quote:

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Originally posted by Dr Ransom (Order of C.S. Lewis):
Theodicy may be ‘logical’ there may be higher-ends, goals, growths and ‘crowns corruptible exchanged for incorruptible crowns’: but is it rational, ought it even to be a theological ‘thing’ to be ‘done’ sat on sofas and in coffee bars?

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put down the port and Church Times crossword!

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'pastor and philosopher' would be the happy medium in serving people holistically in the field I suppose.

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bowed his head and groaned and repined against his fate - to be still a man and yet to be forced up into the metaphysical world, to enact what philosophy only thinks

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Posted by tclune (# 7959) on :
 
ISTM that this kind of nonsense is a problem specifically for those Christians who see their faith as essentially propositional -- the kind of irritating Christian who is always asserting that "you can't be a real Chrisitan unless you believe that..."

If you see your faith as knowledge about the world, then the limits of your knowledge are a problem. I just don't have any sympathy for such a view of Christianity. My goal in my faith is to grow in love, not in information. And I am comfortable in the view that growing in love is growing more Christlike. How that fits into the terrible parts of life is not by providing an "explanation," but by conditioning my response to the suffering that I encounter. The real challenge to my faith is how lukewarm my loving response is after all these years. As always, YMMV.

--Tom Clune
 

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Posted by Dr Ransom (Order of C.S. Lewis) (# 16235) on :
 
*whistles*!

Well: Eutychus! That was like,was it Nathan the prophet to David, demanding that the man who wants 'both sheep' is to be executed immediately, and said man was in fact himself.

A good word, but the temptation, ooh the temptation to have a rational faith is hard to resist. This is a Dawkins decade-where the things of Purgatory discussion are presented to me daily-hence the joy of having Ship O' Fools recommended to me!

We've gotta give an answer...the classroom's a Gladitorial pit
 

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Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 
Well, thank you, but it was too good to miss!

I'm on my way out of the door to see said prisoners right now, but another thought in passing: I think our faith is supposed to be incarnational, not solely rational, isn't it? That's its, um, redeeming feature...
 

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Posted by Phos Hilaron (# 6914) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Dr Ransom (Order of C.S. Lewis):

“That anything that cannot be said to a mother in front of her burning child is an unacceptable line for anyone to take re the existence of God in a world like this.”

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Originally posted by Dr Ransom (Order of C.S. Lewis):
constant and immortal good/ yet/
very present, gratuitous hurt

I mean these are the questions people ask us to explain quite often.

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Originally posted by Tortuf:
Here is another old Chestnut.

Your conundrum sets up a false dichotomy.

I had a look at several well thought of translations of Genesis. Each translation has God saying the world was good or very good, not perfect. Why then, are you positing that God made a perfect world? Is it on the basis of biblical authority, or on your expectations for God?*

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*you are having fun playing with philosophical questions. Which is natural, given where you are in life.

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Originally posted by Dr Ransom (Order of C.S. Lewis):
(1) Gratuitous evil exists in the world
(2) Gratuitous evil cannot exist in the creative works of an infinitely perfect being

Therefore:

(3) The Universe cannot have been created by an infinitely perfect being.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dr Ransom (Order of C.S. Lewis):
(1) Gratuitous evil exists in the world
(2) Gratuitous evil cannot exist in the creative works of an infinitely perfect being

Therefore:

(3) The Universe cannot have been created by an infinitely perfect being.


The above is the formula commonly called the problem of evil (TPOE) and I was challenged by a friend this week to explain on how the believer reconciles the ‘evils’ in the world to an omni-benevolent God who, by virtue of omni-benevolence, surely cannot allow such evils to exist.

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Originally posted by HCH:
What would be non-gratuitous evil?

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It is widely recognized that [the softer bad things=evil] formulation of the problem of evil is seriously flawed. It rules out necessary evils—evils that would exist in any possible universe.

It also rules out instrumental evils. Instrumental evils come in two forms. First, there are intrinsically evil states of affairs that are instrumentally related, at least potentially, to the existence of greater goods that cannot be attained without those evils or something worse. Second, there are intrinsically evil states of affairs that are instrumentally related, at least potentially, to the non-existence of greater evils which cannot be circumvented by means any less evil.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dr Ransom (Order of C.S. Lewis):
(1) Gratuitous evil exists in the world
(2) Gratuitous evil cannot exist in the creative works of an infinitely perfect being

Therefore:

(3) The Universe cannot have been created by an infinitely perfect being.

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Originally posted by redderfreak:
By our actions we take one side or the other and affect the world order.

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Originally posted by HCH:
I guess I may be hopelessly ignorant, but I also do not grasp what is meant by "infinitely perfect". I normally regard "perfect" as an absolute; one cannot be more or less perfect any more than one can be more or less unique or "a little bit pregnant". It is also unclear what standard is in use here in determining the extent of God's perfection or near-perfection.

My own opinion of this is rather ordinary and agrees with some other Shipmates. Much (perhaps all) of the evil of the world, as I see it, comes originally from the possession by human beings of free will and fallibility. Could God eliminate such evil? Of course--but God apparently places a high value on our possession of free will.

Of course, there is suffering unrelated to evil. We grow old and die. That's part of our design and our identity. We are flesh and blood. There are natural phenomena that cause suffering--floods, earthquakes, fires--but again these are not actually evil; they are part of the world we live in, challenges for us to meet and reminders that we should be humble.

I don't think discussions like this are likely to make much progress in reducing the level of evil in the world.

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Originally posted by Gargantua:
Personally, I feel that there is no satisfactory answer to the conundrum of the OP. Tennyson expressed it well in the stanzas of In Memoriam A.H.H. that I quoted earlier on another thread. "Yet we trust that somehow good will be the final goal of ill." It is a question of trust -- or faith, or hope.

The Thomists trying to prove it make an unedifying spectacle -- and the Calvinists and other Reformed-tradition theologians a disgusting one. It goes beyond mere chin-stroking! It takes a strong stomach to sally forth upon the Internet, to Google the "problem of evil" and to read some of the meretricious trash that various religious denominations offer the mother of the burning child.

I find the "fallen world" explanation particularly reprehensible. Ask the lava-encrusted corpses of Pompeii or the heaped-up bodies of the tsunami victims whether their suffering was the result of anyone's sin, whether contemporary or Adamic.

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Originally posted by Tortuf:
Here is another old Chestnut.

Can God make a rock so large that God cannot move it?

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Originally posted by sanityman:
The question is: may we rationally hope?

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Originally posted by Gargantua:
The Thomists trying to prove it make an unedifying spectacle -- and the Calvinists and other Reformed-tradition theologians a disgusting one. It goes beyond mere chin-stroking! It takes a strong stomach to sally forth upon the Internet, to Google the "problem of evil" and to read some of the meretricious trash that various religious denominations offer the mother of the burning child.

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Originally posted by IngoB:
Theology provides answers at a particular level in a particular manner. If you don't care about that stuff, fine, you really don't have to. However, avoid telling other people that they shouldn't care about this either. It's their business what brings them closer to God, not yours. I'm firmly looking at tclune there. No sympathy, eh? Grow some more in love then...

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Originally posted by IngoB:
Theology provides answers at a particular level in a particular manner. If you don't care about that stuff, fine, you really don't have to. However, avoid telling other people that they shouldn't care about this either. It's their business what brings them closer to God, not yours. I'm firmly looking at tclune there. No sympathy, eh? Grow some more in love then...

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Originally posted by mdijon:

quote:

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Originally posted by sanityman:
The question is: may we rationally hope?

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Yes we may. The basis for our faith cannot be the ability to rationalize every difficulty or complexity it throws up. If my faith depends on being able to answer the great "works vs faith", "science vs creation", "morality outside Christianity" and every other big debate in a cogent and neat way it is going to be hopeless. But that isn't how it works - I didn't select the faith that provided the most rational answers on a panel of questions, it was based on believing that Jesus' incarnation was real.

