From: jfb@macsch.com (John Baskette)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Simple Question
Date: 28 Jan 93 08:57:40 GMT
Organization: MacNeal-Schwendler Corp.

In article <Jan.27.00.15.35.1993.2546@athos.rutgers.edu> cmtan@iss.nus.sg (Tan Chade Meng - with Dan) writes:
>Hi Everybody!
>
>	My name is Chade-Meng and I'm the person who posted the 1st question
>that started this thread (concerning the question of sufferings).  

>	However, the sad thing is that ALL the responses are just different
>wording of EXACTLY the same argument.  And sadly, it was extremely
>unsatisfactory 'cause it went against my understanding that God was All-
>Loving.

>The fact that sufferings exists contradicts the assumption of a Loving
>Almighty God.  Almost everybody who replied to me proposed that God is
>not saving us now 'cause He is waiting:
>(1)  For Everybody to Love Him first.
>(2)  To prove that Man cannot live well without His Laws
>(3)  To test if we can all love Him voluntarily  (This is probably the
>     worse answer for if something can/will happen, He WILL know 'cause
>     He is omniscient, He doesn't have to "test".  Those who gave me
>     this answer seemed to have sized Him down).
>(4)  He set a Law to disallow Himself from interfering.
>(5)  Some permutation of and modifications to the above.

Hello Chade-Meng,

I thought that I would give you a public response and try to show a 
possible logical path out of your logical dilemma.  Let's explicate
"contradicts" a little bit:

God exists.
God is an Almighty being.
An Almighty being can eliminate all suffering.
God is an All-Loving being.
An All-Loving being eliminates all suffering as much as it can.
Therefore God, the Almighty and All-Loving being eliminates all suffering. 
Therefore suffering does not exist.

But from experience we know that suffering does exist!

Therefore there is a contradiction between what we know to be true from
experience and the Christian concept of God.

Is this chain of logic valid?  I think so.

Are the premises all correct?  I think not!

The incorrect premise is as follows:

1.)  An Almighty being can eliminate all suffering.

There are things that even an Almighty being cannot do.  God, the Almighty, 
cannot create an object so big that He cannot lift it and at the same time
continue to be Almighty.  In other words, it is not possible for God to 
bring into being that which is logically self-contradictory.

There are limits on what an Almighty being can do.

It is clear that limited beings, because they are limited will sometimes
cause suffering in order to bring about a higher good.

Just to make this personal, so that I do not seem to be utterly devoted only
to the cold impersonal God of the philosophers....  I took care of my mother
for the last nine months of her life.  She died a painful death from cancer.
Believe me, it pained me to see the suffering she went through during this
time period.  There was one time she was low on her morphine based pain 
killers and it was early on a Sunday.  I scrambled very hard to get her
prescription fulfilled.  Believe me when I say that I have witnessed 
suffering.

Some of the suffering was caused by the cancer treatments she was receiving.
I recognize that the doctors were doing a good and right thing in bringing
this suffering into being in order to achieve a higher end.  This was good
because her life was likely prolonged enough for her to see much of her 
family for one last time.

Now, Is it possible that God has a higher purpose for our suffering?  That 
in some sense our suffering is instrumental in bringing into being a greater
good than even God himself could not bring into being without our suffering?

I think that the answer is yes.

I would modify the arguments as follows:

God exists.
God is an Almighty being.
An Almighty being can eliminate as much suffering as is possible without
bringing into being a greater evil or preventing the bringing into 
being of a greater good.
God is an All-Loving being.
An All-Loving being eliminates all suffering as much as it can.
Therefore God, the Almighty and All-Loving being eliminates all suffering
that is possible without bringing into being a greater evil or preventing 
the bringing into being of a greater good. 
Suffering exists.

Therefore suffering is necessary in order to bring about the greater good.

What exactly this greater good is, is a secondary issue.  Many of the 
arguments you received attempt to identify what the greater good actually
is.  I am comfortable with saying that I don't know what the greater good
is, but I am quite sure that the concept of the Almighty and All-Loving 
Christian God is not in fact contradictory to experience.

Your question is a variant of the "Problem of Evil" question.

There are Christian books on this subject as you mentioned.  Besides 
anything by C.S. Lewis who seems always insightful I would like to 
recommend "God, Freedom, and Evil" by Alvin Plantiga.

Here are some quotes from Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica (a borrowed
copy of Vol I, the quote is from the section title Question 48 second
article, Whether Evil is Found in Things?):

"The perfection of the universe requires that there should be inequality
 in things, do that every grade of goodness may be realized.  Now, one 
 grade of goodness is that of the good which cannot fail.  Another 
 grade of goodness is that of the good which can fail in goodness, and 
 this grade is to be found in existence itself; for some things there are
 which cannot lose their existence as incorruptible things, while some
 there are which can lose it, as things corruptible.

 As, therefore, the perfection of the universe requires that there should
 be not only beings incorruptible, but also corruptible beings; so the
 perfection of the universe requires that there should be some which can
 fail in goodness, and thence it follows that sometimes they do fail.
 Now it is in this that evil consists, namely, in the fact that a thing
 fails in goodness.  Hence it is clear that evil is found in things, as
 corruption also is found; for corruption is itself an evil. ...
 God and nature and any other agent make what is best in the whole,
 but not what is best in every single part, except in order to the whole,
 as what was said above (Q. 47, A. 2).  And the whole itself, which is
 the universe of creatures, is all better and more perfect if some 
 things in it can fail in goodness, and do sometimes fail, God not 
 preventing this.  This happens, firstly, because 'it belongs to 
 Providence not to destroy, but to save nature', as Dionysius says 
 (Div. Nom. iv); but it belongs to nature that what may fail should
 sometimes fail; secondly, because as Augustine says (Enchir. 11),
 'God is so powerful that He can even make good out of evil."  Hence
 many good things would be taken away if God permitted no evil to 
 exist." 

Grace, Peace and Love to You.

>CHADE MENG

John Baskette  jfb@macsch.com