Clutch

Just to clarify the terrain.

The initial argument:

(1) It appears that many local reductions of suffering are possible.

(2) To be able to reduce instances of suffering, ceteris paribus, but to choose not to, is morally degenerate.

(3) There exists a being that is both (i) capable of mitigating such remediable suffering as is widely found, and (ii) morally perfect.

Therefore,

(PoE) To whatever extent (1) and (2) are warranted, (3) is untenable.

Matt's apologetic (and it is not a new one) would add two premises to the three given above:

(A4) There is the further possibility of some factor or factors beyond our knowledge, in virtue of which local reductions of suffering would cause global increases in suffering.

(A5) Whenever we recognize the possibility of factors beyond our knowledge that would justify an apparent moral degeneracy, we must withhold judgement.

And would conclude instead:

(A-PoE) Whatever the warrant for (1) and (2), it is neutral with respect to the tenability of (3).

What I have been pointing out is that (A5), plus an expression of general epistemic modesty, commits one to the impossibility of judging any action or situation morally degenerate.

(C6) For any apparent moral degeneracy, it is always possible in principle that some factor or factors involving overall consequences, motives, or character, would justify it.

Therefore,

(A-Moral Nihilism) For any apparent moral degeneracy, we must withhold judgement.

Now, is this a logical incoherence? No, as I’ve granted. You can accept this without violating some logical law. But honesty surely requires Christianity to admit this commitment. Perhaps some sort of “truth in advertising” law could be invoked to have this included as a footnote in every tract or pamphlet that hawks John 3:16...

mattbballman

Thank you for your comments,

I'm going to take some time off from the internet due to the holidays. I'll be researching the ideas and arguments that emerged in our interchange!

Merry Christmas!
See ya next year!

matt

mattbballman

metcaf,

This is going to be my last post on this thread. I think we've taken this as far as it can go:-D

"This is not the issue. The issue is whether this situation is likely, and whether if it is likely, that is good reason to think L is infeasible. Both of those statements would require argumentation. Maybe it is true that Ivan will never enroll in Phil 101. But no one will find it intuitively appealing to conclude "Oh, then every example of L would be infeasible."

-- In order for Situation L to be likely it has to have warrant. To wit, only possibility has been advanced. When I provide counterfactuals of creaturely freedom, it expresses why L must entail evidence for its acceptance. Since the theist is not making the claim here, the burden rests with explaining how L can be feasible. And its mere possibility is not evidence for its feasibility.

"To avoid the evidential argument, you'd have to give good reason to think every possible world that contains L is infeasible. This is simply not at all clear, and is rather doubtful when we consider that God is omnipotent. We only have to think that one of these possible worlds is in fact feasible (something that appears to be very probable -- for example, that ebola killed one fewer person in the last decade doesn't at all seem to suggest that this person's survival is infeasible because of a counterfactual of freedom), and theism is disconfirmed. "

-- Again, the circular reasoning here is disturbing. It cannot be concluded that a feasible world is probable only given that "we only have to think that one of these possible worlds is in fact feasible." And since the theist is not saying that Situation L is necessarily false, no special pleading for a modal theistic proof is required. Neither is the theist suggesting that Situation L is false. She only needs to call it into question -- a sort of suspended judgment on the matter. And this is done effectively by noting the counterfactuals. I need only take the agnostic position that one does not know (nor can know due to cognitive limitations) that Situation L can feasibly be actualized.

"You still have not answered my point about the extension of our skepticism: You cannot consistently believe that earth is more than 1,000 years old, because it might be infeasible for God to create a world in which good is maximized and humans know the true age of earth."

-- This is an interesting comparison because it explicates precisely why one cannot simply assume something from its mere possibility. That it is false that the earth is less than 1,000 years old is not being based on the same non-sequitur arguments proponents of the problem of evil raise. That is, no scientist is saying, "Well, there is a possible world where the earth is older than 1,000 years; therefore, the earth is older than 1,000 years." Instead, there are observational and theoretical reasons why the earth is about 4.5 billion years old. But no such fortune abounds for attempting to prove why Situation L is true. I shall illustrate. Your analogous argument appears to be saying,

(p1) If it might be infeasible for God to create a world in which good is maximized and humans know the age of the earth then you cannot consistently believe that the earth is more than 1,000 years old.
(p2) It might be infeasible for God to create a world in which good is maximized and humans know the age of the earth.
(C) Therefore, you cannot consistently believe that the earth is more than 1,000 years old.

There is no doubt that (p2) is possible, but there is no reason to believe or deny it. But the solution is not to assume that (p2) is false. Instead, we can actually overturn (C) by replacing (p2). Because we actually have good and non-speculative grounds for the age of the earth (denying p1's consequent), we can turn this into evidence for the feasibility of an old earth with which humans are aware. For one, we can ascertain the age of the earth by radiometric means in rock strata. And if we reconstruct the premise for being skeptical of earth's old age, we can now argue:

(p1) If it might be infeasible for God to create a world in which good is maximized and humans know the age of the earth then you cannot consistently believe that the earth is more than 1,000 years old.
(p2*) You can consistently believe that the earth is more than 1,000 years old.
(C*) Therefore, it is not infeasible for God to create a world in which good is maximized and humans know the age of the earth.

