to all the christfags on /lit/, what's your apologetic response

sorry

Christian response:

All suffering (natural and human-caused) is a consequence of human freedom (that is to say, the fall).

God is Almighty, not omnipotent.

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>>9927234
I believe that God created the world and humans to have their own integrity and free will, even if to abuse it. He lets it fold into its own rhythms.

However, God allows evil because He wants to bring about the greater good, and we as believers must have faith in that.

without the ability to sin we would not be able to make the choice to love god, thus nullifying the whole fun of existence desu

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>>9927234
Atheist here, they probably don't have an answer to that lol.

"Faith" is basically them saying "look guys we know this religion shit is primordial, but society is going to destroy itself if we get rid of it, so PLEAAAASE believe"

>>9927339
I think you meant "primitive", not "primordial"

>>9927315
But what about tsunamis and schizophrenia?

>>9927234
My defense wd be that there once was a time when some writers felt the urge to justify the manner or the way that life is lived whether [we] presume to 'like' it or not, and that there used to be a market for the exploration of such a topic. There are some latterday books with theodical concerns. Karamazov is one, obviously. O'Connor's The Violent Bear it Away and Barth's The End of the Road are two less obvious 20th c. examples.
Classic examples are of course Leibniz's long essay (better than one might suppose if Candide precedes one's reading) and arguably Pope's greatest poem, The Essay on Man.

>>9927339
That's Peterson's take at least and doubtless many of them are petersonites

>>9927362
'schizophrenia' is actually what hobbled Harold Bloom. He has a schizophrenic son.

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>>9927315
>existence is fun
>this is what evangleicals actually believe

grow the fuck up

>>9927339
>"Faith" is basically them saying "look guys we know this religion shit is primordial, but society is going to destroy itself if we get rid of it, so PLEAAAASE believe"

Assuming this is true, what is your problem with this?

>>9927439
source?

>>9927424
>Leibniz's long essay

Does it have a name?

>Theodicy
I don't think God cares about us reading Homer

>>9927446
Took a class on it in undergrad, but an extra-literary source as to what 'theodicy' is might be sociologist Peter Berger's The Sacred Canopy (yes, I've read it). There seem to be either of two roads one may take into the topic- the assertion Whatever is is right, and a defense, or the question IS whatever is is right? and an exploration of the alternatives.

>>9927299
Bingo

>>9927485
Oh, and Paradise Lost is a major text.

Read Brothers K, nerd.

>>9927459
The name is The Theodicy!

>>9927485
>>9927497
No I meant a source for Harold Bloom having a schizophrenic son

Human evil exists due to free will.

Natural disasters occur as judgement when God deems it necessary.

Children die because they are human, too. How ridiculous would it be if children were totally immune to all diseases and illness until a certain age? You better believe there would be mass killing of babies to harvest their infallible immune systems.

Free will, universal sin and vicarious atonement

>>9927446
Oh, my bad. Read it in an interview a few years ago. Shouldn't be too terribly difficult to find, but where I read it now escapes me.

>>9927514
Realized my error and posted to your earlier comment before seeing this.

Suffering is not bad, not is it the fault of God. He is the source, He can inflict suffering, but He is not what brought it into existence.

Suffering for the strong is cathartic in several ways. First, one suffering is more likely to indulge in the severest of sins, one who avoids that convenience is a person worthy. Second, suffering is humbling for the strong, in the proper (not humanist 'the eclipse made me feel so small...' sort of way). Third, (arguably a result of the first), suffering is carrying a burden which the weak cannot handle, which is a virtue. A common example is a good parent eating little to feed their children, but not so little that they cannot care for them. Fourth, suffering (the knowledge of 'evil') is requisite to fully appreciate Grace, which can be easily be ignored by those jaded to it. Fifth, suffering is unifying; God's reunification with humanity was His own suffering through Christ.
There are possibly more but I cannot think of any.

>>9927339
Back to r*ddit please.
No, that is not what faith is, you cunt.
>>9927362
Schizophrenia is a made-up condition by the Antichrist and its followers. 'schizophrenics' are actually troubled by alien (as in, foreign and unfamiliar, not ayylmaos) beings causing difficulties and even harm. Delusions of attacks by said beings are still delusions, because they are impotent, but they are not a result of the psychobabblist's reasons.

>>9927562

yo but what about heroin babies

>>9927587
The parent's fault.

