On his blog The Secular Outpost Jeff Lowder writes "a Problem for the Problem of Evil."[1] The "problem of evil" (POE) is how philosophers refer to the atheist argument that says theists usually construe God is all good and all powerful, yet if such a God existed he would not allow evil to exist. Evil exists, therefore, either God does not exist or "he" is not all good or all powerful. Here Lowder is concerned with a very specific aspect of the argument. Some theists try to flip the argument over into an argument for God on the basis that there is no metaphysical ground for evil without appeal to God's existence.
But, for now, I want to focus on just one of the top ten objections, the idea that the argument from evil (for atheism) can be flipped on its head into an argument from evil (for theism). I’ve refuted this objection over and over again, which might lead some regular readers of this blog to complain that I am beating a dead horse. But, since this is a meme which won’t die, I think a better analogy than dead horses is the game of “whack-a-mole.”[2]
He takes a writer named Doug Wilson to task for his simplistic take on the argument. Wilson grounds his approach in the Greek Epicurus and ignores recent developments over the last 30 years where a host of atheist super stars of philosophy, including Paul Draper, and others, [3] have hatched much more complex and sophisticated versions, (see last Monday where I attack Draper's sophisticated version). I am not concerned with Wilson or with this history of the argument, not right now). I am concerned with one particular aspect of this argument, involving possible worlds. In general my answer to the POE I call "soteriologocal drama" it can be found on my site The Religious a priori [4] Specifically, in terms of this argument, the problem for the problem is that there is no possible world in which evil can exist without God unless we dis-value the term "evil" and reduce it to the level of disapprobation rather than metaphysical moral motions.
The one point he uses Wilson to introduce is the flip over, the idea that without belief in God there is no basis for the idea of evil. Here we need to mention the idea that POE is often called "the evidential argumemt from evil," (EAE). Lowder says:
This [Wilson] is not a serious response to arguments from evil. First, even if it were the case that “there is no such thing as evil” if there is no God, that doesn’t refute evidential arguments from evil, which say that, other evidence held equal, known facts about ‘evil’ (such as I listed above) are much more probable on naturalism than on theism, and hence strong evidence against theism.[5]
I assume he refers to a list he makes of issues that are part of the new sophisticated version of the argument mentioned above, the superstar list: "pain and pleasure (which includes the problem of animal suffering), virtue and vice, flourishing and languishing, triumph and tragedy, autonomy and heteronomy,[6] empathy and apathy, and the like." The criticism I would level against Jeff at this point is just referring to the list does not establish a basis for the concept of "evil.." That does not answer the argument that without God there is no basis for evil,. All of those aspects of the problem assume there is a concept of evil they don't predicate it, They don't establish a basis for the concept apart from God. With no basis for evil that list becomes meaningless. Maybe the work of those philosophers does establish that, but the list doesn't. In fact I might agree that there is a basis for the notion of evil even for an atheist but that would have to be discussed. Jeff does not go into that here.I am sure he has elsewhere.
Here he makes a second argument, that theists don't apply the same level of skepticism to their attempts to link POE to the moral argument ( turn POE into argument for God) that they do in disputation the Original POE. They don't think skeptically about their own proofs. In other words, we accuse atheists of being unable to ground a POE in any metaphysical basis for evil, but we don;t demand enough of our pro God arguments to fill the gaps where atheists find doubt.
...logical arguments from morality, which claim that God’s nonexistence is logically incompatible with the existence of evil. Critics of logical arguments from morality can point out that they fail for a parallel reason: there are possible worlds in which God doesn’t exist and evil exists. Of course, theists could deny that a world without God is a possible world. Apart from massively begging the question against atheists, this response carries with it an enormous burden of proof. It is one thing to claim that a world without God is not a possible world; it is another thing to prove that. Given the failure of the notorious ontological argument for God’s existence, I’d say the prospects for that line of defense are dim.[7]
So the upshot here is that some would make an argument such that we know there is evil we can't deny that but we have no metaphysical basis for evil without appealing to God as the moral standard that makes evil meaningful as the opposition to good, therefore, there must be a God to explain the evil, Those who make this argument need to be more skeptical of their own assertions because there is no way to demonstrate that God's existence is necessary in a possible world where evil exists.
It is not begging the question as Lowder asserts. He wants to tie it to proof of God's existence and without such proof he thinks it's begging the question, He means something by "evil;" but it wont have the same impact, the same dynamic that it has if based upon the morality of a God bearing universe, We don't need to prove that God exists to know that much all we need is to understand the meaning of the term "evil" and it's distinction from the same term when used of a naturalistic universe. We don't have to know God is real to say--If God is real evil has this impact and it differs from that of a universe not created by God.
In what way does it differ? A God ordained universe revolves around a moral center which is God's love. This gives evil a metaphysical moral gravity as the absence of good. "Evil" in secular terms means dis-approbation, We dis-value x therefore to do x is evil, In that sense evil is the violation of social agreement or the offense of bad taste. In God ordained universe evil is the antithesis of God's purpose, God's love.
Does that mean that that we can flip the POE into a argument from evil, a pro God argument? It might work as the classic moral argument, but it can't be flipped into a reverse POE. The two seem like two sides to the same coin but the same connection to the dynamic we get from the metaphysical connection to evil as the opponent of God is lost when flipped because it becomes a different universe when God doesn't create it; evil takes on a different connotation, That also means that we might recognize an intuitive warning in the nature of evil but that's not a logical proof,
In what way does it differ? A God ordained universe revolves around a moral center which is God's love. This gives evil a metaphysical moral gravity as the absence of good. "Evil" in secular terms means dis-approbation, We dis-value x therefore to do x is evil, In that sense evil is the violation of social agreement or the offense of bad taste. In God ordained universe evil is the antithesis of God's purpose, God's love.
Does that mean that that we can flip the POE into a argument from evil, a pro God argument? It might work as the classic moral argument, but it can't be flipped into a reverse POE. The two seem like two sides to the same coin but the same connection to the dynamic we get from the metaphysical connection to evil as the opponent of God is lost when flipped because it becomes a different universe when God doesn't create it; evil takes on a different connotation, That also means that we might recognize an intuitive warning in the nature of evil but that's not a logical proof,
The real lesson to be learned here is that belief in God is not just adding another thing to the universe. God is not just another fact in the universe but is the transcendental signified, the basis upon which the universe is predicated. A universe not created by God is a universe not ordained by God,it is a totally different universe than one that is God-ordained. One of those basic differences is in the meaning of evil in such a world. Another such difference is the nature of being itself. In a world created by God, God is being itself and being has depth. In a naturalistic world being is surface only, meaning limited to the fact of existence.[8] While in the God created world depth of being means nuances such as the metaphorical valuation of evil.
Lowder is wrong, there is no possible world in which there is no God and evil persists, not evil in the sense in which theism uses the term. Nor do we need to prove the existence of God. There are two axiomatic concepts here that are involved in my argument, (1) the nature of evil given a God created universe and how it differs from a naturalistic reading of evil. (2) That God is either necessary or impossible. The first point I've already discussed. If There is God then evil is moral if noGod evil is social/aesthetic, it's either/or, if no god then no evil in that sense,.As for Point (2) this is axiomatic, God cannot be a maybe. If God exists he exists necessarily,(not to say he necessarily exits,) and if he does not exist it is because it is impossible thiat he could exist. That means if God exits he must exist is all possible worlds. ala Planitinga,[9] If God is impossible and thus does not exist then evil does not exist in the moral sense of theism. But Jeff is right about the no-flip. While it may look like two sides to the same coin the distinction in evils has to be made clear and thus the flipped argument disappears, it would be taking evil out of context,
Post Script:
Lowder is wrong, there is no possible world in which there is no God and evil persists, not evil in the sense in which theism uses the term. Nor do we need to prove the existence of God. There are two axiomatic concepts here that are involved in my argument, (1) the nature of evil given a God created universe and how it differs from a naturalistic reading of evil. (2) That God is either necessary or impossible. The first point I've already discussed. If There is God then evil is moral if noGod evil is social/aesthetic, it's either/or, if no god then no evil in that sense,.As for Point (2) this is axiomatic, God cannot be a maybe. If God exists he exists necessarily,(not to say he necessarily exits,) and if he does not exist it is because it is impossible thiat he could exist. That means if God exits he must exist is all possible worlds. ala Planitinga,[9] If God is impossible and thus does not exist then evil does not exist in the moral sense of theism. But Jeff is right about the no-flip. While it may look like two sides to the same coin the distinction in evils has to be made clear and thus the flipped argument disappears, it would be taking evil out of context,
Post Script:
The OA has not failed, Jeff needs to read Hatshorne, I challenge Jeff or any poster of the SOP to debate me on the OA anytime,
Sources
[1] Jeff Lowder, "A Problem for the Problem of Evil," Secular Outpost, (Aug 30, 2017) blog URL
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularoutpost/2017/08/31/problem-problem-evil-2/
[2] Ibid
[3] Jefff points to William Rowe, Paul Draper, Quentin Smith, Richard Gale, John Schellenberg, Bruce Russell,
[4] Joseph Hinman, "Soteriological Drama,". The Religious a priori, website. apologetics
http://religiousapriori.blogspot.com/2011/04/answer-to-theodicy-soteriological-drama.html
[5] Lowder, op cit
[6] Heteronomy is a very important term im theology ised by Tillich a lot.the term heteronomous adjective
- subject to a law or standard external to itself.
- (in Kantian moral philosophy) acting in accordance with one's desires rather than reason or moral duty.
- subject to different laws.
Google search
https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+the+meaning+of+the++term+%22heteronomy%3F%22&oq=what+is+the+meaning+of+the++term+%22heteronomy%3F%22&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0i22i30k1.6203.21534.0.22144.36.26.5.0.0.0.371.4038.0j14j5j2.21.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..14.1.222....0.4mNHkEV9JuY
[7] Lowder op cit
There is a typo in the original text which I removed. The text above with blue box and blue word: "is" is my edit. Below is the original which Jeff agrees is a typo. the"no" does not belong there, No reflection on Jeff. Hey I've made more than my share of typos!
there are possible worlds in which God doesn’t exist and evil exists. Of course, theists could deny that a world without God is not a possible world. Apart from massively begging the question against atheists, this response carries with it an enormous burden of proof. It is one thing to claim that a world without God is not a possible world; it is another thing to prove that. Given the failure of the notorious ontological argument for God’s existence, I’d say the prospects for that line of defense are dim.[8] Paul Tillich, the Shaking of the Foundations,New York: Scribner and Sons, 1948,52
or my own idiomatically this point see my article, "another take on being itself,"
http://metacrock.blogspot.com/2017/01/another-take-on-being-itself-this-time.html
Depth of Being and Tillich's Ontological Argument
http://metacrock.blogspot.com/2011/02/deapth-of-being-and-tillichs-impies.html
[9] Alfred Plamtimga, The Nature of Necessity, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974
"That does not answer the argument that without God there is no basis for evil"
ReplyDeleteYou aren't understanding what Jeff is responding to. Jeff is responding to an argument like this:
1. If arguments from evil are successful, then evil is logically compatible with atheism.
2. It is not the case that evil is logically compatible with atheism.
3. Therefore, it is not the case that arguments from evil are successful.
Jeff is showing that premise 1 is false. Modern arguments from evil do not presuppose that evil exists. Jeff provides examples with Rowe and Draper to demonstrate that there exists modern arguments from evil in which the existence of evil is not a necessary condition for the success of the arguments.
