God could’ve created us with much stronger immune systems such that there would be no pandemics which have decimated whole populations of people. At the very least, he could’ve given us the knowledge to cure these diseases the day after he created us, but he didn’t even do that.
God could’ve created us with self-regenerating bodies. When we receive a cut, it heals itself over time, as does a sprained ankle, or even a broken bone.
http://adebateontheproblemofevil.blogspot.com/2007/01/extent-of-suffering-in-our-world-makes.html
Notice how, on the one hand, Loftus leaves the fall out of consideration while, on the other hand, he omits glorification.
He creates an artificial problem of evil by truncating the Christian philosophy of history at both ends. A classic straw man argument.
"We find a lot of things in nature that God could’ve done for us. He could’ve made us all vegetarians, as I mentioned, given us wings on our backs so we could fly to safety if we fell off a cliff, and gills to keep us from drowning."
ReplyDeleteWhile we're at it, why doesn't God make rainbows appear everywhere so we can always feel warm and fuzzy inside? And pots of gold underneath rainbows so we can all be rich and not have to worry about anything ever again? And why doesn't God make real leprechauns or, for Middle Easterners (although perhaps Loftus is right, we should all be one color), genies that will grants us three wishes -- which I'd promise to use for the good of humanity! Well, after making myself as wealthy as Bill Gates and married to a supermodel.
And why doesn't God send his angels to save everyone who tries to commit suicide by jumping off of a cliff? And why doesn't God make rocks turn into bread for starving Ethiopians? And why doesn't God unite all the kingdoms of the world under a benevolent ruler so we can have world peace?
And in fact, why doesn't God just create a world without suffering or death, where everything is picture perfect; where all people everywhere lived in harmony with one another; where everyone always strives to care for and provide for one another; where there are no murderers, adulterers, liars, thieves, or other immoral people; where the ones you love most never leave you; where evey day is a new day in which to thank God for His amazing grace and infinite love and mercy towards us; where we can all be one family united in the bonds of brotherly and sisterly love for one another, abiding forever and ever in the Eternal City of Peace; and where we can sing songs of the deepest gratitude imaginable for our Heavenly Father Who loved us and gave us all when He gave us His only begotten Son to die for our sins, and bring us home to Him, that is, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?
Don't Christians have an answer?
You're correct in pointing out a flaw in John's argument. He's saying that there's an internal problem within the theist's view, but then he proceeds as if the fall, etc., never happened.
ReplyDeleteHis argument also depends on the view that pain/pleasure are the top priority, subordinate to truth, justice, love, free will, morality, virtue, obedience to God, and a number of other things theists would consider more important that pain/pleasure.
Interestingly, in our second debate, Reginald Finley noticed that, because of the priorities atheists bring to the discussion, the argument from evil is an atheist presuppositionalist argument. John called this claim "the stupidest" comment of the debate, but Reggie's entirely correct.
John Loftus wrote:
ReplyDelete---
You can scoff at my suggestions all you want to, but you are really scoffing at the notion of what an omnipotent God can do, and what an omniscient and omnibenelovent God knows what's right to do. Scoff all you want to, but realize exactly what you are scoffing at, and it's not me. It's your own God.
---
Actually, it is you.
The "God" you've presented isn't my God. It's not the God of the Bible. It's a God you invented. It's a God that YOU think would be a better God than the One that is.
This demonstrates more about you than it does about God.
It's hard to interact with random "suggestions" that are thrown out there as an "improvement" to what God has done when you have demonstrated a complete inability to understand the Christian view on the purpose for why God has done as He has done.
Let's take it out of the emotionally charged issue for a minute. Suppose you argue the following:
1) A car's engine would produce more horse power on corn oil than gasoline.
2) Car engines don't run on corn oil.
3) Therefore, the designer of the engine did a poor job.
Let us assume that 1) is valid for the purposes of this argument, even though it's not. What's the fallacy in the rest of this argument?
The answer: it assumes the designer of the engine designed the engine for the purpose of producing more horsepower. But if the designer of the engine was instead interested in making a cost-efficient engine and gasoline was more cost-effecient, how can you say the designer did a bad job? He did exactly what he wanted to do, even if it's not what you would have prefered he do.
In the same way, John, you are importing your understanding of what would make the world better from your perspective. But God didn't create the world for your benefit. God had His own purpose and reasons for creating the world as He saw fit.
Surely you can see that simply because you may prefer something one way doesn't mean God messed up. It only means that if YOU had done it and it had turned out this way, then YOU would have messed up. Nothing more.
"At the very least, he could’ve given us the knowledge to cure these diseases the *day after he created us*, but he didn’t even do that."
ReplyDeleteLoftus,
There *weren't any* diseases to cure the day after he created man (Day 6). The day after was Day 7, when God rested from creating.
The Fall can't have taken place until after Day 7, because on Day 7 God pronounced his creation 'very good'.
The Fall brought death into the world as a punishment for sin. (*In fact God warned Adam before hand that this would happen*). Everyone who has lived after Adam has sinned. There is none righteous, no, not one.
For sinning against an infinitely holy God we deserve nothing but eternal hellfire, but *instead* God mercifully lets the sun shine on the just and the unjust, and he has redeemed an elect remnant through the infinitely painful and loving sacrifice of his only Son, Jesus Christ.
However there will come a day when everyone who is not in Christ (you?) will be cast into the outer darkness to be tormented day and night forever and ever.
And that's why there's suffering in the world. It's *your own fault*.
JOHN W. LOFTUS SAID:
ReplyDelete"You guys just don't get it. I'm not asking for all or nothing changes in our world here, given that it exists. I'm suggesting several minor improvements, any one of which would improve this given world, but taken together they would drastically improve this world."
1. You're merely asserting that X would be an improvement, without bothering to consider (i) if X is physically possible, or (ii) if X, while beneficent in and of itself, would have maleficent long-range consequence which would lower the overall quality of life.
2. It's a presupposition of Christian theology that the present state of the world is not as good as it could be, due to the Fall. So your objection is a straw man argument.
The real question is whether the Fall is instrumental to a greater good that is otherwise obtainable apart from the Fall.
"Furthermore, if this world were improved as I suggested it would reveal behind it all a God that wouldn't have skeptics like me arguing against his existence due to the suffering we see in this world."
The existence of sceptics like you is not a problem for my theology. Apostates are not inconsistent with Calvinism. Indeed, Calvinism implies the existence of apostates. Apostates are reprobates.
The existence of reprobates is not a point of tension in Reformed theology, but a central feature of Reformed theology.
"You can scoff at my suggestions all you want to, but you are really scoffing at the notion of what an omnipotent God can do, and what an omniscient and omnibenelovent God knows what's right to do."
1. I deny that God is omnibenevolent. God is benevolent, not omnibenevolent.
2. You fall into a schoolboy misdefinition of omnipotence. Omnipotence doesn't mean that anything whatsoever is possible.
If you are going to propose natural improvements to the natural world, then there are natural limits to nature. Upper maxima. Tradeoffs between the output of one subsystem and another interrelated subsystem.
John W. Loftus said:
ReplyDelete"I was beginning to think you were going to leave me alone because my arguments were just too dumb for you to bother with anymore."
Never underestimate the power of a truly dumb idea. When men hate God, any alternative, however harmful or stupid, is preferable. Take dialectical materialism as a case in point.