The traditional Christian/Muslim/Jewish view of God is inconsistent.

First and foremost, the intent of this debate is not to offend anyone, but more for personal clarification regarding the traditional Christian/Muslim/Jewish view of God. As an agnostic theist, it seems to me that these traditional views are largely inconsistent for the following reason.

As I understand it, the traditional view of God by Christians, Muslims, and Jews is that God is A)omni benevolent (infinitely/perfectly good), B) omnipotent (all powerful), and C) capable of seeing all of time from beginning to end in a single glance. Also, I understand the traditional view of Satan as being omni malevolent (all evil/bad).

If God is omni benevolent, omnipotent, can see all of time in a single glance, and God created Satan/evil, then evil exists because of God. Therefore, evil would not exist without God, thus God cannot be ALL good.

How does it make sense to believe that God is perfectly good/righteous/pious if you believe that God created Satan/Evil and was capable of seeing the consequences of doing so before hand? I maintain that God cannot be omni benevolent if God created evil in the first place, and therefore that the traditional Christian/Muslim/Jewish view of God is inconsistent.

My only prerequisites for the challenger are that they have an extensive understanding of biblical scripture so that citing the Bible won't be an issue, and that they argue from the the aforementioned premise that the traditional Christian/Muslim/Jewish view of God is that God is omni benevolent, omnipotent, and capable of seeing all of time from beginning to end in a single glance.

I would like to thank my opponent in being clear about which religions, he is referring to.
I hope I am able to help at least a little.

I would like to say in my first round that, if no evil existed, could good exist?
Yin and yang, you loose one you loose both.
So if God hadn't made Satan, in the beginning, would he being all good, mean anything at all?

Most of what we consider evil is free will.

Consistently in all three religions, there is mention of another earlier being, in about the same time, as God.

When God made people, my Bible says
". . . Then God said "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth and over all the creatures that move along the ground . . ."

Notice how he says WE and OUR, meaning there is more than just him creating people.

Here is a link to the Qur'an In the Muslim Qur'an (in English Koran):

http://quod.lib.umich.edu...

First off, thanks to my opponent for accepting this debate. If my opponent is unable to post any further arguments due to unforeseeable circumstances, I am willing to treat this as a one round debate for voting purposes, thereby eliminating my second round argument. I will however post a second round argument in the event my opponent can continue.

I don't believe that my opponent has refuted my stance in the first round. She addresses the nature of evil and other creations of God per the Bible / Qur'an, not that the traditional Christian/Muslim/Jewish view of God is consistent.

The only possible refutation I can derive from her post would be that God did not create Satan. If this is the case, it would be inconsistent with the Bible / Qur'an because it is said that God created man in his image, meaning that man was given a soul. Satan was jealous of this because he felt it meant that God loved men more than the angels, and was eventually cast down from heaven as an eventual result.

God did not create evil. He created the ability to choose. When he made a rule he made the ability to break the rule. When the rule was broken, evil was created.

Man created evil. God did not create evil.

Perhaps my opponent misread my opening statement. I'll reiterate.

If God is omni benevolent, omnipotent, can see all of time in a single glance, and God created Satan/evil, then evil exists because of God. Therefore, evil would not exist without God, thus God cannot be ALL good.

How does it make sense to believe that God is perfectly good/righteous/pious if you believe that God created Satan/Evil and was capable of seeing the consequences of doing so before hand? I maintain that God cannot be omni benevolent if God created evil in the first place, and therefore that the traditional Christian/Muslim/Jewish view of God is inconsistent.

I maintain that God cannot be omni benevolent if God created evil in the first place, and therefore that the traditional Christian/Muslim/Jewish view of God is inconsistent.

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I know you were annoyed by my mentioning the nature of evil before so I am sorry now, but you claim that God can't be all good if he created evil in the first place. This is not true. That is like saying there would be no criminals if there were no laws. On the surface it is true, but in fact there would still be rapists and murders, they just woulnd't be criminals. There would be no evil without God because He is the Good that is missing in the presence of Evil.

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Let me explain. Evil is the absence of God's will. God gave us free will and the ability to determine what we do with it. I have only ever gone to 9 Christian Churches and am not familiar with the predominate teaching of the Mosques or the Synagogues, but there are enough similarities I'm thinking they will be close to the same.

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As free will was created, God's vision stopped being absolute. We had choices and we were free to make any and all choices. Nothing was predetermined anymore. God gave us the choice when he said, "do not eat of this tree" that command was free will . It was up to humans to choose to follow or not. All the teachings I have heard follow this. God did not know what we would do with that choice. Satan coming to tempt Eve he knew, but unless he specifically told Satan not to do so, evil did not yet exist anywhere. Eve created sin when she ate the fruit (if you completely believe the creation story as it is told in the Bible, which is another debate for another day)

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I propose that God created the law that made evil possible, but the creation of evil was done by Eve and then Adam. At that moment, the moment Eve took the fruit, evil was born. There is nothing in the teachings I have learned that says that God can foresee man's choices.

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I know you will say, "But what about all the times where the Bible makes predictions that later it seems to say did come true? How is this possible if God doesn't know what we will do."

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God takes free will away sometimes. Or rather as we can see from the Story of Jonah and the story of Moses and the story of Nebakanezer, God makes the alternative to doing what He wants so unpleasant that He gets His way. Kind of like when Mom lets me choose if I want to do the dishes or mow the lawn. Now I don't like to wash dishes, but Oklahoma in July is unpleasant for lawn mowing, so of course I would rather wash the dishes. She gets her way, but I still ‘get' to choose.