As for the part of the post that you focused on (Which was a side part of his post), you seem to be trying to speak for all theists when you say evil is logically incompatible with atheism, but I think many theists would disagree. Richard Swinburne for example thinks moral realism is logically compatible with atheism, so presumably he thinks evil is logically compatible with atheism. If you want to be accurate, you should say "Evil on my interpretation of theism and evil is logically incompatible with atheism". Speaking for all theists is silly given that theists as a group do not agree on the definitions of the following: God, omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, goodness. Further, theists as a class do not agree on the following: God being timeless v within time, God being pure act v not, God being logically necessary v not, God being morally perfect v not.
My advice: don't speak for all theists. There are probably many theists with definitions of "evil" that are logically compatible with atheism. Not every theists thinks like you as you are well aware of but apparently not showing in practice.
Suppose that instead of the world we have now, we had a much much much worse one - a "hell world" where every creature that exists suffers excruciating torment for the entirety of its short and miserable life.
ReplyDeleteIf people like Wilson are right, atheism still could gain no rational foothold in such a world on the basis of any argument from evil, since they claim that God is a necessary presupposition for evil. On their view, the amount of evil found in a world is irrelevant to the existence of God, since in order for there to be any amount of evil at all, God first has to exist.
But people like Draper and Rowe have argued that even if this is right, atheological arguments still have a way forward. It certainly seems plausible that atheists in the hell world would have stronger reason for doubting the existence of God than atheists in the actual world do. How to explain this? Well, because on the hypothesis that a good God exists, it seems that the amount of evil in the world should not be more than is necessary to serve morally justifiable ends.
To put it in terms of your own theodicical strategy, let me ask this: Does the concept of soteriological drama have exactly the same force in the hell world as it does in the actual world? That is, are atheists in the hell world no better off in the slightest than atheists in the actual world? Are there any limits at all on how much soteriological drama God would tolerate in a world?
This is not my entire answer to you Eric I will have to deal with it more tonight,
ReplyDeleteEric says:
"But people like Draper and Rowe have argued that even if this is right, atheological arguments still have a way forward. It certainly seems plausible that atheists in the hell world would have stronger reason for doubting the existence of God than atheists in the actual world do. How to explain this? Well, because on the hypothesis that a good God exists, it seems that the amount of evil in the world should not be more than is necessary to serve morally justifiable ends."
But we don't know how much that is it can very,since it's up to us, being about free will and allowing evil choices. Hell worlds are relative, like when I thought Reagan was so extreme then Trump came in.
Does the concept of soteriological drama have exactly the same force in the hell world as it does in the actual world? That is, are atheists in the hell world no better off in the slightest than atheists in the actual world? Are there any limits at all on how much soteriological drama God would tolerate in a world?
ReplyDeletePlatinga says somewhere that if there are an infinite number of possible worlds that God could have created, there is no "best possible" one, so all an omni-God would have to provide is a "good enough" world? What would be "good enough?" Say, a world with enough "potential good" - to be found by sincere, free individuals in the midst of some kind of redemptive struggle or crisis or "drama" - but it needs to be only good enough s.t. PG >P.
Would that do?
"What would be "good enough?" "
ReplyDeleteI don't think the atheologian needs to give a precise answer here, because what is at issue in Draper's paper is merely the comparative probability of HI and T given the suffering in the world.
The following principle seems to me to be compelling: The more suffering found in a world, the less probable it should be to inhabitants of that world that God exists.
So to my mind, people in a worse world that ours (in respect of how much suffering there is) would need more positive evidence that favors theism than would be required in this world to elevate T above HI.
Ryan M said...
ReplyDelete"That does not answer the argument that without God there is no basis for evil"
You aren't understanding what Jeff is responding to. Jeff is responding to an argument like this:
1. If arguments from evil are successful, then evil is logically compatible with atheism.
2. It is not the case that evil is logically compatible with atheism.
3. Therefore, it is not the case that arguments from evil are successful.
Jeff is showing that premise 1 is false. Modern arguments from evil do not presuppose that evil exists. Jeff provides examples with Rowe and Draper to demonstrate that there exists modern arguments from evil in which the existence of evil is not a necessary condition for the success of the arguments.
Ryan that's not what he says he's doing,he says he's taking Wilson to talk over flipping POE into AFE.
My point is that there are no possible worlds without God and that there two different versions of evil depending upon one's world in relation to God, atheists and theists live in very different worlds and have different concepts +of evil,
Well that sounds reasonable in theory, but ... um....do you that's borne out by what really happens in our real world? I mean, personally, I'd bet in reality there are more conversions at, say, 12-step meetings attended by desperate addicts than ever on expensive, hedonistic ocean cruises to Hawaii or the Bahamas as enjoyed by the filthy rich?
ReplyDeleteSo, if the most desperate people are the most likely to track down the most meagre glimpses of goodness, hope, and/or truth than satiated ones, the effect could actually be the reverse of what you conjecture?
Generally, in our world at least, people don't usually say or think, " oh, life is so pleasurable right now that it's self-evident there must be a good God" - or at least ive never heard anyone say that - and that, I think, the human psychology part of it, is basically what Joe is on about with his "the great value of internalizing the good" tact.
Eric Sotnak said...
ReplyDelete"What would be "good enough?" "
I don't think the atheologian needs to give a precise answer here, because what is at issue in Draper's paper is merely the comparative probability of HI and T given the suffering in the world.
The following principle seems to me to be compelling: The more suffering found in a world, the less probable it should be to inhabitants of that world that God exists.
you are asserting God is not real so you are ruing out sense of of then numinous and things like that which are the real meat of religious conversion, Aren't you assuming everyone is an analytical philosopher>
So to my mind, people in a worse world that ours (in respect of how much suffering there is) would need more positive evidence that favors theism than would be required in this world to elevate T above HI.
4:51 PM ===
we don't live in a worse world
"you are asserting God is not real"
ReplyDeleteShow me where I have ever asserted any such thing.
:Well You didn't say it, What i mean is I think that you are only considering the intellectual aspects of argument and not actual experiential evince of God, that is understandable, if you have not had such experiences.
ReplyDeleteYou
"I don't think the atheologian needs to give a precise answer here, because what is at issue in Draper's paper is merely the comparative probability of HI and T given the suffering in the world."
I am saying that can't be measure because the two ae not comparable.
"The following principle seems to me to be compelling: The more suffering found in a world, the less probable it should be to inhabitants of that world that God exists."
I think the truth is counter intuitive the way it seems is not the way it is,
Post Script:
ReplyDeleteThe OA has not failed, Jeff needs to read Hatshorne, I challenge Jeff or any poster of the SOP to debate me on the OA anytime,
But, in a circular way, isn't the PoE exactly an attempt to show "God" - or at least an omni-God conception of God - is not 'necessary' but rather 'impossible?'
"I think the truth is counter intuitive the way it seems is not the way it is,"
ReplyDeleteBut what is at issue is exactly whether there is good objective reason to accept that things are not the way it seems. You have actually set up a version of evidential argument here:
1. It seems that there is unjustifiable suffering in the world.
2. If God exists, then there is no unjustifiable suffering in the world.
3. So, it seems that God does not exist.
You apparently don't reject premise 1. Maybe you also accept 2. So you should also accept 3.
But now you go on to say that things are not what they seem. To make this case, you need to do more than say that things MAY not be as they seem, but rather need a strong enough case to say things ARE NOT as they seem.
I can see how some people may have good reasons for them to accept that things are not as they seem, but I am unconvinced that there are reasons that, in general, should convince most people that things are not as they seem.
Eric, I thought we gave an objective reason above?
ReplyDelete"Suffering and crisis are more likely to induce a quest for God (or the Good, or Truth, or some similar divine concept) than hedonistic pleasures, which can then lead to the discovery and internalization of greater truths."
(That's it, what's more or less what's meant by soteriological drama.....)
Mike:
ReplyDeleteThe reason you give is a reason to think that God might be justified in permitting the suffering we find in the world. This would be enough to show that suffering is logically compatible with God. But it is not enough to defeat an evidential argument unless you can show that there are, in fact, cases where someone who would not otherwise have sought out God did so as a result of experiencing suffering, and that God could likely could not have brought this about in some other way that did not involve the suffering, and that seeking God is a great enough good to counterbalance the suffering, ....
This part of your question - God could likely could not have brought this about in some other way that did not involve the suffering - seems the most challenging. Someone might give an argument that actual experience engages the whole person in a way nothing else does? - the facticity of life, emotions, sensations, relationality, that sort of thing, as opposed to mere intellectual conversion? - i.e. God's special kind engagement with humanity involves "changing an entire person" and is achieved through experience.
ReplyDeleteBut, in anticipation of your likely response here, I'd have to say ... "yes, it may leave open the question, why are we psychologically constructed that way in the first place, instead of some other way, by an omnipotent God?
... Joe might say that's just how God chooses to engage with His/Her creatures as part of His/Her nature as "love".
BUT I'd add...don't the first two of your questions also assume a moral God must produce a kind of Leibnizian "best possible world?" Isn't that the question behind those questions: "couldn't the world be possibly better?" Otoh, Platinga's claim, mentioned above, was that the world could always be better in the case that an omnipotent God could have created an infinite number of different ones. So, in that case, a "best possible" world is unfeasible and we can only look to find a "good enough" world.
That would lead to the last part of your question, show that seeking God is a great enough good to counterbalance [all] the suffering[in the world] .. which, to be honest, I personally think seems much harder now, after the Holocaust and all the other horrific (and ruthlessly technologically-efficient) genocides of the 20th century than perhaps it did in more "innocent" ages.
Oh well.... :-(
"I think the truth is counter intuitive the way it seems is not the way it is,"
ReplyDeleteBut what is at issue is exactly whether there is good objective reason to accept that things are not the way it seems. You have actually set up a version of evidential argument here:
1. It seems that there is unjustifiable suffering in the world.
2. If God exists, then there is no unjustifiable suffering in the world.
3. So, it seems that God does not exist.
You apparently don't reject premise 1. Maybe you also accept 2. So you should also accept 3.
the logic of that argument seems fallacious, 3 does not necessarily follow from and 2. you have rigged the argument to make the hidden assumption that if 1 appears to be so then it must be so,l appearance are not deceiving, what if they are? My point in the statement i made above is that sometimes they are.
But now you go on to say that things are not what they seem. To make this case, you need to do more than say that things MAY not be as they seem, but rather need a strong enough case to say things ARE NOT as they seem.
you are the one who made the argument, I made it pretty clear in all things I've said so far why I assume so,I said flat out if you understand my concept of SD then you know that.
I can see how some people may have good reasons for them to accept that things are not as they seem, but I am unconvinced that there are reasons that, in general, should convince most people that things are not as they seem.
I think they would if it was set up right,
Mike:
ReplyDeleteThe reason you give is a reason to think that God might be justified in permitting the suffering we find in the world. This would be enough to show that suffering is logically compatible with God. But it is not enough to defeat an evidential argument unless you can show that there are, in fact, cases where someone who would not otherwise have sought out God did so as a result of experiencing suffering, and that God could likely could not have brought this about in some other way that did not involve the suffering, and that seeking God is a great enough good to counterbalance the suffering, ....
that sort of thing is replete in the annals of devotions and mystical literature,My own case. St. Francis, Timmy Martin.;-)
From the blog post:
ReplyDelete"That does not answer the argument that without God there is no basis for evil"
That does not matter. If a religion posits a benevolent, omnipotent God, and if that religion acknowledges that rape and murder are evil, then it is enough to note that the religion is inconsistent, and should be rejected.
Christianity has it even worse than that because Jesus specifically said in the Good Samaritan parable that we have a duty to help others in trouble, and it is trivially easy to show that God does not do that. The claim that the Christian God is benevolent and omnipotent is inconsistent with how Christianity tells us such a God would act.
