Ukraine Crisis

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Immanuel Can
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Re: Ukraine Crisis

Post by Immanuel Can »

iambiguous wrote: Tue Sep 27, 2022 8:23 pm How truly ridiculous -- stupid? --
No, no obfuscation, and no trying to force me to accept your conclusions. Just answer the question.

I'll repeat it:

"The question is, do you think human beings can have any say about what happens to them, or is that exclusively something you blame on God?"
Yes,
Okay. Let's work forward.

Human beings have some say about what happens to them, you say.

That being so, they bear some responsibility for what happens.
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Sep 26, 2022 8:41 pm No doubt. But let's think about that.

Maybe you can describe exactly how He'd do that. Let's play that out, and see how you think it would go.

Man wants to go to war. God's going to stop it.

How? What do you want Him to do?
Huh?

Omnipotent: (of a deity) having unlimited power; able to do anything
That's not my question.

My question is "exactly how"? Exactly how should God, if He's good, prevent the war. What are you expecting Him to do? Or to put it another way, exactly what hasn't he done, that you have noticed and had reason to say something like, "God hasn't done his job," or "God has failed to be moral by not doing the thing he should have."

What is that thing, exactly?
How would "I", fractured and fragmented in regard to conflicting goods of this sort, even begin to tell an omniscient God what He should do?!!
Well, you must think you can. Because if you can't know what God "should be" doing about the war in Ukraine, then you're in absolutely no position at all to say He hasn't done it?

So you must know. What is it, exactly, that God has failed to do?
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Sep 26, 2022 8:41 pm Right. So exactly what would a "good" God, in your estimation, do in order to prevent that?
...He could frown of those who profit from the terrible suffering
"Frown"? Really?

And how did you decide that God has failed to..."frown"? :lol:
He refuses to end in Ukraine.
No, exactly. I don't want some vague, general outcome you hope to see...like "somehow in some unspecified way, He'd make the war be over." That's not illuminating.

I want the specific mechanics of how such a thing should be achieved, if as you conceive of it, God was doing the right thing.

Exactly how do you expect He should act in order to end the war in Ukraine? What has He, in your estimation, failed to do? Blow up tanks? Strike Putin dead? Give me the description of the means, not just the outcome you want.

And when you do, I'll have more to say about that.
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Re: Ukraine Crisis

Post by iambiguous »

henry quirk wrote: Tue Sep 27, 2022 9:48 pm Your questions...
iambiguous wrote: Tue Sep 27, 2022 1:53 am*If you were omnipotent and had the power to stop Putin in Ukraine, to end the terrible suffering of countless tens of thousands or truly innocent men, women and children, would you do it?

**If you knew someone who had this power and refused to use it, would this or would this not really piss you off?
My answers...
henry quirk wrote: Tue Sep 27, 2022 1:55 pm*I've thought about this (it's a simple variation of the old sci fi chestnut if you could go back in time and end Hitler before he did his thing, would you?). First impulse -- with Hitler or Putin -- is to say hell yes I would!. But, if you think about it...

Keep in mind: we're not talkin' about a drug-addled wastrel waylayin' someone in a parkin' lot. At the moment, Putin is a pivotal figure. His actions, or absence, (would) affect the whole of the world. For example: the space left open by an ended Putin might very well get filled by someone worse than him.

So, end that one too, Henry might be the response. Or arrange things so someone better takes Putin's place, or, just step and do it yourself, omnipotent Quirk: run the world.

See how it goes? God, creatin' free wills with everything bein' a free will entails, interposin' Himself when things get dicey, can only lead to greater, more frequent, interposings. Free wills are negated. Men are rendered meat machines.

So, no, If I were omnipotent and had the power to stop Putin in Ukraine, to end the terrible suffering of countless tens of thousands or truly innocent men, women and children, I wouldn't do it, not if I spent five friggin' minutes thinkin' about the ultimate consequences.
[quote="henry quirk"" post_id=598322 time=1664283358 user_id=472]**It would piss me off if I were short-sighted and didn't value bein' a free will.
Your response...
iambiguous wrote: Tue Sep 27, 2022 8:51 pmHuh?

