A New Argument from Evil

[Koldo]

But you didn't mention WHY you think my eternal existence argument is not satisfactory.

Correct. I should have more throughly explained my point.

However, i must say Penguin already did it by now when he said:

I think it's irrelevant...Your argument effectively says "but if you take the afterlife into account too, imperfections that look major to us aren't really that big at all," but minor imperfections are still imperfections.

IOW, your argument only addressed the magnitude of imperfection. It didn't addressed the fact that it exists, and the fact it exists at all is the central problem of the Problem of Evil.

 

[Matthew78]

"Just" is in no small way an absolute value, though--if we are to take those we know as example, people treat other people differently and everyone has their own opinion. Where "just" is observed, it is in a person noting the similar characteristics that you mention in a relatively universal fashion.

Deity allegedly knows all; so is it so hard to explain how something with an allegedly truly universal knowledge of everyone's behavior can point at how a person deserves to be treated in accordance with how everyone, generally, behaves?

That's a good question, I don't know. I could be wrong about this but I have thought that justice would need to be objective, especially in terms of how we define justice, in order for our court systems to work. I have seen more than one post in this thread which state that justice is subjective but I think that's dangerous ground to tread. If morality is invented, and therefore, subjective, we lose all basis for comdemning actions which are usually considered evil such as murder, theft, dishonesty, abuse, and terror. Likewise, if justice is just invented and subjective, we lose all basis for having laws in our country and international courts, not to mention trying people who violate them.

Matthew

 

[Koldo]

What would the world look like without what you call ‘imperfections’ ? …. people living forever in a ‘garden of eden’? No diseases? No deaths (then how can there be births)? No free will to do evil and good? And more importantly, no need for change, no need for improvement, etc..

Many great thinkers (and even lesser ones like George-Ananda) have said that they can conceive of no greater hell than a heaven that is eternal and unchanging. That would be earth without so-called ‘imperfections. That is why in more advanced religious thought (like Advaita Vedanta) change and progress are continuous until merger with the One absolute. Change and progress require challenge.

These ‘imperfections’ were perfectly created to ultimately produce growth and change. Our perspective is too narrow to see this.

This argument is no different from the usual arguments from the 'greater good'. In that there is a greater good to be gained by the existence of evil that could not be acquired otherwise.

This sort of argument tends to rely at very least on one point: All suffering that exist(ed) is valuable. All suffering that exists must necessarily be relevant and necessary to growth, because otherwise even one case of suffering that is not would still create the problem of evil. Not only this, it must not be beyond the required for growth. Any more than this and we still go back to the problem of evil. This can easily become problematic. Was all the suffering caused in the holocaust, for example, required and necessary for growth ?

On the other hand, it must also be argued by using this argument for the 'greater good' that more suffering than what was experienced in the past wouldn't cause more growth. In other words, there is a perfect quantity of suffering at any given time as in relation to growth. I say this because otherwise one would have to explain why we don't experience the utmost suffering 24 hours a day.

Interestingly, an omnipotent and omniscient God can not possibly undergo growth. He already knows everything there is to know, so he can't acquire new knowledge that would change his point of view. As such, if change and growth ( or lack of ) are units used to measure a hell-ish existence, this god has the worst hell-ish existence of all. And it would also entail that God is 'less than' humans in some way. That is, unless the end result ( perfection ) is more important than the means ( growth ).

 

[George-ananda]

We have plenty of fodder to make us grow without any children dying horribly.

It comes back to my previous question that was never addressed. What would the world look like without what you called ‘imperfections’? Let’s take the example of child starvation. Does God materialize food in front of them? How would HE interfere with the natural course of the world. And what ramifications would continual interference have. Will we have a ‘God will do it’ attitude? So if Penguin was God, what would he do and what are the thought out ramifications of his doing. I think your argument will come back to creating an eternal Garden of Eden which I previously argued was the worst thing possible.

