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daemons do have free will you know.
In the game? Absolutely.
But removing it from them or preferably destroying them entirely would unambiguously make the setting a better place and be utterly morally acceptable given that they're not mortals, never were, and are literally made of pure Evil and wish to destroy the universe.
Any omnipotent being who lets daemons exist as portrayed is utterly uncaring to the point of criminal negligence at best.
I would say it depends on the being and what morally sufficient reasons that being would have for allowing such things to happen.
That's the thing, barring free will...there are no such reasons for an omnipotent being. They can make the world perfect with a wave of their hand and no consequences because that's what being omnipotent means.
If Sarenrae were omnipotent and something bad happened would she be malevolent?
Something like a plague, or a hurricane or a birth defects? Yes. Because she could casually stop it, at no cost or risk, and didn't.
How do you know she would not have "reasons" for not interfering in the lives of mortals?
Such as? What's the valid moral reason to allow things completely outside human control to ruin people's lives or destroy them? I'm curious.
And as i said by using that same type of logic you can say Good things happening means "omnipotent"="benevolent".
Again, nope. It might mean uncaring, but if bad things are happening too...that's not how benevolence combined with limitless power works.
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Again, nope. It might mean uncaring, but if bad things are happening too...that's not how benevolence combined with limitless power works.
Interesting. But then how does it work ? And how could it be distinguished from malevolence combined with limitless power ?
Or maybe the key is that omnipotence does not imply omniscience. Thus even if anything you wish could become true, you might still avoid some actions because you do not know what will happen afterwards.
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There are a large number of Gods, with conflicting goals and methods. It's logically inconsistent to describe more than one of them as being omnipotent.
We've all heard of the immovable object vs. the unstoppable force, which are mutually exclusive concepts. What does it look like when two unstoppable forces get in a slap-fight?
What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? The unstoppable force phases through (quantum tunnels if it has any sort of molecular structure) the immovable object.
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Interesting. But then how does it work ? And how could it be distinguished from malevolence combined with limitless power ?
By what the world is like:
Does the world (not necessarily people) do bad things to people, or good things? If mostly bad, they're malevolent, if universally good they're benevolent, if mixed it's harder to tell, but they're either uncaring or malevolent in some way. Or, of course, there are no omnipotent beings in existence.
It's not that complicated.
Or maybe the key is that omnipotence does not imply omniscience. Thus even if anything you wish could become true, you might still avoid some actions because you do not know what will happen afterwards.
If you're omnipotent you can make yourself omniscient by wishing it so.
Before i can answer this, may i ask do you have an analogy for such a being? As it will determine what i say and how i can answer such questions.
I'm honestly not sure what you're asking. Could you please clarify?
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Interesting. But then how does it work ? And how could it be distinguished from malevolence combined with limitless power ?By what the world is like:
Does the world (not necessarily people) do bad things to people, or good things? If mostly bad, they're malevolent, if universally good they're benevolent, if mixed it's harder to tell, but they're either uncaring or malevolent in some way. Or, of course, there are no omnipotent beings in existence.
It's not that complicated.
Who decides what bad things or good things are ? If it is the people, then it will be biased in their favor.
Nature is True Neutral in the setting (and in the game actually). An avalanche, a disease, any naturally occurring event is Neutral, whether it hurts people or benefits them. Detect Evil does not work on the world ;-)
Or maybe the key is that omnipotence does not imply omniscience. Thus even if anything you wish could become true, you might still avoid some actions because you do not know what will happen afterwards.If you're omnipotent you can make yourself omniscient by wishing it so.
Nope, because you must be able to envision what you wish to become true. An omnipotent deity could not create a plane, let alone a nuclear plant, if it has no idea what that object is.
And if it tried to create it based on its understanding of what another creature describes, the end result will very likely be a parody of a plane, but definitely not the real thing.
In the end, if you are not already omniscient, you just cannot imagine what being omniscient actually means and thus you cannot make it actually come true.
Not because of a lack in power, but because of a lack in understanding.
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Pathfinder deities are crushingly powerful, but not omnipotent.
Hell, you can just look at the cleric class to find a hard limitation for any deity - they can't utilize powers opposed to their own alignment.
