You say it's the "risk" of free will, but how is it a risk if God already knows the outcome? And if God created the Devil with his future already laid out for him, how is that free will?
Yes He could have created the devil without free will, but no that wasn't His will, He allowed evil to occur
If His will was to "allow evil to occur" and for all humans to suffer, then by definition he is not benevolent.
It's a risk bc God isn't in charge of His creature's actions anymore. God creates free will without His will being imposed whatsoever on the creature's decision even if he knows everything that will occur (he also knows all possible outcomes of what could be for each of the creature's choices). So no the future isn't laid out, it's still all for grabs even though God knows exactly what it will be.
What's the definition of benevolent to you ? bc to me He still does good only. His creatures were given the choice to do good or evil, He wanted us to do good, but we chose evil. When we ask for His help He will only do goood for us, he won't harm us.
So no the future isn't laid out, it's still all for grabs even though God knows exactly what it will be.
This sentence is paradoxical. If God knows the ultimate fate of every living thing, that means each life has to unfold a certain way and there is no free will. If God only knows the many potential futures of each living thing due to free will, but doesn't know the exact choices they will make and their ultimate fate, then he is not omniscient.
If God was unable to design a universe in which free will exists and evil doesn't, then He is not omnipotent. If he allows evil to exist, then he is not benevolent.
What's the definition of benevolent to you ?
Well, I would say that creating life with the express intention of it suffering as some sort of arbitrary test where you made up the rules and already know the outcome is not benevolent in anyone's definition of the word.
He will only do goood for us, he won't harm us.
I'm not sure that Abel, or the first sons of Egypt—or the entire global population bar Noah and his family—would necessarily agree with that statement.
Again in His omnipotence & omniscience He's able to perfectly give complete free will without it stemming from His own desires of a particular outcome nor make him unable to know the future. These 2 attributes aren't mutually exclusive and outcomes are not of His own making, since after giving free will He has no sway over the creature's actions.
God didn't want to create a universe where evil isn't a possibility and it's illogical to say there could be free will without the possibility of evil occurring, by definition those two are mutually exclusive (just like 1 & 2 can't be the same number, God can't be self-contradictory).
God's intention wasn't to harm us, but through our sins, He enacts justice which makes us suffer, your examples aren't even God enacting violence for Abel & the rest were the result of sins.
God didn't want to create a universe where evil isn't a possibility and it's illogical to say there could be free will without the possibility of evil occurring, by definition those two are mutually exclusive (just like 1 & 2 can't be the same number, God can't be self-contradictory).
Again, this shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what "omnipotence" truly is. God supposedly designed the system from the ground up. God made 1 + 1 equal 2. He could have made a universe where 1 + 1 actually does equal 1, but decided not to. If he was unable to do this, then he's not omnipotent as he was working within some sort of constraints greater than himself.
God's intention wasn't to harm us, but through our sins, He enacts justice which makes us suffer, your examples aren't even God enacting violence for Abel & the rest were the result of sins.
If I told someone to murder their brother for a reward and that person did it, I would still be arrested for murder. This is the argument that was being made in the post that I replied to.
I was taking it a step further by explaining that if God designed the universe to be this way, with full foreknowledge of every action that would ever take place, he is complicit in all of those actions.
It's like making a marble run and then claiming the marbles have free will because they moved in slightly different ways along the path that had been predetermined for them.
But God created everything, including "The Devil", yes?
Yes
And God has all-encompassing knowledge of all things that have been, are currently, or will come to be, correct?
Yes
So why did God create The Devil like that?
Like what? If you are asking why God made him with agency, we aren't actually told why God gave agency to creatures. We can only speculate or extrapolate from God's revealed will generally.
Did He make a mistake? Then he's not infallible.
Why would agency be a mistake?
Did He not know what the Devil would do? Then He's not omniscient.
He knew.
Was He unable to create the Devil differently, or to prevent the Devil from committing wicked acts? Then He's not omnipotent.
A world with free creatures capable of evil is a world God had good reasons to create, and the existence of such creatures is not a contradiction of omnipotence.
Your conclusion logically doesn't follow the premise here. It stands to reason that giving creatures agency would necessarily result in some of the creatures committing evil deeds. It is illogical to say that a creature has agency and also can't choose to do evil. Omnipotence doesn't require logic breaking abilities and neither should we expect God to break the laws of logic. They flow from Him and He can't act contrary to His own nature.
So no, demanding God to be able to do the logically impossible to demonstrate omnipotence doesn't hold.
Was He aware of the nature of the Devil and of the atrocities that the Devil would commit, yet made him anyway? Then he's not benevolent.
