I am a computer programmer by profession. To most people they just think “oh you know computers”, but there is a bit more to it than that. One of the primary things I do is to write code.
Now, let’s say that I have a task that I need to create a program that will do 10 specific tasks, in a specific order. With this type of task, I would probably write the code for each of these tasks as an individual function (a function is essentially a bit of code that can be called by other code) then write one other bit of code to call each of those 10 functions.
Now like any other programmer, I make mistakes at times. What this means in code is that the program will not necessarily do what it was intended to do. Let’s say the first of the 10 tasks is to copy some data from a CD or DVD onto the computer. Now perhaps I reverse the code and instead of copying FROM the CD/DVD the code attempts to write TO the CD/DVD.
Hopefully I catch this “bug” before it causes any problems, but as anybody who’s aware of software development can attest, some bugs make it into production (many of the Microsoft updates that people regularly download and install are actually fixes to “bugs”).
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There are two ways to look at god as a programmer. Since one of the claims of god is that good is a perfect being, let’s look at it from that angle first. Obviously some programmers are better than others, and some are more apt to find their own bugs before releasing the code. If there was such a thing as a “perfect” programmer, you’d expect them to NEVER create a bug, much less release that bug into production.
Now most christians will say that while god is perfect, we as humanity and flawed, because we have sin, and sin is an abomination unto god. But god created us according to the judeo-christian mythology. Even worse, christians consider satan to be essentially the personification of evil, and god created satan as well.
So does that mean a perfect being is capable of making flawed creations? Would a perfect programmer be capable of writing imperfect code?
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Now the other way to look at this analogy is the idea of: what does god do after having made this flawed creation… As a programmer myself, if my code does not do what I intended for it to do, then I know that the cause of this is me. And as somebody who has pride in my work, I will fix the bad code, and more importantly, I will take responsibility for the problems caused by my bad code.
Now with god and his flawed creation (humanity), who is blamed for the flaws. Mankind is, as we’re the ones that christians believe is being sent to hell for our sins. Well as the one who created us, and thus our flaws, shouldn’t god be willing to accept responsibility for the shortcomings of his creation? And yet we’re the ones “blamed”, and punished.
This is not a god that I can respect, much less worship, or even believe in…
Jeff Randall
Sarah Hippolitus
Brian Gregory
Luis Reinoso
Matthieu Guibert
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I believe the way theist deal with this challenge is by doing as much as possible to absolve God of all responsibility. According to Christain doctrine all creatures of God’s creation, be they human or supernatural, given free will. Free will is important because without it we could not freely choose to do what is moral or love God. Of course, free will has a dark side. But if free will is misused and abused, then it is the transgressors who are responsible, not God. Philosophers such as Alvin Plantinga have gone so far to argue there there is no possible world in which God, even though he is omnipotent, could create creatures with free will who never choose evil.
Which is understandable (that they TRY to absolve god of responsibility) if they want to hold on to the idea of a perfect creator. However I’ve never come across an attempt at this that holds up to critical scrutiny.
This is exactly where my analogy to the programmer comes in. If I write some code (in god’s case giving us “free will”) that has a negative side effect (in god’s case, the “dark side” of free will), it was either intentional or unintentional.
If intentional, then evil was part of god’s plan all along, thus god is not omni-benevolent.
If it in unintentional, then evil was not part of god’s plan, but the creation of it (in us through “free will” or in satan as the personification of evil), being unintended, shows god’s limitation and thus god loses omnipotence.
First of all, isn’t heaven supposed to be free of evil? Most christians describe heaven as perfect and free of pain, suffering, evil, etc. If god can create one perfect environment then why not two?
Secondly, even if one disagree with the idea of heaven as perfect and free of evil, wouldn’t god’s inability to create something (that is not itself a logical contradiction) evidence of god’s lack of omnipotence?
You make a good point when you say that if evil is unintentional, then this should causes us to question God’s omnipotence. One way to resopnd that has been around for a long time, and is currently popularized by William Lane Craig, is to say that God is indeed omnipotent, but he cannot do anything that it is logically impossible to do. For example, God cannot make a circle-square shape. He could not create a married bachelor. Such things are logically impossible. The same argument has been extended to free will and evil. Because free will means that those in possession of it might make bad choices, God could not create a world where it is logically impossible to have one without the other.
As you mentioned this line of argument is not without problems. This first is the one you mentioned: heaven. It is a place that is free of suffering and evil and yet all those who reside there possess free will. Also worth mentioning is the supreme agent of all free will, God. I would imagine that, given his omnipotence, he possesses free will in a manner that no other creature can imagine. Other than the aformentiond logicall impossible, there is no action that is outside of his prestige. However, according to scripcture, God cannot lie (see Titus 1:2). God also cannot commit sin. At least to suggest that he could do so would be considered blasphemous to most Christians. And yet I cannot imagine that any Christian would suggest that God is without free will. One might wonder why God could not create creatures with a similar free will.
Finally, I often find that those who try to maintain God’s omnipotence in the face of challenges such as this only end up making him weaker and weaker. Eventually, you wind up with something that’s really not worthy of anyone’s worship.
Yes, I think that heaven blows this argument out of the water. You can’t have an all perfect heaven without suffering and evil, and then contend that god is incapable of doing it on earth because it would violate free will.
An even better example of this, for chrisitans, might be jesus. Somebody could possible contend that god can not do evil because by nature of being god everything god does is good. But jesus is fully man and fully god. You’d be hard pressed to find any christian who would contend that jesus’ fully man side committed any evil or lacked free will. Thus we have an example of a fully human being here on earth that was without evil. If it can be done once without being logically impossible, it can be done multiple times (say 7 billion currently, give or take a few).
I agree. Once you start putting limits on god, you have to wonder why anybody would worship such an impotent being…
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