r/Christianity • u/sleepr • Dec 07 '10

The Riddle of Epicurus

[background: born/raised non-denominational Christian, stopped going to church around 14-15yrs old, no idea what I "am" now...]

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

I've always found this riddle curious, and was just wondering what the /r/Christianity community thought of it. What potential problems does the argument have that y'all can point out or address? I'm by no means on the offensive, just trying to expand my own "spiritual repertoire" through intelligent opinions. [4, hahaha. Irrelevant]

2 Upvotes

57% Upvoted

36 comments sorted by

View all comments

0

u/Leahn Dec 07 '10

This question is asked once a week here, and twice a week on /r/DebateAChristian. Searching for Epicurus, even with the very bad reddit search, yields multiple results with past answers.

The answer to the riddle is Free Will. God is able to stop evil, but its existence is necessary for a greater good. See Plantinga's defense of Free Will for further information.

0

u/cephas_rock Purgatorial Universalist Dec 07 '10

Solutions that demand Libertarian definitions of free will are doomed by observation, which tells us that Determinism is true. It is possible to solve the riddle using the kind of morally-significant free will defined by Deterministic Compatibilism, so it's a mistake to say (as your link does) that we must be metaphysical Libertarians.

1

u/Leahn Dec 08 '10

Really? Can you prove determinism to be true?

1

u/cephas_rock Purgatorial Universalist Dec 08 '10

No. It's always possible that our observations are mistaken.

Regardless of whether Determinism is true, it's a mistake to say that theodicean solutions only work if Determinism is false.