One-eyed Jack

lcb, the Freewill Defense is rather thoroughly discredited. Here is one analysis of its shortcomings: <a href="http://hem.passagen.se/nicb/Theodicy.htm" target="_blank">Niclas Berggren's</a> essay. People are reacting impatiently to your post because they are familiar with the arguments...it might be good if you read Berggren's essay and perhaps some others before you get in too deeply here.

Just a suggestion, humbly offered, of course.

Kantian

To be charitable, one could say that Icb, in his own words, was exhuming the ancient distinction between theoretical and practical reason in morality. But then again, perhaps I have had my "Kant" eyeglasses on far too long.

TooBad

The lottery players are separated into two classes. The "blue" class contains one member: Mr Bloggs. The "red" class contains all the other players. Probability of a "blue" outcome is 1 in 14 million.

If you say "There's nothing special about Mr Bloggs", I think Mr Bloggs might have something to say about that. Of course, he's "biased", but:

An objective observer could argue that there's nothing special about life. You might disagree, but then you're a living creature. You're biased too.

TooBad

Apologies to all for labouring this.

Philip Osborne

"But it's considerably more appealing that there's such a thing as several best possible amounts of fruit. It's certainly conceivable that there could be too much fruit on such an island."

Suppose that what makes a possible world great is having the greatest surplus of good over evil. Are you then suggesting that there is such a thing as too much of a surplus of good over evil?

"Do you agree that for every Q v -Q, either Q is better than -Q, Q is equally as good as -Q, or Q is worse than -Q?"

A side note: I could be wrong, but I don't think "-" is normally used as a negation sign. I've normally seen ~ or ¬. At any rate, yes, I agree, since it seems to be a conceptual truth.

"Really, I think it's still quite believable that God has removed as much gratuitous evil as it is possible to remove. Perhaps this verbalization is more acceptable than...."

First, most theists hold that no gratuitous evil exists in the actual world (there is evil, but none of it is gratuitous), so on this view, there is no need to hold that there is no such thing as the minimum possible amount of such evil. Secondly, it is not immediately obvious that God's paramount desire is to minimize gratuitous evil; if it were, then God would not actualize anything other than Himself. Minimizing gratuitous evil is thus only a means to achieve God's purpose.

"Well, I don't believe that alien properties exist or subsist, and I think your position requires that there be an infinity of them."

Of course, alien properties by definition do not exist in the actual world. However, I see no problem with there being an infinite amount of possibly instantiated alien properties; as I've mentioned, this does not seem to entail infinite complexity in the actual world. I am not even aware of what problems there are for a world that is infinitely complex. My question is this: Do you think that the S5 axiom of modal logic (Mp =&gt; LMp) is true?

Sincerely,

Philip

lcb

to quote YODA: understand not the chess game they do....how do you cull the morally superior folks from the herd while preserving free will? and how do you do this juxtaposed with free agents who concomittantly are pursuing evil? if the theological "soul" has free will and is also eternal (as the Bible seems to say) then God himself has an extraordinarily difficult balancing act....if he chooses to use eternity to balance the equation , it would seem to be his perogative.The disneyland argument is a false dichotomy. God is not conjuring up this evil.free will agents are and so are the free agents that stand by and do nothing, which brings us back to medical student A and B and that inscrutable requirement of God that every soul be judged individually and not corporately. God says in the bible that all the saints will sit and observe the judging process and that they will see that it is fair...how can it be "fair"? i struggle with this, to be honest, but the best i can understand so far is something i was told by military instructors at a very difficult series of advanced courses...they kept saying that when you make it through (IF you make it through) you will be glad you did it and you will understand some day when you need to know what we taught you. they were right. I hope God is, and is right too.

Kantian

If you meant the concept of free will, that is an easy question. One's constitution, beliefs, choices, environmental conditioning, and genetic predispositions all combine into a certain moral character. The concept of free will is pornography for theologians. You seek to extradict a single concept at the costs of all other factors in order to defend your presuppositions of herd morality.

All these questions you offer are loaded with the presupposition that evil and free agents are clearly defined, that there is only one universal morality, that your false-face is objective. This query begs the question by importing a moral framework, and is a question that seeks to justify its own presuppositions. A person may pursue an end which another person of a different morality may condemn, and consequently brings us out of your limited thought-box of a moral framework.

