Sunday, April 08, 2007

Omnibenevolence

An awful lot of atheist arguments seem to rely on the omnibenevolence of God.

"If God is omnibenevolent then..." [the world wouldn't be the way that it clearly is]

Is God omnibenevolent?
Where does it say so?
How do we know this from experience?


The other part of the argument is often omnipotence. The argument often goes like:

"If God is omnibenevolent and omnipotent then why is there suffering?"

I'm afraid I find that line of reasoning fairly compelling. But I don't conclude from that that there is no God, only that maybe he isn't either omnibenevolent or omnipotent...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

A boy in preschool was playing with a favorite toy. Another child, upon seeing how much fun he was having, came and took the toy away and began playing with it. The boy's limited sense of justice and fairness was thus offended, and he began to wail and cry; his sense of suffering was both great and very real to him. Upon reaching adulthood, his parents told him of the incident but he did not remember it due to its lack of importance and meaning.

A pubescent girl, upon the onset of her first period, felt strong cramps and saw her bloody emission. Having been shielded from knowlege of the proper functioning of her body, she ignorantly thought that she was mortally wounded, that she her death was imminent. In later years, as she recalled the incident, remembering the very real mental anguish and suffering she experienced, still chuckled at her own ignorance.

Such is the life of mankind in the physical realm. Lacking in experience, possessing of an incomplete and ofttimes inaccurate view of the Universe, and unable to see the his true longevity, he frequently believes his very real problems and suffering in this world to be of consequence in the wholeness of his life.