The dieties are very much extraplanar (or prime material) sovereigns - though sovereigns over vast, vast kingdoms that can be measured in astronomical units.
There is no punishment for evil. The evil get exactly what they really wanted.Well, actually...
Hell - if you're lucky, after about 2000 years of torture you'll become a lemure and then be randomly selected for transformation into a higher devil. If you're unlucky, you'll spend eons as screaming, suffering building materials.
Abaddon - If you're lucky, you'll successfully consume enough of your fellow petitioners to transform into a daemon. You're far more likely to be consumed by a daemon or another, luckier, petitioner, though.
Abyss - After being immediately demoted to a maggot-person with no memories of your prior existence (Nightripper got Lamashtu's attention by actually keeping his memories), you'll spend an unknown of time being little more than glorified livestock. If you survive long enough to not be consumed by a demon, then the Abyss itself will consume you to birth demons from your sins.
There is quite a lot of punishment for evil. Any evil petitioner that actually makes it to exemplar status pretty much won the lottery.
The concept that grandma can live a virtuous life and end up being a snack for a random fiend that happens by is pretty indicative that the universe is pretty crappy. While everyone's standing around at the funeral, her immortal essence is dissolving in the belly of a chortling fiend. And ultimately, nothing can be done for it.I suspect the odds of one's soul getting snarfed are closer to the odds of dying in a lightning strike than they are to the odds of getting rained on.
It merely being possible does not by any means...
Yeah but see a cosmos 'at war' that 'needs heroes' is intrinsically a sh**ball cosmos. Its one that's not working properly, one where (despite the small chance) your immortal essence gets mucked over for no reason.
And the fact that the biggest, jerkiest jerk gets rewarded by being a super powerful monster kind of plays into my statement that the evil get what they really want.
The cosmos we live in is one where conceivably an evil wizard of deviant tastes could keep a captive of his in perpetual torment and agony, do abjectly horrible things to her until at last she perishes, and then with a few spells cast, go into the outer planes, rip her from her final reward and resume tormenting her anew before destroying her utterly when he got bored of her. The only difficulties involved are the same as a terrestrial predator would have: Locate her, bypass her defenders.
Uncommon or not. Being able to do this one time, is too many for the cosmos of Pathfinder to be considered anything short of horrific.
On the other topic...
Also, you cannot have multiple omnipotent beings. The existance of more then one would immediately contest the capabilities of another.
And...before it comes up...
Before someone tries to cite the 'burrito so large even he cannot eat it' argument.. I came across the following which details the flaw in that argument more concisely then I could have.
The question often posed is, "Can God create a rock so heavy he can’t lift it?" This question creates a dilemma in our initial definition of omnipotence. For if God can do anything then that means he must be able to create a rock he can’t lift (even if it’s infinitely heavy). Yet, if this were true then he would not be able to lift the rock; so we must conclude that God is not omnipotent. I think the argument can be broken down in the following manner:
Def. Omnipotence means a person X can do anything.
P1. Person X can make an object heavier and heavier by way of omnipotent power.
P2. Because Person X is omnipotent, X should be able to make a rock so heavy X can’t lift it.
P3. If Person X does not have the power to lift the rock this conflicts with omnipotence
C1. Person X is not omnipotent
I think this is not a valid argument against God’s omnipotence because P2 does not make logical sense. The reason P2 is not logical, is that P2 basically says:
Suppose a Person X exists and is purportedly omnipotent
Omnipotent beings must be able to do A (create rocks)
Omnipotent beings must be able to do B (lift rocks)X must be able to do A such that B is not possible otherwise X is not omnipotent.
Do you see the logical conflict here? Our skeptical argument asserts that God must be able to do A and B or he is not omnipotent (which makes logical sense) AND God must be able to do A in such a way that B is not possible or God is not omnipotent. The argument sets God’s omnipotence up to fail by stating that in order to be omnipotent he must be able to do three things:
X must do A
X must do B
X must do A such that B is not possibleThere is no logical way God can "do B" and "not do B" at the same time! I suppose we must conclude that there is one limit on God’s power: logic. Yet, is that really a limit? Does the skeptic truly suppose that an illogical God is more powerful than a logical God? I don’t believe so, and if the reader disagrees than re-read the above argument. The implication is that an illogical God either doesn’t exist (by the stone-lifting example) or can’t be discussed at all. For if God transcends logic, then we have absolutely no way of knowing or discussing him. Logic is the only mode by which we can make sense of the world in a rational manner. How can we even conceive of a being whose very nature is based on illogic?
