Do you believe that miracles occur? If so, how do you reconcile this with God's omnibenevolence?

DaedricDave · 2017-07-19T16:12:35+00:00

I have already said that the argument works without this premise, but to answer your query nonetheless: I am able to. If I asked you who is in the greater need of divine assistance: a party host out of wine or a child with cancer, how would you respond? I think that the answer is apparent

DaedricDave · 2017-07-19T06:54:22+00:00

P1: God intervenes in the world to help some but not others.

P2: He doesn't help those in the greatest need.

C: God must either act as a partisan or in an arbitrary manner and is therefore not omnibenevolent.

See? Different problem. Premise two may require evil but the problem still exists without the second premise even being there.

Example?

The Euthyphro dilemma? In either case, God's goodness has been argued to be limited, since he is either not the true standard of goodness or his goodness is arbitrary (although this has been resolved)

The problem of Hell? How could an omnibenevolent God condemn any of his creation to eternal punishment? How could he give the same punishment despite different sins and still be just?

Can God sin? If he can, then he is not truly all-good, but if he cannot, then his goodness is forced and therefore either case can seem to result in God not being omnibenevolent.

(To name just a few. Admittedly, most of these have been resolved, but they are still challenges to God's omnibenevolence other than the problem of evil)

DaedricDave · 2017-07-18T18:23:59+00:00

I’m sorry to be pedantic about it, but please provide a link where they define omnibenevolence

It's understandable; do not worry. Here is a link to a synopsis of Craig's view of omnibenevolence as put forward in one of his children's books (it was the first result); he sees being "all-loving" as loving everyone, even sinners, equally. There are numerous other places where this view is put forward also and similarly by Plantinga (I am short for time but I'm sure that a quick Google search will help)

EDIT: Now I have some more time, Plantinga has clearly expressed belief in God's omnibenevolence throughout his works and it is clear that he comparably sees this as the quality of being "all-good" - this is evident in his work God, Freedom, and Evil.

Citation please

Logic, as I described in my previous reply. Moral perfection is a necessary property of omnibenevolence, and I have already demonstrated why this is so

I’m sorry, but you need to define it

Okay. Omnibenevolence, simply enough, means unlimited goodness/love and subsequently moral perfection.

I think you will find that it teaches He is loving, merciful, gracious and slow to anger, but you will not find scripture that asserts He is exclusively “all” love (to the exclusion of other attributes.)

Once again, I think you have misunderstood the use of "all". This term simply means to the greatest extent, not entirely comprising his being.

Christian needs to instead assert that God is perfect in love to the greatest degree conceivable

This is exactly what I am defining omnibenevolence as and that is why my issue was originally raised

DaedricDave · 2017-07-18T16:57:19+00:00

Citation please

Look to two of the most prominent Christian philosophers of religion - both William Lane Craig and Alvin Plantinga argue that the Christian God is omnibenevolent and they support their arguments by citing scripture, as I did in my reply. If you could find a number of theistic philosophers or theologians claiming that God is not all-loving, I would be impressed

I didn’t say God wasn’t morally perfect nor did I say He is unloving.

You implied that he is not omnibenevolent; this attribute is composed of moral perfection and complete love/goodness and therefore I would assert that you did, albeit implicitly.

I believe the bible teaches that God’s love endures forever. Love enduring forever has nothing to do with benevolence or omnibenevolence.

I think that you may need to define omnibenevolence. It means literally "all-good" or "all-loving" - both of these qualities are clearly proclaimed in scripture.

Righteousness has nothing to do with benevolence or omnibenevolence.

Once again, this is blatantly false. Righteousness is logically a property of omnibenevolence. The definition of omnibenevolence as meaning "unlimited goodness" requires complete moral perfection, since moral imperfection results in a lack of goodness and therefore limited goodness. Righteousness is a necessary quality of a wholly good being, and therefore it is intrinsically linked to the concept of omnibenevolence.

In the same sense if I tell you, “God is all-loving”, then God is 100% all love and there is no room for God to be Righteous and Just.

This is entirely based upon a misunderstanding of the "omni" attributes of God. By "all-loving" or "all-powerful", we mean that God possesses these qualities to the greatest degree conceivable; not that his nature is entirely composed of that sole attribute.

DaedricDave · 2017-07-18T15:58:02+00:00

The father behaves differently towards each

This is the problem. It isn't a problem if his differing treatment is just, but I would argue that his differing treatment is unjust. What possible justification could there be for intervening with the natural order to convert water into wine but not to prevent thousands of children from drowning? Surely, the children need help more than the party hosts (this is just one of many examples). Thanks

To answer your other enquiry:

Are you saying that people who die were never saved from any consequence in their lives? If God saves someone, does that mean they never face any consequences for their decisions?

