mattdamore

Hey Tom! Sorry for the wait. My job has been especially pernicious in my being able to participate in these forums.

This is probably where I might need a reminder. At first glance, I may be inclined to agree with you in that mere possibility is not sufficient to deter your claims that were made in the original post. But upon further reflection I want to focus on what is involved in and in what way is the word 'useless' being used here. By involve, I mean to be in relation to. Is 'useless' being used to justify something like or close to the following:

A: One is justified in coming to the conclusion of the non-existence of a justifying reason God may have for allowing certian evils if and only if 1. There are no evidences which are convincing that prove the existence of the Judeo-Christian God. 2. There is no successful theodicy that the apologist is at liberty to utilize. 3. The tossing about of possibilities is the only way in which the apologist goes about trying to rebut the plausibility of the antecedent of this particular biconditional.

Now the 3rd sub-branch to A is what I want to focus on. Let's symbolize what it is that it seems like you are trying to argue.

A*: There seems to be no discernable reason which I can sense why God would allow certain evils.

B: There probably is not a reason which exists why God would allow certain exist.

The question seems to be this: What justification do you have that would justify you in going from A* to B? Now, it seems like you are relying on the first 2 sub-branches of the biconditional for the plausibility of your justificatory inference from A* to B. What about the branch? I have a picture in my mind of a scale which, on either side, is being weighed by pebbles labeled either possibilities (p) or probabilities (P). It seems that if there exists an extra reason which would make B assert its opposite, then the probabilities from my extra reason and B would cancel eachother out, leaving the first two branches in the biconditional left to be proven, thereby taking away from the plausbility of A* and adding plausbility to both C and D.

C: There seems to be a possible reason that God might have for allowing certain evils if one can only be allowed to discuss the truth-value of the first 2 sub-branches of the biconditional.

D: It is probable that this reason would be utilized if it were the case that God existed.

My idea of the scale being that your P's accompanied by your p's would not outweigh my P's accompanied by the conjunction of my p's and the two sub-branches of biconditional.

This being said with the knowledge that there may be a reason that man hasn't even thought and/or a reason that may not be fully appreciated if looked at from a human point of view, and, therefore, a reason which only God could appreciate. I don't know if that would have any ethical epistemological effects, but that is another discussion.

But, in conclusion, the original purpose of your post was accomplished and I would agree that the mere postulation of possibilities within the nexus of an evidential argument would be superfluous and non-sensical.

Ok, but why is this? Why would God's omnipotence impede Him from utilizing evil's if it is the case that they are the necessary means by which one must go through with in order to arrive at the greater good (which is 'most possible saved'). We might need to go into a discussion on the nature of God's omnipotence.

Ok, but I don't think that it has to be an a priori reason. The a posterori nature of my reason consists in the 2 sub-branches which were explicated above in the biconditional.

I don't see how it is overwhelming. 0.5 would entail, I think, a slight advantage over the position with which you are contending. Also, I don't see how it is the case that you come up with these probability assignments for actual and possible evils. Are taking them in isolation again? If so, then I concede with not the slightest bit of strength subtracted from my argument. Since my premise was that these evils are not to be taken in isolation in assessing the probability that it is involved in the greater good. If they are not taken in isolation, then I think we could safely say that the probability would be significantly above 0.5.

Ok, I think this path will be again reduced to what means God should be morally compelled to take in getting the most people saved within the matrix of libertarian free-will. Since you are still focusing on limiting evil in your attempt at making God not omni-benevolent, I must stear us away from this, because the greatest good is not in fact the limiting of evil, but the most possible saved. And if evil is a necessary prerequisite for this actuality, then if the limiting of evil entail fewer saved, then limiting evil would not be in the mind of the apologist giving a defense for reasons why God would allow it in the first place. Thus, it is not the limitation of evil which is the greater good, but the necessary consequencing eminating from the way in which God uses particular evils which are necessary in producing the counterfactual outcome of the most possible saved. This should stear us back into GA and whether or not that is a better and/or possible means God could have used in preserving the most saved instead of allowing evils. This may be what the discussion between you and RainbowWalking is about right now.

My only qualms would be this idea that knowledge of a thing implies a greater salvific response to the thing provided that the thing lie in conjunction with other doctrines which encapsulate our knowledge of the thing within the world-view of Christianity. I think our discussion would need to vear more into the sinful nature, since I would say that this sinful nature would deter us in making a 'nature' changing choice to salvation, since this nature is completely hostile towards with that particular nature would be aiming on choosing.