The basis for that belief is worth another thread perhaps, but the point is that whatever was strong enough to overcome the huge improbability of such a thing happening has got to be strong enough to overcome my inability to rationalize a set of other questions.

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Originally posted by tclune:
It may be that some people were converted by the "miracle" of God feeding the Christians and starving the heathens. But I still call "bullshit" on this swindler for Christ.

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Originally posted by tclune:
But I will never pretend that those who sell snake oil in the name of Christ by claiming answers to the unanswerable are anything other than charlatans.

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Originally posted by kankucho:
Who has decided on God's behalf that God is omnibenovolent? What evidence does the Bible offer that He is, or ever claimed to be so?

Second point: 'Perfect' does not mean 'supremely lovely, kind, gorgeous and wonderful': it means 'complete'. The perfect includes and embraces imperfection.

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Originally posted by Russ:

quote:

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Originally posted by kankucho:
Who has decided on God's behalf that God is omnibenovolent? What evidence does the Bible offer that He is, or ever claimed to be so?

Second point: 'Perfect' does not mean 'supremely lovely, kind, gorgeous and wonderful': it means 'complete'. The perfect includes and embraces imperfection.

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Why would you choose to worship a God who was not omnibenevolent, assuming that you believed such a God to exist ?

The more common usage of "perfect" today is the meaning "infinitely good". Something that is perfect lacks no desirable attribute (and is in that sense complete) but to be perfect it must also be flawless - possessing no undesirable attribute. A perfect man must not only lack no virtue but also be free of vice.

The complete does in a sense include the partial, but the flawless does not include the flawed.

The universe we live in, with its pointless suffering - e.g. arthritis, cholera - seems to many to be flawed.

Best wishes,

Russ

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Originally posted by kankucho:
If this God is what He is claimed to be by His adherents, then He represents the totality of the universe, outside of which nothing else exists.

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Hence my question about what the Bible offers to indicate that God is omnibenevolent. When in doubt, consult the manual.

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Originally posted by redderfreak:

quote:

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Originally posted by Dr Ransom (Order of C.S. Lewis):
(1) Gratuitous evil exists in the world
(2) Gratuitous evil cannot exist in the creative works of an infinitely perfect being

Therefore:

(3) The Universe cannot have been created by an infinitely perfect being.

---

I agree with (1) and (2) but (3) doesn't necessarily follow if you believe in dualism, as I do. God isn't the only player in town. There's a bigger conflict going on which we are part of. As Jesus said, he isn't the prince of this world. Evil is. By our actions we take one side or the other and affect the world order. We're part of the creative process and have been given responsibility for making the world right or wrong.

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originally posted by tclune:
ISTM that this kind of nonsense is a problem specifically for those Christians who see their faith as essentially propositional -- the kind of irritating Christian who is always asserting that "you can't be a real Chrisitan unless you believe that..."

If you see your faith as knowledge about the world, then the limits of your knowledge are a problem. I just don't have any sympathy for such a view of Christianity. My goal in my faith is to grow in love, not in information. And I am comfortable in the view that growing in love is growing more Christlike. How that fits into the terrible parts of life is not by providing an "explanation," but by conditioning my response to the suffering that I encounter. The real challenge to my faith is how lukewarm my loving response is after all these years. As always, YMMV.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:

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Originally posted by kankucho:
If this God is what He is claimed to be by His adherents, then He represents the totality of the universe, outside of which nothing else exists.

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No. According to the claims of the Abrahamic religions, the totality of the universe is something created by God on purpose that there be something other than God. Outside of the totality of the universe (and inside it at the heart of it) is God...

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We'll also add, that at least in the Augustinian tradition, evil has no ontological reality. What we call evil is something being very much less good than it could be. Since it is nonsense to talk about God being less than, or indeed other than, God could be, it follows we can't speak of evil in God....

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Obviously Reformed Protestants believe that the manual is all that there is to be known about God, but that is not the position held by Roman Catholics or Eastern Orthodox. The Roman Catholics explicitly hold that secular philosophy can be used to interpret the Bible.

I would however start from the claim in 1 John that God is love, and work through various parts of the New Testament that elaborate upon that.

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Originally posted by kankucho:
Yes, I think this is where we got to the last time I got involved in this subject (pity I can't recall the original thread: it was very interesting). Back-up was cited for God being love, as you'd imagine. None was cited for Him not being also evil.

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Originally posted by kankucho:
Well, first of all, I should declare, for those who don't know, that I don't worship a god at all, at least in the sense understood by the consensus of this forum. But I find your question about what sort of god I might choose to worship quite strange. How many gods are there to choose from?

When in doubt, consult the manual.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:

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Originally posted by redderfreak:

quote:

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Originally posted by Dr Ransom (Order of C.S. Lewis):
(1) Gratuitous evil exists in the world
(2) Gratuitous evil cannot exist in the creative works of an infinitely perfect being

Therefore:

(3) The Universe cannot have been created by an infinitely perfect being.

---

I agree with (1) and (2) but (3) doesn't necessarily follow if you believe in dualism, as I do. God isn't the only player in town. There's a bigger conflict going on which we are part of. As Jesus said, he isn't the prince of this world. Evil is. By our actions we take one side or the other and affect the world order. We're part of the creative process and have been given responsibility for making the world right or wrong.

---

What certainly does follow from 1) and 2) is
This world is not the creative works of an infinitely perfect being. That's not much different from 3) to my mind.
Dualism doesn't change the logic. It merely changes which premise you decide to drop or whether you accept the conclusion. You can either argue that this world was not created by good alone, but created by good and evil (accepting 3) or you can argue that an infinitely perfect being might possibly let evil affect their creative works (rejecting 2). But the logic is the logic.

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Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
Ransom, I can't help noticing that you have never responded in any way to Tom Clune's first post. It happens to be exactly what I would say, since IMHO, Christian theodicy has been two millenia of wasted time and effort.

quote:

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originally posted by tclune:
ISTM that this kind of nonsense is a problem specifically for those Christians who see their faith as essentially propositional -- the kind of irritating Christian who is always asserting that "you can't be a real Chrisitan unless you believe that..."

If you see your faith as knowledge about the world, then the limits of your knowledge are a problem. I just don't have any sympathy for such a view of Christianity. My goal in my faith is to grow in love, not in information. And I am comfortable in the view that growing in love is growing more Christlike. How that fits into the terrible parts of life is not by providing an "explanation," but by conditioning my response to the suffering that I encounter. The real challenge to my faith is how lukewarm my loving response is after all these years. As always, YMMV.

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So...?

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quote:

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If you see your faith as knowledge about the world, then the limits of your knowledge are a problem.

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the kind of irritating Christian who is always asserting that "you can't be a real Chrisitan unless you believe that..."

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How that fits into the terrible parts of life is not by providing an "explanation,"

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How that fits into the terrible parts of life is not by providing an "explanation," but by conditioning my response to the suffering that I encounter

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those Christians who see their faith as essentially propositional

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Originally posted by Dr Ransom (Order of C.S. Lewis):
The gentleman that came up with the need for the problem to be specified in terms of 'gratuitous evil' gave the following accounts of non-gratuitous evil situations:

quote:

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It is widely recognized that [the softer bad things=evil] formulation of the problem of evil is seriously flawed. It rules out necessary evils—evils that would exist in any possible universe. <snip> ...

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On defense as opposed to theodicy Joel Thomas Tierno: Int J Philos Relig (2006) 59:167–174

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Originally posted by Russ:
I wasn't suggesting that there are multiple Supreme Beings in existence, rather asking what characteristics you would have to perceive such a Being to have in order for you to respond with worship.

From what you've said, it sounds as if you think that the Bible accurately describes a God, Whom you respond to by pretending He doesn't exist...

If the sort of God that the Bible describes has no referent, then how can you give the Bible any status at all ?

I find talking about the possible existence of God as if He were an elusive specimen like the Loch Ness Monster to be generally unproductive, and prefer a different approach.

