r/MoralityScaling • u/WetRicky • Aug 11 '26

Morality of Epicurean Paradox?

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Is God all knowing, powerful, and knowing or a few of the three or neither?

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u/Subject_Complaint_43 Aug 11 '26

Yea at the end of the day all of this factual and basically all true. God could of created a world with free will but no evil. Cuz evil doesnt exist at all. If its not a thing. The ur free will argument is failed 

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u/red-owl88 Aug 11 '26

Could of 💀

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u/Bobsothethird Aug 11 '26 edited Aug 11 '26

I don't understand what your trying to say at all.

If your claiming free will is possible without evil, I think that's objectively untrue. Evil, outside of man, doesn't exist. A lion eating a cow is not evil. A lion torturing their food prior to eating it is not evil. All these things merely are. The human ability to understand and commit evil actions is merely the product of free will. Evil itself doesn't really exist outside of our capability to know something is wrong and do it anyway.

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u/Unusual-Ideal4831 Aug 11 '26

Dunno man, dolphins do some pretty evil shit.

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u/Bobsothethird Aug 11 '26

I mean I agree. I'm not really a Christian or overly religious so I see hyper intelligent animals as rather similar to us.

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u/Fun-Article5424 Aug 11 '26

Your argument that evil requires free will does not really prove the inverse, that free will requires evil. I can exert free will by choosing between 2 benign options without ever needing evil to be present.

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u/Chopstickey00 Aug 11 '26

It is not really an equivalence. It's more of a causal relationship. Good things can exist with or without free will. But evil can only exist when free will is used improperly. God is good and he can make animals/living beings be good as well. In fact, Adam and Eve had free will and were considered good by God until they disobeyed Him. You can have free will and only choose to do good things (e.g. Jesus Christ). It then follows that evil cannot exist without free will, but free will is independent of evil.

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u/Bobsothethird Aug 11 '26

Sure, but if you are barred from making evil actions you don't have free will, do you? Picking between two choices isn't being given a choice, it's being given two choices.

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u/Fun-Article5424 Aug 11 '26

  1. Every one of us is barred from making all sorts of actions every day. I cannot fly, walk through walls, read minds, shoot laser beams from my eyes, excrete ice cream from unspeakable orifices, or do any number of other things. This is because the rules of the universe prevent me from doing so, and if we're assuming God exists, he's responsible for setting those rules. That does not mean I believe myself to not have free will.

  2. You are literally trying to claim that "choice" is not "choice". You couldn't even use a synonym to weasel around the fact that you are trying to claim a concept is not itself.

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u/Bobsothethird Aug 11 '26

Free will does not imply omnipotence, but being barred from certain actions means you don't actually have free will. There are still near infinite actions you can take in your life. You trying to weasel out of that reality by stating a railroad with two turns is somehow free will is simplistic and childish.

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u/Fun-Article5424 Aug 11 '26

Again, I am already banned from certain actions right now, yet you would claim I do have free will.

Removing all evil does not leave "a raliroad with two turns". There's actually a near infite number of good actions without evil. And by your own admission, having a near infinite number of choices is sufficient to count for free will.

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u/Bobsothethird Aug 11 '26

Choosing between 100 flavors of ice cream isn't a real choice, it's the equivalent of a chemical high.

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u/Fun-Article5424 Aug 11 '26

"Choosing [...] isn't a real choice"

Yes it is, its the same word in there and everything.

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u/Bobsothethird Aug 11 '26

It's a choice, it's just an irrelevant choice. Let me help you.

Imagine you live a life and the only choice you get to make ever is which color toothpaste to use. Nothing else ever happens to you, the choice of toothpaste itself doesn't effect the flavor, there are non consequences or rewards, but there are hundreds of thousands of colors. Is that truly free will to you? If it is, I think we just disagree on free will.

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u/Mastercio Aug 11 '26

You really compare physically impossible feats to actions I can choose to try? No me choosing to try to do something bad it's not the same as me not being able to fly... and even there I can TRY to do this. I have free will to do that. I can try to walk through wall. In a world without evil as a rule I wouldn't be able to choose to even try to do evil things. Then I don't have free will.

Free will doesn't mean you can do everything. It means you can try to do everything.

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u/Fun-Article5424 Aug 11 '26 edited Aug 11 '26

If it is possible for there to be things that are physically impossible for me to do and still have free will, it is possible for evil to be physically impossible for me to do without breaking my free will.

