning the sacrifice Jesus came to fulfill), as long as i don’t faint, but keep the faith, He will raise me up after the last judgement to live forever in peace with Him).
I realize this is foolishness to you, but even that has it’s explanation:
1Co 1:22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom,
1Co 1:23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,
1Co 1:24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
And that’s the crux of it. These truths are for those who are called.
I was trying to address your “real point” of the post. Hope this clarifies.
TC
/ August 5, 2010 at 2:10 pmOh good, I’m happy to hear that! I found your blog in kind of a strange way; it struck me this morning that even though I was an atheist, and disagreed with Christianity, I had never read the bible. I’m also interested in being a writer and biblical references are everywhere, so I figured it was important for me to read it. I google-d something along the lines of ‘reading the bible as an atheist’ just for the heck of it, came across this blog:
http://bs4a.blogspot.com/2006/12/welcome-to-bible-study-for-atheists.html
Scrolled down and looked at the bottom right hand corner where it has links to other blogs, your blog title caught my attention (I’m real big on asking any and all questions and finding the answer, so it was no surprise your blog attracted me) and voila, here I am. Kind of a rambling way, but hey that’s how the good stuff is found.
–ThinkingCap
Wesley
/ August 5, 2010 at 4:15 pmNFQ -
you wrote, “You cannot argue both that your omnipotent, omniscient God is completely in control and that someone one time made an independent decision God didn’t like and now has to react to. That is the entire point of this post.”
Missed the part in your post where you said the “main point” was how the fall of man fit in with God being omniscient and omnipotent but … sounded much more like you were addressing suffering and why God allows it. Either way, the Scriptures are clear that the fall of man was, ultimately, part of God’s plan. Gen 2 hints at this when God says to Adam, “for when you eat of it [the tree of the knowledge of good and evil] you will surely die.” The Bible unashamedly says as well that God made all the angels including Satan/Lucifer and the angels that followed him and were cast out of heaven with him. God was not “caught off guard” by that rebellion or Adam’s. Jesus is referred to as the “Lamb slain before the foundations of the world” meaning God’s plan of salvation (Jesus dying for sins and reconciling us to God) was in place before the earth was ever created.
So no one (at least no one who knows what they’re talking about) is arguing that God is “reacting” to Adam’s sin. God knew that the fall would happen and, ultimately, ordained that it would happen.
I would love it if you would address some of the other things i said in my last reply.
NFQ
/ August 5, 2010 at 5:02 pmWesley — The main point of my post is that an omnipotent, omniscient being must be considered to be morally culpable for all bad things that happen. We can’t give that being a free pass and say that those bad things are anyone else’s fault. (In the same way that sitting idly by and watching a baby drown when you could easily save it is just as bad as having put that helpless baby in the water to begin with.) To the extent that you believe that bad things happen to humans because of original sin, yes, my main point in that sense addresses the fall. I hope that clarifies things.
If you don’t see where I’m going, look at what you just wrote! “God knew that the fall would happen and, ultimately, ordained that it would happen.” What you are saying is that Adam and Eve’s disobedience to God was what God wanted to have happen all along, that in a real sense he made it happen. He set everything up, and let it all go according to his design. I agree that this is how it must be, if God is in fact in control of everything. But then — how could it possibly be said to be just for God to punish humanity for this? In what way does it make sense for us to be expected to grovel and apologize to God for something that two other people, back at the beginning of time, did because God wanted them to?
I believe I’ve been responding to the central ideas you’re advocating, although I admit I’m not going sentence-by-sentence. (If we were to respond in depth to every statement the other made that we disagreed with, these comments would grow exponentially in length.
) Is there some particular point you made above you think I’ve neglected to answer?
Wesley
/ August 5, 2010 at 6:30 pmNFQ -
. It is difficult to grasp, i grant you, how it is that God can be incontrol of all things and yet not morally responsible. To begin, you have to admit we’re diving headlong into philosophy and subjectivity to start making statements like “sitting idly by and watching a baby drown when you could easily save it is just as bad as having put that helpless baby in the water to begin with.” There are many who could convincingly disagree with that statement and then go even further into a concept you’re suggesting of “degrees” of responsibility when you say “as bad as” meaning one action holds more or less bad/good/evil/etc. than another. Is that your understanding?
thanks for your reply and truly, we cna’t respond to every line someone writes … usually
you then write, “In what way does it make sense for us to be expected to grovel and apologize to God for something that two other people, back at the beginning of time, did because God wanted them to?” There are a pile of assumptions packed into that statement.
