God is all-powerful, so it can do anything. God is also all-good, so it also won't do anything evil or that leads to evil. God knows everything, so it is also aware of what the consequences of anything it does will be, down to the last detail.
But much evil exists in the world as we find it. But to God, it takes absolutely no effort to eliminate any evil it wants to, and God, being perfectly good, would want to get rid of evil. So, either God is not all of those things described above, or there is no God at all.
Now, there are "sophisticated" attempts by various theologians to overcome the problem and make such a God compatible with the existence of evil. There is the "free will" defense of God, and there are many others, but they all amount to saying simply that God has some sort of plan that makes all the suffering and horror in the world necessary somehow (even if we can't know all the reasons completely).
But all of the supposed reasons suggested by religious apologists are irrelevant. They say that God has a plan, but so what? That only makes it a god who has a plan, but it doesn't make that god any less responsible for evil, seeing how it could prevent all evil if it desired to to so.
We can therefore safely conclude that any God who governs this universe is not good, or if it is, it is not all-powerful or all-knowing. What we can't conclude is that somehow, through the use of extreme mental gymnastics, we can show that God has all three of those attributes. It is impossible, regardless of the flimsy arguments those theologians would try to bamboozle us with.
I know that you know I obviously disagree with most of what you said, BUT, I do agree about the plan part.
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of folks who like to "share" God with people by telling them that God has a 'wonderful plan' for their lives. Joel Osteen comes to mind...
Anyhow, I'd wonder what those people would say to the folks in the twin towers on September 10th, knowing full well what would happen the next day. Wow, how wonderful a plan would that be?
A lot of them are the same folks who keep Jesus in their pockets and just smile and say God loves everyone.
Pish. I'm of the Romans 9 folks, and God ain't the fluff God as he's portrayed by mainstream media and "mega-churches."
But you're close. The God you describe is the one most "Christians" worship. One who just watches evil and suffering happen without caring and just sits there loving everyone. And since their theology and lack of knowledge of true Christian doctrine is about an inch thick, I wouldn't expect much more from them.
Sad indeed.