Thomas Metcalf

An abductive argument from evil claims that the best explanation for something about the evil in the world is that God doesn't exist. These sorts of arguments become a lot more forceful with the help of thought experiments that attempt to provide an analogous case, at which most people's intuitions choose the analogue to "no God."

I want to propose this thought experiment, and to see how convincing my colleagues find it, or any ways to improve it -- these improvements would generally either make it match reality better, or make the conclusion stronger.

Okay, here we go.



Suppose there is an orphanage in town, and you are told that ten omnipotent, omniscient, morally perfect persons work there as security guards and caretakers. These persons only want the best for their young charges and want to protect them from any harm they can. And because they're omnipotent, they have extremely powerful means at their disposal to protect these children. Unfortunately, the entire group seems to take rather unpredictable vacations from their jobs, and during these vacations they do not attempt to protect the orphanage. The contingent of "super security guards" always returns eventually, but it's no simple matter to figure out when they're about to take such a leave of absence or when they'll come back. Also, unfortunately, the orphanage is in a dilapidated old building, in which heavy wooden beams are always falling down, pipes full of scalding water are always bursting, and electrical outlets are always shooting out arcs of deadly electricity.

Now suppose that over the course of a week, every child in the orphanage dies painfully in various preventable accidents and as a result of various curable diseases; that is, these deaths could have been prevented given the knowledge humans have now, but for some reason, the deaths weren't prevented. In addition, most of the children kept a pet bunny or kitten, and all of these animals died painfully as well because of preventable accidents and curable illnesses.

Take stock of your intuitions. What do you think is the probability, roughly, that these security guards actually were present, versus the probability that they were all on vacation at the time? If you believe you're in a position to estimate such a probability, I think you have no choice but to conclude that the latter seems much more likely. Finally, I believe the analogue with the case of the Problem of Evil is strong; while God never takes vacations, we can simply view this component as an analogue to God's nonexistence. If you think it's more likely that the security guards were on vacation when all this horror went down, I believe you must think it's more likely than not that God does not exist.



So. Are there ways to improve the thought experiment? Is it suitably intuition-tugging? Let me know.

wordsmyth

I like the premise of the thought experiment, but I think you should change the wording a bit. I say don't make any of the characters omnipotent nor omniscient... it seems unnecessary and to most theists will most likely appear to be a blatant attack on their beliefs.

Why not make it 10 doctors in a childrens hospital instead?

Unless I'm missing something, the omnipotence/omniscience of the security guards doesn't seem to be all that relevant other than to imply ability.

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by wordsmyth :

"Why not make it 10 doctors in a childrens hospital instead?"

I've actually considered something like this. I could say that they're just really good doctors and they have very high success rates in curing disease. Or, back to the original analogy, I could say these caretakers are just really smart and really capable and really good at predicting accidents.

And then I could add in "Oh, okay, now suppose they're actually omnipotent and omniscient." I would hope that even without that addition, most people would say "They're on vacation," is more likely.

wordsmyth

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Thomas Metcalf
I've actually considered something like this. I could say that they're just really good doctors and they have very high success rates in curing disease.

That works well. Be descriptive in not only the high success rates of the doctors, but also that the children's illness is perhaps very common and quite easily curable.

And then I could add in "Oh, okay, now suppose they're actually omnipotent and omniscient." I would hope that even without that addition, most people would say "They're on vacation," is more likely.

That is exactly what I was thinking. Even without the addition of omnipotence/omniscience it should be evident that they are all on vacation.

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by wordsmyth :

"That works well. Be descriptive in not only the high success rates of the doctors, but also that the children's illness is perhaps very common and quite easily curable."

Thanks for the suggestions. I think I'll seriously consider modifying the analogy.

mattbballman

Hey tom!

Just informing you that I responded to you:

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...345#post795345

later

luvluv

I don't get it.

There are lots of possible theodicies that are not anywhere present in your analogy. I don't see how this could convince anybody whose done a lot of thinking about the issue.

If I were you, I would try to accomodate as many counter-arguments into my analogy as I could. You need to include free will, the possibility of learning from evil, and an afterlife into the analogy somehow to make it more resilient to counter-argument. Of course, I have no idea how you would do that but you asked for comments, not solutions.

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by luvluv :

"There are lots of possible theodicies that are not anywhere present in your analogy. I don't see how this could convince anybody whose done a lot of thinking about the issue."

Well, the point of making it a thought experiment is to allow you to make your own up for the case I mentioned.

So you're trying to decide whether they were on vacation or whether they were present. Maybe it was someone's free will decision that all those kids die in those grotesque accidents, so the security guards decided to step aside and let it happen. Maybe someone's soul somewhere got better because of the painful demise of every last orphan. Maybe no one could fully appreciate good without the knowledge that agony was visited upon each of those motherless children before they perished. Maybe the security guards were there after all, and they just happened to have a good reason to let all those youngsters croak in various horrific ways. Maybe the security guards were just on vacation at the time.

We've got a lot of possible explanations on the table. Do any of those sound at all probable to you?

luvluv

The whole thing doesn't sound probable to me. Firstly, why not just make it one security guard? What is helped by having ten of them? It just makes it more alien to what you are trying to disprove.

And you're loading the dice in your favor a bit here. How did they die? How did their deaths affect those around them? Could ANY good have been gained by their deaths? Where are the children now, in the afterlife? Are they happy? Is it, as Paul suggested, so glorious that they count their own painful deaths not worthy to be mentioned in comparison?

You know more about this stuff than I do, Thomas, so the fact that I don't find it very convincing should suggest to you that it might need some fleshing out. There's no real room for any consideration of an afterlife, or of any kind of context for the actual effects of the deaths of the children in that analogy. Coincidentally enough, I just saw a Martin Luther King film (King, the 70's version starring Paul Winfield) and it portrayed the death of the 4 girls in the Birmingham bombing. These girls died terrible and painful deaths, but it is entirely possible for me to believe that an omnipotent and omniscient God allowed this to happen given what was wrought from it. Your analogy has no room for this kind of context.

And isn't this just a tricky, emotional way of trying to promote an argument that cannot be made in an explicit, logical way?

Wiploc

Wouldn't it be easier and more satisfactory just to point out that if god were omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent then there wouldn't be any suffering at all?
crc