The Problem of Imperfect Revelation: Your Thoughts?

[MindForgedManacle]

Huh. I just learned of an argument called the Argument from Nonbelief, which is somewhat similar to this one. Dangit. :X

[Vincenzo Vinny G.]

-This argument is rich and rigorous. Your terminology is on-point and very accurate. If you wrote all this you obviously know a lot and I am impressed!
-A minor quibble: When you wrote "God can violate free will", did you mean the opposite?
-Many responses to this argument would be similar (or identical) to responses given to the problem of evil. The free will defense, for example is most famous.
-A less famous objection that could be forwarded would be the divine providence objection.
-There may be other possible responses. I fell asleep last night before I could think of more.

[MindForgedManacle]

-This argument is rich and rigorous. Your terminology is on-point and very accurate. If you wrote all this you obviously know a lot and I am impressed!

I did; thank you.

-A minor quibble: When you wrote "God can violate free will", did you mean the opposite?

Hah, yeah. That would make the theist have to believe that God cannot reveal himself to people, which would throw modern Christian Biblical interpretation out the window (no prophets).

-Many responses to this argument would be similar (or identical) to responses given to the problem of evil. The free will defense, for example is most famous.

I don't see how that would work though. If God cannot make at least the method of salvation explicit and obvious in Scripture despite having chosen that medium to convey the method, that would seem in contradiction to his capabilities and desires.

-A less famous objection that could be forwarded would be the divine providence objection.

Hm? Could you elaborate?

[Neo-Scholastic]

Omniscience and freewill work together just fine. God knows everything possible to know. The future does not exist yet. You cannot have knowledge of that which does not exist. Also premise 5 is wrong.

[Jackalope]

Omniscience and freewill work together just fine. God knows everything possible to know. The future does not exist yet. You cannot have knowledge of that which does not exist. Also premise 5 is wrong.

Chad - do you understand god to exist outside of time? If so, it would appear there is a small problem with your analysis.

[MindForgedManacle]

Omniscience and freewill work together just fine. God knows everything possible to know. The future does not exist yet. You cannot have knowledge of that which does not exist.

What does that have to do with my argument? My argument says nor implies anything about an incompatibility between omniscience and free will...

Also premise 5 is wrong.

You could actually tell me why it's wrong. It follows from the premises.

[Vincenzo Vinny G.]

-This argument is rich and rigorous. Your terminology is on-point and very accurate. If you wrote all this you obviously know a lot and I am impressed!

I did; thank you.

-A minor quibble: When you wrote "God can violate free will", did you mean the opposite?

Hah, yeah. That would make the theist have to believe that God cannot reveal himself to people, which would throw modern Christian Biblical interpretation out the window (no prophets).

-Many responses to this argument would be similar (or identical) to responses given to the problem of evil. The free will defense, for example is most famous.

I don't see how that would work though. If God cannot make at least the method of salvation explicit and obvious in Scripture despite having chosen that medium to convey the method, that would seem in contradiction to his capabilities and desires.

-A less famous objection that could be forwarded would be the divine providence objection.

Hm? Could you elaborate?

When I say this argument resembles the problem of evil, I mean the PoE tries to demonstrate a contradiction between God's character and reality. In the problem of evil, the reality is evil and suffering.
Your argument seems to do a similar thing. It tries to demonstrate a contradiction between God's character and reality. But the aspect of reality you are focusing on is the "hiddenness of salvation".

I suggested it might be vulnerable to two possible objections prima facie.

The divine providence position basically says "God's omniscience allows God to providentially arranges the world such that his ends ultimately obtain." Applied specifically to your argument as an objection, it might look like "If there exists a set of people who will be victim to false doctrines of salvation, God can providentially arrange the world such that those people who end up becoming victims of false doctrines of salvation are those people who would not accept the real doctrine of salvation even if they had known it."

The free will defense suggests, broadly, that "It might be impossible for God to create a world where individuals with free will accord with any one particular set of stipulations in beliefs or behavior." Applied to your argument as an objection, it might say "All possible world with free-will creatures might lead to doctrinal deviations, and the particular world that we live in could conceivably lead to the least number of people losing their salvation out of all possible worlds."