I grabbed the above from http://www.saintaquinas.com/omnipotence.html.
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Compere this being to a being in real life Religion like Brahman or jesus.
I'm not gonna do that for a host of reasons. We'll just leave it at me not believing in omnipotent beings in the real world.
Who decides what bad things or good things are ? If it is the people, then it will be biased in their favor.
Nature is True Neutral in the setting (and in the game actually). An avalanche, a disease, any naturally occurring event is Neutral, whether it hurts people or benefits them. Detect Evil does not work on the world ;-)
Right. But the setting doesn't contain omnipotent beings either, and isn't really intended to. Adding one of those in changes the whole dynamic.
Nope, because you must be able to envision what you wish to become true. An omnipotent deity could not create a plane, let alone a nuclear plant, if it has no idea what that object is.
Uh...if you have limits on your power like 'I must be able to envision it'...then you're not actually omnipotent. Definitionally, since omnipotence is power without any limits.
And if it tried to create it based on its understanding of what another creature describes, the end result will very likely be a parody of a plane, but definitely not the real thing.
In the end, if you are not already omniscient, you just cannot imagine what being omniscient actually means and thus you cannot make it actually come true.
Not because of a lack in power, but because of a lack in understanding.
Again...if there's something that you can't do, you're not omnipotent. That's true by the very definition of omnipotence.
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Yeah but see a cosmos 'at war' that 'needs heroes' is intrinsically a sh**ball cosmos. Its one that's not working properly, one where (despite the small chance) your immortal essence gets mucked over for no reason.
Do you consider the real world a 'sh**ball world'? Because, while we cannot know for sure what happens after death, injustice of this sort is certainly possible in life.
And the fact that the biggest, jerkiest jerk gets rewarded by being a super powerful monster kind of plays into my statement that the evil get what they really want.
But the vast majority of them don't. The vast majority (probably more than 999 out of 1000) get punished appropriately. The fact that the system isn't perfect doesn't make the world awful, just imperfect.
The cosmos we live in is one where conceivably an evil wizard of deviant tastes could keep a captive of his in perpetual torment and agony, do abjectly horrible things to her until at last she perishes, and then with a few spells cast, go into the outer planes, rip her from her final reward and resume tormenting her anew before destroying her utterly when he got bored of her. The only difficulties involved are the same as a terrestrial predator would have: Locate her, bypass her defenders.
That is conceivable. And horrific. But the possibility of horror doesn't make the setting as a whole horrific. Indeed, any setting where horror isn't possible tends to be too perfect to be identifiable to people from the real world.
Uncommon or not. Being able to do this one time, is too many for the cosmos of Pathfinder to be considered anything short of horrific.
No more so than real life. Frankly, I'd argue it's less so, since doing this kind of thing to souls is several orders of magnitude more difficult than doing it to living people.
Frankly, the idea that way more than 99% of people get what they actually deserve after death is pretty comforting and nice as compared to the unfairness of life in general.
I guess it's a bit darker than the idea of things being perfectly ordered with absolutely no problems in the afterlife...but that's a pretty specific world view and not necessary for something to not qualify as horror, IMO.
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The possibility that the Pathfinder universe, which is deliberately designed to have massive problems so that there's stuff for heroes to do, is still a juster universe than our own is horrifying.
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All-powerful suggests that they have the ability to do everything. Create universes, planets, stars, creatures, planes, and destroy the same.
Omnipotent is all-knowing. They are able to perceive and understand all things in time and space.
I am of the opinion that Golarion gods, with maybe the exception of a couple, are neither all-powerful nor all-knowing.
Edit -
A God can be all-knowing and all-powerful, they can be only all-powerful, or they could be neither. It can be debated that they if they are all-knowing they are always all-powerful, but I personally believe that an entity that knows all things will have the knowledge needed to do all things and thus be all-powerful.
I hate having insomnia. Not only does it ruin my ability to stop myself form posting stuff I shouldn't post, it also makes me post things that are horribly wrong.
