Why is there so much unjust suffering in this world despite God?

[VitalOne]

Why are some people cruel, Evil?

Past negative experiences....if you're filled with anger, hatred then thats what you throw onto others...you ever notice when someone is happy how they're all of a sudden nice to everyone?

When freed from all insecurities, becoming unconditioned, there is no more suffering, no anger, sorrow, fear, etc...so you naturally act 'good'.

 

[freaky nut]

bad things happen in the world because of man and man alone. we have the choice to do both good and evil. therefore any evil that is in the world stems from man and not god who gave us the choice.

 

[Jenyar]

Let's disregard physical laws entirely. I am speaking about logical ones. That God can theoretically and without contradiction cease any natural law is certainly acceptable, but can he do the same to a logical law?

Okay, here's a question that will get to the heart of it all: Can God both exist and not-exist, in the same manner and at the same time?

I've had a discussion about this very topic before that might be relevant: [post=1069122]here[/post] (continued [post=1072127]later[/post] in the same thread).

My question is why you are asking questions to which you already have the logical answer, since you "support this notion of omnipotence"? Would someone else's slip of logic prove anything?

In infinite space, there is necessarily an infinite amount of things, in the infinite combination those things can be put together, and in the infinite varieties they can find themselves as. In essence, infinite space is the essence of complete and utter variety. Anything which is not impossible could occur and does occur in this situation.

As a matter of interest, this statement above illustrates the issue: By consciously limiting this infinite realm of possibility to "anything which is not impossible", you create two sets: the possible (which may include an infinite amount and combination of things), and the impossible (which you don't elaborate on). But there is no mention of "infinity" being in any way limited, even if the term only refers to the possible infinite. Not to extend the definition of omnipotence the same courtesy, is to disregard what definitions (and indeed words) do.

 

[Jenyar]

Would not that make impossible the declaration that God is good? Or at least make the concept vacuous? For if goodness is not universal and an attribute both of God, man, nature, animals, et cetera, then it seems we cannot say anything about Divine goodness. Indeed, specifically in regards to man, who is said to be in God's image, we find many problems with a sundering of the concept of goodness.

It's not the concept of goodness that changes, but the content. The declaration that God is good is the easy one, since He is God. But we are not, therefore we're obviously not "good" to the fullest extent of the word (cf. Jesus' own words: "Why do ask me about what is good? There is only One who is good.") Still, though we may only possess God's goodness partially - like lilies on a pond - the concept still applies 100% to our limited extent. In short: the word describes the same qualities and carries the same connotations.

Where the criticism does apply is that our ability to understand God's "goodness" is obviously limited to what we as creations can associate with (compare the many anthropomorphisms in the Bible). Our word "good" naturally derives from human experience first - even if some those experiences are of God, they're still filtered through our senses, and come out completely human on the other side.

Yet Adam and Eve did not. Until they partook of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, they were ignorant both of good and evil. They were given a declaration to not eat something, but they'd be incapable of deciding whether following it was good or bad.

Really? But that's not the situation that is described in the Genesis. Eve is perfectly able to tell the serpent that eating from the tree is against God's wishes - the pre-fall equivalent of wrong. That was the extent to which there was a difference between good and evil, and that was the extent of knowledge to which Adam and Eve were accountable for. No matter how great their ignorance of everything else, knowledge of a fact does not equal ignorance of a fact - and they knew what God wanted. The moral weighing of alternatives had already been done, the consequences spelled out, the only thing left was putting knowledge into practice. What happened in Eden is easily corroborated today: so many people who know what the law is, still break it.

Whatever else they might have been, they were definitely not ignorant or lacking the necessary mental faculties. If that were the case, the rest of the story would make no internal sense. You would be disregarding the intention of the author for the sake of a personal preference, which might be nicely postmodern and Barthesean, but doesn't make a lot of sense in the long term.

Yet this does not address why God could not have endowed us with an innate quality to stay within this "circle", as he does. For you admit that no evil can come from God, yes? That he is incapable of producing evil, even as a circle cannot be a square at the same time and in the same manner, yes? And yet he is free? Free - or more free, in fact? - than you or I? So he cannot obviously say "we won't be free, I cannot take it away from you!"

Such an innate ability does exist, and you are being a very good demonstration for it, since your complaint is a moral one against God. For this purpose, you have shifted the onus of deciding what is good, fair and just from God onto yourself - at least theoretically. You had to do that in order to judge whether God has indeed been "good" or not. It's not the concept or measurement of good that's changed, just the reference point from which it is being measured.

Similarly, a perfectly good being cannot accept evil, or indeed, allow evil to occur, specifically when said being is omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent, which makes nothing outside of his power to do. God even has the power to "set things right anew" by reversing the effects of any evil action. He could have raised Abel from the dead, for instance.

Raising Abel from the dead was in effect what God did when He raised Jesus from the dead. Abel could then forgive Cain for even such a final evil. But here's the catch: Cain would not cease to be guilty of murder simply because Abel was no longer dead. Especially not if Abel didn't raise himself. God might reverse both Cain and Abel's deaths, but there would forever be a certain difference between Cain and Abel.

I thus riddle you with Epicurus':

If God is can and won't - he is malevolent.
If God can't and would - he is incompetant.
If God can and would - why does evil exist?

See my answer [post=1082813]here[/post].

How can goodness accept the toleration of evil?

There are a few possibilities:
Maybe evil can be tolerated without consequence, in we're wrong about the concept of "justice";
or perhaps evil is an illusion, a temporary dissonance that will clear itself up if we just move our perspective enough;
or evil is temporarily tolerated - as it is in the case when a judge shows mercy or desires rehabilitation, or when good people persevere without repaying evil with evil - until there is no patience left and it can't be tolerated any longer.

Your attitude towards "evil" is like the last one, of judgment, i.e. instead of being neutral or apathetic about its existence, you show an aversion towards it, which you assume is automatically and self-evidently justified. Your frustration with it derives from its prevalence, i.e. you desire its absence. The only way this could be is: if it was eliminated in the past, will be eliminated in the future, or can be tolerated (explained away) in the present. But because a future judgment implies the cessation of tolerance - which might have undesirable implications (and to be honest, seems a little much to hope for) - it's much easier to complain that it hadn't been avoided by someone else, preferably as early on as Adam and Eve (and presumably with some form of divine assistance that God spitefully withheld from them). Or accuse God of tolerating it, which allows you to be both judge and unassuming victim.

In other words, somehow you want to escape the responsibility humans had since day one, so that you can enjoy the grace that allows mistakes, but never expect the judgment that exposes evil as truly intolerable to God. That's a place I suspect everyone arrives at at some stage of their lives. But have you really ever considered what you're complaining about?

 

[Medicine*Woman]

It's not the concept of goodness that changes but the content. The declaration that God is good is the easy one since He is God. But we are not therefore we're obviously not good to the fullest extent of the word (Jesus own words: "Why do ask me about what is good? There is only One who is good.") Still though we may only possess God's goodness partially-like lilies on a pond-the concept still applies 100% to our limited extent. In short: the word describes the same qualities and carries the same connotations.

