If GAE were true, the God of the OT is worse than Dawkins and Hitchens describe

Or you could, ya know, just go to the library.

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@Patrick,

You could be waiting a while.

We are hoping to transition YECs to Christian Evolutionists… not to Atheists.

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Plants, animals, and planet earth are not people, so they aren’t being punished. Merely living in an imperfect world and having “bad things” happen doesn’t constitute punishment, as if we have a right to an Edenic existence that God can only take away if we first do wrong. I’m not seeing how your analogy is valid at all.

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The bible is full of God killing livestock.

And I will be ready and waiting for those who miss the YEC to Christian Evolutionist stop and go all the way from YEC to Atheist Evolutionists. :sunglasses:

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And since animals are not moral agents, it isn’t punishment to kill them. Nor is it intrinsically evil (though wanton destruction of animal life would be a failing of our mandate to be good stewards of the earth).

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It is immoral to kill a one’s livestock. Whole family’s will suffer, perhaps die including children. I find God of the OT to be an unjust killer when he kills livestock of those who don’t worship him. Such a petty vindictive God.

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I am sure some of them are waiting for you to talk to that Palestinian boy. Remember him?

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yea trying to help him out also. But it is pretty hard getting him help (education, healthcare) as three religions (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism) are making it rough for him to have a decent life.

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God also kills children. (I’m sure you haven’t forgotten about the tenth plague while bemoaning the injustice of some of the earlier ones.) And here’s the thing: God is not a mere person, with moral obligations to other people like we have. He is the creator of people. He has authority over our lives and our deaths as we do not.

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Wait, are you saying that you address the problem of natural evil in the book?

Clearly not, but why? The punishment of plants is a side issue. Why is all of humanity being punished? “Edenic existence” is a strawman. There’s a tremendous distance between a perfect world and an unnecessarily nasty world filled with horrendous diseases.

Then he isn’t omnibenevolent, is he?

Why do you say that we are being punished? How do you know the world is unnecessarily nasty? I say God put us in this world to give us the opportunity to freely choose good over evil, and that he knew what level of pain and suffering to allow in the world to best accomplish that.

Wrong. Omnibenevolence doesn’t entail having moral obligations towards his creatures (edit: or at least not in the same way as we have them to each other). It does entail that he acts towards all of us for our good - which he does by making it possible for us to obtain salvation and experience the greatest good of being in perfect relationship with him for eternity.

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I do address the problem of natural evil in the book, but obviously not as completely as I could if that was the focus. I explain quite a bit about how there can be death outside the Garden in God’s good creation, and there could be a good purpose to death in God’s original creation. I reference two key books that make this case more fully: https://www.amazon.com/Death-Before-Fall-Literalism-Suffering/dp/083084046X and https://www.amazon.com/Gods-Good-Earth-Jon-Garvey/dp/1532652011 (@jongarvey).

In that quote, however, I was referring the fact I talked about whether or not Scripture requires AE to be the “first” agriculturalists (it doesn’t).

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So everything’s for the best in this best of all possible worlds? And if it doesn’t look like that it’s because we just don’t understand. We have no power to judge whether God is benevolent or evil. Morality means nothing. OK.

I don’t think that’s the part of natural evil we’re talking about here.

Ah, that’s a different thread entirely. You should post there.

I seriously doubt there is such a thing as the best possible world, but I suspect that there are a very great many worlds that are the best possible in some respect, and that this is one of them. See Alexander Pruss’ paper Divine Creative Freedom.

Not so much that we don’t understand (though it is partly that) as it is that we simply don’t have enough data, nor do we have the capacity to process enough data even if we could obtain it. Reality is very detailed.

Non sequitur, in the technical sense of the phrase.

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I got lost in the forum again? Dang it.

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So you think polio, smallpox and guinea worms are not unnecessary, but constitute part of the correct level of suffering? In that case, humans are ruining your god’s plan by systematically wiping them out.

Please explain how allowing children to die from airborne plagues, parasitic infections, genetic complications and tsunamis is for their own good.

Otherwise your answer is an empty excuse.

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Who gave God this authority? Humanity certainly did not.

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Once again, Patrick… God is not a mere person, who can only have authority over other people if they consent to it. He is the creator of people.

Now, a decent analogy (though only an analogy) for God’s authority over us is found in the way that parents naturally have authority over their children until those children are mature… though God’s authority over us greatly exceeds the authority parents have over children, and we never “outgrow” our dependency on God because it is impossible to become divine ourselves.

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