This is the solution to the Epicurean paradox. God can't break laws of logic if He exists, so He can't "do anything" (which is what omnipotence means. Don't come in here lying about how omnipotence excludes impossible things like an idiot). So maybe getting rid of suffering is one thing He just can't do. Buddhas can't just do it with a snap of their fingers; they work slowly over millennia traveling to other world systems helping people.
>>18734929Epicurus never said this btw
>>18734929God created logic. Logic is just a law of the universe he set in lotion.The suffering-less world you desire is reserved exclusively for the upright in heart. Now that you know how to enter it you have no excuse to miss out on it.You know what it takes for you to enter paradise, you just don't want to do it. You want paradise for free without any effort because you think you deserve it just by virtue of being born.
>>18734929The solution is the third clause.>whence cometh evil?This isn't mere rhetorics, it's an actual question because Epicurus (and people abusing his "paradox") just wouldn't know. At the end of the day, it's not a paradox, but an elaborate question.>God can't break laws of logicThis is a much more interesting point. Why not?
>>18734929I never get the point in arguing whether God is omnipotent or not. If God can create the entire universe with all matter and laws within it, but cannot break his own laws, say by making a boulder too heavy for him to lift, what does that change? Instead of God being omnipotent, he would be nigh omnipotent? Okay, and?
>>18735008>So, doctor, is this medicine able to cure the patient's disease?>Yes, it's certain to work.>And have you administered it?>Yes, the patient's course of treatment is complete.>Then... why does the patient still have the disease?>Ah, I see what you're getting at. That's a very good philosophical question, and it is mysterious how it could be that my guaranteed treatment being completed could coexist with the patient still have the disease. Sometimes you just have to throw your hands up at these things and recognize that medicine works in mysterious ways, and I'm glad you seem willing to accept that.
>>18735078>God doing what I would do is a matter of course>Like a completely certain medicine being appliedThere's your problem, doc.
>>18735097>Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolentI suspect that's the horn of the quadrilemma you actually prefer to fall on. You would just not admit that he should be called malevolent for being unwilling to prevent evil.
>>18735078bodied that christcuck
>>18735112He is willing.
>>18735119You might say that he's willing to do it *eventually* or that he's willing to do it *under certain conditions.* But that just another way of saying that he's unwilling to do it now.
>>18735127And what makes now better than later?
>>18734929i think God is way beyond our simplistic concepts of good and evil on this one planetwhat you says makes sense but how do we even know if the question isn't nonsense
>>18735127>"willing" means "I'll do it right away"It really doesn't lol
>>18735129So you admit that he's unwilling?
>>18735135He's willing. I just don't see why this should translate into action precisely in year 2026 or any prior.
>>18735134It does if no conditions are implicitly put on the willingness. Because if conditions are implicitly put on the willingness, then there's also a sense in which you're unwilling to do it (or unable, but that's already dealt with in the quote.)
>>18735149There's also a sense of if-clause not being purely aesthetic. "If he is willing" doesn't really lend itself to "If he has done it". You're playing word games.
>>18735155For an omnipotent God, unlike for limited humans, being unconditionally willing to do something and having already done it should reliably coincide.
>>18735159Where's it say "unconditionally willing"?
>>18735162As already said, the alternative to being "unconditionally willing" is to be "not willing" under some condition, which falls under the second part of the quote.
>>18735170And as already replied, that is not how the Epicurean paradox utilizes the word. Substituting the two meanings you think are identical messes the whole text up.
>>18735172If the Epicurean paradox is supposed to actually be a paradox, as it's often called, then it does have to be paradoxical. So I think the person who insists on interpreting it in a way that avoids the paradox (by making the word "willing" vague enough to include forms of unwillingness) is probably the one misinterpreting it.
>>18735186Turning a text into nonsense is quite a daring way to maintain its supposed paradoxical quality. Which is where you've hit the nail on its head. Like many so-called paradoxes (f.ex. the monty hall paradox), the Epicurean one isn't actually paradoxical in the philosophical sense. It's just counter-intuitive.I commend your creativity, but I'm afraid Epicurean paradox will remain the fedora version of "if we come from monkeys why are there still monkeys" and adjusting what is meant by "monkey" won't save it.
>>18734948Zebras' biggest sin is killing and eating grass. Why do they deserve to get ripped apart while alive by lions?>>18735078kek exactly. Jesus cured us of original sin which caused our suffering, and if you remove the cause you remove the result, yet the result wasn't removed. oh well. mysterious ways.
>>18735192You're free to continue interpreting the quote as a strawman thought-provoking question for theists if you want, but imo that's just dodging it, not answering it. As already said, I believe the answer you actually prefer is that God shouldn't be called malevolent for being unwilling to prevent evil, or that even if he is "malevolent," it isn't a morally bad kind of malevolence. Maybe it could be defended by modeling God's morality as prioritizing good-maximization over evil-minimization and then supposing that all evils we observe are somehow justified as logically necessary for good-maximization. But then you would have to abandon the OP view that omnipotence should be allowed to break logic. That's fine in my opinion, though, because breaking logic is what I would call turning something into nonsense.
>>18735217 (cont.)I think the latter suggestion is still pretty questionable and should probably require restricting God's "omnipotence" even further than just to what's logically possible or, instead, supposing that God doesn't care about evil at all, but that's a direction I would put toward for actually beginning to respond to the paradox instead of dodging it.
>>18735235*a direction I would point toward
>>18735217See, I would argue making the text nonsensical is much more straw-many. But that's just me. I'll continue reading the text as a completely valid and thought-provoking question that people mistake for a paradox, as they often do. You're free to insert an extra word "unconditionally" in there to sacrifice its merit for rhetorical impact.
>>18735242No point arguing with someone who isn't interested in understanding, I guess.
>>18734929>Buddhas can't just do it with a snap of their fingers; they work slowly over millennia traveling to other world systems helping peopleSounds like Mahayana fanfiction.
>>18735247I did understand you. And I found it unconvincing. Though perhaps you're defining "understanding" as "understanding and agreeing" to be on brand idk.
>>18735252Padmasambhava was exactly that though