>>9927591

what if the heroin baby makes heroin babies

>>9927594
Babies can't get pregnant

>>9927604

I mean someone who was born a heroin baby, grows up with an inborn disposition to go out and do heroin, and then makes more heroin babies

is it still the fault of the heroin baby for being born a heroin baby

>>9927234
>>9927339
>>9927441

To you,
why do you feign concern over human suffering while simultaneously attempting to cause it?

>>9927610

if christfags are going to proliferate suffering through their sanctification of it might as well enjoy some bantz from it

>>9927609
Yes, and their parent's also

>>9927234
You cannot define good without its having a counterpart by which to compare it. The free will of your divine spirt proffers you the choice of acting in one way or another, it is not a fault of God but a manifestation of omnipotence. The capacity to act in all ways is omnipotent, to only be capable of the better half is a limitation of power. This is the "contradictory" duality of being the composite of all opposites, and since men are created in the image of God (as in capacity for creation, transformation, rebirth, destruction, et al) they, again have the ability to act in all capacities.

>>9927614
Shitposting isn't 'bantz'. You're like an autistic child thinking the kids making fun of him are his friends.

>>9927616

>christianity: heroin babies stop being heroin babies

>>9927623

eppur si muove

>>9927614
"Christfags"

Do you hear yourself? Life is hard enough, why do you feel the urge to make it harder?

>>9927610
How am I trying to cause suffering? By hurting your feefees? You're the people who want to believe in an eternal suffering for a vast vast majority of humanity. At least take it seriously you blithe solipsist.

>>9927633
No, it's:
>heroin babies: stop the cycle
>>9927635
Because they're tools of the Antichrist. They're like heroin babies except steroids, laced with heroin.

>>9927641
We don't want to believe in it, it is the actuality and fate of those who reject Christ and instead choose to actively pursue sin, and worse treat it as a virtue.

>>9927642

the problem with christians is that they believe in this magical property innate in humans called agency, then go onto believe heroin babies have it

go meet some hardcore opiate addicts, then tell me they still have agency

they don't need your lip about responsibility, they need their brain to be rewired

>>9927643
And more importantly the billions and billions who never even had a chance to hear the gospel.

>>9927643

>it is the actuality and fate of those who reject Christ

no one "rejects Christ", we've never met the dude, we reject annoying christfags who are so out of touch with reality that they make the world worse

>>9927463
subtle

>>9927654
They do.
>magical property
Like 'muh reason'? Fuck off.
>>9927659
Purgatory exists despite what proddies claim.
>>9927664
You have, you just deny that. That's why you're damned.
Reality doesn't exist, stop projecting your ideology onto existence.

>>9927654
>>9927659
>>9927664
What are you trying to prove?

>>9927664
>athiests think preaching the Word makes 'the world worse'
hoch jej

>>9927676
How stiff his fedora of reason is and how sharp and masterfully-folded his katana of science is.

>>9927677

>the Bible is good, or even literature

https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/begat/

>>9927537
Nw man, I'll try and find the interview

>>9927676
I'm trying to reprove, not prove old sport.

>>9927690
Clearly not, you seem unsettled over this entire topic.

>>9927686
It is factually literature and functionally good. Get over yourself before I *teleports behind u*

>>9927339
Congratulations, anon. This board has gone to so much shit that even a post like yours can get attention. Shitposting has won.

>>9927694

sort yourself out

https://youtu.be/X9Dh43kVL1Q

>>9927708

Bach was an atheist

>>9927711
source?

>>9927716
(He has none)

>>9927716
He was black first of all and black people are overwhelmingly the original pagan

>>9927299
That's a very Jewish thing to say.

>>9927788

dead kike on a stick etc

>>9927314
best post on this thread tbqh

>>9927790
I meant it unironically. The whole "God as an omnipotent prime mover" in Catholicism is more a result of Aristotle metaphysics than the rabbinic tradition.

>"Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding." (Job 38:4)

>>9927689
That he has a schizophrenic son is pretty well documented, but the particular interview i read had him answering in terms of 'a God that allows such a thing,' etc. I do not think it's relevant to his religious views now, however. He's been too obsessed with religion throughout his career not to be religious. His latest book, in fact, is as mystical as I ever recollect his having been. It's pretty good, too. A watered down return to the type of stuff he was putting out in the 70's and early 80's.

