Some observations on the problem of evil

[Robin]

Honestly, I'm not sure I follow you here. Would you agree that if responding compassionately to does not materially affect the suffering, then it can only increase actualized goodness?

No. If I see a starving child on television and respond compassionately, then do nothing about it, I cannot state that actualized goodness has increased in any way.

At any rate, at least some theists believe that responding compassionately (in a conventional sense of those terms) is a divine imperative, that the truth of this is known by revelation, and that it would not be so if responding compassionately would decrease actualized goodness. This premise could be true or false.

I can't see that what some theists believe is really relevant.

Yet who is going to use that premise (that a benevolent, omnipotent God has arranged that this suffering is specifically and individually necessary to some greater good) in isolation?

Nobody, I hope. But that is not the point. The point is what would be the correct moral response if we knew that God had arranged the suffering for some greater good, and knew that we knew nothing else. The correct moral response would be to do nothing. Or at the least there would be no correct moral response.

The health of the patient might not be helped, but can you state with assurance that actualized goodness would be decreased?

Since my premise is that we can know nothing certain about actualised goodness then my answer is obviously no. But we are talking about what we would do in a situation, rather than how it would make us feel.

A daresay that our Christian friends will assert that they have been specifically asked by God to respond compassionately to any instance of suffering brought to their attention.

And no doubt others would say that they have been asked to trust God and do nothing.

When I alluded to a different moral outcome, I meant to encompass the possibility of a different moral response in the beholder.

To use an analogy, thing of a mathematical function called f which is defined to multiply it's input by 3. So f(3) would result in 9, f(4) would result in 12.

Whether we supply a 3 or a 4 to this function, we have changed the outcome, but we have not changed the function itself. Now suppose the function discriminates - it multiplies even number by three and odd numbers by 4. So f(3) would be 12 and f(6) would be 18.

We can now provoke a different response by the type of number we give it, but we have still not altered the function itself. Do you see what I am getting at? Mr A and Mr B might provoke different outcomes of the moral response without altering the moral response itself.

I'm not sure I can assent to this condition. I'm not even sure I understand what you're getting at. (And when I said it was logically possible, I meant only to say that no proof of its impossibility has yet been adduced here or is apparent to my mind.)

Is my moral response to a situation dependent on something I am incapable of knowing? This is quite clear. We are considering the situation I encounter and my moral response to it. How can the actual good I manage to do relevant, especially if I am unable to know this?

I realize that. It's not necessary to my point that Mr. Y be able to plot it. The fact that it could theoretically be plotted suffices to cast doubt on the notion that a given instance or amount of suffering cannot be specifically necessary to a given moral outcome (and in particular, maximized goodness).

But if you are arguing that a specific instance of suffering might be necessary for a specific moral response, how is the moral outcome relevant?

The moral outcome may or may not be conditional upon my moral response, but my moral response can never be conditional upon the moral outcome, unless I know what that outcome will be.

The logic of which argument? The argument from evil?

No, the one we are currently engaged in that says that an instance of suffering might be individually and specifically necessary to our moral response.

In a manner of speaking; yet the specific outcome depends on the conjunction of Mr. Y and the other person, doesn't it?

But the (unknowable) outcome is not relevant when you are considering the moral response.

Your assertion was that the moral response might be the greater good that justified some specific instance of suffering. In this case the actual outcome is irrelevant.

If you are arguing that the greater good might depend on the moral response, then the actual outcome would be relevant, but I would be countering it with a different argument.

I'm not sure what the relevance is, here. And those would appear to be counterfactuals of freedom, not facts.

Well let me ask you - do you agree that if Mr Y responds to Mr. A's suffering in a different way to Mr. B's suffering, the different response depends on Mr Y, not Mr A, or Mr B? It is key that you understand this step first. If, for example I would help a suffering Scotsman, but let an Englishman suffer this depends on me and not on any individual sufferer?

So if I only ever encounter suffering Scotsman I do no wrong. If I encounter only suffering Englishmen I do no right.