Sorry guys. You are right. Omnipotent is all-powerful. Also the last part is pretty silly.
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Actually, the definition of omnipotence by noted theologists includes limitations on what can be done as some things are intrinsically impossible. A deity able to do anything that is possible (not saying that it would actually do this thing) is considered omnipotent, even though it cannot do what is impossible.
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"Omnipotent" and "impossible" would seem to be mutually-exclusive concepts as much as 'immovable object' and 'irresistible force'. They are opposite absolutes. One negates the existence of the other.
Granted, it is easier to redefine 'irresistable force' than to spell out 'force that cannot be resisted except by the immovable object*' every time, but frankly, that's like saying "2 + 2 = 5 for sufficiently large values of 2**". It's true but meaningless, and devalues to meaning of the actual symbols being discussed.
What defines what is 'intrinsically impossible'? If it is merely that 'Even an omnipotent being cannot make true the same as false', that's different than 'Even an omnipotent being cannot violate Conservation of Mass'.
But all of this is besides the point for this thread - Pathfinder's Gods are not omnipotent, and the setting does not claim they are. On the sliding scale of 'Impotent to omnipotent' they're a lot closer to one end than the other, but they aren't omnipotent.
Well given that the idea of an omnipotent deity pretty much requires that it can break the physical laws of a universe, then what we normally consider to be impossible can't be what an omnipotent being is limited by. We would have to define a new definition of impossible, which would be equivalent to defining omnipotence. So saying an omnipotent being can do anything that isn't impossible is just another way of saying that an omnipotent being is omnipotent. It doesn't help.
Logic doesn't help much either because it depends on one's premises, and premises are equivalent to definitions, so again the definition of omnipotent becomes circular. Omnipotence is defined by its limits, so if we say that an omnipotent being can do anything that's not logically impossible, then we have to show our premises to define what is and is not logically impossible, and thus we are simply defining omnipotence as omnipotence.
(If you think this sounds like I believe omnipotence is an incoherent concept with no sound basis in reality, then you are correct.)
Incidentally, depending on how you think about omnipotence, the "rock so big even god couldn't lift it" question can be trivial. If you consider among the abilities of an omnipotent being to cause itself to no longer be omnipotent, then god certainly could create a rock that it was unable to lift, by limiting its own omnipotence. It could then cause the rock to cease to exist, restoring itself to omnipotence. This solution doesn't care about how you define omnipotence, as long as you agree that creating a limitation on itself that didn't previously exist is among the powers an omnipotent being would possess.
None of the pathfinder campaing setting deities are described as omnipotent, fortunately, just very very powerful, which gives the GM plenty of leeway to decide what a deity can and cannot do for the purposes of her campaign.
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
theologists claim a Omnipotent god can not do something that is LOGICALLY impossible like make 2 + 2 = 6 or something.
Creating something from nothing (such as creating the universe) is equivalent to making 0 + 0 = 1. Once you've done that, you can quite easily make 2 + 2 = 6.
Incidentally, this is a real thing in math. It is called the Principle of Explosion - if you use a false postulate you can prove anything. And, as physics can be considered a manifestation of math, it means if you can do one impossible thing, you can do all of the impossible things (as well as all the possible things).
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I think one example would be saying that God is omnipotent but then also saying that it is impossible for him to lie or break promises.
He has the power to lie and could break his promises, but chooses not to do so. It is possible that he is aware of consequences he wishes to avoid (I once heard speculation that doing either would strip him of his godhood,) but it is also possible that he acts by certain moral lines and chooses to remain true to them.
Being omnipotent means you have the ability to do all things, but that doesn't mean that you will do all things. There may still be something that you have no interest in doing, feel is immoral to do, or see no reason in doing.
For the most extreme of those types of activities, the activities that would be impossible to convince you do, could it then be said that it would be impossible for you to do them?
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"Omnipotent" and "impossible" would seem to be mutually-exclusive concepts as much as 'immovable object' and 'irresistible force'. They are opposite absolutes. One negates the existence of the other.
Granted, it is easier to redefine 'irresistable force' than to spell out 'force that cannot be resisted except by the immovable object*' every time, but frankly, that's like saying "2 + 2 = 5 for sufficiently large values of 2**". It's true but meaningless, and devalues to meaning of the actual symbols being discussed.