Where the criticism does apply is that our ability to understand God's goodness is obviously limited to what we as creations can associate with (compare the many anthropomorphisms in the Bible). Our word good naturally derives from human experience first-even if some of those experience might be of God they're still filtered through our senses.

Really? But that's not the situation that is described in the Genesis. Eve is perfectly able to tell the serpent that eating from the tree is against God's wishes-the-pre-fall equivalent of wrong. That was the extent to which there was a difference between good and evil and that was the extent of knowledge to which Adam and Eve were accountable for. No matter how great their ignorance of everything else, knowledge of a fact does not equal ignorance of a fact-and they knew what God wanted. The moral weighing of alternatives had already been done the consequences spelled out the only thing left was putting knowledge into practice. What happened in Eden is easily corroborated today: so many people who know what the law is still break it.

Whatever else they might have been they were definitely not ignorant or lacking the necessary mental faculties. If that were the case the rest of the story would make no internal sense. You would be disregarding the intention of the author for the sake of a personal preference which might be nicely postmodern and Barthesean but doesn't make a lot of sense in the long term.

Such an innate ability does exist and you are being a very good demonstration for it since your complaint is a moral one against God. For this purpose you have shifted the onus of deciding what is good fair and just from God onto yourself-at least theoretically. You had to do that in order to judge whether God has indeed been good or not. It's not the concept or measurement of good that's changed just the reference point from which it is being measured.

Raising Abel from the dead was in effect what God did when He raised Jesus from the dead. Abel could then forgive Cain for even such a final evil. But here's the catch: Cain would not cease to be guilty of murder simply because Abel was no longer dead. Especially not if Abel didn't raise himself. God might reverse both Cain and Abel's deaths but there would forever be a certain difference between Cain and Abel.

See my answer here.

There are a few possibilities: Either evil is tolerated without consequence in which case the existence of evil does not matter and arguing about it is a futile academic exercise or perhaps evil is an illusion a temporary dissonance that will clear itself up if you change your perspective enough otherwise evil is temporarily tolerated-as it is in the case of mercy or rehabilitation-until a time when its judgment is inevitable.

Your attitude towards evil is one of judgment i.e. instead of being neutral about its existence you show an aversion towards it. Your frustration with it must come from its prevalence which means you actively desire its absence. But because a future judgment implies the cessation of tolerance you propose that it should have been avoided by someone else preferably as early on as Adam and Eve (and presumably with some form of divine assistance that God spitefully withheld from them). In other words somehow you want to escape the responsibility humans had since day one so that you can enjoy the grace that allows mistakes but never expect the judgment that exposes evil as truly intolerable to God. Have you ever considered what you're actually asking for?

************(*
M*W: You are so brainwashed!

 

[lightgigantic]

Prince JAmes

“ Gods potency is such that he can bend the physical laws (gravity, speed of light - any scientific axiom you care to mention) just as we can do things with holograms - I guess the question is "who is on the other side to perceice the contradiction?" It wouldn't be a contradiction for god, but it would appear to be a contradiction to anyone else ”

Let's disregard physical laws entirely. I am speaking about logical ones. That God can theoretically and without contradiction cease any natural law is certainly acceptable, but can he do the same to a logical law?

It is difficult to conceive of a logical law that is independant of a physical law.

Okay, here's a question that will get to the heart of it all: Can God both exist and not-exist, in the same manner and at the same time?

No - god exists without the possibility of not existing - but a different answer could be arrived at from the vantage point of anyone else

BG 7.24: Unintelligent men, who do not know Me perfectly, think that I, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa, was impersonal before and have now assumed this personality. Due to their small knowledge, they do not know My higher nature, which is imperishable and supreme.

BG 7.25: I am never manifest to the foolish and unintelligent. For them I am covered by My internal potency, and therefore they do not know that I am unborn and infallible.

BG 7.26: O Arjuna, as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, I know everything that has happened in the past, all that is happening in the present, and all things that are yet to come. I also know all living entities; but Me no one knows.

BG 7.27: O scion of Bharata, O conqueror of the foe, all living entities are born into delusion, bewildered by dualities arisen from desire and hate.

“ This doesn't come through as a clear statement, particularly the part in bold - maybe you could rephrase it ”

In infinite space, there is necessarily an infinite amount of things, in the infinite combination those things can be put together, and in the infinite varieties they can find themselves as. In essence, infinite space is the essence of complete and utter variety. Anything which is not impossible could occur and does occur in this situation.

there is the distinction between the material world and the spiritual world - the material world is a limited pocket of the infinity of the spiritual world- even the variety of divisions within the spiritual world are iinfinite

CC Mad21.6 “Since all the Vaikuntha planets are located in a certain corner of the spiritual sky, who can measure the spiritual sky?

“ Which moment was the innocent person guilty of murder? ”

No point. But what point is an ignorant person ignorant? Every point he is ignorant. If ignorance is evil, then God tolerates evil, as you claim that we all are ignorant.

The soul is never ignorant - it is eternal, full of knowledge and bliss

Your question actually appear s in the bhagavatam (it is full of many conversations between sages, in this case Vidura and Maitreya)

SB 3.7.5: The pure soul is pure consciousness and is never out of consciousness, either due to circumstances, time, situations, dreams or other causes. How then does he become engaged in nescience?

to which the answer comes

SB 3.7.10: The living entity is in distress regarding his self-identity. He has no factual background, like a man who dreams that he sees his head cut off.

SB 3.7.11: As the moon reflected on water appears to the seer to tremble due to being associated with the quality of the water, so the self associated with matter appears to be qualified as matter.

purport excerpt from 3.7.10

These activities are performed under the dictation of the illusory energy. The experience is compared to the experience of one's having his head cut off in a dream. The man whose head has been cut off also sees that his head has been cut off. If a person's head is severed he loses his power to see. Therefore if a man sees that his head has been cut off, it means that he thinks like that in hallucination. Similarly a living entity is eternally subordinate to the Supreme Lord, and he has this knowledge with him, but, artificially, he thinks that he is God himself and that although he is God he has lost his knowledge due to māyā. This conception has no meaning, just as there is no meaning to seeing one's head being cut off. This is the process by which knowledge is covered.

