--| God is Great and God is Good |-----

God is said to be Omnipotent and Good.
But how can this be? For if we posit Epicures' logic:

  Either God wants to abolish evil and cannot,
  Or he can but does not want to;
  Or he cannot and does not want to,
  Or lastly, he can and wants to.

  If he wants to remove evil, and cannot,
  he is not omnipotent.
  If he can but does not want to,
  he is not benevolent.
  If he neither can nor wants to,
  he is neither omnipotent nor benevolent.
  But if God can abolish evil and wants to,
  how does evil exist?

(From Aphorisms of Epicures, 300 BC).

Hence, we quickly devolve into the nature of what
it means to be individual BEINGS in this universe,
and the gift which allows evil to exist: FREEDOM
OF WILL -- i.e. INDIVIDUAL CHOICE. for good is only
good, if it can stay good even after being Tempted
by the seduction of Evil.

-- 

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this page last updated: march 1, 2000