So presumably I am morally good just so long as I never meet a suffering Englishman. I am morally bad just so long as I never encounter any suffering Scotsmen. But would it really make me good, just because circumstances had never allowed me to put my prejudice into practice?

I say no, my prejudice would still be part of my moral response even if I had only been able to exercise one components of it.

I guess I'm still working through your argument. This conclusion seems incorrect to me, or at least undemonstrated.

Well remember, the argument is to the proposition that an instance of suffering might be individually and specifically necessary to the moral response of a free agent.

To me it is quite clear. Unless there is the possibility that some suffering might be gratuitous then there is no possibility of real consequences to our moral choices.

 

[rocketdodger]

So if I only ever encounter suffering Scotsman I do no wrong. If I encounter only suffering Englishmen I do no right.

Wow Robin you are sharp -- this is another argument against the "development into moral beings" theodicy, and one that I haven't heard yet. Thanks!

 

[Bri]

It's an interesting spin on the argument, but it's really just asking why we don't have opportunities to make choices on every moral dilemma possible. True, not all of us are presented with a choice to save a life that we might be predisposed to not save. So what? Not all of us are presented with a choice to save a life at all! Not everyone will be presented with any choice you can come up with.

We are all presented with a variety of moral choices every day, some big and some small. It's quite possible that people are presented with the choices that bring about the greatest good in the world. It's possible that the greatest good is served by certain people being presented the choice to save lives while others are presented choices of whether or not to steal an apple from the grocery store.

I'm not sure I see how Robin's argument advances a defense of the Problem of Evil.

-Bri

 

[kurious_kathy]

Anyone would think that Christianity was the only religion in town judging by most of the discussion in this thread. What I am calling "God" is a concept that has some things in common with the Christian conception of God, and not others. It also has some stuff in common with various concepts from eastern religions. Why should the word "God" be reserved for the God which is believed in by mainstream Christians? Plenty of other people have used that word to describe other things, such as neccesary beings or the root of all existence, etc...

When we have these debates, people seem to think there is an either/or thing going on. Either the God of Christianity exists, or it doesn't. This is then followed with "....and if it doesn't then all religions are wrong", or something along those lines. What should be happening is that we are discussing what sort of properties God could conceivably/logically have. In other words, "Does God exist?" is the wrong question. A better question is "What could be the properties of a God which can exist?" It's a better question because we actually stand some chance of answering it. What we would be left with would be a God which is at least not neccesarily non-existent by the laws of logic. In other words, what most Christians believe in is actually a logically inconsistent concept, so it cannot possibly exist - any more than a square circle can exist. But it does not follow that no God at all exists. All that follows is God cannot have the contradictory properties that some people claim for him - including absolute "goodness" or the power to defy the laws of logic or the ability to know the outcome of a human free will decision before the decision is made. All of these things can be ruled out via logical reasoning on its own, but ruling them out does not rule out the possibility of a God with other properties existing.

Hi Just Geoff, you have brought up many questions in this thread that are good questions. As a New Testament believer I know our God through the person of Jesus. He came to show us the way, to be the light of this world!
Since the life of Christ is every way most bitter to nature and the Self and the Me(for in the true life of Christ, the Self and Me and nature must be forsaken and lost and die altogether), therefore in each of us, nature hath a horror of it. Theologia Germanica,XX

I am currently finishing a book by C.S. Lewis called "The Problem of Pain", have you read it? I think you would enjoy some of the perspectives Lewis has to offer.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

I am currently finishing a book by C.S. Lewis called the Trouble Of Pain, have you read it? I think you would enjoy some of the perspectives Lewis offers.

I have not read this particular book, but I certainly aware of C.S.Lewis. Lewis was an idealist (in an ontological sense - he believed that reality is made out of mind, not matter), and as Christian thinkers go he is pretty good. He makes the current generation of advocators of "intelligent design" look like intellectual pygmies, IMO.

