“BLACKSBURG, Va. – A gunman massacred 32 people at Virginia Tech in the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history Monday, cutting down his victims in two attacks two hours apart before the university could grasp what was happening and warn students. The bloodbath ended with the gunman committing suicide, bringing the death toll to 33 and stamping the campus in the picturesque Blue Ridge Mountains with unspeakable tragedy, perhaps forever. Investigators gave no motive for the attack. (Sue Lindsay, Associated Press)”
Now, perhaps we can talk about evil, and the attributes of God. I have begun writing my paper in which I am trying to discount God’s omni-benevolence, yet still account for goodness. God’s four primary attributes, which we have all so vehemently argued in class need to be brought back up for debate yet again, in light of this recent tragedy. I have trouble grasping in a truly omni-benevolent God given the above article clip, and any one of us should. My question, and I will expand upon it, is simply this: given the situation, is it fair to think that God is good at all, let alone all good?
God is often thought of as a perfect being; one who is omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, and omni-benevolent. The problems will arise as follows, if God knew of the above tragedy in advance, why did he not stop it, given his other attributes? If God was all good, it seems to be that he would have, if he was powerful enough to do so. So why wouldn’t he? The answer I have been coming too, and what I hope will generate some discussion, is that God is not all good. But the now more prudent question will follow: is God good at all? I still want to say yes, as I assume most will.
Even in the presence of evil, such as that above, some good can come. Its horrid to think, but what if God, by allowing this person to commit this heinous crime, saved twice the number, or even ten times the number of people by doing so. This would still be a good act, but clearly not a wholly good act, thus God can still be considered good. If however, there is no good that comes from this act, then God may not even retain his attribute of being good at all.
Now, if God were not all-good, and yet still good, given his other attributes, he would have prevented this from happening still, if some good could come from it. If no good came from it, then he can easily be considered less than good, or possibly even evil. I don’t believe that is the case, but I’m not sure of a way out. Discounting other attributes is a possibility, yet omni-benevolence seems to be God’s weakest attributes, and discounting others generates more talk of God’s non-existence. We could attribute God with fallibility because if it was an accident, that would not detract wholly from God’s goodness, but I doubt many would agree with that step. Also, we can attribute God with not caring all the time, which means not all-good, but still some good. Again though, a religious person would not make that claim. So then how do we view a God, who is still good and infallible, yet knew about this act, allowed it to happen, and no good, visible or otherwise, came from it?
Viewing God as a parent figure, may deteriorate at this point, because a parent would only do a harmful act towards their children as either a mistake, or as a ‘necessary’ evil. A parent will sometimes allow a child to do a bad or harmful act because they are not present, but if they were they would stop it, even if doing so, interrupts the child’s free-will. God does not interfere with free-will, hence would not stop this action. In being God however, he could have simply tagged this killer with a bolt of lightning, or an aneurism, and avoided the tragedy. Some would say that in doing so, God was interrupting this killers free-will, which God, unlike a parent, will not do. God retains his attribute of goodness, if he cannot interrupt free-will, but if he chooses not to, he does not maintain goodness.
An infallible God, along with his three attributes of omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniscience, and the quality of good, does not exist if no good comes from this action, regardless of whether or not the good is visible. In his choice not to interrupt free-will, God must therefore give up another of his attributes to maintain any quality of good.
Anyway, any discussion on the subject I would greatly appreciate, and hopefully I said nothing of offense. Thank you for taking the time.
There are so many questions pertaining to what you have written about. Do we as human’s have free-will, can God interupt our decisions from free-will, is God omni-benevolent, etc? Assuming that God has all of the attributes that we, as human’s give Him, with all the evil in this world, it does make you wonder about the true nature of God. If God has all these attributes, they are not congruent with the world, or that is, how we percieve the world. To even say that God is omnipotent, omni-benevolent, omniscient, and omni-present is acting like we are God, because we are assuming we know how God works, which is far from reality.
This does make you wonder, anyone can see that what is happening here in schools or abroad in wars can be devasting to everyone. But who decides really what is good and bad? What really is good and what really is bad?
I think you may have answered your own question. In asking that God “tag the killer with a bolt of lightning, or an aneurism…,” would surely go against his omnibenovolence. Perhaps God does not prevent such acts not only because the possibility that good can arise from them but, because of what stopping them would entail. God cannot be good in the all encompassing sense if were to hurt the perpetrator.
Not only that but, asking why God doesn’t prevents acts such as the Virginia Tech shootings just begs the question of what “bad things” are justifyably altered by God. Not to so sound as if I don’t care about what happened at Virginia Tech but, the Holocaust pales in comparison to the evil that occurs in the world. What then are we to say about such horrible events that happen within our lives. That some people should be saved from such tragedies and some should not? Of course, not. So, in a way, God couldn’t possibly have stop the shooting from occuring. If he had it would mean one of two things:
1) Either God loves someone of us more than others, and these are the ones he saves.
