The Problem of Evil (XXVII)

[wiploc]

@wiploc

I am finding this conversation helpful to me in two ways. 1) it makes me think/research very carefully so that I uncover things I missed the first time I read about them and 2) by practicing, I will hopefully better articulate this and other things in the future.

I'm enjoying this, having fun.  Thanks for your cooperative thoughtfulness.  

I freely admit that had I to explain all this again, I would have done it differently.

Feel free to retract and try a new line.  It's not like I'd try to hold you to something you no longer believe in.  

You are getting hung up on the phrase "possible world". You are taking the phrase literally (understandably) but is has a meaning in philosophy and logic that is important to understand in order to use the concept properly. This was helpful to me in understanding the "possible worlds" concept:

• True propositions are those that are true in the actual world (for example: "Richard Nixon became president in 1969").
  
• False propositions are those that are false in the actual world (for example: "Ronald Reagan became president in 1969"). (Reagan did not run for president until 1976, and thus couldn't possibly have been elected.)
  
• Possible propositions are those that are true in at least one possible world (for example: "Hubert Humphrey became president in 1969"). (Humphrey did run for president in 1968, and thus could have been elected.) This includes propositions which are necessarily true, in the sense below.
  
• Impossible propositions (or necessarily false propositions) are those that are true in no possible world (for example: "Melissa and Toby are taller than each other at the same time").
  
• Necessarily true propositions (often simply called necessary propositions) are those that are true in all possible worlds (for example: "2 + 2 = 4"; "all bachelors are unmarried").[1]
  
• Contingent propositions are those that are true in some possible worlds and false in others (for example: "Richard Nixon became president in 1969" is contingently true and "Hubert Humphrey became president in 1969" is contingently false). all from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Possible_world
  

All of that makes perfect sense to me.  I don't know why you say I'm hung up on the phrase "possible world."  

I'll probably avoid the "contingent propositions" phrasing, since it sometimes has another meaning.  

I agreed that in some possible world, given the tri-omni properties, God could "pre-plan" it so that there would be no evil.

Picture god, as Plantinga does, at the beginning, with all of the possible worlds to choose from.  He can choose any world with no contradiction, and create that world.  Many of the worlds with no contradictions, an infinity of them, have no evil. 

Don't think of it as considering one particular world, and trying to pre-plan how to make that world work out so there is no evil.  Think instead of god viewing all the possibilities at once, seeing all the goodworlds, seeing that in an infinity of those goodworlds, he never intervenes at all; in others he intervenes few times; in others he intervenes more times; etc.  

An omniscient god isn't trying to work out how to make a particular world work.  He's omniscient:  He sees every possibility at once.  He knows all about every possible goodworld, knows all about them, and how to start them up.  

The reason I agree that is true is because the PoE argument is logically valid (not contradictory)--not because I think there is a world out there where God did such a thing "on paper".

But he could have done it.  An omniscient omnipotent god could have done it if it had wanted to.  

An omnibenevolent god would have wanted to.  

A tri-omnni god would have actually done it.  

If the actual world contains evil, then there are no tri-omni gods.  

There is nothing wrong with the argument: it is broadly logically possible, that such a proposition could be true. 

I'm not clear on broadly logical vs narrowly logical.  I think I've run across this before without understanding what was being said.  Clarification would be appreciated. 

I am claiming that #2 is a contingent proposition (see above) whereas you are claiming that it is necessarily true proposition.

I'm looking for the "#2" you reference.  Perhaps it is this, that I have highlighted, from your OP:

1. If God exists, then evil cannot exist
2. If evil exist, God cannot exist
3. Evil exists
4. Therefore God does not exist.

A tri-omni god would not coexist with evil.  That is a logical relationship like "2+2=4". 

An omniscient omnipotent god could prevent all evil if it wanted to.  An omnibenevolent god would want to.  A tri-omni god would actually prevent all evil.  So, if evil exists, it logically follows that tri-omni gods do not exist.  

To support your conclusion that God does not exist, you need #2 to be a necessarily true proposition.
 

Right.  The LPoE is a logical relationship like 2+2=4.  It is true in every possible world.  

 I think it is a contingent proposition because of free will. It seems highly probable that God cannot actualize a world where every one of the trillions of decisions are freely made good (instead of evil) in spite of any attempt to "pre-plan" it.

There are possible worlds in which people choose to do evil.  Don't picture god trying to cope with one of those worlds on an ad-hoc basis, one evil decision at a time.  An omnipotent omniscient god could cope with that easily, of course, but there's no reason for us to try to imagine it.  

Imagine instead a god choosing at the beginning, from among all the possible worlds, one of those that works out right.  Give him a console, if you want, in which all of the goodworlds are displayed with green outlines, and badworlds are displayed with red outlines.  (An omnipotent god could certainly have such a display.  An omnipotent god could choose not to display the badworlds at all.)  

Then, when deciding which world to create, the god could simply choose from one of the goodworlds.  If the idea of god having to intervene repeatedly bothers you (though of course that would be no burden for an omnipotent god) you should notice that the god could choose one of the free-willed goodworlds in which (after creation) the god never intervenes.  

There are an infinity of such possible worlds in which people have free will, and people choose only good, and god never intervenes.  An omnipotent god would know all about every one of them.  It's not like he's desperately seeking a needle in a haystack.  

Therefore, it is not at all possible that a tri-omni god "cannot acutualize" such a world.  

The defeater is aimed at the omnipotence because omnipotence does not mean "can do anything" rather it means "can do anything logically possible" and not in the broad sense but in the narrow sense because we are talking about actually doing something for real.

Plantinga admits that freewill goodworlds are among the possible worlds.  There is no logical contradiction involved in god choosing to create one of these possible worlds.