For IC's Christian God, the ultimate consequences are whatever the fuck He wants them to be. That's what being omnipotent means. In the interim, however, Christians still get to insist that this God who does nothing to stop all wars period among His flocks of sheep down here is "loving, just and merciful". Why? Because His ways are ultimately "mysterious".

But what of henry's God?

How "mysterious" are they?

After all, He provided mere mortals with the free will to "follow the dictates of Reason and Nature". On the other hand, some mere mortals think that means justifying Putin's invasion, while others insist it means quite the opposite. Many in Russia, after all, are pissed off at him not for invading but for not winning the damn thing in a few days.

While for others still, they "follow the dictates of Reason and Nature" all the way to the bank. Win or lose, they still profit as arms manufacturers. Those who manufacture bazookas for example.

But here's our very own fulminating fanatic objectivist henry quirk insisting that if he did have the power to end the war there -- all wars? -- he wouldn't. The terrible suffering would just drag on -- all the way to a nuclear war? -- while His God continues the abandonment of His own Creation.

I mean how pathetic is that?


At least with IC's Christian God, you can argue as Rabbi Kushner did.
henry quirk wrote: Tue Sep 27, 2022 9:48 pmGreat analysis, nice refutation... 👎
Yeah, I thought so. Only I tended to focus more on omnipotence as pointed out to IC:

Omnipotent: (of a deity) having unlimited power; able to do anything.

While, from my frame of mind, your "omnipotence" revolves more around providing us with a set of "mere mortal" assumptions -- political prejudices rooted existentially in dasein -- about the conflict. And then connecting the dots between that and your own pathetic Deity.

I mean, what God sets into motion all of this...

"...an endless procession of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and tornadoes and hurricanes and great floods and great droughts and great fires and deadly viral and bacterial plagues and miscarriages and hundreds and hundreds of medical and mental afflictions and extinction events...making life on Earth a living hell for countless millions of men, women and children down through the ages..."

And then just skips town?

At least IC's God sticks around with His "mysterious ways".
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Ukraine Crisis

Post by Immanuel Can »

iambiguous wrote: Tue Sep 27, 2022 11:09 pm I tended to focus more on omnipotence as pointed out to IC:

Omnipotent: (of a deity) having unlimited power; able to do anything.
That word might be something claimed by, say, Pantheists or Panentheists. The definition does not refer to the Christian concept of God, however.

For Christians, "omnipotent" means, "able to do anything consistent with His own nature." It does not mean, "Able to do silly things." It does not mean, "Able to do inherently self-contradictory things." It also does not mean, "Able to do things that are evil, contrary to His own nature." So the Bible itself says that God cannot lie, cannot deny Himself, cannot sin, cannot fail, or fail to be true to Himself, cannot break His word...and so on. If that's what you require from the word "omnipotence," then it doesn't apply to the Christian God.

And no wonder: "omnipotent" isn't even a word from the Bible. It's a humanly made-up term, an attempt to summarize a nature that human beings find complicated to understand. But it's not a word that has any authority.

On the other hand, if being able to do all that one WANTS to do, and all that is CONSISTENT with one's nature as a rational and moral God, then "omnipotent" does apply.
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Re: Ukraine Crisis

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While, from my frame of mind, your "omnipotence" revolves more around providing us with a set of "mere mortal" assumptions -- political prejudices rooted existentially in dasein -- about the conflict.
Nope, I told you what I, as a finite being thought of my havin' infinite power. That's it. That's all.

*
And then connecting the dots between that and your own pathetic Deity.
Er, I never brought up the deist conception of God. I did suggest why a God might not interfere. If I were talkin' talkin' about mine all I woulda said is: He be gone (and also, mebbe, that I never said my God was omnipotent [or omniscient]).

*
I mean, what God sets into motion all of this...

"...an endless procession of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and tornadoes and hurricanes and great floods and great droughts and great fires and deadly viral and bacterial plagues and miscarriages and hundreds and hundreds of medical and mental afflictions and extinction events...making life on Earth a living hell for countless millions of men, women and children down through the ages..."

