There may be an infinity of answers, but
some answers are better than others.
Actually, languae and logic limit the
number of remotely plausible answers,
though you can cook up an infinity of
obviously false or silly answers like "42"
"God is punishing us because of the
French."

I have mentioned the three main
theodicies. A FOURTH is a dualist
approach to suggest that good and evil,
pain and pleasure, misery and
happiness are diametrical opposites and
that one cannot exist without the other.
Someone mentioned this argument in a
post not too long ago.

My response to this is God could have
created a world with gradations of good.
Pleasure would still stand out in contrast
with regard to different pleasures and
more intense pleasures, longer lasting
pleasures, intelltectual vs bodily
pleasures and so on. Do I have to have to
eat rotting, putrified maggot-infested flesh
in order to appreciate the taste of pizza or
chinese take-out? If I had never suffered
from food poisoning, would I get less
(no?) pleaure from eating? Would life be
"too boring" if I could eat as much as I
wanted and not get fat? Or the things I
liked to eat were always good for me?

If I was God, I'd make every day like
Christmas. Many hildren who have not
had the wonderful opportunity to sample
the great variety of suffering to be had in
the the world seem to enjoy Christmas
just fine. In other words, God wouldn't
have to take ALL the suffering out of the
world, just the more gratuitious
examples.

Prof. Borrowdale
borrowdalej@lanecc.edu