The Problem of Evil (XXVII)

[IATIA]

As the greatest conceivable being, there is no possible world where God is not good.

Bullshit! Why? Who says so? There is no possible reason for a god to be good or bad. Those are human terms.

[SteveII]

If God is really a personal God, and by that I mean one which people should care about, then there should be some symmetry between the knowledge of God gained and the evil one must endure.  However, this is not the case: a young infant can suffer greatly, with no real understanding of anything, and then cease to exist.  Its contract with a personal God has been broken.

God, therefore, is at best a force of nature-- something hidden in the variables and functions BEHIND life.  But we already have something like this-- the universe.  Defining an impersonal struggle among humans to either suffer or not to suffer makes very little sense of the implied contract: "Suffer that you may learn," is not universal when some of the evils involve things or beings which do not have the capacity to learn about God.  The only case in which it is logically true that suffering = gaining knowledge of God is that God is a God of suffering..  But if that's the case, God must be avoided at all costs, because, you know, suffering sucks.

First, it is your view that the infant ceases to exist.  Your example was written to invoke an emotional response--which works because our limited perspective categorizes such an event as one of the worst things that can happen. However, if you have an eternal perspective, what is a great tragedy today is not even measurable as the child lives into eternity. A far greater tragedy is for one soul to miss out on the knowledge of God. I in NO WAY am trying to minimize the unspeakable tragedy of the death of a child. I am merely pointing out the perspective that God has. 

There is no direct relationship between suffering and knowledge of God. While it might be the case for some, suffering itself does not necessarily lead directly to knowledge of God. Some people will die suddenly and perhaps do so without the knowledge of God. It is the infinitely complex "greater good" perspective that justifies not intervening. 

Your argument needs to address why free will would not have a higher purpose than God permitting suffering.

[wiploc]

The skeptical objection still contains a positive claim that cannot be proven. That claim is this: there is a possible world without evil.

It is obviously possible.  It is easily proven.  It's patently true.  

A possible world is any world without logical contradiction.  That's all there is to it.  

Worlds with square circles and married bachelors are impossible.  Worlds without such contradictions are possible.  
Lack of evil is not a contradiction.  Therefore, an infinite number of worlds without evil are possible.  The ones without evil but with square circles are impossible, and the ones that are simultaneously without evil and with evil are impossible, but the ones without evil and also without logical contradictions are all possible.  All infinity of them.  Obviously, by definition, possible.  

Secondly, there is no doctrine to salvage. Skeptics' definitions of "tri-omni" are not part of Christian doctrine. Skeptics strain the definition of omnipotent well beyond any reasonable bounds by saying that an all-powerful god could do the impossible. In so doing they are objecting to a god not associated with Christianity.

I think you overstate your case.  My mom believed in a truly omnipotent god (could do anything including square circles).  My sister in law believes god created himself.  Their Christianity may differ from yours, but these are Christian beliefs.  

We atheists are not out of line to argue against the Christian beliefs that we encounter.  When we see a stupid one, we get to point out the stupidity.  (Here I want to quote somebody probably on this website, who says something like, "I'm not anti-Christian; I'm anti-stupid.")  

I don't strain credulity by arguing that a god can violate logic.  I am absolutely on your side of that issue.  If gods can violate logic, then logic is unreliable, and then it is pointless to try to have a logical discussion about gods.  

So, in order to have logical discussion, let's assume that god cannot violate logic.  This is where logical discussion must begin.  

But many Christians disagree.  They're being stupid, but they still disagree.  

Those of us who point out that those Christians are being stupid, we're on your side (of this particular issue).

[wiploc]

A simple form of the logical argument from evil would go:

1. If gratuitous suffering exists ...

That's the EPoE (evidential problem of evil).  The LPoE goes:

1. If any suffering exists ...

[wiploc]

Your argument needs to address why free will would not have a higher purpose than God permitting suffering.

Here you are assuming that god is not omnipotent.  If a god is too weak to have free will without suffering, he is not omnipotent.

[Gemini]

A simple form of the logical argument from evil would go:

1. If gratuitous suffering exists ...

That's the EPoE (evidential problem of evil).  The LPoE goes:

1. If any suffering exists ...

From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

"In section 1.4, a much more concrete version of an incompatibility argument was set out, which, rather than appealing to the mere existence of some evil or other, appealed to specific types of evil—in particular, situations where animals die agonizing deaths in forest fires, or where children undergo lingering suffering and eventual death due to cancer. The thrust of the argument was then that, first of all, an omniscient and omnipotent person could have prevented the existence of such evils without thereby either allowing equal or greater evils, or preventing equal or greater goods, and, secondly, that any omniscient and morally perfect person will prevent the existence of such evils if that can be done without either allowing equal or greater evils, or preventing equal or greater goods..." http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evil/#...cForEviFor

The essential difference between logical and evidential arguments from evil isn't the caveat that only gratuitous suffering is incompatible with a tri-omni God, it's that evidential arguments use inductive formulations, or will take the form of a deductive argument with at least one premise qualified by a "probably" caveat, such as Rowe's "gratuitous evil probably exists."

[SteveII]

All of your objections assume that God had no choice but to make humans so frail that all those things pose terrible dangers to us. I guarantee there are no laws of nature that prevent a being that can do anything that is possible from making biological organisms that are hard to kill by falling or drowning.

There are safe places where people are never subject to natural disasters and never will be, but you won't name one?

The most common Christian version of free will is a joke: use your free will to be a Christian or suffer forever. And if the greatest good is knowledge of God, a being that can do anything possible ought not to have a problem with arranging things so everyone has knowledge of God.

