From: Mark Steven Heyman (markheyman@infoproconsulting.com)
Date: Tue Aug 24 2004 - 04:11:01 BST
Hi Scott and Chuck,
Another minor quibble, below...
On 23 Aug 2004 at 11:05, Scott Roberts wrote:
Chuck said:
> Evil exists, which should be impossible if God exists, because:
>
> 1.If God is unaware of Evil in the world, he is not omniscient.
2.If
> God is aware of Evil, but can do nothing to prevent it, he is not
> omnipotent. 3.If God is aware of Evil, is able to prevent it and
> chooses not to, he is not
> omni-benevolent.
>
> Where’s the flaw? After all, is this not the God of
> Judeo-Christianity? Is this not the God of Vatican II? Is this
not
> America’s God?
scott said:
The flaw is to think that words like omniscient and omnibenevolent,
and of course God and Evil, have clear meaning, and thus can be used
in logical formulas. Whatever God might be, He is not a He, a being
who does things the way people do but perfectly.
...The argument here should tell the theist that he or she is working
with idols, not God. Idols are concepts (or percepts) that one
worships as God in place of God, but God cannot be conceived (or
perceived). As I said to Mark SH, most Christians are idolators or
heretics of some sort or other. They think that they understand what
is meant by "God is omniscient" and so fall into error, the most
egregious of which is to think that God is the sort of being that can
be thought to be on our side.
msh says:
Here's the quibble. Saying that people are wrong in their
conceptions of God implies that you know what's right. If it's
"egregious error" to think that God is omniscient, for example, or if
it's true that "God cannot be conceived (or perceived)" then it's
fair for us to ask you to elaborate. Why should anyone believe that
something imperceptible AND inconceivable exists? I respectfully
suggest that the answer can only be that they really, really WANT to
believe it.
Best to all,
Mark Steven Heyman (msh)
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