Are you familiar with Maslow's heirarchy of needs? Basically, it says that physical needs for basic survival get the highest priority at the expense of higher-order needs like intellectual fulfillment or spiritual growth (though I hesitate to use the word "spritual", since it tends to allow a very wide range of interpretations).

Yes I’m aware of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. It’s only common sense. And yes, some incarnations are largely a struggle for survival. Humanity learns compassion to improve the lot of future strugglers. And that one incarnation is not the begin-all or end-all of anything; there are reasons for it and it will effect things after it and in the end that soul will return to Godhead.

At a societal level, this means that when we're spending our time worrying about the basic survival of vulnerable people, this hinders - not helps - our "spiritual" growth.

No, compassion and service is the best things for societal spiritual growth.

 

[George-ananda]

This argument is no different from the usual arguments from the 'greater good'. In that there is a greater good to be gained by the existence of evil that could not be acquired otherwise.

This sort of argument tends to rely at very least on one point: All suffering that exist(ed) is valuable. All suffering that exists must necessarily be relevant and necessary to growth, because otherwise even one case of suffering that is not would still create the problem of evil. Not only this, it must not be beyond the required for growth. Any more than this and we still go back to the problem of evil. This can easily become problematic. Was all the suffering caused in the holocaust, for example, required and necessary for growth ?

How would God have stopped the holocaust? Removed the free-will of the Nazis to do good and evil? What are the thought out ramifications of removing free-will when it chooses evil?

On the other hand, it must also be argued by using this argument for the 'greater good' that more suffering than what was experienced in the past wouldn't cause more growth. In other words, there is a perfect quantity of suffering at any given time as in relation to growth. I say this because otherwise one would have to explain why we don't experience the utmost suffering 24 hours a day.

There is always good and bad co-existing on the physical plane. Both are actually needed.

Interestingly, an omnipotent and omniscient God can not possibly undergo growth. He already knows everything there is to know, so he can't acquire new knowledge that would change his point of view. As such, if change and growth ( or lack of ) are units used to measure a hell-ish existence, this god has the worst hell-ish existence of all. And it would also entail that God is 'less than' humans in some way. That is, unless the end result ( perfection ) is more important than the means ( growth ).

The problem is you project our way of experiencing reality onto God. We experience time; hence we experience change/stagnation etc.. God is outside of time and is unchanging in a way that we can’t conceptualize very well. In Hinduism God is Sat-Chit-Ananda (Being-Awareness-Bliss) but these are just words that point to what we cannot fully conceptualize.

 

[idav]

To a being that is omnipotent, concepts of evil and suffering are irrelevant. One person suffering could be taken back if God had enough power. Could turn back time, flip reality upside down or whatever. Anything that occurs could be taken back rewound and fast forwarded. Ones reality makes little difference if there are a dozen or more different realities that are also possible and may have already happened. God would never need to really relieve suffering or evil of some creature that knows very little as to how fleeting the whole thing really is.

 

[McBell]

To a being that is omnipotent, concepts of evil and suffering are irrelevant. One person suffering could be taken back if God had enough power. Could turn back time, flip reality upside down or whatever. Anything that occurs could be taken back rewound and fast forwarded. Ones reality makes little difference if there are a dozen or more different realities that are also possible and may have already happened. God would never need to really relieve suffering or evil of some creature that knows very little as to how fleeting the whole thing really is.

Seems to me that problems arise when people start playing with their "all's".
All merciful, all just, all loving, all righty then...

 

[Willamena]

Could turn back time, flip reality upside down or whatever.

Wouldn't that make it no longer reality? (i.e. the flip side)

 

[idav]

Seems to me that problems arise when people start playing with their "all's".
All merciful, all just, all loving, all righty then...

Wouldn't that make it no longer reality? (i.e. the flip side)

Concepts of good and evil are pretty arbitrary when anything is possible.

 

[Willamena]

Concepts of good and evil are pretty arbitrary when anything is possible.

Everything is.

 

[Desert Snake]

Not a bad argument, although theists will tend to use these blanket arguments like "free will" as if it absolves god of any guilt or responsibility of anything that ever has or will happen. Just like they use "you're taking it literally" to excuse every single immoral thing god does in the bible.