But the Drangian problem of evil has no hope of proving the actuality of our universe containing gratuitous or purposeless evil. Now permit me to draw the analogy of this reconstruction to the Drangian problem of evil we have been discussing:

(p1) If it is infeasible for God to create a world in which good is maximized and lesser evil than the actual world exists then you cannot consistently believe that Situation L is actualizable.
(p2) You can consistently believe that Situation L is actualizable.
(C) Therefore, it is not infeasible for God to create a world in which good is maximized and lesser evil than the actual world exists.

My contention is that there is no conceivable way to prove that (p2) is true. And these appeals to (p2) being possible are non-sequitur to it.

This has been an interesting dialogue but I have other commitments that require my attention at the present time. I will give you the last word!

matt

Clutch

matt, of course commitments are commitments. Still, after pointing out the defectiveness of your thinking in some detail, I'm a bit disappointed that you're bugging out without addressing those defects. The basic problem (yet again) is that your apologetic hinges upon the following claim:

When we recognize the possibility of factors beyond our knowledge that would justify an apparent moral degeneracy, we must withhold judgement.

But our knowledge is never strictly complete for any moral judgement -- and this will especially be true if the moral facts are determined by a god in a manner that ex hypothesi can radically transcend our knowledge. (So that, e.g., the massacre of women and children can be divinely determined as a good thing.)

On your theodicy, we are finite; God is infinite; if he determines that the slaughter of the Amalekites was moral, then moral it was. But now it's clear that, for all we know, events like the Holocaust or the murders by Dahmer and Gacy were divinely determined to be good. Where were you when God laid the foundations of the earth -- how, in short, can you pretend to have complete knowledge to the contrary conclusion?

You cannot. Hence, by your own crucial premise, you must withhold judgement on the moral status of events like the Holocaust, child murders... in short, on the moral status of every event.

And, as I have argued, it seems that the term "moral nihilism" applies quite nicely to the consequence that we cannot actually make moral judgements.

Bluster to the effect that this gets the story backwards, rehearsing a Master Narrative according to which Christians are the moral absolutists while atheists are the moral nihilists, is just that: bluster -- and philosophically uninformed bluster at that. I'm not reciting a conventional wisdom; I'm demonstrating what your view commits you to. It is no response, then, to recite a shibboleth. You must engage the argument -- preferably, of course, by recognizing its probity and dropping the idea that Christianity grounds a morality.

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by mattbballman :

"In order for Situation L to be likely it has to have warrant. To wit, only possibility has been advanced. When I provide counterfactuals of creaturely freedom, it expresses why L must entail evidence for its acceptance."

The evidence, as I have mentioned time and time again, is that God is omnipotent. This is a reason to believe that some reduction in suffering is feasible. Here is further reason: we can imagine many cases in which a local reduction in suffering does not appear to produce a global increase in evil; further: we can imagine some reductions in suffering that have nothing to do with human freedom. These are some evidence that L is feasible.

"It cannot be concluded that a feasible world is probable only given that 'we only have to think that one of these possible worlds is in fact feasible.'"

I mean that is it probable that one of these possible worlds is feasible. One of the possible worlds in which L has obtained is feasible. My evidence is as stated above, that (1) God is omnipotent; (2) we can imagine reductions in suffering that do not appear to increase global evil; (3) there is suffering that does not appear to have anything to do with freedom.

"(p1) If it might be infeasible for God to create a world in which good is maximized and humans know the age of the earth then you cannot consistently believe that the earth is more than 1,000 years old.
(p2) It might be infeasible for God to create a world in which good is maximized and humans know the age of the earth.
(C) Therefore, you cannot consistently believe that the earth is more than 1,000 years old."

This should function as such an argument, yes.

"There is no doubt that (p2) is possible, but there is no reason to believe or deny it. But the solution is not to assume that (p2) is false. Instead, we can actually overturn (C) by replacing (p2). Because we actually have good and non-speculative grounds for the age of the earth (denying p1's consequent), we can turn this into evidence for the feasibility of an old earth with which humans are aware."

We do? All of our reasons are based upon the assumption that our earth-dating methods work, but it might be infeasible for God to create a world in which good is maximized and humans don't know that their earth-dating methods work correctly. We can apply this skepticism to any empirical justification.

(p1**) If it might be infeasible for God to create a world in which good is maximized and humans know that their ways of determining the age of earth don't work, then you cannot consistently believe that humans have any way to know how old earth is.
(p2**) It might be infeasible for God to create a world in which good is maximized and humans know that their ways of determining the age of earth don't work.
(C**) Therefore, you cannot consistently believe that humans have any way to know how old earth is.

