The Fallacy of Good vs. Evil: Christianity is inherently flawed

I think that there is only one God and a lot of confused people

[txag007]

"Where did Satan come from?"

You seem to already know the answer to this. He came from God. He was created by God as one of his angels. It was only when he tried to become greater than God that He was banished to Hell and became known as Satan. He never was a God, however, and does not have the power of (or equal to) God. What's the problem?

[Peter666]

I think the absence of good is defined as a reduction of the good, and not as something separate, so your original point about everything being different degrees of good is correct. A real theologian would agree with this, and not make a light/dark claim.

From a religious perspective (and a correct theological one) Satan was not made evil because God cannot make something evil. Satan has an angelic nature that is good, and a free will that is good, but he used his free will for the opposite end of what his angelic nature was intended for. So in essence, he reduces his good to the lowest degree possible. The absence of all that potential good, is evil.

[FreakDaddy]

[ QUOTE ]
I think the absence of good is defined as a reduction of the good, and not as something separate, so your original point about everything being different degrees of good is correct. A real theologian would agree with this, and not make a light/dark claim.

From a religious perspective (and a correct theological one) Satan was not made evil because God cannot make something evil. Satan has an angelic nature that is good, and a free will that is good, but he used his free will for the opposite end of what his angelic nature was intended for. So in essence, he reduces his good to the lowest degree possible. The absence of all that potential good, is evil.

[/ QUOTE ]

Two questions for you then.
1) How is the reduction of something and the absence of something the same thing in your mind? If I have two boxes in a room, and I remove one of them, then room is absent of the boxes. Now if I remove one of the two boxes from the room, the room has been reduced to one ball. The are two SEPARATE ideas and terms. Pick one and then make a conclusion from it based on your definition.

2) Please explain in very clear terms how the concept of free will being created by a ONE god is seperate from the consequent of the initial action (allowing free will)? Remember, God is wise.

[FreakDaddy]

[ QUOTE ]
"Where did Satan come from?"

You seem to already know the answer to this. He came from God. He was created by God as one of his angels. It was only when he tried to become greater than God that He was banished to Hell and became known as Satan. He never was a God, however, and does not have the power of (or equal to) God. What's the problem?

[/ QUOTE ]

Conclusion: God created evil.

[Peter666]

"How is the reduction of something and the absence of something the same thing in your mind?"

This has to do with the concept of potency. The reduction of something and the absence of something are the same in that they both share the potentiality for something to be actualized. So when I speak of absence, I do not mean a total nothingness, because God always maintains the foundation of act. He is pure act. There is no creature that can reduce itself to total nothingness or annihilation.

So something that is absent has either not been actualized yet, or once it was actualized, it has been reduced back to its potentiality. The latter is what happened in the case of the devil. God made the angels to "see" Him, so at the moment of their creation they went from instant potency to act (seeing). Those angels who decided to close their eyes and reduce themselves as much as they could (back to potentiality) became devils. The difference this time being that they could not annihilate themselves into total nothingness, because God created them and maintains their existence. They could only move their wills away from God as much as possible.

It would be like a baby growing into a man, but then with some sort of magical power being able to reduce itself back to a baby. It was intended to become a man, not remain a baby.

To explain your second point, again, free will is a creation. God makes it out of nothingness, and its actuality is to either accept or reject. It can be reduced to non use - back to potentiality, but it cannot be annihilated into a vacuum as long as God maintains the potentiality.

Now my brain hurts.

[FreakDaddy]

[ QUOTE ]
I think the traditional view was that God is One.

[/ QUOTE ]
What do you mean the 'traditional' view was this?

[ QUOTE ]

God created Angels which are not dieties, not gods, but something else. Some of these angels, led by satan, rebelled and seperated from God. God also created humans. Humans are not dieties, not god, and not Angels, but something else. Eve and Adam were tempted by Satan to seperate from God. Humanity has been seperated from God ever since, thus explaining everything in the world that appears to be less than good - or evil.


[/ QUOTE ]
Conclusion: God created evil.

[ QUOTE ]


This is not such a bad metaphysical construct. It forces us to take responsibility for the world not being better than it could be. And it takes some of the heat off of us and puts it on Satan.


[/ QUOTE ]
Don't these last two sentences contradict themselves?
[ QUOTE ]

It's really pretty monotheistic. There's only one real Diety. Satan is more like one of us than a Diety. You might say Satan is the personification of our rebelion against our better selves.


[/ QUOTE ]

These are the problems you face when you try and turn mythology into history. What kind of God do you have that knowingly creates an evil force, who's primary role is to sway man away from god, then sits around, and although God is more powerful, allows this to occur? If we wish to move the subject to a free-will = love conversation, we can do that. I've had that one at least 100 times with Christians.

[FreakDaddy]

1) Good is Good and God is ONE.
Agreed? If so proceed...
2) If God is good, then he could not have created evil, BECAUSE then god himself would no longer be good.
Agreed? If so proceed...
3) Satan is evil
Agreed? If so proceed?

Conclusion: Satan is either NOT evil, OR if so then he is a seperate and unique entity. A god, or whatever terminology you wish to use here.

On a side note, there is a war occuring according to the bible, and it's a war over mans soul. We can go over passages if you wish to clarify this, but I'd much rather you read your bible and understand the role of satan.

[FreakDaddy]

Great. Someone who can make sense. That always makes a dialogue easier. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

So, I would agree with your understanding of absence, and I would only wish that any Judeo-Christian teaching would approach the concept of good and evil in a more rational manner. Unfortunetly from my experience, these concepts (good and evil) are always at war with one another, so they are presented as opposites of one another, which according to our reasoning, they would not be.

The fundamental problem of God being good and all knowing remains unfortunaetly. For of course our next quesiton is going to be, what kind of God would knowingly create a diety (or angel to use your words) powerful enough to resist him and harm his creations?

[PairTheBoard]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I think the traditional view was that God is One.

[/ QUOTE ]
What do you mean the 'traditional' view was this?

[ QUOTE ]

God created Angels which are not dieties, not gods, but something else. Some of these angels, led by satan, rebelled and seperated from God. God also created humans. Humans are not dieties, not god, and not Angels, but something else. Eve and Adam were tempted by Satan to seperate from God. Humanity has been seperated from God ever since, thus explaining everything in the world that appears to be less than good - or evil.


[/ QUOTE ]
Conclusion: God created evil.

[ QUOTE ]


This is not such a bad metaphysical construct. It forces us to take responsibility for the world not being better than it could be. And it takes some of the heat off of us and puts it on Satan.


[/ QUOTE ]
Don't these last two sentences contradict themselves?
[ QUOTE ]

It's really pretty monotheistic. There's only one real Diety. Satan is more like one of us than a Diety. You might say Satan is the personification of our rebelion against our better selves.


[/ QUOTE ]

These are the problems you face when you try and turn mythology into history. What kind of God do you have that knowingly creates an evil force, who's primary role is to sway man away from god, then sits around, and although God is more powerful, allows this to occur? If we wish to move the subject to a free-will = love conversation, we can do that. I've had that one at least 100 times with Christians.

[/ QUOTE ]

I can see you've given this a lot of thought. I don't think I have anything to add.

PairTheBoard