There Is So Much Evil
Some people look at evil and use it as their main argument against the existence of God. It seems like some will never deny that suffering exists, however they will deny that "gratuitous suffering" exists.
They look towards natural disasters, infant mortality, just needing to eat itself is an incredible burden and we suffer from this burden our entire lives, the same can be said for needing water or sleep. We sink into this constant pain just for our survival and some may argue how can God exists if this misfortune follows us.
An argument some propagate is that If they were in the position of God they would do away with needless pain, world hunger, etc. If God does exist, he is already in that position, yet has done nothing. I am more moral than this God and I don't consider myself the kindest person I know.
The fall in this argument for me is that we have been given free will and the ability to make choices in life. I don't think our lives are dictated. It is more of a test in my eyes.
Why God Through This Evil Can Exist
- To emerge into existence, God must generate his potential because he is completely self-contained.
- This potential is free to be out of sync with God's morality
- God ultimately preserves only that which is in line with his morality so that suffering never existed.
Omniscience is good with this view, it just requires that we consider time in a certain way e.g., while we see reality in terms of locally creative moments, God sees one total act of creation, so there's no minute in which God was genuinely ignorant. As it were, from God's viewpoint, he comprehended what the expression of his will should resemble the minute he brought the universe into being.
God must create his potential self. Before considering a given design, God can't know whether it meets his morality. Accordingly, God retroactively self-configures keeping in mind the end goal is to maximise self-utility. At the end of the day, suffering and evil are retroactively removed from reality.
God is self-determinative (self-defining), and in light of the fact that we are a part of God, we have the potential for free will. God must choose the option to self-configure such that evil and suffering go into the equation temporarily.
As such, God can't remove evil suffering without first recognising what he's ruling out. Therefore, he must think about evil and suffering (ergo they should briefly exist), since he can't rule out what he hasn't yet defined.