Taffy Lewis

Thomas Metcalf,

Being a morally justified evil does not imply that the evil "has no bad effects". It means that there is an outweighing good of which the evil is a necessary condition. A doctor may have a morally sufficient reason for inflicting pain. This does not mean the pain has no bad effects.

The purpose of any "free will defense" is to claim that the power to choose evil and good is itself an outweighing good of any evil that might be chosen.

You seem to be arguing that any evil that is chosen by us will have a morally sufficient reason--the power to choose evil and good. So no matter what evil I do there will be a morally sufficient reason for my doing it--namely, the power to choose between good and evil. But this is confused.

God's reason for allowing you to choose evil is not the same as your reasons for choosing any particular evil.

If you chose to steal my favorite book on the problem of evil you wouldn't be stealing it because "you are granting me the power to choose good and evil and thus give me significant responsibility over my fellow man." You would be stealing it because you want my book or want me to suffering or something similar.

But God's reason for allowing you to steal from me is because he is giving you the great good of the responsibility of contributing to either my well-being or ill-being.

It's not true that we have the same reasons for bringing about or permitting some evil as God does. So it's not the case that if God is justified in permitting or causing some evil then so are we.

[ September 28, 2002: Message edited by: Taffy Lewis ]</p>

Philosoft

Is there any way to promote this argument without running headlong into a Euthyphro-type dilemma? Is choosing between good and evil better because God says it's better or is it just intrinsically better?

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by Taffy Lewis:

"I don't see that your representation of the logic avoids the problem. Consider a similar statement by a creationist..."

You claim that we have no reason to believe if God had good reasons to allow so much intense apparently gratuitous suffering, we would know of them. I can claim in response that we have no reason to believe if God had good reasons to make the earth appear 4.6 billion years old when it's really 100 years old, we would know of them. Normally, when we observe suffering, we have a good idea of the collateral effects thereof; for example, vaccinations that produce immunity to a virus, or suffering that teaches a person to be humble or merciful. We therefore have good reason to believe that sometimes we are aware of a morally justifying reason for some suffering -- God might exist and might have a reason beyond our ken for the death of a 1-year-old orphan, but to deny we can make that judgment is to take on quite a lot of skepticism about our observations.

In sum, in many cases we are indeed aware of the morally justifying reasons for suffering. The ideas that (1) there are good reasons for a 1-year-old orphan whom no one ever misses, to die, and (2) there are good reasons for us not knowing of these reasons, is a conjunction of considerable intuitive improbability. It just doesn't seem very likely that every specific instance of suffering is absolutely necessary for some greater good.

"It's not true that we have the same reasons for bringing about or permitting some evil as God does. So it's not the case that if God is justified in permitting or causing some evil then so are we."

I don't think we can be confident that the reasons for suffering are different depending upon who is allowing it. After all, if suffering produces good souls, mercy, contrast, etc., these will be beneficial whether or not humans or God are producing them. Suppose I steal your book purely because I know that my stealing of your book is necessary for some greater good somewhere. My reasons are apparently blameless. To deny that they're blameless, I suspect you must support rather a complex ethical theory that includes the idea that if God does something with the intention to produce a greater good, it's okay, but if I do something with the intention to produce a greater good, it's not okay.

I agree that we may not share all the same reasons for the permission of suffering as God, but that in no way entails that our own reasons are morally suspect, especially if our intention is to increase the goodness in the world. Do you or do you not agree that all existent suffering ought to exist?

Marz Blak

This addresses the "willful evil" aspect of the POE, although not without some problems as I see it (as detailed in Thomas Metcalf's posts in response, for example). However, it does not, so far as I can see, address the "gratuitous suffering" part of the problem.

This is why I prefer to prefer to the argument as the Problem of Pain--there are "greater good" and "freewill" arguments that may be applied to the question of why a putative maximally benevolent/omnipotent/omniscient Deity would allow people to commit evil acts; but these arguments do not apply to cases in which people suffer through acts not engendered by any willful agent.

[ September 29, 2002: Message edited by: Marz Blak ]</p>

Taffy Lewis

Thomas Metcalf,

We have:

• (X) "If God had good reasons to make the earth appear 4.6 billion years old when it's really 100 years old, we would know of them."