and the next purport

The Supreme Soul, the Personality of Godhead, is compared to the moon in the sky, and the living entities are compared to the reflection of the moon on water. The moon in the sky is fixed and does not appear to quiver like the moon on the water. Actually, like the original moon in the sky, the moon reflected on the water should also not quiver, but because of being associated with water, the reflection appears to be quivering, although in actual fact the moon is fixed. The water moves, but the moon does not move. Similarly, the living entities appear to be tainted by material qualities like illusion, lamentation and miseries, although in the pure soul such qualities are completely absent. The word pratīyate, which means "apparently" and "not actually" (like the experience of having one's head cut off in a dream), is significant here. The reflection of the moon on the water is the separated rays of the moon and not the actual moon. The separated parts and parcels of the Lord entangled in the water of material existence have the quivering quality, whereas the Lord is like the actual moon in the sky, which is not at all in touch with water. The light of the sun and moon reflected on matter makes the matter bright and praiseworthy. The living symptoms are compared to the light of the sun and the moon illuminating material manifestations like trees and mountains. The reflection of the sun or moon is accepted as the real sun or moon by less intelligent men, and the pure monistic philosophy develops from these ideas. In fact, the light of the sun and the moon are actually different from the sun and moon themselves, although they are always connected. The light of the moon spread throughout the sky appears to be impersonal, but the moon planet, as it is, is personal, and the living entities on the moon planet are also personal. In the rays of the moon, different material entities appear to be comparatively more or less important. The light of the moon on the Taj Mahal appears to be more beautiful than the same light in the wilderness. Although the light of the moon is the same everywhere, due to being differently appreciated it appears different. Similarly, the light of the Lord is equally distributed everywhere, but due to being differently received, it appears to be different. One should not, therefore, accept the reflection of the moon on the water as actual and misunderstand the whole situation through monistic philosophy. The quivering quality of the moon is also variable. When the water is standing still, there is no quivering. A more settled conditioned soul quivers less, but due to material connection the quivering quality is more or less present everywhere.

 

[Prince_James]

Jenyar:

My question is why you are asking questions to which you already have the logical answer, since you "support this notion of omnipotence"? Would someone else's slip of logic prove anything?

It is important in my debates with Lightgigantic to guage his beliefs. If he denies that God must follow logic, then we must deal with that before anything else. It might even make discourse fruitless, as we'd have nothing we could ever possibly agree on.

As a matter of interest, this statement above illustrates the issue: By consciously limiting this infinite realm of possibility to "anything which is not impossible", you create two sets: the possible (which may include an infinite amount and combination of things), and the impossible (which you don't elaborate on). But there is no mention of "infinity" being in any way limited, even if the term only refers to the possible infinite. Not to extend the definition of omnipotence the same courtesy, is to disregard what definitions (and indeed words) do.

Meaning: I do not quantify why impossible things might not rightfully be construed as part of infinity?

Well allow me to ask you this: Do you count the exclusion of nothing from something as being a mark against infinity? That is, must infinity also have "nothing" in order to be infinite?

It's not the concept of goodness that changes, but the content. The declaration that God is good is the easy one, since He is God. But we are not, therefore we're obviously not "good" to the fullest extent of the word (cf. Jesus' own words: "Why do ask me about what is good? There is only One who is good.") Still, though we may only possess God's goodness partially - like lilies on a pond - the concept still applies 100% to our limited extent. In short: the word describes the same qualities and carries the same connotations.

How could a perfect being create less than a perfect thing? For if you admit of goodness as a perfection, then surely a perfect God could not craft a being suspectible to less than perfect goodness?

The clean can not make that which is dirty. Toilet paper unused cannot spread excrement.

Where the criticism does apply is that our ability to understand God's "goodness" is obviously limited to what we as creations can associate with (compare the many anthropomorphisms in the Bible). Our word "good" naturally derives from human experience first - even if some those experiences are of God, they're still filtered through our senses, and come out completely human on the other side.

Admittedly we are limited beings, but I fail to see how we cannot appreciate goodness for what it is because of this? For if we can appreciate goodness on a human level, why not on a Godly?

Really? But that's not the situation that is described in the Genesis. Eve is perfectly able to tell the serpent that eating from the tree is against God's wishes - the pre-fall equivalent of wrong.

Against God's wishes does not imply wrongness. It implies against God's wishes. If the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil contains within it the seed to morality, then it cannot be that Eve could have viewed this as "wrong", only that "God said not to do this". She chose to disobey, but this could not be evaluated as good or bad at this point.

That was the extent to which there was a difference between good and evil, and that was the extent of knowledge to which Adam and Eve were accountable for.

Yet they had no capacity to moral reasoning. They could not discern this.

No matter how great their ignorance of everything else, knowledge of a fact does not equal ignorance of a fact - and they knew what God wanted.

They knew that God wanted them not to, but they never knew that going against what God wants to is bad. They could not have. A knowledge of evil was alien to them.

Whatever else they might have been, they were definitely not ignorant or lacking the necessary mental faculties. If that were the case, the rest of the story would make no internal sense.

This is clearly not the case, for did not God (or as the text says in Hebrew, Gods...) say:

"And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:" - Genesis 3:22 (KJV).

This implies that man had previously NOT this knowledge. That until Adam and Eve ate the apple, they were completely and utterly ignorant of good and evil. They were not as God in this respect. They were amoral creatures, perhaps similar to how animals are held to be today.

Such an innate ability does exist, and you are being a very good demonstration for it, since your complaint is a moral one against God. For this purpose, you have shifted the onus of deciding what is good, fair and just from God onto yourself - at least theoretically. You had to do that in order to judge whether God has indeed been "good" or not. It's not the concept or measurement of good that's changed, just the reference point from which it is being measured.

I do admit that I am in fact placing a mantle of Godhood upon man's shoulders. This is inline with my autotheological conceptions. But this is besides the point.

You have dodged the question here. You claim that God is innately within the circle of goodness, yes? That goodness is a quality which he holds as a perfection and he is incapable of violating? God cannot commit an evil act, yes? And yet you hold that God is free, yes? That he is as free as you or I, or even moreso, despite the fact that he is incapable of committing any and all evil acts? Then why, pray tell, has not God so endowed us with this nature?

Raising Abel from the dead was in effect what God did when He raised Jesus from the dead. Abel could then forgive Cain for even such a final evil. But here's the catch: Cain would not cease to be guilty of murder simply because Abel was no longer dead. Especially not if Abel didn't raise himself. God might reverse both Cain and Abel's deaths, but there would forever be a certain difference between Cain and Abel.

Is it not held in Judeo-Christian traditions that Cain and Abraham and others were in the "Hell of the Fathers" prior to Christ's salvation? That they existed in a sort of "Hades"? Therefore, they had nothing to really complain about, as they were still alive, no? I fail to see how Jesus' actions then changed a thing.

Moreover, God could have simply prevented Cain from murdering to begin wtih. He knew before Cain was even born that Cain would murder Abel, no? And even if not, he would know as he was attempting to do it and could have easily intervened or even set back time for both of them, no?

Maybe evil can be tolerated without consequence, in we're wrong about the concept of "justice";

Then the notion of goodness and its antipathy towards and opposition to evil fails. It is also held that God is perfectly just.

or perhaps evil is an illusion, a temporary dissonance that will clear itself up if we just move our perspective enough

Something need not be permanent in order to be an attack against God's goodness.

or evil is temporarily tolerated - as it is in the case when a judge shows mercy or desires rehabilitation, or when good people persevere without repaying evil with evil - until there is no patience left and it can't be tolerated any longer.

Toleration is the same as support. This indicts God as a monster.

Your attitude towards "evil" is like the last one, of judgment, i.e. instead of being neutral or apathetic about its existence, you show an aversion towards it, which you assume is automatically and self-evidently justified.