Pix
Anonymous Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteFrom the blog post:
"That does not answer the argument that without God there is no basis for evil"
That does not matter. If a religion posits a benevolent, omnipotent God, and if that religion acknowledges that rape and murder are evil, then it is enough to note that the religion is inconsistent, and should be rejected.
wrong. I've posted this out before omnipotent does not refer to level of power but to jurisdiction.no reason to think God should be able to do contradictions,so that is taken out by the fee will defense,
Christianity has it even worse than that because Jesus specifically said in the Good Samaritan parable that we have a duty to help others in trouble, and it is trivially easy to show that God does not do that. The claim that the Christian God is benevolent and omnipotent is inconsistent with how Christianity tells us such a God would act.
Because he has to allow free will.
Px, it's not that simple
ReplyDelete.
the counterarguments basically say that God does allow some evils, but only to achieve a greater good.
And, even if we reduce Christ's parable to a simple moral lesson like that, we should note that God isn't human either, and so may not be subject to the same "rules."
"the logic of that argument seems fallacious, 3 does not necessarily follow from and 2."
ReplyDeleteYou are correct. I did that because the argument is evidential, and I wanted the argument to reflect the evidential (or inductive) character of the argument specifically to forestall the objection that no one is in a position to be completely certain about premise 1. Here is another way to put the argument though, that employs a deductively valid argument form:
1. There is unjustifiable suffering in the world.
2. If God exists, then there is no unjustifiable suffering in the world.
3. So, God does not exist.
(In fact, this is the way such arguments are most commonly given.)
"Because he has to allow free will."
ReplyDeleteTwo points:
(1) Why is this not a valid defense of human inaction? If I see my neighbor about to commit murder, and I could prevent it at little risk to myself, and I fail to do so, why is it not a valid defense of my inaction that I presumed it would be a greater good to allow my neighbor to exercise free will than to prevent him from exercising free will?
(2) You presume that there is such a thing as THE free will defense, when there are actually many, and it is not obvious that they are, in fact, successful even against logical arguments from evil -- much less evidential arguments. In Plantinga's version, for instance, we eventually get to claims that essentially say that for anyone is able to prove conclusively, God permits natural evil because natural evil is the work of the Devil, and so preventing it would require God to compromise the Devil's free will.
Mike Gerow wrote: "don't the first two of your questions also assume a moral God must produce a kind of Leibnizian "best possible world?""
ReplyDeletePerhaps. But I'm not certain that is a problem, especially for evidential arguments: Suppose instead of claiming "this is not the best of all possible worlds" the atheologian claims "it is implausible that this is the best of all available worlds" (allowing Plantinga's distinction between possible and available worlds).
But also, I think the "no best world" view does not obviously solve all the problems. (Your comments at the end suggest you might agree on this?) Because among the moral constraints on any world a perfectly good God creates that would place it in the "good enough" category seems to be this one:
(J) Any world that God creates must not contain any ultimately unjustified suffering.
And at this point we are back to evidential arguments that attempt to motivate the implausibility of holding that every instance of suffering found in the world is ultimately justifiable.
Would it be OK if I cross-posted this article to WriterBeat.com? There is no fee, Id'm simply trying to add more content diversity for our community and I liked what you wrote. I'll be sure to give you complete credit as the author. If "OK" please let me know via email.
ReplyDeleteAutumn
AutumnCote@WriterBeat.com
But also, I think the "no best world" view does not obviously solve all the problems. (Your comments at the end suggest you might agree on this?)
ReplyDeleteYes, this whole question sometimes makes me a little queasy, since, in the face of real people's suffering, I would feel reluctant to engage in "it all can be justified" kinds of speculations and wonder if refraining from those even in only-theoretical discussions might really be the more compassionately "Xian" thing to do?
BUT, depending on your theology, a catch-all answer does seem possible - eg someone might suggest that even seemingly unjustifiable suffering could always be justified as a reminder that the universe is ultimately "not about us" but about the redeeming power of an omnipotent God who has an infinite amount of redeeming power? Iow, if the atheist is going to point to Gods omnipotent ability to intervene and prevent events in the present, does he or she also have to consider God's infinite capacity for (so to speak) "fixing things up after"?
That sounds to me like a possible Retormed spin, anyway....
(1) Why is this not a valid defense of human inaction? If I see my neighbor about to commit murder, and I could prevent it at little risk to myself, and I fail to do so, why is it not a valid defense of my inaction that I presumed it would be a greater good to allow my neighbor to exercise free will than to prevent him from exercising free will?
ReplyDeleteBecause you are not God. According to this defense, you stand in a fundamentally different relation to human action than God. Under this definition, God would be allowing and or promoting the conditions making free action possible. We humans lack the desire, the ability and the knowledge to do this. All I can do as a person is discharge my own free will according to my best knowledge of what is right.
"Because you are not God."
ReplyDeleteI can't see how your response here is any better than just an ad hoc assertion of "that's different."
You need to say HOW God and I stand in relevantly different relations to the actions of free moral agents.
"God would be allowing and or promoting the conditions making free action possible."
How so? Suppose I say to my neighbor, "Don't do it! God wants you to exercise your free will for the good!" but don't do any more than that. It seems that in this case I have actually done MORE to encourage a morally free choice than God has.
Autumn Cote said...
ReplyDeleteWould it be OK if I cross-posted this article to WriterBeat.com? There is no fee, Id'm simply trying to add more content diversity for our community and I liked what you wrote. I'll be sure to give you complete credit as the author. If "OK" please let me know via email.
Autumn
AutumnCote@WriterBeat.com
11:37 AM
sure
Because he has to allow free will."
ReplyDeleteTwo points:
(1) Why is this not a valid defense of human inaction? If I see my neighbor about to commit murder, and I could prevent it at little risk to myself, and I fail to do so, why is it not a valid defense of my inaction that I presumed it would be a greater good to allow my neighbor to exercise free will than to prevent him from exercising free will?
God has a right to make such presumption because he knows and he created all that is we are no in such a position.
What if it id a justification for inaction why would it not be a justifcation for God's inaction?
(2) You presume that there is such a thing as THE free will defense, when there are actually many, and it is not obvious that they are, in fact, successful even against logical arguments from evil -- much less evidential arguments.
is to me-- at least that mine is
In Plantinga's version, for instance, we eventually get to claims that essentially say that for anyone is able to prove conclusively, God permits natural evil because natural evil is the work of the Devil, and so preventing it would require God to compromise the Devil's free will.
I don't know enough about his view to defend it,I prefer to stick to defend it. I prefer to defend my own ideas.
You need to say HOW God and I stand in relevantly different relations to the actions of free moral agents.
ReplyDeleteNot to answer for 7 but I already intimated my answer, because God is in a position to know all the variables and all the intangibles like the hearts involved, we are not,
JH: Because he has to allow free will.
ReplyDeleteMG: the counterarguments basically say that God does allow some evils, but only to achieve a greater good.
Two scenarios:
A. A man rapes a girl, and then kills her.
B. A man considers raping and killing a girl, but God intervenes and stops it.
Why does A achieve a greater good? Why does free will require A?
The problem here is that A is what we predict if such a God does not exist. If you posit an all-powerful and benevolent God, then the obvious prediction is B, so you guys need a really good argument as to why we would predict A over B. And I have never seen such an argument.
MG: And, even if we reduce Christ's parable to a simple moral lesson like that, we should note that God isn't human either, and so may not be subject to the same "rules."
So while torturing children is morally wrong for humans, it is not necessarily wrong for God? That is fine, but at that point you can no longer claim God is benevolent.
If you are positing an omnipotent God who is not benevolent then I agree the POE is not an issue for you. Is that the case?
Pix
I can't see how your response here is any better than just an ad hoc assertion of "that's different."
ReplyDeleteIf there is a God that more or less corresponds to Joe's description of God, how could it not be different? I don't see how the difference would be ad hoc since it wasn't formulated just to answer the evidential problem of pain. The differnce would epxlain other things beyond that problem.
You need to say HOW God and I stand in relevantly different relations to the actions of free moral agents.
I'm not sure what you're asking for here. If there is a God that as Joe claims is the ground of existing things, would God's relation to existing things differ from my relation to existing things? Asking for HOW they would differ is asking for what kind of explanation?
How so? Suppose I say to my neighbor, "Don't do it! God wants you to exercise your free will for the good!" but don't do any more than that. It seems that in this case I have actually done MORE to encourage a morally free choice than God has.
Yes, but encouragement and exhortation are different from being the reason for the existence of an ability. God doesn't need to encourage a free choice any more than a surgeon who restores my eyesight has to encourage me to open my eyes.
Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteJH: Because he has to allow free will.
MG: the counterarguments basically say that God does allow some evils, but only to achieve a greater good.
Two scenarios:
A. A man rapes a girl, and then kills her.
B. A man considers raping and killing a girl, but God intervenes and stops it.
Why does A achieve a greater good? Why does free will require A?
there is no morality without moral choices. to make moral choices one needs free will.
The problem here is that A is what we predict if such a God does not exist.
unless we don't understand the extenuation of the need for free will if we understand that then we should expect evil choices will be made at some point,
If you posit an all-powerful and benevolent God, then the obvious prediction is B, so you guys need a really good argument as to why we would predict A over B. And I have never seen such an argument.
again,Bible doesn't say God is all powerful in the sense of doing contradictions,he cant make square circles, and he can't make deterministic robots make free moral choices,
7th Stooge wrote: "If there is a God that more or less corresponds to Joe's description of God..."
ReplyDeleteRight. But notice this is a conditional whose antecedent is exactly what is at issue in evidential arguments.
The answer here now becomes, essentially, "God is justified in permitting all the suffering we see because he sees the justification for permitting all that suffering." So, since God exists and justifiably permits all instances of suffering, there are no instances of unjustified suffering.
JH: there is no morality without moral choices. to make moral choices one needs free will.
ReplyDeleteSo talk me through it. Why is there less free will if God intervenes and stops the girl getting raped and murdered?
It seems to me that by intervening, God is preserving the girl's free will, so scenario B is the one that enhances free will. Why does the free will of the rapist matter more to God that that of the victim? Would it serve God better if rapists were not arrested and sent to prison? Sending them to prison reduces their free will, and from what you are saying that is the exact opposite of what God wants. Even the threat of prison is reducing the free will of rapists, making some think better of it. I think that is a good thing; you seem to be saying it is a bad thing.
JH: unless we don't understand the extenuation of the need for free will if we understand that then we should expect evil choices will be made at some point,
No, Joe, no. If we do not understand, then it is reasonable to expect God to intervene. The only reason you do not expect God to intervene is that you know he does not. That might be because of reasons we cannot understand, but it is more likely that there is no benevolent omnipotent god out there.
JH: again,Bible doesn't say God is all powerful in the sense of doing contradictions,he cant make square circles, and he can't make deterministic robots make free moral choices,
None of which addresses why a benevolent omnipotent god would choose to allow a girl to be raped and murdered. At best you have a god who is so obsessed by free-will that he is paralysed into indecision, and so is powerless to actually do anything. Now that fits what we observe.
Pix
MG: the counterarguments basically say that God does allow some evils, but only to achieve a greater good.
ReplyDeleteTwo scenarios:
A. A man rapes a girl, and then kills her.
B. A man considers raping and killing a girl, but God intervenes and stops it.
Why does A achieve a greater good? Why does free will require A?
if God intervenes in every case like that, wouldn't it soon be obvious that there is a God? Do Joe and other "soul-making" types of theodicies require an ambiguous universe in which that's not the case - if there is going to be a crisis leading to an "inner search" for the divine?
Well darkness has a hunger that's insatiable
And lightness has a call that's hard to hear
I wrap my fear around me like a blanket
I sailed my ship of safety till I sank it, I'm crawling on your shore.