Firstly, God doesn’t expect us to grovel and appologize: the whole point of the gospel is that no amount of groveling or appologizing or “good deeds” could ever cover over our guilt before God so He sent His Son to die for us and cover it for us. Seems odd to talk about an “unfair/unjust” God who paid the penalty ofr the sin He holds us accountable for, doesn’t it? I agree, if He just said, ‘sorry, you’re all guilty and i’m going to destroy you’ that would be a pretty lame plan, but that isn’t the plan at all; He has provided the “antidote” as it were to the sickness.
Second, you assume that original sin is the only sin we’re being held accountable for. The Bible is clear that we are sinners by both nature (born with original sin) and by choice (the sinful actions of comission and omission). So, you misrepresent the question when you speak of God holding us accountable and destroying us for original sin alone.
The question is often answered by showing the two wills of God: His sovereign will (all that comes to pass) and His moral will which is all that He has revealed to us w/ regard to morality. We are not held accountable for God’s sovereign will b/c none can resist it, but we are held accountable for violating His moral will. So Adam and Eve are not held responsible for God’s plan of salvation working itself out but for choosing to disobey what, at that time, was the only command of God they had to keep viz. don’t eat from that one tree. Their sin may have worked into God’s plan exactly as He willed, but it was their own free choice to disobey and that is what they are held accountable for. If you read the story of Joseph in the Bible this idea is illustrated well. Joseph is hated by his brothers and sold into slavery and through an amazing course of events, becomes a high official in Egypt and then is able to rescue both his family and all of Israel during a massive famine at that time. Now, God didn’t make the brothers hate Jospeh or try to kill him and sell him into slavery and they are morally responsible for those wicked actions, but Joseph shows his clear understanding of the events when he confronts his brother years later when they come to him for food during the famine and he says, “What you meant for evil, God meant for good.” Later in the Psalm 105:17, David writes that God was the one who “sent Joseph into Egypt” so that he would be able to save Israel. So the Bible is clear that God was incontrol of all that was happening, but that the intent of the brothers viz. they “meant” to do evil, was wrong and they were held accountaqble for those actions. So the guilt comes from the violation of the moral will not the sovereign will. Make sense? Clear as mud?
As for my first post there, could you respond about the parent child analogy? Just curious if that resonated at all and clarified my point to you.
NFQ
/ August 5, 2010 at 9:52 pmWesley –
- Yes, I do think that some things are “better” or “worse” than other things. I do not think that there is just “good” and “bad.” I was not aware this was a really controversial idea … do you disagree with it?
- Maybe I should have said “repent and beg forgiveness” instead of “grovel and apologize;” I don’t think those phrases are so different in meaning, but the one I used maybe came off as a bit sarcastic. At any rate, you’re right that we are getting mixed up with two kinds of sin, but we are also (Christianity teaches) supposed to be really grateful that Jesus’ death atoned for my original sin, provided I believe in him. It seems just as weird to me to be grateful about that as it would to have to repent for it myself. Why is this something I would have been held accountable for anyway? How does it make sense for Jesus/God to have atoned for something Adam and Eve did? Why did any atoning have to be done?
- I think the idea that God provided the “sickness” and the “antidote” just makes this whole thing more weird, not less. First of all, the antidote hasn’t really been provided insofar as we are still at all supposedly being punished for original sin. Women still have pain in childbirth, we still have to till the land for food, etc. We’re not back in Eden. Right? It wasn’t all just about going to heaven vs. hell. Secondly, if God was going to make us do something which he’d then say was wrong and then say he’d punish us for it but then provide the means by which everything would be made okay again and we wouldn’t have to suffer — why not just never go into any of that mess in the first place? It’s like someone holding up a knife and being like, “I’m about to stab and kill you!” and then at the last second not stabbing you, but saying it was their plan all along. Would you respond to this by saying, “Oh, thank you for your grace and mercy! I love and worship you for your incredible kindness!” … ? I doubt it.
- I think I understand what you are trying to illustrate with the story of Joseph. Sometimes, you are saying (correct me if I’m wrong), God makes ultimately good things happen by means of seemingly bad things. Your car breaks down, but then you start bicycling to work and the exercise makes you a lot healthier. You get sick, but then it makes you appreciate your life a lot more, and then you get better and are nicer to everyone. And so on. I have two main problems with this understanding of how the world works:
1. Many, many bad things that happen don’t seem to happen for any particular good. Tsunamis that wipe out whole cities. Genocides. Famines. Epidemics of diseases. We are not talking about mild inconveniences that cause an individual to reflect on their life a bit. We’re talking about suffering on an immense scale. Let’s even go slightly smaller scale and ask — what’s the good that God was working through John Wayne Gacy, or Ted Bundy?
