From: gordons@netcom.com (Gordon Storga)
Subject: Re: Free Will / Evil / Creation
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 92 10:10:57 GMT
Organization: Stay Awake Software

In article <lharris.2@upei.ca> lharris@upei.ca (Lora Harris) writes:
>Please pardon me for joining the discussion.  I noticed the following 
>remarks, portions of longer posts, and decided to add my understanding 
>of the traditional/orthodox position of Christianity on creation and free 
>will
>
>.>gordons@netcom.com (Gordon Storga) writes:
>>><adams.713105930@spssig> adams@spss.com (Steve Adams) writes:
>
>>>God, in order to gain this, had to allow for the possibility of evil.
>>"had to"?  You mean an omnipotent being was incapable of creating free
>>will without evil?
>
>     Yes, had to.  No amount of omnipotence allows a being to create a 
>logical impossibility.  For instance, the old saw about "can god create 
>something so heavy that he can't lift it?"  The answer is no.  If there is 
>no limit to the ability to lift, then nothing can be created that is beyond 
>that non-existant limit.

No personal offense intended, but I find your argument laughable.  Either
he's a god (with all the powers that go with it), or he is subject to the
same rules and laws that you and I are, in which case I have to ask: Hwo
made the rules that god has to obey?

>     Likewise, you cannot give a being free will (the ability to choose good 
>or evil)*without* allowing the possibility to choose evil.  If there is no 
>possibility of evil, then the being does not have the ability to choose it, 
>and hence, no free will.  Eventually, given free will, someone will choose 
>evil.

I have no problem with that concept.  It's the punishment for choosing
evil that I object to.  You put sweet candy in front of a child and tell
them not to touch it or they will be killed.  Now, why would you do that?

>     On the other hand...
>>>One of the unavoidable aspects of creation was evil.  
>>This doesn't jive with the concept of a truly omnipotent being.  Nothing
>>should be unavoidable for him.
>
>     Here you are right - mostly.  Evil was not an unavoidable aspect of 
>creation. God is perfectly capable of creating a universe without it, as 
>long as that universe does not include free will.  I agree with Steve;\'s 
>comment that God cannot create another God, but He can create beings perfect 
>in what they are.

A true god can create *anything* he wants to create.  If he didn't want
pain and suffering of "his children" he wouldn't have arranged it so.

>     However, the reason I said "mostly" is like this -
>          1. God is perfect good

Can you have evil from perfect good?

>          2. What He creates must therefore be the greatest good

He created Satan.

>          3. Beings who follow good of their free will have more goodness 
>		than automatons          

I fail to see your logic.

>Therefore, God must have created this universe with beings with free 
>will.     
>
>(Assuming 1 for the sake of the argument.  By 2. I mean that God is not 
>only good, but perfect good, and never can choose a lesser good over a 
>greater - again assuming for the moment the Christian view for the sake of 
>argument.  I am pretty sure about 3, intuitively if not logically at the 
>moment.  We all recognize that in human terms, someone who does something 
>good freely is better than one who does the same under duress or 
>accidentally.)

We do?  Well, I can concede that it may seem like that a lot. But I doubt
that it can be considered an axiom.

>     Given this line of reasoning, I am tolerably sure ( not certain ) that 
>God could not have created a universe without free-willed beings, and hence 
>without evil.


I'll have to think about this some. You have some "interesting"
perspectives.

Gordon
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