Tuesday, February 10, 2009

A Calvinistic Determinist Defense for the Problem of Evil

It has been often objected by free will theists and atheists alike that the belief in God with the conjunction of Calvinistic Determinism is irrational because it cannot give an adequate answer to the atheological argument from evil. This argument has been popularly called the “Problem of evil.”  In this post we will look at how this problem arises in Christian theistic philosophy and how a Calvinistic Determinist might possibly respond to this objection.

The Problem of Evil:

The problem arises with the conjunction of the following propositions:

P1: God is morally perfect

P2: God is omnipotent (being able to bring about all logically possible good things)

P3: God is omniscient (knowing all true propositions)

P4: Evil Exists

There is no obvious contradiction here unless one adds in this proposition:

P5: P1 entails that God ought to stop all evil as much as he possibly can

One could merely reject P5 on the basis of this proposition, namely P6:

P6: God has a morally sufficient reason for strongly actualizing evil in the world

Now one might ask “what would that morally sufficient reason be?” To this question I would give two possible responses. First, though, I should note that this is a defense and not a theodicy. The difference between a defense and a theodicy is that a defense shows how the propositions above are just logically possible, whereas a theodicy attempts to show the reason for why God allows or causes evil in the world. In writing this I do not pretend to be so presumptuous as to know the mind of God, rather I am merely showing that there is no contradiction between Calvinistic determinism and evil.

Response 1: Transcendent Response

It could be that God has a morally sufficient reason for causing evil and we simply do not have cognitive access to that aspect of God’s mind. This is perfectly reasonable and coherent given the Reformed emphasis on the creator/creature distinction. Furthermore, Reformed folks have a robust view of this distinction such that they would say that the divine and human intellects never intersect (Scott Clark and most people at Westminster affirm this presupposition). Therefore, given these Reformed presuppositions the problem of evil is hardly a problem.

Response 2: Anselmian Divine Attributes Response

Another possible reason relies on the concept of God as the greatest possible being. God is the greatest possible being so he necessarily is just and gracious to the greatest possible degree. But the problem is that God cannot be gracious if he so chooses to create without the existence of moral evil. Because to be gracious one has to bestow demerited favor toward agents, but there simply can be no such demerit unless an agent S sins. Thus, one such reason for causing human agents to sin is so that God can manifest his graciousness to the greatest possible degree. This greatest degree of graciousness would also entail him sending his Son Jesus Christ into the world to display his graciousness to the greatest possible degree toward sinners.

Another thing that the cross of Christ displays is God’s justice toward sinners. God’s justice is such that it requires manifestation if he is to create. He is so just that he has to manifest a just judgment between the righteous and the unrighteous. This justice is such that he would create lesser beings that are evil just so he can show his greatness through punishing them justly. Thus, in this defense God’s glory as a whole is more important than an individual creature that God creates for the purposes of letting the greatest possible being act as the greatest possible being. Hence, God’s Glory and letting himself act on his creation in accordance with his divine great-making properties is the morally sufficient reason for God causally determining every evil event.

Concluding Remarks:

These all seem like possible Reponses that a Calvinist could give and thus one ought not to abandon Reformed theology on the basis of the problem of evil, since there are at least two possible responses. Reformed theology like this defense puts the emphasis on God’s glory and not on man’s. God’s glory is the greatest possible end because God is the greatest possible being and thus although response 2 may seem offensive to some, but if one looks at things from the perspective of God’s glory being the highest good end, then perhaps the offensive nature of this response will disappear (at the very least, a humble and pious attitude ought to lessen the offense). We live in a world that puts emphasis and attention on the individual man rather than the community and the greatest possible being, so for those of us who are ready they can use this effective Calvinistic Defense against the atheological objection from evil.

26 comments:

  1. good word, sparkling wiggles.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I actually checked to see who posted this time.

    Nate:

    First, I'll just note that I am not a huge fan of the way that the problem of evil has been formulated here. Keeping in touch with contemporary developments, I propose the following problem of suffering.

    This is William Rowe's argument, with a few modifications:

    1. There exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some [consequences that are] equally bad or worse.

    2. An omniscient, wholly good being would prevent the occurrence of any intense suffering it could, unless it could not do so without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some [consequences that are] equally bad or worse.

    3. [Therefore,] [t]here does not exist an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good being.

    This argument differs from yours in a few ways, and I think is better for purposes of clarification. We don't have to quibble about what "evil" is, and whether it really exists. We don't have to worry about whether God needs to be held to standards of "moral justification" for his actions, how that would work, etc. No, rather we have one definitional premise about what a being like God would do (which we can know just by the definition of that being), and one empirical premise, plus its conclusion. So I think we can avoid a lot of pitfalls and rabbit trails this way.

    Now, to get to the argument.

    The first premise has, least to me, all the appearances of a definitional truth. Whatever we human beings mean by the words ‘wholly good,’ we do not mean to include beings that could prevent great suffering, without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some consequences that are equally bad or worse, but do not. Indeed, we all believe that such beings are wicked ones at worst, or that something is seriously wrong with them at best. I could say more here if you wish, but it doesn't seem necessary.

    The first premise is the premise that is usually disputed by the theist. It is an empirical premise and, as such, is in need of empirical support. Rowe gives an example, but I'll give another.

    We know for a fact that many children have died slow, painful, agonizing deaths from various terminal illnesses such as cancer. We know that many of them have languished in agony even for months and years. God, being omnipotent, would certainly have the power to curtail their suffering at least a little bit without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some consequences that are equally bad or worse. He could do so by simply allowing (or causing) the child to die (or, better yet, recover!) a millisecond earlier than the child in fact did die.

    Take the case of Athena. Athena is a young girl who, after suffering in extreme agony from the effects of leukemia for several years, finally dies at, say, age ten. Theists might explain the compatibility of her suffering with God's goodness and omnipotence in various ways. Perhaps it strengthens the faith of her parents, or perhaps many people are moved by Athena's plight and decide to give generous donations to cancer-research foundations, which, in the long run, are causally responsible for the cure for cancer being found (and, thus, long-term suffering is curtailed). Perhaps this is some method of "soul-making" or character-building for Athena. However, suppose God had allowed (or caused) Athena to die (and thus her suffering to cease) two seconds sooner than when she actually did die. Two seconds of suffering would certainly not cause any of those greater goods to be lost. Two seconds are barely noticeable to a human being. Anyone who would have been moved to donate money to cancer research by her plight of going through intense suffering for several years would surely also have been moved by her plight of intense suffering for several years minus two seconds. It would likewise be wildly implausible to suggest that her parents' faith would be strengthened more by Athena suffering for a mere two seconds more, or that whatever soul-making or character-building Athena's suffering was supposed to bring her could not be brought about if only two seconds of suffering were subtracted from the entire duration of her suffering. Nor can I fathom any even remotely plausible reason to think that two seconds less of Athena suffering would bring about consequences just as bad as or worse than her suffering for two seconds more.

    Now, we know that thousands and thousands of children have gone through exactly what Athena did. As implausible as it is to think that subtracting a mere two seconds of Athena's suffering would erase any greater good or cause any consequences as bad or worse, how much more implausible is it to think that in all of these kinds of cases, the subtraction of only two seconds would erase all the greater goods, or would always cause consequences as bad or worse? Implausible to the point of absolute absurdity and lunacy, I would maintain. Can anyone seriously even entertain the thought that subtracting a few seconds off of the suffering of just one of these children would always cause a greater good to be lost or would bring about consequences as bad or worse? I can't see how.

    It is of the utmost importance to note at this juncture that if the theist is to be successful in fending off the Argument from Suffering, she will have to maintain that there is not a scrap, not one iota, of suffering in this world that does not accomplish a greater good, or the absence of which would not cause as much as or more bad. If there is any suffering at all that is gratuitous, and if we accept the second premise, which has all appearances of a definitional truth, then God as defined cannot exist. I can't even imagine how at least a couple of seconds of suffering for at least one of the many thousands of children who suffer for years with terminal illnesses couldn't have been shaved off without losing anything important. That just seems to be a bizarre thing to say, if we were to be honest with ourselves in perhaps another context. Thus, absent any good evidence to believe that, I think we're epistemically required to believe that gratuitous suffering exists and, therefore, God does not.

    At this point, the argument, being probabilistic, would take an epistemic turn. I know that I cannot prove with deductive certainty that God does not exist. However, I think that this argument can provide us with enough reason to doubt the existence of God--that is, either reject or withhold judgment regarding whether God exists--absent some good explanation of the amount of suffering in this world that is not only possible, but one which one has some sort of good independent reason or evidence to believe.

    Bottom line, I don't believe that theism can be rationally sustained unless we get a very good answer from the theist as to why God cannot eliminate one second of suffering for one individual without thereby screwing up his entire divine plan.

    Returning to the differences between the problem of evil as you understood it and this presentation of the problem of suffering, I think that you're going to be on board with the second premise. It does not seem to me to be different, at least in intended meaning, than your saying that God has a morally sufficient reason for the suffering he allows. I think this is just a much better way to make the argument, for the aforementioned reasons.

    Therefore, with those distinctions and clarifications regarding just what argument I am really endorsing here, we can proceed to evaluate your two attempted replies, as they would relate to my argument.

