The riddle of Epicurus

[Bob Jenkins]

The Riddle of Epicuris
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?

[psychopath]

Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

Non sequitur.

[John Powell]

POWELL:
As a believing Mormon these would have been my answers:

EPICURIS:
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.


JOHN MORMON:
God is not omnipotent, just very very powerful. God would be willing if He had the power.

EPICURIS:
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.


JOHN MORMON:
God is not able.

EPICURIS:
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?


JOHN MORMON:
God is not able. Evil comes from imperfection.

EPICURIS:
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?


JOHN MORMON:
The question seems to suggest "why worship him as God?" God is the closest thing to an omnibeing there is. He's the one we need to credit for this Earth and our lives upon it and many other good things. It's like asking why we bow to the king (if we lived in a monarchy) if the king isn't perfect or pay taxes to a government that isn't perfect.

John Powell
A former believer in Mormonism.
Now an athe-ist or strong atheist.

[psychopath]

John,

As a Mormon, I'm wondering how you reconciled these verses regarding God's power:

Matthew 19:26
But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.

Job 42:2
I know that thou canst do everything, and that no thought can be withholden from thee.

Luke 1:37
For with God nothing shall be impossible.

Revelation 19:6
And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.

Thanks.

[John Powell]

PSYCHOPATH:
John,

As a Mormon, I'm wondering how you reconciled these verses regarding God's power:

Matthew 19:26
But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.


POWELL:
I'll let my former believing self answer then.

JOHN MORMON:
Exaggeration.

Just about anything a normal person (not a philosopher) might think is impossible like being raised from the dead or having a child at 90 or walking on water or stilling a weather storm, etc., is possible for God. God was speaking to normal people, not philosophers here.

PSYCHOPATH:
Job 42:2
I know that thou canst do everything, and that no thought can be withholden from thee.


JOHN MORMON:
Same answer. Typical inspirational hyperbole. People fail to be motivated by words like "almost always . . ." like they do by words like "always. . ."

God wants us to trust His abilities and since many of us wouldn't understand if He used precisely correct language, He exaggerated. That way the vast majority of us understand what He wants us to understand even though He didn't say it precisely right. Those who think more clearly and are worthy could receive special revelation indicating what God really meant.

For example, I did not believe God was an omnibeing, although that seems to be taught in the Bible. If God were to say "I am not all-powerful, but I am very powerful" then most people would be bothered, thinking maybe God would not have enough power to make good His promises. Again, God was speaking to the average person, not the strict philosopher.

PSYCHOPATH:
Luke 1:37
For with God nothing shall be impossible.


JOHN MORMON:
Same. Surely logically impossible things are impossible for God. What this must mean is that physically impossible things (like walking on water, traveling faster than light, etc.) are not impossible for God, right?

PSYCHOPATH:
Revelation 19:6
And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.

Thanks.


JOHN MORMON:
"Omnipotent" is a term to help distinguish the true God from the pagan Gods. Not only did the pagan gods not exist as real entities, but even their claimed abilities were inferior to the claimed abilities of the true God.

POWELL:
Joseph Smith in "Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith" said that God taught that He had these attributes so that we would trust His promises to us. It wasn't clear to me whether Joseph meant his readers to understand that God really had those attributes, but I now think that's what he meant. What I understood when I read these words and was formulating my personal views about God was that God did not necessarily have those attributes but taught us that He had them so our level of confidence would be at the appropriate level. In other words, God taught some falsehoods or exaggerations with the intent of us having a correct understanding. Thus, this was a white lie if anything.

Since I believed that God told us in the pre-existence that He would say these things, we had essentially already accepted this deception as acceptable. God essentially said to our pre-Earth spirits, "I will claim to be more perfect than I am so that you will have the appropriate level of faith." We replied, "Yes God, please do that for us."

The way I avoided worrying too much that other things taught might also be technically false was to listen to the words of the living Prophet and to the inspiration I believed I could get from God. This ended up not working for me because the living Prophets did not support theistic evolution and other things that I did.

John Powell

[psudothinker]

God is both able and willing to prevent evil and does for himself .Once we recognize what evil is and from whereevil comes he has given us the power to prevent it for ourselves out of mind, out of sight,out of existance.

[lao tzu]

I think 4 1/2 years is awfully close to the TWeb record for resurrected zombies.

[shunyadragon]

The Riddle of Epicuris
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?

It would help to sit back and take a good hard look at the nature of the 'Source(s)' called by various names in the Bible and the Book of Mormon, and take hard look at our world as we may understand it today. There are no witnesses, no evidence, and no personally involved Gods.

These are indeed problems for ancient world views of the 'Source' based on the ancient scriptures, and the doctrinal beliefs of traditional faiths like Judaism, Christianity, and the rather extreme anthropomorphic polytheistic Mormon version. The problem of evil is only one of the many reasons that the God of these ancient world views lack any consistent logical justification and lacks any evidence that would support the testimony of the ancients.

[the_light]

What I understood when I read these words and was formulating my personal views about God was that God did not necessarily have those attributes but taught us that He had them so our level of confidence would be at the appropriate level. In other words, God taught some falsehoods or exaggerations with the intent of us having a correct understanding. Thus, this was a white lie if anything.

Why assume white lies? Was it a matter of avoiding theological problems associated with literal omnipotence etc...?

[Soyeong]

What shows more power...preventing evil, or using evil for good?