I imagine that you wouldn't worship any being that didn't in some way embody your highest values.

If ultimate benevolence is one of those values, then religious language would have it that you worship an omnibenevolent God. (However personal or impersonal, close or distant, you perceive Him to be).

Best wishes,

Russ

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Originally posted by redderfreak:
I agree that logic is logic. I suppose what I was saying is that the words of 3) are ambiguous, as you seem to be saying. You can read them to mean that either 3.1) God is not a perfect creator or 3.2) that he is a perfect creator and other forces are also at work in the creation. I believe in 3.2).

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In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

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Originally posted by Eutychus:

quote:

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Originally posted by kankucho:
Yes, I think this is where we got to the last time I got involved in this subject (pity I can't recall the original thread: it was very interesting). Back-up was cited for God being love, as you'd imagine. None was cited for Him not being also evil.

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I'm not sure I've worked my way properly through those negatives at the end there, but 1 John 1:5 springs to mind: God is light, and in him there is no darknes at all.

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Originally posted by Scarlet:

OK, I'll bite. What are necessary evils that would exist in any possible universe?

I'm on my way to church, so I'm rushing but I decided to google the phrase as stated. I came up with this web page from which I dislike this quote:

" If the deity is all perfect then any universe created by that deity could not be anything less than perfect. This universe that does exist must therefore be the best possible. If this is so and there is what appears to be evil in this universe then that evil is not really evil at all but some necessary part or feature of the best of all possible worlds. Humans do not have the viewpoint of the deity. Humans cannot see the universe as seen by the deity. Humans focus on some aspect of the whole and give it a name "evil" and then think that evil has some existence or fore on its own. When the entire creation is seen by the deity it appears to be beautiful and what humans call evil is seen by the deity as necessary feature of the overall beautiful creation."

I dislike this because it's been used as a platitude like bad medicine in times I've questioned the trauma foisted upon my life. In paraphrase, it's whatever I consider a wound must really be part of the bandage, since God has only my salvation in mind and therefore, what I see as bad is actually good for me in my specific case. [/QB]

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God seeks the very best for us in the very long term, and He is going to put us under a lot of pressure to get it. He is very demanding, but we’d expect that – would we not?

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1. Talking about God anthropomorphically leads to all kinds of nonsense and all kinds of logistical problems
2. Omnipotence does not mean that God can do what he likes - hens never will lay soft-boiled eggs on the Big Rock Candy Mountain.

quote:

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Originally posted by kankucho:

quote:

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Originally posted by Eutychus:

quote:

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Originally posted by kankucho:
Yes, I think this is where we got to the last time I got involved in this subject (pity I can't recall the original thread: it was very interesting). Back-up was cited for God being love, as you'd imagine. None was cited for Him not being also evil.

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I'm not sure I've worked my way properly through those negatives at the end there, but 1 John 1:5 springs to mind: God is light, and in him there is no darknes at all.

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Thank you for that, although it's not what the Bible actually says. And there's the tricky matter of the preceding John 1:3 - "Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made" - from which I draw my case that if evil exists (even if only in the minds of men) then God is ultimately responsible for having created it.

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quote:

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Originally posted by QLib:
To my mind, then, the logistical problem, as you express it, is one that some religions have made for themselves – it's not a real problem – unlike suffering itself, which is a genuine problem.

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quote:

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Originally posted by QLib:


[/list]
To my mind, then, the logistical problem, as you express it, is one that some religions have made for themselves – it's not a real problem – unlike suffering itself, which is a genuine problem. But what difference does bringing God in, or leaving God out, make? The only real difference is that sometimes Faith, Hope and Charity help us to cope; they don't provide answers. Did Jesus provide answers? In a way, it's his assurance that God loves and cares for us that has created the problem - except that the real problem lies in people feeling the need to explain something that can't be explained.

If gratuitous evil is embedded in the universe, I don't see how religion can claim to offer answers about the origins of the universe. It can't even tell us about the origins of this planet. What level is your question being asked at and at what level are you expecting the answers? The best and only answer we have been provided with is still this one:
Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? ... when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

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quote:

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what difference does bringing God in, or leaving God out, make?

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quote:

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Faith, Hope and Charity [which] help us to cope

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quote:

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If gratuitous evil is embedded in the universe, I don't see how religion can claim to offer answers about the origins of the universe

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What level is your question being asked at and at what level are you expecting the answers?

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The level is two fold:

(1) I'm quite happy to accept anything from logical/ reflective flaws in the way the 3-stage hypothesis is set up so we get to keep (1) and (2) but do a great deal to our understanding of the terms therin

and if this is impossible then accepting that whenever aforementioned hypothesis is put to us-we can't defend either the thing as it is or without modifying our understanding of the terms (thus our understanding of God) which is fine.

but if so then I feel we/I personally am content for option B

I have absolutley no idea nor can contribute to TPOE, friend, and well done you've shown how the descriptions of god in my Bible don't match up to percived reality. Apologies on behalf of the theologians who tried but lets just get on with damage control in 'real life', accept this sucks and leave talk of 'rewards' 'divine plans' and 'pain for gain' to the sadists

Personally, I'm beginning to feel that evil is the privation of Perfect Good (God) that all natural God-given goods can be de-valued to the point of being mildly or gratuitously unlike the original intended form -ergo- Evil.

As to Tom Clune, hard boiled egg laying chickens, and candy mountains-

Show me in the thread where we have had people as 'snake oil selling' demoniacs or unrealistic attempts at coming up with a theory of anything everything?

No one? Well then the discussion is indeed right, good and fitting.
 

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Posted by The Revolutionist (# 4578) on :
 
The Christian faith involves truths that I believe are comforting to us as we face the reality of evil and pain in our lives. We can comfort ourselves and other people with the truths that God is both in control and is good, without necessarily being able to give - or it being appropriate to attempt to give - a neat philosophical answer of how that hangs together.

I think theodicy has a role, but a very limited one. It's important to be able to explain that it isn't irrational to believe that God is both all-powerful and good. Christians aren't making a leap in the dark or embracing a contradiction.

But I think the real issue at stake in the problem of evil is the character of God. Is God really good? Can I trust him?

Rational argument can only go so far in establishing trust: the real issue is relational. God's answer to evil wasn't a philosophical argument, but coming into this world as one of us, to suffer and die with us, and somehow to defeat evil, pain and death. He promises to be with us now in and through our suffering, and promises us hope through suffering, because he has already trodden that path.

It's through getting alongside people, sharing our lives, and demonstrating God's love that we will touch people. But this is not unconnected to our "propositional" beliefs: the type of life that we live, the nature of the comfort we seek to offer, is shaped by what we believe. Our lived response to evil reflects what we believe about God's response to evil.
 

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Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by kankucho:

quote:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:
According to the claims of the Abrahamic religions, the totality of the universe is something created by God on purpose that there be something other than God. Outside of the totality of the universe (and inside it at the heart of it) is God...

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The second part of that is the same thing as 'nothing exists outside of God', no? The first part brings us back to my personal chestnut challenge: what did God make the universe out of to produce something that was NotGod? There was only a Word which was Him and was with Him.

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quote:

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quote:

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We'll also add, that at least in the Augustinian tradition, evil has no ontological reality. What we call evil is something being very much less good than it could be. Since it is nonsense to talk about God being less than, or indeed other than, God could be, it follows we can't speak of evil in God....

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If evil exists - or, let's say, is at least made a manifest condition by His created beings - then it too must ultimately be part God's creation. He manifests and creates perfection, and He manifests and creates everything that is less than perfection. There's nowhere else for the less-than-perfect to come from.

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quote:

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ack-up was cited for God being love, as you'd imagine. None was cited for Him not being also evil.

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quote:

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Originally posted by The Revolutionist:

But I think the real issue at stake in the problem of evil is the character of God. Is God really good? Can I trust him?