And then just skips town?
One who doesn't care? Has other things to do? Is six feet under? Is a sadist? Or mebbe -- once the game was in motion -- couldn't and can't intefere?

Hell if I know. Can't say I much care either.

You wanna talk deism, we can. You're gonna have to drop all the theistic conceptions if we do (and all the pretty things you think you know cuz you read about deism on some site).

-----

Just to kinda, sorta stay on the formal topic...

Up-thread, I said: We're not watchin' a war: we're watchin' propaganda about a conflict we're told is a war. We're an audience to another scripted event.

Sumthin' violent is goin' over there. There's a conflict of some kind. There's also a helluva lot of massagin' of info goin' on. Different folks with different agendas are skewin' info then presenting it. It's reality television: real events are recorded then the footage is edited to fit a storyline...30 hours of raw and unscripted is turned into an hour of polished and scripted.

Why? To distract from domestic woes, yeah, but also: these folks can't help themselves...they're as autistic as you-know-who...for them, the storyline is real, and what's actual is just fodder for the storytellin'.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_(1976_film)

...and...

It ain't over till the sun comes out at midnight, and mushrooms sprout on the horizon.

...and...

What I'm sayin' is: you don't have to be a perfect analyst or have perfect information to assess, for example, the Ukraine incursion.

Some say Putin is justified; some say he isn't but all are assessn' based on the false notion The State is legitimate.

Russia is justified cuz of NATO encroachments; Russia is not justified cuz of Ukraine's national sovereignty, in other words: several iterations of The State vy for status among themselves and to hell with what individuals think about it.

No, the individual, is expected to rally behind his party or faction or government, and never mind that he might not give a flyin' flip as to to the agendas of any iteration of The State.

...and...

This war is the same as any other: an iteration of The State vys with an iteration of The State. You aren't privy to it, but you're expected to support and mebbe die for the particular faction, party, or iteration of The State that lays claim to you.

You feel moved to pick a side. I tell you: all iterations of The State are illegitimate and none have a claim on you.

But, as I say, you are yours: do with yourself as you think best.

(And, no, God isn't gonna help you).
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Re: Ukraine Crisis

Post by Gary Childress »

Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Sep 27, 2022 7:28 pm Help me see where the line should be here, Gary. God is supposed to be just. At what point should His line be drawn, so that the genuinely evil are prevented?
I would say preventing a nuclear war that might spell the end of humanity as we know it would be extreme enough an example to draw a line that warrants intervention.

If he could part the Red Sea to save Jews from slavery he could certainly do something to save all of humanity from possible extinction. (Not that global warming isn't pretty scary as well or what pollution is doing to our planet ecosystems).

Did that help or are you still unable to "see where the line should be drawn"? As I say, Putin and his cronies are the ones with the ball in their court to end the war peacefully and apparently they are content to keep it going, even possibly escalate it in the process. Getting them out of the picture might help prevent what could be a huge catastrophe that could likely affect every human being on the planet in some shape or form.
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Re: Ukraine Crisis

Post by Immanuel Can »

Gary Childress wrote: Wed Sep 28, 2022 2:28 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Sep 27, 2022 7:28 pm Help me see where the line should be here, Gary. God is supposed to be just. At what point should His line be drawn, so that the genuinely evil are prevented?
I would say preventing a nuclear war that might spell the end of humanity as we know it would be extreme enough an example to draw a line that warrants intervention.
Okay, and we agreed that extreme psychos require intervention, too. But you're not facing the hard cases, Gary. Because those are the easy ones: we can all see they need to be stopped.

But where does the stopping stop, as we go down the chain? I gave you a descending list...at what point would you say a just and righteous God should say, "Well, stuff above this line is bad enough to warrant my involvement; but stuff below is all good with me"?

Is it between the psychos and the rapists? Between the rapists and the kidnappers? Between the kidnappers and the embezzlers and usurers? Between the usurers and the gossips, propagandists and liars?

At what point do you think a just God should stop, and no longer intervene to prevent what bad people do?
Did that help
Honestly? No. Because you're sticking to the easy cases, and not yet facing the hard ones. But I've already granted you the psychos and Putins of the world. That is, so to speak, where God's alleged responsibility to intervene would begin, not end.

