Two years ago Richard Kachkar stole a snow plow and began driving it down the streets of suburban Toronto. In the process he struck and killed police sergeant Ryan Russell. On March 27, 2013 Kachkar was found not criminally responsible by reason of insanity. Philosophically the verdict is interesting. On the one hand, the evidence presented […]
moral evil
Allowing a genocide is not commanding a genocide
John asks: If a genocide that is allowed is moral, can it’s being commanded also be considered moral? I mean, of course there is a difference between allowing and commanding, but if it is moral to allow X, then does that make it moral to command X? If not why not? Let’s consider an example […]
Allowing is not commanding
Over the last week I have heard on at least three different occasions claims made to the moral equivalency of God allowing x and God commanding x. The argument has been made by Christians to demonstrate that if I accept that God providentially allows evils like genocide and infant sacrifice, I should have no problem […]
Things Christians say to explain away biblical moral atrocities
First off, what’s a moral atrocity? It is the kind of event perpetrated by moral agents such that, if you read about it in the newspaper, you’d naturally exclaim “That’s a moral atrocity!” And by saying that you’d be meaning (among other things) that the event in question is an egregious moral evil which could not plausibly […]
Cannibalizing infants as punishment?
The conversation began when I raised some problems with calling God the perfect Father based on particular depictions in the Bible. I gave as a test case the text of Lamentations 4 where God judges Israel for her unfaithfulness by orchestrating conditions that will include women eating their infant children. The Israelites understood those conditions […]
Is God a perfect heavenly Father? The Lamentations discussion continues
In “God as Father on Father’s Day” I pointed out the incongruity between calling God the most perfect Father and ascribing to God punishing actions such as are described in Lamentations. Chris offered an interesting and fairly standard response: present that which is described as an intentional punishment as if it were in fact merely […]
The Case of Dr. Maximus Amore
James Palmer asks: “Isn’t the idea of total depravity that we completely deserve eternal conscious torment, so giving us that is justice, rather than evil?” It may be. But that point means something very different for an Arminian than for a Calvinist. To consider the problems with the Calvinist position further let’s consider an analogy. […]
The intrinsic value in learning to be good
JD is sympathetic to my view of evil as being redeemed in God’s good universe, but he has a reservation: “The Book of Revelation foretells a future existence in which there will be all these marvelously rich things like life and sentience and mind but with no death, sorrow or crying. If God is able […]
Would you rather be a bacterium? A rejoinder to the problem of evil
Silver Bullet has ably expressed the common atheistic retort that this creation simply cannot be the product of a loving and powerful God because there is just too much evil afoot. It is a serious argument. Indeed, it strikes me as the most significant argument against theism, bar none. And yet I also believe it is […]