Suppose I grant that we don't have good reason to believe X. Does anything interesting follow? Presumably, based upon the logic involved in my agnosticism with regard to particular instances of evil, I am supposed to conclude that there is a good reason for God to make the earth merely appear old when it is in fact young. And since this is absurd, this is supposed to demonstrate that there is something wrong with my logic. But this does not follow.

When I claim we have no good reason to believe that we would have access to all of God's reasons for permitting evil, I am not thereby committed to claiming THERE IS A REASON that would justify every particular evil. Similarly, assuming that I admit that I have no good reason to believe that God has good reasons to make the earth merely appear old, I am not committed to saying that he does have such a reason.

This is an important point. In order to undermine an argument, I am not required to prove any of the premises to be false. (So I do not have to prove that God has a reason for permitting every evil or a reason for making the earth merely appear old.) It is enough to undermine any reasons presented in support of a premise. A valid argument will not work if I have no good reasons to believe its premises are true.

Also, it seems quite plausible that it is not likely that we would have access to all the reasons an omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good god would have for permitting evil if he does have such reasons. I don't always know why other humans do the things they do. Is it reasonable to suppose we'd have as much or more access to God's reasons for acting?

The greater good that is supposed to justify God in allowing us to choose to perform evil acts is something like this:

• (GG) There exists conscious purposive beings with significant moral freedom.

The idea is that God is blameless with regard to any evil actions we perform because this is a possible consequence of bringing about GG. But GG is supposed to outweigh any evil actions we might perform. Therefore God is blameless.

However, in our own cases, we cannot appeal to GG to outweigh our evil actions because we did not bring it about. I can't argue that because I brought about my ability to perform morally free actions I am justified in committing some evil action. It's not the case that I am responsible for the outweighing good.

Yes, if you took my book to contribute to my well being you may not be blameworthy. But that doesn't mean that you are justified in every evil act you perform simply because God is justified in allowing you significant moral freedom.

[ September 30, 2002: Message edited by: Taffy Lewis ]</p>

K

Taffy:

The problem I have with saying that we just don't understand God's plan is the fact that we assign Him characteristics with human language. How do we know God is good if His actions appear to us to be evil or at least indifferent? Why do we say He is all-knowing when he appears to have less foresight than we do? I think the theist would stand on much firmer ground by just saying, "God is." Calling God good and then justifying it by saying that we can't understand His goodness is a cop out.

If free will is the defense of God's goodness, at least two things must be answered. WHY is allowing free the ultimate good? HOW does free will cause all of the suffering - including suffering caused not by man, but by nature? Without solid answers to these, it's ridiculous to assign the word "good" to God.

Taffy Lewis

K,

I'm not saying we can't understand anything about God. I am saying it seems plausible that there will be many things about God's nature and activity of which we do not and cannot understand. Saying we cannot understand everything about God does not imply that we cannot understand anything about God.

I find it implausible to think it is likely that we will understand all the reasons for acting of an omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good being. So even if there is a god and he has good reason for permitting every instance of suffering of which we are aware, then it is not likely that we will be aware of all the reasons for permitting every instance of evil. That just means that there will be instances of evil of which we cannot understand why they occur.

Philosoft

How does one know what things one will and what things one will not understand? How do we know God is perfectly benevolent if there will doubtlessly be instances that contradict our notions of 'perfect benevolence'? It is not enough to merely say there will be instances of disconnect between God's actions and our judgements. How do we know about God's omnibenevolence without presupposing it?

<strong> Again, how does this sort of argument assist the apologetic theist if it must be presupposed both that God exists and that God is perfectly benevolent?

[ October 01, 2002: Message edited by: Philosoft ]</p>

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by Taffy Lewis:

"When I claim we have no good reason to believe that we would have access to all of God's reasons for permitting evil, I am not thereby committed to claiming THERE IS A REASON that would justify every particular evil. Similarly, assuming that I admit that I have no good reason to believe that God has good reasons to make the earth merely appear old, I am not committed to saying that he does have such a reason." (Emphasis original throughout.)

Let Q be the situation, where P is some phenomenon, in which apparently P but not P. Let R be the situation in which apparently P and P. Further, define P such that (1) it would apparently be beneficial to humanity to know if Q, (2) for which there is no apparent morally justifying reason for Q if Q, and (3) for which we can imagine no morally justifying reason for Q if Q.

