C.S. Lewis, God and the Problem of Evil

[Philosophy Now]

C.S. Lewis, author of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, was a tireless academic defender of Christianity. Antony Flew examines his views on free will and evil.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/26/CS_Lewis_God_and_the_Problem_of_Evil

[Impenitent]

uncle screwtape would agree - blame god

-Imp

[Eodnhoj7]

C.S. Lewis, author of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, was a tireless academic defender of Christianity. Antony Flew examines his views on free will and evil.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/26/CS_ ... em_of_Evil

If God forced us to eternal happiness he would be a tyrant, and the happiness could not be real on our part, as no choice was involved. We could not feel real pleasure.

If God forced us to go to hell he would be a tyrant, and hell could not be real as no choice on our part was involved. We could not feel real pain.

If God forced us to have free will he would be a tyrant, and the free will could not be real on our part, as no choice was involved. We could not choose to choose.

It is right to equate God to a "force", as force itself contradicts itself under its own weight, much in the same manner actuality needs potentiality (passive).

Everything we understand of evil equates to an understanding of time, sickness is health which does not last, a broken relationship is lost agape or ero...death equates to a form of temporality in which everything we observe exists through limit as a form of relativistic negation where "it is then is no more". Hence our understand of eternal pain, is a continual recycling of the same old where limits are reestablished for what they are: time as a divisive sword and what existed once cannot extend past itself anymore.

Pleasure on the other hand can be view oppositely as a form of fruition past the original self into a new self. Hence eternal pleasure is continual growth without limit as a form of freedom in and of itself.

So in these respects, and from these very brief premises, our understanding of good and evil is an understanding of the nature of movement as a form of structure and ordering, equivalent to "being", in its very self. The problem again occurs is that time itself is a form of measurement, often times relativistic yet dependent on constants, and what we understand therefore is good and evil as forms of measurement in themselves in which being exists through the dimensions it stretches through and from.

The question occurs, considering everything we understand of God is through man (as prophets, mystics, saints, virtuous men/women, philosophers) what seperates God from Man entirely, if man is, as Heraclitus observes "the ultimate measurer"?

Christianity, where God exists as man,
Buddhism, where man becomes a god,
the ancient Mystery Schools of Egypt and Babylon, where man is fundamentally immortal through continual cycling,
Islam, where God demands man's obedience hence he looks down at man in turn raising man up like an ant to the eye level of the biologist,
native lore, where man becomes an extension of the earth yet the earth is the mother of man
atheism, where man exists as the extension of the universe through another cyclically progressive form of evolution

etc.

So what we understand as the problem of God, can imply the problem of man, hence the problem of "measurement"; therefore justice as reason through proportionality. In these terms, our understanding of good and evil is a problem of measurement through the premise we use: time. The problem of good and evil is a problem of movement, hence an understanding of ourselves as "space".

Some look to the density of matter as origin, while contradictorily looking to empty space for answers. The heavens, from which our ancestors measured reality, point fundamentally to the origin of good and evil as fundamentally a form of judgement where what was, is and will be is premised in the continual folding of space through itself. In these respects we understand ourselves through movement as a form of judgement, where judgement determines our nature.

The nature of judgement as an expression of the will, appears to be the boundary, which forms heaven and hell.

[jayjacobus]

In the universe there is mechanical, conditional and volitional. Mechanical leads to physics, conditional leads to biology and volitional leads to humans. God doesn't manage the mechanical nor does he manage the conditional, at least not that can be seen. Why would he manage volitional?

When I feel pain it doesn't come from God. It comes from a physical issue and is conditionally transported to my mind. Saying that God wants me to do something is an imaginary conclusion. All restrictions on my volition come from humans, none from God and I have no reason to believe that God endorses those restrictions.

Yet this doesn't mean that God doesn't exist but he isn't second guessing his creation of volition.

[Eodnhoj7]

In the universe there is mechanical, conditional and volitional. Mechanical leads to physics, conditional leads to biology and volitional leads to humans. God doesn't manage the mechanical nor does he manage the conditional, at least not that can be seen. Why would he manage volitional?

Why would not all volition, act of will through creation, be not an extension of God hence God himself? If we see human's being extremely virtuous, we intuitively say that there is a God. If we see human's practicing extreme vice, we intuitively say there is no God.