Is not all evil in contradiction to goodness? ANd does it not behoove good to see that evil not see the light of day?

In fact, does not Jesus say as much in the Parable of the Good Samaratin? For it was only the Samaratin who fulfilled his obligations to his fellow man when he saw an evil transpiring (suffering).

Similarly, would you consider a man good who, sauntering down the street, does nothing to stop a woman being brutally gang raped and dismembered?

Your frustration with it derives from its prevalence, i.e. you desire its absence.

Thank you.

The only way this could be is: if it was eliminated in the past, will be eliminated in the future, or can be tolerated (explained away) in the present.

In other words, somehow you want to escape the responsibility humans had since day one, so that you can enjoy the grace that allows mistakes, but never expect the judgment that exposes evil as truly intolerable to God. That's a place I suspect everyone arrives at at some stage of their lives. But have you really ever considered what you're complaining about?

Yes: I am complaining about moral responsibility when no such responsibility is needed assuming God could be as they say, where the idea of God being omnibenevolent is untenable because of the universe, and that God is assuredly the author and sustainer and promoter of evil.

Moreover, judgement does not rectify things. The evil remains in the past and the punishment does nothing to rectify this or set things right in a true sense.

 

[(Q)]

No - god exists without the possibility of not existing - but a different answer could be arrived at from the vantage point of anyone else

there is the distinction between the material world and the spiritual world - the material world is a limited pocket of the infinity of the spiritual world- even the variety of divisions within the spiritual world are iinfinite

The soul is never ignorant - it is eternal, full of knowledge and bliss

Doo-wop skiddly-doo wop-wop. 23 skidoo! Burp!

 

[superluminal]

Hey Q, I'm looking at getting a Mallincam Hyper B&W camera. What do you think?

EDTT: This is on topic as I firmly believe that there would be far less suffering in the world if more people were into amateur astronomy. Carry on.

 

[S.A.M.]

Hey Q, I'm looking at getting a Mallincam Hyper B&W camera. What do you think?

EDTT: This is on topic as I firmly believe that there would be far less suffering in the world if more people were into amateur astronomy. Carry on.

Don't interrupt him; for once he's making complete sense.

 

[superluminal]

Go back to sleep.

 

[S.A.M.]

Go back to sleep.

I hear and obey

G'nite.

 

[Prince_James]

Lightgigantic:

It is difficult to conceive of a logical law that is independant of a physical law.

The law of Identity and Non-Contradiction do not depend on any physical laws existing. They do not need gravity, electromagnetism, human beings, or anything. They are purely necessary. The only time they could no longer exist would be if there was nothing at all.

No - god exists without the possibility of not existing - but a different answer could be arrived at from the vantage point of anyone else

So then you admit that God both necessarily follows the Law of Identity and of Non-Contradiction? That he is, in fact, constrained by logical laws?

there is the distinction between the material world and the spiritual world - the material world is a limited pocket of the infinity of the spiritual world- even the variety of divisions within the spiritual world are iinfinite

Is the spiritual world made of a substance different from that of the material world?

The soul is never ignorant - it is eternal, full of knowledge and bliss

ARe not we our souls? And are not we ignorant?

 

[lightgigantic]

Prince JAmes

“ It is difficult to conceive of a logical law that is independant of a physical law. ”

The law of Identity and Non-Contradiction do not depend on any physical laws existing. They do not need gravity, electromagnetism, human beings, or anything. They are purely necessary. The only time they could no longer exist would be if there was nothing at all.

My issue was to say that something "exists" depends on the seer. A superior entity can remain invisible to an inferior entity (like for instance you can hold an ant on one stick and switch holding the ends around as he walks from one end to the other as he walks for hours). So god can be beyond the vision of evryone and anyone (Thats the point of the "Me, nobody knows" quote fromt he gita)

“ No - god exists without the possibility of not existing - but a different answer could be arrived at from the vantage point of anyone else ”

So then you admit that God both necessarily follows the Law of Identity and of Non-Contradiction? That he is, in fact, constrained by logical laws?

God exists, but his identity is unique

SB 11.15.36: Just as the same material elements exist within and outside of all material bodies, similarly, I cannot be covered by anything else. I exist within everything as the Supersoul and outside of everything in My all-pervading feature.
Purport

Lord Kṛṣṇa is the entire basis of meditation for all yogīs and philosophers, and here the Lord clarifies His absolute position. Since the Lord is within everything, one might think that the Lord is divided into pieces. However, the word anāvṛta, or "completely uncovered," indicates that nothing can interrupt, disturb or in any way infringe upon the supreme existence of the Absolute Truth, the Personality of Godhead. There is no actual separation between the internal and external existence of the material elements, which continuously exist everywhere. Similarly, the Supreme Personality of Godhead is all-pervading and is the ultimate perfection of everything.

Iso 5: The Supreme Lord walks and does not walk. He is far away, but He is very near as well. He is within everything, and yet He is outside of everything.
purport excerpt

Here is a description of some of the Supreme Lord's transcendental activities, executed by His inconceivable potencies. The contradictions given here prove the inconceivable potencies of the Lord. "He walks, and He does not walk." Ordinarily, if someone can walk, it is illogical to say he cannot walk. But in reference to God, such a contradiction simply serves to indicate His inconceivable power. With our limited fund of knowledge we cannot accommodate such contradictions, and therefore we conceive of the Lord in terms of our limited powers of understanding.

the purport continues on
http://isopanisad.com/5/en

“ there is the distinction between the material world and the spiritual world - the material world is a limited pocket of the infinity of the spiritual world- even the variety of divisions within the spiritual world are iinfinite ”

Is the spiritual world made of a substance different from that of the material world?

yes

“ The soul is never ignorant - it is eternal, full of knowledge and bliss ”

ARe not we our souls? And are not we ignorant?

Suppose one saw a coconut on a tree with a gash on the husk, and then one opened the husk up and saw there was a gash on the shell, but then one opened up the coconut and saw that the white pulp was perfectly okay.
The word atma (self) refers to either body, mind or soul, or sometimes all three according to different contexts - but it is the soul that is the essence of atma, just like it is the coconut pulp that is the essence of coconut, (despite the husked and shelled coconut also being labelled as "cocunut)

 

[(Q)]

Hey Q, I'm looking at getting a Mallincam Hyper B&W camera. What do you think?

EDTT: This is on topic as I firmly believe that there would be far less suffering in the world if more people were into amateur astronomy. Carry on.

An excellent choice, but to LG's point:

"The Supreme Lord walks and does not walk. He is far away, but He is very near as well. He is within everything, and yet He is outside of everything."

... he came in through the bathroom window.

 

[Prince_James]

LightGigantic:

My issue was to say that something "exists" depends on the seer. A superior entity can remain invisible to an inferior entity (like for instance you can hold an ant on one stick and switch holding the ends around as he walks from one end to the other as he walks for hours). So god can be beyond the vision of evryone and anyone (Thats the point of the "Me, nobody knows" quote fromt he gita)

It will be admitted that a personality of God could do as such, yes. Of course, the necessary nature of God as determined by philosophy must be open to all rational beings. Necessity - like the Law of Non-Contradiction and Identity - demand that one can, with access to reason, determine such things.

