RE: The Problem of Evil (XXVII)
June 6, 2016 at 5:42 pm
(This post was last modified: June 6, 2016 at 5:43 pm by Gemini.)
I think claims to the effect that philosophers have solved the logical problem of evil are a bit misleading. Consider the following quote from Davis Lewis's paper "Evil for freedom's sake?" in which he provides a reductio against Plantinga's free will defense:
"We are partly right, partly wrong in our catalogue of values. The best things in life include love, joy, knowledge, vigour, despair, malice, betrayal, torture, . . . . God in His infinite love provides all His children with an abundance of good things. Different ones of us get different gifts, all of them very good. So some are blessed with joy and knowledge, some with vigour and malice, some with torture and despair."
It's logically possible that this is correct. Which goes to show how trivial and uninteresting it is to provide a mere defense against the logical problem of evil. "The hypothesis isn't true, of course. And it isn't plausible. But a defense needn't be true and needn't be plausible; possibility is enough. And not epistemic possibility, or 'real' possibility given the actual circumstances and laws of nature; just 'broadly logical' possibility. That's an easy standard."
The task of a theologian whose ambition is commensurate to the task at hand is to provide a theodicy. To defend the compatibility of a tri-omni god with the suffering we observe in the world around us, granting some reasonable assumptions. Such as that the question is intelligible to beings with our comprehension of morality.
Given our understanding of morality, there is no question that a person who was able prevent a child from being crushed to death as a result of an earthquake, or who could prevent hundreds of thousands of deaths from a tsunami, and failed to act, would be immoral.
"We are partly right, partly wrong in our catalogue of values. The best things in life include love, joy, knowledge, vigour, despair, malice, betrayal, torture, . . . . God in His infinite love provides all His children with an abundance of good things. Different ones of us get different gifts, all of them very good. So some are blessed with joy and knowledge, some with vigour and malice, some with torture and despair."
It's logically possible that this is correct. Which goes to show how trivial and uninteresting it is to provide a mere defense against the logical problem of evil. "The hypothesis isn't true, of course. And it isn't plausible. But a defense needn't be true and needn't be plausible; possibility is enough. And not epistemic possibility, or 'real' possibility given the actual circumstances and laws of nature; just 'broadly logical' possibility. That's an easy standard."
The task of a theologian whose ambition is commensurate to the task at hand is to provide a theodicy. To defend the compatibility of a tri-omni god with the suffering we observe in the world around us, granting some reasonable assumptions. Such as that the question is intelligible to beings with our comprehension of morality.
Given our understanding of morality, there is no question that a person who was able prevent a child from being crushed to death as a result of an earthquake, or who could prevent hundreds of thousands of deaths from a tsunami, and failed to act, would be immoral.
A Gemma is forever.