2. This seems like a pretty stupid way for an omnipotent being to operate. I mean, if the goal is for each of us to appreciate our lives, and be motivated to exercise, and be nice to our friends and family, etc. then why not just make us that way in the first place? Why say, “It just had to be that eleven million people were murdered by the Nazis, so that we could begin to learn to tolerate those who are different from us. Oh, and almost a million people in Rwanda. And half a million in Cambodia. And so on. And apparently we still haven’t gotten the message. But it had to be this way.” It didn’t have to be this way, if God is really omnipotent — it could have happened any way! If you and I can imagine better ways for humanity to get the message that we should be accepting of cultural differences, surely an omniscient and omnipotent God could have come up with a better plan!
- The parent-child analogy: I see what you’re getting at, but then again, I think you’re assuming that I’m arguing from a selfish perspective. I’m not arguing that every human being should be filthy rich and eating ice cream while riding unicorns or something. I’m just saying that, if there is an omnipotent god looking out for our well-being, I’d expect there to be less child molestation, for example. I mean, sure, my parents didn’t always give me everything I asked for, and I learned to live with that disappointment. But my parents didn’t drown me, set my house on fire, run me over with a bus, or rape me. All things which, I argue, an omnipotent God is effectively doing to people — if he is really omnipotent and in control of everything, if everything that happens happens because he made it so.
- In one of your earlier comments, you wrote that “what we deserve is death.” The philosophy of justice and desert can be complicated, but could you please explain the way in which you think it is reasonable to say that we “deserve” death as punishment for things that God must have made us do in the first place, and which we were never in control of? This is a notion of desert that is utterly foreign to me.
Wesley
/ August 6, 2010 at 11:45 pmOk – let’s see here.
1. repentance for sin and asking for forgiveness is nothing more than turning away from a wrong behaviour or action and asking whomever to be forgiven for that action and any damage it caused – i’d think we do this all the time in myriad situations. I can only assume the audacity of such actions for you comes frmo appologizing for something you didn’t do and might equate it with appologizing for being blonde. The simplt fact is you were born into something that cannot be altered just like you were born into a body that needs oxygen to live. You can rail all you want at the “injustice” that you should have to breath oxygen but, in the end, you’ll still need to breath. So, my feeling for you is: don’t get trapped/stuck on the injustice you might feel at that b/c God knows ( and so do we all) we have lots of other sins we DID do which make us just as guilty so either way, we’re screwed without a Saviour. The Bible is clear that we are all born sinful through Adam but not like you might think – we’re not held guilty for his/her eating an apple or whatever it was; that is not original sin. Original sin is the fracturing of creation so that now, everything is broken and tainted with sin and that includes everything born into that broken, tainted world. So, accept it as “how it is” for now and take it up with Him someday when you meet Him – if the Bible is right/true, it seems like the better alternative don’t you think?
2. Your next question, “Many, many bad things that happen don’t seem to happen for any particular good,” can be answerd simply by your use of the word “seem”. Not being omniscient, there’s an infinite amount of things that happen every day that seem good or bad or like nothing and you couldn’t possibly see how they fit into the tapestry of the whole world. Point being: you’re not supposed to. Everything is not, and does not have to be, explained to you before God can “get on” with what He needs to do. Even at a High School level you would be laughed at if you demanded such explainations for everything the Principal did to run the school. So … i don’t know what good ” God was working through John Wayne Gacy, or Ted Bundy” but He does and there are probably people out there who know in a minute way what good He was doing. But He doesn’t owe anyone an explaination.
2. “if the goal is for each of us to appreciate our lives, and be motivated to exercise, and be nice to our friends and family …” Breifly (and i think you already know this) that’s not the goal at all! Seriously, i’m honestly shocked that you would sum up what you think God’s “goal” is with this Rodney King, Oprah Winfrey, kind stuff. “accepting of cultural differences”?!? If that is your summation then you’ve been listening to the wrong preachers. The story of the Bible and the story of life today and everything before and inbetween is that this whole “thing” a’int about us at all! Now God does bless us and provide for us to be sure, but what God is most concerned about is His Kingdom and His glory. I dunno if you were just waiting for me to write that but God’s plan for humanity as a whole doesn’t hinge on human happiness or us all “getting along nicely.” God’ s plan isn’t to get you to exercise more or value your life more or “be nice” to your angry neighbor – it is that in ALL things He might be glorified. The whole plan hinges on that. Why He allows Satan to continue to exist, why He allows us to prosper or suffer, why He blesses or does not bless is all encapsulated in Him being glorified. And we don’t have to understand all the reasons why or how He’s doing that. If you trust nothing more than the fact that He is good, then your demanding to understand becomes needless. Sometimes we do understand ‘why’ but many times we do not. Not being onmiscient and onmipresent, etc. how could we?