God exists, but his identity is unique

But he does exist and doesn't not exist, yes?

Ordinarily, if someone can walk, it is illogical to say he cannot walk. But in reference to God, such a contradiction simply serves to indicate His inconceivable power.

If God is in everything, this is not a contradiction. That is to say, he could be both simulteneously walking and not working, when referenced from different frames. I.E. If I am walking and you are sitting, we can rightfully say that God is both walking and sitting, as God equally encompasses and supports and is both you and I.

yes

Could one come to the end of the material universe and then pass over seamlessly into the spiritual? Would it be akin to going from a dirt to an asphalt road?

Suppose one saw a coconut on a tree with a gash on the husk, and then one opened the husk up and saw there was a gash on the shell, but then one opened up the coconut and saw that the white pulp was perfectly okay.
The word atma (self) refers to either body, mind or soul, or sometimes all three according to different contexts - but it is the soul that is the essence of atma, just like it is the coconut pulp that is the essence of coconut, (despite the husked and shelled coconut also being labelled as "cocunut)

Is there not a difference between a coconut that is whole and a coconut which is partially broken?

 

[Jenyar]

Pardon the long post, I didn't want to skip something. But it's not as long as it looks - there's a lot of repetition... Take your time.

It is important in my debates with Lightgigantic to guage his beliefs. If he denies that God must follow logic, then we must deal with that before anything else. It might even make discourse fruitless, as we'd have nothing we could ever possibly agree on.

There is also the issue of discourse, which might make it hard to realize agreement even when it exists. Words like "God must follow logic" has an effect on the conversation that you might not be sensitive to, because you see it as self-evident that God is at most a philosophical construct. While a theist might have had no problem agreeing that a productive discussion about God or anything else has to follow logic, he would detect your presumption and instead respond to that. Surely if God is defined as Creator, then the laws of logic were built into creation (like Gordon Clark's translation of John 1:1 "In the beginning was the Logic, and the Logic was with God and the Logic was God") - after all, there is no law that the universe must make sense; and logic is just how we measure sense. Its laws were discovered by us, not invented.

If you think about it, there is no practical difference between "we must follow the same logic" and "God must follow logic" except for that subtle shift of emphasis.

That's often why these conversations tend to go in circles. If a party doesn't take the time to define their position, and assumes that meaning "goes without saying", the debate tends to become an exercise not unlike trying to pick up a soggy bar of soap in the shower.

Meaning: I do not quantify why impossible things might not rightfully be construed as part of infinity?

Well allow me to ask you this: Do you count the exclusion of nothing from something as being a mark against infinity? That is, must infinity also have "nothing" in order to be infinite?

Correct, but you're repeating my argument. My point is that the concept of omnipotence follows the same principle: it is not diminished by what is not logically possible; logic itself ensures that.

How could a perfect being create less than a perfect thing? For if you admit of goodness as a perfection, then surely a perfect God could not craft a being suspectible to less than perfect goodness?

The clean can not make that which is dirty. Toilet paper unused cannot spread excrement.

Clean cannot be dirty because they are already defined, relative constructs. Toilet paper cannot create. But since God is after all omnipotent, why can't He create something limited? Even if such a creation were not less perfect, it might still be less in scope and ability, with its own scaled-to-size measurement of "goodness".

Keep in mind that "perfection" is an assessment of something: it implies that something is exactly as it is supposed to be, without defect. A perfect toaster does not have to meet the standards of a philosophical ideal - with wings and an inexhaustible power source - if it only has to make perfect toast. You made much about layered complexity. Well, put a perfect being and a perfect act carried out against the perfect law of a perfect God, and you get perfect disobedience, with perhaps surprising, but not impossible, results. This is especially true if our perfection actually consists of a combination of things. It might even be a process (why not?). Put on top of that the possibility that some measures of perfection may not reflect God's, and an argument from perfection becomes even more tenuous.

God's words to Paul, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness", would be a good example. We tend to see perfection as a self-contained thing, something (logically?) incompatible with properties like weakness. Logic depends on axioms and premises, and the output will only be as good as the input.

Admittedly we are limited beings, but I fail to see how we cannot appreciate goodness for what it is because of this? For if we can appreciate goodness on a human level, why not on a Godly?

We can, and have (3 John 1:11). But you make it sound like a choice between absolutes. Knowing something of God's goodness, or knowing that He is good, does not make us experts on divine goodness. Nor, indeed, does our grasp of goodness make us godly.

Against God's wishes does not imply wrongness. It implies against God's wishes. If the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil contains within it the seed to morality, then it cannot be that Eve could have viewed this as "wrong", only that "God said not to do this". She chose to disobey, but this could not be evaluated as good or bad at this point.

But it was your idea to put the seed of morality in the fruit. The knowledge may have been there, like knowledge on the internet, but the morality lay in the agreement between God (who knows all) and man (who knew God's command). Going against God's wishes was the exact equivalent to doing wrong, because God did not want them to do wrong.

But when man wanted to own the gift, the seat of morality shifted: at first discernment lay with God, afterwards it lay with man. "Knowing good and evil" (NOT: "knowing the difference between good and evil") meant they could choose a different path than God intended, with the corresponding consequences. That's the price of autonomy, and ironically, that's what God is being blamed for (like Adam blamed Eve, and Eve blamed the Devil).

Yet they had no capacity to moral reasoning. They could not discern this.

You keep saying that, without any support but your interpretation, and without motivating that interpretation from the text you propose to be using. Any scholarly reference would give you so much more credibility.

The premise in gen 1:27 is that they were made in God's likeness. You can't get past that. It means they had the capacity for moral reasoning - otherwise God giving them a rule to follow would make no sense from the author's perspective, which is what I propose one follows when reading something. The rationale behind God's judgment of Adam and Eve is that they knew what they were doing was wrong.

They knew that God wanted them not to, but they never knew that going against what God wants to is bad. They could not have. A knowledge of evil was alien to them.

Bad is the antithesis of good. They knew the good, they could deduce that doing the opposite would be bad. They did not need first-hand knowledge of evil to complete that equation. The intention of the story is to show the mechanism of moral decision-making and the character of sin, not their origin. It simply puts all the props on the stage, and plays it out for us. If you read more into it you'd be a creationist.

This is clearly not the case, for did not God (or as the text says in Hebrew, Gods...) say:

The word may be morphologically plural (like "sheep"), but the noun is singular. Where it is plural it is used with plural verbs and adjectives. Moving on...

"And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:" - Genesis 3:22 (KJV).

This implies that man had previously NOT this knowledge. That until Adam and Eve ate the apple, they were completely and utterly ignorant of good and evil. They were not as God in this respect. They were amoral creatures, perhaps similar to how animals are held to be today.

Again, they may not have had all the knowledge, but they certainly had the capacity and the discernment for it. Otherwise "the knowledge" wouldn't have had those distinctions to begin with. The words themselves would have made no sense to them.

