God is evil if He has miracles and does not use them.

Hey all Shall I take a stab at it?

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IF God exists.
IF God is all powerful.
IF "evil" includes not helping others when you're quite capable of helping them at no risk or loss of resources to yourself.
IF God does not prevent rapes.

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THEN God is evil.

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IF a God exists.
& IF that same God is omnipotent and is the creator of everything that exists.
& IF that same creator, by extension and as a consequence of being G.O.D. , is responsible for (not guilty of) everything that exists, including the existence of evil
& that same creator becomes a created being and allows the created to murder Him
& by being killed bears (emotionally/mentally/spiritually) the weight of guilt of all evil in existence,THEN Has not justice been done and God is justified?&, I would argue, is not God absurd for doing such a thing when, as Faith wrote earlier on this thread, evil came about as a consequence of choices made by the created?
& Is God not absurd for loving so immeasurably the ones who brought about his death? (keeping in mind He did bear responsibility regardless, as we might imagine any good God would).So, why all the hostility? God is not evil because he does not always lift his hand to prevent the choices of humans. He is simply God. And He already proved that He was good 2000 years ago.Regards! ,- RaphEdited by Raphael, : No reason given.

Thanks for replying Interesting. I respect your argument and, admittedly, agree to some extend. Save for two things:1) If we are positing the God of scripture (which I am assuming we are based on the trajectory of this thread and my argument at hand) God decides what is evil and what is not. Humanity, therefore, has no reference point from which to accuse God of abstract "evil" apart from himself and his own character. So to accuse God of evil in this rape scenario is a nonsense claim, since God cannot be evil. Therefore that cannot be the answer and a better solution must exist.Put another way, because his nature is to be inherantly and essentially good, God ≠ evil from the human perspective. Therefore another, more robust answer must exist.2) Free Choice becomes involved here. Now the Calvinist perspective would say "who are you human to question the acts and morality of God" but the Arminian perspective (which I must say, I am partial to ) would argue that since God gives humanity free choice, that is, humans are free beings and so their actions are not predetermined/planned/controlled by God, God must allow for the negative choices of humans to play out EVEN at the cost of damage to others. This is a complex train of thought and perhaps may get a bit off topic. Well now you are rejecting my biblical Ontology and so I really cannot say anything in rebuttal . But yes, assuming reality is as scripture says it is and events contained occurred the same way or similiar to how it portrays, your response simply reveals a slight "unknowledge" of the occurrences of scripture and the implications drawn from said occurrences.In other words, think bigger in the scope of the justification of God. Evil still persists, yes. But created beings murdered their Creator. This is something incomprehensible and the implications are borderline unknowable. For a sake of sanity though, we might say that this death was enough to satisfy justice, since God is the source/arbiter/very thing of justice and the means by which justice is even carried out. And my question is, "why would it?" when God by His very essence dictates what is evil? By accusing the ONE of evil, you need to use His standards of measuring evil. It seems like you are drawing a conclusion when you do not have enough information. Your issue is the current existence of evil, (understandably) but it is impossible to explain an answer to this when you reject a biblical Ontology. See the dilemma?That aside (since it is a little lame), the true answer comes out of studying the biblical concept of "Sin" and it's effect on the Universe. Which may become off topic Regards!- Raph