Feinberg says, It assumes that if God rearranged the world, all of us would draw the right conclusion from our circumstances and do right. Our desires, intentions, emotions, and will would all fall into place as they should without abridging freedom at all. This is most dubious, given our finite minds and wills as well as the sin nature within us that inclines us toward evil.

Craig says, Rather than submit to and worship God, people rebel against God and go their own way and so find themselves alienated from God, morally guilty before him, groping in spiritual darkness and pursuing false gods of their own making. The terrible human evils in the world are testimony to man's depravity in our state of spiritual alienation from God. . . . Scriptures indicate that God has given mankind over to the sin it has freely chosen; he does not interfere to stop it but lets human depravity run its course. This only serves to heighten mankind's moral responsibility before God, as well as our wickedness and our need of forgiveness and moral clensing.

What would this consist in? How do you know that God may or may not have various overriding reasons for not creating that character? Should it be up to you to prove that this stronger moral character would lead to more saved than unsaved persons with the present character? I'm not sure that one can, with a straight theological face, argue for a 'stronger' inclination to overcome sin. I think its more of an all or nothing affair. Once you have it, you have it, and there's 'stronger' inclination which could possibly be allowed within the strict qualifications given to the sin nature by various theological explications.


Ok. My ceteris paribus would consist in evils being used by God because the utilization of particular evils leads to the most possible saved.

I may have to ask you what you mean by these concepts, 'logically possible' and 'bring-about-able'. I would understand 'bring-about-able' to be equivalent in meaning to the term feasible. Now feasible, I think, is not the same thing as 'logically possible'. The power to bring about one is not the same when bringing about the other. In short, every state of affairs, I believe, that happens to be feasible (bring-about-able) is logically possible. But not everything which is logically possible is actualizable, feasible, and/or bring-about-able. Since it seems that the 3 scenerios which you postulated were deemed to be not only logically possible, but also bring-about-able, I am inclined to think that the burden proof would be on you to prove that these states of affairs are actualizable. S1-S3 would need to be proven to be feasible in conjuntion with their necessary (de re) D counterparts. It seems that until the feasibility of the adding on of D to S1-S3 is proven, then it seems that I'm within my epistemic rights to believe that the present world is the moral obligatory one.

Ok. But hiding or no hiding, a miracle is being done. Let's go back to that Feinberg quote which said something along the lines of the actual miraculous intervention of God would lead us to question to wisdom of God, since God obviously intended to create a certain kind of human, and if the object of his intentions are constantly being miraculously thwarted then the wisdom through which God operates to perform these miracles would be questionable. It seems intuitive that a perfect being would prefer to satisfy the kind of intentions which seek to create beings which do not involve petty miraculous intervention.

You said, Merely to re-assert that he created the kinds of beings he wanted to create is to point to a tautology. The question is: Did he in fact create the kinds of beings that a morally perfect being would create? I think the facts of evil in the world say no.

I don't think it is a tautology, because the kind of beings God wanted to create is defined by Feinberg. If a reasonable idea of what God would want to create is explained, then to say that God wanted to create those particular claims would not be a tautology, but true statement. So what is this reasonable idea? I'll quote Feinberg, I believe he intended to create beings with the ability to reason, with emotions, with wills that are compatibilistically free (although freedom isn't the emphasis of this defense), with desires, with intentions, and with the capactiy for bodily movement. God did not intend for individuals to be identical in respect to these capacities. God also intended to make beings who are finite both metaphysically and morally (as to the moral aspect, our finitude doesn't necessitatedoing evil but only that we don't have God's infinite moral perfection). Thus, human beings are not superhuman beings or even gods. Moreover, God intended for us to use our capacities to live and function in a world suited to beings like us. Hence, he created our world, which is run according to the natural laws we observe, and he evidently didn't intend to annihilate what he had created once he created it.

I leave it at there.

No, I believe that it is true that gratuitous evil and the existence of God are logically incompatible.

I was under the impression that it went a little deeper than that. John Leslie has an erudite article called 'The Prerequisites of Life in our Universe' and Robin Collins has an article named 'Design and the Many-Worlds Hypothesis' (teleological). Stuart C Hackett contributes in writing 'The Value Dimension of the Cosmos: A moral argument' (axiological). J.P. Moreland convincingly argues a dualist arguement for God's existence in his article 'Searle's Biological Naturalism and the Argument from Consciousness' (Noological). And, I believe, that philosopher/scientist Quentin Smith greatly contributed to the discussion of the ontological argument (pace Plantinga) in his article 'The Conceptualist Argument for God's existence'.

I just finished my sophmore year. I'll be a junior this next semester. I'm pretty familiar with the works you've mentioned. Thanks for your help!

matt