    The first you call the "transcendence response." As with Alston and others who have made this claim, the idea is that there allegedly is a reason for this suffering to which we do not have cognitive access, and, because of God's transcendence, we ought not to be surprised that we do not have such access, nor is the lack of that cognitive access problematic.

    This reply is rather apparently unsuccessful given the epistemic nature of this argument. I have argued that this is precisely the problem: The second premise is undeniable, and a denial of the first--at least prima facie--looks completely absurd. It is precisely the reason for the suffering that the theist needs to produce in order to save herself from internal inconsistency, or from irrationality by denying the first premise arbitrarily.

    You're right that given those Reformed presuppositions these individuals don't have a problem of evil, since their presupposition is that the first premise is false. But I don't think you'd consider it an acceptable atheistic reply to the cosmological argument to say "I presuppose that the universe started without God." Nor do I accept this reply. Of course when you presuppose the negation of one of your interlocutor’s premises, absent any argument or debate on the premise, that argument won't pose much of a threat any more. But to presuppose as much was irrational, because it was viciously circular in the first place.

    The second response you offer you term the "Anselmian Divine Attributes Response." With this response, I must say, it makes a difference (at least at first glance) which argument one is using--the one I proffered, or the one with which you interacted in your initial post. When it comes to my argument, this response is completely off-target. Since the problem of suffering maintains that if any evil is gratuitous, God doesn't exist, the theist is not being asked to explain the mere presence of suffering, or some suffering, but rather all and every bit of suffering.

    That is, it is not that I am alleging there is this attribute of suffering that needs to be explained, but rather, I am alleging that there is apparent gratuitous suffering that must be explained. Hence, it is not enough to show how there could, possibly, be an omnipotent, omniscient being in a world in which there is suffering. You need to give an answer that deals with the specific kinds of suffering mentioned in the thought experiment (which takes place in the real world every day). For, it at least certainly appears that at least two seconds of suffering by one person in the history of the human race hasn't been needed, or could have been absent without anything really changing at all.

    In short, I think the problem of suffering is the best evidence available pertaining to the existence of God. And I believe that it rationally compels us to doubt his existence.

    Thanks for your response in advance,
    -T

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hey Travis,

    I will just make a few responses that address your argument.

    I do not think the incomprehensibility response is circular and absurd given that God is the greatest possible being it seems that there would be aspects of the divine intellect that we has finite fallen creatures could not grasp because his intellect is so beyond us in greatness.

    I question whether the instances of evil you mentioned are even possible.

    But suppose they were to be possibly possible.

    I would say that Demons are causing that girl in cancer to suffer for the extra two seconds so that God could manifest his future just judgement upon them (the demons).

    Or suppose:

    If the two seconds were extra and not needed it might be that God would cut off the pain at that point.

    All of these solutions are perfectly logically possible so I therefore conclude that I have defeated your defeater.

    But if you have anymore objections, I would be glad to hear them.

    God Bless,

    NPT

    ReplyDelete
  4. Nate:

    Of course you are right when you say that "given that God is the greatest possible being it seems that there would be aspects of the divine intellect that we has finite fallen creatures could not grasp because his intellect is so beyond us in greatness." Yes, we would expect that.

    Let's suppose I can grant that assumption (and I do). What then? Which premise of my argument does that undermine?

    It doesn't undermine any of them. The only point it even could serve for you would be for it to serve as an undercutting defeater itself for my defeater for theistic belief--namely, the Problem of Suffering. In other words, you could use the fact that we would expect cognitive distance between us and God to undermine my claim that my argument requires one epistemically to give up that belief, since the lack of this answer--which I allege to be so problematic--is what we would expect given God's existence.

    But this is misguided. I never argued that because we lack this answer, God probably doesn't exist. That claim could be undermined in some way by the fact that this is what we would expect if God did exist, I suppose. But what I said was that because we don't have this explanation for the apparent gratuitous suffering in the world, we're epistemically bound to doubt his existence. There's a big difference. I am alleging that we simply have more evidence in favor of premise (1), and (since the second is definitional), we will be irrational if we refuse to accept premise (1)--unless we get an explanation as to why God can't eliminate these instances of suffering that serve no apparent purpose.

    You say that you "question whether the instances of evil you mentioned are even possible." Well they obviously are; they occur every day. Perhaps you doubt whether they are gratuitous, but they're surely not only possible but actual.

    Now, you give two possible scenarios that would account for the one example I gave--of the girl dying of cancer.

    First, you write "I would say that Demons are causing that girl in cancer to suffer for the extra two seconds so that God could manifest his future just judgement [sic] upon them (the demons)."

    But then we can just ask the same questions. Couldn't God visit enough judgment on the demons with a couple second left over? And if not, why not? Why was that the exact right amount? If he needed it two second more than XX amount, why not XX plus four seconds? Wouldn't that be better?

    And either way, a couple second tacked on isn't going to help, since the evil act and punishment are proportional to each other either way, presumably. Either the demon tortures the girl XX seconds and gets punished for torturing her for XX seconds, or he tortures her for XX+2 seconds and gets tortured for making her suffer for XX+2 second. Why would either one be better than the other? It's no more just either way.

    And this is leaving aside the fact that you're talking about cancer being exacerbated by demons and other rather nutty, pretty out-there stuff (that we both know is totally ad hoc, although I realize that's how it's played). I think that speaks for itself--kind of a microcosm of this whole debate (and I mean on the problem of evil, throughout all the years, really). Atheist gives good argument; theist plays ignorance card and ultimately has blind faith that there is a God out there who has some idea of what he's doing. But they have no good reason to reject the argument other than wishful thinking.

    When you write that "All of these solutions are perfectly logically possible so I therefore conclude that I have defeated your defeater," it seems to me that you either made a mistake, or you don't understand the nature of defeaters. Because, as far as I can tell, you either made the claim that as long as one can demonstrate that A is logically possible, A can't be defeated (obviously false), or you have misunderstood my argument. My argument isn't alleging that God's existence is logically impossible. It's alleging that we're epistemically required by the evidence to doubt his existence, because we have good reason to believe that his existence is likely impossible.

    So again, to repeat myself from my previous post, it isn't enough to show that God and suffering are not necessarily logically inconsistent (which is, by the way, an incredibly modest claim; relatively few things are logically impossible). You need to give some sort of plausible story as to why God cannot eliminate a millisecond of suffering from the life of one individual without ruining his divine plan. That's really the thesis you're committed to by denying premise one of my argument: You must claim that God cannot eliminate one, single millisecond of suffering from the life of one being, without losing a greater good. That's just wildly implausible, so you need some kind of story here that gives us a good explanation.

    Regards,
    T

    ReplyDelete
  5. Of course you are right when you say that "given that God is the greatest possible being it seems that there would be aspects of the divine intellect that we has finite fallen creatures could not grasp because his intellect is so beyond us in greatness." Yes, we would expect that.

    Response: Okay, fair enough.

    Let's suppose I can grant that assumption (and I do). What then? Which premise of my argument does that undermine?

    Response: Premise 1, because it could never be justified given that there could be a divine reason such that we could not grasp it. And since we have no way of knowing if such a reason exists or not in the divine intellect then we have to be agnostic with regards to premise 1. In other words, your argument for evil would not be defeated nor would my theistic belief, we would have either agnosticism or theism, depending on whether or not one thinks the theistic arguments and historical evidences more reasonable than not.

    It doesn't undermine any of them. The only point it even could serve for you would be for it to serve as an undercutting defeater itself for my defeater for theistic belief--namely, the Problem of Suffering. In other words, you could use the fact that we would expect cognitive distance between us and God to undermine my claim that my argument requires one epistemically to give up that belief, since the lack of this answer--which I allege to be so problematic--is what we would expect given God's existence.

    Response: I would say it would be a defeater for atheism and would entail agnosticism on your part if you were to grant that explanation. I obviously think that one ought to be a theist given all the good arguments I have provided throughout this blog and in the writings of many theistic arguments in the contemporary analytic philosophy of religion.


    But this is misguided. I never argued that because we lack this answer, God probably doesn't exist. That claim could be undermined in some way by the fact that this is what we would expect if God did exist, I suppose. But what I said was that because we don't have this explanation for the apparent gratuitous suffering in the world, we're epistemically bound to doubt his existence. There's a big difference. I am alleging that we simply have more evidence in favor of premise (1), and (since the second is definitional), we will be irrational if we refuse to accept premise (1)--unless we get an explanation as to why God can't eliminate these instances of suffering that serve no apparent purpose.

    Response: I do not see why we would be bond to doubt his existence when we are a) not omniscient with regards to all the causal chains that are produced by certain evil means that accomplish good ends, b) we do not have the quality of intellect that the divine essence might poses and as a result we would never know either way whether there is such a thing as gratuitous evil or not (since there could be equally likely a divine reason such that we would never know the reason). We simply not in a position to know either way so thus your argument is not probably nor improbably it is merely inscrutable and holds no epistemic weight with regards to God's existence...we must look to other considerations.

    You say that you "question whether the instances of evil you mentioned are even possible." Well they obviously are; they occur every day. Perhaps you doubt whether they are gratuitous, but they're surely not only possible but actual.

