doubtingt

[QUOTE]Originally posted by ManM:

quote: from doubtingT
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First this would exclude any possibility that God acts through the behaviors of others. Any theist who believes that God sometimes exerts his will through human actions would have no basis to distinguish Godly acts that are superficially "good" and those that appear "evil", but are for "the greater good".
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Quote from MamM:
The problem you highlight extends farther than theism. We really can't judge the ultimate utility of any action given that we don't know the outcome of other possible actions.

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From DoubtingT
If we are not trying to find excuses for an all-knowing, loving God, than their is no need to worry about "the ultimate utility". The morality of actions can (and should) be based simply upon whether the known outcomes are harmful to the
civil liberties of others. As our understanding of consequences grows, so should our morality.
To anyone with compassion for others, harm to others, should be the only criteria, and not the unknowable preferences of an imaginary tyrant.

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quote from Doubting T
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Also, if God has perfect forsight then he knows all the evil acts that humans will do and he knew all this before he created us. Thus, no human action is outside of God's intended and expected plan. To punish another's actions is to punish them for NOT acting against God's plan. To avoid this, you must assume that God may have had "perfect forsight", but he did not have the power to create us according to his will.
Therefore, he is not our creator, but a mere observer of our existence.
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From ManM
I think this conclusion can also be avoided by differentiating between God's goal (that we be moral) and His plan for realizing that goal.
We punish when people aren't being moral (hopefully) with the aim of correcting them. It might very well be God's plan that we fall, are punished, and through that return to morality. And so our punishing isn't opposed to God's plan, but rather is a part of it. God is the creator of a world going through growing pains.
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DoubtingT:
God may want us to be moral, but theism defines morality as whatever the will of God is. If his will is unknowable then what is moral is unknowable. If his will is for us to fall and be punished, then commiting acts that humans call immoral is actually part of God's will, and thus moral according to God. If this is the case, then is our duty to punish, but it is wrong to claim the punishee is immoral according to God or to prevent people from commiting immoral acts, which is to prevent them from carrying out God's will.

doubtingt

You can't have it both ways.
If humans have free will, then God cannot be all-knowing and all-powerful.
If he is, then every act we do is the result of
the way he chose to create us, knowing exactly what each of us would do. Thus, he is responsible
for every act and could have acheived his goal an infinite number of ways that would not required evil human acts, yet he chose this way.

Either everything that humans do is ultimately what God chose for them to do, or God cannot be
all-knowing and all-powerful.
If he is not, then he is not much of a God.

tergiversant

Let us for the nonce address only moral evils (e.g. rape, murder). Natural evils (e.g. toe stubs, plagues) may be considered another matter altogether.

Someone tries to commit an evil act, and is miraculously prevented from doing so.

In which premise?

I am not playing at anything. I am constructing an argument for reasoned consideration.

I have no such knowledge because there is no well-documented evidence of any divine intervention.

Can you give an (hypothetical) example?

No. That is the way induction works.

Are you claiming that God does act to prevent evil actions some substantial fraction of the time? If so, where is your evidence of such divine intervention? If not, then the argument may be readily modified to work with the premise “God rarely acts to prevent evil” and the conclusion “We should rarely act to prevent evil.”

In which premise?

I believe in both methodological and metaphysical naturalism, and the results of modern science. These beliefs are not assumptions, of course, but reasoned conclusions (I presume that you understand the difference). However, I have not used these beliefs to support any premises in my argument, at least not yet.

Is there good evidence of these? If so, perhaps you would care to present it in another thread?

Where am I doing this, exactly?

[ August 23, 2002: Message edited by: tergiversant ]</p>

ManM

doubtingt,
No, theism does not necessarily define morality as arbitrary to God's will. Morality can be defined as the proper relation between beings. The proper relation between beings is the relationship between the persons of the trinity. God wills that we (humanity) be one as He is one. And so when someone is immoral they are opposing God's will. Your claim is that we really can't say anyone is being immoral if God planned on them being immoral. I think it is quite obvious that we can call people immoral based on my reasoning above. But your argument is sound, so something has to give. I think the reasonable solution is that we are living in a world experiencing growing pains. The fact that we are growing does not mean that the pain is an illusion.

tergiversant,
You are hung up on "miraculously". When someone is prevented from doing an evil act by nature, I give God the credit. Are you going to claim that nature has prevented no one from committing an evil act?