Let's not forget that this omnipotent being foresaw all this "difficult balancing act" long before he created man. Ergo, there's no excuse whatsoever you can come up in order to remove this "omnipotent" entity from the equation. After all, you do assume that God exists "outside of time" despite the violation of the principle of significance this phrase committs? Once the urges of reason outstrips all empirical content, it becomes illusory, metaphysical even, perhaps, but nothing else.

How so? Are you referring to the same thing i am? The promise of a final judgment does not excuse all the suffering that has taken place under this so-called "omnipotent" being's watch.

God is responsible for everything, since he is omnipotent and omniscient. He decided to award man this ability of "free will," as well as with the full knowledge of what evil or good this entails, therefore, He is responsible of this attribute. A programmer that awards his machines a proclivity to disobey orders and wreak havoc would be subject to the same standard. Once you remove God from this equation you render the concept of God a paradox and in the end, meaningless. Soren Kierkegaard is the only final solution to all theodicies, and i strongly advise you to look him up.

Doesn't God also hold this ability of freedom? Isn't God above all limitations, since He must be the perfect being? Therefore your limited morality ought apply to God as well, since he is a free agent that "stands by and do nothing" for the past 2000 years. By the way what do you mean, 'corporately?'

As long as they share the same herd morality you presuppose, you'll be fine.

Ah, the father-knows-best defense, or more appropriately defined Unknown Purpose Defense resurrected. Why don't you try and address the rebuttals raised in this thread?

[ August 10, 2002: Message edited by: Immanuel Kant ]</p>

lcb

no, most purposes are known and clearly understood and make sense, some dont, but not most. man was not given perfect knowledge. man was created with physical, cognitive and situational limitations (according to the theology as i understand it). God could be a big fat evil bastard and yet he could still be God. Stalin was practically worshipped as a God and he murdered over twelve million of his own people.I dont read God as being omni-benevolent from the Bible by the way. Seems to me it says he he loves his creation and desires none to perish(be condemned) but that he requires righteousness(but provides a means of salvation which is freely available)..but it says he will judge and will condemn and will punish. for example, i asked a fellow soldier once why he had decided to abstain from brothels ( a not uncommon vice of soldiers overseas)..he said that once the AIDS epidemic/pandemic began he beacme afraid God would give him aids if he kept doing what he had been taught in Sunday school was wrong. I asked him-which do you fear most, Aids or God and he said"what difference does it make?" "God's judgment or intelligent design's biological judgemnt are equally severe in this limited context(paraphrased)...

holocaust in the hebrew means to "purify by fire", some theologians argue that that is what hell is.The merciless drill insructor that seems to pervertedly enjoy terrorizing his troops, who is a combat veteran and in reality is preparing them to survive and come back alive , experientially, becomes a "saint"/metaphorically... fwiw, the judgment process is very clearly spelled out in the Bible, fundamentalists and liberal theologians seem to agree on the central issues here. if we all, or even a majority of us chose to be medical student A, we wouldnt even be having this discussion here would we? when i think of the Noahic flood (lets assume it 'was' for arguments sake)i think about that. I dont like it, but i think about it. God destroyed those wicked that didnt obey him. He started over, and acording to revelation he is going to dstroy the wicked again. I'm scared of the dude...damn scared. why not then choose to be medical student A.?.I am gonna choose A. already have in fact.

hinduwoman

Er Keith, you are arguing from christian viewpoint.
In Hinduism, everything that exists is God.
Evil do come from God in the sense he is the creator of all things and responsible for everything.
God is omnipotent, but he does not remove the evil because that is not what he wants to do.
Only the existence of omnipotent omnibenevolent God is impossible, not that of an simply omnipresent omnipotent one.

One-eyed Jack

Couple of things for ICB: You wrote, "God is not conjuring up this evil....free will agents are and so are the free agents that stand by and do nothing..."

A child is trapped in the rubble of an earthquake and dies rather slowly over a period of 4 or 5 days. What "free will agent" caused the earthquake? Actually, the Christian Bible tells us: "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things." (Isaiah 45:7) God does indeed conjure up this evil. Who else?

In another post you write: "man was not given perfect knowledge. man was created with physical, cognitive and situational limitations (according to the theology as i understand it). God could be a big fat evil bastard and yet he could still be God."

You have shifted from the freewill defense to the unknown purpose defense when you say that because man was not given perfect knowledge he cannot understand God. This is all very well, but what value scripture if man cannot know, for instance, if God is telling the truth or not? Certainly He has put plenty of ambiguities and contradictions into the Bible...maybe that's His way of crying out for help, eh? As in the Onion article which diagnosed God as bipolar.