-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
Einstein solves the problem of evil
- Thread starter Gambit
- Start date
Presence may refer to locality, or it may refer to awareness.
Ouroboros
Coincidentia oppositorum
Here's another thing.
Let's say A is good, and B is evil. Just doing a little symbol manipulation here.
And we'll go with the concept of identity for absolutes that Willamena and I talked about earlier: A=A. i.e. good=good, there's no other definition to it. It just is. Good is just good because it's good.
Now, evil is defined as the absence of good, which I interpret as the opposite of good. B=~A.
Then, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't by the rules of logic then A=~B also be true? In other words, as has been said earlier in this thread, good is the absence of evil, which essentially makes good as relative to evil just as much as evil to good? This would be the "logical argument" for it, I guess (if I got it right)
Let's say A is good, and B is evil. Just doing a little symbol manipulation here.
And we'll go with the concept of identity for absolutes that Willamena and I talked about earlier: A=A. i.e. good=good, there's no other definition to it. It just is. Good is just good because it's good.
Now, evil is defined as the absence of good, which I interpret as the opposite of good. B=~A.
Then, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't by the rules of logic then A=~B also be true? In other words, as has been said earlier in this thread, good is the absence of evil, which essentially makes good as relative to evil just as much as evil to good? This would be the "logical argument" for it, I guess (if I got it right)
Skwim
Veteran Member
For what it's worth:
"Plato writes that the Form (or Idea) of the Good is the ultimate object of knowledge, although it is not knowledge itself, and from the Good, things that are just, gain their usefulness and value. Humans are compelled to pursue the good, but no one can hope to do this successfully without philosophical reasoning. According to Plato, true knowledge is conversant, not about those material objects and imperfect intelligences which we meet within our daily interactions with all mankind, but rather it investigates the nature of those purer and more perfect patterns which are the models after which all created beings are formed. Plato supposes these perfect types to exist from all eternity and calls them the Forms or Ideas. As these Forms cannot be perceived by human senses, whatever knowledge we attain of the Forms must be seen through the mind's eye (cf. Parmenides 132a), while ideas derived from the concrete world of flux are ultimately unsatisfactory and uncertain (see the Theaetetus). He maintains that degree of skepticism which denies all permanent authority to the evidence of sense. In essence, Plato suggests that justice, truth, equality, beauty, and many others ultimately derive from the Form of the Good."
As for evil.
"Plato writes that the Form (or Idea) of the Good is the ultimate object of knowledge, although it is not knowledge itself, and from the Good, things that are just, gain their usefulness and value. Humans are compelled to pursue the good, but no one can hope to do this successfully without philosophical reasoning. According to Plato, true knowledge is conversant, not about those material objects and imperfect intelligences which we meet within our daily interactions with all mankind, but rather it investigates the nature of those purer and more perfect patterns which are the models after which all created beings are formed. Plato supposes these perfect types to exist from all eternity and calls them the Forms or Ideas. As these Forms cannot be perceived by human senses, whatever knowledge we attain of the Forms must be seen through the mind's eye (cf. Parmenides 132a), while ideas derived from the concrete world of flux are ultimately unsatisfactory and uncertain (see the Theaetetus). He maintains that degree of skepticism which denies all permanent authority to the evidence of sense. In essence, Plato suggests that justice, truth, equality, beauty, and many others ultimately derive from the Form of the Good."
As for evil.
"The concept of the Good is interpreted by Alfarabi, an early Islamic philosopher in his writing, Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. Alfarabi writes,
Then [the inquirer] should investigate all the things by which man achieves this perfection, or that are useful to him in achieving it. These are the good virtues and noble things. He should distinguish them from things that obstruct his achieving this perfection. These are the evils, the vices and the base things. He should make known what and how every one of them is and from what and for what it is, until all of them become known, intelligible and distinguished from each other."
source
Then [the inquirer] should investigate all the things by which man achieves this perfection, or that are useful to him in achieving it. These are the good virtues and noble things. He should distinguish them from things that obstruct his achieving this perfection. These are the evils, the vices and the base things. He should make known what and how every one of them is and from what and for what it is, until all of them become known, intelligible and distinguished from each other."
source
Koldo
Outstanding Member
Can you give me an example of what you mean by that?
The presence of greatness.
The absence of malice.
Excaljnur
Green String
Like you stated later St. Augustine proposed this solution to the problem of evil a long time ago. So we shouldn't be concerning the Problem of Evil, but rather with the Problem of Good. The problem of Good is how do we define good? Or at least, who determines what is good?
Skwim
Veteran Member
Just because some dude proposed a solution? How about coming up with a good solution? Wouldn't that be better? And as it turns out St. Augustine's solution
"evil is a result of humans abusing the gift of free will."
ain't all that good. In fact, it fails miserably because in main it assumes to be true that which isn't, namely the existence of freewill.
Excaljnur
Green String
I need to clarify. Are you saying that "freewill exists" is a false claim?