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Originally posted by The Revolutionist:

Rational argument can only go so far in establishing trust: the real issue is relational. God's answer to evil wasn't a philosophical argument, but coming into this world as one of us, to suffer and die with us, and somehow to defeat evil, pain and death. He promises to be with us now in and through our suffering, and promises us hope through suffering, because he has already trodden that path.

<snip>

Our lived response to evil reflects what we believe about God's response to evil.

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Originally posted by Gargantua:
I gather from the above and other similar posts that some of us feel that "the world is the way it is because that is the way it has to be," that any other moral configuration would involve illogical consequences. That's if I have understood the argument correctly.

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Originally posted by Gargantua:
My favourite poet, Wallace Stevens, devoted one of his deeper poems, "Esthétique du Mal" to the topic we here discuss. One small passage says:

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Originally posted by Scarlet:
What is God's response to evil? God largely ignores the evil and lets it run its horrible course. If we believe he came into the world as one of us, suffer and die with us...has evil, pain and death really been defeated? How? except in some nebulous faith trip...

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How would you imagine that He might respond? Just think what the consequences of an irrefutably visible tanglible response would be!

It makes sense to me that His response is to let us, as far as we can detect, take care of the problem ourselves.

The chief mechanism is the inexorable and eternal expansion of knowledge over time. Think of the miracles inherent in that little feature of human existence.
 

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Posted by Gargantua (# 16205) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Freddy:

quote:

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Originally posted by QLib:
To my mind, then, the logistical problem, as you express it, is one that some religions have made for themselves – it's not a real problem – unlike suffering itself, which is a genuine problem.

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I agree. The so-called "problem of evil" simply is not a real problem.

You can see that it's not a real problem by trying to imagine a creation where it did not exist. This may seem like a simple task, but pretty soon you slide inevitably towards imagining impossible "rock too big" scenarios.

For example, if God did exist and if He had not made the mistake of creating a world where evil was possible, would suffering still be possible?

If the answer is "no" then you have to wonder how there could be no suffering without abrogating physical laws - or how there could be physical laws that preclude the possibility of suffering.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gargantua:
I gather from the above and other similar posts that some of us feel that "the world is the way it is because that is the way it has to be," that any other moral configuration would involve illogical consequences.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gargantua:
I urge anyone interested in the topic (the Problem of Evil) to read the entire poem; its aesthetic exploration of the subject is rather unique.

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I read this again but am not seeing the connection. Could you explain?
 

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Posted by Gargantua (# 16205) on :
 
My apologies, Freddy. I repeated the post at the behest of Host tclune who was unhappy with the amount of copyrighted material posted. He told me he would delete the earlier post and suggested the new revised post as his ideal solution to the aforementioned problem. I thought this might cause confusion; but as apprentice I do what I'm told when it's a direct order from TPTB.
 

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Posted by Gargantua (# 16205) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Freddy:

quote:

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Originally posted by Gargantua:
I urge anyone interested in the topic (the Problem of Evil) to read the entire poem; its aesthetic exploration of the subject is rather unique.

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I read this again but am not seeing the connection. Could you explain?

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Well, the connexion is there, for me anyway, although as I noted it is rather an aesthetic than a reasoned exploration of the topic of theodicy. I would point to parts such as "And yet, except for us,/ The total past felt nothing when destroyed." and particularly strophe III which is one of Stevens' critiques of Christianity ("The fault lies with an over-human god" and following lines. Also the lines in strophe IV beginning "The genius of misfortune/ Is not a sentimentalist. He is/ That evil, that evil in the self..." to the end of the strophe. Also the "soldier of time" strophe VII and the following "death of Satan" strophe. These are just high spots in the poem, more direct references; really the entire poem is about the POE, as indicated by the "Aesthetic of Evil" title. But Stevens rarely attacks such a theme too directly or reasons in formal logic about it. His work is always a curious and thorough mix of intellect and feeling.

I've lived with that particular poem for almost fifty years of my life and still find it a rewarding meditation on the subject. I still return to it regularly. For me it's almost a permanent part of what I might call my personal liturgy.

[ 21. February 2011, 03:34: Message edited by: Gargantua ]
 

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Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
Thank you, G.
 

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Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on :
 
The problem of evil is a human construct, itself born of a human construct- that there is an omnimax god. The reason it’s so hard to get your heads round the illogic and irrationality of it all is simply that there is no god. And that’s it. That’s the solution to all these problems and paradoxes. So simple, so elegant, and so right.

The resort to Impenetrable Mystery as an explanation of the problem of evil, the trinity, afterlife, innocent suffering, hell, whatever, is pathognomonic of a terminal cancer of the truth- the first-discovered little lump of which is that, as our knowledge grows, we are driven further and further from understanding these mysteries. They’re getting more Impenetrable! You’re going the wrong way! Yep, the face-slappingly breathtakingly obvious reason it’s impossible to make sense of this stuff is that it ain’t real.

When you realise this, the Truth Sun comes out and bathes everything in its beautiful, wonderful, white light- illuminating and revealing in sharpest clarity your rather forlorn and desperate theological contortions for what they are.
 

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Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Yorick:
The reason it’s so hard to get your heads round the illogic and irrationality of it all is simply that there is no god.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Freddy:
Atheism does not, in my opinion, hold any particularly helpful answers to the problem of evil

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quote:

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Originally posted by Yorick:


The resort to Impenetrable Mystery as an explanation of the problem of evil, the trinity, afterlife, innocent suffering, hell, whatever, is pathognomonic of a terminal cancer of the truth- the first-discovered little lump of which is that, as our knowledge grows, we are driven further and further from understanding these mysteries.

They’re getting more Impenetrable! You’re going the wrong way! Yep, the face-slappingly breathtakingly obvious reason it’s impossible to make sense of this stuff is that it ain’t real.

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quote:

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If there isn't a worship worthy being of the type that Russ has been outlining: then all suffering is pointless on this third rock from the Sun and I for one-shall run into the arms of Nietzsche quicker than Zarathustra into the market square!

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quote:

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I do not believe God is merely a by product of a Hypersensitive Agency detection device

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quote:

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Originally posted by Yorick:

quote:

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Originally posted by Freddy:
Atheism does not, in my opinion, hold any particularly helpful answers to the problem of evil

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Would you mind elaborating?

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• 1. Since all things in the physical world are necessarily limited there will be scarcity and competition. Therefore there will inevitably be unhappiness and suffering as scarcity interacts with self-interest and the need to survive.
• 2. Since physical laws are constant, human suffering is always a possibility resulting from weather, falls, disease, and the above-mentioned scarcity. Nature does not mercifully provide water everywhere or prevent gravity from breaking your bones when you fall or are impacted by heavy objects.

quote:

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Originally posted by Freddy:
You can see that it's not a real problem by trying to imagine a creation where it did not exist. This may seem like a simple task, but pretty soon you slide inevitably towards imagining impossible "rock too big" scenarios.

For example, if God did exist and if He had not made the mistake of creating a world where evil was possible, would suffering still be possible?

If the answer is "no" then you have to wonder how there could be no suffering without abrogating physical laws - or how there could be physical laws that preclude the possibility of suffering.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Freddy:
Atheism's response to the problem of evil is to deny the basis for the question, unless I am mistaken. That is, it makes no sense to wonder how an infinite loving God could permit evil if the premise is that He doesn't exist.

This is not a helpful answer if you believe that this premise is an inadequate basis for explaining life. It amounts to no explanation at all….

The trouble is that this answer ["There is no loving God"] deprives you of everything relating to long-term purpose and meaning.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Yorick:


Claim (1)Look, evil is exclusively human- don’t you agree?

Claim (2) When a tiger kills an antelope, we don’t say evil plays a part in this. Natural disasters like earthquakes and meteorite strikes aren’t considered evil in themselves (though they pose problems for those who imagine a god responsible for them).

Claim (3) All the evil you see around you is centred on human beings, and there is no evil in the known universe except in our infinitesimally insignificant human yocto-speck of it.


Claim (4) ‘Evil’ is a human conception, applying solely to our human selves by our own human values, and it’s perfectly explained in entirely human terms. No need for the supernatural.