Fair. I think it would be more accurate to say that we actually are privy to at least some of the thoughts and perspectives of God, through the revelation that is scripture. So in this model, we might say that "not helping others when it's easy for you to do so and there's no safety risk to yourself is indeed evil. I think, rather, I would say that it's not as simplified as that statement.That makes sense. But again, if not for God you would have no reference point from which to accuse Him of abstract evil (assuming God is the ultimate good reality). Agreed. It becomes a sort of paradoxical or perhaps an inverted situation...haha. In an effort to preserve the free will of one the free will of another is violated and visa versa endlessly. Therefore, there must be another motive from the perspective of God which keeps Him from intervening in each moment like the one illustrated. Obviously the ways of God are unknowable to humans and so I cannot argue from a fully enlightened perspective, only from what scripture contains and the systematic theological conclusions drawn from that. The answer to this is quite complicated and is indeed off topic, but going there is required to answer this question.All that said, I would argue that God has a goal greater concerning humanity (even the Universe) than intervening in each and every negative scenario. I would argue this reason is to demonstrate the base and altogether evil nature of the cosmic "disease" called "Sin" in the Universe, in an effort to ultimately justify Himself in the face of accusations made against Him. I think your statements are valid. I mean, in theory, yes But to me that just seems pretty weak an argument because it just ends discussion with "I'm right, you're wrong!" And then we don't go anywhere And I would argue, where did you even get the idea that an abstract "evil" and "good" existed? And I am curious as to how you would define evil without an ultimate good as a reference point. To me, it's like saying one may define darkness without light when the very nature of darkness is the absence of light, or defining color blindness in a world without color. It's a nonsense claim. And I think you would be right to judge yourself thus. But to use the same standard to measure/judge God? The standard that is yourself? You're basically claiming to be the arbiter and ultimate judge of good and evil here, which I feel is a dangerous road. Could we extend this to other humans? Hitler? Ghandi? Stalin? Julius Caesar? Martin Luther King Jr? Malcolm X? Me? Do they also have this privilege? Who, then, gets to decide what is evil and what is good? Your evil might look vastly different from Malcolm X's "evil," and your "good" might look much different from Stalin's "good." Caesar's "good" may very well include doing absolutely nothing in the face of rape, if the person being taken advantage of was a barbarian or non-Roman slave. All this to say, morality does not change when different individuals are involved. Morality is always the same, because God is always the same. God is the ultimate reference point, and not just "another individual" who is more powerful than some.It is good when people can agree to disagree . I would argue, though, that to dismiss or hold disdain toward a God who does not help in every circumstance of evil would be to dismiss an inaccurate view of God, just a "scarecrow" and not the real God as he presents himself.God clearly does not intervene in every circumstance on earth. It's not his modus operandi. He is shown to be far more complex than that, and has goals beyond the temporary. He is also, however, at the same time deeply concerned with the present - even personally hurt by occurrences of injustice and pain - but seems mostly apt to use individuals for his purposes, imo, as this is shown throughout scripture and history.So, in conclusion, I would posit that if you were ever being raped, and I were there, regardless if there was a safety risk to myself, If I did not help you I would be evil. And if I did help, that would be the act of God in a person. Since God is ultimate good, anything done with goodwill, in a spirit of kindness, sacrifice, gentleness, compassion, mercy, love, etc, simply is the work of God.

Well, since God has pretty clearly revealed himself, via scripture (although via other methods as well) we can accurately infer that he has good intentions from the evidence presented. We definitely cannot know everything involved in the situation, some things are simply unknowable (or at least with the information presently available). We've admitted that with science, and the same is true here.Again I think that's a little simplistic. But basically. Haha. We don't have all the answers. God has presented some of them via scripture, but we admittedly do have a fragmented perspective. It's not black and white. It's complicated - messy even, trying to make sense of reality and the issues being discussed here. As is, I would argue, any pursuit of understanding. That's ok.I totally agree that it ends with trust, though. At the end of the day I am only man and He is God. I'm glad he has to figure it out . Sounds similar to Anselm's Ontological Argument. I'm a little confused as to what you are meaning when you refer to "this (reality)?" The issue here at the core is we disagree about how reality is made up, yes? My ontology views what we see here, and observe, as an incomplete reality. It makes up a part, one might even say a "half," but not the entirety. Also, scripture teaches that the observable reality has been bent or "twisted" by Sin, so therefore is actually "not good" in it's current state.So I agree with you, I can also imagine a better reality than this one. But that reality isn't God. I mentioned God being the ultimate good reality because that is one of the things He claims to be. Albeit, not in explicit terms. Here's an example:

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But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law - Galatians 5:22-23

