I'm Not Your Evil Momma Bird

 ... to mash two ideas together into a rather ungainly title.

On Twitter, someone posed Epicurus' God Conundrum to me. It goes something like this.

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?” – Epicurus

My reply was to ask my interlocutor if anyone had responded to Epicurus and what did they say? They became indignant and demanded I respond myself.

Get lost. I'm not your momma bird. Do you think I'm going to scour Augustine, Aquinas, Chesterton and Lewis for their responses, digest them and then regurgitate them back in a tweet for you to consume? I don't think so.

For one thing, the problem of evil has never seemed like a problem for me. I've seen and experienced a bit of it and it's never led me to question the existence of God. I don't understand the connection. Is life supposed to be made up of us sitting on the couch, eating cotton candy and watching TV, but never getting diabetes? That sounds horrible.

Our sons have friends who live a version of that life, playing video games, smoking weed and downloading porn while working as little as possible. I don't envy them, not even when I'm giving a presentation to a bunch of cranky, middle-aged, blue-collar men who feel the need to outdo each other in attacking me. I kind of enjoy those sessions because it makes me grow by bringing my failings into clear relief.

If that Epicurus dude caused you to lose your faith, then you need to be double-checking your work by reading the big boys who disagreed with them. Demanding that some Internet rando who hides behind a cat avatar to solve that riddle in 280 characters or less is ridiculous.

It ain't me, babe.
No, no, no, it ain't me, babe.
It ain't me you're lookin' for, babe.