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Why do christians put limits on their gods's power?
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I believe that God has a purpose for pain in our lives, and a purpose for evil. However humans cannot ever have a full understanding of this.
Then why do you believe it?
The idea that pain grows us as people some what falls down when you start looking at the full spectrum of pain and suffering people endure. While you and Kelly may believe that pain "matures" you some what, it is hard to argue that a 5 year old burning to death or a mother and children drowning because their car went of a bridge, "matures" them.I know I wouldn't be the same person without having experienced pain in my life, and I doubt anyone here would be the same.
This is before one gets to the question of why this growth is necessary in the first place. As I said to kelly, the things we learn though endurance and suffering are all related to endurance and suffering. We learn how to deal with facing future suffering.
If suffering did not exist in the first place this would be unnecessary. It is a cyclical argument (hardly shocking on this forum :pac:) that we need suffering so that we can grow and mature to deal and cope with future suffering.
The thing that is bad about being immature and not growing is that it makes you illprepared to deal with life's challenges. This becomes some what irrelevant if there isn't actually any challenges to living.Although evil may look bad, it can have a positive purpose. We learn a lot through painful experiences.
We learn how to deal with, or avoid, future painful experiences. Irrelevant if one removes pain in the first place.0 -
Those aren't even limitations.- That he cannot create a universe where there is no evil without removing free will.
- He cannot create nerves that can feel pleasure but not pain.
- He could not create us so that we could love without having the ability to do evil
God evidently chose to provide free will, and he chose to provide us nerves, and he chose for us to live with having the ability to do evil. Evidently He had reason to do this. As for what those reasons were, we are left to fumble around with words, as it is really inexplicable. I do believe that there is much more here than what we actually can discern through our senses and through our intellect about this issue. It's one of those questions that will have to be dealt with in the afterlife I think
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As has been pointed out, we may not know the implications of a perfect world, but an all powerful being would, and by the nature of being all powerful could, if it chose to, create a perfect world.OK let me try again.
You seem to think believe that God could have made a better job of creation by making evil impossible but yet you have a limited intellect and can't fully comprehend the implications of making a perfect world and what this perfection should look like.
Don't be silly. Is you god all powerful or not? If he is he can make a perfect world with physical perfection. We can be equal to him or not as he desires.OK so let's assume God made a "perfect" world. Can a material world be perfect? What level of perfection would you choose? Do you mean finite perfection or infinite? Perfection in our eyes or perfection in God's? Would you want to be equal to God? Nobody can possibly understand the implications of being equal to God without actually being God. Is it possible to have 2 or more God's with infinite power etc? Nobody really knows.
My inability to breath under water is externally imposed. Is that bad? What would be your problem with an existence where we had choices, but they were all good?Since I don't actually know the reason for suffering, I suspect that God left it to us to decide the level of perfection we want to achieve. If it's up to us to decide, I think it must be possible to make mistakes (sin), there must be choice. If there were no choice, the decisions wouldn't really be ours and the perfection would be externally imposed rather than coming from us. It would be false.
I am more interested in the limits you seem to assign to your all powerful god.The limit of our perfection therefore is not imposed by God but is determined by how much we are willing to give selflessly i.e. how much we deny our own will and do God's will (which is true perfection).
Frankly, no.Any better?
How are they not? If he is a god of infinite good and mercy then it stands to reason that he would have done those things. You can't seem to see that, therefore you put a limit on his abilities.[/list]
Those aren't even limitations.
The ultimate believer cop out.God evidently chose to provide free will, and he chose to provide us nerves, and he chose for us to live with having the ability to do evil. Evidently He had reason to do this. As for what those reasons were, we are left to fumble around with words, as it is really inexplicable. I do believe that there is much more here than what we actually can discern through our senses and through our intellect about this issue. It's one of those questions that will have to be dealt with in the afterlife I think
We are suggesting that he could have done a better job. You guys say he could not have.God evidently chose in His omnipotency to form the world and the life in it the way He did. How is that limiting God?
Or perhaps he had no cloice? Perhaps he could do it no other way? Perhaps he did not do it at all? Perhaps he is not as good as you believe?How does such a conclusion cause us to see God as being limited. It's true that God could have created this universe in any way that He indeed wanted to create it, however he evidently chose the way that life is now.
How could 70ish years be considered as an sufficient period to judge if someone get infinity in heaven or hell? Infinity is a very long time, and our lifespan is relatively insignificant. Not really a good statistical sample, as it were. Of course you answer wil probably be he is all know, so even with that short period he will know. But surely he would know without us having to go through life on earth. What about people that don't know of god but just suffer?Perhaps as an adequate tribulation period to ensure us to be prepared for the Kingdom of Heaven,
But why build in a need to develop? Why can you not accept that, given he is supposed to be all powerful he could have build us complete.or perhaps to help us develop as human beings,
I doubt that very much. The quote in my sig sums it up for me.there are many philosophical arguments that have been made on this issue by people such as Aquinas, Augustine, Herbert McCabe, Alvin Platinga, which in my view explain thee situation rather well from a theistic perspective. The atheistic perspective from people such as Mackie, and Rowe also provide food for thought, but if you examine the case yourself, you may come to the same position as I did.
I may not be the sharpest tool in the box, but even I know that no suffering is better than some suffering.If we as humans are clearly unable to see where God's reasoning was on this, as we cannot fully have an understanding of God, we really cannot determine what is "better" than another.
I think there are countless humans, that given the same powers as you say your god has, could do a much better job.And Wicknight, I really don't think you would be much better a candidate for deity than the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, no offence, I don't think anyone would be.
No it isn't. I know nothing about football. But if a team does not win a game for a couple if years is it arrogant of me to suggest that they might not be doing it right? I might noy know how to fix it, but I can tell there is something wrong.Do you fully understand the implications of making people incapable of evil? If not then you can't say you could design a better world that God. You're understanding is limited and you're observing from inside the system so it's highly arrogant of you to say a better job could be done.
You say your god all all powerful and all knowing. Further, he is infinitly good and just. I say, it does not look that way.
Actually it was not technically. The question was why do you seek to limit the abilities of you god. But the conversation seems to have evolved in an interesting way. The christian opinion that we "need" evil and suffering is also something I find interesting.If your refer back to the OP, you'll see the question is about why God allows evil to happen, not why we're allowed to suffer. Suffering is the result of evil, not the reason it's possible.
I think we are discussing suffering in general. It all stems from what your god can do. As an atheist I think your typical all powerful being should be able to create an existence without suffering. You seem to think he can'tCertainly all suffering caused by humans is a result of sin. But you've just shifted the goalposts. We are discussing moral evil, not natural disasters.
My question has not really changed. A couple of related questions have appeared and some answers have been put forth, been challenged and the conversation has moved in a slightly different direction. The quesiton has not really changed.We'll get nothing resolved if we keep changing the question (not that we're likely to resolve this question anyway).
It is not exactly my question, but it is a natural progression I think. My question was why do you limit your god's power,in general. Wicknight's question is about a specific limitation christians seem to think he has. I think.:DThat's not my understanding of the original question. MrP, can you clarify please?
I think I addressed it earlier in this post. Let me know if I did not.I'd like to know what's wrong with my response in post #37 before I start discussing why people are capable of feeling pain.
MrP0 -
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