So again, where does God's responsibility to prevent evil stop?
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Re: Ukraine Crisis

Post by promethean75 »

Well I just wanna remind everyone that I wuz the first to say that Putin would end up fleeing, going underground or getting assassinated. Not that that's even a remarkable prediction because duh he's fuckin up a lot of Russian tycoon's money, capeesh?

Anyway i thought that wuz a no-brainer, even for Putin. Like did he even have a contingency plan?
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Re: Ukraine Crisis

Post by Gary Childress »

Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Sep 28, 2022 2:45 am
Gary Childress wrote: Wed Sep 28, 2022 2:28 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Sep 27, 2022 7:28 pm Help me see where the line should be here, Gary. God is supposed to be just. At what point should His line be drawn, so that the genuinely evil are prevented?
I would say preventing a nuclear war that might spell the end of humanity as we know it would be extreme enough an example to draw a line that warrants intervention.
Okay, and we agreed that extreme psychos require intervention, too. But you're not facing the hard cases, Gary. Because those are the easy ones: we can all see they need to be stopped.
BUT THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT. You said you were looking for a "line" to draw where God ought to intervene, did you not? What else is a "line" but an obvious case where God should easily decide to intervene? What are these hard cases you're talking about? I'm talking about where God should most obviously intervene. You want to make everything difficult and complicated because you ultimately want to say that God need not intervene at all, ever.
But where does the stopping stop, as we go down the chain? I gave you a descending list...at what point would you say a just and righteous God should say, "Well, stuff above this line is bad enough to warrant my involvement; but stuff below is all good with me"?
ONE MORE TIME FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK ROW! When the possibility of EXTINCTION OF ALL OF HUMANITY EXISTS (a.k.a. nuclear war, asteroid impact, environmental catastrophe, mega volcanic eruptions).

QED, IC. I can't make a more obvious point than all of that. If your stubborn mind won't accept it, then we're going to need to disagree and leave it at that.
Is it between the psychos and the rapists? Between the rapists and the kidnappers? Between the kidnappers and the embezzlers and usurers? Between the usurers and the gossips, propagandists and liars?

At what point do you think a just God should stop, and no longer intervene to prevent what bad people do?
Did that help
Honestly? No. Because you're sticking to the easy cases, and not yet facing the hard ones. But I've already granted you the psychos and Putins of the world. That is, so to speak, where God's alleged responsibility to intervene would begin, not end.

So again, where does God's responsibility to prevent evil stop?
I'll repeat one more time: WHERE HUMAN EXTINCTION COULD BE A POSSIBLE OUTCOME.
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Re: Ukraine Crisis

Post by Immanuel Can »

Gary Childress wrote: Wed Sep 28, 2022 3:12 am You said you were looking for a "line" to draw where God ought to intervene, did you not?
No. I asked, "Assuming God should indeed intervene, when should He STOP?"

Get the difference?

I'm not contesting the psychos and nuclear despots. Let me grant you all of those.

I'm asking, what sort of evils are NOT deserving of Divine intervention?
You want to make everything difficult and complicated because you ultimately want to say that God need not intervene at all, ever.
No, that's not what I want to say. In fact, I would never say that. But it's a very serious problem: if you say, as I do, that God has a duty to deal justly with the psychos, at what point does He NOT have that duty anymore?
When the possibility of EXTINCTION OF ALL OF HUMANITY EXISTS
Well, Putin hasn't yet made humanity extinct, or even really threatened to, so you would be saying God doesn't have to deal with Putin yet. For all that he's done that's bad, threatening the extinction of humanity has not yet happened. He's said he'd use nukes if cornered, but not how many or on whom.

However, you and I can agree that if humanity were about to destroy itself, God would have a duty to intervene.

And, in fact, God has promised to do exactly that, one day. As Jesus prophesies in Mark 13:19-21,

"For those days [i.e., in the future troubled times] will be such a time of tribulation as has not occurred since the beginning of the creation which God created until now, and never will again. And if the Lord had not shortened those days, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect, whom He chose, He shortened the days..."