2) Or God would prevent every evil and therefore leave us with nothing to judge between right and wrong, good and bad, peace and war and so on.
The reason bad things happen and the reason why God is not only good but, all-good is because without it we wouldn’t know what to value or what we should strive for. What other purpose does life serve than to realize which things are most important and which are not. Without some way to evaluate those things we wouldn’t care at all. It is in giving us this lense or filter if you will, that God is all good. Good can come from evil, even if it isn’t immediately noticable.
On the free-will quesiton, it seems highly likely that God can have all of these attributes and still let people choose. The reason evil exists is to present us with a choose between good and bad. Hence, the reason some atrocities happen. Some people give to temptation. Even if, God knows which way events will play out, He cannot act upon them. Simply, because he shouldn’t. If God gives us free-will and then when He knew we were going to use it wrongly He would change it so we ended up choosing correctly, He would be taking away all that He intended to provide. That defeats the entire purpose of having free-will.
**** I misspoke, I meant to say that the Virginia Tech shooting pales in comparison to the Holocaust and other evils that occur in the world.****
**** I meant to say the Virginia Tech shootings pale in comparison to the Holocaust and other evils that occur in the world.****
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The so-called “Problem of Evil” is an ancient and common argument against the existence of god. Anyone who finds this blog’s discussion of various logical proofs on this topic may want to check out this topic on WiQED, the argument and discourse wiki, here: http://www.theperfectsquare.net/wiqed/index.php5?title=There_is_a_God.
You can edit responses or create your own topics. Give it a try!
God IS omnibenevolent. In his unconditional love for human beings he has endowed us with free will. And this is one of the most fundamental of God’s laws. In giving us free will he was fully aware that there is a potential that we might use that free will to harm others and ourselves. However he always hopes and holds the vision that if we misuse our free will, that this will allow us to learn our lessons. That we will eventually get it, that we will learn that harming others will only harm ourselves, like when Jesus said “Inasmuch as you have done unto the least of these, my brethren, you have done it unto me.” He realized the oneness of all life, and we can too. This is a reality!
So no God won’t interfere with our human foibles and all the imbalanced actions and creations we have created–unless we give him the authority, using our free will. And at present there are not many people in the world that are giving God that authority, because they are too caught up in their ego consciousness. Which is the root of all struggle, all wars, conflicts and anything else that plagues our societies as well as people individually.
Tijana
Tijana,
I think that you’ll have to think about the implications of your solution to the problem of God’s omnibenevolence. If God endows us with free will which includes our having the ability to perform particular actions that harm others and God is omnipotent, then God should have the power to prevent us from performing the harmful action.
So the problem becomes: if God prevents us from harming others by intervening, then we don’t have free will. If God doesn’t prevent us from harming others, then God isn’t omnibenevolent.
Joe
So it is better to preserve the free will of one individual, and take the life of 32 others? Is that good?
Like 9/11. Should God preserve the free will of 4 individuals and allow over 3,000 people die without any safety nor sanctuary, and have millions mourn and live in constant fear of terrorism? Is this good? Is this loving, to sacrifice thousands for 4 men?
6 million Jews died in the Holocaust. The total deaths amount to 7 million. Is it loving to allow one man to have his free will and slaughter 7 million people?
This is retarded.
Derek,
I didn’t author the original post, but I can certainly speak to your “comment.”
I think kratos’s concern is well justified. One of the problems you have misunderstood is that if God didn’t endow people with free will, then God is morally responsible for the acts we perform.
On your view, all of our acts would be determined by God because God is omniscient. We couldn’t possibly act differently than how God knew we were going to act. To do so would undermine God’s omnscience. Right?!? Since God is omnipotent and since God didn’t do anything to prevent — using your examples — “9/11″ or the “Holocaust” though God knew that these events were going to be perpetrated, God is morally responsible for those actions. So, God is evil.
Since it’s a contradiction to say that “God is omnibenevolent and God is omnimalevolent,” the position you’re defending fails.
You say that “if God knew of the above tragedy in advance, why did he not stop it, given his other attributes? If God was all good, it seems to be that he would have, if he was powerful enough to do so. So why wouldn’t he?”
I say “If my mum was good at all why doesn’t she run onto my soccer field every time get hurt, fouled, or a bad decision is made by the ref?”
Is she really a tyrant? or has she chosen to sit on her hands for my ultimate good?
Matt, that was a typical brainwashed, non-critical thinkers answer and example…of course your mom isn’t gonna run onto the freakin soccer field, but if a gunman ran onto the field and was firing at the players you’re damn right she would run onto the field and would probably even jump in front of you to prtect you.