Answering Jason Thibodeau /s Theodesy

I

 

Jason Thibodeau, of Secular Outpost, goes over to Randal Rouser's blog of the same name [1] And makes his theodicy argument there/ He may consider it a from of the evidential argument. The issues is what they call skeptical theism, that is the answer :I don't know: to aim and suffering has retain consequences that can't be tolerated.  he introduces exampels and says:

 Given that such events occur, we also know that God does nothing to prevent them. The problem of evil is the problem of accounting for why God refrains from preventing such horrible events. Person P is in a position to help prevent some event, E, just in case (a) P is aware that E is occurring or will occur, (b) P has at least those capacities the exercise of which stands a reasonable chance of being sufficient to stop E’s occurring, and (c) there is no action or course of action A such that, (i) P should do A; (ii) by doing A, P will be unable to stop E from occurring; and (iii) P’s failure to do A either is or will result in something equally bad or worse than E.

I will say that a person who satisfies at least (a) and (b) is situated so as to prevent E.

When we think about the obligations we have to help prevent horrible events, we should assert

(M) If a person, P, is in a position to prevent some bad event E and P does nothing to prevent E, then P has acted wrongly.

and

(L) If a person P is situated so as to prevent some bad event E, then the only morally sufficient reason for P to fail to prevent E is that, for P, there is some act that satisfies (i), (ii), and (iii).

If we cannot think of good reasons for why God would be justified in allowing such horrors to occur, we might be inclined to say something like the following:

Skeptical Theism: Given our inferior epistemic abilities as compared to an omniscient being such as God, it would not be surprising if there are reasons of which we are unaware that would provide God with morally sufficient grounds for permitting such horrors, perhaps even reasons that we are incapable of being aware of. For all we know there are goods that are beyond our ken the promotion or preservation of which justify God’s failing to intervene to prevent horrible events.

I think that we should be very skeptical of the possibility that such morally sufficient reasons exist. As I have argued elsewhere, given the myriad opportunities that an omnipotent being has for realizing goods, it is highly implausible to believe that there are any goods that an omnipotent being cannot realize without necessitating the occurrence of horrendous suffering (such as the suffering and death of small children accidentally left in hot cars). However, in this essay I do not want to explore how likely it is that there exist some good(s) that God cannot realize while simultaneously causing a car window to break. Instead, I want to draw our attention to some significant skeptical conclusions that we will commit ourselves to if we believe that God has morally sufficient reasons to fail to prevent the kinds of horrors I have discussed.

This argument is dependent upon  pulling your four points, I can beat your four points. I destroyed those points ,they are lies, they are  wrong.

(1) It is possible that there are morally sufficient reasons that justify God’s wanting some human being to kill several other human beings in the most agonizing way possible.

distinction between wanting their deaths and having to allow it,that distinction is the difference in god being a jerk and being wise,

(2) It is possible that there are morally sufficient reasons that justify God’s inspiring human beings to write a book that is full of falsehoods about human salvation, but which will be widely accepted as divinely inspired.

That of course depends upon your view of the Bible being true, I'm pretty sure i could defend against it,

(3) It is possible that there are morally sufficient reasons that justify God’s causing (or permitting some other being(s) to cause) many humans to falsely believe that Jesus of Nazareth died on the cross for the forgiveness of sins.

you are placing that in an active from that it does not require,,my answers were better before you took them away, your protestations against Trump are hypocritical because you do not accept free speech you are not to face real argument,

(4) It is possible that there are morally sufficient reasons that justify God’s being completely unresponsive to our physical, emotional, and spiritual needs, including our need to achieve salvation or any other soteriological end.

God is not completely unresponsive that's a lie, you are using the fact of pain to assert at each juncture you build into your argument a sense of wrong in terms of God;s desires and factoids that need not be there, That is not honest.

The real problem with trying to argue from pain and evil in the world to conclusions about
god for an atheists that you dot' know God. Without that first hand experience it's hard to see why one would grant God any slack But take an analogy, Suppose your father was accused of being a Nazi war criminal,(bracket the age problem). Would you really ignore the issue of your personal knowledge of your father just because you could not find compelling empirical evidence to prove who he was? Perhaps we cant blame the Nazi hunters for not accepting your words, but if they knew you would you not expect them to accept your word ore readily? This is the posiiton in which the believer finds himself..herself.

But then we can produce reasons as to why God must allow,k not want not force but allow evil, while at the same time empowering us to  fight it. That lends credence to the personal testimony as to god's motives,that can be seen in my argument about soteriological Drama (SDA).


My view is called "Soteriologiocal Drama," please read the link to the whole idea.[6] It begins with observations:

(1) The assumption that God wants a "moral universe" and that this value outweighs all others.

The idea that God wants a moral universe I take from my basic view of God and morality. Following in the footsteps of Joseph Fletcher (Situation Ethics) I assume that love is the background of the moral universe (this is also an Augustinian view). I also assume that there is a deeply ontological connection between love and Being. Axiomatically, in my view point, love is the basic impitus of Being itself. Thus, it seems reasonable to me that, if morality is an upshot of love, or if love motivates moral behavior, then the creation of a moral universe is essential. 