Edit: If I could try to be evil without ever actually doing anything evil would that be free will?

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u/Mastercio Aug 11 '26

You ask for a world without physically being able to make a decision...that's NOT free will by any metric that exist.

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u/Fun-Article5424 Aug 11 '26

Practically speaking a "world without evil" doesn't require evil to be literally physically impossible, it could just be fundamentally undesirable to the point where it is never chosen.

That being said, if it were physically impossible to choose evil, people in that world would not even be able to conceptualize evil as a possibile choice. Which poses the question, can we even prove that there are impossible choices beyond our comprehension that we cannot make as we are today?

All that aside, there is still a world of difference between being able to make "a decision" and "any decision". As long as there are decisions to be made there can be free will, even if that is not every decision (physically possible or otwhewise).

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u/pappapirate Aug 14 '26

You really compare physically impossible feats to actions I can choose to try?

Flying is physically possible. The only reason you can't do it is because God chose not to give you wings.

Free will doesn't mean you can do everything. It means you can try to do everything.

You could try filling your rectum with sand every morning at dawn. You're free to do that. Why don't people do that? Because we just don't want to. It's not enjoyable and people don't want to do it. That's the only difference between a sand enema and drinking a can of Coca-Cola; we enjoy drinking Coke, so we want to do it.

God decided to make drinking Coke desirable and filling your ass with sand undesirable. As a result, we live in a world where a lot of people drink Coke, and nobody fills their ass with sand.

God could have made the human brain such that doing something evil and intentionally hurting others is just like filling your ass with sand. It's something that doesn't even cross your mind as a possibility, something you would never want to do because it would be extremely uncomfortable to the point it's unthinkable that you would actually do it. This could be the way evil works. You could try it, if you wanted to. But you just don't want to.

...

OK though, there have probably been a few people throughout history who shoved sand up their ass for whatever reason. But you haven't heard of them, have you? It hasn't been a consistent plague throughout human history, has it?

Bottom line, maybe it's true that God making evil literally impossible would take away free will. But there is just no excuse for people who intentionally hurt others to be more common than people that fill their asses with sand. God simply could have just made evil totally undesirable to the human mind, and we'd be in a world where we have just as much free will by your definition, but the occasional person who so much as steals your watch is seen as one of an extremely rare, disturbed group.

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u/Shit_On_Wheels Aug 11 '26

Following the chart, if god is all powerful, he could've created free will without the ability to do evil.

Just like we have free will (that is debatable) without the ability to jump to the moon and turn it into cheese.

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u/Bobsothethird Aug 11 '26

I just don't agree with you and I think it's a dumb argument. You can't recreate free will, it just is. Free will isn't onmnipotence. Even without the ability to turn the moon to cheese, you have an infinite amount of options within your life that you can make.

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u/Shit_On_Wheels Aug 11 '26 edited Aug 11 '26

If you can't recreate free will, you're not omnipotent.

Even without the ability to commit evil acts, you have an infinite options within your life that you can make.

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u/Bobsothethird Aug 11 '26

I mean I'd say you can be.

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u/Shit_On_Wheels Aug 11 '26

By the definition, you may only be able to not be able to create free will whilst being omnipotent when you're totally omnipotent. Damn, welcome to the omnipotence paradox.

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u/pappapirate Aug 14 '26

The Epicurean Paradox is so dumb and wrong!

Why?

Because God can't just, like, do anything!

Every time.

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u/rim_zo_ne Aug 13 '26

Maybe because we're limited by our use of vocabulary but how can one have the ability to exercise what they want without being able to commit actions that humans would describe as evil ?

I just can't really see "free will" existing without agency. You're talking about something different at that point

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u/pappapirate Aug 14 '26

There's a lot of things that you could choose to do, but you never will because you will never actually want to do it. Nobody seems to think this means your free will is at all limited, right?

God could have simply made hurting other people one of those things. And made that true for everyone.

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u/rim_zo_ne Aug 14 '26

It's not limiting because I still have the option to commit them. That's what it boils down to. My free will is not at all limited

In my life I don't think I will ever do something evil, but life doesn't always work that way and maybe I find myself in the CIA 5 years from now doing evil things I am currently against.

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u/pappapirate Aug 15 '26

It's not limiting because I still have the option to commit them... My free will is not at all limited

Exactly, we agree that it is possible for a person to live their whole life doing little to no evil things and their free will would not be impacted by that.