Free will is exampled in the first story in Genesis, for the Abrahamic religions, would you like people to argue opinions they don't hold?

 

[Sir Doom]

How so?

Most theists would disagree with you. Many theists would argue that there are some things that an omnipotent being cannot do. An omnipotent god could not create a rock so heavy that s/he/it could not lift it. Nor could such a being create a square circle. God can be omnipotent, many theists say, but even omnipotence has logical boundaries. Ditto with omniscience. Consider a logically true statement such as "Today is either Wednesday or it is not Wednesday". A omniscient being can only know that this is true. It's impossible for a omniscient being to know that this is logically false. Again, omniscience has logical boundaries.

It is a common theological position that the omni-traits are incapable of violating logic, but I can't understand how that is 'omni' in any sense. The very notion of logic would be a creation of this being in the first place.

In any case, your OP did assume this sort of omni- so I suppose I should go with it. It doesn't make any sense to me, but whatever.

As a side note, neither of those things is a paradox and I think the inability of many people to eliminate such paradoxes is why we have the not-so-omni-traits at all.

First the rock. What exactly is 'lifting' from god's perspective, again? Oh, right. It's a primitive concept created by humans to describe an action which is completely inaccurate as the concepts of up, down, left, middle, yonder, and other such whimsical notions are illusions built on a shoddy perception of reality. Can God make a rock it can't lift? Yes. Any celestial body. You can't lift something that isn't on something else to be lifted off of. The paradox is a trick of language and nothing else.


Now for the square circle. Again, it is a trick of language. Both squares and circles are made up concepts of human beings. They don't actually exist in reality. There are things that look sort of like squares and circles and we call them squares and circles. But the square and circle that make this paradox work (the absolutely perfect versions) do not actually exist anywhere but in our mind. Therefore, any assignment of the word 'square' and 'circle' is completely arbitrary and always inaccurate. As this is the case, the fact that no one is likely to agree to the arbitrary assignment of the combined word "square circle" doesn't really matter as long as someone agrees with it.

Also, what do you call a shape that alternates between square and circle at regular intervals?

I think your statement here confuses "need" with "necessity" and "necessarily". I am using the words "necessity" and "necessarily" which, if I am correct, are modal terms. The word "need" as in the sentence, "All human beings have basic needs for survival" is not using any modal words that I know of; I could be wrong.

Quite right, I recant. If god is supposed to be loving, it necessarily must act loving.

No, but I don't see this as being a problem. I don't see why I would need to demonstrate it. A omnipotent god can also be an cruel god.

Unless we are assuming a loving one. Anyway the question was to illustrate the subjective nature of 'justice'. You can't demonstrate what I ask for, obviously. You would need the omniscient perspective for that.

I think your reply is confusing omnipotence with sovereignty. An omnipotent being is not necessarily a being who exercizes sovereign control over the universe or has any kind of authoritative relationship or control over people or events. If all things that happen are by design, then a divine being who designs what happens is a divine being who is in sovereign control over the world. I don't see how it follows that sovereignty is a logical consequence of omnipotence if that is what you're saying.

Are you suggesting that the being that creates all of reality doesn't have 'ownership' of it? I'm pretty sure reality would be considered God's intellectual property if someone intended to dispute that...

Why does being necessarily just or perfectly just entail that he has something to gain by helping humanity? What if helping humanity is just in his nature to do so because being necessarily or even perfectly just is in his nature and helping humanity is just a natural outcome of being just?

It isn't a quality of being just its a quality of being omnipotent. Humanity can't possibly gain anything for a being that can literally create anything and has created everything.

This means that whether it acts just or unjust is a product of the being's whim and nothing more. Taken or left as it sees fit. Nothing could prevent this from happening.

I think this is a bad analogy. It's comparing apples and oranges. A story can be factual or fictional but we are not fictional characters following a storyline.