-- Indigo Girls
ETA - btw- this was a theologian named John Hick's claim, Px
ReplyDeleteSo while torturing children is morally wrong for humans, it is not necessarily wrong for God? That is fine, but at that point you can no longer claim God is benevolent.
ReplyDeleteIf you are positing an omnipotent God who is not benevolent then I agree the POE is not an issue for you. Is that the case?
Well, benevolent to what or whom? Isn't our finiteness, fragility, and our awareness of our looming nonexistence the basic "evil" of our life? So no matter how good or bad the world is otherwise, the problem of "evil" would stand? What is the atheist's point behind the dramatic, emotive images like the one you just invoked? Perhaps it's...."God shouldn't make the existence of God so unlikely?" But everything would depend, then, on the payback, on the value of the rewards for faithfully enduring an uncertain and dissatisfying world, for sucking up the vagaries and frustrations of our existence, wouldn't it? An omni-God of course can also provide infinite reconciliations and compensations. This is why Joe invokes the wonders of mystical experiences as the last point on his other blog - to suggest, "theres real evidence that it's worth it."
.... Btw, just as easily, I could be positing a God who is not omnipotent & can't intervene, couldn't I? ..... (On a technical point...)
...& okay, since you asked, I'll tell you this.... I don't much like to argue the PoE. "Justifying all suffering" sounds disrespectful and uncompassionate to actual, real life sufferers to me, and so I sometimes wonder if that's the real Xian thing to do? Which I already explained to Eric above.
Also, Px, more on omnipotence....note that many recent scholars have argued that the Hebrew phrase for "Almighty God" is a mistranslation...and omnipotence, like creation ex nihilio, might be more a imposition of Greco-Roman concepts on the older, primary texts than anything else....
ReplyDeletehttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Shaddai
Right. But notice this is a conditional whose antecedent is exactly what is at issue in evidential arguments.
ReplyDeleteYes, and I wasn't assuming that the antecedent was true. I was saying that IF it were true, it wold plausibly have this relation to human actions, just as you were doing.
The answer here now becomes, essentially, "God is justified in permitting all the suffering we see because he sees the justification for permitting all that suffering." So, since God exists and justifiably permits all instances of suffering, there are no instances of unjustified suffering.
I don't recall ever writing anything like that. Alls I was saying was that IF there were a God of xyz properties, he would stand in this relation to human actions.
Mike, I agree with what you wrote earlier (I can't find the comment now). I think theists should not approach this subject, the evidential problem, without a "shudder" and without humility. Maybe the only thing that approaches an answer is trust.
ReplyDeleteOne could perhaps be less prissy about things and more hardnosed tho, if one is willing to speak at all? I'm tempted....
ReplyDeleteOh, what the heck....
Here's a quote from Adam Kotsko, a young Catherine Malabou-influenced theologian:
"Where should we look for the explosive element of [Malabou's pet concept of] plasticity? One possibility is the concept of evil, which gives Augustine such trouble throughout his intellectual journey. In contrast to formless matter, evil is pure negativity — in the proper sense, evil doesn’t “exist” at all. It is incapable of completely destroying God’s creation, but it can distort or change it. If we view evil as a constituent part of plastic existence, then the considerable body of literature investigating the concept of evil in the Christian tradition could become available in a new way, in the sense of being productive of thought.
I wonder, though, if we could take the risk of identifying God with the explosive element — a kind of originary explosion that simultaneously produces matter as passively receptive to form and keeps any form, even the quasi-eternal “heaven of heavens,” from being truly eternal and unchanging (since the “heaven of heavens” has, after all, undergone the greatest change of all: that from non-existence to existence). Instead of thinking God as purely transcendent to the world, as the pure negation of the world insofar as God is everything the world is not, we might then dare to fold God over onto evil as the negativity within this world, of which we can no longer conceive any “outside.”
Very Isaiah (I think it is?) .... But okay, let's consider..... if, as Paul insists, everything is now geared not to this world but to a New Creation, then isn't mdestruction likely to have a role, likely in fact to be a big part of that - as destruction is for all major creative acts, since two are inextricably (dialectically?) linked, after all. And you can Take that idea in a mystical sense too, if you prefer, as well as literally.
Oh, yeah....
ReplyDeletehttps://itself.blog/2010/02/18/plasticity-at-the-dusk-of-writing-response-what-should-we-do-with-our-derrida/
Px
ReplyDeleteSo talk me through it. Why is there less free will if God intervenes and stops the girl getting raped and murdered?
If he stops all forms of pain and evil every time they come up then there is no question of his existence. God wants us to search for truth so we will internalize the values of the good,
MG: if God intervenes in every case like that, wouldn't it soon be obvious that there is a God? Do Joe and other "soul-making" types of theodicies require an ambiguous universe in which that's not the case - if there is going to be a crisis leading to an "inner search" for the divine?
ReplyDeleteIf God walks on earth as Jesus, appearing to his followers after his resurrection, that too would make it obvious there was a God to those who saw him. So why is that different?
MG: Well, benevolent to what or whom?
Are you really going down that road? Are you saying God is benevolent, but not to mankind? So if I hoard all my money and never give to charity I am being benevoloent, just not to other people?
I don't buy it. This is just twisting words to suit the occasion. Everyone understands "benevolent" to mean with regards to mankind. If you are saying God is not benevolent specifically to mankind, then you are abandoning God as benevolent.
MG: Isn't our finiteness, fragility, and our awareness of our looming nonexistence the basic "evil" of our life? So no matter how good or bad the world is otherwise, the problem of "evil" would stand?
You are comparing existential angst with rape and murder? Well, okay... So are you saying that we have this concern about our fragility, therefore it is perfectly moral for God to allow rape and murder to happen? Would you therefore say that since mankind cannot solve these existential issues, it would be reasonable to let murderers and rapists to go free, because... well, whatever your reasoning is?
MG: What is the atheist's point behind the dramatic, emotive images like the one you just invoked? Perhaps it's...."God shouldn't make the existence of God so unlikely?" But everything would depend, then, on the payback, on the value of the rewards for faithfully enduring an uncertain and dissatisfying world, for sucking up the vagaries and frustrations of our existence, wouldn't it? An omni-God of course can also provide infinite reconciliations and compensations. This is why Joe invokes the wonders of mystical experiences as the last point on his other blog - to suggest, "theres real evidence that it's worth it."
I bring up these emotive images to show the horrors that God chooses to allow to be perpetrated. Please explain the rewards to the girl who was raped and murdered.
Yes, an omni-God could provide infinite reconciliation and compensations; I accept that as a possibility. But why should I suppose that is how it works? At the end of the day what you propose is identical to no god at all, as far as we can tell. And while the no god at all hypothesis predicts what we see, your hypothesis looks like it was retrofitted to the evidence.
Furthermore, usual Christian doctrine holds that only those who believe in Jesus get the reconciliation and compensations; what if the girl was Hindu?
MG: .... Btw, just as easily, I could be positing a God who is not omnipotent & can't intervene, couldn't I? ..... (On a technical point...)
Sure, I agree that the PoE is only a issue for a god who is both benevolent (towards mankind) and omnipotent.
Pix
JH: If he stops all forms of pain and evil every time they come up then there is no question of his existence.
ReplyDeleteI love the black and white thinking of theists. It is either everything of nothing. No where in their minds is any kind of part-way solution even conceivable. So this might blow your mind Joe, but a third possibility is that God stops the worst of the evil but not all of it.
Let that sink in for a moment, I understand this will be difficult for you to get you head around.
If you are wondering how evil something has to be for God to intervene, well somewhere between assault and stubbing your toe. He is supposed to be quite clever, so I imagine he can work it out.
JH: God wants us to search for truth so we will internalize the values of the good,
Too bad for that girl lying dead in a back alley; she is not going to be internalising any values now, is she?
How much searching for the truth did Doubting Thomas do? Jesus said he was blessed for not believing until he saw direct evidence with his own eyes. Did he still manage to internalise the values of the good?
Pix
God walks on earth as Jesus, appearing to his followers after his resurrection, that too would make it obvious there was a God to those who saw him. So why is that different?
ReplyDeleteHaha! They all died horrible deaths, too, according to the tradition .... & btw you misread the Thomas bit at the end of GoJ - read it again!
Sure, I agree that the PoE is only a issue for a god who is both benevolent (towards mankind) and omnipotent.
That's not what omnibenevolent means .... it means "morally perfect"
Furthermore, usual Christian doctrine holds that only those who believe in Jesus get the reconciliation and compensations; what if the girl was Hindu?
*** rolleyes**** What if the girl was Hindu but on some deep, mystical level she "believed in Jesus" anyway?
As you been told on numerous occasions, no one here much believes large parts of what you call, "usual Chritian doctrine" nor has any of us a duty to either take responsibility for its existence or defend it. Furthermore, don't worry, I don't even "believe in Jesus" myself according to typical exclusivist-Xian takes on the concept, so I'm no better off in their eyes than your poor, unfortunate Hindu girl. Probably worse off, really.
Please try to pay attention! Geez, it get annoying....
Too bad for that girl lying dead in a back alley; she is not going to be internalising any values now, is she?
ReplyDeleteYou don't know that she isn't....
Are you really going down that road? Are you saying God is benevolent, but not to mankind? So if I hoard all my money and never give to charity I am being benevoloent, just not to other people?
ReplyDeleteAside: I actually KNOW a guy who hoards all his millions and, in the end, they're going to the SPCA.
MG: Haha! They all died horrible deaths, too, according to the tradition ....
ReplyDeleteNot sure I get your point. Are you saying that if God proves his existence to an individual then that person has to die a horrible death? Did all the Christians who saw the resurrected Jesus die a horrible death including the 500?
How come lots of people die horrible deaths without God showing them proof of his existence?
MG: & btw you misread the Thomas bit at the end of GoJ - read it again!
Oh yes. My bad.
Thomas only got made a saint because he did not believe until he had proof.
MG: That's not what omnibenevolent means .... it means "morally perfect"
I did not say "omnibenevolent". But what you seem to be saying is that God can be morally perfect, and still enjoying torturing children, you just redefine "morally perfect" to mean whatever you like. If "morally perfect" is to have any meaning in a discussion like this, then it has to be with regards to human values.
MG: *** rolleyes**** What if the girl was Hindu but on some deep, mystical level she "believed in Jesus" anyway?
And what if she did not? Are you going to tell me that everyone who dies a horrible death "believes" in Jesus in some way? If you are, then the whole idea that you have to believe in Jesus becomes nonsense, because apparently we all do, we just do not know it.
MG: As you been told on numerous occasions, no one here much believes large parts of what you call, "usual Chritian doctrine" nor has any of us a duty to either take responsibility for its existence or defend it. Furthermore, don't worry, I don't even "believe in Jesus" myself according to typical exclusivist-Xian takes on the concept, so I'm no better off in their eyes than your poor, unfortunate Hindu girl. Probably worse off, really.
Please try to pay attention! Geez, it get annoying....
Which is exactly why I qualified it with "usual Christian doctrine". But thanks for taking the time to explain what your view is. Oh, wait, you didn't. And yet I am sure you will be quick to respond with some sarky comment when I am unable to guess it next time.
Pix: Too bad for that girl lying dead in a back alley; she is not going to be internalising any values now, is she?
MG: You don't know that she isn't....
Talk me through this Mike, because the last thing I want is to be accused of not paying attention. Are you saying she is internalising the values of good after she is dead? Can you say how that might work? My understanding of Joe's hypothesis is that this internalisation process has to be done before death.
