Tuesday, May 15, 2007

The Epicurean Paradox

Continuing last night's discussion of the problem of evil (which has been continuing for the last few thousand years, I suppose)...

The Wikipedia article on the subject is an interesting read.

I'm actually only about halfway through digesting the article, but hopefully I'll have time tomomrrow to finish it up.

Were there any deep thoughts on the subject last night after I left?

5 comments:

scott said...

Interesting to me, regarding the discussion of God not wanting to create "robots" incapable of choice:

An important question concerning the argument is whether an omnipotent being could create someone who is morally free yet incapable of doing wrong. Some have argued that a belief in Heaven suggests that an omnipotent being could do this, since residents of Heaven seem to be free and yet unable to do wrong.

I remember Darin specifically saying he'd rather not exist at all, than be a robot without choice. But what about heaven? Will we truly have free will in heaven? Can we have free will, yet be unable to sin?

I think I'm going to end up asking a lot of questions on this blog.

Anonymous said...

heaven will be sweet because of our choice to follow and love Jesus even though we suffer - angels long to look into these things of man

heaven therefore is the eschatological climax - the end for us - no more sin is right but we chose it through the grace of Jesus of course

if God created heaven to begin with (a place for the morally free but incapable of doing wrong) then it still brings up the same difficulties for me - then how do we know love at all - how do we know grace at all?

Anonymous said...

I also wanted to comment on the idea that God is responsible for setting us up to fail - what do we do with James 1:13 "he himself tempts no one"
Did God tempt us?

scott said...

Re: Your first comment --

I agree that "choice" is the important factor, in that it is needed to truly "love." But I also thought the point about heaven was interesting... I hadn't really thought about it. I just don't understand the claim that we will truly be "morally free" in heaven if we cannot sin. Isn't that part of the definition of "morally free"?

Don't get me wrong, I'm more than happy at the thought of being done with sin when we are in God's presence in heaven. Yet I still do have some questions about how we'll act... What our personalities will be like... Because it's difficult to comprehend not having the struggle or temptation of sin.

After all, sin is a big part of my personality. :-)

Anonymous said...

i know what you mean - i think that is one part of my personality that I will not miss...