Interesting. I had no idea this sort of thing existed
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I’m not talking about not looking both way when crossing the road. I’m talking about not even having a chance to experience what it is to be a normal Human. To experience those situations and choices. To suffer for the entirety of your brief existence and then die in pain. Often not even understanding what is happening. There is no lesson in that. No benefit. This is PURE cruelty. How can it be anything else?
Somehow I replied to my own post, not to VAGRANT as I intended. I don’t know how to fix this, so my apologies to anyone who reads this.
If you need to, you can delete it by clicking the three little dots and then clicking the trash can.
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I WANT to praise God. For my family. My health. My fortunes. But to do so would make me an insult to all those who don’t have what I do, through no fault of their own. I’d be as despicable as a footballer thanking God for the win…
And according to Biologos’ ideas of the world, I simply got lucky and God had nothing to do with it anyway. Just lit the torch and let it go. Rain and hail. If it goes out, it goes out.
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If you’re assigning theological positions to people, I’d recommend using theirs rather than inventing your own. It saves a lot of time and avoids accidentally winning arguments against imaginary opponents.
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Jesus Christ came to convert God to be “Our Father” by being Born Again and this makes us to be Children in a Family of Possibly Love. When I was a child living with my Mom and Pop and siblings, there was Love amongst Us, so I also want to be in a World of Love but it doesn’t truly exist here. “The Love of Love, Love of Life brings the Wonderous yearning for Promise yet unseen” Moody Blues Line in a song.
The World is of Adults with Dog Eat Dog , War killing each other and destruction , and lot of deception of use of words. The Stock Market is called investing when it is ownership of some illusionary estimated value or leaching with Dividends. It’s like gambling which is trying to gain more money on money without any good works.
I try to behave with my seeing of the Truth and When This Body expires, I’ll say in My Mind “Father I commend my Spirit to You”.
It seems to me that the “omni” attributes ascribed to God by modern theologians are toxic and doing a disservice to belief. I have been told here by multiple people that this Omnipotent, omnibenevolent god couldn’t have created any differently. So should everyone else drop the omni-nonsense, as I have? The greatest possible good is not omnibenevolent. Nor can it ever be.
We can now produce Memory Devices in the Terabytes. There are only Approximately 6 Billion people alive on Planet Earth today, do you think it’s possible Your whole life’s Behavior can be Recorded on some memory by “Our Father”.
I’m out. I have to look elsewhere. Thanks to all that tried to help.
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I’m sorry that you were unable to find the answers you were looking for. I know how that feels. It took me several years to find this forum which I felt helped with my understanding of God and Jesus. If you don’t feel like this is the place for you, then no one can blame you; we all connect to God differently.
If I may suggest a place to look, https://www.gotquestions.org has helped me with some of my previous questions. Perhaps you could find some luck there.
Regardless, I wish you the best. You have my full support.
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Absolutely. I read a good commentary on that by even a much more conservative believer than myself. Well put. It’s not even biblical. It’s more of the neo evangelical kind, I think–well intended, but doesn’t make sense on breakdown.
Please keep searching for truth; even though it is hard, and changes belief. I honor you.
Randy
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Classical theists find “the greatest possible good” or “best possible world” arguments to be “doing a disservice to belief.” Why?
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Creation is finite so the amount of good is finite. I mean, couldn’t you add more? Wouldn’t one more angel or one more soul have been better? It would have made this world even better. A best possible world is thus incoherent. It is like asking for the highest possible integer.
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God is not a moral agent and does not owe non-existent beings a specific standard of existence. There is nothing externalsto God that compels this. God is goodness itself. Not a moral agent. Thus it is futile to judge creation by human standards of utility.
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If God is perfectly good and a best possible world exists then God would be forced to create it. This means creation is not a gratuitous act of grace, a gift of love overflowing. God’s perfection is complete, there is nothing He needs to do to prove it or maintain it.
A best possible world is a meaningless concept. God willed to create a good world to manifest His glory. It is an act of love overflowing. God most certainly could have willed it to be other than it is.