>>9927234
Divine good is infinitely different from human good and Being is better than non-being, even in suffering, are my two standard responses.

>>9927314
This, plus the fact that everything is an act of love, even suffering and hell.

>>9927788
>>9927799
I drink from the source, not downstream :^)

>>9927832
I was just reading that part earlier today. So fucking good.

I like Augustine's answer: if the good were never rewarded and the bad never punished, then nobody would believe that actions were good or bad. If the good were always rewarded and the bad always punished, then people would only do good things for the reward and avoid bad things out of fear of punishment. Therefore, the world is somewhere in between.

>>9927980
There is, too, a very great difference in the purpose served both by those events which we call adverse and those called prosperous. For thegoodman is neither uplifted with thegoodthings oftime, nor broken by its ills; but thewickedman, because he is corrupted by this world'shappiness, feels himself punished by its unhappiness.Yet often, even in the present distribution of temporal things, doesGodplainly evince His own interference. For if everysinwere now visited with manifest punishment, nothing would seem to be reserved for the finaljudgment; on the other hand, if nosinreceived now a plainly divine punishment, it would be concluded that there is nodivine providenceat all. And so of thegoodthings of this life: ifGoddid not by a very visible liberality confer these on some of thosepersonswho ask for them, we should say that thesegoodthings were not at His disposal; and if He gave them to all who sought them, we should suppose that such were the only rewards of His service; and such a service would make us not godly, but greedy rather, andcovetous. Wherefore, thoughgoodand badmensuffer alike, we must not suppose that there is no difference between thementhemselves, because there is nodifference in what they both suffer. For even in the likeness of the sufferings, there remains an unlikeness in the sufferers; and though exposed to the same anguish,virtueandviceare not the same thing. For as the same firecausesgold to glow brightly, and chaff to smoke; and under the sameflail the straw is beaten small, while the grain is cleansed; and as the lees are not mixed with the oil, though squeezed out of the vat by the same pressure, so the sameviolenceof affliction proves, purges,clarifiesthegood, butdamns, ruins,exterminatesthewicked. And thus it is that in the same affliction thewickeddetestGodandblaspheme, while thegoodprayand praise. So material a difference does it make, not what ills are suffered, but what kind of man suffers them. For, stirred up with the same movement, mud exhales a horrible stench, and ointment emits a fragrant odor.

>>9927890
the second idea is fallacious

>>9927832
>I made all this stuff
>so you have no right to be confused

lol, you can't make up this stuff.

Though I would hope you can

>>9927669
Purgatory was made up to sell indulgences and you know it

>>9928300
>>9927669

Even if purgatory is a thing, according to catholic cannon its only for devoted catholcs to pay off their venial sins. Its not universal salvation.

>>9928305
Everyone who died before Christ's birth went to hell, except for a few really faithful Jews

>>9928310
Wasn't that Sheol? Which isn't the same thing as Hell, is it? Hence the existence of "Abraham's Bosom" for the righteous to seek comfort, like in the story of Lazarus and Dives. Not that I really have much understanding of the issue.

>>9928310
Yeah, that's the ticket. As long as your saved screw everyone else.

>>9928310
>can't even into Harrowing of Hell

>>9928310
Is Abraham going to hell? Is Moses? Is Noah?

>>9928381
Honestly Moses deserves it

>>9928388
Why didn't these prophets of God tell the people about Jesus being the savior and son of God if knowing about Jesus is so important?

>>9927445
It is a problem, Christian. When people say things like "reality doesn't exist", when they say life is suffering, when they say that everyone who isn't embracing their god is a sinner, we have a problem. Every person has to believe in an axiom to survive, you have to believe in it with all your heart. But if we pretend that it's an actually true thing, and that thing (that should be for us a source of joy and love) becomes a reason of hate, there is a problem. When tolerance decays and only hate moves the mind of the Christian, hoping to shit on the corpses of his so called "enemies" just to be nearer to his God, it becomes necessary for the non-theist to remind to the Christian that he is not privileged, he can not hate, because his faith, so precious like everyone else's, is ultimately nothing.

