Wiploc

Will you agree though, that if god was truly omnipotent --- if he could actually do anything he wanted --- then there would be no such thing as necessary suffering?

It is the logical PoE that reduces Christians to talking about a god who can't violate logic or doesn't know the future. And that, in turn, is why atheists start talking about the evidentiary PoE.
crc

rainbow walking

rw: Really? Then describe such a world for us, sans evil. [/b]


Hawk: Picture heaven without god or christians and you'd have a good idea.

rw: Looks like somebody already has Hawk, (pictured it I mean)

NonContradiction

Well, evidently not all atheists think the way you do.

NonContradiction

Do you think that it's some sort of victory for you in the debate about the existence of God to believe that God cannot be and not be simultaneously. I know of no philosopher who thinks the way you do. The vulgar, to use Humes' terminology, may think that the laws of logic prove that God isn't Omnipotent, but I know of no one else.

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by wiploc :

I don't think so. Most Christian philosophers are quite happy with talking about God being only as powerful as it is possible to be. And I'm inclined to agree that omnipotence is only being as powerful as it is conceptually possible to be.

Well, yeah, but I don't think to say that omnipotence is constrained by logical possibility is that big of a concession.

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by NonContradiction :

Evidently, but I'd be interested to see what you think of the evidential argument from evil.

NonContradiction

If I get a scratch, is that gratuitous pain and suffering? If it can be successfully argued that my suffering a scratch was completely unnecessary, then that, according to many people's definition, would be gratuitous evil. I think that is absurd.



Even if the argument is formulated so that it doesn't contain any normative statements, they are still implied. If God is good, then He should prevent gratuitous evil.

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by NonContradiction :

If it was unnecessary for a greater good.

Well, if you like, we can say that only intense gratuitous suffering is evil. The rest of gratuitous suffering is just something else. The argument from evil is still forceful, because there's a lot of intense suffering that seems to be gratuitous.

Maybe, but not there. The normative statement behind the scenes is "a person should prevent gratuitous suffering." The statement about a morally perfect person is a factual one, that she will prevent gratuitous suffering, not that she ought.

NonContradiction

I think that one of the biggest mistakes that Christianity makes is to assert that human nature is evil. Human beings, by nature, are benevolent creatures. Would a mother want to see her child suffer? Obviously not, and for that reason most people find it quite disturbing to hear of a mother who has killed her own children. Such a tragedy makes no sense to us whatsoever because it goes completely against the nature of what it means to be a mother. We are left asking why, but there are no answers.

It's my belief that the nature of God is benevolent and that the nature of all beings, including Satan, is benevolent. The existence of evil is a result of some beings going against, for whatever reason, their own benevolent nature. Is God to blame for some beings going against their benevolent nature? I don't think so. Is God to blame for not preventing malevolent beings from harming benevolent ones? Perhaps God has a good reason for not preventing evil? If He does have a good reason, then I don't see why His benevolence and non prevention of evil would conflict, do you? If He doesn't have a good reason, then I would agree with you that God isn't benevolent.

Wiploc

I think, as we often use the word good, if god were good he would want to prevent suffering. Not should, want to, but would want to. By definition. Because that's what we mean by "good."

It is of course possible to undefine "good," so that it doesn't imply anything at all. If we don't know what "good" means, then we can have no expectations of a good god. But if that's what you are doing, then you aren't saying anything when you say god is good.

So, if you aren't using my definition ("wants to prevent suffering," or, "wants people to be happy") and you aren't totally undefining the word, then you must be using another --- undisclosed --- meaning of "good."

Based on the traditional Christian picture of history, we might offer the definition, "glory hound." That is, god could have left us, unsuffering, in Eden; instead, he chose to have us Fall, and gave us a most terrible punishment for falling --- all for the purpose of being glorious by saving some of us unworthy (fallen) souls from that punishment.

I assume you'll reject my definition of good. And I assume you'll reject "glory hound" as the meaning. And I assume you won't want to leave it undefined and meaningless. But I don't know what meaning you will offer.

There are two ways to go. You can offer a meaning, and live with its weaknesses. (By way of example, if "good" means "increasing god's glory," there is no reason men ought to be good.) Or you can go with arcane obscurantism, saying that god knows what is good to god, so when we say that god is good, we are saying something, even though we don't know what it is that we are saying. This move, it seems to me, has both of the aforementioned problems: It means we aren't really saying anything when we say god is good, and it means there isn't any reason to want to be good ourselves.

crc