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Here we see a statement about the nature of the Spirit (of God). God does not claim to ever be "the ultimate good" in scripture. That is more of a systematic theological conclusion. So I can admit that. But we might make the connection that:- if only one God exists
- & one of his attributes is goodness- THEN all other goodness is derived from His goodness, since goodness wouldn't exist in the created realm had the Creator not made it so.
- THEREFORE God himself is the ultimate reality of good(ness). I disagree. And I suppose we're getting to a more foundational level of our presuppositions here. I accept scripture as the major revelation from God in my ontology. Therefore I am not discussing merely the philosophical idea "god," one that may potentially be "good" but also may potentially be anything else. Rather I am denoting God (YHWH) as He presents himself in scripture. Therefore conclusions about Him can definitely be made from observing how he presents himself, and so that's what I'm doing when prescribing certain attributes to Him such as "goodness." I mean, at a certain point in any quest for meaning, understanding simply hits a brick wall and no more conclusions can be drawn. We only know so much. Scripture paints a picture of a God who is Creator, Lover, Life-Giver, and Saviour of all creation. Who better to leave the issue with? We do not have to "cross our fingers and hope for the best" because he has clearly expressed his interest - even love -for his creation. Therefore, I am comfortable trusting in God, yes . Interesting. These make sense to me, and do seem practical. In fact, I would go so far as to say this model lines up closely to the biblical one. It's reminiscent of the "Do unto others what you would have them do unto you" sentiment. It does seems highly subjective. The orientation of any action taken, then, lies in the perspective of the person being affected. No moral model is perfect, I recognize that, so cannot criticize this too much.The idea presented in scripture is of a universally constant God who operates via certain attributes/principles. Anything not of these attributes(principles) might be said to be "evil" or perhaps simply "not of God". This idea doesn't say any specific actions are "evil" or "wrong" but instead takes the positive argument, that God is these things (see list earlier) and anything outside of that is evil. Different perspectives are interesting .It also presents the idea that since God essentially is a certain set of attributes, he cannot be the opposites of those things. Therefore, any action taken by God must be in line with his attributes. These things (as presented in scripture) are not limited to the list presented earlier, and include such things as:- Holiness (independent righteousness or "right-ness" by which all actions taken by creations are judged/measured against)
- Justice (fair consequence in exchange for injustice)
- Love (personal sacrifice for the benefit of others) and
- Sovereignty (rulership unto which creation owes allegiance). Agreed. Except that phrase "does not make it right" is interesting to me. In your model, there is no absolute "right," therefore there might be a circumstance where (a God) creating/coming first does indeed make (an action) right . What would that scenario look like to you? #curiosity Interesting. So all this to say that there are no absolute "goods" and "evils." It makes sense.Scripture presents the idea that within God morality is derived. Not because God's morality "came first" but because within all morality is a shadow of the way God operates. In a sense, God is morality, but actually more than that, because God is love, which is a more demanding and robust ethic. I totally agree. Except that people do generally perceive certain actions to be morally right and wrong (forgive my lack of citing a peer reviewed study at this time). Genocide. Rape. Slavery. Racial Discrimination. Murder of children. These are actions which seem to be generally perceived by most as "undeniably wrong." It seems the morality of humanity is actually somewhat in harmony. Of course we see exceptions throughout history, but in general. Thoughts? God is judged by the same standards. But God is the standard. He essentially lives up to the standard because that is his very essence to do so.Put another way, "the standards" exists because they're statements about what God's nature is to be.What you're argument seems to be saying is: "fire must be judged by the same standards we use to judge weather fire is fire or not." It's essentially true, but unneeded. Fire simply is fire. We measure whether something is fire or not against real fire, against the real deal. We do not look at fire and question whether or not it's truly fire, even if it looks different or appears in a different color or state.God is similar. The difference is we are not privy to all the information about God, like we are with fire, so we cannot really make an accurate judgement about Him. Now we're right back where we started . I'm not saying it's simple or black and white. It's complicated, that's why the debate exists. Hence the question "why do bad things happen to good people?" in religious circles right? I'm only trying to point out that it's not quite as simple as your statement makes it out to be.At the end of the day, neither of us are going to magically change our positions based on a debate on EvCForum, we can recognize that much haha . It is true my argument seems to hinge on that assumption. But it seems to me that I have adequately defended that assumption here. (see argument few paragraphs above). "Good" only exists as we know it because there is a God who is by nature essentially good (all this information from scripture), among other things. That's not a statement about morals, or humanity, but about God. Stating that God is a certain way also doesn't automatically mean people, or even people claiming to follow Him are a certain way (good). It simply means that is how God presents Himself.We live in a broken world. A world and reality twisted by sin. Morals are all over the place because people are broken and no moral code is perfect because humans can never truly be "good" of themselves. There are no perfect answers because even if we had them we wouldn't be able to carry them out. But thanks be to God for providing a solution .Phew! Sorry for the long post. I recognize my long-windedness Regards!- RaphEdited by Raphael, : Fixed some errors and added clarity.