(2) that internal "seeking" leads to greater internalization of values than forced compliance or complaisance that would be the result of intimidation. 
That's a pretty fair assumption. We all know that people will a lot more to achieve a goal they truly beileve in than one they merely feel forced or obligated to follow but couldn't care less about. 
(3)the the drama or the big mystery is the only way to accomplish that end. 
The pursuit of the value system becomes a search of the heart for ultimate meaning,that ensures that people continue to seek it until it has been fully internalized. 

I don't think those are unreasonable assumptions, They are pretty standard.

The argument itself.

(1)God's purpose in creation: to create a Moral Universe, that is one in which free moral agents willingly choose the Good. 
(2) Moral choice requires absolutely that choice be free (thus free will is necessitated). 

(3) Allowance of free choices requires the risk that the chooser will make evil choices 

(4)The possibility of evil choices is a risk God must run, thus the value of free outweighs all other considerations, since without there would be no moral universe and the purpose of creation would be thwarted. 

This leaves the atheist in the position of demanding to know why God doesn't just tell everyone that he's there, and that he requires moral behavior, and what that entails. Thus there would be no mystery and people would be much less inclined to sin. 
This is the point where Soteriological Drama figures into it. Argument on Soteriological Drama: 

(5) Life is a "Drama" not for the sake of entertainment, but in the sense that a dramatic tension exists between our ordinary observations of life on a daily basis, and the ultiamte goals, ends and purposes for which we are on this earth. 
(6) Clearly God wants us to seek on a level other than the obvious, daily, demonstrative level or he would have made the situation more plain to us 
(7) We can assume that the reason for the "big mystery" is the internalization of choices. If God appeared to the world in open objective fashion and laid down the rules, we would probably all try to follow them, but we would not want to follow them. Thus our obedience would be lip service and not from the heart. 
(8) therefore, God wants a heart felt response which is internationalized value system that comes through the search for existential answers; that search is phenomenological; introspective, internal, not amenable to ordinary demonstrative evidence. 

In other words, we are part of a great drama and our actions and our dilemmas and our choices are all part of the way we respond to the situation as characters in a drama. 
This theory also explains why God doesn't often regenerate limbs in healing the sick. That would be a dead giveaway. God creates criteria under which healing takes place, that criteria can't negate the overall plan of a search. 

One might object that this couldn't outweigh babies dying or the horrors of war or the all the countless injustices and outrages that must be allowed and that permeate human history. It may seem at first glance that free will is petty compared to human suffering. But I am advocating free will for the sake any sort of pleasure or imagined moral victory that accrues from having free will, it's a totally pragmatic issue; that internalizing the value of the good requires that one choose to do so, and free will is essential if choice is required. Thus it is not a capricious or selfish defense of free will, not a matter of choosing our advantage or our pleasure over that of dying babies, but of choosing the key to saving the babies in the long run,and to understanding why we want to save them, and to care about saving them, and to actually choosing their saving over our own good. 

If I understand him correctly I think he's saying we know that biological organisms avoid pain and seek pleasure but we have no proof of any kind that there are moral reasons that excuse allowing pain,[7] Moreover, given the nature of biology it makes more sense to to think any kind of SN being that may have created the universe is indifferent to pain merely cause there is so much pain,

Mystical Experiece Provides both unshakable empirical evidence for the reality of God and for the love (compassion and concern) of God. This is backed by certain empirically based arguments taht I develop in my book The Trace of God.[8] This is more empirically based than  anything Draper offers. It may well constitute the evidentail aspect they seek.

From this background ai derive my founding observation:

(1) The assumption that God wants a "moral universe" and that this value outweighs all others.

The direct implication both of the transformative experience behind the observation establishes the goodness of Gd and the loving nature of God. Since that gives us a reason to believe in God we can trust that reason despite the seeming evidence to the contrary in Pain and suffering, That is a dimension with which Draper does not deal, we can know God is worthy of trust. Thus being worthy of trust we need not be necessarily certain of God';specific reasons,

Nevvertheless we can go further because we have a valid theoretical rationale,to explain God's preseasons in terms of the soteriological drama. That term means the dramna of salvation is based upon the need to seek for truth in order to internalize the values of the good. That means the search must be inviolable. So God can't clear the world of pain and suffering,If God did that there woudl be no search, None of the three counter thedocieies taht Draper answers include this facet.


this should count as PF evidence because it givs a logical rationale for god's allowance for pain while fitting into the larger framework that shows us god cares. However deep the depths of pain and evil in this would it is not gratuitous and does not outweigh my reasons for belief.,Whatever abstract logical victories Draper wins he does not ofer a final reason for abandoning belief that outweighs my PF reasons for beloief.

God is the source of our moral motions. That doesn't mean we can bring God before the bar. We have the duty to accept that God is the ultimate judge and has knowledge we don't have, it's not as thought the evil o this world is being put up a moral exemplar that we should follow.

If we have moral motions against certain actions and competitions then 
god has those same moral motions even he understands the reasons better. If we can concoct free will defenses then God can have real reasons.

Sources


[1]Jason Thibodeau, "If it’s okay for God to allow horrors, then we don’t know much about God (Part 1)," Randal Rouser (January 22, 2017) blog URL:

http://randalrauser.com/2017/01/okay-god-allow-horrors-dont-know-much-god-part-1/

The actual person Rouser is an atheist who teaches teaches theology in Canada.


[2] Joseph Hinman (MTS) "why does God allow suffering part 1" Metacrock's Blog
http://metacrock.blogspot.com/2017/01/why-god-allows-pain-my-answer-to-draper.html