    Response: Yeah, that was a bit unclear on my part. I was saying that it is not possible that those two seconds or so do not contribute to a greater good. It is hard to see a argument why it cannot. Every second and ever movement we make is perfectly in line such that it makes all the differences in the world to bring about the greatest good. I would say this assumption in place this warrants a sort of agnosticism with regards to premise 1. It is so hard to know these sort of things, but yet you reject the obvious article of knowledge about whether or not it's in fact wrong to put a baby in the microwave. I would say that I know that is a lot clearer about pretending to know the purposes of a possibly divine omniscient being.

    Now, you give two possible scenarios that would account for the one example I gave--of the girl dying of cancer.

    First, you write "I would say that Demons are causing that girl in cancer to suffer for the extra two seconds so that God could manifest his future just judgement [sic] upon them (the demons)."

    But then we can just ask the same questions. Couldn't God visit enough judgment on the demons with a couple second left over? And if not, why not? Why was that the exact right amount? If he needed it two second more than XX amount, why not XX plus four seconds? Wouldn't that be better?

    Response: Perhaps God's attributes of justice and judgment are as such that he has to have them manifested a certain amount and perhaps that 2 or 4 extra seconds is just right for his entire scheme to work. Either way it's hard to be certain and since that is inscrutable then my reason for not accepting premise 1 will be that it is inscrutable.

    And either way, a couple second tacked on isn't going to help, since the evil act and punishment are proportional to each other either way, presumably. Either the demon tortures the girl XX seconds and gets punished for torturing her for XX seconds, or he tortures her for XX+2 seconds and gets tortured for making her suffer for XX+2 second. Why would either one be better than the other? It's no more just either way.

    Response: Perhaps God's attributes are such that he has designated amount of punishment and justice he wants to effect at certain times and certain places to bring about great goods and to minimize future suffering. It's hardly clear either way.

    And this is leaving aside the fact that you're talking about cancer being exacerbated by demons and other rather nutty, pretty out-there stuff (that we both know is totally ad hoc, although I realize that's how it's played). I think that speaks for itself--kind of a microcosm of this whole debate (and I mean on the problem of evil, throughout all the years, really). Atheist gives good argument; theist plays ignorance card and ultimately has blind faith that there is a God out there who has some idea of what he's doing. But they have no good reason to reject the argument other than wishful thinking.

    Response: It is pretty ironic to be called nutty by someone who thinks that he can know more probably than not that a possibly omniscient being that in some respects has a different quality of knowledge than finite limited human beings does not have a reason for evil that occurs in the world. I mean why is the demon thing nutty? Satan causes things all the time in the Bible, but you do not believe in the Bible so calling it nutty is assuming it is not true, which is begging the question. This is my point right here: The problem of evil cannot be handle by itself, theistic arguments and assumptions in one's worldview need to dealt with first (I am sure you know who would say that). This argument by itself is unclear and presumptuous, since what you consider a good or bad explanation largely dependents on your atheism, which is question given all the arguments and evidence we have.

    When you write that "All of these solutions are perfectly logically possible so I therefore conclude that I have defeated your defeater," it seems to me that you either made a mistake, or you don't understand the nature of defeaters. Because, as far as I can tell, you either made the claim that as long as one can demonstrate that A is logically possible, A can't be defeated (obviously false), or you have misunderstood my argument. My argument isn't alleging that God's existence is logically impossible. It's alleging that we're epistemically required by the evidence to doubt his existence, because we have good reason to believe that his existence is likely impossible.

    Response: I was saying that your arguments did not defeat my defense. Defenses shows that it is only logically possible and since I showed that it is then your argument cannot be taken as a defeater to the purpose of my post. But I have done more in this response because I think that I have shown that your premise 1 is presumptuous and as a result we ought to be agnostic with regards to it, which is hardly a defeater for theistic belief.

    So again, to repeat myself from my previous post, it isn't enough to show that God and suffering are not necessarily logically inconsistent (which is, by the way, an incredibly modest claim; relatively few things are logically impossible). You need to give some sort of plausible story as to why God cannot eliminate a millisecond of suffering from the life of one individual without ruining his divine plan. That's really the thesis you're committed to by denying premise one of my argument: You must claim that God cannot eliminate one, single millisecond of suffering from the life of one being, without losing a greater good. That's just wildly implausible, so you need some kind of story here that gives us a good explanation.

    Response: I do not think I need to give a explanation that is definitive of what the Divine is doing, if I am agnostic toward premise 1 of your argument and I have more reasons than not to believe God's existence then I am warranted in believing in God's existence. It's hard to see that premise one can be argued for or against at all given the limits of our understanding.

    I hope that clears things up! God Bless you.

    NPT

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  6. Nate:

    When I ask which premise is undermined by the claim that we would expect cognitive distance between humans and God if God exists, you write:

    "Premise 1, because it could never be justified given that there could be a divine reason such that we could not grasp it. And since we have no way of knowing if such a reason exists or not in the divine intellect then we have to be agnostic with regards to premise 1."

    But that's ridiculous. This amounts to saying that just because X is possible--that is, just because X isn't contradictory--we must doubt a premise which alleges that there is no X. In other words, I can produce good probabilistic evidence that premise (1) is true even if we can expect cognitive distance given your thesis, since I'm not arguing that we're certain of the truth of (1).

    The alleged cognitive distance gives you the ability to say, despite the apparent lack of any evidence for a greater good being brought about by specific instances of great suffering, that God may still have a reason, simply because we can't be certain that he doesn't. However, since I was not arguing that we could be certain that there is gratuitous evil; I have argued that we have better reason to think that there is gratuitous evil than that there is not. Thus, I can grant this claim and it does no damage whatsoever to my argument.

    You write:

    "I would say it would be a defeater for atheism and would entail agnosticism on your part if you were to grant that explanation. I obviously think that one ought to be a theist given all the good arguments I have provided throughout this blog and in the writings of many theistic arguments in the contemporary analytic philosophy of religion."

    But I clearly don't grant that there are any such explanations. You've been entirely unable to come up with any sort of convincing, coherent scenarios by which we can make any sense of the myriad instances of intense suffering with no apparent benefit.

    Regarding the other alleged theistic proofs: I have responded to the moral argument, and your ontological argument, and I may get around to the others at some point when I have time. However, I don't really think it's necessary. I happen to think that the evidence of gratuitous suffering is so overwhelming that there is virtually nothing that could overturn it. That is, perhaps an omnipotent, omniscient being exists, if I were to accept the cosmological argument, for instance (I don't), but that would lead me to accept maltheism, not theism. The other arguments don't do much for the theist. The cosmological and teleological don't get the theist any of the "big three" attributes--the omni's--and I've responded to the two others you've offered to my own satisfaction, at least.

    Your claim is that we must be agnostic to (1). However, we must note that you are not agnostic to one; you reject it. One must reject it to be a theist. So what is the justification for denying (1)? Absent a good one, I would have to conclude that theism is irrational (for all those theists familiar with the problem of suffering).

    Additionally, I see no reason why we should even be agnostic to (1). When we look around at the world, (1) seems plainly true, or at least the denial of (1) seems rather bizarre. Therefore, absent good arguments to the contrary, we should accept it. I've seen nothing even resembling a good argument to the contrary here; just pleads for agnosticism, because we can't be certain that there's no reason. Again, this is an error on your part by assuming that I am arguing for certainty. I am not.

    I found it strange when you wrote:

    "I was saying that it is not possible that those two seconds or so do not contribute to a greater good. It is hard to see a argument why it cannot."

    First, it's a very strong, and wholly unsubstantiated claim on your part to say that it's "not possible that those two seconds or so do not contribute to a greater good." Wow! How on earth could you possible know that? You've struggled to try and get me to accept that we should be agnostic to (1), and now you're claiming that it's impossible! What's changed?

    Second, this is a strange thing to write because you ask for an argument why these two seconds cannot serve a greater good. Well, I've already supplied a multitude of reasons to think that all the normal avenues we can think of by which a greater good could be served will not be, in this case. So I've already given an argument. Furthermore, I don't really need an argument. You're the one making a bizarre claim: that all the apparent gratuitous evil in the world is actually not gratuitous, because God has a plan to make it all turn into greater good. You have made the bizarre, positive claim; you should at least attempt to defend it. I didn't need to argue that there was no such reason any more than we need to argue that there are not unicorns on Venus, but I did it anyway.

    Rather than repeating myself over and over to quotes, I'll skip the redundant parts. Often you argue that we can't be certain of premise (1), but that's irrelevant, as I've already point out.

    Regarding the "nuttiness" of talking about demons exacerbating cancer: The primary reason is not just your belief in beings you can't perceive, the evidence of which you have none, but has more to do with denying obvious scientific facts about cancer, what it is, and what it does. It has nothing to do with demons as any oncologist--Christian or atheist--will tell you.

    Most importantly, you write:

    "I was saying that your arguments did not defeat my defense. Defenses shows that it is only logically possible and since I showed that it is then your argument cannot be taken as a defeater to the purpose of my post."

    No, it doesn't. My argument is probabilistic.

    I argue: X probably doesn't exist.
    Your response: X possibly exists.

    Irrelevant, off-target, and unhelpful, I'm afraid. But nevertheless, I appreciate the dialogue.