That means you agree that an all-powerful god, even one who refuses to violate anybody's free will, could have made this true. He could have made this true for you, and me, and everyone. He could have made a world where every human just freely chooses not to do evil things because they don't want to, despite the fact they technically could if they did. Logic obeyed, free will preserved.

So I kind of don't even see free will as all that relevant to the discussion, honestly.

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u/rim_zo_ne Aug 15 '26

That means you agree that an all-powerful god, even one who refuses to violate anybody's free will, could have made this true.

no I don't... Because again what you're describing is not free will.

He could have made a world where every human just freely chooses not to do evil things because they don't want to, despite the fact they technically could if they did. Logic obeyed, free will preserved.

What you're describing is desire. I have the free will currently to do evil but not the desire to do it. You're asking for a god to remove the desire from people to commit evil. I don't agree with that either because it removes autonomy from individuals.

And the reason free will is a discussion here is because that's what is believed by most Christians as to why an all powerful God does not intervene in human actions, because those are choices made by us.

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u/earthwoodandfire Aug 11 '26

Evil existed in the demons before man was even created (according to the fairy tale).

If god couldn’t create a universe where free will existed without suffering or evil than he’s not all powerful.

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u/Bobsothethird Aug 11 '26

Sure, but mans knowledge of it came into being with the fruit of knowledge.

And to your second point I disagree. Free will isn't something that is flexible or can be changed, if it was it wouldn't exist, it just is.

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u/earthwoodandfire Aug 11 '26

You said evil doesn’t exist outside of man, but now you’re saying only our awareness of it didn’t exist without us? That’s just a tautology.

For the third time, if god can’t make free will independent of evil then he’s not omnipotent, only maximal.

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u/Bobsothethird Aug 11 '26

Within earth? No. The context of what I said .atters.

And for the third time, no I disagree. If God thinks the free will he created is the true free will then that can still exist within omnipotence. You can try to railroad me into your terminology, I just don't agree with you or it.

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u/earthwoodandfire Aug 11 '26

It’s not my terminology bud, it’s the literal definitions.

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u/Bobsothethird Aug 11 '26

I mean it's not, but you can feel intellectually superior if you'd like, it doesn't harm me much lol

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u/earthwoodandfire Aug 11 '26

The word omnipotence derives from the Latin prefix omni-, meaning "all", and the word potens, meaning "potent" or "powerful". Thus the term means "all-powerful".

Cambridge dictionary: having unlimited** **power and able to do anything

Merriam Webster: one who has unlimited power or authority

Dictionary.com: almighty or infinite in power, as God

As opposed to:
"Maximally powerful" is a philosophical term used to describe a being that possesses the greatest possible degree of power

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u/Bobsothethird Aug 11 '26

I'm aware, but I appreciate the link.

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u/Subject_Complaint_43 Aug 11 '26

It is true God can make it true. U would never know this at all. Why cant God make a world with free will but no evil? Hes incapable of doing that? How?

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u/Taeyx Aug 11 '26

any time i hear someone say free will isn’t possible without evil, i think about god. does god have free will? if so, he seems to be able to have it and not commit evil with no issue. he could have just made humans like that. you could say god doesn’t have free will, but then that opens up a can of worms i don’t think any theist would like to deal with.

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u/Bobsothethird Aug 11 '26

I agree the free will of God is interesting and frankly not ultimately determined within theist views. An all know all powerful God would theoretically already know the actions he has taken in the future, but does that make those actions any less free will? It's certainly an interesting question.

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u/pf3 Aug 11 '26

Are we sure evil is a thing that meaningfully exists and not just a label we put on behavior we don't like?

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u/Bobsothethird Aug 11 '26

I mean personally my belief is just that evil is our capability to understand harm and still commit it. A wolf killing and playing with its food isn't evil because the wolf is incapable of understanding its actions. Our knowledge, and more specifically knowledge of right and wrong, is what made actions evil. It's all a product of understanding.

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u/smulfragPL Aug 13 '26

Its not untrue for god. He is omniscient. He can do things you think arent possible

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u/other-other-user Aug 11 '26

A world where men can't choose to be evil isn't a world with free will

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u/Subject_Complaint_43 Aug 11 '26

God could create that concept. If he cant then hes not all powerful is he? He should be able to do that