** spoiler omitted **** spoiler omitted **
What defines what is 'intrinsically impossible'? If it is merely that 'Even an omnipotent being cannot make true the same as false', that's different than 'Even an omnipotent being cannot violate Conservation of Mass'.
But all of this is besides the point for this thread - Pathfinder's Gods are not omnipotent, and the setting does not claim they are. On the sliding scale of 'Impotent to omnipotent' they're a lot closer to one end than the other, but they aren't omnipotent.
I told you earlier, an unstoppable force phases through an immovable object. Both entities preserve their properties while still interacting with the other on some level
I told you earlier, an unstoppable force phases through an immovable object. Both entities preserve their properties while still interacting with the other on some level
I realize you're being facetious, but that isn't really interacting.
Alternatively, use 'irresistible force' or simple 'force that can move any object'.
"Omnipotent" and "impossible" would seem to be mutually-exclusive concepts as much as 'immovable object' and 'irresistible force'. They are opposite absolutes. One negates the existence of the other.
C.S. Lewis had a solution to this. He pointed out that a meaningless sentence will not become meaningful if you choose to add the words "An omnipotent being can ... " to it.
If I write that "God can (or Sarenrae can) pilk a frammis," that literally doesn't make sense; those aren't words. That's not a limitation on Saranrae's power. God can't create a red emerald, since an emerald is defined by gemologists as a green stone (specifically, a green beryl -- a beryl that is red is just a beryl). Similarly, it is meaningless to speak of "forcing someone to do something of their own free will," since free will MEANS the lack of being forced. The only thing God could do in such an instance would be to rewrite the language, perhaps by redefining "emerald" in everyone's mind.
It's not clear, however, that this applies to the problem of evil. If you assume that there are external reasons that an omnipotent Saranrae cannot do an action she wishes to do, she can merely abolish or emend those reasons and then do the action.
A philosopher's answer to the logical problem of evil
Shrug. Doesn't work. In fact, I addressed this already in my previous post.
From your link: "we can actually prove that God and evil are logically consistent. You see, the atheist presupposes that God cannot have morally sufficient reasons for permitting the evil in the world. But this assumption is not necessarily true. So long as it is even possible that God has morally sufficient reasons for permitting evil, it follows that God and evil are logically consistent. And, certainly, this does seem at least logically possible."
If God has morally sufficient reasons for permitting evil in this world, He is nevertheless not compelled to accept those reasons; He can simply restructure the moral universe such that those reasons are no longer morally sufficient, or simply no longer exist.
If He can't so restructure the universe,.... well, you've just identified a limitation on God's power, so He is not omnipotent.
It's like the emerald example again. God can't create a red emerald because the word emerald means a green stone. But while He can't create a red emerald, He can change the meaning of "emerald" and then create all the red emeralds He likes.
Maimonides had a rather lengthy reply to that statement. He's worth looking up.
If He can't so restructure the universe,.... well, you've just identified a limitation on God's power, so He is not omnipotent.
He (Maimonides) is indeed, but that still doesn't fly. If instead of saying "God is omnipotent," you say "God is not limited in His power," you still run into trouble when you then proceed to identify a limit.
"Omnipotent" and "impossible" would seem to be mutually-exclusive concepts as much as 'immovable object' and 'irresistible force'. They are opposite absolutes. One negates the existence of the other.
C.S. Lewis had a solution to this. He pointed out that a meaningless sentence will not become meaningful if you choose to add the words "An omnipotent being can ... " to it.
If I write that "God can (or Sarenrae can) pilk a frammis," that literally doesn't make sense; those aren't words. That's not a limitation on Saranrae's power. God can't create a red emerald, since an emerald is defined by gemologists as a green stone (specifically, a green beryl -- a beryl that is red is just a beryl). Similarly, it is meaningless to speak of "forcing someone to do something of their own free will," since free will MEANS the lack of being forced. The only thing God could do in such an instance would be to rewrite the language, perhaps by redefining "emerald" in everyone's mind.
Oh, I agree with that. My point is that 'An irresistable force (can/cannot) move an immovable object' is itself a sentence that does not make sense. It's saying 'this statement is a lie'. (If it can, it's false because the object was not immovable. If it cannot, it's false because the force was resisted.)