My own history sort of prohibits me from ever describing myself as a Christian - I personally cannot accept that there was anything more special about Jesus of Nazareth than there was about countless other similar figures, such as the Buddha. One of the biggest problems with the big three theistic religions is that they all insist that theirs is the "one true faith" and that the other religions are all wrong (especially the other two theistic religions). This is no good. From my perspective, the one religion which is closest to getting its metaphysics right is also the most tolerant of other religious positions (including atheism) - and that religion is Hinduism, for all its faults.

 

[kurious_kathy]

I have not read this particular book, but I certainly aware of C.S.Lewis. Lewis was an idealist (in an ontological sense - he believed that reality is made out of mind, not matter), and as Christian thinkers go he is pretty good. He makes the current generation of advocators of "intelligent design" look like intellectual pygmies, IMO.

My own history sort of prohibits me from ever describing myself as a Christian - I personally cannot accept that there was anything more special about Jesus of Nazareth than there was about countless other similar figures, such as the Buddha. One of the biggest problems with the big three theistic religions is that they all insist that theirs is the "one true faith" and that the other religions are all wrong (especially the other two theistic religions). This is no good. From my perspective, the one religion which is closest to getting its metaphysics right is also the most tolerant of other religious positions (including atheism) - and that religion is Hinduism, for all its faults.

I don't know that much about other religions, but as an ex-New Ager or Pantheists I now know and believe there is only one way to God the Father and that is through His Son, Jesus.

I have always been a very spiritual person, but people can be spiritually deceived outside of Christ. I was one of them. I use to think everything was a part of God, but it isn't. I had to learn it the hard way and just pray that others will be able to come out of darkness like I did. It's the power of God that bring us into the light and renews our spirit.

C.S.Lewis is someone I think many people can respect. His writings are so insightful and I really believe it was because he was an atheists for many of his adult years that he is able to offer so many insights to others. I think God gave him an incredible gift. I still need to finish his book"Mere Christianity" have you read that one?

 

[UndercoverElephant]

I don't know that much about other religions, but as an ex-New Ager or Pantheists I now know and believe there is only one way to God the Father and that is through His Son, Jesus.

Well, for me this is a major problem because it is exactly this attitude which sets up the "them and us" situation which causes so many problems. The very sentence you just typed shows the problem: You think you know there is "only one way to God" even though you don't know very much about the other religions. You are basically saying that even though you have little knowledge of the religious systems which have persisted in other parts of the world for considerably longer than Christianity, you still know that they are wrong. This, I am afraid, is fairly typical of the abscence of basic logic that is characteristic of much Christian thinking.

I still need to finish his book"Mere Christianity" have you read that one?

No. The only books by Lewis I have ever read are the Narnia chronicles - all of them, when I was a child. I am aware of Lewis's philosophical position because I am studying philosophy - and for the record my metaphysics/religion tutor came from the same line of philosophers at Oxford that Lewis belonged to, and is also a Christian and an idealist. However, I don't think he would write off the other religions as easily as yourself, and neither would C.S.Lewis.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Kathy....

A small amount of research will show you that C.S.Lewis was very much sympathetic towards hinduism. Shortly before coming a Christian he has come to the conclusion that either Hinduism or Christianity was where religion had reach its zenith.

The following quote is particularly pertinent:

http://www.boloji.com/hinduism/036.htm

Coming back to Hinduism, C.S. Lewis, the great author and theologist wrote, finally it will come to two religions. Hinduism and Christianity. The first [Hinduism] will grow absorbing ideas and concepts from everywhere and later [Christianity] will keep away from everything that is foreign to it. What C.S. Lewis wrote is very true.

Indeed. Which is why unlike Lewis, I would sooner describe myself as a Hindu than a Christian.

