Episode #015 ... A Period of Transition - Plotinus

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  Thanks to everyone out there that supports the show on Patreon, patreon.com, slash, philosophize this.

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  Thanks to the people that contribute what they want for the back catalog of the show on PayPal.

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  And thanks to everyone out there who's leaving a comment,

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  leaving a review, helping to keep philosophical conversations like this going between people.

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  Could never do this without you.

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  Remembering the important elements of Plotinus' philosophy and Neoplatonism as a whole is easy to remember when thinking about it and remembering it in relation to one common question about God.

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  It's a question that people understandably ask whenever there's any sort of major tragedy in the news or around the world.

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  And really, of all the arguments people make against the existence of a God,

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  it's one of the most common and I think one of the weakest arguments around.

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  It goes like this.

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  How can an all-powerful, loving God exist and still allow evil to exist in the world?

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  You could think of that question differently with a less narrow conception of what God is and you could ask,

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  how can evil or bad things arise from a force that's entirely good, one that possesses no evil to begin with?

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  You know, if we live in an ordered and harmonious cosmos as the Greeks mostly thought,

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  and goodness is something that seems consistent and important to whatever maintains this order and harmony,

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  then why does evil exist at all?

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  Well, Plotinus had a really good answer to this.

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  And unfortunately,

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  just explaining how Plotinus would have responded to the question when it was asked to him is not enough.

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  And look, it's not like his entire philosophy centers around this question anyway,

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