'Never', 'Always', 'Nothing', and 'anything' are linguistically simple constructs that are really easy to turn into logical quicksand. They breed paradoxes.
Paladin of Baha-who? had the right of this - if you define omnipotence as 'all-powerful, except the stuff that's impossible', all you've done is shift the burden of definition to 'impossible'. 'Can do all of the things except the things that cannot be done.' A force that will move anything except immovable objects is not an irresistible force.
But this may force his will on the universe and the free creatures he has created.
Yes, so he chooses to suffer evil, and hence is not benevolent.
In the christian Religion god values the free will of creatures
.... more than He values goodness
and allows the world to be what it has become
... rather than acting to change the world by eliminating evil.
And benevolence loses again, as Good is clearly subordinated to other desires.
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Are you saying he should eliminate free will for the sake of goodness? Or he should have created a would where creatures could not defied him?
He's saying that a omnipotent being who does not stop evil or suffering cannot be described as omni-benevolent. It's logically inconsistent.
We have three postulates:
1) Sarenrae is omnipotent
2) Sarenrae is omnibenevolent
3) Suffering exists
You get to pick two, and we know the third one is true via empirical evidence. (I'm using Sarenrae here instead of Yahweh/Jehova/Allah because arguing real-world religion and theology is outside the scope of this thread.)
Fortunately, in Golarion we know that Sarenrae is not omnipotent, merely extremely potent. Therefore is it possible that she is in fact benevolent (Neutral Good, after all).
For any real-world applications of this paradox, please consult your priest/rabbi/minister/therapist/invisible sky wizard/a thread in the Off-Topic forum.
Are you saying he should eliminate free will for the sake of goodness? Or he should have created a would where creatures could not defied him?
Nope. I'm simply saying that if God were benevolent, He would have done so.
It's not like baby-proofing your home is controversial. In fact, choosing not to baby-proof your home would be the controversial decision. If you are a good person, you want to create an environment where babies can't seriously hurt themselves.
Similarly, if you were a good deity, you'd human-proof your universe, so that humans couldn't seriously hurt themselves.
And we're back to Epicurus....
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
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For courtesy's sake, I'm putting this post in a spoiler. Content note: children dying, cancer, violence.
William Craig would argue that there are reasons we can't know such that it is necessary for God to allow children to die in agony of uncurable cancer. That if God cured those children, or altered their genetics in advance such that they never developed cancer, Bad Things would happen.
He's arguing that because God is sublime and beyond human knowledge, he doesn't have to provide any kind of rational basis explaining why God doesn't cure cancer. It's up to those opposing him to logically prove that God has to cure cancer to be good, or else we lose. It doesn't matter how horribly the children are suffering, or how nebulous or ill-defined the Bad Things are -- unless we can provide an argument proving beyond any doubt that nothing Bad will happen if God cures cancer, we can't use that as an argument against God's Omni^3 status (Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnibenevolent).
I think that as someone defending God as being omni^3 in light of suffering and evil, Craig has the burden of proof for finding evidence that something bad would necessarily happen, in a way that God could not prevent with all his omnipotence, if God cured that child.
Let's consider also the possibility of a human being killing a child in a painful, torturous way. Why couldn't God cause a heart attack in that person before he committed the crime? Why couldn't he prevent whatever chemical imbalance occured in the mind of the person, if the cause of the killing was one of the (relatively few) mental illnesses that disposes one to violence? Why couldn't he give the man a religious vision telling him that killing is wrong? Why couldn't he just teleport the child somewhere else?
Again, the special pleading is that doing these things would cause Bad Things to happen worse than the suffering and death of the child. No evidence of this -- Craig just insists that, in order to believe in a omni^3 god, we have to assume that Bad Things would happen if God went around saving children from painful, violent deaths at the hands of evil or sick people, and that we can't question this assumption because otherwise we would have to conclude that God is not omni^3.