(A) Apparently P. (Empirical fact.)
(B) Either Q or R. (From: (A), excluded middle, and constructive dilemma.)
(C) If Q, then we probably know of a morally justifying reason for Q. ("Principle of Divine Explanation.")
(D) If R, then P. (Analytic truth.)
(E) Therefore, probably, either we know of a morally justifying reason for Q, or P. (From (B), (C), and (D) by constructive dilemma.)
(F) We know of no morally justifying reason for Q. (Empirical fact.)
(G) Therefore, probably P. (From (E) and (F) by disjunctive syllogism.)

The argument from suffering against theism would continue:
Let P be "gratuitous suffering exists."
(H) If P, then God does not exist. (Analytic truth.)
(I) Probably, God does not exist. (From (G) and (H) by modus ponens.)

The argument from radioisotope dating against 100-year-old-earth-ism would continue:
Let P be "radiosisotopes indicate that earth is 4.6 billion years old."
(H') If P, then earth is 4.6 billion years old. (Analytic truth.)
(I') Probably, earth is 4.6 billion years old. (From (G) and (H') by modus ponens.)

The UPD must deny (I) and therefore (H), (F), (C), or (A). I do not think the theist will deny (A), (F), or (H), where P is "There is suffering with no morally justifying reason," so let us concentrate on (C). The Principle of Divine Explanation, for these purposes, will be that if it would be apparently beneficial to humanity to know if Q, if God exists, we will know if Q. This principle enjoys considerable intuitive support. After all, a parent would explain to a child why she must receive a painful vaccination, if the parent could do so, and God loves us and wants the best for us. But the skeptical theist denies the Principle of Divine Explanation. She has thereby removed her ability to argue for any empirical fact. I suspect she has also undermined her reasons for believing any empirical fact, because I take it to be the case that for every rational belief a person has, it is possible to formulate a sound argument for that belief.

Most epistemologists would say that, at the very least, for a belief B to be justified by evidence E, we must believe that E and believe that if E then B. This definition is not completely adequate, however, because of the possibility of some justified true beliefs not counting as knowledge. So one possible "fourth condition" is the absence of cognitively accessible defeaters to the belief E and the belief "if E, then B." The question, then, when concluding whether we are justified in believing that some suffering is gratuitous, is whether there is a cognitively accessible defeater. We believe that there is suffering without a visible morally justifying reason, and we believe that if that is the case, then there really is suffering without a morally justifying reason. Now, it is patently true that there is no cognitively accessible defeater to the former belief, but what about the latter? Certainly, if God exists, this fact would be a defeater, but we seem to have no cognitive access to whether God exists. But even if we do have such a defeater in the possibility of God's existence, it is unclear why this defeater would not apply in any question of justification. It follows that we are not justified in holding any belief about the empirical world, and I think it could be argued that we are almost not justified in holding any belief at all. After all, if the possibility of a Great Deceiver is enough to defeat our conclusions, the only justified belief would be that there might be a Great Deceiver. We can't even justifiedly believe in God.

"Also, it seems quite plausible that it is not likely that we would have access to all the reasons an omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good god would have for permitting evil if he does have such reasons. I don't always know why other humans do the things they do. Is it reasonable to suppose we'd have as much or more access to God's reasons for acting?"

Yes, because God has the power and motive to inform us of His reasons. Of course, you could answer that we don't have reason to believe God would want us to know of His reasons -- that He would have reasons for hiding His reasons and reasons for hiding the reasons for hiding His reasons, etc. -- this is again a denial of (C) in the above argument, where the value of P is not "gratuitous suffering exists" but rather "we do not know why gratuitous suffering exists," or "we do not know why we do not know why gratuitous suffering exists," etc. So we're back to the above argument. We've also adopted quite a lot more counter-intuitive baggage; now God, if it would be apparently beneficial to humanity for us to know why He's not telling us these things, must have a reason He's not telling us why He's not telling us why He's not telling us why we don't know. This is a God Who's hiding an infinity of facts from us. It's just implausible that things would be so complicated, especially given the fact that God is omnipotent and ought to be able to avoid some of these consequences along the line. (Of course, no apologist has come up with a plausible definition of "omnipotent" that will work for God, so this confusion may be understandable.)