Geoff

 

[Freethinker]

Well, for me this is a major problem because it is exactly this attitude which sets up the "them and us" situation which causes so many problems. The very sentence you just typed shows the problem: You think you know there is "only one way to God" even though you don't know very much about the other religions. You are basically saying that even though you have little knowledge of the religious systems which have persisted in other parts of the world for considerably longer than Christianity, you still know that they are wrong. This, I am afraid, is fairly typical of the abscence of basic logic that is characteristic of much Christian thinking.

Nominated!

 

[Dr Adequate]

Well, for me this is a major problem because it is exactly this attitude which sets up the "them and us" situation which causes so many problems. The very sentence you just typed shows the problem: You think you know there is "only one way to God" even though you don't know very much about the other religions. You are basically saying that even though you have little knowledge of the religious systems which have persisted in other parts of the world for considerably longer than Christianity, you still know that they are wrong. This, I am afraid, is fairly typical of the abscence of basic logic that is characteristic of much Christian thinking.

Ah yes ...

I am very interested in learning and identifying things in other religious teachings to see how other beliefs compare to my belief ...

Without looking it up, how much can you tell me about the teachings of Sikhism?

I haven't heard that term Sikhism.

 

[chriswl]

I am saying that God as at the mercy of the laws of logic, and that this has the further effect of restricting any reality which can actually exist to existing within a set of self-consistent laws. Just as God cannot create a stone so heavy that he himself cannot lift it, God cannot create a Universe which is itself internally inconsisent/incoherent. Even God cannot create something which is inherently uncreatable. No square circles. Therefore any possible physical Universe must be arranged according to some set of laws. We have already noted that the laws of physics, as they stand, arguably allow for indeterminism (QM), so "being at the mercy of the laws of physics/logic" doesn't imply "being at the mercy of the laws of probability." In other words, God can act in the world but only within the laws of physics, and that means "loading the quantum dice". What he cannot do, for example, is create a perpetual motion machine (or a planet with a large magnetic field but no geological activity).

He cannot set up a logically-inconsistent reality. EVERYTHING has to "add up properly". He cannot create a world where everybody is rich and nobody is poor, because in reality the poor support the lifestyle of the rich. You cannot have the top of a pyramid without a bottom to support it. He cannot create a world where there is no death but organisms are still capable of a(genetically) adapting. There are loads of examples like this.

I disagree with every word of that (apart from the bit about square circles). Logical consistency in no way implies consistent laws of physics. Physical laws are just observed regularities. We can't even be totally sure we live in a universe that always and everywhere follows consistent laws, much less insist that this is something that must be true for all habitable universes.

Here's a simple counter-argument - imagine a Matrix-type virtual world. You would agree that this virtual world is not restricted in the way you suggest our universe is. It could certainly contain perpetual motion machines, just in the same way a movie can represent, via special effects, things that are not physically possible. But no virtual world (or movie) will ever be able to show us a square circle.

I would suggest that anything that can be represented in a virtual world is logically possible and therefore could have been implemented in this world. In any case, creating humans as brains-in-jars connected to very powerful computers simulating a virtual world was one of the options open to God. If he rejected this in favour of building a less perfect physical world then he is less than omnibenevolent.

I am clearly stating that God had no means of "creating" humans other than by a process of evolution, which may or may not have been "nudged in the right direction" from time to time.

I'm utterly baffled by that statement. If God can make a super-dense cloud of matter appear out of nowhere (the big bang) then why can he not make something more complicated? Either he can create things out of nothing or he can't.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Physical laws are just observed regularities.

That is open for debate. Some physical laws, such as the conservation of energy, may turn out to be neccesary for any physical reality which is possible.

We can't even be totally sure we live in a universe that always and everywhere follows consistent laws, much less insist that this is something that must be true for all habitable universes.

You are right, there may even be cases where what we call physical laws end up being broken, but even this does not rule out the possibility that some of the laws are truly unbreakable, simply because it is not possible to break them and be left with a coherent reality.

Here's a simple counter-argument - imagine a Matrix-type virtual world. You would agree that this virtual world is not restricted in the way you suggest our universe is.