I do admit that I am in fact placing a mantle of Godhood upon man's shoulders. This is inline with my autotheological conceptions. But this is besides the point.

You have dodged the question here. You claim that God is innately within the circle of goodness, yes? That goodness is a quality which he holds as a perfection and he is incapable of violating? God cannot commit an evil act, yes? And yet you hold that God is free, yes? That he is as free as you or I, or even moreso, despite the fact that he is incapable of committing any and all evil acts? Then why, pray tell, has not God so endowed us with this nature?

In other words, why did God not make us himself? Besides it being a logical impossibility?

It helps to let go of the idea that good and evil can be defined separately from those involved. Something is good or bad in relation to something else - people may "sin" against each other as well as against God (Luk. 17:3). But while God acts consistently with his nature, especially towards us, we don't always - we can isolate ourselves and disregard God and each other. When God created man in His image, He commanded them to also act consistently with that nature - in other words, follow Him. He repeated that command to Moses, this time with respect to people. God does not disobey himself, but man can disobey God - move outside the circle. When the relationship is broken, we can also be very good at being true to ourselves, but those "selves" could be anchored almost anywhere. It's tempting to think God is evil when He moves outside our circles, but that's forgetting who's God and who's creation.

Is it not held in Judeo-Christian traditions that Cain and Abraham and others were in the "Hell of the Fathers" prior to Christ's salvation? That they existed in a sort of "Hades"? Therefore, they had nothing to really complain about, as they were still alive, no? I fail to see how Jesus' actions then changed a thing.

I'm not familiar with the term "Hell of the Fathers", but the Jews believed the grave (Sheol, which later became synonymous with Hell) is a kind of prison where all souls awaited final judgment. If Jesus never came to announce God's forgiveness, they would certainly have complained, and such Hell would have been all anyone had to look forward to.

Moreover, God could have simply prevented Cain from murdering to begin wtih. He knew before Cain was even born that Cain would murder Abel, no? And even if not, he would know as he was attempting to do it and could have easily intervened or even set back time for both of them, no?

God did intervene:

Gen. 4:6-7 Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it."​

If you suggest God should physically have prevented the act, you are making a strong indictment against his freedom to exercise the knowledge of good and evil. According to you they would have listened to God if they only knew what they knew afterwards. Cain was mankind's first chance to prove that thesis right.

Then the notion of goodness and its antipathy towards and opposition to evil fails. It is also held that God is perfectly just.

Exactly. Scratch one...

Something need not be permanent in order to be an attack against God's goodness.

So even a momentary discomfort would be enough to convince you God is evil? Like Jonah, you are angry about something that sprang up overnight and died overnight, but you don't care whether God is being patient with an immense number of people He would rather spare?

Toleration is the same as support. This indicts God as a monster.

I think you might be mistaking patience for tolerance. Tolerance doesn't have a final judgment at the end. 2 Peter 3:9-11

Is not all evil in contradiction to goodness? ANd does it not behoove good to see that evil not see the light of day?

In fact, does not Jesus say as much in the Parable of the Good Samaratin? For it was only the Samaratin who fulfilled his obligations to his fellow man when he saw an evil transpiring (suffering).

Similarly, would you consider a man good who, sauntering down the street, does nothing to stop a woman being brutally gang raped and dismembered?

You've got it. The Samaritan - not the religious leaders before him who walked past the "unclean" man in need - would have nothing to fear from God's judgment. The difference is that God can judge all actions past and present, while we can just only our own conduct.

Yes: I am complaining about moral responsibility when no such responsibility is needed assuming God could be as they say, where the idea of God being omnibenevolent is untenable because of the universe, and that God is assuredly the author and sustainer and promoter of evil.

Strange that you would complain about us having the responsibility and at the same time about God not taking it from us. Good doesn't just happen by itself, it is exercised. To exercise responsibility you need to be in control of your actions, not steered in a direction. Now you want to steer God in a direction because you've realized how destructive people can be without Him? There's nothing that stops people from taking responsibility for their actions and wondering whether the roles might be reversed soon.

Moreover, judgement does not rectify things. The evil remains in the past and the punishment does nothing to rectify this or set things right in a true sense.

It does by reversing the circumstances at a very critical time: the inverse nexus of eternity - or "final judgment" as it is more commonly referred to. From that perspective, "the past" is simply an important point of reference. People who were dead for a while can enjoy life for eternity, and people who were happily and selfishly alive for a while will face the consequences for just as long.

What can someone possibly lose that eternal life wouldn't make up for, and what can someone possibly gain from evil that would be worth losing eternal life for? Judgment is just a way of referring to the decision of who goes where, and why.

 

[lightgigantic]

PJ

“
My issue was to say that something "exists" depends on the seer. A superior entity can remain invisible to an inferior entity (like for instance you can hold an ant on one stick and switch holding the ends around as he walks from one end to the other as he walks for hours). So god can be beyond the vision of evryone and anyone (Thats the point of the "Me, nobody knows" quote fromt he gita)
”
It will be admitted that a personality of God could do as such, yes. Of course, the necessary nature of God as determined by philosophy must be open to all rational beings. Necessity - like the Law of Non-Contradiction and Identity - demand that one can, with access to reason, determine such things.

Would it be conceivable that what we determine as the perimeters of non contradiction could be different to a more highly advanced entity? For instance take the ant (and assume it fulfills the criteria for a 2-D living entity) - accordingto its laws of contradiction time and space would be uniform (but as stated earlier, a 3-D living entity can twist the stick they are walking on and frustrate the ants conception of non-contradiction as it walks from one end of the stick to the other continuously)

“
God exists, but his identity is unique
”
But he does exist and doesn't not exist, yes?

On the contrary god occupies the highest ontological catergory in reality - he exists without the possibility of non existing (not to say that he exists with out the possibility of being imperceptable)

“
Ordinarily, if someone can walk, it is illogical to say he cannot walk. But in reference to God, such a contradiction simply serves to indicate His inconceivable power.
”
If God is in everything, this is not a contradiction. That is to say, he could be both simulteneously walking and not working, when referenced from different frames. I.E. If I am walking and you are sitting, we can rightfully say that God is both walking and sitting, as God equally encompasses and supports and is both you and I.