Your last question i answered in my post just before dealing with God’s sovereign and moral will. We are not held accountable for violating soverewign will b/c … well, we can’t, but we are held accountable for violating His moral will which He has clearly laid out for us.
NFQ
/ August 7, 2010 at 12:25 pmWesley, most of your answers at this point boil down to, “That’s just the way it is.” To me, that’s no explanation at all. The scenario you are giving for the way things are is far from the most straightforward way to explain what is going on, and I don’t see any reason to believe your explanation rather than mine (the Bible is an ancient fiction, as are other religions, and the things that happen in our lives happen because of our efforts combined with some random chance).
Imagine I told you that the light in your refrigerator came on because of a tiny man that lives in your refrigerator door. He has the magical ability to see through the metal exterior, and whenever he sees you coming, he turns the light on. Once you’ve closed the door and he sees you walk away, he turns the light off. You might protest — there’s a little switch just inside the refrigerator door frame, and when I open the door it closes the circuit, and the light comes on! When I close the door, the circuit is broken so the light turns off. But I’ll just answer you, “It only seems that way. That’s just the little man’s test for you, you have to triumph over it and believe in him just the same. That’s just the way it is.” Does that make my explanation of refrigerator lights any more convincing? (I hope not.)
You seem to agree with me that if we were expected to apologize for being born with the hair color we have, or to apologize for needing oxygen to survive, that would be unfair. Why, then, is it acceptable for us to be expected to apologize for being born with original sin? What is the difference?
You seem to agree with me that many things that happen in the world seem utterly awful, and for no readily imaginable good purpose. But you say, we’re not supposed to understand, that there are “probably people out there” who do understand, and that’s just how it is. Do you see why that doesn’t sound like much of an explanation either?
Think of it this way: do you have any concrete reason to suppose that a benevolent God, and not a malevolent God or perhaps Satan, is in charge? You could make your arguments equally well in the opposite direction. Sure, there are some seemingly good things happening, but our inferior minds can’t comprehend the malicious intent working behind them. It’s part of a larger narrative greater than us. And we do have direct evidence for this God’s malevolence, in the form of serial killers, and natural disasters, and horrible diseases, etc. You might say, “The Bible says that God is benevolent!” But isn’t that exactly what a malevolent God would do — perpetuate the idea that he was benevolent, so that nobody would want to attempt to resist his evil plans?
My point here isn’t that God is malevolent — it’s that this entire conversation is absurd. If God is equally likely to be one extreme or the complete opposite extreme, the most compelling conclusion (in my mind at least) is that God doesn’t exist at all. (Kind of like how the solution to x = -x is x=0.)
I’m sorry if I offended you — that I shocked you, at least — with my summary of “the goal” that I gave. I didn’t mean to sound flippant, I was only summing up things that I had heard expressed by people who saw “God’s will” working through the happenings of their lives. As in: It felt like such a tragedy when I was diagnosed with cancer, but now I see that God was helping me to appreciate all the wonderful things in life. Or: Praise God for his wisdom when he made my car break down, I’ve been biking to work for the last few weeks and I’ve never felt better! If those were God’s intentions — you’ll notice, so easily inferred, despite God’s infinitely incomprehensible nature in the case of serial killers and natural disasters — then it seems to me that there would be ways to achieve those intentions without such a high cost.
If God’s goal in the Holocaust was not to teach us that respect for others is important (another real claim that I have heard), what was it? How was God glorified through the Holocaust? If you don’t know a way, then what gives you reason to assume that God was glorified in any way at all?
ModerateMoe
/ October 10, 2010 at 6:22 pmAlthough I do not expect to change anyones mind, I would like to address Jorges points about God’s plan. I believe that his thinking goes like this: God gave man free will. Therefore, to preserve man’s will as ‘free’, God does not interfere with man’s freedom of choice, and so God allowed Adam to fall from grace.
Christians believe that God is perfect and cannot make any errors. The Bible also states that God loves us. I know that as a parent, even though I desire to see my children find their own path through this world, I would like to do better than share my life’s experiences with them, and have to punish them when they go astray or see them come to harm through poor judgement. If I were all powerful, I would convey my experience so that using their own free will, they could avoid harm. Since Christians believe that God is all knowing, all loving and all powerful, why would he not do that for us? If follows that he is either not all knowing or all powerful or all loving (or perhaps some combination of the above).
As NFQ has pointed out, we cannot rely on the excuse that as mortals we cannot understand God’s plan after we have defined him with the human understandable traits of unlimited ability and love. If the answer is that we cannot understand his definition of love, then it would be better not to use the human word love in describing God.