"Why do bad things happen to good people?"

Jan 06, 2008 21:53

Imagine a world where they didn't. Good behavior would always be requited with rewards, instantaneously, and bad behavior, conversely, would receive instant punishment. The universe would be like a giant Skinner box, with results constantly conditioning behavior towards the ideal and normative ( Read more... )

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benjaminmann January 8 2008, 06:47:19 UTC
it was a tremendous shock when i finally realized (back in 2005) that pain and evil were a better argument *for* the existence of a personal God than *against* that idea.

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doctor_aquinas January 12 2008, 02:38:22 UTC
Do elaborate.

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this gets awfully close to presuppositional apologetics ala the reformed (bahnsen et al)... benjaminmann January 14 2008, 07:36:35 UTC
if there is no God and no afterlife, man's most evil deeds are both totally permissible and ultimately meaningless. evil and good would then both amount to nothing at all. so you see, evil is a much, much bigger problem for the atheist than the theist.

the atheist looks around at evil, and in his outrage cries out: "why?!? to what end?!?"-- but his worldview does not admit formal and final causes or the reality of universals.

i flatly refuse to be put on the defensive by anyone who thinks the "problem of evil" is primarily a question of theodicy. the fact is that anyone who reads about rwanda --theist or atheist-- has a "problem of evil" to think through. which of them will actually be able to do it?

the theist knows there is a Judge and Lawgiver beyond death; he has put forth a plausible, if not always immediately satisfying, solution to the greatest human problem. the atheist, whatever else he may have, has no solution whatsoever-- nor even sufficient recourse of the categories in which one might emerge.

atheist: "if your god ( ... )

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Re: this gets awfully close to presuppositional apologetics ala the reformed (bahnsen et al)... doctor_aquinas January 15 2008, 01:19:26 UTC
Well said! I think much the same way.

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benjaminmann January 14 2008, 07:41:09 UTC
basically, this can be reduced to saying that the atheist has no grounds on which to question the Justice of God without assuming a moral framework which only the existence of a Just God could validate.

i basically hate calvinism, but the presuppositional apologists got a lot of things right.

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benjaminmann January 14 2008, 07:42:12 UTC
moral *and* metaphysical (i.e. causal) framework.

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