That would be correct. In such a virtual world there is no need for everything to add up (or balance out). It's not a real reality.

It could certainly contain perpetual motion machines, just in the same way a movie can represent, via special effects, things that are not physically possible. But no virtual world (or movie) will ever be able to show us a square circle.

OK, that is fair enough. The impossibility of square circles is immediately obvious. The impossibility of free energy machines in an existing physical reality is not.

I would suggest that anything that can be represented in a virtual world is logically possible.....

Logically possible in a real world? That does not follow.

...and therefore could have been implemented in this world. In any case, creating humans as brains-in-jars connected to very powerful computers simulating a virtual world was one of the options open to God. If he rejected this in favour of building a less perfect physical world then he is less than omnibenevolent.

In that case I'll have to join in the other part of this debate, although I'll phrase it differently: A world where everything is perfect and nobody had to struggle for anything would not be worth living in.

I'm utterly baffled by that statement. If God can make a super-dense cloud of matter appear out of nowhere (the big bang) then why can he not make something more complicated?

This is a good question. The answer is that I believe that even at this point, logical restrictions were in force. In this case, all of the matter and energy has to be cancelled out by the potential gravitational energy of the matter. It all adds up to Zero, and it had to do so. I am saying that God cannot create a Universe out of nowhere without that Universe adding up to precisely nothing. I am saying that this is a logical requirement, that there is no other way to create something "from nothing".

Either he can create things out of nothing or he can't.

....or he can only create things out of nothing according to a law whereby what is created adds up to nothing?

Doesn't that make intuitive sense to you?

 

[kurious_kathy]

No. The only books by Lewis I have ever read are the Narnia chronicles - all of them, when I was a child. I am aware of Lewis's philosophical position because I am studying philosophy - and for the record my metaphysics/religion tutor came from the same line of philosophers at Oxford that Lewis belonged to, and is also a Christian and an idealist. However, I don't think he would write off the other religions as easily as yourself, and neither would C.S.Lewis.

I am not trying to totally discount all other religions just because I am stern in my knowlege of knowing Jesus's words are truth.
Indeed other religions represent something very significant, people are searching for God. If He's real we want to know Him. I just have had to learn the hard way not to try to make God into my own image of Him. He is who He says He is and we know Him through His Word! God isn't hiding and all of us need the Savior to be reconciled to God.

Anyways I have to go for today. It's my afternoon to volunteer at the pregnancy center. I'll talk with you guys later, God willing.

 

[Dr Adequate]

That is open for debate. Some physical laws, such as the conservation of energy, may turn out to be neccesary for any physical reality which is possible.

In the sense of a synthetic a priori?

 

[UndercoverElephant]

In the sense of a synthetic a priori?

Kant's "synthetic a priori" is more specifically directed at "a condition for the possibility of experience", so not quite, but closely related. I am saying "possible physical realities" and Kant is saying "possible experiencable realities". In the end, I suspect this comes down to the same thing, since I cannot imagine an experiencable reality which we wouldn't call "physical".

 

[Robin]

Hi Just Geoff, you have brought up many questions in this thread that are good questions. As a New Testament believer I know our God through the person of Jesus. He came to show us the way, to be the light of this world!
Since the life of Christ is every way most bitter to nature and the Self and the Me(for in the true life of Christ, the Self and Me and nature must be forsaken and lost and die altogether), therefore in each of us, nature hath a horror of it. Theologia Germanica,XX

I am currently finishing a book by C.S. Lewis called "The Problem of Pain", have you read it? I think you would enjoy some of the perspectives Lewis has to offer.

Why don't you start a new thread on this one. It is a highly interesting, but pretty flawed book. Lewis understood the main theological arguments but was the first to admit that he was not a theologist.

The chapters on animals and hell are particularly problematical. I have quoted this book and referred to it extensively in this forum though.

 

[Robin]

I'm not sure I see how Robin's argument advances a defense of the Problem of Evil.

