Truth Seeker

I think your reply mixes several different issues together, and that’s where the disagreement actually sits. First: plants vs animals Yes, plants we e...

Esse, thank you for your thoughtful reply. I think you’re blurring distinctions that actually matter. First, on religion as a monolith: I agree that r...

You’re invoking Viktor Frankl correctly - but then you quietly switch questions. Frankl argued that humans seek meaning. He did not argue that meaning...

You are still conflating extinction by killing with extinction by non-creation, and that confusion is doing most of the work in your critique. Genocid...

I think we’re closer than it may look, but you’ve mislocated my claim, so let me restate it carefully. I am not saying that benevolence is unintelligi...

You’re right that the problem isn’t logically impossible for a believer to live with. People can accept contradictions if their faith requires it. But...

Thank you for your thoughtful post. I don’t argue literally because I think religious texts should be read literally. I argue literally because the th...

Bob, thank you for the detailed reply. It’s clear you’re articulating classical theism carefully rather than hand-waving. But the coherence you claim ...

First, I agree with you about hyperbole. Ancient religious language often exaggerates for rhetorical and political reasons. When Odin is called “all-s...

EricH, you’re right about several things, but a few moves here deserve pushback. First, on omnipotence and logic: I agree that “omnipotence constraine...

Ecurb, there are several serious problems with this line of thought, and they’re not just emotional objections - they’re conceptual ones. First, appea...

I appreciate your honesty, and I think that concession matters more than it might seem at first glance. Leibniz’s move is internally required if one i...

Let me slow this down and reset the tone first, because I don’t want this to turn personal. If my replies have come across as accusatory, that wasn’t ...

Thank you for clarifying. That helps, but it doesn’t resolve the issue you think it does. 1. You’ve shifted the criterion, not removed the problem. Yo...

You have misquoted me. This is what I actually said in my previous post: My claim was never: “Parents must prevent all foreseeable risks.” It was: Whe...

I agree that we’ve now reached the deepest layer of the disagreement. But at this layer, the issue is no longer rhetorical or intuitive - it’s structu...

Thank you for the thoughtful response. I’ll be equally direct. "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do al...

Thanks for laying your position out clearly. That helps. But the military analogy does not follow from what I said, and the difference matters. 1. You...

Your reply sharpens the position, but it still rests on unargued necessity claims and quietly narrows omnipotence in ways that matter. 1. “Serious age...

I am not convinced the Biblical God is good. Please see: https://www.evilbible.com and https://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/categories.html if you h...

Your response is philosophically coherent only because it abandons the very moral framework classical theism usually wants to keep. That’s the key poi...

Your reply relies on assertion where argument is required, and it quietly assumes the very conclusions it’s meant to defend. 1. “Suffering is not avoi...

This objection trades on an ambiguity between suffering as a chosen challenge and suffering as imposed harm. Once that distinction is made, the argume...

Yes, but that responsibility is not absolute, and treating it as if it were is where the analogy goes wrong. 1. Being mindful ? being bound A loving f...

The answer depends on who had which powers and options. Once we’re precise about that, the analogy collapses. 1. Immediate vs ultimate responsibility ...

You’re conflating two different claims, and that’s exactly where the confusion comes from. My point is not that a necessary O–O being could create equ...

Thanks for such a thoughtful response - I agree with much of your spirit, especially the call for humility and the refusal of simplistic answers. Wher...

Thanks for laying out the classical theist position clearly. I agree that, on Thomistic metaphysics, omnipotence is not defined as a magical ability t...

I agree that foreknowledge by itself does not imply responsibility. A meteorologist who predicts rain is not responsible for it. But that analogy brea...

That objection only works if omnipotence is already constrained by the being’s necessary nature. But in that case, omnipotence no longer means the pow...

I think we’re now largely aligned on the metaphysics. You’re explicitly rejecting omnibenevolent theism in favor of a naturalistic, pantheistic view i...

If an omniscient–omnipotent being is necessary, then its existence and actions are not contingent or chosen, but metaphysically fixed. In that case, w...

Thank you, J. I appreciate that framing, and I agree that subjective suffering carries immense ethical weight. Where I’d want to keep a distinction cl...

I’m explicitly using the classical libertarian definition - the ability to choose otherwise under identical conditions - because that is the version r...

Your view effectively resolves the problem of evil by denying that benevolence is a property of reality at all. But that is not a defense of omnibenev...

Thank you for your reply. You’re right that the “escape hatch” you mention is exactly where many theists retreat. But it collapses once you look at wh...

J, thank you — and I’m glad you brought Kant into this, because his “heaven theodicy” is subtle, but it ultimately doesn’t resolve the issue. It shift...

The parent analogy fails because it quietly removes every attribute that makes the classical God relevant to the problem of evil. Parents are not omni...

J, I appreciate your honesty here — you’re acknowledging the core hinge: whether suffering has intrinsic moral significance independent of later memor...

Good questions — but none of them undermine the argument once we distinguish three things: 1. what is logically possible, 2. what is consistent with t...

T Clark, thanks for the thoughtful response. But almost all of your objections rely on saying “this isn’t necessarily true” without supplying a workab...

Good questions, but there’s an important distinction to keep in mind: omnipotence does not imply the capacity to perform logical contradictions. Two p...

J, the problem in your proposal becomes clear once we separate two different kinds of misfortune: 1. Subjective misfortune — how suffering feels to th...

Philosophim, I appreciate the call for interpretive charity. But charity does not mean accepting incoherent definitions or pretending that an argument...

A claim is factual if it is based on evidence. You claimed that souls exist and that suffering is good for them. Please prove your two claims with evi...

“Suffering is good for the soul” only makes sense if (1) souls exist, and (2) suffering actually improves them. Both claims lack evidence. What we do ...

You’ve correctly pointed out that “no being can be unlimited.” But that admission doesn’t solve the problem - it changes the subject. The argument was...

Thank you for the link to your other post. I read it and I totally agree.

I totally agree.

Redefining the terms might seem to remove the contradiction, but it really just hides it behind vaguer language. If “omniscient” now means “knows what...