Thursday, January 04, 2007

The Epicurean Paradox


"God either wants to eliminate bad things and cannot, or can but does not want to, or neither wishes to nor can, or both wants to and can. If he wants to and cannot, he is weak -- and this does not apply to god. If he can but does not want to, then he is spiteful -- which is equally foreign to god's nature. If he neither wants to nor can, he is both weak and spiteful and so not a god. If he wants to and can, which is the only thing fitting for a god, where then do bad things come from? Or why does he not eliminate them?"

--Epicurus, 341-270 BCE, Greek, in The Epicurus Reader, translated and edited by Brad Inwood and Lloyd P. Gerson

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