We don’t get to dismiss or drop the omni-attributes anymore than we do the roundness of a circle. Careful metaphysical arguments that demonstrate God’s existence also entail the divine attributes. These are also not modern. They are a part of classical theism and go back to virtually the start of Christianity. For example, Irenaeus used divine immutability to argue against the gnostics. This was not an intrusion to faith. The trinity itself, as formulated in the early Church is also inseparably steeped in Greek thought, concepts and language.
When you think of something like omnibenevolence, you may be thinking in terms of theistic personalism and of God as some sort of super moral agent. For the classical theist goodness is something different. ‘A thing is considered good insofar as it is actualized and possesses the perfections proper to its nature.’ God being actus purus (pure act), or being itself has no unactualized potentials.
So should everyone else drop the omni-nonsense, as you have? Certainly not. They should understand what these classical attributes actually mean. I would recommend taking a good look at classical theism over modern, theistic personalism which is ultimately indefensible.
Vinnie
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Citation needed.
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Aquinas: Summa Theologica, Part 1, Question 7,
Article 1. Form and matter limit one another. God as actus purus or his own subsistent being is infinite and perfect.
For best possible world: “Since God is necessarily perfect, the created world cannot be beneficial for God, and since a universe with a perfect being is itself already perfect, God’s goodness does not necessitate his creating anything at all. Moreover, since for everything God creates he could create something better (ST 1a 25.6c), there is no sense to be made of the idea of a best of all possible worlds. Accordingly, God is free to create otherwise than he did, and free even not to create anything at all: “Since God’s goodness is perfect, and he can exist without the things other than himself” (ST 1a 19.3c).”
ST* 1a 25.6c is below till the end:
I answer that, The goodness of anything is twofold; one, which is of the essence of it—thus, for instance, to be rational pertains to the essence of man. As regards this good, God cannot make a thing better than it is itself; although He can make another thing better than it; even as He cannot make the number four greater than it is; because if it were greater it would no longer be four, but another number. For the addition of a substantial difference in definitions is after the manner of the addition of unity of numbers (Metaph. viii, 10). Another kind of goodness is that which is over and above the essence; thus, the good of a man is to be virtuous or wise. As regards this kind of goodness, God can make better the things He has made. Absolutely speaking, however, God can make something else better than each thing made by Him.
Reply to Objection 1. When it is said that God can make a thing better than He makes it, if “better” is taken substantively, this proposition is true. For He can always make something else better than each individual thing: and He can make the same thing in one way better than it is, and in another way not; as was explained above. If, however, “better” is taken as an adverb, implying the manner of the making; thus God cannot make anything better than He makes it, because He cannot make it from greater wisdom and goodness. But if it implies the manner of the thing done, He can make something better; because He can give to things made by Him a better manner of existence as regards the accidents, although not as regards the substance.
Vinnie
Good discussion. I am reminded of a saying my father had, “Whatever is, is best.” Certainly not a polished philosophy, but an observation of life from a farmer, a man born to a pregnant 16 year old bride, raised by an abusive grandfather, thrust into the world without any support at 18, and who built a life dependent of the whims on the weather and the ravages of insects. I wish I had a bit more of his acceptance and contentment with the way things are these days.
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I sometimes feel like we argue ourselves out of miracles, though.
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That’s about perfection, not infiniteness.
You’re also switching back and forth between ‘world’ and ‘creation’.
Nor does Thomas’s argument prevent there being an infinite creation containing only finite material objects.
Though I admit I was hoping for evidential support, not outdated philosophy.
When I was game-mastering for a D&D type TTRPG we actually got into this question when someone objected to an (official) game rule that it did not represent a world God could/would have created. That became a measure for assessing rules and led to some play sessions turning into philosophical and theological discussions.
That’s true only if the text of the scriptures support those attributes – they are, after all, human philosophical notions. Omnipotence is my favorite example, because as classically defined it adds to what scripture actually says and leads to conundra that are artificial becausee of such adding.
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The Incarnation itself refutes this.
In Thomas’ favor, the mathematics of infinities had not yet been developed.
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