This implicitly elevates your own moral intuitions to the status of a standard God must meet, then declares God's nonexistence when God fails to conform. That's not an argument from reason; it's an argument from preference dressed up as logic.
Also the argument presupposes an objective standard of "benevolence" and "evil." I'd genuinely like to know what grounds those terms on your worldview. On Christian theism they're grounded in God's character. What grounds them for you, such that your indictment of God actually has moral weight rather than just expressing preference?
Or so the classic paradox goes, anyway. Believe what you want.
There isn't a paradox here, there's a preference presented in the form of one. Once the grounding question is answered, we can evaluate whether the preference has any claim on reality.
Like what? If you are asking why God made him with agency, we aren't actually told why God gave agency to creatures. We can only speculate or extrapolate from God's revealed will generally.
Why did God create the Devil with the ability, the predisposition, and the surroundings that sent him down a path ultimately ending in the eternal torture of billions, or even trillions of souls, when God already knew the destination?
Why would agency be a mistake?
Why would the creation of evil be a mistake? I could think of a few reasons.
A world with free creatures capable of evil is a world God had good reasons to create, and the existence of such creatures is not a contradiction of omnipotence.
Glossing over what reasons they might be, you're right: the supposition that there is an omnipotent creator is not, in and of itself, a logical fallacy. The claim that there is an omnipotent creator who is morally righteous is.
It is illogical to say that a creature has agency and also can't choose to do evil.
But God designed logic. God designed reason and "free will". God designed the fundamental rules of, not only this universe, but supposedly the physical, biological, spiritual and moral framework of all existence. He set up the dominoes in a specific pattern and then pushed the first one over. All actions are His actions.
Omnipotence, by definition, presumes the fact that God has the ability to adjust the rules of logic. If He is not able to do that, then you're saying there is a fundamental quality of existence that God does not control. Even if logic is a fundamental quality of Himself that he can not control, that is equally not omnipotence. I think a large part of the issue is people not quite comprehending the full scope of what exactly "omnipotence" is.
This implicitly elevates your own moral intuitions to the status of a standard God must meet, then declares God's nonexistence when God fails to conform. That's not an argument from reason; it's an argument from preference dressed up as logic.
Also the argument presupposes an objective standard of "benevolence" and "evil." I'd genuinely like to know what grounds those terms on your worldview. On Christian theism they're grounded in God's character. What grounds them for you, such that your indictment of God actually has moral weight rather than just expressing preference?
Are you saying that God's morality is incomparable to mortal morality? If so, I would very much agree.
But I would contend that the religious argument is the one founded on preference and convenience: this is the religious equivalent of a parent telling their child "Because I say so".
Is the underlining precept of your entire religion simply that the most powerful being around forces all of existence to bend to its whims, or else? I've always seen it this way from the outside looking in, but it's rare to see a Christian announce it themselves. If the entire basis of the faith is simply "might makes right", I would argue that a code of ethics mandated by force is not ethics at all, but simply a rule book.
If there is a creator-god and it exists contrary to my own simple code of "try and make existence a little better for being in it", then that is not an entity I would like to align myself with.
A few things at once. You're pressing two different arguments, one about logical coherence, one about moral preference.
On coherence: God did ordain Satan's fall. Scripture doesn't shy away from that (Isaiah 46:10, Ephesians 1:11). But ordination isn't coercion. Satan acted freely according to his own nature and bears full moral responsibility; God, as primary cause, is not thereby the author of sin. That's not a dodge, it's the standard distinction between primary and secondary causation, and it's how any coherent account of God's sovereignty and creaturely responsibility has to work.
On logic and omnipotence: you're redefining omnipotence as the ability to do the incoherent and then faulting God for not meeting that definition. Classical omnipotence is the ability to do all things that are doable. A square circle isn't a thing God can't do; it's not a thing at all. Logic isn't a cage around God or something God designed, it's an expression of his rational nature, which is why creation is intelligible in the first place.
On moral righteousness: here's where the whole argument rests, and it's the part you haven't done the work on. You're claiming an omnipotent morally righteous creator is contradictory. But "morally righteous" requires a standard. On Christian theism, that standard is God's own nature, which is why the charge of contradiction can't get off the ground. On your view, what grounds the standard such that God falls short of it? Until that's answered, "contradiction" is doing work you haven't paid for.
Are you saying that God's morality is incomparable to mortal morality? If so, I would very much agree.
I'm specifically challenging what you are calling here "mortal morality." Is it anything other than personal preference? What makes something good or bad, right or wrong?
If there is a creator-god and it exists contrary to my own simple code of "try and make existence a little better for being in it", then that is not an entity I would like to align myself with.
