DO-IT-YOURSELF CREATION

Here’s a thought experiment:  Assume that you are a god and that you have decided to create a world. Assume further (a) that you are all-powerful so you can design the world in any conceivable manner, (b) that you are all-loving so you want to avoid the existence of any pain and suffering, and (c) that you are all-knowing so that you understand what will happen with any sort of design that you might implement.  What would your world look like?

I thought so.  Surely you would establish a system of natural laws that would not lead to floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, deadly epidemics, or other natural disasters.  And surely you would make certain that those laws were structured so that there would be no diseases such as childhood cancer or other maladies that cause intractable pain.  Remember, you are omni everything so that you can do all of this.

But of course that is not the kind of world we actually have.  Instead, we encounter all manner of pain and suffering, of personal tragedy.  And it seems clear that such tragedies are not the result of some sort of evil force (a.k.a. Satan) that somehow slipped into the picture or because humans messed up and are to blame.  Rather, such suffering is the inexorable consequence of the operation of the laws of nature.  

For me this raises a fundamental question:  If there is a god who is responsible for creation and who is supposedly “omnimax,” what happened?  Here, I would argue, are the possibilities:

1. God is not all-powerful.  He did the best he could but simply couldn’t manage to get things right.   In short, he's a bit incompetent.  Or maybe this was his first attempt and he plans to do better next time. 

2. God is not all-loving.  Perhaps he is just curious and amoral and created the world as an experiment.  Or perhaps he is diabolical and takes some delight in human suffering, but he’s what we’ve got because he is running the show.

3. God is not all-knowing.  Some of that quantum physics stuff was more complicated than he thought, and he simply didn’t foresee the natural disasters and diseases that his laws of nature would result in.     

4. God did not create the world.


© 2018 John M. Phillips