We aren't following a story line. The story is written and done and on the shelf from god's perspective. No time, remember? It really isn't important whether god has allowed us to make choices or not. They are already made. The story is complete. The universe ended the very same moment it began and this is also that very same moment.

I haven't assigned a duty to an omnipotent God. I think your reply misunderstands my argument. In fact, it isolates just one attribute as though my argument hinges on that attribute alone. My argument hinges on more than one and it can only be valid if all the pertinent attributes are taken in conjunction. I can't assign a duty to an omnipotent God if that omnipotent God is cruel or apathetic.

It hinges on that one attribute because its the one that isn't there. It has no duty to anything at all for any reason whatsoever. How could it? What could possibly obligate it to anything?

If so, then having a justice system is rather pointless IMO. If justice is subjective then there really is no point in giving people fair trials if they are arrested and charged with breaking a law.

Subjective does not mean pointless. I thought this had been covered.

Not necessarily. Many theists believe that morality is objective and so is justice. In fact, they will argue that God is the cause of objective moral values and that God, being all-good, all-merciful, and all-just requires that justice be objective. My argument can then be used as part of a strategy to argue that justice and morality can only be subjective and invented by humans because if they are objective and exist independently of human thought then God cannot exist or, in all probability, doesn't exist.

What you are attempting to say is that if morality is not created by humans and is objective due to god's objectification of it AND additionally that god is demonstrably acting immorally then it logically follows that this god is not all-loving and therefore the common god concept cannot logically be true.

Which is why I ask you to demonstrate that god is being immoral from god's perspective. If this can't be done, then god cannot be demonstrably immoral and therefore the conclusion you are drawing can't be drawn.

Thank you. Even if you disagree with me, I am pleased that it might have given you some food for thought. I am always happy to accomplish that.

Matthew

:bow:

 

[Willamena]

What you are attempting to say is that if morality is not created by humans and is objective due to god's objectification of it AND ...

Something objective is objective regardless of anyone, even God.

 

[Willamena]

Not necessarily. Many theists believe that morality is objective and so is justice. In fact, they will argue that God is the cause of objective moral values and that God, being all-good, all-merciful, and all-just requires that justice be objective. My argument can then be used as part of a strategy to argue that justice and morality can only be subjective and invented by humans because if they are objective and exist independently of human thought then God cannot exist or, in all probability, doesn't exist.

Subjective doesn't denote invention, uselessness, meaninglessness or non-existence (as not you but some on these forums have argued). It just denotes a perspective that includes a mind.

 

[Koldo]

How would God have stopped the holocaust? Removed the free-will of the Nazis to do good and evil? What are the thought out ramifications of removing free-will when it chooses evil?

By design or intervention.

You are not able to fly, but yet you have free will, don't you? Therefore, you could have been designed in a manner that would prevent you from performing evil.

Or, God could intervene whenever evil is going to happen. At this world, we are constantly intervening in other people's actions. God could, for example, make people instantly sleep whenever they were going to hurt another person.

The raminification of doing this specifically ? A world with less evil.

There is always good and bad co-existing on the physical plane. Both are actually needed.

Good and bad? We are talking about good and evil.

The problem is you project our way of experiencing reality onto God. We experience time; hence we experience change/stagnation etc.. God is outside of time and is unchanging in a way that we can’t conceptualize very well. In Hinduism God is Sat-Chit-Ananda (Being-Awareness-Bliss) but these are just words that point to what we cannot fully conceptualize.

Therefore, the means are not more important than the end. Growth is not more important than Bliss. He is unchanging, and yet, not 'less than' humans.

 

[Introvert]

Free will is exampled in the first story in Genesis, for the Abrahamic religions, would you like people to argue opinions they don't hold?

No, I just think it's too easy to say the words "free will" and expect it to make up for every evil thing that has ever happened or will happen, in real life and in scripture. This debate deserves more than that. It just seems like a cop-out to me.

 

[George-ananda]

By design or intervention.

You are not able to fly, but yet you have free will, don't you? Therefore, you could have been designed in a manner that would prevent you from performing evil.