1. We are not in a good position to assess the probability of whether God has morally sufficient reasons for the evils that occur. As finite persons, we are limited in time, space, intelligence, and insight. But the transcendent and sovereign God sees the end from the beginning and providentially orders history so that His purposes are ultimately achieved through human free decisions. In order to achieve His ends, God may have to put up with certain evils along the way. Evils which appear pointless to us within our limited framework may be seen to have been justly permitted within God’s wider framework. To borrow an illustration from a developing field of science, Chaos Theory, scientists have discovered that certain macroscopic systems, for example, weather systems or insect populations, are extraordinarily sensitive to the tiniest perturbations. A butterfly fluttering on a branch in West Africa may set in motion forces which would eventually issue in a hurricane over the Atlantic Ocean. Yet it is impossible in principle for anyone observing that butterfly palpitating on a branch to predict such an outcome. The brutal murder of an innocent man or a child’s dying of leukemia could produce a sort of ripple effect through history such that God’s morally sufficient reason for permitting it might not emerge until centuries later and perhaps in another land. When you think of God’s providence over the whole of history, I think you can see how hopeless it is for limited observers to speculate on the probability that God could have a morally sufficient reason for permitting a certain evil. We’re just not in a good position to assess such probabilities.
The argument of probability here is disingenuous. God doesn't have to deal with probabilities, if indeed he is omni^3. He knows with perfect accuracy what will happen if he does something, and he can make any event, no matter how otherwise improbable, occur with 100% likelihood. If it would be 99% likely that if a child lived to adulthood, that child would become a ruthless, murdering dictator like Hitler, God could cause the 1% chance to occur. If it were somehow 100% likely, God could cause the child to be killed painlessly, with no suffering, and immediate translation to Heaven.
If we weren't talking about an omni^3 God, but a being with great but finite power and knowledge, then that being could decide that the best way to prevent a great evil from happening is to allow a lesser evil to happen. For example, in Isaac Asimov's End of Eternity, time travelers controlled history to cause the greatest benefit to the greatest number, which sometimes meant individuals had to die. An Omni^3 being, however, would always see a way to thread the needle, no matter how improbable it was.
a. The chief purpose of life is not happiness, but the knowledge of God. One reason that the problem of evil seems so puzzling is that we tend to think that if God exists, then His goal for human life is happiness in this world. God’s role is to provide comfortable environment for His human pets. But on the Christian view this is false. We are not God’s pets, and man’s end is not happiness in this world, but the knowledge of God, which will ultimately bring true and everlasting human fulfillment. Many evils occur in life which maybe utterly pointless with respect to the goal of producing human happiness in this world, but they may not be unjustified with respect to producing the knowledge of God. Innocent human suffering provides an occasion for deeper dependency and trust in God, either on the part of the sufferer or those around him. Of course, whether God's purpose is achieved through our suffering will depend on our response. Do we respond with anger and bitterness toward God, or do we turn to Him in faith for strength to endure?
This implies that an Omni^3 God could not find a way to give humans hapiness while ALSO giving them knowlege of himself, or that he does not wish to give them hapiness until they have knowlege of himself. The first possibility calls into question omnipotence or omniscience (either doing so is beyond his power, or he did not know of a way to do it), and the second calls into question omnibenevolence.
I won't bother refuting the arguments in favor of the existence of God he makes later in the article since they are irrelevant to theodicy.
In the end, though, I cannot find a way to reconcile an omni^3 God with children being violently killed, or getting cancer, or dying of AIDS. Craig would say this is a deficiency in my cognitive capabilities. I argue instead that it is a deficiency in his concept of God, and he is so desperate to rescue his belief in God that he abandons any possibility of logical coherency.
Maimonides's "negative theology" is just obfuscuatory nonsense as far as I can see. Whether you say "God is omnipotent" or "There is nothing that God cannot do", they mean the same thing. Obviously God can restructure the universe, since (according to the argument) he structured it in the first place, and there being nothing that God does not know, supposedly, he would know that structuring the universe in a particular way would have certain consequences, and that structuring it slightly differently would have other consequences; accordingly, one must conclude that if God is omni^3 and structured the universe, then he must have chosen that set of consequences that resulted, or chosen not to care about them.
Bringing this back to the campaign setting, we have the benefit of not having to assume that the deities the PCs worship created the universe (multiverse), nor that they have perfect knowledge of everything, nor that they have perfect agency (ability to do anything), nor that they represent perfect, unalloyed benevolence. Even Iomedae may be imperfect in her goodness. There are things that she cannot do, and things that she does not know. And thank God for that! ;)
Are you saying he should eliminate free will for the sake of goodness? Or he should have created a would where creatures could not defied him?