Pix
lk me through this Mike, because the last thing I want is to be accused of not paying attention. Are you saying she is internalising the values of good after she is dead? Can you say how that might work? My understanding of Joe's hypothesis is that this internalisation process has to be done before death.
ReplyDeleteWell, it's a small point in this discussion, but okay, I'll start there.....then, more later....
Christ says in the afterlife we shall "be as the Angels are". But do you notice that in the Scriptures its suggested that angels fall sometimes too? So might there be similar risks for arisen humans? Or do we exist in heaven more like God's satiated "pets" or something? Would that really be heavenly? Some kind of hedonistic (even if decidedly nonsexual) "ogre"?
"Life" - as Malabou would say - is change. Therefore, if there is an afterLIFE , the "drama" must go on....
(This's a Malabouan hypothesis of my own here, btw, not Joes)
Are you going to tell me that everyone who dies a horrible death "believes" in Jesus in some way? If you are, then the whole idea that you have to believe in Jesus becomes nonsense, because apparently we all do, we just do not know it.
ReplyDeleteThat s kinda a beautiful thought, Px! Very theopoetic....
Thx for sharing it!
& yeh, you're technically right, if I'm reading your sentence correctly, since nresearch now Indicates there is no "passing away peacefully", at least not from any dying person's subjective perspective
I'm pretty sure some peephole die peacefully, at least in sleep,
ReplyDeleteThe OA has not failed, Jeff needs to read Hatshorne, I challenge Jeff or any poster of the SOP to debate me on the OA anytime,
ReplyDeleteBut, in a circular way, isn't the PoE exactly an attempt to show "God" - or at least an omni-God conception of God - is not 'necessary' but rather 'impossible?'
no
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteOH yeah, maybe not.... Only the logicalPOE would do there .... and many people think Platinga successfully disposed of that one.
ReplyDeleteMG: Well, it's a small point in this discussion, but okay, I'll start there.....then, more later....
ReplyDeleteChrist says in the afterlife we shall "be as the Angels are". But do you notice that in the Scriptures its suggested that angels fall sometimes too? So might there be similar risks for arisen humans? Or do we exist in heaven more like God's satiated "pets" or something? Would that really be heavenly? Some kind of hedonistic (even if decidedly nonsexual) "ogre"?
That is certainly unconventional! Actually I am not aware of anywhere in scripture about fallen angels, though I appreciate there are verses about kings of Babylon and Tyre that Christians say are about Satan, plus a bit in Revelation about stars falling.
I have not heard anyone suggest people in heaven will (potentially) sin. Do you think people not in heaven after death can eventually earn a place there? Or is this an entirely one-way deal? Sounds pretty stressful, worried if any time you might get thrown out.
MG: "Life" - as Malabou would say - is change. Therefore, if there is an afterLIFE , the "drama" must go on....
That is true of biological life, but I always thought the afterlife was different. As you pointed out Jesus says we become like angels, and Paul says you get new heavenly bodies. I took that too mean these new bodies would not need food and water - and you point out they will be asexual. Admittedly now I am using words to mean something other than they do.
Pix
MG: & btw you misread the Thomas bit at the end of GoJ - read it again!
ReplyDeleteOh yes. My bad.
Thomas only got made a saint because he did not believe until he had proof.
haha! Yeah, & in spite of all the major miracles he'd already witnessed too.... I'd like to believe that was the case.
How come lots of people die horrible deaths without God showing them proof of his existence?
https://www.pcnbritain.org.uk/blog/post/the_god_who_dies
I did not say "omnibenevolent". But what you seem to be saying is that God can be morally perfect, and still enjoying torturing children, you just redefine "morally perfect" to mean whatever you like. If "morally perfect" is to have any meaning in a discussion like this, then it has to be with regards to human values.
Sure. Well, maybe. Otoh, even some humans might rather see humanity become extinct than, say, see humanity destroy all of nature? Moral values can transcend human interests even among humans themselves....much less in the "eyes" of a nonhuman "hyper being" (or however we characterize the divine).
Talking about heinous individual acts is one thing, but such acts are also socially conditioned, arise out of some familial, historical, sociocultural & economic conditions? Is God responsible for all those things too or are they our problem? if we created a world where we genuinely cared about others would heinous acts become more and more rare? Nothing ever happens in a vacuum....
Is the unconditioned really responsible for the conditions of humanity? ... Is it God's fault that this is largely "a world without love" - which seems the worst of all evils and the source of much or most of our individual acts of evil? No, perhaps, if we're honest, we'd admit it's mostly our own?
But, in a circular way, isn't the PoE exactly an attempt to show "God" - or at least an omni-God conception of God - is not 'necessary' but rather 'impossible?'
ReplyDeleteThe logical version of the PoE could conceivably do that, but most philosophers say that it fails to do that. The version of the PoE we're discussing on here I thought was the evidential problem. That's a probabilistic argument, so by definition it couldn't prove that God was impossible, only unlikely.
That is true of biological life, but I always thought the afterlife was different. As you pointed out Jesus says we become like angels, and Paul says you get new heavenly bodies. I took that too mean these new bodies would not need food and water - and you point out they will be asexual. Admittedly now I am using words to mean something other than they do.
ReplyDeleteYes, Paul actually talks about transformation. (And the risen Christ does eat something.) But, my point is, for a state of affairs to be called "alive" transformation of some kind is essential; "life" requires it,pretty much by definition. "Life" cannot be a frozen thing, like the existence of an eternal Platonic "eidos" eg is not really a "living" thing? A n unmoved and unmoving thing cannot be thought of as alive. Plus destruction and new creation always go together - there's always an inevitable element of "loss" in every instance of actual transformation or change....so that has to continue in an afterLIFE, if we're going to call it "life after death."
The continuing "drama" I propose tho doesn't really have to be a "soteriological" one - & even Joe doesn't really mean that in a completely literal sense. But, yes, it could be, and we could imagine souls being "kicked out of heaven," or at least feeling Gods displeasure somehow, at least for a "time".
The thinng about the evidential problem I question is how you go about assigning probabilities to a problem like this one? (At least Draper's version, not the Bayesian one) What do you base the probabilities on? It would have to be the assumptions you have going in, so you'd have to assign probabilities to those and so on. Atheists might counter "Well, the world, with its amount of pain, is the way we would expect it to be with no God," but if God's understood as the reason for the world, that can't be right. So the disagreement inevitably gets kicked back a step and so on.
ReplyDeleteJim, it's occurring to me that, interestingly, if we stop talking about it individualized redemption and privatized, isolated, unconditioned heinous acts, the picture might look different? As in my post above....
ReplyDeleteWdyt? Is that a less anthropocentric spin on sin & suffering? That's what I'm working on....
OTOH, if you leave all the properties of GOd out other than the omni's, then maybe you could have a firmer basis for assigning probabilities.
ReplyDeleteSeems like there could be much less horrific suffering but still more than enough and more than enough hiddenness of God to allow for maximal drama. Not saying the evidential argument works in general but only questioning if a soul-making theodicy is the best response.
Mike, Which post in particular?. As I said to Pix over and over on Doxa, maybe individual lack of suffering isn't the greatest good and can be easily overridden by greater goods. That's an intersting point about individualized and privatized and isolated. What about collective atrocities like genocides and the Holocaust? Or the possible complete destruction of nature as you mentioned?
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking about a "creation-making" theodicy that places less emphasis on individual souls, more on collective human responsibility and "saving the world."
ReplyDeleteIf we look in a rather foucaldian way at the conditions from which "evil things" - incl individual cruel and heinous acts - arise out of societies, to what extent do we need to take collective responsibility? .... Yes, even for individual's particular crimes .... Can we fob that off on God, esp now in a sophisticated "world come of age?" (To cop DB yet again.) It's a different spin on the "all have sinned " bit in Romans ...perhaps?
Trying it a bit more hardnosed, as I suggested above....
It's the post labelled 2:37 pm
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteMG: if God intervenes in every case like that, wouldn't it soon be obvious that there is a God? Do Joe and other "soul-making" types of theodicies require an ambiguous universe in which that's not the case - if there is going to be a crisis leading to an "inner search" for the divine?
Pix: God walks on earth as Jesus, appearing to his followers after his resurrection, that too would make it obvious there was a God to those who saw him. So why is that different?
MG: Haha! They all died horrible deaths, too, according to the tradition ....
Pix: How come lots of people die horrible deaths without God showing them proof of his existence?
MG: https://www.pcnbritain.org.uk/blog/post/the_god_who_dies
So God cannot reveal himself... except when he does. And when he does then you then you have to die horribly... But lots of people die horribly anyway but that is okay because... it is good to have doubts?
I have to say that all this comes across as ad hoc. There is no sense that there is a coherent hypothesis. Rather, it feels like one hypothesis with sticking plasters over the gaps in it, and then sticking plasters on top to cover the gaps in them.
MG: Sure. Well, maybe. Otoh, even some humans might rather see humanity become extinct than, say, see humanity destroy all of nature? Moral values can transcend human interests even among humans themselves....much less in the "eyes" of a nonhuman "hyper being" (or however we characterize the divine).
What are you trying to say here? Are we agreed that if God is to be called "benevolent" then he cannot indulge in torturing children?
MG: Talking about heinous individual acts is one thing, but such acts are also socially conditioned, arise out of some familial, historical, sociocultural & economic conditions? Is God responsible for all those things too or are they our problem? if we created a world where we genuinely cared about others would heinous acts become more and more rare? Nothing ever happens in a vacuum....
What is your point? I think we have to judge whether God is "benevolent" on our understanding of morality because that is the morality we live in. If you are Christian, I would guess you hold to a morality that comes from God (in some sense), which would suggest that our morality is the same as God's.
With regards to responsibility, is it either/or? Is it not possible for individuals to be jointly responsible? Of course the perpetrator is responsible, but as you say, nothing happens in a vacuum, so others are responsible to to some degree - including the guy who saw the murder being committed but just turned a blind eye.
MG: Is the unconditioned really responsible for the conditions of humanity? ... Is it God's fault that this is largely "a world without love" - which seems the worst of all evils and the source of much or most of our individual acts of evil? No, perhaps, if we're honest, we'd admit it's mostly our own?
So you are saying that you are more to blame for the state of the world than God is? How much opportunity have you had to make a real difference?
What does "omnipotent" mean to you?
Pix
I don't think God's morality would have to be the same as ours.... That's ridiculously anthropocentric..... Would "chimp morality" or "dolphin morality" be the same? Isaiah points this out too, "God is not a person and doesn't think like a person...."
ReplyDeleteCollectively, it's possible we could create a world that is "good enough" for the existence of a benevolent God to seem (at least) "more likely?" Without destroying the potential for "freedom from God" that seems somehow desirable? This lessens the burden on God.
However, we don't. Instead, we cling to old ways' old identities, remain "Greek or Jew, slave or free, male or female"... And even the way we think in terms of "morality and responsibility" might be part of that old, flawed pattern.
The very fact you can "think" this, kinda understand it, gives it credence, lends it reality. No?
What does "omnipotent" mean to you?
I keep asking you atheologists this same question!
In a flash, in the very last instant of life, an omnipotent God COULD give a vision to each that would always make it "all worth it", no? Even if that was it, no continuation at all, no afterlife or anything, just a glimpse at the depth of being, so to speak....
Well, we've both lived long enough to know
That we'd trade it all right now for just one minute of real love, real love
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletePx, oh yeah, this should have been inserted before my "The very fact" sentence...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.pcnbritain.org.uk/blog/post/the_church_that_dies
Joe, how do you like my new "Doobie Bothers theology"
ReplyDelete:-D
Sure. Well, maybe. Otoh, even some humans might rather see humanity become extinct than, say, see humanity destroy all of nature? Moral values can transcend human interests even among humans themselves....much less in the "eyes" of a nonhuman "hyper being" (or however we characterize the divine).