Why hasn't God arranged for everyone to be able to have knowledge of God? Romans 1:20 comes to mind: "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse." There are many more verses that speak about how the heavens, etc. declare this or that about God. That seems to be the "God Shaped Hole" in our psyche that psychologist like to talk about. 

In addition, I think that God has a different idea than you do about where the line between freely choosing God from a) the amount of information that has been revealed and b) the amount of information needed that would be so obvious that freely choosing God would not play into it. I think philosophers call it morally sufficient freedom. 

Another question: If we are in a "fallen state" or a have a "sin nature" affecting us, why wouldn't it be reasonable to conclude (as does the Bible) that our cognitive abilities have been impaired and our built-in selfcenteredness (pride) prevents us from seeing evidence that conflicts with the selfcenteredness (a kind of noetic effect).

[SteveII]

A simple form of the logical argument from evil would go:

1. If gratuitous suffering exists, then a tri-omni God does not exist.
2. Gratuitous suffering exists.
3. Therefore, a tri-omni God does not exist.

I question whether you have any interesting objections to the first premise. I would be surprised if you did, because I'm not aware that it's at all controversial.

Perhaps you have an idiosyncratic doctrine of God which is different than the historically orthodox all-powerful, all-knowing, perfectly good (tri-omni) God believed in by the overwhelming majority of Christians and Christian philosophers. Maybe you're with William of Ockham, or an antinomian, or some such. If so, that's not an interesting objection to the first premise, because participants in the argument aren't talking about your version of theism.

It sounds, however, as though you've misconstrued what we mean by a tri-omni God. Your objection is to the second premise. As far as "proving" that a possible world with less gratuitous suffering than this one exists, you do actually need to show a logical contradiction with the proposition. Nice try, but you still can't shift that burden of proof.

And if you notice, I'm willing to set aside objections to the logical coherence of omnipotence. Because the logical problem of evil still succeeds, even if you grant logical constraints on God's power. A God who can't do logical impossible things is still plenty powerful enough to eliminate gratuitous suffering.

Can you clearly define what gratuitous suffering is and how your argument gets around the greater good and free will defense?

[wiploc]

That's the EPoE (evidential problem of evil).  The LPoE goes:

1. If any suffering exists ...

From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

"In section 1.4, a much more concrete version of an incompatibility argument was set out, which, rather than appealing to the mere existence of some evil or other, appealed to specific types of evil—in particular, situations where animals die agonizing deaths in forest fires, or where children undergo lingering suffering and eventual death due to cancer. The thrust of the argument was then that, first of all, an omniscient and omnipotent person could have prevented the existence of such evils without thereby either allowing equal or greater evils, or preventing equal or greater goods, and, secondly, that any omniscient and morally perfect person will prevent the existence of such evils if that can be done without either allowing equal or greater evils, or preventing equal or greater goods..." http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evil/#...cForEviFor

The essential difference between logical and evidential arguments from evil isn't the caveat that only gratuitous suffering is incompatible with a tri-omni God, it's that evidential arguments use inductive formulations, or will take the form of a deductive argument with at least one premise qualified by a "probably" caveat, such as Rowe's "gratuitous evil probably exists."

Good post.

[SteveII]

In response to both the free will and the knowledge of God defense, you say that if God thinks these things are more valuable than preventing suffering he is not omnibenevolent.

I deny and repudiate that line of argument.  

The PoE (problem of evil) is bulletproof regardless of how you define evil.  

Let us stipulate, temporarily and for the sake of argument, that "good" means three things:  
- First and most importantly, it means knowing god.  
- Second, and second in importance, it means having free will.  
- Third, and last in importance, it means being happy.  

Posit a benevolent god of limited power:  If he had to choose between these three, he would give up happiness and free will to get knowledge of god.  If he had to choose between free will and happiness, he would prefer free will.  

This god may be omnibenevolent, but he is not omnipotent.  An omnipotent god would not have to choose between these.  An omnipotent god can do anything that does not contradict logic.  

Having happiness and free will and knowledge does not contradict logic.  So an omnipotent god could do it.  

Even an omnipotent god couldn't have pure happiness, but also unhappiness.  It couldn't have complete knowledge of god but also ignorance of god.  It could not have everybody having free will but some people not having free will.  Those would be contradictions.  Not even an omnipotent god could achieve contradictions.  

But there is no contradiction between happiness, knowledge, and free will.  An omnipotent god could effect that effortlessly.  No problem.  

The PoE is bulletproof regardless of how you define good.  If there was a god who wanted us to be happy, and who wanted us to know him, and who wanted us to have free will, then (if this god was also omniscient and omnibenevolent) we would have all three of those things.  

If we do not have all three of those things, then such a god does not exist.  

Moral perfection in a universe of physical laws and free will does not entail preventing suffering if 1) there are greater goods to acheive or 2) someone makes a choice that results in suffering.

"A universe of physical laws"?  Are you saying that your god can't throw magic?  If you posit a less-than-omnipotent god, then of course it can coexist with evil, just as a less-than-omniscient or less-than-omnibenevolent god could. 

The PoE has nothing to say about such inferior gods.

You are resting your case on the fact that God could orchestrate a scenario that achieves all three of your points above with omnipotence. You are not providing arguments that it is illogical, you are arguing that it is improbable. It all comes down to your position that omnibenevolence = obligation to use all means to avoid anything that isn't good. That would mean preventing any and all suffering. It does not seem to me that we could have a world where we have free will and not have suffering because every wrong choice we made that resulted in suffering (however small) would be met with a supernatural intervention. Such a state of affairs would result in a singular lack of morally sufficient freedom --effectively eliminating free will. So it would seem that a world in which everyone had free will but no possibility of suffering would not be able to be actualized.