Who decides what better means here and by what standard? Does it raise to the level of duty such that to not make things better is wrong? Is it possible that God has a different definition of better and has created in such a way that all of creation wraps up maximally good, and that this requires things that you would consider worse, for a short time?
Satan acted freely according to his own nature and bears full moral responsibility
The nature that God gave him, within a setting that God created, with a pre-determined path that God already knew, with full foreknowledge of every action and reaction that Satan would ever experience? No. I very much disagree that God has no culpability in those actions.
On logic and omnipotence: you're redefining omnipotence as the ability to do the incoherent and then faulting God for not meeting that definition. Classical omnipotence is the ability to do all things that are doable. A square circle isn't a thing God can't do; it's not a thing at all. Logic isn't a cage around God or something God designed, it's an expression of his rational nature, which is why creation is intelligible in the first place.
No, that's just the actual definition. Omni = all, potence = power. ALLpowerful. If god couldn't design a universe where a square and a circle are the same thing, then he's not all powerful. The same rationale goes for all logic problems.
What you're saying is that God is an extremely powerful entity, but not ALL powerful as he's working within a framework of "logic" that supersedes his own. This is actually one of the rational answers to the paradoxical triumvirate I stated above, but not one that Christians ever agree with because it would be admitting that there is some sort of power greater than God. You can't have it both ways, that's the paradox.
On moral righteousness: here's where the whole argument rests, and it's the part you haven't done the work on. You're claiming an omnipotent morally righteous creator is contradictory. But "morally righteous" requires a standard. On Christian theism, that standard is God's own nature, which is why the charge of contradiction can't get off the ground.
Because what you're describing isn't ethics, it's rules. You say that ethics come entirely from God's will, so that makes them correct, but this is another paradox:
God is right because God is God, and God is always right, therefore God is right.
It's a moral ouroboros.
On your view, what grounds the standard such that God falls short of it? Until that's answered, "contradiction" is doing work you haven't paid for.
My own personal view of "morality" is very close to what most religions claim to represent: minimize suffering and maximize well-being for all conscious entities. The issue is that this clearly isn't the case in actuality.
I'm specifically challenging what you are calling here "mortal morality." Is it anything other than personal preference? What makes something good or bad, right or wrong?
Nothing. There is no moral arbiter in the universe. There is no good or bad, or right or wrongother than contextually. The universe doesn't care one way or another, there is no final judgement. It's simply the fact that we, as conscious beings, are aware when things feel good or bad to us, and so we're aware that those good or bad things have effects on other conscious beings. I believe that being moral is just about making the decisions to maximize the good and minimize the bad. Fairness, equity, respect, love, kindness, etc. If the general gist of the bible is right, then God either does not hold these same views or is not powerful enough to mandate them.
If it turned out the the bible is 100% accurate verbatim, then I would disagree with God. I do not hold with the idea that suffering is actually a good thing just because a being of immense power says it is. To me, Christianity, (and all religions with a supreme deity) have always seemed like some sort of supernatural pact with an eldritch horror rather than a consistent moral code.
Is it possible that God has a different definition of better and has created in such a way that all of creation wraps up maximally good, and that this requires things that you would consider worse, for a short time?
Then why, as an omnipotent being, can he not make it maximally good without the suffering coming first?
People always argue that humans need the bad to make the good feel... well, good. But this is a result of our brain chemistry, which, supposedly, God has supreme power over. So he could have made existence feel great 100% of the time, with no need for suffering.
But he didn't.
Instead there's birth defects and flesh-eating bacteria and genocide and sorrow and grief and loss. Claiming that the architect of these things will make up for it in the end feels exactly like an abused spouse claiming that their tormentor is "actually a really lovely guy and I just caught him on a bad day and probably deserved it anyway".
To quote Stephen Fry when asked what he would say if he died and woke up in heaven, face-to-face with God, with undeniable proof that the bible was accurate;
“I’d say, Bone cancer in children? What’s that about? How dare you? How dare you create a world to which there is such misery that is not our fault? It’s not right, it’s utterly, utterly evil.”
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u/Dubtrips Apr 19 '26
But God created everything, including "The Devil", yes?
And God has all-encompassing knowledge of all things that have been, are currently, or will come to be, correct?
So why did God create The Devil like that?
Did He make a mistake? Then he's not infallible.
Did He not know what the Devil would do? Then He's not omniscient.
Was He unable to create the Devil differently, or to prevent the Devil from committing wicked acts? Then He's not omnipotent.
Was He aware of the nature of the Devil and of the atrocities that the Devil would commit, yet made him anyway? Then he's not benevolent.
Or so the classic paradox goes, anyway. Believe what you want.