Claim (5)The whole non-paradoxical truth is right here, in our evil little selves.

Claim (6) It’s exactly the same with the human value of goodness, of course, and the only reason we don’t see so much theological chin stroking about The Problem of Goodness is that is doesn’t contradict the idea of an all-loving god. The ‘Problem of Evil’ (i.e., its incompatibility with an omnimax god) comes not from the existence of evil at all, but from the non-existence of that god.

[edit for the non-existence of code]

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dr Ransom (Order of C.S. Lewis):
you’re talking to a man who believes in something other than an entirely naturalistic and scientifically positivistic universe. …the privation of good comes from an outside ontological source.

Something better must be on offer personally than simply ‘sucking it up and getting the progeny out, hoping it will all cancel itself out before: The End of History and The Last Man.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Yorick:
God exists, so the problem of evil exists- that's circular.
[/QB]

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quote:

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Originally posted by Yorick:
To clarify, the onus on you is as follows:

quote:

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Originally posted by Dr Ransom (Order of C.S. Lewis):

Something better must be on offer personally than simply ‘sucking it up and getting the progeny out, hoping it will all cancel itself out before: The End of History and The Last Man.

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Why? Seriously. Why should ‘something better be on offer’? To satisfy your craving for meaning?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dr Ransom (Order of C.S. Lewis):
I would agree that evil , gratuitous moral and systematic institutional evil (systems that perpetuate unfairness, want, bullying, hurt, violence to body and mind etc) is entirely a human problem-certainly but the privation of good comes from an outside ontological source.

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quote:

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Answer to claim (3):Indeed, Yorick, which is why it is so damningly important for us to try to understand why-in the vastness of the universe-- this ‘yocto-speck’ is the only ‘yocto-speck’ with our ‘yocto-history’ of calculated- not deterministic- wars, pestilence, famine and destruction. I remind you these thing to me are not some menstrual natural cycle of cleaning herself of ‘useless humans’ in her general cycle-unless you really do think our conflicts and hurts are all ‘for evolutionary gain in the long term’-see Speck: in which case ‘its all good!’...I never liked the idea that the smallness of human life on earth made us any less significant. ... the improbability of us being here asking these questions is more terrifying than if the universe were populated with people abstracting themselves from their surroundings and questioning the reasons why things are thus when they could be otherwise.

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I don't really understand what you're getting at here, because a lot of this stuff is human evil again. It also seems tome that you're very easily terrified – so maybe your solution to the problem of evil is to chill .

quote:

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Answer to Claim (4):Again, Evil is a human problem applying solely to our human selves by our own human values and as I believe (infuriating isn’t it) that humans are not merely animals of the type homo sapiens: the evil must have moral and ontological reasons for doing that which we know to be contrary to the Good

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quote:

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A circular argument methinks.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dr Ransom (Order of C.S. Lewis):
That craving for meaning must towards something outside my cranium and the species crawling over rocks, streets and Starbuck's otherwise..I'd be fine with the contents of the cranium and the Starbucks as existence, but I ain't guv!

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quote:

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Originally posted by Yorick:
Firstly, I have a real problem with your definition of evil. If I fall over and bump my knee on this ‘hostile’ planet, I don’t suppose anyone would describe that as evil (and I really struggle to see how you can describe a planet as ‘hostile’, anyway. How does a planet know to be hostile?) Can you imagine a single instance of 'evil' that cannot be described as anthropocentric?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Yorick:
You say the non-existence of god deprives us of everything relating to long-term purpose and meaning. Even if this were true (and it most certainly is not), I propose the very opposite.

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Originally posted by Dafyd:
How exactly is the spatial metaphor 'outside' in to be unpacked?
I can think of ['nothing exists outside of God'] being used as a way of saying that God's love is all-encompassing; or as a way of questioning an absolute sacred-profane distinction. But how are you using it?

As for what creation is created out of, the canonical claim is nothing. (He brought light out of darkness, not out of a lesser light. He can bring thy summer out of winter, though thou hast no spring.)

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quote:

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Look up at the night sky. You see the lights? They come from burning stars, millions of miles away. Where does the darkness come from?
Play a CD. The music comes from the CD player, and before that from the instruments. Turn it off. Where does the silence come from?
The less-than-perfect comes from the same place.

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quote:

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Would anything short of an explicit statement that God is not evil satisfy you in this regard?
The statements that God is love, or that those who love God are like God, would seem to exclude God being evil.

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Originally posted by kankucho:
....unless you are supporting Eutychus in positing some biblically undeclared and undefined ‘other forces’.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Freddy:
Without an agent there can be no purpose. Without purpose there can be no meaning.

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quote:

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Originally posted by QLib:

quote:

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Originally posted by Dr Ransom (Order of C.S. Lewis):
I would agree that evil , gratuitous moral and systematic institutional evil (systems that perpetuate unfairness, want, bullying, hurt, violence to body and mind etc) is entirely a human problem-certainly but the privation of good comes from an outside ontological source.

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I'm not sure what this means or where it comes from – is this logic, theology, intuition or experience?

Answer to Claim (4): Do you mean evil people? As opposed to the good people? Why do they need “moral and ontological reasons”? Is this not just another problem you've made?

5.

quote:

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A circular argument methinks.

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No, it's not circular, because it's not really an argument – Yorick is merely pointing out that 'good' and 'evil' are human constructs and that this all-powerful (whatever that means) God who makes stuff or permits stuff is a human construct, too and therefore “the problem of evil” is only a problem for those who buy into this idea of God. Essentially, I agree, except that I would say that you don't need to ditch God, you just need to ditch the (to my mind) overly-literal interpretation of ideas about Creation.

The zen story of the empty rowing boat (who do you blame if an empty rowing boat rams your boat in the fog?) illustrates this. Taking God out of the equation means you just get on with it, instead of wasting your time on utterly futile and fruitless questions.

What does I AM THAT I AM mean? For me it means that God just is and things just are the way they are. The just-isness of things is “of God” just as Love is “of God”. How does that work? I don't know – it's just my experience.

The trouble with theology, IMHO, is that it has ideas above its station. It takes a potentially useful idea like Trinity to explain experience of Jesus/Christ and then seems to claim intellectual property rights over who/what God is, thus saddling itself with trying to explain stuff that we (the human race) don't even fully understand in scientific terms.

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quote:

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Taking God out of the equation means you just get on with it, instead of wasting your time on utterly futile and fruitless questions.

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quote:

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takes a potentially useful idea like Trinity to explain experience of Jesus/Christ and then seems to claim intellectual property rights over who/what God is, thus saddling itself with trying to explain stuff that we (the human race) don't even fully understand in scientific terms.

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For which I can only say, as I have to a few posts, see my gratitude (in no sarcastic tone btw) for an Option B response

originally up thread..it may even have been to you


Often I find the heat of the dislike of truth seeking in trying to deal with (admittedly flawed) conundrums that atheists pose to Christians as counter productive-TPOE was not a 'Christian construction' people, this sort of thing is asked quite often by many people.

p.s: The only things that terrify me are moths, council tax and the fear of asking difficult and often at face value 'useless' questions


 

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Posted by Dr Ransom (Order of C.S. Lewis) (# 16235) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Yorick:
Truth is a slippery thing- the more you want it, the more it evades you. You have to not want it too much, and kind of look sideways for it from the corner of your eye without making it too obvious. Bit like women, really. [/QB]

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God- (or enter relevant importance in life...Red wine, Richard Dawkins, BBC 4?)- damn it, Yorick, I like what you have to say sometimes.