There is reason to think God is possible? I don't think we're justified in believing that. After all, there's the possibility that some Great Deceiver has given us that belief when the truth is the opposite. Our belief that there isn't a Great Deceiver is vulnerable to a similar objection. Further, most leading apologists seem to accept the fact that the UPD won't work unless there is some positive reason to believe in God, because this is positive reason that no suffering is gratuitous. So I suggest you provide some positive reason to think no suffering is gratuitous, or the considerable intuitive improbability of a morally sufficient justification for some specific instances of suffering (the fawn in the forest, the 1-year-old orphan in the landslide, etc.) will remain. This is the third and most persuasive reason to reject UPD; it's just not very likely given some specific instances of suffering that we observe. Coupled with the transcendental moral argument presented below and the transcendental epistemological argument presented above, I think we are safe in rejecting UPD.

"However, in our own cases, we cannot appeal to GG to outweigh our evil actions because we did not bring it about. I can't argue that because I brought about my ability to perform morally free actions I am justified in committing some evil action. It's not the case that I am responsible for the outweighing good."

I think you are indeed responsible. If the outweighing good does not depend on the evil action you choose, God could have brought it about without you and you were unnecessary for it. But if the outweighing good does depend on your evil, which is required for the apologist's position, and you committed the evil knowing that it would produce (or be) an outweighing good if you were successful, I don't see why you're not responsible for the good you made possible. I agree that God would be justified in allowing the evil He allows, but all plausible accounts of moral justification of which I know (deontological, utilitarian, virtue ethics, etc.) would hold you blameless if you intend to make possible a greater good, and your action does indeed make possible a greater good. I think to respond you would have to accept divine command theory (which would then produce an evidential problem for theism), or a theory of objective morality in which it is objectively morally wrong to try to make possible a greater good that would not otherwise have been possible. Both of these approaches seem to me to be dead ends.

Another problem is that you have abandoned the UPD in favor of the free will defense, which is fairly easy to refute. How do we know when we have "significant moral freedom"? Wouldn't we still be significantly morally free if it were the case that once more a year than now, a person fails to torture a child when the person makes an attempt? Are we significantly morally free if I do not have the ability to point my finger at my neighbor and shoot an arc of electricity, causing him pain? Why does God value the will of people who choose to torture children over the will of children who choose not to be tortured? And how does a 1-year-old orphan buried in a landslide help people to have significant moral freedom?

"Yes, if you took my book to contribute to my well being you may not be blameworthy. But that doesn't mean that you are justified in every evil act you perform simply because God is justified in allowing you significant moral freedom."

Why not? Suppose I become something of a kleptomaniac and start stealing book after book from you, each time doing so only because I am concerned for your well being? Why have I done anything wrong? If it's better in the general scheme of things for me to fail to steal a book from you, God will prevent it.

Jack the Bodiless

I have not yet seen any explanation for why God does not quietly erase the Ebola virus.

This is an example of a miracle which could be performed secretly without impinging on free will or revealing God's hand. It is perfectly possible for us to conceive of a world in which Ebola never existed, or the apparently natural disappearance of Ebola from our own world (simply a lack of any new cases appearing). This would in no way interfere with free will, yet results in a world that is better than our own.

Furthermore, while the PoE is not a watertight argument against any God, it remains a watertight argument against the J/C "omnimax" God. The total elimination of suffering IS the absolute priority, the prime motive and goal, of an OMNIbenevolent God: this is true by definition. Similarly, it is not possible to argue that an OMNIpotent God is incapable of achieving this objective.

Therefore, the UPD fails. If such a God exists, we should certainly see the results: NO human suffering, gratuitous or otherwise!

All real-world analogies of suffering for a purpose (vaccination etc) break down because they all rely on the non-omnipotence of the benevolent agent (e.g. inability to painlessly bestow immunity to disease).

And there is still no explanation of why free will is so important. If it causes suffering, then an omnibenevolent being MUST eliminate it. If this makes us robots, but happy robots... so what? I don't like that idea NOW, but after the "treatment" I won't mind at all. Why would an omnibenevolent being NOT do this if it makes everyone happy?

All these problems arise from attempts to defend a foolish boast: the omnimax God, the ultimate extension of "my god is better than YOUR god". Why make that boast? Why defend it? Why pursue it beyond all reason and out into the boondocks of paradox?

Why not simply concede that God, if he exists, is not OMNIbenevolent?