Why is the application of one's will, through virtue or vice, inherently linked to a spiritual experience about the nature of God's existence?

To observe a negative one must observe a positive, and if God is a universal term in the respect is applies to all existence, the problem of Good comes into being as what is evil, is not, but what is good exists.

If God is not involved in his creation, then he has limits and is not God. If God is completely involved in creation then he has limits and is not God.

If God is both involved and not involved in creation, then a Neutral definition to God may be involved.

Hence a triadic understanding of God may be observed:

1) He exists through all creation.
2) All absence of creation, evil, he is not present in hence evil is not of God.
3) God creates in the presence of nothingness to maintain himself as being, through nothingness, through being.

When I feel pain it doesn't come from God. It comes from a physical issue and is conditionally transported to my mind. Saying that God wants me to do something is an imaginary conclusion. All restrictions on my volition come from humans, none from God and I have no reason to believe that God endorses those restrictions.

Does that make human awareness, all encompassing in the respect it observes both limit and absence of limit, Divine?

Yet this doesn't mean that God doesn't exist but he isn't second guessing his creation of volition.

[jayjacobus]

I have earthly "powers". Divine powers come from God but are not active in me.

Do divine powers explain the daily operation of hydroelectric plants, the functioning of amoebas or the thinking of humans? I cannot say "What are you doing God?" He does what he wants but he apparently doesn't want to deal with me directly and that's okay. I have no desire to be Jonah or Daniel or Job or Paul. I'm nobody and that's fine with me.

[Eodnhoj7]

I have earthly "powers". Divine powers come from God but are not active in me.

If you an God both "measure" reality what exactly seperates our powers as man from his, other than the degree to which we exercise them?

Do divine powers explain the daily operation of hydroelectric plants, the functioning of amoebas or the thinking of humans?
Our ability to observe them and measure them, through the application of reason, may in itself be divine. The question the comes forth, assuming you agree in any degree with this premise, is: what is reason then?

I cannot say "What are you doing God?" He does what he wants but he apparently doesn't want to deal with me directly and that's okay. I have no desire to be Jonah or Daniel or Job or Paul. I'm nobody and that's fine with me.

If God is not dealing with you or me directly, in some manner or another, then he would not be all powerful and cannot be God.

[jayjacobus]

If God is not dealing with you or me directly, in some manner or another, then he would not be all powerful and cannot be God.

Nor would He deal with anyone else. Those who say they speak for God wish to glorify themselves, not God.

[Science Fan]

A God could be all-powerful while not intervening in my life, or anyone's life for that matter. The issue on whether a God would be all-powerful would be whether a God could actually do so, not whether a God is actually doing it.

[Eodnhoj7]

If God is not dealing with you or me directly, in some manner or another, then he would not be all powerful and cannot be God.

Nor would He deal with anyone else. Those who say they speak for God wish to glorify themselves, not God.

Those whose speak truth on behalf of "man" follow that same logic, for if man has the rationale to observe both what is true and false what seperates him from God exactly? This is considering observing being and non-being quantitatively as 1 and 0 or qualitatively as good and evil is a form of measurement in itself.

To say God exists or does not exist requires one to observe a "typeless" definition where the definition itself requires a universality that permeates all being through being. To argue against the existence of a God would in effect to argue against all being, to observe the nature of God would be to observe the nature of all being....this is considering the definition of God as fundamentally a type of definition dependent on a universality in one respect that is not dependent strictly on a type considering their are multiple types extending from the one type.

Considering the observation of God as a typeless universal definition, we can observe that the word "God" as a definition is fundamentally an act of measurement in itself as a "summation" of everything that existed, exists, and will exist. In these respects to argue against a Divine Creator, considering the methodology we use in the definition process, is to argue against universality as a form of measurement in itself.


What seperates God as Creator and Measurer from man who follows this same means of being?

[Impenitent]

Protagoras - "Man is the measure"

-Imp

[Eodnhoj7]

Protagoras - "Man is the measure"

-Imp

Yes, which means that if man is made in the image of God he is the ultimate measurer.

Or if man made God, God is still the measure, as man is the ultimate measurer.

Atheism fails to take in account that if man determines reality, then by default our continual redefinition of God is a continual recreation of God.