Your analogy is erroneous. We can’t fly because we didn’t evolve with wings. How can you design a human that can perform good but not evil. For example a surgeon cuts with a knife but so does a criminal. The ability to cut with a knife can be used for good and evil. We can’t take the ability to do evil away without also taking away the ability to do good.

Plus your idea doesn’t make sense when thought out. You’re saying we have free-will to to do something good with our abilities but our abilities are taken away as soon as we choose to do something evil. So it would be impossible for anyone to do evil. We’re back to simple robots in the garden of eden world which I earlier pointed out was quite undesirable.

What I’m saying to believers of the so-called problem of evil is that they cannot design a world better than what is. I’m still waiting for someone to show me how God should have designed this world differently with all the ramifications of their changes thought out.

Or, God could intervene whenever evil is going to happen. At this world, we are constantly intervening in other people's actions. God could, for example, make people instantly sleep whenever they were going to hurt another person.

Again a world where nobody has free-will to do good and evil.

The raminification of doing this specifically ? A world with less evil.

No, the ramification is simple beings with no real free-will.

 

[Koldo]

Your analogy is erroneous. We can’t fly because we didn’t evolve with wings. How can you design a human that can perform good but not evil. For example a surgeon cuts with a knife but so does a criminal. The ability to cut with a knife can be used for good and evil. We can’t take the ability to do evil away without also taking away the ability to do good.

Why not?

There is no logical contradiction at inducing instant sleep at the moment an object would be used for harm. Making human bodies invulnerable in the first place would be far more convenient, but still...

Plus your idea doesn’t make sense when thought out. You’re saying we have free-will to to do something good with our abilities but our abilities are taken away as soon as we choose to do something evil. So it would be impossible for anyone to do evil. We’re back to simple robots in the garden of eden world which I earlier pointed out was quite undesirable.

Not really. There would still be many choices available to us. Like the wings example i gave, you are no less restricted by not possessing wings, correct?
If you were immortal, you also wouldn't be, correct?

What I’m saying to believers of the so-called problem of evil is that they cannot design a world better than what is. I’m still waiting for someone to show me how God should have designed this world differently with all the ramifications of their changes thought out.

One solution, as i said above, is to make humans ( and all other animals ) invulnerable to any sort of ( physical ) suffering and immortal. Being able to teleport would solve problems such as cave-in.

Again a world where nobody has free-will to do good and evil.

No, the ramification is simple beings with no real free-will.

Do you mean to say that when i prevent you from doing evil i am restricting your free will? Doesn't this mean we already have a limited free will in the first place?

 

[Sir Doom]

Something objective is objective regardless of anyone, even God.

Haha, I am aware of that, but we are apparently to accept what 'many theists' say for the purposes of this thread regardless of how incorrect it may sound. I figured that my argument works in either case, so no need to muddy the waters arguing with 'many theists' that aren't here.

 

[George-ananda]

Why not?

There is no logical contradiction at inducing instant sleep at the moment an object would be used for harm. Making human bodies invulnerable in the first place would be far more convenient, but still...

You fall asleep when you want to do evil (so evil can’t ever happen). Or everybody is invulnerable (forever? to everything?, we wouldn’t have to do anything for survival?).

Sounds like simple beings in a garden of eden again. I’ll choose God’s current universe, I believe He’s a lot smarter than us.

Not really. There would still be many choices available to us. Like the wings example i gave, you are no less restricted by not possessing wings, correct?
If you were immortal, you also wouldn't be, correct?

Immortal and invulnerable? Isaac Asimov (a noted atheist by the way) correctly said (in his criticism of the traditional view of heaven) to the effect that he could think of no greater hell than living forever (we don’t grasp infinity very well). In eastern religions there is the concept of no permanent soul (but one that lasts for many, many lifetimes and merges in the One).

One solution, as i said above, is to make humans ( and all other animals ) invulnerable to any sort of ( physical ) suffering and immortal. Being able to teleport would solve problems such as cave-in.

Bad idea.