Pain is a positive existence and creation, not a deprivation of anything

[Kreuzritter]

I am reminding why I never post in the non catholic section.  Tunnel vision only serves those who view from a distance.

Tunnel vision? Like Pon I've conceded to the possible secular and spiritual utility of pain from the start. You are the one with tunnel vision who avoids addressing the core of the issue.

Please explain what you mean by secular and spiritual utility.

As in the natural function of pain, on the one had, although the form is not necessary for the function. On the other, ascesis, penance or growth through suffering, and so forth, though there are again limits of intensity at which a thing simply breaks and the utility is lost,  and the form is also not strictly necessary for the function.

[Daniel]

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[Philip G.]

Pain is always a symptom of a cause.  As a result, it is useful for those who address causes, because it can help point to what the cause is.  That is how it is a mercy. 

Only for the damned is pain a cause, with some other end or symptom in mind.  This is subjective however.  Because, the cause of their delusion is the devil, who is the cause.  Which, doesn't change the fact that pain is always a symptom. 

When I contrast this with your thread's title, I perceive that you may think otherwise.  If pain is a positive existence/creature, it sounds as though that would make it a cause.  The devil, however, being this discussion's quasi cause, is still none the less a deprivation of God, which is not a cause per say. 

[Vetus Ordo]

I don't need logic to establish it's deranged, which it is, and yes, under all circumstances and regardless of telos, a being having created the pain we're talking about here is absolutely irreconcilable with him being love if that word has any sense like it has when used of mother to child, husband to wife, etc.; and if one retorts that God's love is different and incomprehensible to us, then the word used of God is meaningless, a semantic charade that lets "God" do anything, because he always has a "higher reason", and because that higher reason is an expression of his"love", it can never contradict that love. Do you think I'm ten years old that I'd fall for such sophistic language games?

I don't think you're ten years old, Kreuz, but it's clear you're caught up in some sort of emotional struggle.

I have stated that you are in no capacity to establish that pain cannot have an ultimate telos that is perfectly reconcilable with the omnibenevolent nature of God. The burden of proof is too heavy. You're simply not equipped to do it. No-one is.

There are no "emotional struggles" here. The case is crystal clear, and the decision has nothing to do with emotion.

Of course it does.

I think you've ripped that out of context.

Eppur Lui crea.

Vetus, I don't care about "moral sufficient reasons". There are no such things in my view, and at no point in this thread  have I made this a moral issue or drawn an argument from the farce of "morality" as conceived by ethics. And we're not talking about "allowing" evil; we're talking about the fact that pain is not a "deprivation" and, given the theistic cosmogony, had to have been created. This is not a "moral" problem to be addressed by some is-ought nonsense. It's simply an observation of the nature of these things and the nature of the being who could have willed to create them. What serious atheists think or use is of no import to me.

The moral dimension seems to be at the root of your concerns. Pain is morally repugnant to you because it seems gratuitous and incompatible with God's character. Am I understanding you incorrectly? Pon expressed a similar concern. But it is precisely because we cannot establish with any confidence that God could not have a morally sufficient reason to ordain evil into existence - I'll use this formulation if you prefer - that the concern (or the objection) is baseless on logical grounds. That's why I mentioned that even serious atheists have dropped the classical Epicurean argument. Emotionally, though, it remains relevant and that's why many forms of this problem keep resurfacing every now and then.

The bottom line is that pain and suffering are very real and often gruesome. Evil is present everywhere, amidst a few good. The whole creation is groaning, as Scripture aptly puts it. And God willed it to be so. He has a morally sufficient reason to have willed His creation to be flawed and fraught with these dramatic and often inexplicable events. If He did not have a morally sufficient reason to have ordained things thus, He would have a defect in nature and wouldn't be God to begin with. And without God, the problem of evil, suffering and pain is meaningless.