This week, we have been talking a lot about puzzles that arise when considering whether a “OOO-being” can exist. I found this discussion very interesting, and honestly, it has taken me a while to wrap my head around the ideas we have discussed and formulate my own opinion.
The idea of omniscience, in particular, is very intriguing to me. Omniscience is one of the traits that most people would automatically bring up whenever they are asked to prove the existence of God. However, the puzzle that arises is that an all-knowing God cannot also be all-loving, another important trait of a OOO-being. I find this puzzle very interesting.
Take this into consideration: If God knows everything that is going to happen in the world, before it happens, then why do terrible people and things exist? God should be able to prevent the creation of cancer, because He is all-powerful, and clearly if He is all-knowing, then He knew a long time ago just how much suffering it would cause. Not to mention, He is supposed to be all-loving. Yet, cancer still exists, and kills people every day. If He is all three of these things (omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent), then there shouldn’t be any reason for cancer to exist. The same puzzle can be applied to the existence of figures such as Hitler, bin Laden, Stalin, and others. Why would God allow them to exist when he clearly knew just how much destruction they would cause during their lifetimes? Does He truly love all of mankind if He is allowing them to suffer? Or does He allow it for the sake of the “greater good”, and teaching us to love one another? These are the questions that are often posed when considering whether a OOO-being can really exist, and questions that I have debated in the past. Maybe there is an explanation that can justify the existence of such cruelties while still staying true to the idea of a OOO-being, but for now, it seems to me that it is impossible for God to have foreknowledge of them and still be the omnibenevolent being that so many people think of him as.
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All-loving doesn’t to me indicate that nothing bad would ever happen. I am a fan of “everything happens for a reason;” in the case of the examples of specific people you name, yes they did terrible things- but their actions triggered good things. Hitler for example was an awful awful person who did really terrible things, primarily to people for the Jewish faith (although concentration camps also housed other “undesirables” such as gypsies, vagrants and beggars, homosexuals, the disabled, German citizens who were too overtly anti-Nazi, resistance fighters, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Serbs, and Polish intelligetsia). But consider this: Hitler, through his abhorrent actions, created a global atmosphere of sympathy for the Jewish people which previously had been nonexistent and which ultimately led to the creation of the country of Israel and the reinstatement of a Jewish homeland. Could you then argue that all of that was supposed to happen? Which of course then brings up the question: why would God not come up with a kinder way to arrive at the same outcome? To which my answer is that World War II had so very many consequences other than just Israel that it would be impossible to number them all. There’s good things like the formation of the UN, and the end of the Great depression, the end of the depression also being felt in Europe and of course obvious bad things like all of the people who died. I would therefore like to propose that, for reasons we cannot understand purely because we are not omniscient (and could not possibly know every effect of this cause on every person in every location of World War II, nor accurately predict the effect of this cause on every person in every location if World War II had not occurred, nor take into account how all those affected people go on to interact with and in turn affect countless others, and the “nors” just keep stacking. You get the idea), it may be assumed that World War II was allowed to happen because it was the best option, and was therefore the morally perfect action of an omnibenevolent, omniscient, omnipresent being.
I agree with a lot of what you have said in this post. I must admit that the discussions that we’ve had in class lately have made me think deeply about the existence of a OOO-being. While I do believe in God, I’m not convinced that I have ever quite believed in the idea of a OOO-being.
As far as omnibenevolence is concerned, I really liked your point that God allows destruction “…for the sake of the “greater good”.” I have never been one to believe in foreknowledge, but rather the idea that God has put us here with a plan, but that plan is not set in stone. Thus, He can in no way be omnibenevolent. I am a strong believer in fate and I feel that God knows where He wants us to end up, but he doesn’t plan the path that will lead us there. Then there is question of your point of, specifically, cancer being in existence. Typically when one develops cancer there are limited ways that this person could have avoided it. So does this necessarily mean that God does, in fact, have foreknowledge and allowed for a person to develop cancer?