    Regards,
    T
    =

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  7. But that's ridiculous. This amounts to saying that just because X is possible--that is, just because X isn't contradictory--we must doubt a premise which alleges that there is no X. In other words, I can produce good probabilistic evidence that premise (1) is true even if we can expect cognitive distance given your thesis, since I'm not arguing that we're certain of the truth of (1).

    Hey Travis:

    Response: I understood precisely what you were saying and my response will remain the same. For ever instance of evil I would say it is equally like that there could be or could not be a divine reason such that we could not grasp it. So no matter what instance of evil you give I think there is always a equally likely possibly that there might be a morally sufficient reason that we could not grasp it and if you say that there isn't that would be wholly unsupported because the reason is such that you could not begin to grasp it in the first place and thus would not be able to assess the probabilities about whether or not such a reason is there.

    The alleged cognitive distance gives you the ability to say, despite the apparent lack of any evidence for a greater good being brought about by specific instances of great suffering, that God may still have a reason, simply because we can't be certain that he doesn't. However, since I was not arguing that we could be certain that there is gratuitous evil; I have argued that we have better reason to think that there is gratuitous evil than that there is not. Thus, I can grant this claim and it does no damage whatsoever to my argument.

    Response: I was never arguing that it is possible in the broadly logical sense in my second response to you, I was only arguing it in the broadly logical sense in my post and in my first response to you. I corrected you in my second post by saying my post was only defending it in the broadly logical sense, but in my second post I said since you are raising objections here about the probabilistic problem of evil (which is a issue that libertarians and compatiblist have to deal with) that I will respond to your arguments from the probabilistic problem of evil and I do so in post 2, this is why I said at many junctures in response 2 that both are equally likely so we ought to stay agnostic (with all things being equal) with regards to premise 1. I will continue to say that now: all instances of evil are such that we could never justified either way with all things being equal because God could always have a ungraspable morally sufficient reason and since we could never have cognitive access to such reason it could be equally likely that it could be there or not there and thus there is not positive or negative warrant for premise 1 with all things being equal.

    You write:



    But I clearly don't grant that there are any such explanations. You've been entirely unable to come up with any sort of convincing, coherent scenarios by which we can make any sense of the myriad instances of intense suffering with no apparent benefit.

    Response: As a old friend of ours might say: saying so does not make it so...I figure I would say that for old times sake :). What is not convincing or coherent about what I have been saying?

    Regarding the other alleged theistic proofs: I have responded to the moral argument, and your ontological argument, and I may get around to the others at some point when I have time. However, I don't really think it's necessary. I happen to think that the evidence of gratuitous suffering is so overwhelming that there is virtually nothing that could overturn it. That is, perhaps an omnipotent, omniscient being exists, if I were to accept the cosmological argument, for instance (I don't), but that would lead me to accept maltheism, not theism. The other arguments don't do much for the theist. The cosmological and teleological don't get the theist any of the "big three" attributes--the omni's--and I've responded to the two others you've offered to my own satisfaction, at least.

    Response: I understand that. And I have responded to your responses and you bring up old outdated atheistic arguments and just repeat them over and over again. And I respond to them over and over again. I am not going insane (this is a first) because everybody who reads my blog notices this.

    Your claim is that we must be agnostic to (1). However, we must note that you are not agnostic to one; you reject it. One must reject it to be a theist. So what is the justification for denying (1)? Absent a good one, I would have to conclude that theism is irrational (for all those theists familiar with the problem of suffering).

    Response: Yeah with all things being equal one should be agnostic to 1. But things are not equal, All classical, transcendental, and evidential historical arguments are all more reasonable than not. Thus, if I have evidence for a proposition P and my good reasons are C, P, and E but there might be a defeater E* which someone shows to me but I show that E* is inconclusive by itself, no one who is fully clothed and in their right mind would honestly expect me reasonably to give up in my belief in P.

    Additionally, I see no reason why we should even be agnostic to (1). When we look around at the world, (1) seems plainly true, or at least the denial of (1) seems rather bizarre. Therefore, absent good arguments to the contrary, we should accept it. I've seen nothing even resembling a good argument to the contrary here; just pleads for agnosticism, because we can't be certain that there's no reason. Again, this is an error on your part by assuming that I am arguing for certainty. I am not.

    Response: There are no arguments and you are just repeating yourself. In response 2 I was saying that we should be agnostic to 1 because it is equally likely or inscrutable. In response 2 I never assumed that you were arguing for certainty or for the logical problem of evil....I made that pretty clear Travis.

    I found it strange when you wrote:

    "I was saying that it is not possible that those two seconds or so do not contribute to a greater good. It is hard to see a argument why it cannot."

    First, it's a very strong, and wholly unsubstantiated claim on your part to say that it's "not possible that those two seconds or so do not contribute to a greater good." Wow! How on earth could you possible know that? You've struggled to try and get me to accept that we should be agnostic to (1), and now you're claiming that it's impossible! What's changed?


    Response: I would first like to say that it is unclear whether or not it is impossible or possible with there being a God that could or could not be contingent. So with all things being equal I would say it just simply is not clear if 2 seconds could serve a great purpose or not given all the factors and complexities involved. But given that we have all these sorts of arguments that are strong for God's existence, especially the ones that demonstrate that God is necessary then we really ought to conclude that it is impossible, but in isolation it is really unclear to me.


    Second, this is a strange thing to write because you ask for an argument why these two seconds cannot serve a greater good. Well, I've already supplied a multitude of reasons to think that all the normal avenues we can think of by which a greater good could be served will not be, in this case. So I've already given an argument. Furthermore, I don't really need an argument. You're the one making a bizarre claim: that all the apparent gratuitous evil in the world is actually not gratuitous, because God has a plan to make it all turn into greater good. You have made the bizarre, positive claim; you should at least attempt to defend it. I didn't need to argue that there was no such reason any more than we need to argue that there are not unicorns on Venus, but I did it anyway.

    Response: I do not need to defend it, all that is required for reasonable theistic belief to go through is that I have to argue that it is unclear and inscrutable. I have argued why I think this above, but you have not given me any good arguments for thinking that it is more reasonable than not to believe that pointless evil exists. Remember I think I have all these great theistic arguments so all I am going to argue is that your defeater is just altogether unclear.

    Rather than repeating myself over and over to quotes, I'll skip the redundant parts. Often you argue that we can't be certain of premise (1), but that's irrelevant, as I've already point out.

    Response: I argue that it is unclear either way in terms the probabilities. Thus, we cannot be probably sure either way it is 50/50 or inscrutable. I hope you understand what I am saying.

    Regarding the "nuttiness" of talking about demons exacerbating cancer: The primary reason is not just your belief in beings you can't perceive, the evidence of which you have none, but has more to do with denying obvious scientific facts about cancer, what it is, and what it does. It has nothing to do with demons as any oncologist--Christian or atheist--will tell you.

    Response: What is behind the cancer metaphysically could equally likely be a demon so it is not a scientific claim. My reason for believing them is the Bible which I have good evidence for and the Bible teaches that demons exist, so as I said last time you are begging the question against the Bible.

    No, it doesn't. My argument is probabilistic.

    I argue: X probably doesn't exist.
    Your response: X possibly exists.

    Irrelevant, off-target, and unhelpful, I'm afraid. But nevertheless, I appreciate the dialogue.

    Response: In this quote I was clarifying why I responded the way I did in the first response if you read response 2 in context. ...misunderstanding, misunderstanding, misunderstanding......


    God Bless...I hope that clears things up.

    NPT

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  8. Let's step back here and look at our most important area of disagreement.

    Your objection is that, because of the expected cognitive distance between God and human beings, if God were to exist, premise (1) is prima facie inscrutable, but, after we examine the cumulative evidence--from other theistic arguments--premise (1) is no longer inscrutable, but that we allegedly have good reason to doubt premise (1).

    First, I think that you are mistaken by taking premise (1) to be inscrutable in the first place. We don't really seem to be making much headway in that discussion, and since it's not necessary for my argument to show that theism is rationally unacceptable, I'll drop it for now.

    Even if premise (1) were inscrutable, this would be an acceptable conclusion for me. It would show that rationality requires at least agnosticism. Therefore, the theist must show that he has good reason to reject premise (1), not merely that premise (1) is inscrutable.

    Essentially what you've offered therefore is not a Calvinistic defense of theism from the problem of evil, really, but you've essentially told us that your response to the problem of evil is that the ontological and moral arguments work; hardly much of a defense, especially considering the serious problems I and others have already noted with those arguments. You've only told us this much, because unless those arguments provide a great deal of evidence, premise (1) will remain inscrutable, and rationality will require agnosticism. So to save theism, your "defense" here presupposes that those arguments work.

    And this leads me to the second problem with your response: the theistic arguments do not provide nearly enough evidence to reject premise (1). I've already pointed out difficulties with your moral and ontological arguments, and these are the only two that even have a chance of giving you enough evidence to reject (1), because they are the only two arguments that even purport to be able to establish God's omni-benevolence, or moral perfection. I'm satisfied with our discussions on those arguments as they stand.