An omni^3 deity could create a universe where free will existed, but evil did not. An omni^3 deity could create a universe where his creations defying him would not have been an evil act. Prove me wrong.
(While speaking as an agnostic)
I'd argue that a universe that doesn't have evil doesn't actually have free will - at best it has a neutered facsimile of free will where everyone has been rendered incapable of conceiving of certain notions.
(Or: there is an ENORMOUS difference between, say, childproofing a home, and implanting a computer chip in the baby's brain that keeps the baby from even reaching for stuff.)
Genuine free will comes with the ability for people to choose to be horrible to each other.
Evil is the price for not being a sock puppet. =P
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(While speaking as an agnostic)
I'd argue that a universe that doesn't have evil doesn't actually have free will - at best it has a neutered facsimile of free will where everyone has been rendered incapable of conceiving of certain notions.
(Or: there is an ENORMOUS difference between, say, childproofing a home, and implanting a computer chip in the baby's brain that keeps the baby from even reaching for stuff.)
Genuine free will comes with the ability for people to choose to be horrible to each other.
Evil is the price for not being a sock puppet. =P
Just as you have:
X is omnipotent
X is omnibenevolent
Suffering existsPick two
you have
X is omnipotent
X has a plan
Free will existsPick two
Evil is the price of free will, but it means any omnipotent being is not omnibenevolent - because it means Stabby McGee's freedom to stab you is more important than you not being stabbed.
All of these logical impossibilities go away when you drop the 'omni's. If a deity is merely very powerful, then there are things they cannot do. If they are merely benevolent (instead of omnibenevolent), then they can be Utilitarian instead of saving everyone. If they have no plan, free will can be allowed to roam.
And since we're talking about Pathfinder, there isn't an issue here: It's a polytheistic system where the Gods are very powerful, but are not 'omni' anything. That doesn't mean they aren't Gods - none of the historical polytheistic systems claimed omnipotence or omnibelevolence, but no one would claim Thor and Zeus are not Gods.
Are you saying he should eliminate free will for the sake of goodness? Or he should have created a would where creatures could not defied him?An omni^3 deity could create a universe where free will existed, but evil did not. An omni^3 deity could create a universe where his creations defying him would not have been an evil act. Prove me wrong.Defying him at all is an evil act. In the christian narrative Goodness in not independent from god, Goodness comes from god. Without god there is no truly Good or evil as he determines what is Good and evil.
In the christian narrative God created the earth with no evil in it, god then gave dominion of the earth to mortals. Then mortals committed the first sin, sin severed the world from god and at the same time gave dominion of the earth to satan(the adversary).
Well, let's bring this back into the pathfinder campaign setting. In that world, good and evil are metaphysical absolutes that exist independent of any deity. It would not be the case that any act of defiance against, say, Iomedae or Sarenrae would be automatically an evil act.
There are also christian narratives in which good exists apart from God, and good doesn't just mean slavishly doing whatever God tells you to do. Your assertion doesn't constitute proof of anything, it's just a restatement of the theology of a subset of christian believers, which is by no means the only theology we're considering in this thread.
If your definition of Good is Whatever God Ordains, then the problem of evil doesn't exist because whatever God causes to happen, happens, and is therefore good. Children suffering? Good! Disease? Good! Satan taking souls of sinners? Good!
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3.God does not cause Child suffering or Disease. mortals do in the case of child abuse or by nature which was separated from god by sin which was caused by mortals.
If God is omnipotent and omniscient, then he knows those things are happening and could stop them, but does not. Abusive human beings could be stopped. 'Natural' disease could be cured or thwarted. Famines could be prevented.
Once again, we're back at Epicurus.
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
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Agreed, my apologies.
The deities as a whole of the setting are clearly not omnipotent or omniscient, which is a good thing for a setting where we want to explore the existence of evil as a positive force of its own, rather than just the 'absence of good'.
I'm not sure Asmodeus would cite evil as 'positive', per se, but his description in Princes of Darkness was fantastic. It's one thing when evil is just flat-out nuts, but when it's perfectly sane and intelligent, yet still opposed to all you stand for, that's pretty creepy... and can make for some fun character interactions. XD