ReplyDeleteYes, that's kinda what I was saying to Pix on Doxa largely to no avail. It's not necessarily about us, or at least not about our lack of suffering or our happiness index or whatever. "Greatest Good" =//= "Least Suffering"
But as you point out, even our own morality can transcend our own and even our specie's interests. That to me is or could be taken as the mark of the divine in morality, its (potential) superhumanness. But note that even when humans morality transcends human interest, we still assume taht there has to be a sufficient reason for an all-powerful being to cause or allow suffering. Are you questioning whether God is all-powerful (no non-logical limits) or that his moral calculus transcends human ablity to comprehend it?
Jim, I'm questioning a lot of things as I try to work a "non-anthropomorphic theocidy" out....but am assuming omnipotence generally for the sake of arguing.
ReplyDeleteYes, the thing is, it might not be all that great to exist as "God's pampered pets" either, the way Px's points seem to suggest. What if life is merely an opportunity to be brought to a point where (even if, perhaps, only for a microsecond) one may "perceive the depth of being" (or we might say perceive infinite being) and then ... nothing? What if, going further, even "life" itself isn't a privileged phenomenon and may one day cease thruout the entire universe - (or at least cease in terms of the existence of individuated organisms like us).
All the well, those conditions could be true.... but I'm not sure, however "bad" things look, the atheist could still ever make the claim that it is "less likely than not" that any omnipotent God "exists" based on conditions because an omnipotent God - if he or she exists - always has infinite capacity to make compensations and corrections.
The atheologist seems to have to show limits on that, or show why the transitory uncertainty and risks of life are an evil in themselves, whether they are transformative and/or telological or not. (Ie "no 'drama' is worth it") And still, to exist as God's pampered "pets" seems much worse than these possible existences just described to me, no dignity at all....
I'm also not sure about "moral compasses" right now, tending a la Paul to put "morality" in a compulsive category that makes it incompatible with "love:"
"[In] Peter Rollins’, “How (Not) to Speak of God”, [he] sums up the relation between love and law in a chapter called “The Third Mile”. He writes, “As soon as we say that we SHOULD love, then love disappears, for love is the law that has no law, the way that knows no ‘should’. Love is the law that tells us when to subvert the law, when to obey the law and when to break with laws, yet love is a lawless law that cannot be argued for…. the work of love is faith by another word.”"
But I am still working out how that affects a response to the PoE...
PS - yeah, I think if our morality can transcend even our communal or intra-species interests, that also tends to give us dignity....
ReplyDeleteMG: I don't think God's morality would have to be the same as ours.... That's ridiculously anthropocentric..... Would "chimp morality" or "dolphin morality" be the same? Isaiah points this out too, "God is not a person and doesn't think like a person...."
ReplyDeleteSo why say he is benevolent? Let us agree that God has his own moral standard, and that he is not benevolent, and the Problem of Evil disappears.
Pix
MG: I don't think God's morality would have to be the same as ours.... That's ridiculously anthropocentric..... Would "chimp morality" or "dolphin morality" be the same? Isaiah points this out too, "God is not a person and doesn't think like a person...."
ReplyDeletepX
So why say he is benevolent? Let us agree that God has his own moral standard, and that he is not benevolent, and the Problem of Evil disappears.
you both have points. If God created humans to love and to commune with him then obviously our morality has to be a reflection of God's. The only question is how far off the mark are we? Presumably Jesus' came to model divine behavior for us so we can know what God's true morality looks like.
Possibly, it might be better to argue that if God is benevolent, it isn't to human bodies and their desires?
ReplyDeleteThere might be something else about us, however, to which God is more benevolent - the whole process of "becoming" that is life, or some more ethereal and static aspect of us that we call a "soul" or "spirit"? But not to these bodies....clearly "the drama" supercedes our physical and even our intellectual comfort...
Don't be tempted by the shiny apple
Don't you eat of a bitter fruit
Hunger only for a taste of justice
Hunger only for a world of truth
'Cause all that you have is your soul
ReplyDeleteyou both have points. If God created humans to love and to commune with him then obviously our morality has to be a reflection of God's.
I guess the question is, if (when) we are communing with God, is there a need for, or even a concept like "morality"?
MG: I don't think God's morality would have to be the same as ours.... That's ridiculously anthropocentric..... Would "chimp morality" or "dolphin morality" be the same? Isaiah points this out too, "God is not a person and doesn't think like a person...."
ReplyDeleteI doubt that other species have morality. They have pre-moral sentiments. But even if you stretch the word "morality" to include behavior of other species, they would still exhibit traits like caring, sacrifice, benevolence, fairness. How else would we be able to understand it as morality? If the concept is that malleable to include traits we couldn't possibly recognize as moral, then the idea starts to lose its usefulness. Might as well say a tree or fungus is moral.
But the thing is that I don't think that morality is necessarily anthropocentric. It's possible that human interests are overridable by other interests. The moral perspective isn't necessarily a self- or species-centric point of view.
MG: I don't think God's morality would have to be the same as ours.... That's ridiculously anthropocentric..... Would "chimp morality" or "dolphin morality" be the same? Isaiah points this out too, "God is not a person and doesn't think like a person...."
ReplyDeleteMaybe. But some would argue that inflicting needless horrific suffering is intrinsically bad and can never be negated by any later correction or compensation.
The atheologist seems to have to show limits on that, or show why the transitory uncertainty and risks of life are an evil in themselves, whether they are transformative and/or telological or not. (Ie "no 'drama' is worth it") And still, to exist as God's pampered "pets" seems much worse than these possible existences just described to me, no dignity at all....
I agree with you that life is change and uncertainty and entails the real risk of evils, even a heavenly life. So evils are necessary for greater goods. The disagreement is over the exorbitant, apparently superfluous misery all around us.
"[In] Peter Rollins’, “How (Not) to Speak of God”, [he] sums up the relation between love and law in a chapter called “The Third Mile”. He writes, “As soon as we say that we SHOULD love, then love disappears, for love is the law that has no law, the way that knows no ‘should’. Love is the law that tells us when to subvert the law, when to obey the law and when to break with laws, yet love is a lawless law that cannot be argued for…. the work of love is faith by another word.”"
I agree with him that love is at odds with "law." But the thing is if God is, above all else, loving, this has to be reconciled somehow with massive amounts of suffering.
First of all, how do we know that "love" is any less anthropocentric than any of the other human traits we superimpose on God?
Second, if God is ultimately loving, and loves a contingent world, that world is going to have contingent clashes resulting in competing values and competing "goods." If God is at all engaged actively in the world or in the creation of the world, then there has to be a ranking of values. There'd have to be some kind of moral rationale or justification for how the world is. If you counter with "God's morality is not ours" then the atheist will say that that tips the balance toward "Nogod" because it's conveniently invoking things we cannot know, which would be outweighed by the things we definitely do know.
So why not try to push an argument for justification as far as it can go without pulling out a "mystery card" when we get into trouble?
Let me clarify.....
ReplyDeleteSuppose humans became extinct and some other species evolved into the latest and greatest sentient beings in, say, 100 million years or so. We can look at that scenario and then define their "morality" as the codes they would use to help maintain their group structures for the sake of argument ... So, if we were able to go forward to the future and examine these new species, we might not be able to tell for sure if they were really exhibiting "fairness, caring, etc" (in the same way we do) or if we were anthropormorphizing them?
Is God like that? Only moreso? We can only understand difference in comparison to something we know....ie ourselves in this case. But, beyond that - realistically and analytically - we are simply acting on faith or else just making assumptions.
Is "God is good" usually a more rhetorical statement than otherwise?
Jim, still trying to work this out, but I think an "it's not about us" defense depends on some kind of transformation or realization? Suffering from this pov has to be (at least partly) a symptom of unsatifiable desire or misplaced desire....
ReplyDeleteIe "there is no self" as in Buddhism, or in Xianity "these selves do not constitute true selves" (somehow) .
I'm not sure suffering can be aggrieved or horrendous without some kind of actual loss? Trauma - PTSD - is the worst effect, the mental damage done to people, their sense of safety and well being. But can an infinitely powerful being make even that trivial? (What I mean is, if the atheologist is going to assume omnipotence anyway, do they need to deal with this? An Omni-God's capacity to make any finite amount of suffering .... Well, um, "trivial in comparison"? )
OTOH, the resurrected Christ still had the scars....hmmm.....
Mike, But can we assume that suffering would be a bad thing with this advanced species? And that causing others' suffering not because one's removing a greater evil or promoting a greater good would be wrong? If in using the word 'morality' in a way that deviates too far from the criteria we use to understand the word, then how can we use that word?
ReplyDeleteMaybe God's morality infinitely transcends our puny understanding but maybe it's like what Joe's talking about with the personal. God couldn;t deviate too far from certain basic criteria for how we understand the word (ie he wouldn't cause or allow suffering other than to remove a greater evil or promote a greater good) even if beyond that his moral 'thinking' is incomprehensible to us? Ie God's not less than moral like he's not less than personal? Just a thought.
Jim, still trying to work this out, but I think an "it's not about us" defense depends on some kind of transformation or realization? Suffering from this pov has to be (at least partly) a symptom of unsatifiable desire or misplaced desire....
ReplyDeleteWhat about dogs and cats and babies who suffer? It's arguable they don't have a self-aware sense of self at all but we assume that they suffer. One theory is that dogs and cats etc don;t have second order suffering, or smething like that. they can't be aware of themselves as suffering since they live in the near present.But that can be a blessing and a curse/
I'm not sure suffering can be aggrieved or horrendous without some kind of actual loss? Trauma - PTSD - is the worst effect, the mental damage done to people, their sense of safety and well being. But can an infinitely powerful being make even that trivial? (What I mean is, if the atheologist is going to assume omnipotence anyway, do they need to deal with this? An Omni-God's capacity to make any finite amount of suffering .... Well, um, "trivial in comparison"? )
Well that's been kinda my argument too, that contingency, consciousness etc just inevitable carry with them the possibility of pain that even an all-powerful being couldn;t circumvent. But the counter-argument (evidential kind) is that God could have easily set up the world to have as much good stuff and much much less bad stuff (Sorry for the technical jargon ;)
If God is at all engaged actively in the world or in the creation of the world, then there has to be a ranking of values. There'd have to be some kind of moral rationale or justification for how the world is. If you counter with "God's morality is not ours" then the atheist will say that that tips the balance toward "Nogod" because it's conveniently invoking things we cannot know, which would be outweighed by the things we definitely do know.
ReplyDeleteWe definitely do know very little as Joe said in a recent post. How much, then, do you think we know about morals (whatever "morals" means) if we have such minimal understanding of something as much easier as physics, which are merely the mechanics of things not their value? Does your statement infer a "precise moral calculus" such that the relative value of competing values can always be measured, which would seem to largely restrict an all-knowing God (at least) from doing purely creative acts and/or making purely "existential" choices? What about allowing His/Her creatures to do the same?
Or, look at it this way, is atheism "worse" than the worship of "the big man in the sky?" And is a "big man in the sky" sort of "God" sort of implicit in most PoE defenses too - a God who "decides," "allows," and/or "judges" things?
If we think of God in a Tillichian way as beyond being, as transcendent to the point that He/She has neither "existence" nor "nonexistence," do we need a way to talk about the PoE that doesn't require so much anthrocentricity, or divine anthropormorphizing either, perhaps?
