It’s the foundation of your argument dude. You build almost every argument you bring in here on free will. If it’s just an option, and maybe, and may not be, your arguments are built on nothing more than invisible sand castles made of pixie dust.

And we’ve all heard the “god can do what he wants ’cause he’s god” argument. As I said, it fails. If no rules or definitions can apply to your deity, then you have no idea what that deity really is, or what he really is up to, or what he really wants. In short, he is “we know not what”. Of course what he really is, is whatever you imagine him to be since you create him in your desired image (and recreate or alter him as needs suit).

If you could provide me with any reasonable evidence that there’s a God in the first place, maybe I could commit intellectual suicide and accept that answer.

You’re giving excuses for God doing evil. That’s lovely. I hope it helps you sleep at night, but if, for whatever reason or excuse you can come up with, God does or allows evil, God is not perfectly good. Or what definition of good are you using that includes evil within it?

Doing evil to someone for the deeds of another is evil, however much it may happen in real life. Infants, before they are born or shortly after, are not capable of exercising free will. How can you even type this guff without utter shame causing you to flee your keyboard? How can you defend the death of innocents by blaming it on Adam, or on a baby? How little and pitiful is your God?

Yes – but it isn’t put explicitly in a biblical creed, so Christians are at liberty to disagree (even James White does not anathematize Bill Craig). You could say Christianity gives 2 explanations instead of just one, although personal salvation is more important that speaking of that which we know only in part.

Would you be willing to accept this and contemplate it while I gut your family members? Would you like to debate this while Pol Pot slaughters millions? Would you like to accept the likelihood that by trying to stop me or Pol Pot, you might be interfering with God’s plan for the greater good?

We do not have the right to make that judgment call since we do not have God’s knowledge and purposes. We only have his preceptive will. Also we do not have the right to do as we will since we are not the creators. We chomp at the bit, we are humiliated at our creatureliness but as Gordon Clark says, “God is the source of morality. He can no more be *immoral* than he can *steal*.”

I’d say in two ways: 1) death exists because of an act of free will- as Romans 5 states, death exists because of Adam’s sin. People tend to resist the idea of original sin and federal headship, but this is inconsistent with how we behave otherwise. We are perfectly willing to accept vicariousness in other areas of life, such as doing an act of kindness for a friend’s family member – we do it for his sake. I imagine that Timothy McVeigh’s family are all ashamed of him. Therefore it’s inconsistent to reject this principle only when it suits us, while at the same time accepting it as morally acceptable in other areas of life without question. 2) we don’t know all the factors involved in why it may have been better this way, and some of those factors may involve free will. Why is it so unreasonable that this infant after death could say along with Paul in Phil 1:23 “For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better:”.

If God needs redemption, what or who does he need redemption from? No, I don’t care about whether evil is redeemable, justifiable or excusable. If God uses evil, not human evil mind you, but God’s own evil acts (or evil lack of acting), He is not perfectly good.

But human evil comes first. ‘Evil’ (or misfortune: Is 45:7) from God is responsive:
a) punishment. Luke 13:
1 There were present at that season some that told him of the Galilaeans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.
2 And Jesus answering said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilaeans, because they suffered such things?
3 I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
4 Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem?
5 I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.

b) chastisement. Heb 12: 6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?
8 But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.

Here we go with the free will crud again. There are millions of Christians who deny free will. And they are often just as arrogant as you about insisting that they have it right, or you aren’t a “real” Christian, or the holy spirit assures them, etc, ad nauseum. You use the free will bit as if it’s a slam dunk given. It is not.

The problem with 2: in order to make the judgment that an event was irredeemably evil, you would have to know all of its ramifications throughout all of history and eternity. You would have to know the internal states of all who were affected by it before and after. God uses human evil to bring about greater good.

Would you be willing to accept this and contemplate it while I gut your family members? Would you like to debate this while Pol Pot slaughters millions? Would you like to accept the likelihood that by trying to stop me or Pol Pot, you might be interfering with God’s plan for the greater good?

No? Of course not. No one believes this nonsense because we are generally capable of recognizing evil when confronted with it. This deity you’ve created doesn’t have that capacity.

, it seems to me these people are emotionally committed to finding God “unacceptable” by their moral standards, even though they can give no account of how they can judge anything to be good or bad in the first place.
They are a self help group for those trying to convince themselves they made the right decision to abandon the faith.

After all the time you’ve trolled around here, you still refuse to read the RED EXCLAMATION MARK posts near the top of the page. You obdurately refuse to even look into the purpose of this site. You continue to think that it is a place for mealy-mouthed apologetic arguments, and a place for religious malcontents. In short, you formed an opinion based in your ignorance, and now that your petty mind is made up, you’re not going to let reality affect you.

Hardly.

From: Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Question 48, Article 6: “A wise workman chooses a less evil in order to prevent a greater, as the surgeon cuts off a limb to save the whole body.”

There are many other citations that could be made (including those older that Aquinas), but I knew Aquinas had addressed this so it was the easiest to look up.

The trouble with having such a tiny perspective on your religion and history is that you think everything happened recently. There are few arguments that haven’t been hashed over centuries ago. (Well, OK, if we haul in some of the arguments that try to use quantum physics, we get new twists.)

The “Greater Good” defense sounds good and it works as long as you keep it vague. But when you force it to confront the specifics of the world we live in, it fails. Look for the greater good in an infant sexually abused and killed. Look for the greater good in millions screaming their lungs out for mercy from their deity and dying in slaughters. The list could go on.

Of course you can always pull the “you have to know every ramification throughout history” foolishness, but that’s just copping out. We humans know evil when we see it. Your deity doesn’t seem to.

And when you have a deity who fails of any sensible definition of the words “good” or “loving”, or worse yet, conforms to the definitions of the words “irresponsible” or “evil”, then you have a deity who is simply “we know not what” because we can’t apply any terms we know to said deity.

Perhaps you could explain to me what the tired, worn, “free will” excuse has to do with hydrocephalus. Please note that I do not concede we have free will, I’m just wondering what could make you think it’s relevant.

Second, who said anything about “irredeemably”? If God needs redemption, what or who does he need redemption from? No, I don’t care about whether evil is redeemable, justifiable or excusable. If God uses evil, not human evil mind you, but God’s own evil acts (or evil lack of acting), He is not perfectly good.

The Great Divorce is a favourite book of mine, but it’s fiction, and makes no pretense to be otherwise. Even if this were not so, evil that shrinks to nothing is still evil, and thus not perfectly good.

The problem with 1: God is not all powerful in the sense that he can do the logically contradictory. If God wills to create free creatures, the possibility of evil arising exists by logical necessity, else they would not be free.

The problem with 2: in order to make the judgment that an event was irredeemably evil, you would have to know all of its ramifications throughout all of history and eternity. You would have to know the internal states of all who were affected by it before and after. In short, you’d have to be God. Is that what you are claiming? God uses human evil to bring about greater good. Genesis 50:20, Acts 4:28.

Another consideration. What may seem an all encompassing evil at the moment will shrink to nothing for those in heaven as eternity progresses. Think of C.S. Lewis’ Great Divorce as Hell recedes to an infinitesimal point, or of Revelation 21:4 “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”

Jason, it seems to me these people are emotionally committed to finding God “unacceptable” by their moral standards, even though they can give no account of how they can judge anything to be good or bad in the first place.
They will never engage you at the level of Reasonable Faith, Triablogue, Dangerous Idea, etc.
They are a self help group for those trying to convince themselves they made the right decision to abandon the faith.