this post was submitted on 22 May 2025
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Yeah, it's that. I'm a Christian, but I have atheist close friends, and I love our debates, but it's because we respect each others enough to accept and recognise that we use the words differently. It's generally not the case on the net.
The Epicurian argument is strong only if you have a very broad definition of all-powerfulness. A definition that classical Christian theology doesn't have, as it recognizes a lot of logical limitations. All-powerfulness is the capacity to do everything possible. So yes, the Christian God is limited.
One of these logical limitations is: God can't create anything free without allowing their creation to do thing that they disapprove, thus God being good, they can't create freedom without accepting the existence of evil, which is not a thing per se, but the absence of good. God chose freedom over perfection, and it's not a human.thing, but a cosmological one.
So yeah, this is a strong argument only of you are already convinced, but it's generally the case on religious matters. I tend to tink that the only purely rational position is true agnosticism, but sometimes for important things you have to make choices without being sure. That's why I'm an agnostic theist.
What I don't get is - didn't God create the necessity of evil for freedom to exist, just like he created everything else? He could have chosen to create the concept of freedom such that it still doesn't allow for evil, but for some reason didn't choose to do so, right?
Or is God bound by rules from an even higher power?
They're bound by logic. They can make anything possible, but 2+2 will never be 5, and even God can't change that. Something can't be and not be. Something thus can't be free without having any choice, or it's not freedom.
I always see it coming back "evil is required for free choice".
Doesn't make any sense to me. Does gravity limit my free choice because i can't just fly into the sky? Or does death limit my free choice because i might just want to continue to exist on this plane? Does my body limit my free choice because i might just want to be non corporeal (but not divine at the same time), not bound by hunger, disease, ....
All of the above are not an issue for "free choice", but allowing me to "choose for evil" somehow is?
If a world where crime and pain and disease and ... doesn't exist. I don't see how there would be no free choice in that world. We would be bound by the restrictions of that world, just as we are currently bound by the restrictions of the current world.
It imo just sounds like a really lame excuse for the problem of evil. It does seem to work for those who believe in a god apparently, but i find that hard to understand. Our choices are incredibly limited, and we still regard it as "free will". But that one choice, o boy, that one choice that if god could prevent us from making it, and thus would disprove him being good if that was an option. That one specific choice, yeah, that's obviously not possible. He's all powerful, but that's just how it is you know?
I really don't get how this is supposed to make any sense. Any god worth being called a god could have made a world without suffering, while still allowing for free choice. Choice is always limited, and evil & suffering aren't special in any way. Take them away and i can still choose to enjoy a billion different things, while not having to suffer at all.
The answers will always boil down to: "god works in mysterious ways and we must have faith"