“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”Whoever originally wrote this, I want to be their friend! Thank you for sharing. It’s beautiful.
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
This is not a necessary conclusion. Omnipotence does not mean the ability to do anything whatsoever, but the ability to do everything that is possible. Since God is Love, he could not create something distinct from himself unless his creation were at least capable of not loving. Evil is simply a consequence of creation’s capacity for unlovingness. So he’s not able to prevent evil even if he’s willing to, but he’s still is omnipotent of the word is correctly defined. If you want to keep the maximalist definition then I, as a Christian, will cheerfully say that God is not omnipotent. But it’s just a wordplay.
I’m ready to respectfully discuss this idea, but will ignore any disrespectful or insulting message.
Omnipotence does not mean the ability to do anything whatsoever, but the ability to do everything that is possible.
Omni - all, potent - powerful/able. All powerful. Having unlimited or universal power. You can of course interpret as you want, but words are words and they have meaning.
Never thought of it that way
i think the common argument for this (not that i agree with it) is that God just see evil differently? i.e. you mere mortals think something is evil doesn’t mean god does too.
(and this argument then becomes circular and unfalsifiable, that’s why i think it’s dumb).
Not currently religious, but my understanding at the time was not that he didn’t think things could be evil, though obviously we might see things like death as “evil” and he might not. It’s that in order for us to “deserve” good things, we need to prove we are worthy. The only way to prove that is to allow us to do the wrong thing so that we can of our own free will choose the right thing instead. The question would then be why would you create beings with free will knowing some of them will inevitably suffer forever and the answer is generally “I’m god, who the heck are you to question me?” or some stupid explanation about how free will existing is itself a good that god did and therefore even if we choose evil every time we make a choice we are still engaging in a universal “good”. Religions do obviously differ though, so everyone likely learned things a little differently.
thanks for elaborating! i’ve never been religious so i only have a surface understanding of these stuffs. and honestly i kinda dislike it when fellow atheists throw out the “bUt wHAt abOUt eVil?” as the gotcha to try to prove that religions cannot be logical. but generally speaking religions can be logical and quite self-consistent in fact, and the question ultimately will be “what do you believe” which can’t be empirically tested anyway.
What about aggressive cancer in young children?
not all tragedies occur because of evil
I’ve always subscribed to the idea that Lucifer was the good guy that tried to overthrow God but lost. He got A THIRD of the angels backing him. That’s not insignificant. Shit was going on and people were unhappy.
Even though the Bible is written by the victor, it somehow still manages to show how fucking evil God is.
The Abrahamic religions and their followers are completely nuts or simply just don’t know much about their faith.
Good ol’ Gnostic beliefs. Christianity used to have quite a few of 'em… Until… y’know… all the Christian murdering. For centuries.
Absolute shitheel of a people.