    The cosmological argument says nothing about any of the three omni's; nor does the teleological argument. And since the Problem of Suffering challenges the compatibility of those three attributes, arguments which do not attempt to prove those attributes are irrelevant, and do nothing to offer any counter evidence against (1).

    To recap: You haven't offered a real defense besides offering two positive theistic arguments as counter evidence, and those are questionable, but really to be questioned somewhere else. I don't see how anything about the problem of suffering has been solved by the theist here.

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  9. Let's step back here and look at our most important area of disagreement.

    Your objection is that, because of the expected cognitive distance between God and human beings, if God were to exist, premise (1) is prima facie inscrutable, but, after we examine the cumulative evidence--from other theistic arguments--premise (1) is no longer inscrutable, but that we allegedly have good reason to doubt premise (1).

    Response: I would say that my cognitive distance approach and my Anselmian approach are individually sufficient to make premise 1 unclear and to offer a good calvinistic defense.


    First, I think that you are mistaken by taking premise (1) to be inscrutable in the first place. We don't really seem to be making much headway in that discussion, and since it's not necessary for my argument to show that theism is rationally unacceptable, I'll drop it for now.

    Response: If you are a atheist then you ought to have shown that theism is rationally unacceptable, but you have not done so. Then rationally, for one who disagrees with the theist proofs and grants what you just granted, you are rationally obligated to be a agnostic.

    Even if premise (1) were inscrutable, this would be an acceptable conclusion for me. It would show that rationality requires at least agnosticism. Therefore, the theist must show that he has good reason to reject premise (1), not merely that premise (1) is inscrutable.

    Response: This is right. But this would be even true without the problem of evil even in the picture. One is warranted in agnosticism if none of the theistic arguments are effective.

    Essentially what you've offered therefore is not a Calvinistic defense of theism from the problem of evil, really, but you've essentially told us that your response to the problem of evil is that the ontological and moral arguments work; hardly much of a defense, especially considering the serious problems I and others have already noted with those arguments. You've only told us this much, because unless those arguments provide a great deal of evidence, premise (1) will remain inscrutable, and rationality will require agnosticism. So to save theism, your "defense" here presupposes that those arguments work.

    Response: *******A DEFENSE IS JUST TO SHOW THAT CLASSIC THEISM AND EVIL ARE LOGICALLY COMPATIBLE. THIS IS ALL MY POST WAS INTENDED TO DO (WITH THE ADDITION OF DETERMINISM) AND YOU HAVE GRANTED THAT I HAVE SHOWN THAT AND THUS IT IS A SUCCESSFUL DEFENSE.******** I do not know how many times I need to repeat this. My first response to you assumed that you were attacking the validity of just my defense, but then I realized that you wanted me to defeat the probabilistic problem of evil and I tried to tackle that issue in all the responses after response 1. But you are right in order to save theism the arguments have to work or I could just have theist belief as properly basic. But this would be true with or without the argument from evil. So thus I conclude that the problem of evil is a unsuccessful positive atheistic argument to defeat theistic belief.

    And this leads me to the second problem with your response: the theistic arguments do not provide nearly enough evidence to reject premise (1). I've already pointed out difficulties with your moral and ontological arguments, and these are the only two that even have a chance of giving you enough evidence to reject (1), because they are the only two arguments that even purport to be able to establish God's omni-benevolence, or moral perfection. I'm satisfied with our discussions on those arguments as they stand.

    Response: I have responded to your responses. They fail because they rely on crazy intuitions like it is not in fact wrong to put a baby in a microwave.


    The cosmological argument says nothing about any of the three omni's; nor does the teleological argument. And since the Problem of Suffering challenges the compatibility of those three attributes, arguments which do not attempt to prove those attributes are irrelevant, and do nothing to offer any counter evidence against (1).

    Response: The cosmological and teleological argument only prove that there is a powerful and intelligent personal agent that created and designed the universe so you are correct there. The moral and ontological argument proves the other divine properties. But this is not really a problem because the moral argument I think is stronger than all of them. But it is a good observation that perhaps the cosmological and teleological argument does nothing to effect the problem of evil discussion, which I grant and I am perfectly comfortable with. So I am grateful that you pointed that mistake out to me.

    To recap: You haven't offered a real defense besides offering two positive theistic arguments as counter evidence, and those are questionable, but really to be questioned somewhere else. I don't see how anything about the problem of suffering has been solved by the theist here.

    Response: The problem of evil is no longer a problem if one has other reasons (or just a basic belief) to believe in God, which is true anyways even if there were not a problem of evil. Thus, there are no arguments for atheism. You have never provided any good responses (and I have responded to them promptly and effectively) to any of my theistic arguments. And I have shown that there is a defense for evil if you are a determinist this is something that the majority of free will theist reject. So all and all I think that I have shown what I have intended to show. Thanks for pointing out my errors on a few issues, I am very grateful to be learning and coming to knowledge on these things.

    God Bless,

    NPT

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  10. Travis--

    You wrote:

    "1. There exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some [consequences that are] equally bad or worse."

    If naturalism's explanation for the origin of human intelligence is true, why think that we could know 1, have any reason to accept it, or even be reasonable in thinking it is possibly true? After all, if natural selection entails that adaptively-advantageous biological features will be selected for, its not at all obvious that arcane matters about detecting possible divine reasons for permitting evil would be the kind of thing we could do with much (if any) accuracy. Even if evolutionary biology can explain the reliability of human cognition in areas like depth-perception, reasoning from effects to causes, identifying and distinguishing objects, etc., it doesn't seem very plausible to say that we would develop reliable philosophical abilities. So if naturalism is true (including the standard naturalistic story of human origins), this seems to provide a defeater for 1.

    Nate--

    Are you suggesting that perhaps God causes moral and natural evil to bring about a greater good?

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  11. Sorry, correction on the sentence "So if naturalism is true (including the standard naturalistic story of human origins), this seems to provide a defeater for 1." It should read:

    "So if naturalism is true (including the standard naturalistic story of human origins), this seems to provide an undercutting defeater for 1; even if 1 is true, it doesn't seem reasonable to believe it is true or even possible."

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  12. Nate--

    Are you suggesting that perhaps God causes moral and natural evil to bring about a greater good?

    Response: Yes, I am. Thanks for your questions and insights on these matters Michael.

    God Bless,

    NPT

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  13. I haven't read the whole discussion; just the first few comments. Sorry if what I say has already been said. The points I make are basically made by Peter van Inwagen in some articles he's written.

    "2. An omniscient, wholly good being would prevent the occurrence of any intense suffering it could, unless it could not do so without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some [consequences that are] equally bad or worse."

    This premise is actually controversial. Instead of dealing with the amount of time that a particular case of suffering takes, let's think in terms of the number of cases of suffering that there are. Suppose God could have averted a particular case of suffering without sacrificing some greater good. What if He averted two cases? What if three? Etc. This can proceed until we suppose that God averts all evils.

    For the Reformed Christian God has purposes in decreeing the existence of a universe that undergoes a Fall and contains a great deal of evil until the eschaton. If there is no precise number [i]n[/i], such that [i]n[/i] cases of suffering is sufficient for these purposes and [i]n[/i] - 1 cases is insufficient, then God simply has to arbitrarily draw the line somewhere. Now if the line must be drawn arbitrarily, then there is no moral standard obligating God to draw it at a particular place (if there were, it would not have to be arbitrarily drawn). Hence if it must be drawn arbitrarily, God is not doing anything morally problematic in drawing it where He does. (2) loses its intuitive plausibility when we try to apply it in contexts where there is this kind of vagueness.

    An example: you have to decide how long to make a criminal's jail sentence. The relevant evil is the criminal's suffering in prison, and the relevant good that is being achieved at the cost of the evil is deterrance. There is simply no non-arbitrary reason to sentence him to 10 years, or to 10 years and 1 day, or to 9 years and 364 days, etc. There is no difference in deterring crime to be had by making the sentence 10 years as opposed to 9 years and 364 days; according to (2) then, as applied to you, you would be violating the moral principle if you made the sentence 10 years, because you could have averted 1 day of suffering without losing a greater good.

    Perhaps the appropriate framework is, not that of there being some good purpose [i]P[/i] and some precise amount of evil [i]x[/i] required to achieve [i]P[/i], but instead, that of there being a [i]proportion[/i] between the degree to which [i]P[/i] is achieved and the degree to which evil exists.

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  14. Thanks for your comments Dan.

    But I have a few problems with Van Inwagons response to the problem of evil. I used to hold to this view point as Travis can attest to in our previous debates. But I have one problem with this: Given that God is the greatest possible being entailing that he is morally perfect would not God necessarily want to accomplish the greater good with as little evil as possible? I mean sure a little more evil would do the trick as well at accomplishing the greater good....but why think that God would allow a little more evil than needed? It seems that God has the greatest possible being has to necessarily cause the smallest amount of evil to bring about his desired greatest ends and this it seems would not be arbitrary as Van Inwagon thinks.

    Thanks again for your thoughts!

    God Bless,

    NPT

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  15. Hi Nathanael,
    I also have problems with van Inwagen's response(s) to the problem of evil. Like most other Xian philosophers, he is non-Reformed and accordingly has human libertarian agency play a key role in defending theism from the various arguments from evil. In my post I wasn't endorsing any general response to the problem of evil that van Inwagen gives, but was only arguing that van Inwagen has a good argument against premise (2) of Rowe's argument mentioned by Travis.

