The defeat of evil

Submitted by jhwierenga on Mon, 07/30/2018 - 09:10

The defeat of evil

Christianity maintains that a day will come in which evil will be a thing of the past, it will be completely defeated and there will be nothing but goodness left, excepting perhaps in the outer darkness. There will be nothing but good in those who are with God, and their will be nothing but good in the universe. The apostle Paul argues in Romans chapter 8 that these two things are intimately related, in the sense that the liberation of men from evil is the basis of the liberation of the universe from evil. But the mechanism by means of which this liberation will be effected is a subject of intense discussion.

Atonement

Mainstream Christianity maintains that the sacrificial death of Christ on the cross meant that the penalty for our sin was paid, freeing God from the necessity of treating us as rebels deserving eternal suffering, and enabling God to accept us as His children. This explanation raises more questions than it answers. If God is love, how can He at the same time be an outrageous judge, punishing an intellectual mistake with eternal suffering? That is a compound paradox, with an Occam score of 2000, relative to QO. If God doesn't set the penalty, but is obliged by factors outside of Himself to impose eternal suffering despite this being wrong, how does that square with His omnipotence? This, too, is at best a compound paradox.

Christ as an example

In order to escape these conundrums, Christians have  downplayed the punishment theme, and instead maintained that liberation from evil is effected by virtue of Christ being an example to all of us. By demonstrating that liberation from evil is possible, He made liberation from evil possible for us too. And our liberation from evil is the means by which the universe in turn can be progressively liberated from evil.

This explanation has problems with demonstrating the effectiveness of the solution. At best, it involves a chaotic gap, namely the notion that the solution will somehow sometime turn out to be effective, giving it an Occam score of 0400, relative to QO.

The crucifixion as means to a fix on evil

QO has a concept of evil which enables the crucifixion to be understood as the One getting a fix on evil in such a manner that the One is thereafter capable of dealing with it. This line of explanation is explored in the lemma "How to heal a universe". It has a Occam score of 0000, relative to QO.