Don't worry: I've never put a proposition to a woman in 'Bertrand Russell' style logical terms; though I imagine the type of woman I'm into would like it

 

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Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Dr Ransom (Order of C.S. Lewis):
the heat of the dislike of truth seeking in trying to deal with (admittedly flawed) conundrums that atheists pose to Christians as counter productive

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quote:

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Originally posted by Yorick:
That’s the solution to all these problems and paradoxes. So simple, so elegant, and so right.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Yorick:
When you realise this, the Truth Sun comes out and bathes everything in its beautiful, wonderful, white light - illuminating and revealing in sharpest clarity your rather forlorn and desperate theological contortions for what they are.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Yorick:
I say human nature is an entirely adequate explanation for the existence of evil, and that, since it exists only and strictly within the sphere of human experience, it seems reasonable that there is no outside causal agency. This is not circular - it's straight.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Yorick:
(like the PoE) which one cannot resolve, and which you are forced to define as Impenetrable Mysteries. All hope of understanding meaning is therefore forfeited, and we are reduced to futile speculation (as in this thread). Long-term purpose and meaning are screwed.

Atheism’s response to the problem of evil is to discount a supernatural explanation for it, and therefore it is freed from the paradoxes and contradictions that defy long-term purpose and meaning.

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I note again that this is a possible answer I suggested up thread, but seriously-seriously?

It's a mystery. It's a mysteryyyy (spooky hands)

Except for the working of the Holy Spirit which ministers truth in ways that Socrates could only have wet dreams about-there is something to be said for Christianity with Reason Christianity that gives informed answers>

Fides et Ratio, John Paul II wrote a good encyclical on this.

(also note, I said faith with reason not faith is purley and reducible to reason.
 

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Posted by Dr Ransom (Order of C.S. Lewis) (# 16235) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Yorick:

quote:

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Originally posted by Dr Ransom (Order of C.S. Lewis):
the heat of the dislike of truth seeking in trying to deal with (admittedly flawed) conundrums that atheists pose to Christians as counter productive

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I declare this statement to be an Impenetrable Mystery, and all speculation on its meaning is therefore purposeless.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Yorick:
Freddy, I do wonder what you must think about the purpose and meaning of my life. This might be worth a new thread, but do you seriously think atheists’ lives are void of meaning and purpose, because, for us, there is no such ‘agent’?

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Originally posted by IngoB:
It's utterly pointless to mention that atheism does not have a problem of evil. Neither has a cheese sandwich, so what?

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Originally posted by Freddy:
when you deny the concept of ultimate and eternal purpose and meaning the possibilities appear to me to be pretty shallow.

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Originally posted by IngoB:

The argument from evil against God requires that you assume the theistic position for the sake of argument, because it is an argument about the internal coherence of the theistic position. It's utterly pointless to mention that atheism does not have a problem of evil. Neither has a cheese sandwich, so what?

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quote:

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Originally posted by kankucho:

quote:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:
Where does the darkness come from?
Where does the silence come from?
The less-than-perfect comes from the same place.

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These metaphors don’t really apply to evil. Darkness is the absence of light. Silence is the absence of sound. Evil is not simply the absence of good. Nor does it in any way exist as an abstract concept. It only comes to exist when an intelligent being manifests it in its thoughts, words or deeds.

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Back to the canonical claim: In the same way that darkness is the absence of light, and silence is the absence of sound, nothing is the absence of thing(s). ‘Nothing’ is not a kind of dark matter waiting to be revealed by light. So, in a situation where there is only the Word God a very simple equation exists:

GOD + NOTHING = … well, you do the math.

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quote:

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quote:

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Would anything short of an explicit statement that God is not evil satisfy you in this regard?
The statements that God is love, or that those who love God are like God, would seem to exclude God being evil.

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Leo’s citation of Isiah 45:7 would seem to include it though. And, in view of what I've just added, where does that leave us in our quest to determine the source of all evil?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Yorick:

quote:

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Originally posted by Freddy:
when you deny the concept of ultimate and eternal purpose and meaning the possibilities appear to me to be pretty shallow.

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Au contraire! I wish I could show you how.

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Originally posted by Freddy:
I would never say that someone else's life doesn't have purpose or meaning. It isn't something you can know about someone else's inner life.

What I'm saying is that when you deny the concept of ultimate and eternal purpose and meaning the possibilities appear to me to be pretty shallow.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Yorick:

quote:

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Originally posted by Freddy:
when you deny the concept of ultimate and eternal purpose and meaning the possibilities appear to me to be pretty shallow.

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Au contraire! I wish I could show you how.

(Maybe I will do that thread sometime.)

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show what exactly?

A purposeless composition of various particles moving through space time shows eternal end-goal purposes how?
 

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Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Freddy:
The premise that there is no ultimate intelligence governing the universe robs it of purpose by definition.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Yorick:

quote:

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Originally posted by Freddy:
The premise that there is no ultimate intelligence governing the universe robs it of purpose by definition.

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Maybe, by your definition.

I suspect you might be surprised to learn how similar our ideas about purpose and meaning actually are. Why, only the other day, I felt love for my children for a period of time.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Yorick:
I suspect you might be surprised to learn how similar our ideas about purpose and meaning actually are. Why, only the other day, I felt love for my children for a period of time.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dr Ransom (Order of C.S. Lewis):
* I meant William Lane craig

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Originally posted by Yorick:
In science, when something is unknown, people get all excited about finding an answer. This makes the question relevant. In religion, describing something as an Impenetrable Mystery shuts the door and throws away the key. What good is any question whose answer is ‘we cannot know’?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Yorick:
But, to be quite honest, I’m still stuck on your first line. Why is it 'of course essentially irrational to assume that there is no god'?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:
Originally posted by kankucho:
GOD + NOTHING = … well, you do the math.

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quote:

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Strictly speaking the answer is nonsense: you haven't defined an addition rule on your group. (Nor coherently could you.)

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We agree that there is nothing other than God for creation to be made out. That's alright. It doesn't imply creation is made out of anything that pre-exists creation. Creation isn't made out of anything other than itself. To claim that therefore it must be made out of God seems to be pushing material metaphors a bit too far.

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Creation wasn’t created until God created it (qv). It isn’t made out of anything other than God + Nothing.
That it is made out of God isn’t a metaphor either. It’s a deductive claim based on what is described in John 1. You begin the above pulled quote by agreeing that this is so, then you refute it. What’s going on in your head there?

If we are fundamentally Nothing, then we are Nothing imbued with a substantiality based on a whole load of attributes that God, and God alone, decided should be there.

But on to practical matters...

quote:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:
[quote]There is a sense in which 'evil is not simply the absence of good' is true: there's not much good in the empty voids of space. Evil is rather a defect or flaw in something good. But defects and flaws, like holes, have no independent substantial existence. They don't get mentioned in reductive ontological catalogues.

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“Evil is rather a defect or flaw in something good” is contentious. Some contentions of my own are: Humankind has the capacity to create acts that are either good or evil. The mind that can do greed can also do compassion; the mind that can do egotistical rage can also do selfless courage. Doing things that appear to be evil but serve a greater good — noting your comment about Isiah — is as much a human trait as a divine one. Maybe that’s where the idea came from? From this, I conclude that we are neither fundamentally good nor fundamentally evil. Good is as good does; evil is as evil does. One is only a hole in the other insofar as might be illustrated in the taijitu symbol — two integrated and mutually inclusive parts of a perfect whole.
 

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Posted by Gargantua (# 16205) on :
 
I have found much of the dialogue on this thread distressingly opaque. Perhaps it is still too early in the day for me... as Wallace Stevens wrote ("Les Plus Belles Pages" last line), "theology after breakfast sticks to the eye."

I am more comfortable with the label "the Problem of Undeserved Suffering" than I am with "the Problem of Evil." The problem with the Problem of Evil lies with how we define evil. "Undeserved suffering" is closer to the heart of the problem and avoids discussions as to whether and in what sense earthquakes, tidal waves and volcanoes are evil.

The atheist manifestly has no problem with undeserved suffering. Again I must refer to the lines of Stevens which I quoted upthread:

That he might suffer or that
He might die was the innocence of living, if life
Itself was innocent. To say that it was
Disentangled him from sleek ensolacings.