If so, can you explain why?
Skwim
Veteran Member
Right. It's a false assumption.
No one has been able to show (put up a decent argument) that it exists. Typically, the explanations come down to mere reassertions: "Freewill exists." On the other hand, the alternative, that everything that happens is determined by antecedent conditions together with the natural laws, has been shown to be a very robust and logical explanation. The only other contender is utter randomness, which everyone rejects out of hand.
Cephus
Relentlessly Rational
That's just an assertion. The OT says otherwise. You have an all-powerful, all-knowing God who creates the world knowing full well before he even starts that Adam and Eve are going to sin, yet he does it anyhow and then is surprised when they eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. So things go downhill from there until God decides to reboot his creation, he takes 8 people, sticks them on a boat and commits mass genocide and is then surprised again when people start bowing down to idols not long after. It seems that God is pretty stupid after all.
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
I posted it to be tongue-in-cheek.
Skwim
Veteran Member
Why not? After all he created evil, disaster, bad times, calamity, doom, woe, sorrow, and trouble. Think this was smart?
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
See post #114.
Excaljnur
Green String
Hume proposed a very compelling argument for the existence of Free Will while simultaneously refuting that a conflict exists with Free Will and Determinism. And he does so without mere reassertion
Hume first explains the problem of Induction. He says there is no way of proving cause and effect relationships because they are based on the assumption that the future will resemble the past. Unless the future can be predicted, there is no basis to believe specifically with empirical evidence that an effect will occur given a specific cause. Hume's analysis of Cause and Effect results in the notion of simple ideas composed of 1)Priority-immediate reactions to a cause 2)Contiguity-the effect has a perceived connection with the cause, and 3) Conjunction-constant repetition of the same cause and effect. A simple idea is a result of an impression received from experience. He explains that every simple idea is a copy of an impression. Its essential to note that an impression does not have a necessary connection because necessary connections are not experienced. A necessary connection is a strong feeling of expectation merely attached to a simple idea gained from experience. Experience only shows us correlations brought about from custom. In other words we merely assume anything experienced will always happen because of custom. This assumption is correlation only (Or as Hume put it, constant conjunctions). Assumptions are merely a determination of the mind to infer that there is some necessary connection between the two things correlated.
These necessary connections brought about from a strong feeling of expectation is commonly known as a belief. With respect to determinism we don't have the free will to choose our beliefs; we can however, with respect to free will, choose to place ourselves in environments that produce a desired belief. Yet, a desired belief cannot exist according to determinism. So we must, to best live, put ourselves in front or in as many different experiences.
Therefore, if you compiled all necessary connections, humans would be predictable, just like objects. However, you wouldn't be predicting objective interactions as necessary connections because necessary connections are assumptions. Rather your predictions would be based on patterns from custom. We cannot predict human behavior because it is based on certain patterns that come from assumed necessary connections. Therefore, one can conclude that necessary connections, also known as necessity, which is the basis of determinism is a human construct and does not exist.
Free Will does not depend on actions being disconnected from physical circumstances or human motives. Our actions depend on "Determinations of the Will". Free will is the liberty of the will; Determinism is necessity of the will. Making this distinction shows that no conflict exists between Free Will and Determinism.
There is however a contrast to Free Will and that is Constraint. Constraint is the inability to exercise the liberty of one's own will. Constrain is not the inability arising from necessity. Since necessity is a human construct and does not exist, "we can be and are held accountable, or responsible, for our freely chosen actions."-Hume
If necessity (determinism) existed, we should not be held accountable for our actions. The nature of free will presumes that we are moral agents, which is to say: not a fact. However, the existence of free will is necessitated by the absence of determinism, fatalism, and predetermination because free will would be the only other "contender" or option. Determinism is often confused with constraint. Our social, genetic, economic, political, etc constraints limit out exercise of free will. These limits are not determinism.
Last edited:
Excaljnur
Green String
I would very much like to see this explanation.
joshua3886
Great Purple Hippo
If it solves the problem of evil than why are people still suffering?
Skwim
Veteran Member
Very nice, but if you're arguing in favor of freewill I'd like to see your argument, and without irrelevancies. Also, it would help immensely if you defined freewill as it stands in opposition to determinism.
In brief, it comes down to an elimination of alternatives. As I see it there are three.
Everything that happens is
1) determined by antecedent conditions together with the natural laws. (Pretty much nomological determinism.)
2) utterly random
3) a combination of the two
2) utterly random
3) a combination of the two
Because randomness makes for a very messy state of affairs I think it can be dismissed out of hand (I don't believe anyone would contend that what they do is utterly random). And, even when combined with a process of cause/effect it would wreak havoc. So, we're left with alternative 1) as the only viable state of affairs.
Freewill remains out of the picture because no one has explained its operational principles. Most often it's simply thrown out as a catch-all assertion, affirmed without explanation. At best it comes off as some kind of enigmatic process that defies explanation. At worst it elicits a whole lot of hemming and hawing.