    If the amount of evil required to achieve a certain good is not vague; that is, if there is a precise amount such that that amount is perfectly sufficient and any less would be completely insufficient, then van Inwagen's argument against (2) would fail. But why think it is not vague? You just say "it seems" it "would not be arbitrary as van Inwagen thinks." There do seem to be plausible cases where the amount of suffering required for a good *is* vague. For example, the prison example I gave: why think that, relative to some good purpose (in this case, deterring crime in the community), there is a precise amount of suffering (time in prison) such that exactly that amount is completely sufficient for achieving the good and any less than that amount completely fails to achieve the good?

    You say it seems that God "has to necessarily cause the smallest amount of evil to bring about his desired greatest ends." This is tantamount to Rowe's (2), tantamount to the claim that necessarily God would not bring about an amount of evil greater than that required to achieve His desired ends. But your formulation is better than Rowe's, in this respect: it makes clear the assumption, without which (2) has no intuitive plausibility, that *there is* a precise "smallest amount of evil" such that it is completely sufficient for the relevant good and anything less completely insufficient. But if the kind of vagueness described above in fact obtains, then *there is no* precise "smallest amount of evil". We should say rather that God is necessarily such that, if there is a precise smallest amount of evil required for some good, *then* He will cause the smallest amount of evil required to bring about that good.

    It seems to me that one could either argue that there can be no vagueness of the sort described above in the relevant case(s) with God (in which case the objection to (2) would be undercut), or that, even if there is, (2) still holds. If there is, why endorse (2)? If God picks some number *n* to be the number of cases of suffering, then one could complain that God could have picked *n - 1* instead without sacrificing a greater good. But this charge could be levied no matter *what* number God ends up picking. In this context, it seems like a rather uninteresting charge, one that does not impugn His moral perfection.

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  16. Hi Nathanael,
    I also have problems with van Inwagen's response(s) to the problem of evil. Like most other Xian philosophers, he is non-Reformed and accordingly has human libertarian agency play a key role in defending theism from the various arguments from evil. In my post I wasn't endorsing any general response to the problem of evil that van Inwagen gives, but was only arguing that van Inwagen has a good argument against premise (2) of Rowe's argument mentioned by Travis.

    Response: I know that Dan, that is what I was saying: that I disagree with Van Inwagon's argument against premise 2.

    If the amount of evil required to achieve a certain good is not vague; that is, if there is a precise amount such that that amount is perfectly sufficient and any less would be completely insufficient, then van Inwagen's argument against (2) would fail. But why think it is not vague? You just say "it seems" it "would not be arbitrary as van Inwagen thinks." There do seem to be plausible cases where the amount of suffering required for a good *is* vague. For example, the prison example I gave: why think that, relative to some good purpose (in this case, deterring crime in the community), there is a precise amount of suffering (time in prison) such that exactly that amount is completely sufficient for achieving the good and any less than that amount completely fails to achieve the good?

    Response: Well first I would question whether or not there can be vagueness to God. God is the greatest possible being so he necessarily has to be omniscient, that is: he necessarily has to know all true propositions. With knowing every true proposition it is hard to see how there could be any sort of vagueness to such a being. I would argue that there is no vagueness to God, but there is vagueness to us because epistemological limitations. But God has no sort of limitations: He knows all things immediately and precisely so there could be no vagueness in God. God being the greatest possible being entails that he has to do the greatest possible things and so it is hard to see how Van Inwagon's defeater to premise 2 could be effective.

    You say it seems that God "has to necessarily cause the smallest amount of evil to bring about his desired greatest ends." This is tantamount to Rowe's (2), tantamount to the claim that necessarily God would not bring about an amount of evil greater than that required to achieve His desired ends. But your formulation is better than Rowe's, in this respect: it makes clear the assumption, without which (2) has no intuitive plausibility, that *there is* a precise "smallest amount of evil" such that it is completely sufficient for the relevant good and anything less completely insufficient. But if the kind of vagueness described above in fact obtains, then *there is no* precise "smallest amount of evil". We should say rather that God is necessarily such that, if there is a precise smallest amount of evil required for some good, *then* He will cause the smallest amount of evil required to bring about that good.

    Response: I think I responded to this above sufficiently. But let me ask a few questions: What would prevent God from strongly actualizing the smallest amount of evil for bringing about a greater end? What would prevent him from doing so? I want to accept what you are saying because I would save me a lot of trouble with the problem of evil, but I find myself having trouble understanding were Van Inwagon is coming from on this score.

    It seems to me that one could either argue that there can be no vagueness of the sort described above in the relevant case(s) with God (in which case the objection to (2) would be undercut), or that, even if there is, (2) still holds. If there is, why endorse (2)? If God picks some number *n* to be the number of cases of suffering, then one could complain that God could have picked *n - 1* instead without sacrificing a greater good. But this charge could be levied no matter *what* number God ends up picking. In this context, it seems like a rather uninteresting charge, one that does not impugn His moral perfection.

    Response: It is true, you could say God could have picked less than 25T's of evil, but the reason why he picked 25T's rather than 24T's is that 25T's contributes to a greater end that 24T could not produce and that greater end is such that it outweighs the evil of 25T's.

    Thanks for your time and patience in helping me understand the value in Van Inwagon's argumentation.

    God Bless,

    NPT

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  17. (QUOTE) Response: Well first I would question whether or not there can be vagueness to God. God is the greatest possible being so he necessarily has to be omniscient, that is: he necessarily has to know all true propositions. With knowing every true proposition it is hard to see how there could be any sort of vagueness to such a being.(/QUOTE)

    If there were true propositions about certain things being vague, then God's omniscience would inform Him of such. It would not eliminate vagueness in reality, if it existed.

    (QUOTE) I would argue that there is no vagueness to God, but there is vagueness to us because epistemological limitations. But God has no sort of limitations: He knows all things immediately and precisely so there could be no vagueness in God.(/QUOTE)

    Unless there were vagueness in reality; then it would logically follow that God's knowledge would reflect that. If His beliefs did not reflect that, he would not be omniscient.

    (QUOTE) Response: I think I responded to this above sufficiently. But let me ask a few questions: What would prevent God from strongly actualizing the smallest amount of evil for bringing about a greater end? What would prevent him from doing so?(/QUOTE)

    There simply being no "smallest amount of evil for bringing about a greater end." If you are instructed to seek out and detain the tallest man in California, and find out that there in fact is no tallest man in California, because there are two men who are exactly the same height and who are surpassed in height by no other men in the state, then you cannot carry out your instructions. The instructions are unreasonable; they are premised on a false presupposition, namely, that *there is* a tallest man in California. No matter how capable you are at tracking down people, you are prevented from fulfilling the instructions, not because of any limits on your part, but because the instructions are flawed.

    God is omnipotent; the only thing that could prevent Him from actualizing the smallest amount of evil for some good end is if there is no such smallest amount there for him to actualize. There is of course a smallest amount of evil, in general, namely, 0; but the issue is whether there is a smallest amount required for a certain end or purpose *P*. Perhaps the nature of *P* is such that *P* simply does not determine a precise amount of required evil. For example, the jail sentence example. Is there reason to believe, not simply that we are ignorant of an ideal sentence time, but that there is in fact an ideal precise sentencing time for every crime? Is there really an objective fact that for some crime C, imposing a sentence of 10 years and 1 day is better than a sentence of 10 years, 1 day, and 1 hour of a 2nd day?

    Maybe all of God's purposes *are* such that, taken together, a very precise amount of evil is determined as necessary, and there is no such vagueness. But that seems to be a substantive thesis to be argued; examples like the jail sentence show that it needs substantial argument. And as I've argued in prior posts, without this thesis Rowe's premise (2) is implausible.

    (QUOTE) Response: It is true, you could say God could have picked less than 25T's of evil, but the reason why he picked 25T's rather than 24T's is that 25T's contributes to a greater end that 24T could not produce and that greater end is such that it outweighs the evil of 25T's.(/QUOTE)

    I am sympathetic to this position. It presupposes, but does not argue, that the amount of evil required for God's purposes, when all of them are taken into account, is precisely determined and not vague. Van Inwagen provides another plausible line of thought. Even if one goes your route he would not have to reject van Inwagen's argument categorically. Distinguishing between the claim that (A) the required amount of evil is vague and the claim that (B) if the precise amount of evil were vague then (2) would be false, one can reject (A) while accepting (B).

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  18. Dan,

    I accept your points about my arguments from Anselmian perfect being theology against Van Inwagon's vagueness solution. The rest of what I will be writing will be trying to see if there can be such vagueness with evil is coherent notion. And that the examples you have given to support your case of vagueness is sufficiently similar to vagueness with evil.

    What do you mean by vagueness in ontology with regards to more or less evil (duration and quantity)? Because I was thinking you were referring to something epistemological earlier.