So you, I and God are all agreed on that. God has a duty...and in fact, a promise...binding Him to intervene when things get that bad.

But now, the question is, when DOESN'T God have a duty to prevent sin. That's what we have to deal with now.
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Re: Ukraine Crisis

Post by Gary Childress »

Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Sep 28, 2022 3:41 am
Gary Childress wrote: Wed Sep 28, 2022 3:12 am You said you were looking for a "line" to draw where God ought to intervene, did you not?
No. I asked, "Assuming God should indeed intervene, when should He STOP?"

Get the difference?

I'm not contesting the psychos and nuclear despots. Let me grant you all of those.

I'm asking, what sort of evils are NOT deserving of Divine intervention?
You want to make everything difficult and complicated because you ultimately want to say that God need not intervene at all, ever.
No, that's not what I want to say. In fact, I would never say that. But it's a very serious problem: if you say, as I do, that God has a duty to deal justly with the psychos, at what point does He NOT have that duty anymore?
When the possibility of EXTINCTION OF ALL OF HUMANITY EXISTS
Well, Putin hasn't yet made humanity extinct, or even really threatened to, so you would be saying God doesn't have to deal with Putin yet. For all that he's done that's bad, threatening the extinction of humanity has not yet happened. He's said he'd use nukes if cornered, but not how many or on whom.

However, you and I can agree that if humanity were about to destroy itself, God would have a duty to intervene.

And, in fact, God has promised to do exactly that, one day. As Jesus prophesies in Mark 13:19-21,

"For those days [i.e., in the future troubled times] will be such a time of tribulation as has not occurred since the beginning of the creation which God created until now, and never will again. And if the Lord had not shortened those days, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect, whom He chose, He shortened the days..."

So you, I and God are all agreed on that. God has a duty...and in fact, a promise...binding Him to intervene when things get that bad.

But now, the question is, when DOESN'T God have a duty to prevent sin. That's what we have to deal with now.
As far as I recall of this thread iambiguous stated God should be able to prevent a nuclear war. You asked the question what could God do to prevent one. I gave you 2 answers for a starter. Is that not sufficient to answer your question? I had (perhaps wrongly) assumed you were in some kind of doubt that God had the ablity to prevent nuclear war. If you're not, then it sounds like we're on the same page, that God is capable of preventing a nuclear war.
Last edited by Gary Childress on Wed Sep 28, 2022 12:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Ukraine Crisis

Post by Gary Childress »

Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Sep 28, 2022 12:04 am
iambiguous wrote: Tue Sep 27, 2022 11:09 pm I tended to focus more on omnipotence as pointed out to IC:

Omnipotent: (of a deity) having unlimited power; able to do anything.
That word might be something claimed by, say, Pantheists or Panentheists. The definition does not refer to the Christian concept of God, however.
"Able to do anything" is the standard definition of omnipotence. If God is NOT able to do something, then he would not be omnipotent. Presumably, God is capable of doing evil if he so chose, however, being a good God would mean that he never chooses to do evil. Beyond that, I suppose I couldn't say what is good or what is evil for God to do. I can only say what seems like good or evil to my limited mind.
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Re: Ukraine Crisis

Post by Immanuel Can »

Gary Childress wrote: Wed Sep 28, 2022 12:28 pm As far as I recall of this thread iambiguous stated God should be able to prevent a nuclear war. You asked the question what could God do to prevent one. I gave you 2 answers for a starter. Is that not sufficient to answer your question?
To that particular question? Sure. And I conceded that God, if righteous, has a duty to intervene. In fact, I gave you that right away.

But I had a second question, one that quite logically follows from the first: If God is to start judging, when do we think He ought to stop?
I had (perhaps wrongly) assumed you were in some kind of doubt that God had the ablity to prevent nuclear war. If you're not, then it sounds like we're on the same page...
I'm not doubting that at all, Gary...nor was I trying to make the kind of argument from that you assumed I was.

