I’m not necessarily disagreeing with you here, but thought I’d provide a counter argument.
A group of children are dying of a horrible, deadly disease that can only be cured with the bark from a specific tree. So we go into the forest and chop this tree down to save the children from an excruciating disease.
A squirrel had built its entire home in that tree. That tree was everything to the squirrel. Now the squirrel has nothing and will suffer because we chopped down its home.
How do we explain this to the squirrel? Well, we can’t. No matter how hard we try, we can’t explain why we needed to destroy its home. The squirrel is physically incapable of understanding.
Playing devils advocate here, perhaps the reason for the need for human suffering is so beyond our understanding and comprehension that we are just physically incapable of understanding. Maybe we’re just squirrels, and human suffering needs to happen for some greater purpose unbeknownst to us.
I’m upvoting because I thought this was done good engagement with the premise and you don’t deserve to be downvoted for it.
But fundamentally, you’ve missed a pretty big step. What if god just…didn’t create a situation where children get diseases that can only be cured with one rare tree?
Or, more importantly, what about diseases that cannot be cured? What about natural disasters? Yes, some types of natural disasters have gotten more common and worse as a result of human action, but they still happened before climate change, and if anything were more disruptive to people before we had modern building practices.
We’re talking about a god that is literally capable of anything. It could just wave its hand and delete all disease from existence. It chooses not to.
We’re talking about the Abrahamic trio, so God is supposed to be all powerful. That means there is nothing beyond his power. There is no “can only” or “can’t” or “incapable” for him. He can have His cure and save the tree too, He doesn’t have to choose. Your example only works if God is limited in some capacity, and has to make trade offs that we can’t understand.
the Abrahamic trio, so God is supposed to be all powerful.
The funny thing is, the ancient Israelites almost certainly didn’t believe this. It was a more recent invention that’s obviously not supported by the old testament or the talmud.
IF there was some reason, first of all, God could give us the ability to understand if he wanted to, as he is not supposed to be limited. Second, it would imply someone is getting something from it, God, us, or otherwise, that for some reason, God can’t give in a way that doesn’t involve evil. But again, if he is never limited, that shouldn’t be the case.
Also, if cancer and other diseases are supposed to exist and kill people for some kind of purpose we don’t understand, why do we have the ability to treat, vaccinate and cure those same diseases? If medicine gets to the point of preventing every ailment, then why does that “oh so important” reason for it existing not matter anymore? It would seem if these things NEED to exist, we shouldn’t be able to prevent them from happening under any circumstances.
That argument lands you in the “we can’t know which religion is true” category, because if we can’t know the plans of god, we also can’t know which god is real.
So, while it absolves the believer from having to answer the problem of evil, it simultaneously robs them of any certainty about the truth of their religion.
That is an interesting thought experiment in general but I don’t think it really squares with Christian theology and the central role humanity has in it.
I’m not necessarily disagreeing with you here, but thought I’d provide a counter argument.
A group of children are dying of a horrible, deadly disease that can only be cured with the bark from a specific tree. So we go into the forest and chop this tree down to save the children from an excruciating disease.
A squirrel had built its entire home in that tree. That tree was everything to the squirrel. Now the squirrel has nothing and will suffer because we chopped down its home.
How do we explain this to the squirrel? Well, we can’t. No matter how hard we try, we can’t explain why we needed to destroy its home. The squirrel is physically incapable of understanding.
Playing devils advocate here, perhaps the reason for the need for human suffering is so beyond our understanding and comprehension that we are just physically incapable of understanding. Maybe we’re just squirrels, and human suffering needs to happen for some greater purpose unbeknownst to us.
I’m upvoting because I thought this was done good engagement with the premise and you don’t deserve to be downvoted for it.
But fundamentally, you’ve missed a pretty big step. What if god just…didn’t create a situation where children get diseases that can only be cured with one rare tree?
Or, more importantly, what about diseases that cannot be cured? What about natural disasters? Yes, some types of natural disasters have gotten more common and worse as a result of human action, but they still happened before climate change, and if anything were more disruptive to people before we had modern building practices.
We’re talking about a god that is literally capable of anything. It could just wave its hand and delete all disease from existence. It chooses not to.
We’re talking about the Abrahamic trio, so God is supposed to be all powerful. That means there is nothing beyond his power. There is no “can only” or “can’t” or “incapable” for him. He can have His cure and save the tree too, He doesn’t have to choose. Your example only works if God is limited in some capacity, and has to make trade offs that we can’t understand.
The funny thing is, the ancient Israelites almost certainly didn’t believe this. It was a more recent invention that’s obviously not supported by the old testament or the talmud.
IF there was some reason, first of all, God could give us the ability to understand if he wanted to, as he is not supposed to be limited. Second, it would imply someone is getting something from it, God, us, or otherwise, that for some reason, God can’t give in a way that doesn’t involve evil. But again, if he is never limited, that shouldn’t be the case.
Also, if cancer and other diseases are supposed to exist and kill people for some kind of purpose we don’t understand, why do we have the ability to treat, vaccinate and cure those same diseases? If medicine gets to the point of preventing every ailment, then why does that “oh so important” reason for it existing not matter anymore? It would seem if these things NEED to exist, we shouldn’t be able to prevent them from happening under any circumstances.
That argument lands you in the “we can’t know which religion is true” category, because if we can’t know the plans of god, we also can’t know which god is real.
So, while it absolves the believer from having to answer the problem of evil, it simultaneously robs them of any certainty about the truth of their religion.
But only if they think about it.
That is an interesting thought experiment in general but I don’t think it really squares with Christian theology and the central role humanity has in it.