Considering the points that you have made in your post, I’m wondering what you think of this idea: if God has limited foreknowledge and is not omnibenevolent, then it must be that we as humans have maximum control over our lives.
I have also been contemplating the idea of God being omnibenevolent, and agree with your idea that God allows our actions to happen for the “greater good” of humanity. Although I have to comment on is the idea of evil and why we believe God allows it to happen anyway, and the idea that God may not be omnibenevolent.
Think of it this way: how is anything determined to be good or evil? The answer is based on the perspective of the person viewing it. Hitler believed the Holocaust was for the greater good of the German people, but the rest of the world viewed his actions as evil. God did not stop Hitler from causing mass genocide because Hitler and the majority of German people viewed the action as good. If God is truly omnibenevolent, then he would not be able to stop the actions of someone who views the actions as good.
Evil is a term that was defined by humans through language and perspective, thus God has no way of knowing if our actions are truly good or evil, so in my belief he refrains from intervention and allows things to play out. This, in turn, would mean the God is not omnibenevolent and we have complete control over our own actions. But of course that is just my view of the situation.
I agree with you joki. Catholic belief also states that “God gave us free will”, but if free will allows us to commit crimes , how can God be omnibenevolent? And if God took away our free will in order to become omnibenevolent, then how would he be always fair? Is the right to free will even a fair trait? Could it not be argued that free will is unfair because it allows evil? Also, saying we do have free will, it could be said that God is not omniscient because we are deciding our own actions, not having them played out for us. That is, unless God exists in a condition which we cannot grasp and an axis we know not of and is able to find ways around each rule. I like to think of it as how butterflies can see different colors than us, but when we try to imagine these colors we can only fathom the ones we already know. Our brains are simply not prepared to grasp that idea. In any sense, for the knowledge that we do have, it would seem that these traits cannot all exsist at once, disproving either one or all of them.
I always think it is interesting when someone raises the point that if God is omniscient, then why do bad things happen? From my experience, most Christians will defend God in this situation by pointing out that it is not God’s fault, human beings just have the free will to do bad things. I mean that sounds good I guess, when you discount other bad things like disease and natural disasters but if God was omnibenevolent why would he let all these things happen? Now, in my opinion, the only way to accept that God is both omniscient and omnibenevolent is to forfeit that idea that human beings have free will. If God already knows everything, meaning that he knows exactly what we are going to do before we do it then in a way, everything we do has already been determined. If our actions are already determined, there goes free will. For omnibenevolence, if God is all good then why would he give people the ability to do bad things and to hurt each other?
The point is that I agree that it is hard to accept that there really can be a OOO-being with these problems present. The idea I bring up is that I do not think there can be a being who is both omniscient and omnibenevolent if he allows humans to do bad things, which would rule out the idea that we have free will. If everything is determined that means God knows fully well what bad things people are going to do but still allows them to happen. His omniscience being challenged by his omnibenevolnce. This is very puzzling and I do not think I could accept the existence of a OOO-being without a sufficient explanation as well.
I think that a lot of what we view in the world as good, only exists as a good thing because there are bad things in the world as well. Let me explain…
If you went your whole life eating one food you would be fine, but you would only know what that one food tastes like. But since we have a variety of foods in our diet we are able to differentiate between flavors. We are able to choose which foods we like and which foods we don’t like. It is the same thing with “good” and “evil”. Bad things in our world can only exist because there are also good things in the world, and visa versa.
Would a “good” thing like a hug from a friend ever feel good if you never felt the “bad” feeling of loneliness? Would the “good” warmth of sunshine still feel good if you never felt the “bad” cold of winter? Would “good” world peace ever be wanted if we never saw the “bad” horrors of war?
I know your question still stands as to why God even allows bad things if all things could be good. To which I would ask back, would it be possible for God to even be good, if there was no bad to judge it by? Is it possible that God allows for the existence of bad things in order to make him and his overall plan good in the long run? I think the answer is yes, and this points to his omnibenevolence. He and his plan are good, but in order for that to happen there needs to be some bad along the way.