... but it's a struggle to figure it out, in terms of making a theodicy at least, which is what I been trying to do. The main point I might have gotten at is that life IS change, and if life continues an eternal form, it must continue to be composed of changes and transformations, which ALWAYS require "drama" - setbacks, scary & distressing experiences, etc. That's intrinsic to life's scope, dignity and continuing potentiality....that's what "life" is....
What about dogs and cats and babies who suffer? It's arguable they don't have a self-aware sense of self at all but we assume that they suffer. One theory is that dogs and cats etc don;t have second order suffering, or smething like that. they can't be aware of themselves as suffering since they live in the near present.But that can be a blessing and a curse
ReplyDeleteYeah, the point of those kinds of arguments is to remove the "drama" from all the atheist's poignant examples? In the sense that large aspects of what we call "suffering", as experienced by adult humans at least, could be seen as self-inflicted by our self-preoccupied worrying and "desiring" in a Buddhist/mystical kind of sense....
It's kinda a "whiny little atheists" counterblow & it's as mean as a snake!
ReplyDeleteI like it.
;-)
We definitely do know very little as Joe said in a recent post. How much, then, do you think we know about morals (whatever "morals" means) if we have such minimal understanding of something as much easier as physics, which are merely the mechanics of things not their value? Does your statement infer a "precise moral calculus" such that the relative value of competing values can always be measured, which would seem to largely restrict an all-knowing God (at least) from doing purely creative acts and/or making purely "existential" choices? What about allowing His/Her creatures to do the same?
ReplyDeleteOf course we know very little. I bet that even our limits are beyond what we can know. That goes without saying. But that doesn't and perhaps shouldn't stop people from trying to push understanding as far as it can possibly go, with the full knowledge of its inevitable failure. If we know little explicitly about morals, how much less would we know about God's nature? But that doesn't stop Joe and others from speculating about it, while acknowledging that we can never "know" God in more than an analogical, metaphorical sense. Knowledge of morality is more a "knowing how" than an explicit "knowing that" but that's true of many things we take for granted, and that doesn't stop people from trying to understand these things in a propositional sense as far as we can.
If God transcends or is beyond the human conception of good and evil, that's not a solution to the PoE but a concession. It's an opting out. If we don't opt out, just for the sake of argument, can can X properties of God be reconciled with Y properties of the world? As we mere humans understand these terms?
I don't see morality as being anthropocentric. That would reduce it to a version of self-interest and prudence writ large.
I've got a problem with Buddhism or at least some versions of it. They seem to assume similar things that Pixie does, that absence of suffering trumps good things that unavoidably entail the very real risk of pain. Faulkner wrote that if he had to choose between pain and nothing, he'd go with pain. Maybe he could have worded that better, but you get what he's saying?
ReplyDeleteBuddhism is really hard for Westerners to understand, I think, Taoism also....
ReplyDeleteFaulkner wrote that if he had to choose between pain and nothing, he'd go with pain. Maybe he could have worded that better, but you get what he's saying?
Kinda, but is that just a question of degree sometimes? When the pain gets bad enough don't we just cease to be? Or perhaps we "cease to be" only partially by going into shock or comatose states, or by becoming dissociative, i.e. we "cease to be there." But, what I'm getting at, "destruction, however much we don't like it, is an intrinsic, inextricable part of any sort of creation, recreation, or transformation, ....."
If we accept that, does it reduce the amount of "evil" in the world sufficiently?
A Sri Lanken friend of mine who grew up in a Buddhist tradition might tell you the Buddhist stance would claim there is no distinction between "no-thing," and "every-thing," and "one-thing," i.e. between "being" and "nonbeing" perhaps....but to be honest, I'm not sure I would really get that, understand what he was really trying to say...heh!
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete7th S: They seem to assume similar things that Pixie does, that absence of suffering trumps good things that unavoidably entail the very real risk of pain.
ReplyDeleteWhen have I ever that?
Pix
Jim, on Buddhism, I liked this article....and it kinda suggested some of the way Buddhist ideas exist largely outside western categories....
ReplyDeletehttp://www.beamsandstruts.com/bits-a-pieces/item/1169-buddhismatheist?
.... And evil, that's not a solution to the PoE but a concession. It's an opting out. If we don't opt out, just for the sake of argument, can can X properties of God be reconciled with Y properties of the world? As we mere humans understand these terms?
ReplyDeleteI don't see morality as being anthropocentric. That would reduce it to a version of self-interest and prudence writ large.
Hard Problem: If "theology is a market" what is being sold with non-concessional answers to the PoE? An unjustifiable excess of "certainty and satisfaction?"
The PoE is certainly the atheologist's strongest argument...... Should we concede?
Maybe....
Does "everything is permitted" even include atheism?
;-)
Okay, for myself, I' been expanding a bit on Joe's "drama" concept here, plus adding a bit of a "suck it up, buttercup" undertone....
Along those lines, I like the idea, profligated by a young theologian in a quote somewhere above, that, Instead of evil being the absence of good (ie God) a la Augustine, God is IN that very "negation,", in that absence, the divine or the unconditioned is nonetheless "folded over" (as they say) even into those "godless" irruptions in our lives, painful, unwelcome, devastating, unforgivable as they are..... iOW, "there's no ultimate difference between "ground" and "unground", so to speak, but there's always a chance at transformation...."
Now, that's drama!
.... & mebbe it's getting at a non-anthropormorphizing response too. Dunno if it's exactly a theodicy tho....maybe it denies or blurs a good/evil distinction instead?
Hard Problem: If "theology is a market" what is being sold with non-concessional answers to the PoE? An unjustifiable excess of "certainty and satisfaction?"
ReplyDeleteThe PoE is certainly the atheologist's strongest argument...... Should we concede?
Dunno if anything's necessarily being 'sold.' Other than maybe a necessary uncertainty and opacity written into the possibility of a world.
Part of the point is not to concede until you've got a pretty good idea of what you're conceding to. WLC, who I usually don't put a lot of stock in, said that most versions of the evidential problem rely on a logical probability theory that's been rejected, because it's based on arbitrary decisions of the person interpreting it. That kind of thing.
Along those lines, I like the idea, profligated by a young theologian in a quote somewhere above, that, Instead of evil being the absence of good (ie God) a la Augustine, God is IN that very "negation,", in that absence, the divine or the unconditioned is nonetheless "folded over" (as they say) even into those "godless" irruptions in our lives, painful, unwelcome, devastating, unforgivable as they are..... iOW, "there's no ultimate difference between "ground" and "unground", so to speak, but there's always a chance at transformation...."
Dag nab it, all these new fangled ideas. Does this kind of thing hinge on a rejection of the PSR and God as not having any 'preferences' at all even in a relational sense?
Kinda, but is that just a question of degree sometimes? When the pain gets bad enough don't we just cease to be? Or perhaps we "cease to be" only partially by going into shock or comatose states, or by becoming dissociative, i.e. we "cease to be there." But, what I'm getting at, "destruction, however much we don't like it, is an intrinsic, inextricable part of any sort of creation, recreation, or transformation, ....."
ReplyDeleteYes, that's kind of what I've been saying, but phrased differently. Regardless of the wording or the exact categories, these ideas roughly point at a necessary 'cost' for any sort of contingent creation. That answers the logical problem, but the evidential problem asks how likely it is that we'd see this amount of suffering given a God of the omni's. God could have made a few simple adjustments and halved the amount of suffering, or so goes the argument.
...without sacrificing any amount of drama, autonomy, etc...
ReplyDeleteJim, on Buddhism, I liked this article....and it kinda suggested some of the way Buddhist ideas exist largely outside western categories....
ReplyDeleteRight. I wasn't making a point about Buddhism's relation to theism/atheism but only its relation to suffering. Seems like it's motivated by the 'desire' to get rid of suffering by jettisoning the conditions that give rise to suffering, even if its ultimate goal is transcendental. But the article does point out how the theist/atheist divide is too simple and western to capture what's going on in Buddhism. Joe might take more of a "western" tack than me by saying that the Unconditioned/Uncreated necessarily just IS God.
If the worst part of suffering, however, is ambiguity and doubt about meaning - what kind of "divine drama" does the atheologist have in mind as more appropriate for God to create then?
ReplyDeleteIs he or she suggesting, as someone might suspect, that some kind of knockoff "drama" with very clearly delineated good guys and bad guys, like say, a John Wayne movie from the 60's, woulda been a better fit with the divine Andy boundless imagination than something more ambiguous and ...well, just .... BETTER at least in the eyes of every lit prof and/or literary critic in the world? Like, maybe, Oedipus Rex, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Medea, Antigone, Prometheus Bound, or, say, Death of a Saleman?
One suspects, if so, that these highly-geared-to-the-rationalistic thinkers are all rather unclear on "dramatic and aesthetic concepts"?
They prolly only watch science specials on PBS, that's the problem with them.....hehe!
Or, IOW, were things otherwise, the atheologist might still argue, "oh, there can't be a God cuz the world has such a LAME plot!"
ReplyDelete;-)
wasn't making a point about Buddhism's relation to theism/atheism but only its relation to suffering. Seems like it's motivated by the 'desire' to get rid of suffering by jettisoning the conditions that give rise to suffering,
ReplyDeleteBuddhist teachers, or the best ones at least, are aware of that, and usually teach the desire "not to be" - to pursue mindfulness - is just another desire...
But there still does seem to be an implicit paradox here, yeah... But is that also quite a lot like what I was suggesting about modern Xian "ambiguity" defences for the PoE just up above?
Yes, that's kind of what I've been saying, but phrased differently. Regardless of the wording or the exact categories, these ideas roughly point at a necessary 'cost' for any sort of contingent creation. That answers the logical problem, but the evidential problem asks how likely it is that we'd see this amount of suffering given a God of the omni's. God could have made a few simple adjustments and halved the amount of suffering, or so goes the argument.
ReplyDeleteOne problem there, of course, is that regardless of the amount of suffering, it could always be halved. That could be where the arbitrary nature of setting a threshold for acceptable amounts/kinds of suffering comes into play...
Hehe! Yes, you have just defined "Zeno's poE paradox"!
ReplyDeleteDag nab it, all these new fangled ideas. Does this kind of thing hinge on a rejection of the PSR and God as not having any 'preferences' at all even in a relational sense?
ReplyDeleteWell, there is a concept in Malabou about "the other necessity" - i.e. the necessity of life itself .. a "necessity" that must be in place before more formal necessities be defined. That's not a new idea, but, as she claims in her Kant book, it "in no way erases the irruption of the enigma that life presents to philosophy."
Her line of thought is based on reading Kant's "Critique of Judgement" back into his "Critique of Reason" (along the lines of the American religious philosopher Clayton Crockett so there's at least one earlier case than Malabou's invocation)such that some ambiguous ideas in "Reason" were later resolved by Kant in the third and lessor-known Critique. In the later Critique, Kant claims the apprehension of 'beauty' can be claimed as universal by the perceiver, and that such a claim can be valid without "proof" - i.e. even tho the "beauty" of a thing is not analyzable, h3ence suggesting other forms of "thinking" and "necessity" have come into play...)
Malabou quotes Kant thusly:
The reflecting power of judgement, which is under the obligation of ascending form the particular in nature to the universal,therefore requires a principle that it cannot borrow from experience [...]
Then she writes ....
Kant will show that natural beauty, first, then life, present reason with the enigma of factual rationality, a rationality that appears to be able to do without reason. These appearances actually appear closed in on themselves, self-formed, self-normed, dismissing our jurisdictions immediately. Factual rationality is the unique rationality in which meaning is given without us, in the chance alliance of nature and freedom.
So, this is considering "the sublime" and thinking a sort of "dramatic" (aesthetic) form of rationality that is independent from epistemic/metaphysical reasoning, or maybe even from moral thinking.