I was never going to say, or even suggest, that the complexity of the problem was reason that God shouldn't judge, shouldn't intervene, shouldn't stop evil. In fact, I would insist the opposite has to be true: God has an absolute moral duty to intervene so as to arrest, judge and eliminate all evil, from the great nuclear disasters to the concealed, personal vices...everything. And if He does not, then I think you and I would have perfect justification for saying, "He judged big sin X, but winked at hidden sin Y...therefore, He is not the Righteous Judge at all."

As the Bible puts it, "If You, O Lord, should judge iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?"

What's more, I think the Bible even agrees with that. So you, I and the Word of God are all "on the same page" at the moment.
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Re: Ukraine Crisis

Post by Immanuel Can »

Gary Childress wrote: Wed Sep 28, 2022 12:51 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Sep 28, 2022 12:04 am
iambiguous wrote: Tue Sep 27, 2022 11:09 pm I tended to focus more on omnipotence as pointed out to IC:

Omnipotent: (of a deity) having unlimited power; able to do anything.
That word might be something claimed by, say, Pantheists or Panentheists. The definition does not refer to the Christian concept of God, however.
"Able to do anything" is the standard definition of omnipotence.
Yes, it is.

But understood that way, it should never have been applied to the Christian God by any theologian. Maybe that's the reason the Bible never uses that word.
Presumably, God is capable of doing evil if he so chose...
I suggest not. And the reason could be that the universe itself depends on His nature, so it is never in a position to make a moral judgment that transcends the character of God Himself. Reality is literally morally organized according to the character of God, such that what He knows is good is what is really, objectively good; and what He calls evil is objectively, really, always evil.

But I don't know if that's the full answer, and I suspect there may be more to it. That's just how I've come to think it through at the moment.

The more important fact is that, whatever the complete explanation is, the Bible itself flatly tells us that He cannot, does not, and has no element of evil within HIm. So He simply cannot do evil.

If out understanding of "omnipotence" insists He should, then it's our conception of omnipotence that's being misapplied.
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Re: Ukraine Crisis

Post by Gary Childress »

Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Sep 28, 2022 2:37 pm If our understanding of "omnipotence" insists He should, then it's our conception of omnipotence that's being misapplied.
What should our understanding of omnipotence be? If God is incapable of creating anything evil and he created Satan (even presumably knowing ahead of time that Satan would fall), then it sounds to me that God created something or some being who is evil. Does that not count as God creating evil?
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Re: Ukraine Crisis

Post by Immanuel Can »

Gary Childress wrote: Wed Sep 28, 2022 6:45 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Sep 28, 2022 2:37 pm If our understanding of "omnipotence" insists He should, then it's our conception of omnipotence that's being misapplied.
What should our understanding of omnipotence be?
I've said that earlier, Gary, but I don't mind saying it again.

In reference to God, what we can say is that He always does that which is consisten with His nature. That nature is the very definition of "good." But the Bible explicitly says that any predications we can make of God exclude things like "failure," "doing evil," "being untrue to Himself," "lying," "breaking His word," and so on.

If we're insisting on wrapping those into our conception of "omniscient," then the word no longer applies to God at all. But since the Bible never uses it, that's not a loss at all.
If God is incapable of creating anything evil and he created Satan (even presumably knowing ahead of time that Satan would fall), then it sounds to me that God created something or some being who is evil. Does that not count as God creating evil?
The great poet, John Milton, put it this way: that God can create certain beings "sufficient to have stood, but free to fall." (His words) In other words, Milton thinks God creates volitional beings, ones that have the capacity to stand by His way, or to seek their own. There's no necessity they must fall, but no prevention if they do, he says.

And analytically, that's what "free will" entails. To be "free," the minimum number of options a person can have is two: to obey, or not to obey precept X. If he/she is simply incapable of the alternative, and cannot disobey precept X, and always has to obey it, then he/she is, by definition, not free. But he/she can freely choose the good -- which is pretty terrific -- not only to have knowledge of what good is, but to be able to participate freely and creatively in it, that's an amazing capacity. However, it entails that, no less than one time and possibly more, the entity in question must also be capable, potentially if not actually, of freely choosing otherwise -- which means that human beings could possibly freely choose to participate in evil.

What choice has Putin made? You be the judge.
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