>>9928406
Reality doesn't exist, it's a projecting of 'law' upon existence. Life is suffering, and that is good. Everybody is a sinner, you are a proud sinner. It is not a problem, except with you guilt-ridden pagans.
>muh tolerance
Fuck off with your humanist memes, my love extends to all of creation.
>it becomes necessary for the non-theist to remind to the Christian that he is not privileged, he can not hate, because his faith, so precious like everyone else's, is ultimately nothing.
Stop shitposting. I am right, you are wrong. This world is mine, the sun rises for me.

>>9928305
c*tholics are also wrong.
Purgatory in the sense I use it is what the word actually suggests, it is a place of purging for those who were not purged in corporeal life. Whether than is by suffering, or a long time waiting and thinking, is the person's decision.

>>9928413
Ok, this is obviously bait, but I'll take it because it looks fun
> Fuck off with your humanist memes, my love extends to all of creation.
This is, right here, a contradictio in terminist.
> This world is mine, the sun rises for me.
Feeling kinda poetic, I would reply "Yet I do live, and I do see the sun of the living, and I do not need an afterlife to justify my life wasting"

>>9927299
al·might·y
adjective
having complete power; omnipotent.

>>9928427
>anything i dislike is le bait!!!
Humanism hates creation, and humanity. Creationism adores all of creation and the Oikos.

Do people have free will in Heaven?

>>9928438
This discussion is turning dull. Now, could you explain why tolerance is bad? Don't talk about humanism (we'll see it later), just tolerance.

>>9928453
Tolerance is bad because it is lifeless fence-sitting. I will not tolerate you, I will love you or hate you.

>>9928438
I like their greek yoghurt desu

>>9928459
The Oikos is the home, one's oecology is one's relation to their home and their understanding of their relation to their home. But the Oikos is not merely a 'home.'

>>9928490
okay but Oikos greek yoghurt aint bad either

>>9928519
That's my Rocky!

>>9927339
>>9927346
>Wow, I haven't heard of this word before. Let me use it incorrectly so everyone can see how knowledgeable and rational I am; unlike these stupid Christians!

>>9927234
A human being trying to understand the workings of the entire universe is like my dog trying to comprehend why some days I walk her in the morning but sometimes in the afternoon. Our minds just aren't on that level. We can understand human ideas (humanities) because, being men, we can simulate the minds and thoughts of other men with relative accuracy and understanding. We aren't gods, how are we supposed to even begin to process the world from an all-powerful perspective?
>Giambattista Vico:1
>euphoria warriors:0

Is God really omniscient or is it bad translation? My brain will not allow me to comprehend both free will and omniscience.

>>9928543
I know that my dad will go to work tomorrow. I don't force him to go to work though.

>>9928543
Stop trying to comprehend, you are overcome by the sickness of modernity.

>>9928554
lol

>>9928543
Creation is like a puzzle (you could maybe even liken it to an experiment). God knows the solution, in fact he told us the solution, but he programmed us to struggle with trust. So we have to choose, our of sheer love, to enact the solution that we can only know as true once we accept it as true.

>>9928543
No he's not omniscient. He couldn't even find Adam

>>9928580
Yes he could, he only wished to trick Adam into thinking that; that he could hide from his Lord, that he could hide his shame and his sin.

>>9928596
>It was just a prank bro.

>>9927654
The physical/biochemical compulsions that opiate addiction induces in a person are considerable and hard to resist, But they can still be overcome by force of will, though it is difficult. Your brain heals over time.

>>9928605
>STEMspergery

>>9927654
A man with broken legs still has legs

Heaven is enternal. All this shit is insignificant. Even 90 years is nothing compared to forever. Like Lenny roughly said: "Those shooting victims are probably laughing about the whole thing right now". How could anyone be mad about being given a short path to heaven?

>>9928630
because they aren't on it. They are on thr broad path to hell. There is nothing short or trivial about the path to heaven. Narrow is the road and straight is the gate

>>9928401
If you read the NT it's literally full of explanations of how the prophecies of the OT were fulfilled. You don't have to believe it, but come on, have you even read it?

>>9927500
This

How do you define evil in a universe without God? As far as I'm concerned the concept of evil is unintelligible without a transcendent standard of objective good.

>>9928401

Have you tried reading the gospels?

>>9927362

I don't think Tsunamis, schizophrenia or any other so called "natural evils" actually are evil in the truest sense of the word. The rain isn't morally good even though it makes the crops grow; a tornado that kills isn't morally evil--though it may be an evil for those in it's way. Happy and sad events, from birth to death, just happen, and we ascribe moral qualities to them as they suit us or don't. But true, objective good and evil, in order to be good and evil, have to be aware and intentional.

