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@EtrnlVw
Sorry about the late reply. IRL commitments and my other debates got in the way.
My biggest problem with God can be categorised as the "problem of evil", but it's not quite simple. If we posit the existence of a supernatural God who is both and omnipotent,I'm going to hear you out here, I just wanted to make it clear that we haven't given God any features or attributes.
I'm just invoking the ordinarily accepted attributes, being the 4 omni's. This argument works completely fine even if we assume they are true.
It is not that the Creator forces or limits us to suffering rather it is the weak state of man that demands that he must learn from pain. Pain has a cause, evil has a cause and suffering has causes. Where there is any fruit of suffering there is a root cause involved.
But why then create a world in which unnecessary suffering exists. You seem to imply that suffering is simply "part of the package", but remember, an omnipotent God could have made the package any way he wanted. He could have given creates complete and free will while only subjecting them to necessary pain. There is distinction between evil and gratuitous evil. Evils can serve God. Gratuitous evils, on the other hand are tautologically bad, that is, they cannot be justified, they bring no pleasure and they do not improve well being in any meaningful way.
To understand why, you must first understand the nature of duality and you also should understand very clearly that evil, pain and suffering aren't things or objects that are created...rather they are free to occur.
They are only free to occur because God allows them to occur. God, being omnipotent, could have created this exact world, free will and all, without the gratuitous evils.
it cannot be explained away by a "greater good"You're right, I think that is a silly justification and again, misses the real reason why suffering occurs.
I'm glad you agree, I usually have trouble getting theists to admit that evil even exists. But then that leads to the question, why do you think gratuitous evils exist? Tautologically, there seems to be a contradiction.
But for the sake of argument lets say that God probably doesn't want creation to endure any more pain than necessary but at the same time....if we want to enjoy a world where we have trees, which by the way provides oxygen as we know, then we have to risk the potential one could fall on us at any given time. Having said that, it is indeed going to be a very rare event.
But remember, God is the one setting the rules here. I believe this to be some form of a false dichotomy. You assert that either we don't get trees i.e,. we do die, or we get trees and they have the potential to fall on us. These are not the only two options. I, as a finite being an imagine a better or more just situation where oxygen comes from say little plants on the floor. Moreover, even if we were to accept these two situations as the only possible ones, why does my hypothetical deer have to suffer for exactly the amount that it does? Why didn't God marginally reduce the pain? Surely the deer can learn the lesson of being more careful with less pain?
The problem with hypotheticals is that you are forcing me to answer for problems that may or may not occur and we may not have the proper perspective or perception to see them accurately.
You can take it from me, some form of gratuitous evil is plaguing some animal somewhere in the world as you read this.
How could we possibly know if a deer suffers and for how long if 1....we aren't the deer and 2....we aren't God?
Sure, we do not know these things for certain, but then again we don't know many things for certain at all. I can never be sure that the red I see is the same red that you see, but from inductive reasoning and observations of the similarities between how our eyes receive light, I can conclude that that is most likely the case. I do not know with 100 percent certainty that deers suffer, but from my observation and the available information on the neural system of deers, I can conclude that they likely do.
So we are back at the nature of duality, if we want one thing it makes for the possibility of the other.
This is only the case because God made it the case. God is omnipotent, I'm positive he could have created a world with marginally less suffering whilst retaining all the good that we have.
You can't have pleasure without pain, you can't have light without darkness, you can't have cold without hot, you can't have freedom without confinement ect ect that is the very nature of duality.
This is true and I agree. But surely there are degrees of suffering. Consider the following analogy. Assume that I am teaching a child how to write the alphabet. In an effort to teach him the wonders of vocabulary and language, I vow that every time he makes a mistake, I stick a needle into his arm. Is this unjust? Well, one could argue that duality necessary for the pursuit of knowledge. One could argue that "the pain the boy feels is temporary, but the knowledge that he gains through language is forever". Of course, the idea of punishment is valid, but surely there are degrees for which one faces discipline? Instead of poking the boy with a needle, couldn't I just reiterate what I was teaching calmly and arrive at the outcome of learning language without the unnecessary pain? Though the concept of poking the boy with a needle is sound (I mean the idea of punishment for a greater good), surely needle poking is too extreme. Good can exist without gratuitous evil.
Usefully, you sum up your points. I'll address them individually.
1. The nature of duality- for one thing to be possible it must allow for another thing to be possible. Without duality there is no creation.
I believe this to be a black and white fallacy. As illustrated in my needle example, the idea that good cannot exist without evil cannot be conflated with the gratuitous evil.
2. The nature of our own will ("free" will)- if evil and suffering are free to occur they are also free not to occur.
Again, evil can exist and all, but gratuitous evils are different. The idea you describe is of the duality between self earned good and beneficial evil.
3. The nature of Karma- a moral law of cause and effect. "The sum of a person's actions in this and previous states of existence, viewed as deciding their fate in future existences."
Interesting, but I'm not a believer of Karma. I believe our universe operates fine without that concept and thus is an ontological burden.
4. The nature of God has been undecided. The terms omnibenevolence and omnipotence have no meaning in this discussion as of yet.
True, I just assumed this to be true because it is commonly attributed to God.
I'm fine with discussing the nature of God if you want. We can leave this evil stuff aside.