This argument (purportedly) provides reasons to deny your replacement of (p2), and arguments of its schema can be applied and re-applied ad infinitum. I believe it makes more sense to recognize that the mere assertion of the possibility of L's infeasibility is not enough to conclude the probability of L's infeasibility, which, in turn, is required to meet the reasons to believe L is indeed feasible, as detailed above.

mattbballman

clutch,

I'll just respond to some points you made. I finished on some of my commitments early:-)

"When we recognize the possibility of factors beyond our knowledge that would justify an apparent moral degeneracy, we must withhold judgement. "

-- Neither explicitly nor implicitly has this judgment been made by me. The point about inscrutability concerns a feasible world where there exists less evil than the actual world but the same good. My response explicated that one cannot prove how this can be done; and appealing to possible worlds only makes the problem of evil more dubious. And you never came back on this point.


"But our knowledge is never strictly complete for any moral judgement -- and this will especially be true if the moral facts are determined by a god in a manner that ex hypothesi can radically transcend our knowledge. (So that, e.g., the massacre of women and children can be divinely determined as a good thing.) On your theodicy, we are finite; God is infinite; if he determines that the slaughter of the Amalekites was moral, then moral it was. But now it's clear that, for all we know, events like the Holocaust or the murders by Dahmer and Gacy were divinely determined to be good. Where were you when God laid the foundations of the earth -- how, in short, can you pretend to have complete knowledge to the contrary conclusion? "

-- If you're implying that Christian ethics are based on arbitrary commands made by God then therin lies your error. Rather, what is good is what is God's nature and those divine commands are the expressions of that nature.


"Bluster to the effect that this gets the story backwards, rehearsing a Master Narrative according to which Christians are the moral absolutists while atheists are the moral nihilists, is just that: bluster -- and philosophically uninformed bluster at that. I'm not reciting a conventional wisdom; I'm demonstrating what your view commits you to. It is no response, then, to recite a shibboleth. You must engage the argument -- preferably, of course, by recognizing its probity and dropping the idea that Christianity grounds a morality."

-- Fortunately, the historical panoply of atheist philosophers have answered this for you which makes my response here all the more tidy. Many atheist philosophers deny that ethics are in any sense objective or absolute even though some maintain this inconsistent view that they are objective without appeal to any transcendent foundation. What is odd, if not downright contradictory in this bit of irony, is that no atheist philosophers accuse Christianity of being nihilistic as you have surmised. That is novel indeed!

matt

Jamie_L

Matt,

It seems that a basic disagreement here seems to be this:

Thomas contends that if God exists and if God is omnipotent, his omnipotence is evidence that a possible world is probably a feasible world unless there is evidence to the contrary.

You apparently disagree. Thus, you claim there is no evidence for L being feasible.

I would be interested in hearing a more detailed response from you on this particular issue. I, myself, agree with Thomas. It seems clear to me that the definition of omnipotence is being able to bring about any situation. At the very least, it seems that omnipotence entails the notion that things are more likely feasible than infeasible. Otherwise, we have drastically altered the definition of omnipotence. If we cannot assume that an omnipotent being can do something, it seems we cannot assume that being is omnipotent.

Jamie

HRG

You have just pushed the problem one level upwards. What or who determined God's nature to make it non-arbitrary ?

If Huitzilopochtli exists, does this mean that his nature commands the sacrifice of humans ? IOW, what determined in your worldview that God's nature would be as Christians claim it to be, and not asking for human sacrifice ?

BTW. "good" is a word of human language and thus its meaning is defined by human use. It does not mean "what God is".

Regards,
HRG.

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by Jamie_L :

"At the very least, it seems that omnipotence entails the notion that things are more likely feasible than infeasible."

That's the basis of my argument, yeah. For any given situation, it is more likely feasible than not, all else equal. This is a consequence not only of God's omnipotence but of the fact that most describable situations don't seem to have anything to do with free will. Thanks for pointing out from a different perspective what I believe mattbballman (and Guthrie) need to show much more clearly.

SRB

If all evil in the world may be, for all we know, necessary for the realisation of some greater good, then it follows that the Holocaust may have been, for all we know, necessary for the realisation of some greater good. Do you agree?

If the Holocaust really was necessary for the realisation of some greater good then if the Holocaust had been prevented that would have made things worse overall, perhaps in ways we cannot presently see. [If X is NECESSARY for a greater good then it follows that preventing X prevents the realisation of that greater good].

Let us suppose for a moment that the Holocaust may have been, for all we know, necessary for the realisation of some greater good. In that case, for all we know the prevention of the Holocaust would have made the world a worse place. But that is surely absurd! If that were true then we would have no reason to think that our prevention of the Holocaust would have made things better rather than worse. The people in the 1940s would have had no good reason to try to prevent the Holocaust! Is this something you accept?

Quite obviously, this argument has implications beyond issues relating to prevention of the Holocaust. If we really don't know that the world would be a better place without cancer, terrorism, AIDS, etc, then we would have no reason to try to prevent any of those things. Anyone who claims to know that the world would be a better place without the Holocaust, cancer, AIDS and terrorism needs to reject your notion of God (as a being who allows those things because they are necessary for the realisation of a greater good).

SRB