    I mean I can see how you can say that my task is to find two men in California that are the tallest and everybody is the same height in California. This would be a absurd and arbitrary task it seems to me. There is a instance of vagueness. But I have trouble seeing how this would be so with evil. I mean certainly I would grant that there are equal evils that could bring about a greater good such that the good outweighs the good in a way that morally justifies God. I think that God just arbitrarily picks one of those equal types of evils to accomplish a certain ends. But if you are dealing with more or less then why would not God pick the less? What does it mean to say that there is no least evil? I can only make sense out of that if there were equal evils that God could just pick to bring about a greater good. You have answered my arguments with considerable ease and I am glad you are making me think. But I am having difficulty wondering if what Van Inwagon is putting forth is actually a coherent notion....but I am interested to hear your response. I am glad you have taken your time to comment on this small blog.

    God Bless,

    NPT

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  19. (QUOTE) What do you mean by vagueness in ontology with regards to more or less evil (duration and quantity)? Because I was thinking you were referring to something epistemological earlier.(/QUOTE)

    If someone asks you where the precise border is between California and Nevada, and you have to give a vague answer (such as, "somewhere between here and there," where there is, say, 50 feet between the places denoted by 'here' and 'there'), that could be because there is a precise border but you do not know what it is (epistemic vagueness), or it could be because there simply is no precise border (real vagueness), because no one has (it could be supposed) established it precisely, down to the particular centimeter (or whatever) east of which is Nevada and west of which is California. I have been talking about real vagueness.

    (QUOTE) I think that God just arbitrarily picks one of those equal types of evils to accomplish a certain ends. But if you are dealing with more or less then why would not God pick the less?(/QUOTE)

    The difficulty with God just automatically picking the lesser amount (in virtue of its being lesser) is that on the basis of this principle God would end up decreeing no evil at all, contrary to his purposes. For suppose that he can pick between 100 "units" of evil and 101, and that he picks 100 in virtue of its being a smaller value. By parity of reasoning He should pick 99 over 100, and 98 over 99, and so on, until He picks 0 over 1, and decrees no evil. This is related to other philosophical paradoxes. Does having 100 hairs mean one is bald? No? What about 99? What about 98? Etc. What about 0? One could suppose that either there is a precise cut-off point and we are ignorant of it, or that there is genuine vagueness in reality; that there are clearcut extreme cases but no precise cut-off point. And one could answer the question differently in different cases; one could think baldness is vague, but that the amount of evil required for some purpose *P* is not; or that both are vague, etc.

    You point out a significant difference between the case of the two tallest men and of God's choosing between *n* and *n-1* amounts of evil to achieve some purpose *P*. But the similarity between the two cases is that in both cases someone is allegedly obligated to perform a task, and is in fact not obligated to perform the task, because a precondition of obligation is not satisfied. If there is not a single tallest man in California, then you cannot be obligated to capture *the* tallest man in California. If the amount of evil required for some divine purpose *P* is really vague (i.e., there is objectively no precise cut off point between 0 and 100 that divides the values insufficient for *P* from those sufficient for *P*), then there is no smallEST amount of evil required for *P*; and hence God cannot be obligated by His moral perfection to "capture" it.

    (QUOTE) But I am having difficulty wondering if what Van Inwagon is putting forth is actually a coherent notion(/QUOTE)

    I think his point is coherent, though it may be false and it is admittedly very paradoxical. The difficulty is whether when all of God's purposes are taken into account (by God Himself, not us), He sees a precise amount of evil that perfectly matches those purposes, or whether His purposes determine *a range* of possible amounts but *fail to* determine *which* value *within* that range God should decide upon (resulting in His having to arbitrarily pick). If the former case obtains, then van Inwagen is wrong about vagueness and his argument against Rowe's premise (2) fails. If he is right, then I think, for reasons explained above about presupposition failure, that (2) is *not* a plausible premise (in the same way that it would be implausible for you to be obligated to capture the tallest man). At the least, one can say that van Inwagen provides more potential options for dealing with this kind of evidential argument from evil than one might have first thought were available.

    I'll give another example to motivate the claim that if there is real vagueness then Rowe's (2) is implausible. (This comes from van Inwagen.) Suppose that you are captain of the last boat that is saving people from Atlantis, which is sinking. Everyone who does not make it onto your boat will die. There are 1000 people standing in line, and the situation is this: if you leave by yourself, taking no one, you have a 100% chance of escaping safely; if you take everyone, you have a 0% chance. Every person you take on board reduces the likelihood of escaping safely by one tenth of a percent, .1%. You will eventually have to shut the hatch in someone's face, even though taking him on board would only have reduced your safety by 1 10th of 1 percent. Eventually, when you do shut the hatch, you are violating Rowe's (2), in the sense that you are permitting an evil (that individual's not being rescued and so dying) that could have been averted virtually without losing any greater good or causing a worse evil (for if you had averted it, the chances of success of escape would only be minutely lowered); but clearly you have to draw the line somewhere and are not morally blameworthy for so doing. Hence (2) is false (so it seems).

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  20. If someone asks you where the precise border is between California and Nevada, and you have to give a vague answer (such as, "somewhere between here and there," where there is, say, 50 feet between the places denoted by 'here' and 'there'), that could be because there is a precise border but you do not know what it is (epistemic vagueness), or it could be because there simply is no precise border (real vagueness), because no one has (it could be supposed) established it precisely, down to the particular centimeter (or whatever) east of which is Nevada and west of which is California. I have been talking about real vagueness.

    Response: I understand that now Dan. After reading the majority of these responses I am starting to think that with evil this sort of vagueness simply is not possible but I will go into why I might think that.

    The difficulty with God just automatically picking the lesser amount (in virtue of its being lesser) is that on the basis of this principle God would end up decreeing no evil at all, contrary to his purposes. For suppose that he can pick between 100 "units" of evil and 101, and that he picks 100 in virtue of its being a smaller value. By parity of reasoning He should pick 99 over 100, and 98 over 99, and so on, until He picks 0 over 1, and decrees no evil. This is related to other philosophical paradoxes. Does having 100 hairs mean one is bald? No? What about 99? What about 98? Etc. What about 0? One could suppose that either there is a precise cut-off point and we are ignorant of it, or that there is genuine vagueness in reality; that there are clearcut extreme cases but no precise cut-off point. And one could answer the question differently in different cases; one could think baldness is vague, but that the amount of evil required for some purpose *P* is not; or that both are vague, etc.

    Response: Yeah, I still do not see your point here because if God could always pick less and still accomplish his purposes then he should pick the very least. So if there was between 1 or 100, God would always pick 1. But you might say "then why does not God pick 0" well if there are 1 T of evil it was for God to accomplish a specific purpose. If there were 2 T's of evil then God uses that to accomplish a certain end no more and no less. But still if these is a arbitrary range of evils God has to choose from 1 to 100 T's of evils to accomplish the same greater end then God will always choose 1 rather than anything higher. If asked why would he not choose 0 or 2? 2 is too much evil to accomplish his purpose and 0 does not bring about his desired ends. The baldness example you gave is not sufficiently similar because it is more of a definitional vagueness of baldness rather than a rang of degrees of evil that one can pick to bring about the same purpose.

    You point out a significant difference between the case of the two tallest men and of God's choosing between *n* and *n-1* amounts of evil to achieve some purpose *P*. But the similarity between the two cases is that in both cases someone is allegedly obligated to perform a task, and is in fact not obligated to perform the task, because a precondition of obligation is not satisfied. If there is not a single tallest man in California, then you cannot be obligated to capture *the* tallest man in California. If the amount of evil required for some divine purpose *P* is really vague (i.e., there is objectively no precise cut off point between 0 and 100 that divides the values insufficient for *P* from those sufficient for *P*), then there is no smallEST amount of evil required for *P*; and hence God cannot be obligated by His moral perfection to "capture" it.

    Response: But you just got saying the range was between 1 to 100 to bring about a divine purpose P. The smallest amount would be 1 so God ought to pick that, if God asked why God did not pick 0? Then you would want to argue that he needed to 1 to bring about P. If you did not think this then premise 2 (argument from evil) would be pretty reasonable to you and doubt that any christian theist who is fully clothed and in his right mind would ever want to grant such a point.


    I think his point is coherent, though it may be false and it is admittedly very paradoxical. The difficulty is whether when all of God's purposes are taken into account (by God Himself, not us), He sees a precise amount of evil that perfectly matches those purposes, or whether His purposes determine *a range* of possible amounts but *fail to* determine *which* value *within* that range God should decide upon (resulting in His having to arbitrarily pick). If the former case obtains, then van Inwagen is wrong about vagueness and his argument against Rowe's premise (2) fails. If he is right, then I think, for reasons explained above about presupposition failure, that (2) is *not* a plausible premise (in the same way that it would be implausible for you to be obligated to capture the tallest man). At the least, one can say that van Inwagen provides more potential options for dealing with this kind of evidential argument from evil than one might have first thought were available.

    Response: Yeah if there is a range then God as greatest possible being and necessarily good will always pick the lowest evil on range from 1 to 100 to accomplish P. It is strange to me that you say there is no smallest evil to accomplish P but yet you say God has to arbitrarily pick between 1 to 100. Pretty clearly, 1 is the smallest so God necessarily would pick that.