Aside from that one reason that God may allow some of these "natural evils" to exist is because a greater good will come of it, and even if that's not the case we could never really live a fulfilling life without being exposed to "natural evil." God could have made it so we lived our entire lives in a padded room where would could never hurt ourselves or get hurt by others but that really be a life worth living?

>>9927299
This guy gets it.

>>9930595
>and even if that's not the case we could never really live a fulfilling life without being exposed to "natural evil."
That is nonsense. Plenty of British people through the ages have led a perfectly fulfilling life without being regularly wiped by a tsunami like Phillipinos.

>>9930617

That's irrelevant because British people have experience natural evil. We all do. Some people die of disease, some get swept away by water. These are both examples of natural evil and the fact that some experience more of one kind is irrelevant.

>>9930632
If it is all the same, then why not have people suffer the lowest necessary degree of tragic acts of God (i.e. "some people dying of disease", even less), instead of having some enjoy that minimal degree of unhappiness while some have to endure devastating tragedies (i.e. frequent tsunamis and so on)?

Also it's easy to see the painful death of a relative as some kind of roborative struggle to go through, but it doesn't do much for the one who's the recipient.

>>9930653

Well if the greatest evil that existed in the world was a stubbed toe, and we had no real concept of the sort of evils that actually exist in reality, we would still be wondering why god allows stubbed toes. For this reason it only really makes sense to limit evil entirely or not at all.

These evils may help us develop virtues that could not exist if God eliminated every instance of suffering. For example, it's impossible for God to make someone courageous if he is not in danger. They might also be necessary for us to live in a predictable world where God doesn't intervene every five seconds to protect us from pain. Finally, as limited and fallible human beings, we are not in a position to say God cannot bring more good from any evil we encounter. Imagine a man who stands one inch away from the Mona Lisa and says, "This is a terrible painting! It's just some black spotches!" Of course, the man can't appreciate the beauty and goodness of the whole painting because he is only looking at one tiny part of it. In the same way, if we only look at suffering, we lose sight of the big picture, or how God can use suffering to create a good and beautiful world.

>>9930677
There is a difference in nature, not degree, in tragedies that involve the ending of life. Namely that, no, you can't get stronger through them if you're dead.

As for the vision of God as a skilled but imperfect creator, I'd accept it from a Jew, but it just doesn't stick to Catholic theodicy. The whole point being that God is not good, he is the utmost degree of good. And in the same way he is the utmost degree of potent.

>>9930697

If existence ended at death then I would agree with you that dying a tragic death can't make you stronger, but if God is real then we have no good reason to believe that this life is all their is and that there's no value in suffering.

I don't believe that God is an imperfect creator, I'm not sure we're you're getting that from. There must be a misunderstanding somewhere.

>>9930709
>I don't believe that God is an imperfect creator, I'm not sure we're you're getting that from. There must be a misunderstanding somewhere.
Why should there be imperfections if you look too close?

>If existence ended at death then I would agree with you that dying a tragic death can't make you stronger, but if God is real then we have no good reason to believe that this life is all their is
After death is too late, you're judged at that point.

In the end, with all those rationalizations about "oh but our psychology necessitate that we encounter such and such hardship" completely avoid the question. If God is almighty, he could have made that not a necessity also.

The only acceptable Catholic answer to the theodicy is the following: we were cast from Eden and thrown into a world INTENTIONALLY terrible because of the original sin. It's a central point of the doctrine, and avoiding it to find other reasons is just feelgood guitar-playing-vicar proselyte bullshit.

>>9930730

You've gone completely off the rails now. I don't know what you're talking about and I'm not going to try.

>>9930746
>talking about something else than muh self-improvement
>you've gone off the rail
Americans

>>9930788

You need to work on your communication skills. I don't know what self improvement has to do with the problem of evil. You're talking nonsense.

>>9930814
Your whole argument has been "but it's ok because suffering is good for self-improvement". The moment I started talking about something else you acted like I was speaking in Martian.

>>9930816
>Your whole argument has been "but it's ok because suffering is good for self-improvement"

Well that begins to explain things because that's not my argument at all, but still, that's what you read. I can't have a conversation with you.