A third possible objection, this one also by Alvin Plantinga against the problem of evil argument could be made by acknowledging an implicit "noseeum inference" in your argument, namely, your argument infers "Since there seems to us to be no good reason for God to allow these doctrinal differences, we must conclude that in reality, there are no good reasons for a God to allow these doctrinal differences to exist." The natural counter to this inference is skeptical theism, which can also apply to this situation, I think.

I'm sure if I think more, I can come up with more objections that can jump from the problem of evil to this argument. But this is what I can come up with so far.

[Neo-Scholastic]

P5 is wrong because in his house there are many mansions.

[MindForgedManacle]

When I say this argument resembles the problem of evil, I mean the PoE tries to demonstrate a contradiction between God's character and reality. In the problem of evil, the reality is evil and suffering.
Your argument seems to do a similar thing. It tries to demonstrate a contradiction between God's character and reality. But the aspect of reality you are focusing on is the "hiddenness of salvation".

I knew what you meant by that.

I suggested it might be vulnerable to two possible objections prima facie.

The divine providence position basically says "God's omniscience allows God to providentially arranges the world such that his ends ultimately obtain." Applied specifically to your argument as an objection, it might look like "If there exists a set of people who will be victim to false doctrines of salvation, God can providentially arrange the world such that those people who end up becoming victims of false doctrines of salvation are those people who would not accept the real doctrine of salvation even if they had known it."

I'm aware of the providential response to objections. And in this case it would be in contradiction to his omnibenevolence, because then he's essentially subjecting untold numbers of people to infinite torture by creating them at all. And those whom are victims of such will quite possibly try to conivince others. And given the incredible number of differing doctrinal beliefs, that's at least millions (if not billions) in hell.

But a sort of understated part of the argument is that if God doesn't reveal himself to those whom are the victims in question, it's another omni's issue. If even a being with all possible knowledge and and having the ultimate power cannot convince someone itself, that seems in contradiction with those 2 aforementioned attributes.

The free will defense suggests, broadly, that "It might be impossible for God to create a world where individuals with free will accord with any one particular set of stipulations in beliefs or behavior." Applied to your argument as an objection, it might say "All possible world with free-will creatures might lead to doctrinal deviations, and the particular world that we live in could conceivably lead to the least number of people losing their salvation out of all possible worlds."

Well, given the free will defense inherently relies on the libertarian view of free will - which doesn't even have a coherent, let alone plausible, formulation - it really can't be used.

But ignoring that, it is well within God's power and motive to stop something like that. If the claim is that free will is the problem, then the reference to free will is being misapplied. Think about it: If I stop or correct only a particular 'sin' (in this case lying) to prevent infinite torture, am I not demonstrating benevolence? Further, this wouldn't be a transgression of free will. I am capable of conceiving of such a scenario: corrective revelation. This could easily just be God revealing himself to a human (perhaps scribes) whom are told exactly how to correct whatever error(s) was present in the manuscripts he was copying (at least in regards to salvation). No free will was transgressed, and the method of salvation is safeguarded from corruption.

A third possible objection, this one also by Alvin Plantinga against the problem of evil argument could be made by acknowledging an implicit "noseeum inference" in your argument, namely, your argument infers "Since there seems to us to be no good reason for God to allow these doctrinal differences, we must conclude that in reality, there are no good reasons for a God to allow these doctrinal differences to exist." The natural counter to this inference is skeptical theism, which can also apply to this situation, I think.

Such an unknown reason defense stance could only be held inconsistently. I could just as easily be skeptical that a defense of God's goodness (or something) could be misunderstanding God in some fundamental way, and that God is mysterious is not meant to be understood at all by humans.

I'm sure if I think more, I can come up with more objections that can jump from the problem of evil to this argument. But this is what I can come up with so far.

Thank you.

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P5 is wrong because in his house there are many mansions.

...I dun gettit. I know the phrase, but I don't see the relevance. ._.

[Vincenzo Vinny G.]

More than the argument now I'm interested in why you think a libertarian account of free will is incoherent Could you explain why?