    I'll give another example to motivate the claim that if there is real vagueness then Rowe's (2) is implausible. (This comes from van Inwagen.) Suppose that you are captain of the last boat that is saving people from Atlantis, which is sinking. Everyone who does not make it onto your boat will die. There are 1000 people standing in line, and the situation is this: if you leave by yourself, taking no one, you have a 100% chance of escaping safely; if you take everyone, you have a 0% chance. Every person you take on board reduces the likelihood of escaping safely by one tenth of a percent, .1%. You will eventually have to shut the hatch in someone's face, even though taking him on board would only have reduced your safety by 1 10th of 1 percent. Eventually, when you do shut the hatch, you are violating Rowe's (2), in the sense that you are permitting an evil (that individual's not being rescued and so dying) that could have been averted virtually without losing any greater good or causing a worse evil (for if you had averted it, the chances of success of escape would only be minutely lowered); but clearly you have to draw the line somewhere and are not morally blameworthy for so doing. Hence (2) is false (so it seems).

    Response: Yeah this is mostly epistemological vagueness dealing with future probabilities and how selecting such and such will effect the future probabilities of surviving. This seems to be a epistemological vagueness, but supposes it were not...I still do not think this is sufficiently similar to the notion of degrees of evil because there is always a lesser degree of evil and if God can always pick the lesser to accomplish his purposes then he will, if he does not need evil or 0 T's of evil to accomplish P then he will not actualize evil in the world. I am having a hard time seeing how Van Inwagon's position is defensible here. But thanks for all the time and energy you have poured into this thus far.

    Have a great weekend.

    God Bless,

    NPT

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  21. (The attempt to post has not worked for the last few days.)

    (QUOTE) Response: Yeah, I still do not see your point here because if God could always pick less and still accomplish his purposes then he should pick the very least. So if there was between 1 or 100, God would always pick 1.(/QUOTE)

    I didn't say that God could pick 1 and still accomplish his purposes. The scale from 0 to 100 was just the scale of possible values tout court, not the scale of values sufficient for his purposes. For instance, I said:

    "If the amount of evil required for some divine purpose *P* is really vague (i.e., there is objectively no precise cut off point between 0 and 100 that divides the values insufficient for *P* from those sufficient for *P*..."

    The value distinguishing amounts of evil that are sufficient from those that are insufficient is somewhere within the scale; if the scale represented the range of values that were sufficient, then 0 would be sufficient, since that is part of the scale I gave. The problem is determining how high one has to go to reach that point where the values start becoming sufficient for His purposes.

    (QUOTE) Response: But you just got saying the range was between 1 to 100 to bring about a divine purpose P.(/QUOTE)

    As just indicated, the scale was 0 to 100, and the problem is determining which value, or range of values, is required by divine purpose P. If P fixes a single value, then you are right and there is a certain value such that any value less is insufficient and any value more is over the top. It isn't clear there is such a value, as I've explained through thought experiments given by van Inwagen. My intention lately hasn't been to argue that he is right or wrong about there being vagueness; I've just been trying to clarify the nature of his argument *on the supposition that* there is vagueness. That is, I've been trying to argue that if there is then Rowe's premise (2) is implausible.

    (QUOTE) The smallest amount would be 1 so God ought to pick that, if God asked why God did not pick 0? Then you would want to argue that he needed to 1 to bring about P. If you did not think this then premise 2 (argument from evil) would be pretty reasonable to you and doubt that any christian theist who is fully clothed and in his right mind would ever want to grant such a point.(/QUOTE)

    I don't understand this; and while I'm not sure that I'm in my right mind, I am fully clothed =]

    (QUOTE) I still do not think this is sufficiently similar to the notion of degrees of evil because there is always a lesser degree of evil and if God can always pick the lesser to accomplish his purposes then he will, if he does not need evil or 0 T's of evil to accomplish P then he will not actualize evil in the world. I am having a hard time seeing how Van Inwagon's position is defensible here.(/QUOTE)

    If God will always pick less evil when he can pick less, as you say, then He will end up taking everyone on board and killing everyone in a failed escape. For with every new person on board, God *can* wait for the *next* person to come on board before closing the hatch; until everyone is on board. If you assume that at a particular instant, such as, after the 300th but before the 301th person coming on board, it now becomes right to close the hatch, whereas it was wrong *before* the 300th got on board, then this conclusion is avoided: God will stop at that moment and not let anyone else on board. But this assumption presupposes that there is *not* vagueness, that there is a precisely "best" moment to close the hatch; and the thought experiment was stated to motivate the claim that (2) is false on the assumption that *there is* vagueness. So *either* God has a purpose or standard in His mind that tells him precisely when to close the hatch, in which case I agree that God will pick that precise moment and in so doing satisfy (2) (for if he permitted a single additional case of evil (death), he would cause an evil not required by his purpose/standard); *or* God's purpose does not tell him precisely when to close the hatch, in which case He will inevitably violate (2) whenever He shuts the hatch and yet be completely blameless in so doing (for a line had to be drawn of necessity).

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  22. Hello Dan,

    Sorry about the posting issue. But I think now I actually understand were you are coming from because you clarified the scale from 1 to 100 issue. You are saying that there is vagueness for what is suffcient highest amount of evil to accomplish a divine purpose P, which seems somewhat coherent to be honest. I may accept this in the future if I get desperate with the problem of evil (if that ever may happen), but I do not now accept this because it seems strange and hard to see how there can be vagueness in reality with determining the highest quantity of to accomplish a divine purpose P. Your thought experiments are perfectly reasonable, but I wonder with the differing circumstances as divine all knowing mind which sets limits and conditions on everything in reality...if these counter examples of vagueness in our experience are essential part of being human and created. It seems hard for me to imagine them with God, but really I cannot give a precise argument and really what do I know. Thanks again for all the time you have put into this. Now because of you I think I have a better grasp of what Van Inwagon is saying. But I am always glad to make things harder on the atheist, so thanks.

    I hope you are well...feel free to post anytime!

    God Bless,

    NPT

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  23. This is my first post on this site. I study reformed theology and have enjoyed reading about the problem of evil. My two cents is God ordains evil for his own good and glory. The most evil event in the history of mankind was the crucifixion of Christ, that which God ordained before the foundations of the earth were formed. This event created a lot of good because it brought the saints to Christ. That being stated. The evil in this world is there to teach the elect about righteousness. If we did not see unrighteousness how then could we know righteousness. It is quite simple to me. God is almighty and evil does exist. I like the mystery of Jude 4. These people were designated (ESV)for this condemnation. Evil will always be there and evil people will always be with us until Christ comes again. Why?
    Keep up the good thinking, just shorten your responses some.
    God Bless!!

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  24. I've wrestled with the idea of falling back on, "God has infinite wisdom and man is finite, " as a defense to the problem of evil when one is trying to figure out if there is an ounce or two seconds of gratuitous suffering, but if we mostly concure the attributes of God and see that the ontlogical argument is powerful than we are pushed into a corner to give assent to God as an all-knowing being, and man as lacking something that only a divine being could have.
    To me it would be impossible to say at what point necessary evil ended and gratuitous evil/suffering began. How does a being who has limited knowledge do this? But then I am assuming the attributes of God. Don't you feel like you circle back to a consensus of what constitutes "God" in the first place.
    Oh, and while I struggled severly with the problem of evil, I am left with a burgeoning of other evidence for the existence of God from the teleological, cosmological, and moral arguments. Theodocies are interesting, but wy don't we also consider the problem of "good"?
    Nate, your blog is a god send;-)~

    ~Susan

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  25. Hello Susan,

    I think that is a good point after all how would we ever know at which point evil would no longer be good to bring about a greater ends and at which point it would then be purposeless. As you have put so clearly to know that we would have to be God himself. If a ant cannot understand our minds, how much is true of humans and God. In philosophy of religion this line of response to the problem of evil is called theistic skeptical response. I think it solves the problem of evil, but then again I think the emotional problem of evil (as distinct from the logical problem of evil) will always remain with God's people.

    But the beautiful thing about the problem of evil Susan is that if the atheist uses this argument he already assuming a theistic framework. So in arguing against theism is actually presupposing theism. Because on Atheism all we are is biological machines for the purpose of survival and this means our cognitive faculties are just function for the sake of survival. But if our cognitive faculties function for the sake of survival why think that they would produce true beliefs about the ultimate nature of reality or that we would be able to give arguments for or against God's existence? Arguments for or against God's existence surely have nothing to do with reproducing and survival. Survival has nothing to with philosophy or understanding the ultimate nature of reality, so the moment the atheist tries to gives an argument about reality and give arguments for and against God's existence he is already assuming that theism is true. Philosophy can only make sense on Christianity because God made us in his image and made us to understand the nature of reality. So back to what you are saying about the problem of good and the evil. If the atheist even says that he knows that there is good or evil (which is required for the argument for evil to work) then on atheism how could he know evil or good? After all on atheism our cognitive faculties are for survival and if they function just for survival they would not need to be reliable for our moral beliefs (what is right or wrong). So on atheism our cognitive faculties are just for survival therefore, we have no reason for thinking that they will produce reliable moral or metaphysical beliefs. So the problem of good and evil can only make sense on theism because they can only be known on theism. So I would agree theistic arguments do help with the problem of evil and in my mind...even with the emotional problem of evil in my own life. Thanks so much for your encouragement. I hope you are well.

    In Christ,

    Nate

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