Friday, October 25, 2019

Where was God?

As I've explained before, the problem of evil in general, in the stereotypical formulation, has no traction for me. But I find certain kinds of examples personally aggravating. Cases like James Younger are examples where the problem of evil has some emotional pull for me. 

The dilemma is that, in many situations, God doesn't protect the innocent and he doesn't enable others to protect the innocent. God doesn't use his power to intervene, and he doesn't empower others to take up the slack. Now this particular case may eventually get better, but there are other cases like it without any mitigation (in this life).  

But having said all that, it's not as if examples like this drive me into the arms of atheism, or make me even slightly sympathetic to atheism. For one thing, secular progressives are spearheading this atrocity. Evil can't push me into the arms of atheism when atheism is itself a major source of evil. 

It boils down to three options: God, Satan, or atheism. But atheism is diabolical. And it hardly makes sense to switch sides from God to the Devil because of evil–when evil is Satanic. So however vexing the problem of evil can be, God remains the only option, the only ultimate solution. 

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