>>9930872
>These evils may help us develop virtues
>I wasn't talking about self-improvement
ok dudester then I guess I have no clue what you're talking about

>>9927299
>almighty
>all might
>omnipotent
>omni potent

your dum

>>9927578
>schizophrenia is made up by the antichrist and caused by demons
You might wanna get checked out yourself

>>9927234
In a word? Kierkegaard.

>>9928538
Why DON'T you walk your dog the same time every day?

>>9927299
Ja-ja-ja-ja-jew Kabbalism haha. Do you reincarnate too and the devil is really just a testing trickster

>>9927578
You have Devils controlling your thoughts while you post on a board of sin and you think you know what is or is not the case with people's mind?

How do you know the devil is not making you think that now since you are sinning currently?

>>9927622
You ca define cold as those mechanics that are required for it to exquisite you do not need it's opposites, but rather it's co-creational composites.

This disavowel is evil and the non-disavowel-Ed is non evil, since with disavowel you for lose upon the capacity for good to exist at all. Thus we can see that what is good is that which is not laden with the disavowed mind.

>>9927622
Yeah but its not like maximal heat is agreeable with my constitution. The absence of something has just as much essence as its presence. That is something the buddha understood.

>>9928381
Elijah and Moses show up during Jesus' Transfiguration (which is before the crucifixion). We're they hanging out in Hell until that point?

>>9931728
source?

>>9927314
Why did Good make humans so prone to anger, greed, and violence, though? You can't deny that there is a genetic/innate component to aggression, so why didn't God make people more mellow?

>>9930872
You made it out like evil is needed to give life meaning and opportunities to do good so that anon is not wrong

>>9931389
Work and university are sending me out of the house at all different times on different days. Probably not the same story with god but I can't be sure.

>>9927264
underrated kek

>>9927934
Talmud is a new thing. Kabbalah is old, but it is repetition of human fallibility. Building a new Babel? Ha!

>>9928441
Likely, but we have purity in soul. Hard to say what the world will be like. New bodies, new earth, new heaven...

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>>9927562
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesch%E2%80%93Nyhan_syndrome

This is an inherited disorder that causes extreme gout, loss of muscle control, retardation and *compulsive self-mutilation* in children. What loving god would make such a thing?

>>9928406
>when tolerance decays

Your version of tolerance to me is intolerance. I must remind you that you're unbelief is nothing and my belief is everything. You doubt God because he's never spoken to you, and even if he did speak to you, you are rebellious in all manners and works, a man unstable in all his ways, and would fall back into unbelief. You probably understand that some Christians like myself fully comprehend that modern tolerance is quite synonymous with nihilism; it's no mystery.

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>>9928416
Catholics are wrong for a number of reasons. Their practices meet the criteria for idolatry; the rosary is a prime example of this. They literally pray to the Virgin Mary and say "Hail Holy Queen of Heaven." They've got little virgin Mary candles they recommend burning while you pray. The Catholic church has done away with the feast days given by God and created their own; many times mixing pagan holidays with Christianity. The Pope changed the Sabbath day to Sunday a few hundred years after Christianity began, which was literally prophesied in Daniel Chapter 7. They have pagan idols like "Christmas Trees" which were specifically warned against in Jeremiah chapter 10, and by the way, the warning about praying to a "Holy Queen in heaven" is warned about in Jeremiah Chapter 44. I've also heard it's common practice for many Catholics to bury little statues of a specific Saint to increase property value, and the Vatican refuses to condemn this practice.

Many will come to the Lord in the last day who called themselves Christian and Yehoshua will reply "I never knew you, depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity." Catholics are among these people. So are followers of Martin Luther but that's a different topic for a different day.

>>9933848
>Catholics are out
>followers of Martin Luther are out
So who's left? Orthodox?

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>>9933975
A remnant for sure. I included Luther because he was heretical enough to say that "The Book of James (Biological brother of Christ) is a book of straw, because it doesn't hold up against the Book of Romans." He was a proponent to the "Saved by faith alone," based on his complete misunderstanding of Saint Paul's Epistles. It is likely a result of the dumb Christian's idea that faith and belief are synonymous, whereas the Bible as a whole makes it very clear that faith requires some form of physical expression. (Faith is derived from the Hebrew word Imunah which means "to follow") This teaching of a slothful salvation is scoffed at by Saint James who said "So you believe there is one God? Even the demons believe this..." and who also said "You believe faith alone can save you? Faith without works is dead." Thanks to Luther we have hundreds of millions of Christians who get offended when you remind them that they need to actually go out and help the poor, widowed and fatherless as Christ commanded. It's so bad today that most who hold "Saved by faith alone," will actually tell you that if you strive to do good works for salvation then you "Don't really believe in grace." It's like me hammer Jesus Christ in the head to prove to him how much I believe he'll forgive me.