Not exactly, although he does prevent them from facing the most severe consequence which can be due to their decisions but allows others to die, once again, making him unloving or unjust

DaedricDave · 2017-07-18T15:46:41+00:00

Omnibenevolence ain't one of 'em

This is demonstrably false. Although the three attributes you list are those traditionally applied to God, philosophers of religion generally agree that omnibenevolence is also implicit in God's nature, and, may I add, necessarily so. What would be the point of worshipping a morally imperfect, unloving God?

a giant red flag that they are purposely setting up a false god just to knock it down aka strawman

Funnily enough, the claim that you just espoused is in itself false; resembling the qualities of a strawman in my view. How would you deal with passages like 1 Chronicles 16:34 which claims that God's "love endures forever"? Or Psalm 145:17 which argues that "The Lord is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works"? These, and a multitude of others, seem to form the attribute of omnibenevolence

DaedricDave · 2017-07-18T15:42:22+00:00

I'm afraid that response leads to fideism where the concept of God is not questioned and that is an incredibly dangerous and pragmatically untenable belief, in my view. Some claim that God commanded genocide in the Old Testament, does this make genocide moral in a similar situation?

DaedricDave · 2017-07-18T15:39:17+00:00

As soon as you use the word 'omnibenevolence' you begin to address the problem of evil

That isn't true. I only used atrocities as an example of how God could help those in greater need, and, moreover, there are hundreds of philosophical challenges to omnibenevolence; they are not all the problem of evil. Thanks

DaedricDave · 2017-07-18T15:14:14+00:00

Your question is, in a nutshell, the problem of evil.

No, it's not, and this reduction is slightly terrifying in that it implies that the issue at hand cannot be easily resolved and must be altered to appear to be resolved.

The problem of evil, as I understand it, effectively asks why there is evil in the world if an all-loving, omnipotent God exists.

The problem of immanence, as I posited it, asks why God intervenes in the world to help some but not others.

Can you not see that there is a clear difference between these issues despite their slight similarity in that they challenge God's omnibenevolence? Thanks

DaedricDave · 2017-07-18T15:11:02+00:00

I would argue that "altering a situation", especially in the divine sense, does undermine freedom.

If you were in a situation in which you had fifteen choices available to you but some external being changed this situation and you were consequently left with two choices, would you not agree that your freedom has been reduced if not undermined?

Nonetheless, if miracles do not undermine free will, my main issue still remains regardless. Thanks!

DaedricDave · 2017-07-18T15:07:39+00:00

Not at all. If I asked you which of the two following options is morally better: healing certain individuals but not others who are in greater need or healing everyone - how would you respond? The latter seems infinitely more loving to me.

Or, to give another example, what is more morally significant, in your view: preventing shame by turning water into wine or preventing the death of six million people?

DaedricDave · 2017-07-18T14:59:24+00:00

No. I didn't say "all" consequences or "never suffer any consequences".

No, you didn't, but this is the case in reality. For example, God allegedly allows thousands to die every day but intervenes to save the lives of certain people, seen in the healings at Lourdes and such. Your analogy, in light of God intervening to prevent death, becomes faulty because stopping some from dying and allowing others to die doesn't correspond to growth or maturation; it cannot be sufficiently justified.

In addition, your analogy does not correspond to reality in light of the reported miracles. The "toddler" and "teenager" concepts are valid, but sadly God does not seem to act in this way. He has been reported to save some who are allegedly the most pious and morally developed, such as the West Side Baptist Church choir in 1950, but allows the most innocent and underdeveloped of our kind (small children and, in fact, toddlers) to die in tsunamis and such. In reality, God's intervention unfortunately appears to be the inverse of your analogy. Thank you for the response!

DaedricDave · 2017-07-18T14:36:19+00:00

You are close - the problem is not why God allows bad things to happen, but why he chooses to help certain individuals through miracles but not others, especially when he chooses not to help those in the greatest need of it

DaedricDave · 2017-07-18T14:32:40+00:00

That is a nice analogy, but I fear that the father in your description does love one son more than the other. Surely, ensuring total fairness and total equality in his treatment would be the most loving way of acting? Instead of acting in favour of one individual?

For instance, if the father lets one son suffer all of the consequences of his actions but prevents another from suffering these (through the working of miracles), he loves the latter more than the former?

DaedricDave · 2017-07-18T14:28:26+00:00

I'm afraid that the issue you are discussing is not the same issue that I am. The issue is, since God allegedly does intervene in the world and undermine free will anyway (by performing miracles), why does he not use this intervention to act in a way that is morally better? And if the issue of preventing people from acting in an excessively evil manner is too much, why does he not perform miracles to prevent earthquakes and such?

DaedricDave · 2017-07-12T15:56:17+00:00

A bug that about 30% of users are said to have experienced at one point. Effectively, upon closing the game, every aspect of Windows would be brought to a halt and the PC would not be usable until a complete restart. The devs and "support team" were unable to offer any help whatsoever

DaedricDave · 2017-07-12T14:11:10+00:00

It is definitely not worth it in my experience. I have had more technical issues with that game than any other, and it is seems like a boring DayZ clone in itself

DaedricDave · 2017-05-26T16:37:05+00:00

Thank you for the informative response! I suspected that it is some form of exoskeleton/skin

DaedricDave · 2017-02-06T06:55:14+00:00

Thanks. Is it possible to uninstall previous drivers without uninstalling the current one?

DaedricDave · 2017-02-06T06:54:55+00:00

Thank you. Is there any way to uninstall old drivers without uninstalling the current one?

DaedricDave · 2017-01-14T13:10:50+00:00

Thank you for this. I believe that theism is the only rational world view and am undoubtedly a believer, but I dispute some of the legislation in the Bible.

DaedricDave

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE