Theodicy yes; anthropodicy no. And that's a tough question: How can we justify a loving, all-powerful God when there's evil in the world? How can that evil exist in God's universe? I wrestled with that question quite some time ago, prayed about it, and came to a conclusion that satisfies my intellectual need-to-know on this topic. Basically it's that God has free will, and he values free will. If he had made the spiritual beings and humans like little robots, forced to happily do what God wants all the time, there would be no true response to his love--so he gave us free will, even though he knew in advance what we would do with it--reject him, make ourselves out to be God, be selfish, steal, murder, and more. And then he revealed a way by which we can be saved from our own bad choices: His payment, in person, for our sins. How amazing is that!

To me, for what it is worth, the phrase "made in God's image", relates directly to the provision of human free-will. I understand fully why fatalists and/or determinists are so uncomfortable with this concept. It is rather a tough one to take on board - the buck ultimately stops with oneself.

To further what mujus said, let me put it like this: In which scenario would you feel more love:
1. An infinite number of computers programed to chant "I love <fill-in-your-name>
or
2. One single person that truly loves you?

God is about love, and maximizing love. The only way for God to maximize love is to allow evil. It's basic math.

As a Biblical reference to this concept, we can look at the Prodigal Son...a kid who takes his riches and goes of to live a life of total debauchery, turning against everything his father taught him. But when he blows through his money, and recognizing that evil he has wrought within his own life, he comes crawling back home. Now, he doesn't come crawling back home asking for more...he basically tells his father he'll become his slave, he'll do whatever is asked of him, because he truly recognizes his undeserving nature...and in so doing he gives props to his father and acknowledges that his father was right, and gives love to his father.

His father's reply is to look past his vast multitude of sin an corrupt behavior, and love him completely and openly without condition in return.

That is how God wants it....he lets evil exist, *must* let evil exist, so that the prodigal son, everyone, can recognize how lost and wisked they are alone, and have one true moment of love for God, in which moment God restores the relationship with them eternally.

Really, it's not such a bad deal.

Even though I don't engage in it myself, I don't consider debauchery evil at all. If it's consenting adults are they harming anyone? No.

So, honest question, how exactly, in this context, should "evil" be defined?

Has Mutant got another really urgent message for us about God ..... is it a 'code Red' or will it wait for a few hundred years, those who need urgently saving by Mujus please raise your hand.

@krellin (and all the others, just took the quote from him): "The only way for God to maximize love is to allow evil."

i get this basic concept, and i really like it. the only problem for me is still the "worst case example" (name (c) kasimax, haha). how can a person whose live is really nothing more than a series of tragic incidents enjoy life? let's take the dated example of a poor and starving kid in africa. how can one justify his suffering?

i deliberately don't want to use the phrase "why does he deserve this?" here, since i get that this is not the basic idea (correct me if i'm wrong). but it is clearly a series of unfortunate historic events (colonialism, exploitation and so forth) and definitely not his nor my fault that led to his pitiful life, while i can honestly say that there is not much that could make my life any better right now (even if i don't believe in god, but that's not my point now).

how does this go together with the concept of a loving god?

What if free will is an illusion, and we're all programed to be evil?

@krellin's example, are these computer capable of learning the true meaning of love and the chanting may actually be a by-product of how awesome i am and their love more genuine than any finite humans? Cause i could get onboard with that option!

@Kasimax: 'how does this go together with the concept of a loving god?' - it doesn't, it goes together with a chaotic universe.

Which forces us to ask a better question, why did God create a Universe where entropy inevitably increases (or to state it a slightly different way, where entropy was low in the early Universe)

A loving God? If he's anything like the Bible describes then he's a rather hateful, jealous self-obsessed maniac really. For instance, in the story of Noah he commits massive genocide just because he didn't get his way.

This question has been asked many times throughout history and answered by a variety of authors--my favorite response is still C.S. Lewis's The Problem of Pain. Like many above me have said, goodness and free will can only exist if there is something to compare them to. Evil and good require each other to exist.

@ora: that is exactly my position. i don't consider myself religious. thus, the question is really of no relevance for me - as well as for other non-religious people. yet i still like to hear other people's points of view (is that the correct plural?), especially from well-educated and opinionated followers of a religion. so thank you for all your answers!

@oscarjd74--From a theological perspective, the God of the Old Testament (or the Hebrew Bible if you prefer that term) is rather merciful. His dedication to upholding His side of the covenant even though the Israelites constantly break their side shows his mercy. Also, God held the other tribes (Amalekites and such) to a much looser standard than the Israelites, as evidenced by his willingness to give them several generations to get their act together before handing down judgment. Furthermore, most of the tribes where every last "man, woman, and child" were killed suffered the same fate multiple times. So either the Israelites were completely incapable of following direction, or God was truly more merciful than at first appeared.

You're sick. Genocide is not a merciful way to enforce a convenant no matter how often the other party breaks it.

@kasimax, yes, i believe that is the correct plural. And i have a rather interesting antromorphic argument regarding that entropy question, relating the the rise of 'intelligence'... but it's entirely materialistic (as you might expect from a pantheist..)

In that world, it wasn't nearly as horrific as it is now. Think about it. It's basically the same thing as the early Germanic tribes, where a bunch of people got together under a local warlord and fought for their survival. If it wasn't the Israelites, the Amalekites would have been under attack from someone else. It wasn't seen as brutal, it was seen as life. The fact that the Israelites went so long between attacks, as well as the fact that their invasions were always based upon divine judgment rather than petty politics, meant that in the world of Ancient Mesopotamia, the Israelites and their God were remarkably peaceful.

''So either the Israelites were completely incapable of following direction, or God was truly more merciful than at first appeared.''

Wait, you conclude mercy, when confronted with what seems clearly to be incompetence/impotence... i mean how can god kill every last man, woman, and child, of the same tribe MORE THEN ONCE?

does it also say he brings them back, because he realises genocide is probably wrong, or is he just shit at killing every mother-f*&king one of them?

Not that I'm saying ritual slaughter makes me all smiles and rainbows, but to take our modern impressions of a very ancient and different way of life is shortsighted. The Israelites should be compared to the impressions of their wider society, not our modern views.

@RavenKing, he's not comparing the Israelites to our modern views, he's comparing their God.

What that means is that God expected the Israelites to fulfill his instructions to the fullest. But in terms of ritual slaughter, "kill everyone" did not literally mean genocide. It actually meant "kill everyone who was a part of the sin". In this way, God provided for the tribes to have a second chance, an ability to start again from a clean slate.

It's also important to realize the concept of individuality had not yet been fully developed. People introduced themselves with the name of their father or grandfather because life was so extremely short back then that the qualifier was necessary to understand who you were talking to. Death of a person was a lesser deal back then. People rarely even reached 30. Death of a house, or a tribe, was significant. God very infrequently ordered the death of a house or tribe, unless that house or tribe had committed a particularly deep sin. Viewing the important unit as the tribe or house and not the individual, God was much, much more merciful than any of the surrounding tribes.

@orathaic--God interacts with people in ways they can understand. Back then, if God had interacted with them as he does with us now, he would be unintelligible. That's part of the reason we're having this discussion now--society is at a different point now, and God behaves differently.

Compare the action of God at Sodom to his later action at Nineveh. It is a progression, tied to the progression of humanity.

@Raven, your God is interacting with society now? Maybe it is the rationalism and enlightenment which i why God has restricted itself to only revealing itself in a personal way for the past 1200 years (excluding Bahá'u'lláh of course, but maybe the Ottomans/Persians were special for some other reason)

Yeah, 'Progression' so does that mean that Gay Marriage is also Godly now that we've progressed so much? I like where your relativist morality is leading...

It's not relativistic morality. I'm not saying that morality has changed one bit. I'm pointing out that God talks to people differently in different times. As far as how God has interacted in the last 1200 years, that's a big discussion. But I'd like to point out that the Bible has done a very fine job of engaging discussion after discussion over that period. Great new evangelists have stepped up to the plate as well, providing still a different voice. Examples include Augustine, Lewis, Boethius, Wilberforce, Newton, Wesley, etc.
Truth hasn't changed, only the voice that communicates it.

As for LGBT issues, that's another discussion. I will say that the Church is not perfect and has messed up the Truth many times over the years. The LGBT community has felt that most painfully. For a great discussion on the topic, check out "Love is an Orientation" by Andrew Marin.

I'm with orathaic.

Changing your mind is one thing, adapting your opinion to the amount of enlightenment someone has is quite stupid.

If someone first commands genocide and then comes with you shall not kill or something and somehow still think both actions were divine and just, you're far below any living creature I can think of, not above, and you can't really be a God IMO.

Some descriptions of God really make me think that at some point in history we confused the devil for God and still call him God.

Religious atheist here, if anyone wonders.

God commands not to murder. He never made a blanket ban on killing. I think a large part of that comes from the understanding that human lives are the most permanent thing you will ever know--you have never met a mere mortal, to steal a phrase from Lewis.

It's not a matter of adapting opinion. The wages of sin is death then, the wages of sin is death now. All that's changed is when and how that death is meted out. What good is a God if he talks to you in ways you can't understand? The God of the Bible is merely reaching out to his people so that they can understand him. In my view, that shows the depth of God's understanding four our needs.

"As for LGBT issues, that's another discussion. I will say that the Church is not perfect and has messed up the Truth many times over the years. The LGBT community has felt that most painfully."

You have a blind belief in 'The Truth', whatever the heck that is. So do you really believe that 'The Truth' was to have tolerance for LGBT people all along, even though the Bible explicitly condemns homosexuality as an abomination (Leviticus 18:22), which has been the basis of persecution for hundreds of years?

It is only now that secular liberal principles have overtaken religious ones that minorities like LGBTs are finally becoming enfranchised. And now Christians like you say that this was 'The Truth' all along. And any Christians who persecuted minorities before were simply misinterpreting it. I call bullshit.

About the problem of evil: you can't justify it. What a horrible defence: "goodness and free will can only exist if there is something to compare them to." - go tell that to millions of starving children murdered by soldiers or dying of diarrhoea in Somalia. Tell them that they are suffering so that you can compare your American free will and moral goodness with their suffering. I'm sure they'll be grateful.

but aren't you claiming that god's justice has changed, no more genocidal wars because people are not accepting of that kind of justice.

If god's justice is defined by humans... oh wait that is exactly the atheist/Nietzschean position, man invented God, and his 'Justice' is therefore just what man would define as justice without God.

Sorry for making all of my previous reply italic. I should make it clear that I'm an atheist who was brought up in a profoundly Christian family (most of my family worked in the church as secretaries, vicars etc) and had to battle against all of these spurious defences that Christians use myself as I realised that there was no evidence of God anywhere in the world.