Now you rejected the Christian theology of the resurrection because you don't believe in Jesus. The resurrection provides a direct rebuttal to your claim that God does not prevent evil. But that doesn't convince you, because you are an atheist to begin with. That is why I say your argument assumes atheism.

I've said nothing about what fraction of time God prevents evil. This is something we can't know. And don't you see that your insistence on evidence is just as silly as asking for a picture of an invisible entity? You cannot look at the world and deduce that God does or does not prevent evil. Such a judgment is only a matter of speculation.

And along the same lines:
I have no evidence that you can't interpret away. It never is a matter of evidence, but rather how we interpret the evidence. You look at the world through the lens of naturalism. I look at the world through the lens of theism. We can look at the same thing all day and still not agree as to what it means.

Sure you can change your argument. But this new argument begs a question. How does this God of yours choose to prevent evil? "We should not act to prevent evil" is a strong statement. "We should rarely act to prevent evil" is rather meaningless until you give an interpretation.

Finally, you asked me to point out where you are bringing in your baggage. You hold a very specific interpretation of realty, and so any evidence you find will be filtered through that interpretation. When I say flood, you immediately draw upon your worldview.

tergiversant

ManM,

Your unfounded accusations of naturalistic presupposition have grown quite tiresome. Unless you can address the relevant arguments and associated evidence, without appealing to the circumstantial ad hominem, there is rather little point in continuing this thread.

Okay, one more try…

It seems that you are claiming that premise (4) of my argument is false, that is, God does indeed prevent evil. To support this claim, you have appealed to a flood of some sort, the alleged resurrection of an itinerant Jewish peasant some two millennia ago, as well as unspecified natural events.

The first two claims you have not even attempted to substantiate, while the third does not constitute any evidence of divine intervention. In brief, you have not thus far presented any compelling evidence that God has prevented any evils whatsoever. Premise (4) stands unscathed.

ManM

Good show then. As I said before,

Infinity Lover

One thing I've learned is that you don't need to be a theist to be as stupid as God.

Thomas Metcalf

This highlights an important problem I see with the free will defense in all its forms. No one is asking that God control us. Theist proponents of FWD seem to equivocate when they use "free will" to mean both the decisions and the states of affairs that result from those decisions. Humans could all be perfectly free to decide whatever they wanted -- if we assume free will exists -- but the expression of their free will could be limited. After all, it's not as if all of our decisions reach expression anyway, even if theism is true.

God could allow us to make all the morally poor decisions we want, but intervene secretly to prevent the expression of more of them. We'd still be free beings, but there would be less evil.


Something that hasn't been covered enough in this particular thread, I don't think, is the fact that according to theism, we have no reason to prevent any evil because all evil that successfully occurs brings about a greater good -- otherwise, God wouldn't allow it. For every evil E1, either E1 is gratuitous or it isn't. If it is, then God doesn't exist. If it isn't, then there is some morally sufficient reason for it to exist, and we would be wasting our time if we tried to prevent it.

This argument for atheism seems to work for any moral theory. It is most obviously relevant to utilitarians, but it may be formulated into an evidential argument against divine command theorists, and even deontologicalists must admit that the intention to bring about some good is, almost by definition, a blameless action. The theist may respond that perhaps the action of the theist preventer is the action's greater good, but if the theist chooses not to respond in a time of need, God will act for the greater good, either preventing the evil Himself or letting it happen. No matter what ends up being the case, no evil will be unjustified, and I think this is a powerful reason to prefer atheistic morality to theistic morality.

ManM

Thomas Metcalf,
But the greatest good is to become like God... How will we become like God if we do not respond as He would in our situation? As I said before, we do not have the foresight to act in a utilitarian manner, and so all we can do is strive to fight the evil we see before us. If it is the best interest of all for a particular evil to happen, then we will fail to prevent it. That does not mean we should stop trying. By definition (greatest good is to become like God), to stop trying would be immoral.

[ August 26, 2002: Message edited by: ManM ]</p>

Mark_Chid

Jesus 'died' on the cross, but you also believe he isn't dead. This isn't 'death' as we understand it. I always seems to me that the resurrection cheapens the crucifixion - no death=no real sacrifice.

Perhaps the scripture should read
"God so loved the world that he LENT his only begotten son.." - thats a more honest decsription of the story!