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>>9927234
I feel like Kabbalists have the best explanation for theodicy. They straight up say, yep God is everything, the good and the bad. It would make sense that God is both maximal good and maximal evil at once. By contrast, the perfidious language of the omnibenevolence doctrine somehow comes across as more insidious in the sense that if you meditate on the matter in any depth it really only amounts to some cosmic dramaturgy or laundering scheme

>>9931786
Why can't people do this for themselves?

>>9928441
Yes. How do you think Satan and the other fallen angels came about? How we're able to stay in Heaven and still have free will is something someone else can explain.

>>9935025
There are very mellow people. Most norms are docile.

I'm no christfag.
But...
>We the spirits of god are just "downloading" a life's worth of experience to become better souls
>It just feels real cause, cause it's extremely detailed; how else are we to know evil and suffering, love and pleasure?
>How are we to understand these things?
And I'm not even a believer, at least not yet.
>NotaAll humans in the world are "real" individuals or real souls
>They just exist for us to learn, the chosen few; compassion, empathy and to cherish life.

I can probably think up a couple more things that justifies the existence of a supreme entity and "needless" suffering.

>>9936624
You know Descartes.
At least; I, am.

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God isn't "good" in the humanist sense, he's "good" in the sense of being the sole basis of truth and being. He's not accountable to us, we're accountable to him, and he doesn't need or want us to defend him like a human on trial, because doing that is conceding he's accountable to us. Don't forget he was on trial, and didn't even defend himself then

Why does God need to be self? Whenever I see people refer to God as a He etc it seems like such an anthropocentric holdover

>>9936681

God is three selves to be exact, but of course "self" is a figure of speech here

>>9936718

But why does it "need" to be three selves

>>9936727
God is not a product of necessity, he simply is.

>>9936783

fair enough

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>>9936783
Why?

>>9928538
>God is the supreme good
>but good actually doesn't mean "good"
>even though I just used reason and my human understanding of God to demonstrate both His existence and His goodness
yeah no you can't play that game unless you renounce all of scholastic.

>>9936788

There is no why that is the principle of God, God is the ultimate why of everything , beyond being itself, since he is the source of being. Unknowable, unfathomable, having no emotion or mechanics, in his essence having no intercourse with anything that exists, but in his uncreated operations (energies) permeating and maintaining all of reality down to the devil.

>>9927716

Radical Materialist perspective on Music itself.

>>9927234

I left the church for ten years over this question, before returning
All that I can offer after grappling with it painfully is to point back to God's ultimate mercy
There is Job 38, of course, but that has to be understood within the context of God's overall work, and that overall work is found in Jesus
Any attempt to give some sort of definitive answer to the question of theodicy is doomed to result in the errors of Job's acquaintances

>>9927234

Their final argument, as in means of avoiding despair, is earnestly "someday I'll own this boot". They believe the sadist of sadists, that which has condemned them to abjection, will somehow stop and take them by its side if they celebrate its abomination well enough. The tiresome talk of "mystery" and "leaps of faith" is a red herring to dissuade people, mostly themselves, from realizing this thinking is indistinguishable from Darwinism/Capitalism - cyclical bloodbath for its own sake.

Probably the last vantage point before Oblivion.

>>9937118

An entity providing you with an iota of relief from the torment said entity inflicts on you is not a merciful act, it is a supremely sadistic one. More sadistic than torment with no relief.

>>9936823
>down to the devil
Really?

>>9937282
In Orthodox Christianity, yes. The devil is essentially and naturally good, it is precisely his struggle against his goodness that is perverse (but also an expression of the freedom God gave him to defy even his own nature)

>>9937161

It's disingenuous to refer to eternal reconciliation to the Father as 'an iota of relief' from earthly torment

>>9937401

It's disingenuous to refer to eternal reconciliation to the Father in general because nothing suggests the architect of the Cosmic catastrophe will ever do such a thing.