Could a theocidy use these concepts, considering that "the drama" and "creative freedom" may be a form of divine "love" that transcends suffering and maybe even transcends "morality?" The "Sublime" therefore being far more essential to life, according to this line of thought, even than "maximal pleaure/minimal pain"?
So you see, my comments about aesthetics above weren't meant to be so entirely flippant!
Malabou also quotes Eric Weil:
ReplyDelete"We do not understand beauty, we do not understand life, we observe them. Purposiveness appears precisely as, "the meaning of the fortuitous existence of meaning."
Mike, Really interesting ideas. I haven't read Malabou or know much about her. A few points:
ReplyDeleteWhen she says that life is a necessity, does she mean the life instinct, the imperative for living things to continue living? Because there are exceptions to that such as suicide. I guess you could say that with suicides, the desire isn't for the ending of life but only the ending of suffering. But the ending of suffering isn't necessarily a good thing either, so I'm not sure how that'd work. But beyond suicide, there is the desire by some for some state of changeless bliss, such as nirvana, and if life is characterized by change...?
I think Kant differntiated between sublime and the beautiful. Erik could tell us more about this. The beautiful he thought had to do with form and thus limit whereas the sublime is the limitless. But I vaguely remember some reference to the beautiful as purposiveness without a purpose, ie without a concept. Also the universal aspect of aesthetic judgments would be an example of what she's referring to. How would her 'factual rationality' be used in a theodicy? It's an itnriguing idea, evne tho I'm pretty sure no atheist would even begin to buy it :)I also remember something about Kant thinking that the aesthetic faculty was an intermdiating link or transition between the sensuous world of scientific fact and the super-sensuous world of morality, fwiw.
When she says that life is a necessity, does she mean the life instinct, the imperative for living things to continue living?
ReplyDeleteI think so.... I may not completely understand this, but the basic question she seems to be asking is, "how can the 'telos' of life, life's self-organizing and self-desiring nature - whatever you believe it is actually geared for - be understood strictly from empirical observations and/or a priori principles"?
Whatever you think it is that life "wants", how do you explain that it seems to have a "goal"? I think that's what she's asking....
An example that's esp pertinent for Malabou is neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to reconstitute functions that have been "lost" - "where does that come from?", she'd ask. And Epigenetic phenomena, as she discusses in her Kant book, the body's ability to activate, deactivate, and even change gene sequences in offspring, as adaptive mechanisms.
.... & um, let me get back to you on the theodicy question! Hmmm.....
so even the impetus given by our genes - could then, for Malabou, be subject to plasticity and change - even the "goals of evolution" themselves could be changeable....
ReplyDelete... I THINK that's what she's saying....
Also, Jim, how could suicide even exist in a bio universe driven be "selfish genes?" .... In a crude underatanding of the latter idea, anyway, as I haven't read that book.
ReplyDeleteK, this passage from CM's Kant book would prolly be the one to use in a non-anthropomorphic, Malabouan-oriented defense of the PoE - one that rests on "beauty" and "meaning" (in maybe a somewhat psuedo-Kantian way) and also invokes "the drama" a la Joe....
ReplyDeleteBefore its time, Kant thus discovered the power that certain appearances have to decorrelate thought. Once again, life organizes itself very well without us and is indifferent to the fact of being judged. But after all, one might ask, what's the problem? The problem is that indifference is the lining of meaning. ... That which is indifferent makes meaning all alone. This is just what life prompts us to think. It makes meaning in order to stand for itself alone.
Then she goes on to talk about, "the chancy nature of meaning".... but she's not a theist - afaict - so this is where a theologization of her departs, I guess.
From there, however, we however turn to process "theologian" Catherine Keller's reading of Job.
Which states the problem thusly....
From the protest tradition of psalms and prophets, Job voices the most sharply focused grievance of them all. For the[sic] unmasks the contradiction growing in the heart of monotheism: if the God of justice is to be counted all-powerful, that God must be held accountable for all injustice.
Then she gives the following (quite typically theopoetic) answer....
Job gets the chaos he asked for–wind-storm, monsters and all. His initial desire, “to throw all of creation back into primordial chaos,” is realized. With a twist. Whereas he summoned with his curses a chaos of death, what answers his call is the chaos of life. The joke is on Job. A suicidal anti-cosmogony turns suddenly–comi-cosmic. The carnival of creation. To the raging question of theodicy (How could a good and all-powerful God permit such injustice?) the voice from the whirlwind replies: "Look at the wild things.'
(That's essentially the same as was my reading of Job too, btw....)
So now, we got "the drama, the beauty, life, the facticity of meaning...." Considering all these new factors, does our dour little atheologian still wish to continue pushing his whiny point, "well, it could be better!" ... or not? ... hehe!
(Well, that's a start, perhaps...)
K, this passage from CM's Kant book would prolly be the one to use in a non-anthropomorphic, Malabouan-oriented defense of the PoE - one that rests on "beauty" and "meaning" (in maybe a somewhat psuedo-Kantian way) and also invokes "the drama" a la Joe....
ReplyDeleteany notion that is about God and is absent love is a misconstruel of God,
Doesn't love "decorrelate thought", create its own "facticity of meaning"?
ReplyDeleteIf not, what is the sense of this passage, for one?-
At a time when Jews expect a miracle and Greeks seek enlightenment, we speak about God’s Anointed crucified! This is an offense to Jews, nonsense to the nations; but to those who have heard God’s call, both Jews and Greeks, the Anointed represents God’s power and God’s wisdom; because the folly of God is wiser than humans are and the weakness of God is stronger than humans are. —1 Cor 1
Ie "it makes meaning in order to stand for itself alone...."
any notion that is about God and is absent love is a misconstruel of God,
ReplyDeleteWhy is love any less metaphorical than the other traits we ascribe to God? If you say that it's Biblical, the Bible is made up of metaphors.
Love is not metaphorical, one can have metaphors of love but love itself is strait forward.Love can't tun out to be about something not loving because that would not be love.
ReplyDelete"Before its time, Kant thus discovered the power that certain appearances have to decorrelate thought. Once again, life organizes itself very well without us and is indifferent to the fact of being judged. But after all, one might ask, what's the problem? The problem is that indifference is the lining of meaning. ... That which is indifferent makes meaning all alone. This is just what life prompts us to think. It makes meaning in order to stand for itself alone."
ReplyDeleteWell, the standard theist response, of course, is that God is the ground of meaning so that the facticity she refers to would be so only relative to us human observers. I guess Malabou and others would maintain that the facticity is 'true' in a more robust sense than this, but doesn't this position run the risk of contradicting itself, ie claiming a stronger correlation for thought than is justified?
"Job gets the chaos he asked for–wind-storm, monsters and all. His initial desire, “to throw all of creation back into primordial chaos,” is realized. With a twist. Whereas he summoned with his curses a chaos of death, what answers his call is the chaos of life. The joke is on Job. A suicidal anti-cosmogony turns suddenly–comi-cosmic. The carnival of creation. To the raging question of theodicy (How could a good and all-powerful God permit such injustice?) the voice from the whirlwind replies: "Look at the wild things.' "
So the idea is that God transcends our binary categories such as creation/chaos, ground/unground, good/evil? But that wouldn't be a theodicy, would it? It would be an argument for why we don't need one, the way Joe argues for why the theist doesn't need 'proof' of God?
Love is not metaphorical, one can have metaphors of love but love itself is strait forward.Love can't tun out to be about something not loving because that would not be love.
ReplyDeleteBut why is love alone like this as opposed to all the other traits we ascribe to God? How do we know that the antinomy of Love/not Love is a result of our human limitations?
The last comment should read:
ReplyDeleteBut why is love alone like this as opposed to all the other traits we ascribe to God? How do we know that the antinomy of Love/not Love is NOT a result of our human limitations?
I don't know that I agree that love is metaphorical, but isn't love supposed to be mysterious, not directly explainable, and expressed spontaneously?
ReplyDelete"Before its time, Kant thus discovered the power that certain appearances have to decorrelate thought. Once again, life organizes itself very well without us and is indifferent to the fact of being judged. But after all, one might ask, what's the problem? The problem is that indifference is the lining of meaning. ... That which is indifferent makes meaning all alone. This is just what life prompts us to think. It makes meaning in order to stand for itself alone."
ReplyDeleteThe point here, as regards love, is a bit more dramatic and complex, ie that "Love", at its most intense, also infers DESTRUCTION....
The Xian is sposed to be "buried with Christ", the lovers' self-identity become lost in the gazes of their beloved, as they merge into one thing. (Boy, is that ever boring way to put it! Oh well....hopefully you guys get what I mean).
Or, consider this.... A major Pauline and Gospel image is the seed: a seed is shattered, destroyed when it spouts, it's form is lost and becomes unrecoverable - it's not expanded and maintained .... like a "safe love" experience that does not breech the ego-boundary or something ... That's I mean, kinda, by "the drama" ....which is, if you face it, not so different than what you say, Joe.....
.....
So the idea is that God transcends our binary categories such as creation/chaos, ground/unground, good/evil? But that wouldn't be a theodicy, would it? It would be an argument for why we don't need one, the way Joe argues for why the theist doesn't need 'proof' of God?
ReplyDeleteI dunno? One of the things I've been thinking is an "ambiguity" defense almost verges on concession anyway?
Jim, I think it is that "the drama"- which could be explained as the urge towards transformation & New Creation or towards the Kingdom or whatever - transcends those binaries? Which doesn't directly infer that God does....
ReplyDelete"I dunno? One of the things I've been thinking is an "ambiguity" defense almost verges on concession anyway?"
ReplyDeleteIt could be a defense that says in effect that the question isn't formulated well. It doesn't even qualify as calling for an answer that's either right or wrong.
The PoE is kind of like the 'free will' problem. can these concepts, given their meanings as already largely agreed on, be made to line up in a way that makes sense, regardless of whether they correspond to how things really are?
"I dunno? One of the things I've been thinking is an "ambiguity" defense almost verges on concession anyway? "
ReplyDeleteOr that the question doesn't really apply. It doesn't call for answers that can be right or wrong.
I see the PoE as kind of like the 'free will' question. Can these concepts, accepting agreed on meanings for them, be made to line up in a way that can make sense, regardless of whether or not they correspond to how things really are?
"I dunno? One of the things I've been thinking is an "ambiguity" defense almost verges on concession anyway? "
ReplyDeleteNot necessarily. It could be a recognition of the fact that the question itself isn't all that well framed.
But assuming that it can be answered, I see the PoE as something like the free will problem. Both ask "Can these concepts, with commonly agreed on meanings, be lined up in a way that makes sense, regardless if the answer corresponds to what's really the case?"
Well, the standard theist response, of course, is that God is the ground of meaning so that the facticity she refers to would be so only relative to us human observers. I guess Malabou and others would maintain that the facticity is 'true' in a more robust sense than this, but doesn't this position run the risk of contradicting itself, ie claiming a stronger correlation for thought than is justified?
ReplyDeleteshe's arguing with Meillsoux here, so the context is different.....
MY understanding of it - whether it's a misuse of it or not - interprets the idea pretty much like "that which is meaningful is wrapped in indifference" ...
So .... Something as the case with beauty, which is claimed by Kant to be universalizable even when the apprehension is limited to only a few or one, but this is kind of a reversal. There is, it's claimed, as with love, a transcendence beyond any kind of self- considerations, beyond mere forms of economy or exchange, an excess (to use a much beloved post-mod term!) ,or perhaps an irreducible quality, that's necessary to make something properly "meaningful". And that excess must transcend "interestedness" -"meaningfulness"is never self-interested or the meaning is lost....
Like that, very very roughly ....but will this post?
test
ReplyDeletecan you see this post?
ReplyDelete