The idea of omnibenevolence has always made me question the existence of God and has tested my faith. Lately I have realized that if God did eliminate all evil things and suffering than we would not have free will.
Our discussion about vicious pleasure in class made me wonder why temptation and evil even exists in the first place, but then I realized that if the world was perfect and if God eliminated all things impure and evil than we would not have control over our own actions because there would be no other paths in life that we could take.
The reason bad things happen and exist in the world are not God’s fault, nor does that make him not a OOO-being. I believe that He allows us to live in an imperfect world is so that when bad things happen we can seek comfort and peace in Him. Also if there was no temptation then there would be no desire to draw closer to God.
Just because terrible things happen and that God knows that they will does not mean he doesnt love us. It just gives us an opportunity to seek him, which is what he wants.
I agree with rugg9935. I believe that God could be both omnibenevolent and omniscient. The way I see it, god exists outside of time and space and humans understanding. God has the ability to see all the paths and choices we will encounter in our lives and gives humans the free will to choose which paths we take.
I also believe that god can be omnibenevolent because even though there is “evil” in the world god accepts the existence of it as necessary to give humans a reason to believe that there is good also, and not only is there good but that god is the ultimate version of good, pure love. God loves everyone even those who do the bad things because if he didn’t he would be no better than the human race which is what he is supposed to be as a OOO- being.
Do we need the amount of natural disasters and cancer though? It seems like we could still appreciate all of the good things even if there were a bunch less bad things. Wouldn’t an omnibenevolent being provide the bear minimum?
Why doesn’t God come down and hang out with us? Why not just show us that He/She is real, and tell us how we ought to behave? This way there is no more confusion. No need for war over religious beliefs. Doesn’t God want us to be closer with him? Come chill bro.
I agree a lot with what you are saying mill1778. If God is all-loving and has some sort of foreknowledge, then why are there so many terrible things occurring in the world? If He knew beforehand that 9-11 was going to happen, then why didn’t he stop it? It’s questions like these that make me wonder if there really is a God and whether he is as great as we are supposed to believe that he is.
flan2784 says that WWII may have been the best option. How could this have been the best option? There are plenty of ways I could imagine the same positive effects of WWII being created without the death of millions of people. If he wanted us to be more sympathetic to the Jews then why not create us to accept them? Why didn’t He have us all created with the same belief system? If He had created everyone to believe in him and share the same values and beliefs, then there would not have been any wars over religion.
As I said above, “To which my answer is that World War II had so very many consequences other than just Israel that it would be impossible to number them all.” So yes, I too can imagine plenty of ways for a Jewish homeland to be created without WWII, but my point is that when one considers ALL consequences of WWII (not just at a national level, but also at the individual level) we as hmans cannot possibly know how things might have changed if this war had not occured. Maybe someone killed in the fighting would have grown up to be an even worse dictator than Hitler for example. My point is that becasue we don’t actually know how things would be different, we by extension can never know if what happened was indeed a “bad” event. If you want to prove God’s OOO status, then bad events aren’t a point against him, rather we have to trust that for reasons we aren’t aware of the thing that happened truly is the best possible option.
Another way of explaining it: I had a snowboarding accident in highschool that absolutely destroyed my knee. I had to have multiple surgeries and do physical therapy for two full years, I missed out on two and a half seasons of varsity soccer, and I was incredibly upset. But if that hadn’t happened to me, instead of studying Theatre at Fredonia and loving my life I would be in upstate NY, playing soccer and getting an undergrad in English Education, and I would ultimately graduate and spend the rest of my life being just a littel bit miserable without really understanding why. It is easy for me to look at my own past and evaluate how good or bad events have ultimately pushed me onto the path I walk today, but you cannot do this on a global level. There are far too many unknown factors.
Hopefully one of those was a more coherent explaination; I’m not always able to translate my thoughts well.