Actually the verse indicates that god does not walk in the sense that the universal arrangement of order does not walk, but he does walk in the sense that he has a personal form outside of the arrangement for universal order - it doesn't indicate that our walking and god's walking are of the same nature

here is an excerpt from dasa mula tattva

"Sri Krishna, the embodiment of eternality, absolute knowledge, and unlimited bliss, possesses an inconceivable potency called virodha-bhanjika-sakti (removing all contradictions). By the influence of this potency, all apparently contrary principles and natures are unified and are eternally present. Form and formlessness; omnipresence and localised beautiful physical presence; equal disposition towards all and special favour of mercy towards devotees; birthlessness and taking birth; omniscience and accepting the position of a human being; impersonalism and personalism; and many such unlimited contradictory characteristics are wonderfully harmonised ...... Before one begins a debate, one must consider that human logic is very limited; hence, it has no jurisdiction in the realm of the unlimited, inconceivable principle

“

yes
”
Could one come to the end of the material universe and then pass over seamlessly into the spiritual? Would it be akin to going from a dirt to an asphalt road?

coming to the end of the material universe is not possible unless one is beyond the mental platform (mano maya) - it is required that one has veleoped full perfection (ananda maya)

from SB 10.87.17

"Within the body there are five different departments of existence, known as anna-maya, prāṇa-maya, mano-maya, vijñāna-maya, and at last ānanda-maya. [These are enumerated in the Brahmānanda-vallī of the Taittirīya Upaniṣad.] In the beginning of life, every living entity is food conscious. A child or an animal is satisfied only by getting nice food. This stage of consciousness, in which the goal is to eat sumptuously, is called anna-maya. Anna means 'food.' After this one lives in the consciousness of being alive. If one can continue his life without being attacked or destroyed, one thinks himself happy. This stage is called prāṇa-maya, or consciousness of one's existence. After this stage, when one is situated on the mental platform, that consciousness is called mano-maya. The material civilization is primarily situated in these three stages — annamaya, prāṇa-maya and mano-maya. The first concern of civilized persons is economic development, the next concern is defense against being annihilated, and the next consciousness is mental speculation, the philosophical approach to the values of life.

"If by the evolutionary process of philosophical life one happens to reach to the platform of intellectual life and understands that he is not this material body, but is a spirit soul, one is situated in the vijñāna-maya stage. Then by evolution of spiritual life he comes to understand the Supreme Lord, or the Supreme Soul. When one develops his relationship with Him and executes devotional service, that stage of life is called .... the ānanda-maya stage. Ānanda-maya is the blissful life of knowledge and eternity. As it is said in the Vedānta-sūtra, ānanda-mayo 'bhyāsāt. The Supreme Brahman and the subordinate Brahman, or the Supreme Personality of Godhead and the living entities, are both joyful by nature. As long as the living entities are situated in the lower four stages of life — anna-maya, prāṇa-maya, mano-maya and vijñāna-maya — they are considered to be in the material condition of life, but as soon as one reaches the stage of ānanda-maya he becomes a liberated soul.

as for negotiating the different fabric of both realms, it seems that by dint of perfection even in this life (jiva mukta) the transition is barely noticable

SB 11.13.36: Just as a drunken man does not notice if he is wearing his coat or shirt, similarly, one who is perfect in self-realization and who has thus achieved his eternal identity does not notice whether the temporary body is sitting or standing. Indeed, if by God's will the body is finished or if by God's will he obtains a new body, a self-realized soul does not notice, just as a drunken man does not notice the situation of his outward dress.

(obviously in this regard I can only quote scripture -lol)

“
Suppose one saw a coconut on a tree with a gash on the husk, and then one opened the husk up and saw there was a gash on the shell, but then one opened up the coconut and saw that the white pulp was perfectly okay.
The word atma (self) refers to either body, mind or soul, or sometimes all three according to different contexts - but it is the soul that is the essence of atma, just like it is the coconut pulp that is the essence of coconut, (despite the husked and shelled coconut also being labelled as "cocunut)
”
Is there not a difference between a coconut that is whole and a coconut which is partially broken?

By gash I meant some cosmetic scratch or imperfection on the surface - that was the point of the analogy - the coconut (white pulp) was unaffected by the gash on account of never actually coming in contact with it - it wouldn't be appropriate to use a broken coconut for theanalogy because the soul is specifically described as being uniform

BG 2.20
For the soul there is neither birth nor death at any time. He has not come into being, does not come into being, and will not come into being. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain.

BG 2.21
O Pärtha, how can a person who knows that the soul is indestructible, eternal, unborn and immutable kill anyone or cause anyone to kill?

The soul can never be cut to pieces by any weapon, nor burned by fire, nor moistened by water, nor withered by the wind.

 

[Prince_James]

Jenyar:

Pardon the long post, I didn't want to skip something. But it's not as long as it looks - there's a lot of repetition... Take your time.

Certainly.

There is also the issue of discourse, which might make it hard to realize agreement even when it exists. Words like "God must follow logic" has an effect on the conversation that you might not be sensitive to, because you see it as self-evident that God is at most a philosophical construct. While a theist might have had no problem agreeing that a productive discussion about God or anything else has to follow logic, he would detect your presumption and instead respond to that. Surely if God is defined as Creator, then the laws of logic were built into creation (like Gordon Clark's translation of John 1:1 "In the beginning was the Logic, and the Logic was with God and the Logic was God") - after all, there is no law that the universe must make sense; and logic is just how we measure sense. Its laws were discovered by us, not invented.

Would you care to debate this topic elsewhere with me? For it seems a bit tangential here, and I do not wish to get into massive discussions of metaphysical necessity where it isn't needed.

Correct, but you're repeating my argument. My point is that the concept of omnipotence follows the same principle: it is not diminished by what is not logically possible; logic itself ensures that.

I agree, it is not.

But since God is after all omnipotent, why can't He create something limited? Even if such a creation were not less perfect, it might still be less in scope and ability, with its own scaled-to-size measurement of "goodness".

Not less perfect? Surely something limited is less perfect in at least some senses. And even if we admit of its limitations not being perfect, a limitation in something that can necessarily be perfect without sacrificing the limitation of size and power is most definitely a fault. If God can act against his own perfection, then one cannot say God is perfect.

Keep in mind that "perfection" is an assessment of something: it implies that something is exactly as it is supposed to be, without defect.

Both a Mini Cooper and a Jaguar S-type are cars which work wonderfully, but the Jaguar S-type is superior. If perfection rested purely in utility alone, then this could not be possible.

True perfection means a logical extension of the maximum of an attribute or all attributes. Omnipotence is the perfect of power, as it is power over all things to an infinite degree.

Well, put a perfect being and a perfect act carried out against the perfect law of a perfect God, and you get perfect disobedience, with perhaps surprising, but not impossible, results.

If it is a perfect law of a perfect God, backed by perfect power, then disobedience is impossible.

It might even be a process (why not?).

Define?

Put on top of that the possibility that some measures of perfection may not reflect God's, and an argument from perfection becomes even more tenuous.

Some measures? Such as?

God's words to Paul, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness", would be a good example. We tend to see perfection as a self-contained thing, something (logically?) incompatible with properties like weakness. Logic depends on axioms and premises, and the output will only be as good as the input.

"Power made perfect in weakness" refers back to God's power best effecting the hopeless. The most dramatic results would be found in someone wretched.

We can, and have (3 John 1:11). But you make it sound like a choice between absolutes. Knowing something of God's goodness, or knowing that He is good, does not make us experts on divine goodness. Nor, indeed, does our grasp of goodness make us godly.

Yet God could have made us such if he so desired. And indeed, he is behooved if his goodness is perfect and not a flawed, non-existent thing.

But...let's discuss why we cannot be an expert on divine goodness? FOr if one knows what goodness is, then one can affirm what it is perfected.

But it was your idea to put the seed of morality in the fruit.