This makes sense friend! Very interesting insight here. In that case, it seems this is where the "butting heads" seems to come from within the debate. True. These things shouldn't be omitted. I was only referencing "goodness" as one of the many attributes of God. Jealousy, even vengeance (I prefer the term, "retribution" ) are also things God says about himself.The trouble comes when we see one attribute and peg that one attribute as "what God is" when it's just not as simple as that. God appears to be far more comprehensive and holistic than that.Regards!- Raph

I'm on side "C." Neither conclusion seems to be especially robust or thought out enough to me, therefore I choose a different conclusion.- God does have enough power to stop it
- & he does care enough that in an ideal situation he would supernaturally stop every case of rape.BUT- We don't live in an ideal situation (the existence of Sin)
- We don't have complete knowledge of God or can see from God's perspectiveTHEREFORE,- Though we have some information about the way God operates (via scripture mainly), God must have motives that are unknowable fully, and to come to a conclusion otherwise would simply be irresponsible since we have fragmented knowledge.Summarized: We simply do not have enough information about God to make a conclusion about whether he is "evil" or not.

If you'll look above you'll see that I've already addressed this issue . It's not that black and white because nobody has complete knowledge about God or the way He operates. We can infer a lot from scripture but at the end complete knowledge about His activity is unknowable. Therefore you cannot make a conclusion like that because you don't have all
the required information.It would be like concluding that water is wet when you've never even seen or interacted with water yourself. You can have an idea of what it might be like based on what other people tell you but you can't really make a decisive conclusion about it simoly because you don't know.A better analogy would be with President Obama. You can see the results of how his Presidency has affected the United States, and draw
Conclusions about his political plans and agenda from that, but if you've never sat down with him over toast, face to face and listened as he went in depth about his plan, or read a document entitled "The Great Overarching Goal of the Obama Administration," you wouldn't accurately be able to say "President Obama is ineffective at X." X may not even be his goal at all, but you wouldn't know that, since you don't have the info. Haha I can see why you'd think so. But that's not what I'm trying to do, I swear. I'm just saying that yes, it is complicated. Thats's ok. The reason isn't really inexplicable, just unknowable at this time. That's whay this debate is even happening, because its complex. The reality is that life doesn't happen in a state of us always easily understanding fully every single occurrence and situation. That's nonsense. We tend to approach this argument in the same way, expecting there to be perfect answers, but sometimes that's impossible. As I stated earlier, we've done the same thing in science - admitted there are certain things we do not know yet. There's no shame in that. So why attack that fact when science does the same thing? Not really, I'm afraid.
We don't know how God operates
We don't know if He has a greater justifiable goal or not
if so we don't know what that greater goal is fully
we don't know how time is measured from his perspectiveTherefore you actually can't make a (cogent) logical conclusion; you don't have enough facts to accurately conclude whether God is evil or not.You could conclude though that He appears or seems to be evil from your reasons, and that would make sense. But that becomes a totally different argument .Regards! - Raph

Well you're right, that's really where we diverge here. You disagree with a biblical ontology, and so we would have to go back behind this discussion and I would need to prove to you that a biblical ontology is acceptable and credible. This argument here for me chooses a biblical ontology as a starting point, just as you do not use the biblical perspective in yours. We've both come here assuming our underlying assumptions about reality are correct, but we disagree on what those are. Ideed.Which is understandable from your perspective. I do not know your personal life journey or experience, so have no way to simply stand here incredulous at the fact that you do not believe. Lol. My only encouragement, if you are ever interested, give scripture a(perhaps another?) go. It has a way of standing up for itself ;P. Interesting. I suppose the only thing is while I can see that to each person, "right" is (somewhat) clearly defined, at least in that what one desires done to them is "right," it just seems that that is subject to such change; people tend to be emotionally fickle, not to mention instances of damage. Take for instance those who have experience physical/sexual abuse. They may believe or be conditioned to believe that abuse done is them is "right," justified, or even deserved, but in reality, from a psychological health perspective, it is not. Therefore no matter who you are, what your circumstances or perspective is, even if you disagree, physical/sexual abuse is always negative and always harmful, regardless of whether or not one might agree. So then, in that case, who is right? The science of Psychology, or the individual? Ah gotcha. That helps me to understand what you are saying. I think in response I would say that the Biblical narrative has humans as secondary instead of main characters in the creation narrative. So instead of humans "feeling" like God's creation was good, God himself states that "it is good." God names it good because as creator he has the right and only pertinent perspective. We might then take the leap and say the same is true of morals, in that God, being the originator of all things good, the one setting the standard for what "good" looks like, therefore is the only pertinent perspective on what good and evil really are. Hence verses like the one Cat Sci mentioned, "I created evil." (I'll address that one in another post ;P). And that's where I disagree. I find comfort in the fact that there is a standard bigger than myself, something solid I can put my hope and faith in, something not hinging on my view of the world, my subjective opinion, my transient and fickle emotions. Emotions are untrustworthy in my opinion. How i feel about something can come and go with the wind; even my likes/dislikes and opinions on issues change with time. I love God because he is unchanging and constant.I love that. But, to each his own I suppose .