-Bri

Hmmm. If the remarks in your post refer to my arguments then you simply have not understood it.

My argument is a response, not to the problem of evil, but to the so-called agnostic defense, ie that we are intrinsically incapable of judging whether some instance of suffering is justified because we cannot handle the complexity of following every consequence of suffering.

I merely point out that the answer to this is to assume (for the sake of argument) that every instance of suffering is individually necessary for some greater good.

So we have assumed no gratuitous suffering then there are no real consequences to our moral choices.

The common theodicy is that moral development depends on read consequences to moral choices which depends on the existence of gratuitous suffering. So the conclusion of this theodicy must be that there really is gratuitous suffering.

Where does this lead? Well the agnostic defense was in refutation of a premise of a William Rowe argument, so I would then hand over to him.

 

[Robin]

That is open for debate. Some physical laws, such as the conservation of energy, may turn out to be neccesary for any physical reality which is possible.

Did God have to use the concept of energy at all? Did God have to use the concepts of time and space?

The answer is that I believe that even at this point, logical restrictions were in force. In this case, all of the matter and energy has to be cancelled out by the potential gravitational energy of the matter. It all adds up to Zero, and it had to do so.

Why? Who wrote that rule? Any universe has to add up to Zero? I don't think that physicist necessarily believe that our universe adds to zero. Some suggest that you need variables from other universes to make the sums come out right.

So even if there were some logical requirement for everything to add to zero, God could have two universes add to zero.

 

[chriswl]

That is open for debate. Some physical laws, such as the conservation of energy, may turn out to be neccesary for any physical reality which is possible.

The conservation of energy is a secondary law and is only necessary because it is implied by Newton's laws. In fact quantum physics shows us that energy is not always conserved - it can be converted into mass and vice-versa. Mass-energy is the thing that is conserved.

That would be correct. In such a virtual world there is no need for everything to add up (or balance out). It's not a real reality.

For the purposes of the PoE argument this distinction doesn't matter. We don't know (and therefore cannot care) whether our world is a real or a virtual one. Only God would know. The PoE argument is about the effect of God's choices on the experiences (real or otherwise) of humans.

Having said that, I think any virtual world could exist as a stand-alone entity. All virtual worlds have an implied physics (in fact computer game designers often refer to the rules that control the interaction of objects on screen as the game physics). It is just that this is typically very complex and arbitrary.

It is actually quite remarkable that the world we live in does universally follow such a simple set of laws. Instead of a small number of fundamental particles and forces interacting from which any complexity has to gradually emerge over vast eons of time, this complexity could have been built directly into the laws themselves. I think a good argument against any sort of god is the observation that our universe seems to be based on phenomena that exhibit simple law-like regularities, not complex mind-like ones.

In that case I'll have to join in the other part of this debate, although I'll phrase it differently: A world where everything is perfect and nobody had to struggle for anything would not be worth living in.

Quite possibly so. But it doesn't follow that our world provides just the right amount of struggle and challenge in just the right circumstances to be the best possible world. In fact it clearly doesn't - there is much suffering that serves no such purpose.

....or he can only create things out of nothing according to a law whereby what is created adds up to nothing?

But it clearly isn't a logical necessity that there be such a law. So therefore this would be a law that God could repeal.

 

[Bri]

Hmmm. If the remarks in your post refer to my arguments then you simply have not understood it.

That is quite possible.

I merely point out that the answer to this is to assume (for the sake of argument) that every instance of suffering is individually necessary for some greater good.

So we have assumed no gratuitous suffering then there are no real consequences to our moral choices.

That doesn't seem to follow necessarily. If the greater good of the suffering is to provide a choice, then indeed the suffering is for a greater good regardless of the decision, and the decision also has its own moral consequences.

The common theodicy is that moral development depends on read consequences to moral choices which depends on the existence of gratuitous suffering. So the conclusion of this theodicy must be that there really is gratuitous suffering.

You're right, I still don't understand how you come to that conclusion.

-Bri