No; it was God. It is called "The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil". One cannot be moral or immoral without knowledge of what is good and evil.

The knowledge may have been there, like knowledge on the internet, but the morality lay in the agreement between God (who knows all) and man (who knew God's command). Going against God's wishes was the exact equivalent to doing wrong, because God did not want them to do wrong.

Yet how could they know it was wrong, if they had no knowledge of goodness or evil? You are not understanding that not only are Adam and Eve ignorant of goodness, but they have -no way of understanding it- until they partake of the fruit. It would be as alien as vision is to someone born blind.

But when man wanted to own the gift, the seat of morality shifted: at first discernment lay with God, afterwards it lay with man. "Knowing good and evil" (NOT: "knowing the difference between good and evil") meant they could choose a different path than God intended, with the corresponding consequences. That's the price of autonomy, and ironically, that's what God is being blamed for (like Adam blamed Eve, and Eve blamed the Devil).

Are you then claiming God is free to act evil? For God claims he knows good and evil. Does this mean that God is himself capable of evil?

Moreover, I think you are drawing strings here. The sentences "knowing good and evil" and "knowing the difference between good and evil" are the same. To know what good and evil is necessarily to know the difference and vice-versa. Moreover, note that it is called the Tree of the -KNOWLEDGE- of good and evil. This affirms an ethical understanding.

It means they had the capacity for moral reasoning - otherwise God giving them a rule to follow would make no sense from the author's perspective, which is what I propose one follows when reading something.

This is contradicted by "behold! the man is become like one of us". Clearly our creation in the image of God does not mean we were completely like him, including lacking an ability to discern good from evil (though one must ask how a perfectly good being can even conceive of evil...).

Another thing: Adam and Eve did not clothe themselves till after the fall. This implies that they were ashamed because it was wrong to be naked. Yet previously, they had not thought of it to be wrong. If they had moral reasoning before, why did they not weave for themselves clothes out of fig leaves?

They knew the good, they could deduce that doing the opposite would be bad.

Actually, it would be pretty much impossible to think of evil in a world of all good.

They did not need first-hand knowledge of evil to complete that equation. The intention of the story is to show the mechanism of moral decision-making and the character of sin, not their origin.

Not their origin? Then why is it original sin? And again, how could they conceive of something else as "evil"? The concept of "what God wants" and "what good and evil are" is not known. They do not know what it would mean for something else to be different.

The word may be morphologically plural (like "sheep"), but the noun is singular. Where it is plural it is used with plural verbs and adjectives. Moving on...

The noun is singular yet makes one reference "us" instead of "me"?

Again, they may not have had all the knowledge, but they certainly had the capacity and the discernment for it. Otherwise "the knowledge" wouldn't have had those distinctions to begin with. The words themselves would have made no sense to them.

It is very likely they did not know what it meant. Remember, the enticement of the serpent was that man would be like God.

In other words, why did God not make us himself? Besides it being a logical impossibility?

It is not a logical impossibility to make a being that is perfectly good and free. God is such a being. And he is a perfect creator. Similarly, it is held that in the World to Come, that mankind will be perfected unto perfect goodness.

But while God acts consistently with his nature, especially towards us, we don't always - we can isolate ourselves and disregard God and each other.

Not a necessary thing. God could have created us differently and indeed, must have if he is omnibenevolent.

I'm not familiar with the term "Hell of the Fathers", but the Jews believed the grave (Sheol, which later became synonymous with Hell) is a kind of prison where all souls awaited final judgment. If Jesus never came to announce God's forgiveness, they would certainly have complained, and such Hell would have been all anyone had to look forward to.

The Hebrew scriptures make it clear that the final judgement would have eventually occurred and the righteous would inherit new life. There was no need to make an interm Heaven.

http://www.newadvent.org/summa/405202.htm - For a reference from St. Thomas Aquinas of the Hell of the Fathers.

If you suggest God should physically have prevented the act, you are making a strong indictment against his freedom to exercise the knowledge of good and evil. According to you they would have listened to God if they only knew what they knew afterwards. Cain was mankind's first chance to prove that thesis right.

I never claimed that man would have not sinned originally with knowledge of good and evil. In fact, I do not claim that God is the source of morality at all, thus his commands are not anything but the commands of an omnipotent force if they exist at all (which I deny).

Moreover, freedom is not contrary to goodness. This is proven by God. God could then have given man freedom without his evilness. And that God did not intervene, proves God is not omnibenevolent (and also the text - as does the majority of Genesis - proves he's little more than a pagan deity in terms of power and personality).

So even a momentary discomfort would be enough to convince you God is evil? Like Jonah, you are angry about something that sprang up overnight and died overnight, but you don't care whether God is being patient with an immense number of people He would rather spare?

Even the smallest evil is a mark against God's evil. Any and all evil is against God's omnibenevolence. Just as any and all weakness in omnipotence would destroy its omnipotence.

I think you might be mistaking patience for tolerance. Tolerance doesn't have a final judgment at the end. 2 Peter 3:9-11

To tolerate for a moment is equivalent to tolerate forever.

You've got it. The Samaritan - not the religious leaders before him who walked past the "unclean" man in need - would have nothing to fear from God's judgment. The difference is that God can judge all actions past and present, while we can just only our own conduct.

God can indeed judg eall actions past and present. But this matters not when he is not omnibenevolent.

Strange that you would complain about us having the responsibility and at the same time about God not taking it from us. Good doesn't just happen by itself, it is exercised. To exercise responsibility you need to be in control of your actions, not steered in a direction. Now you want to steer God in a direction because you've realized how destructive people can be without Him? There's nothing that stops people from taking responsibility for their actions and wondering whether the roles might be reversed soon.

I have never complained about God taking responsibility from us at all. In fact, I Have never claimed God should not. I have claimed consistantly that God could have created us with freedom and perfect goodness, and that he chose not to, implies that God is not omnibenevolent.

Moreover, again, you claim that God is perfectly free (in control of his actions) and yet perfectly good. God could then could have given us said same goodness and we'd be perfectly in control of our actions and in accordance with goodness.

It does by reversing the circumstances at a very critical time: the inverse nexus of eternity - or "final judgment" as it is more commonly referred to. From that perspective, "the past" is simply an important point of reference. People who were dead for a while can enjoy life for eternity, and people who were happily and selfishly alive for a while will face the consequences for just as long.

It does not change the past, nor the actions of the past, nor the results of the past. They might be "eternally alive" but they also "eternally remember" and "eternally were impacted".

What can someone possibly lose that eternal life wouldn't make up for, and what can someone possibly gain from evil that would be worth losing eternal life for? Judgment is just a way of referring to the decision of who goes where, and why.

Well, chiefly, a chance at eternal life. Imagine someone that just sinned badl and then is killed. He never has time to repent (if he ever did). Thus he would, by Christian dogma, go to Hell, yes?

 

[Roman]

"The Supreme Lord walks and does not walk. He is far away, but He is very near as well. He is within everything, and yet He is outside of everything."

... he came in through the bathroom window.

That made me lol. hehe