Sure, we make conclusions about what we know. We might be able to suppose that a god "X" is evil if He has miracles and does not use them. What I'm saying is my position is more complex than a god "X." I am positing the God of scripture, YHWH. Some information is revealed about Him in scripture, but not all. What I'm saying is scripture does not offer complete information, therefore you cannot really make "God is evil" as an accurate truth claim. "God might be evil" is really as far as we can take that. How would you know that water has no resistance to shear stress if you have never observed or interacted with water? It's an assumption based on your current pre-knowledge of water. the argument would look more like this:Being wet is the property of having no resistance to shear stress.
Water might not have resistance to shear stress (we don't know since it has never been observed)
Therefore water might be wet.It's just conjecture. If something has never been observed or understood definitive truths about it cannot be made. Instead, we live in the land of hypotheses and inferences, which is ok. Standard Epicurus's argument here. It's fair. And I won't try and conquer this age old argument haha. But, let's take a step away from arbitrary philosophy. Again, I am not positing a god "X," but the God of scripture, rooted in reality and not on philosophical ideas alone. I have two counter arguments:1)IF God is all-powerful and all-loving
IF Love does not work unless the freedom to choose exists
IF a god is equally all-loving as he is all-powerfulTHEN- He must allow creations to choose evil (even at the cost of damage to one another)
- Love takes steps to limit evil, at times eradicating it almost completely, but always leaves a choice available
- God is a paradox, in that He is all-powerful but in His very nature is limited by his equal all-loving nature
- The goal of God is not to be "all-good" but to maintain his nature, which is Love.2)IF God has been accused of being unjust, controlling, and unloving
IF an alternative reality (sin and selfishness) was proposed by the Devil
IF God is truly all-loving and values the choice of creationsTHEN- He will allow evil to exist to prove that it is self-destructing and non-viable for existence
- He will allow creations to choose evil in order to justify the claims that he is unjust/controlling
- He will ultimately prove His all-loving nature by becoming a created being Himself, being killed by His creations, and then gifting them with life regardless&- When evil has been shown to be truly self-destructing, He will eradicate evil from the Universe Not really my friend. Your argument just tries to know the unknowable. It's like saying seriously: "A fight between Wonder-Woman and Superman initiated the Big Bang;" it's just simply unknowable territory. Someone knowledgeable about science would laugh at an assertion like that because the issue is far more complex and we only have so much information about the Big Bang, at least at this point in time. In the same way, we might hypothesize that superheroes had a part to play, for all we know this could be true (especially for those of you who have read DC 1 Million ) but not enough knowledge exists to make a conclusion. Therefore, we admit we simply do not know. Sure A classically quoted verse. In response:1) As I stated in the 2nd argument above, it's more complex than that. I am not and have not been arguing that God is only "all-good." I have said that goodness is one of His qualities, part of His nature, but so are many other things.2) The hebrew word "evil" is a word, "ra" (רַע ) and means more along the lines of "bad, adversity, or calamity." "Evil" works too but Hebrew is an incredibly robust and vivid language with a wide range of meanings.All this to say that the idea that God cannot be truly good because evil exists is a little limiting and small in it's girth and workability. Perhaps some god "X" cannot be good because evil exists, but that is not my argument.A more robust argument considers all the information about the God of scripture, YHWH, and would probably conclude: God reveals himself to be loving and good, and we see many instances of this throughout scripture and his overall character. However, we also see instances of Him allowing evil to exist, and at times even causing calamity. In the face of such an apparent contradiction we simply don't know.. The evidence actually leans more to Him being good and loving, but there are always two sides to every coin .Regards!-Raph