The atheist avoids the problem altogether by saying that life itself IS innocent, and thus disentangles himself from the "sleek ensolacings" of theodicy, redemptive theology and all the rest of it. But Stevens didn't end his poem there, and the dialogue itself doesn't end there either.

The atheistic worldview simply leaves certain questions unanswered by denying them, or denying their significance. The reigning cosmological theory at the moment still seems to be the "Big Bang." But the Big Bang theory makes no attempt to tell us where the "monobloc" that existed just prior to the bang came from, or why there should have been a monobloc, or why and how indeed there should be anything in existence rather than simply nothing. Inescapably, one of the possibilities is that it was all created. Atheists protest that this just removes the question by one step, that although the creation theory may explain the monobloc, it fails to explain the creator. For non-atheists, this is merely the point at which mysticism intersects with rationalism.

Whilst we are moving on the cosmic scale, I would like to observe that astronomers tell us that supernovae (explosions of stars) occur in our galaxy on an average of one every 50 years. Some types of supernovae, should they occur within 100 to 1000 light years of an inhabited world, would instantly snuff out all life there, or even vaporise the planet. (Supernovae eject, all at once, an incredible amount of radiation and charged particles, not to mention a massive shockwave.)

The recent "planetary census" efforts indicate that our Milky Way galaxy probably contains some 50,000,000,000 planets. Perhaps 500,000,000 of these may lie within the life-possible zones of their suns. So the chances are good that, from time to time, particularly in the crowded region of the galactic core, inhabited worlds are incinerated by supernovae.

Talk about undeserved suffering...

Theodicy has the tough task of justifying our description of G-d within the context of such events, whilst at the same time also taking into account gross gratuitous cruelties such as those described by the character Ivan Karamazov in Fyodor Dostoyevski's novel The Brothers Karamazov.
 

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Posted by Gargantua (# 16205) on :
 
Just a wee example of the non-sin-related undeserved suffering theme. This may perhaps make it a bit more vivid for complacent churchgoers of the industrialised countries.

A moderately powerful (Richter 6.3) earthquake has just hit the city of Christchurch, New Zealand. The story speaks of people trapped in collapsed downtown buildings, and a couple of buses crushed by falling buildings. Early death toll estimates of 65 are expected to rise. The spire of Christchurch Cathedral has fallen into the public square - the major landmark of the city gone. Here we have the problem of undeserved suffering brought to the very doorstep of the church, in a very uncomfortable way.

Is G-d responsible for this? If not, why not? (BTW I found the analogy of the video game programmer interesting!)

[ 22. February 2011, 06:34: Message edited by: Gargantua ]
 

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Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
Prayers to our friends in New Zealand.

quote:

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Originally posted by Gargantua:
Is G-d responsible for this? If not, why not?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Freddy:
I think the real question is whether it is worth having gravity even though people will inevitably be crushed by heavy objects. Is there a better system that would have all the advantages but none of the disadvantages of tectonic plates?

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quote:

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Organism size and complexity increased considerably after the end of the Snowball glaciations. This development of multicellular organisms may have been the result of increased evolutionary pressures resulting from multiple icehouse-hothouse cycles; in this sense, Snowball Earth episodes may have "pumped" evolution.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gargantua:
....The atheistic worldview simply leaves certain questions unanswered by denying them, or denying their significance. The reigning cosmological theory at the moment still seems to be the "Big Bang." But the Big Bang theory makes no attempt to tell us where the "monobloc" that existed just prior to the bang came from, or why there should have been a monobloc, or why and how indeed there should be anything in existence rather than simply nothing. Inescapably, one of the possibilities is that it was all created. Atheists protest that this just removes the question by one step, that although the creation theory may explain the monobloc, it fails to explain the creator. For non-atheists, this is merely the point at which mysticism intersects with rationalism....

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Originally posted by sanityman:
I'm not sure of the other extreme: that this is of necessity the "best of all possible worlds" though. If there's one thing cosmology and evolutionary history tell us, it's that creation is an ongoing process.

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Originally posted by IngoB:
Christian claims must be considered on their own terms to be fair to them, and that includes the next life.

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…the only reason one can give for the existence of anything rather than nothing is god …And the only way to deny this conclusion is to declare that existence as such requires no reason, but is just "a brute fact". Denying reason is however the essence of irrationality.

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Of course, the typical atheist sees himself as just a heap of electrochemical reactions, contrary to the most certain evidence he in fact possesses abundantly: self-experience.

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Rather amazing that some atheists nevertheless manage to become decent scientists.

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Atheism is well represented in science, as I’m sure you know. I have read that about 95% of ‘hard’ science Nobel laureates are atheists, which is roughly the inverse of their representation among the general populace.
 

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Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 

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Originally posted by kankucho:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:
Originally posted by kankucho:
GOD + NOTHING = … well, you do the math.

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Strictly speaking the answer is nonsense: you haven't defined an addition rule on your group. (Nor coherently could you.)

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What addition rule is there to define? There’s God and there’s nothing. It’s a simple sum based on what is described in John 1.

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Creation isn't made out of anything other than itself. To claim that therefore it must be made out of God seems to be pushing material metaphors a bit too far.

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Creation wasn’t created until God created it (qv). It isn’t made out of anything other than God + Nothing.
That it is made out of God isn’t a metaphor either. It’s a deductive claim based on what is described in John 1. You begin the above pulled quote by agreeing that this is so, then you refute it. What’s going on in your head there?

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If we are fundamentally Nothing, then we are Nothing imbued with a substantiality based on a whole load of attributes that God, and God alone, decided should be there.

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Originally posted by Dafyd:
There is a sense in which 'evil is not simply the absence of good' is true: there's not much good in the empty voids of space. Evil is rather a defect or flaw in something good. But defects and flaws, like holes, have no independent substantial existence. They don't get mentioned in reductive ontological catalogues.

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“Evil is rather a defect or flaw in something good” is contentious. Some contentions of my own are: Humankind has the capacity to create acts that are either good or evil. The mind that can do greed can also do compassion; the mind that can do egotistical rage can also do selfless courage. Doing things that appear to be evil but serve a greater good — noting your comment about Isiah — is as much a human trait as a divine one. Maybe that’s where the idea came from? From this, I conclude that we are neither fundamentally good nor fundamentally evil. Good is as good does; evil is as evil does. One is only a hole in the other insofar as might be illustrated in the taijitu symbol — two integrated and mutually inclusive parts of a perfect whole.

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We can, perhaps, perceive of a world in which God corrected the results of this abuse of free will by His creatures at every moment: so that a wooden beam became soft as grass when it was used as a weapon, and the air refused to obey me if I attempted to set up the sound waves that carry lies or insults. But such a world would be one in which wrong action were imposiible, and in which,...freedom of the will would be void

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Now apart from the unhelpful free-will point (even I think that debate helps in no way )

I think IngoB's computer programmer point best illustrates the crux of the matter.

I'm not sure who's complaining about the whole game itselfthe graphics card (sunrise, a baby's laugh) the levels (promotion in a job?; however I imagine that people believe that there are some codes, cheats and aspects to the RPG that just shouldn't have been programmed in. Whilst allowing for the free will to roam and make alliances and still 'complete' the damn thing.

(Ah, the perils of using someone else's analogy!)
 

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Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on :
 

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Originally posted by sanityman:
Yorick, better people than I have already essayed a response, but if you'll put up with my 2.5p-worth: you're right. It is more sensible and logically satisfying to do away with the idea of God and just leave a material universe, with some very surprising and gratifying emergent properties (e.g. life, consciousness). Personally, I'd be far more intellectually satisfied being an atheist, and I teeter on the brink frequently. It also, of course, presents a simple, satisfying and coherent answer to the problem of suffering. So what's the problem?

For me, it would be to give up on creation having anything more to offer than meets the eye (telescope, spectrometer...). To say that Hamlet was wrong when he said "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." And to give up on hope. Isn't it always the nature of hope that it appears irrational? In a desperate situation, the "sensible" thing to do is to give up hope, lie down and die - after all, the chances that rescue is coming are vanishingly small. I don't think clinging onto the hope of a very good thing, even against the balance of probabilities, is to be condemned.

