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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   2744 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 6, 2023

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Which religion or culture do you think has the most satisfying solution to the Problem of Evil? Not just, “why does pain exist” but “why do diseases and catastrophes kill innocents”.

I don’t think Christianity nails it. A person is left either believing everything is God’s Will, or believing that a Perfect Being created Satan / disasters when he did not have to. It seems to me a much better alternative would be to state that there is a sovereign evil force, which does not originate from God, who is the cause of not just natural ills like disease and disaster but also ignorance, temptations, etc. This is more satisfying because we keep God purely good and wise, although we do this at the expense of his omnipotence. Ultimately any good explanation should be understood by a child, have a layer of complexity that an adult can appreciate, and allows a person to handle the existence of evil in an optimal way (either aversion or acceptance depending on scenario) while still loving God as before.

I don’t think Christianity nails it. A person is left either believing everything is God’s Will, or believing that a Perfect Being created Satan / disasters when he did not have to. It seems to me a much better alternative would be to state that there is a sovereign evil force, which does not originate from God, who is the cause of not just natural ills like disease and disaster but also ignorance, temptations, etc. This is more satisfying because we keep God purely good and wise, although we do this at the expense of his omnipotence.

Yes this is roughly the LDS position. There is the chaotic universe, full of preexisting matter, and then there is the space (I think within it) which God has organized. That force is not sovereign per se though--allowing it to have influence within the world suits God's purposes.

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