3 ms·

Here's one perspective to consider. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2009/04/adversity https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ge

Here's one perspective to consider. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2009/04/adversity https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference...

bennyelv 4y ago
To me that seems like an incomplete explanation that ignores the hard part of the problem it’s trying to satisfy. It’s easy to explain the suffering that can happen during one’s life as part of a wider experience which ultimately ends up being good, when the examples are adults with a range of experience and agency over their situation. It’s less easy to explain why a good god has created an existence where a young child who doesn’t yet have agency over their existence contracts and dies of smallpox. Or is brutally raped and murdered. Or… What’s the point of that exactly?
Winsaucerer 4y ago
I think overall the challenge of the problem of evil for LDS is different from that of the Christian tradition. Christians believe there is just one God who created the physical universe, and created the life within it (either directly or by setting up laws that would lead to the inevitable outcome of life), and in a very real sense foreordained all that suffering and pain knowing that it would come. The LDS church, on the other hand, teaches that "As man now is, God once was; as God now is, man may be". I'm not familiar enough with LDS teaching, but if their god was once like us, then that means that this god did not create life, given that this god was a living thing before having the power to create life (and is this the same for that god's god? And the god of that god? And so on?). That suggests to me that this god is not the creator of physical reality (contrary to what Christians think), and not the original creator of life, and therefore is not as obviously responsible for a physical reality full of suffering as is God for Christians. The LDS god did not set up the original rules, and so can't be as responsible for them. That being said, the god of the LDS does seem to be very powerful, so that would give rise to some forms of the problem of evil. These are just some poorly informed thoughts, and there's a lot I don't know about the LDS church.

Here's one perspective to consider. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2009/04/adversity https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference...

bennyelv 4y ago

To me that seems like an incomplete explanation that ignores the hard part of the problem it’s trying to satisfy. It’s easy to explain the suffering that can happen during one’s life as part of a wider experience which ultimately ends up being good, when the examples are adults with a range of experience and agency over their situation. It’s less easy to explain why a good god has created an existence where a young child who doesn’t yet have agency over their existence contracts and dies of smallpox. Or is brutally raped and murdered. Or… What’s the point of that exactly?

Winsaucerer 4y ago

I think overall the challenge of the problem of evil for LDS is different from that of the Christian tradition. Christians believe there is just one God who created the physical universe, and created the life within it (either directly or by setting up laws that would lead to the inevitable outcome of life), and in a very real sense foreordained all that suffering and pain knowing that it would come. The LDS church, on the other hand, teaches that "As man now is, God once was; as God now is, man may be". I'm not familiar enough with LDS teaching, but if their god was once like us, then that means that this god did not create life, given that this god was a living thing before having the power to create life (and is this the same for that god's god? And the god of that god? And so on?). That suggests to me that this god is not the creator of physical reality (contrary to what Christians think), and not the original creator of life, and therefore is not as obviously responsible for a physical reality full of suffering as is God for Christians. The LDS god did not set up the original rules, and so can't be as responsible for them. That being said, the god of the LDS does seem to be very powerful, so that would give rise to some forms of the problem of evil. These are just some poorly informed thoughts, and there's a lot I don't know about the LDS church.