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Originally posted by xZodiacx
My point here is that God is loving. He does make sense and we should not blame him for the things that we have done to this World. I hate to break it to ya, but it is our fault people.
(a) God is omnipotent, omniscient, and all-good and God creates free men who sometimes perform morally evil actions.
What Mackie says, I think, may best be construed as an argument for the conclusion that (a) is necessarily false; in other words, that God is omnipoten, omniscient, and all good entails no free men He creates ever perform morally evil actions. Mackie’s argument seems to have the following structure:
(1) God is omnipotent and omniscient and all-good.
(2) If god is omnipotent, He can create any logically possible state of affairs.
(3) God can create any logically possible state of affiars. (1,2)
(4) That all free men do what is right on every occasion is a logically possible state of affairs.
(5) God can create free men such that they always do what is right. (4, 3)
(6) If God can create free men such that they always do what is right and God is all-good, then any free men created by God always do what is right
(7) Any free men created by God always do what is right (1, 5, 6)
(8) No free men created by God ever perform morally evil actions (7)
Doubtless the Free Will Defender will concede the truth of (4); there is difficulty
with (2), however; for
(a) That there are men who are not created by God is a logically possible state of affairs
is clearly true. But (2) and (a) entail
(b) If God is omnipotent, God can create men who are not created by God.
And (b), of course, is false; (2) must be revised. The obvious way to repair it seems to be something like the following:
(2’) If God is omnipotent, then God can create any state of affairs S such that God creates S is consistent.
Similarly, (3) must be revised:
(3’) God can create any state of affairs S such that God creates S is consistent.
(1’) and (3’) do not seem to suffer from the faults besetting (1) and (3); but now it is not at all evident that (3’) and (4) entail
(5) God can create free men such that they always do what is right
as the original argument claims. To see this, we must note that (5) is true only if
(5a) God creates free men such that they always do what is right
is consistent. But (5a), one might think, is equivalent to:
(5b) God creates free men and brings it about that they always freely do what is right
And (5b), of course, is not consistent; for if God brings it about that the men He creates always do what is right, then they do not do what is right freely. So if (5a) is taken to express (5b), then (5) is clearly false and clearly not entailed by (3’) and (4).
On the other hand, (5a) could conceivably be used to express:
(5c) God creates free en and these free men always do what is right.
(5c) is surely consistent; it is indeed logically possible that God creates free men and that the free men created by Him always do what is right. And conceivably the objector is using (5) to express this possibility – i.e., it may be that (5) is meant to express:
(5d) the proposition God creates free men and the free men created by God always do what is right is consistent.
If (5) is equivalent to (5d), then (5) is true – in fact necessarily true (and hence trivially entailed by (3’) and (4)). But now the difficulty crops up with respect to (6) which, given the equivalence of (5) and (5d) is equivalent to
(6’) If God is all-good and the proposition God creates free men and the free men He creates always do what is right is consistent, then any free men created by God always do what is right.
Originally posted by xZodiacx
I strongly believe that people choose not to understand God because they need someone to blame their wrong-doings on. Most of humanity is too egocentric and they need something to blame every single thing they do wrong ON HIM! They believe that it is Gods fault that there is famine in the World. It is God's fault that there is evil in the World.
People wonder...if God is so great than why did He make this such a disease-ridden evil World? Well I have news for everyone (for those that have not yet been able to understand this), IT IS NOT GODS FAULT IT IS YOURS!! God gave us free will, we took advantage of it, and we are mad because through our free will, we turned our World into a crap hole
My point here is that God is loving. He does make sense and we should not blame him for the things that we have done to this World. I hate to break it to ya, but it is our fault people.
Originally posted by WhoKnows100
Yes, people do intellectually reject God based on these reasons, and often blasphemy Him if He did exist yet allowed the evil in the world. But these people, and I was one at one time, expect us to live in an utopia if God was really there. Evolution has ingrained this line of thinking into beliefs, because it's version of creation (e.g. No God) seemingly accounts for our present non-utopia. But the thought that is missing is this: God created mankind just as He planned, with murderous impulses, evil and good thoughts, and spiritual blindness. God created our environment just as He planned. Both your view and their view ignore this line of thinking - that God created our present day reality, and that mankind in its present state, either makes it better or makes it worse depending on their beliefs and resulting actions. God is sovereign and complete authority.
As above, our actions are done by us. If we pollute, the environment becomes polluted. If we murder, a life dies. If we choose to cheat on our spouse, the family suffers the consequences. If we do not teach famine ridden areas how to grow their own food, they are forever dependent on others. None of these things are caused by God per se, yet people who believe that God would have created an utopia if He truly existed, seek to blame Him. This is the oft used argument by atheists for rejecting God - that IF He did exist, that He must be a cruel God to allow famine, disease and atrocities to be committed.
Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."
Why did Jesus say this as they were murdering Him? Because God's plan was to fulfill His promises in scripture, and in order to have it accomplished, those calling for His murder had no inkling that God had blinded them to fulfill HIS PLAN FOR HUMANITY. Anyone who is called to Christ, encounters this reality. We see it today as elite groups are doing wicked and evil things to this world, from manipulating beliefs, creating wars, destroying the image of Jesus in the minds of millions of the descendants of the people Israel, yet they are accomplishing God's Will. Many of us, as we are persecuted for our Faith, will be led by the Holy Spirit to forgive them for they "know not what they do".
Originally posted by xZodiacx
My point here is that God is loving. He does make sense and we should not blame him for the things that we have done to this World. I hate to break it to ya, but it is our fault people.
Originally posted by acmpnsfal
Originally posted by WhoKnows100
If god is all powerful why not just get rid of the middle man and create us without sin and without the need to be saved?