| timmah said: You bring up some commonly used, but still interesting paradoxes on the subject. For the sake of discussion, I hope you find some of my thoughts on these subjects interesting. 1. You're basically arguing that there is no possibility of anything being all powerful, all-knowing, or infinite. This argument is like asking 'can anything be larger than infinity', then using the answer to that question to disprove the concept of infinity. It's a self-defeating argument based solely on the inability for finite beings to fully comprehend the concept of 'infinity', or in this case 'all-powerful'. 2. This would go back to the very complex and deep debate on free will and love. If this creator chose to give humanity free will, and the pain and suffering of humanity is due to misuse of this free will, the creator would be contradicting the very law of the free will he gave us by eliminating that suffering (as he would have to force us to act in a certain way). Without free will, it is impossible for love to exist. A robot that is hard coded to act in exactly the way it is created cannot love somebody and could not inspire reciprocal love. Without the potential for darkness, there is no such thing as light. Without the potential for hate, what is love? Without the potential for cold, what is warmth? |
1. That doesn't do a good job of proving that something all-powerful, all-knowing, or infinite can exist. Infinity is a concept which doesn't describe any actual entities. So no, we have no valid reason to believe infinity exists in the "real" world (unless you can give some examples). So if anything, I think your infinity analogy decreases the likelihood of a Creator, or at least proves He's just a concept.
2. This leads to a few questions.
How would you explain natural, unnecessary “evil” especially when it harms newborns who can't even comprehend love or hate? It’s not like nature itself is exercising free will; the Creator himself is the one causing this pain and suffering. The situation is even worse when you consider the fact that these natural disasters are completely unnecessary; like you said, humans already exercise their free will to put evil into the world. If evil will exist regardless, then what is the point of the Creator causing this suffering?
Also, I don’t think hatred is necessary for love. When it comes to love & hate, there is a huge neutral position where neither hate nor love exists. Certain things just don’t give off a degree of love/hate. I think even without hate, love would be appreciated. The neutral situations would be unfulfilling enough that love would still be highly valuable. This is different from something like hot and cold. When it comes to temperature, there is no neutral zone; everything has a certain degree of hotness and coldness.
But let’s assume that hatred is necessary for love. A hate-free civilization wouldn’t work because love is only valued as it contrasts with hate. Also, a free-will & hate-free civilization is also impossible (otherwise, the Creator would have created such a civilization). If this is true, then that means the Creator planned for there to be hate. But this contradicts the popular notion that the Creator planned for humanity to live completely in harmony and love. So which is it? Did the creator plan for a hatred-free civilization or a hatred-filled civilization?