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Originally posted by Yorick:
Atheists believe we have just the one life, which of course makes it infinitely precious. No afterlife belief affords such life-affirmation. If we lose awe for god, we may gain awe for our view of mortal reality,...And this view is astonishingly wonderful.
<snip> [/QB]

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Originally posted by Yorick:
Fair enough, I suppose, though such ringfences work both ways- they may protect the vulnerable herd of your ideas, but they also prevent them from coming out into the wide world, which I would suggest is very much a problem for you.

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Originally posted by Yorick:
I had taken you to be using the term ‘rational’ in a classical philosophical way, rather than in the rather specialised sense of ‘optimising’ reason to achieve your goal with assumptions that lead to your particular conclusions. My bad. Your ‘reasoning’ here is not scientific reasoning, but the same stuff as flying spaghetti monster reasoning.

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Originally posted by Yorick:
And how exactly are those contrary positions?

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Originally posted by Yorick:
Atheism is well represented in science, as I’m sure you know. I have read that about 95% of ‘hard’ science Nobel laureates are atheists, which is roughly the inverse of their representation among the general populace.

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Originally posted by IngoB:
...there seem to be more atheists among biologists and medicos than among physicists and mathematicians.

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Originally posted by Yorick:
I understood it was the other way round, so now I'm going to check...

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You are going to check my personal experience?
 

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Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on :
 
...and not much luck with a brief Google.

In TGD, Dawkins claims (from a website he found in a similar search) that there exists a list of only about six Nobel Prize-winning scientific Christians out of a total of several hundred scientific Nobelists (four of whom he says turned out not even to be Prize-winners). Know of any source for the physics/bio distribution?

[crosspost ]

[ 22. February 2011, 13:50: Message edited by: Yorick ]
 

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Posted by sanityman (# 11598) on :
 

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Originally posted by IngoB:
...there seem to be more atheists among biologists and medicos than among physicists and mathematicians.

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Originally posted by Yorick:
In TGD, Dawkins claims (from a website he found in a similar search) that there exists a list of only about six Nobel Prize-winning scientific Christians out of a total of several hundred scientific Nobelists (four of whom he says turned out not even to be Prize-winners).

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Originally posted by Yorick:
Know of any source for the physics/bio distribution?

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

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Originally posted by kankucho:
What addition rule is there to define? There’s God and there’s nothing. It’s a simple sum based on what is described in John 1.

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Compare: Kankucho + an apple = ?
Now is + defined as 'is placed in general proximity'? 'eats'? 'is struck by a very fast moving'?
The procedure for adding sets of numbers is well-defined. For example, the set of irrational numbers + the set of rational numbers = the set of irrational numbers.
There is no definable procedure for adding things to God. If you sum things you sum them in a respect in which they are like each other. There is no way in which God is like anything else.

Sorry, this is all somewhat of a diversion. You didn't intend your pseudo-formalisation to be treated as an actual formalisation.

………..You appear to have a premise that creation must be made out of something. That if something is made, there must be something prior out of which it is made. I'm simply denying that premise.

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Kankucho + an apple under any of the circumstances you describe is still Kankucho and an apple. Granted, in the case of the apple being eaten, the eventual result is Kankucho and a small pile of poo biologically processed from an apple. Actually, that exception is quite handy, since it illustrates Some-Thing different being produced from a pre-existing Some-Thing else. As we know, this is not the case in John 1. The only pre-existent Thing is God. No-Thing is being summed with God in this equation. No-Thing has no qualities at all, so it cannot be said to be either like God or unlike God, so your get-out clause doesn’t apply.

I disagree that this is a diversion: we are trying to establish the source of evil, which I have contended is God. If you can show that In The Beginning there was the Word which contained no evil, and that there was also some sort of ethereal disembodied evilness present before he zapped the rest of Creation ex nihilo, I may have to accept that you have a contrary case. But, going back to that apple I defecated out earlier, the resultant poo is brown. Brown does not exist in its own right; it only exists as a visual quality of something tangible. I made the poo. The apple I made it from had the latent potential to be brown. But it was me, and the magic of my digestive system, that caused it to become manifestly so. That, in an admittedly gross metaphor, is how I see God’s creation of all phenomena. Except that there was no pre-existent apple. Only God. Nothing else.

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Me: Human kind has the capacity to create acts that are either good or evil.

Dafyd: You appear to be reifying acts. Acts are not things that are created, but deeds that are done.

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Me: The mind that does greed can also do compassion.

Dafyd: Apart from the odd phrase 'do greed', that is surely not contentious, is it?

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Me: From this I conclude that we are neither fundamentally good nor fundamentally evil

Dafyd: Obviously, there is a sense in which that's not contentious. In any contentious sense of the words, I can't see how you can conclude that from your premises.
Me:Good is as good does; evil is as evil does.
Dafyd: Now you contradict yourself. As you've noted someone who does evil can also do good, therefore the one who does evil (or good) is not as such evil or good. You can't transfer the adjective from the deed to the person.

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Me: One is only a hole in the other... two integrated and mutually inclusive parts of a perfect whole

Dafyd: You will have to elaborate this heavily before it starts to make sense.
As it stands, it's just silly - good deeds and evil deeds are not part of any whole, let alone a perfect one. Additionally, I suppose if we say an act is evil act we mean among other things that it was an act that ought not to be done. If such an act forms part of a perfect whole, then evidently it ought to have been done, therefore it evidently wasn't evil in the first place.

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Originally posted by kankucho:
I disagree that this is a diversion: we are trying to establish the source of evil, which I have contended is God.

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Originally posted by kankucho:
I disagree that this is a diversion: we are trying to establish the source of evil, which I have contended is God. If you can show that In The Beginning there was the Word which contained no evil, and that there was also some sort of ethereal disembodied evilness present before he zapped the rest of Creation ex nihilo, I may have to accept that you have a contrary case. But, going back to that apple I defecated out earlier, the resultant poo is brown. Brown does not exist in its own right; it only exists as a visual quality of something tangible. I made the poo. The apple I made it from had the latent potential to be brown. But it was me, and the magic of my digestive system, that caused it to become manifestly so. That, in an admittedly gross metaphor, is how I see God’s creation of all phenomena. Except that there was no pre-existent apple. Only God. Nothing else.

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Originally posted by Dafyd:
Let's agree that evil isn't a pre-existing ethereal disembodied evilness. Therefore, in order for there to be evil there have to be agents or things already in existence. Now in Christian theology, God is the precondition for those agents and things. But that doesn't mean there's an evil quality that is transmitted from God to those things. As WHyatt says, evil is purely a function of relations between things and agents.
I suppose here we raise the question of what do you mean by 'God is the source of evil'?

Qualifications:

If you mean merely that God is the source of agents and things which have the potential to be evil, then yes, but that doesn't mean very much.

If on the other hand you're saying that evil must reflect some quality in God, we've done nothing to suggest that. [/QB]

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Originally posted by W Hyatt:
Not being familiar with Augustine at all, I don't know, but I'd be interested to hear about how it is similar.

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Originally posted by IngoB:
I used to program MUDs (the ancestors of the "World of Warcraft" stuff). One issue was "player-kill", i.e., whether a (human) player was allowed to kill another (human) player, or just (computer-controlled) monsters. If you are in a player-kill MUD, then you may get killed by some other player for your gear. Evil. Yet it is me, the programmer, who adds (or removes, as the case may be) the relevant lines of code that allows this particular evil to even exist. If I decide that there is no player-kill, then there is no player-kill. Hence if you get player-killed, I am responsible for it somehow. I did not player-kill you in the concrete evil act, that was another player, but I imposed the potential for this evil on the world. So you may then pray to me "Great IngoB, please remove the player-kill, or at least restrict it to levels 20 and up. It causes havoc among us newbies." Is it then my moral duty to change the world so that you cannot be player-killed anymore?

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