mattbballman

tom,

"My position is that a person with her finger on the button to detonate a nuclear device is more powerful than a person with the ability to plant a flower, although the former action would be evil and the latter good."

--Right. If you utilize the quantitative intepretation that I noted. But if, qualitatively, planting a flower were either seemingly neutral yet would bring about a greater good or good in and of itself and detonating a nuclear device, say, were not a good thing or would not bring about a greater good, then I would say based on Guthrie's qualitative definition that the being that planted the flower was more consistent with its definition. Of course, we have no way of humanly knowing which is the case. The point is, such omnipotence (in this new or annotated definition) is linked to an Anselmnian interpretation such that only God could be omnipotent.

"According to Flint and Freddoso's definition, and Hoffman and Rosencrantz's definition, God must be able to bring about S to be omnipotent. Please elaborate."

This is certainly one of the necessary conditions for omnipotence. But as far as contentions about Morriston, I don't think you understand the objection. In order for Morriston to be correct about omnibenevolence necessarily bringing about a specific state of creation, God Himself would have to be a changeless state of necessary and perfect goodness. And I disagree, as do most theistic philosophers, with this assessment.

matt

mattbballman

sandlewood,

"If ethics and morality (not the same things, but beside the point) are inherent in God’s nature, then you return to the original problem #2 in your page. Omnipotence is defined as anything God naturally does. As you say, “But, critics wonder, why would any definition for God’s omnipotence be crafted in such a way as to assume that whatever God is capable of is what omnipotence must be? It is clearly question-begging.” "

--His point here is to avoid coming up with a definition of omnipotence that says: Whatever God is, that is omnipotence. That's being tautological. With respect to objective moral values, the contention is not how one defines such values but, rather, where those values ultimately are rooted. In that sense, values are rooted in God's nature and not in His commands nor in some external something. But if you ask my how I define such values, I would take a different route by saying something like "Objective moral values are values commonly shared by most people whose existence does not depend what anyone believes about them."

"the problem is that he is merely claiming that anything god does—neutral, evil, or good—will turn out to be optimal moral good. This is not known. He first defines omnipotence as doing only morally good actions, but then forbids us from being able to determine what morally good actions are, thereby protecting his theory from any possible criticism."

--In the end, that's exactly what omnipotence should do it if is to apply to God only. But to say, "Well, I have no way of knowing if certain actions are neutral or neutral-leadin-to-good or whatever." Right again. It is too ambitious for us to think that we know the interrelation of every causal event in all of history. But, abstractly speaking, the greatest conceivable being must already know these things and so we should expect that such a being would enact only those actions that will promote, on balance, more good over evil.

--Finally, you have a seemingly naive view of textual translation. Not a single piece of non-English ancient literature has such a smooth, monolithic translation! The fact of the matter is, there are various translations of words from one language to another that do not bear only one meaning. For example, the word nephesh in Hebrew has over 20 different meanings in English. In those cases where the word appears, the context has to define the meaning. We also do this in English, I'm afraid. If I say "board," you know it does not contain only one meaning. It depends on how it is used: (i) Hand me that 2 x 4 board; (ii) Did you pay for your room and board? With respect to Isa. 45, you don't understand the philosophical difference between "moral evil" and "natural evil." So, your argument is contingent on this misunderstanding. However, the distinction is rampant in the literature on ethics. "Moral evil" is the evil as the direct or indirect result of human free actions. "Natural evil" is an evil brought on by natural processes (e.g., tornados, earthquakes, etc...). Even worse, you selectively cited the dictionary which gives more than one definition of evil, one of which is "Causing ruin, injury, or pain; harmful." And those need not entail human interaction. But if I had to find a word that contrasted to, or was the antonym to, "peace" it would not be "moral evil." Instead, contenders would be calamity or disaster (I never said "war," but that would be a contender as well). But if you are determined to critique God on the basis of deliberately choosing a definition that conforms to your critique, that says more about you than it does Isa. 45.

matt

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by mattbballman :

Then I guess I'm asking what motivation I have for accepting this redefined omnipotence. My version yields the result that the person with the ability to detonate the nuclear device is more powerful than the person with the ability to plant a flower. (In fact, the set of actions each can perform is quantitatively equal, so it's not a "quantitative" definition per se.) Guthrie's version would yield the result that the person with the ability to plant the flower is more powerful than the person with the ability to detonate a nuclear device. I'd say it's obviously true that the nuke-detonator is more powerful than the flower-planter, so we should reject Guthrie's definition unless we have independent reason to think the flower-planter is actually more powerful than the nuke-detonator. I'd be happy to consider such a reason.

Well, I certainly understand its appeal to Anselmians. But whether it is in fact an ad hoc attempt to save God's omnipotence at the cost of providing a considerably counter-intuitive view of what it means to be powerful is the question before us.

I don't recall that sort of notion explicit in Morriston's papers. Morriston doesn't require an omnibenevolent being to bring about a specific state of creation, just that it refrain from bringing about some specific states. This is a consequence of necessary moral perfection. Are you claiming that the Anselmian is justified in taking the position that God is corruptible, i.e. might cease to be morally perfect?

sandlewood

I don’t see the distinction between “moral values are rooted in God’s nature” and “morality is God’s nature”. I don’t know exactly what you mean by “rooted”. Morality will be determined by whatever God’s nature is. This makes it a tautology.

On a side note, to me, this is a good example of obfuscating an issue so that two contradictory concepts can be held in one’s head simultaneously. The concepts are made vague enough so that the contradiction is not so apparent, and one becomes satisfied.

This is circular reasoning. You assume that any action God performs must be the morally optimal action. The reason you assume this is because God is the greatest conceivable being—in other words, because he is omnipotent, which is what we are trying to define. There must be some independent way to know that actions end up being morally optimal in the end.

At this point one may object and say that God knows which actions will end up being morally optimal not through omnipotence, but through omniscience. Thus omnipotence depends on omniscience. However, as I understand it, knowing which actions will result in the optimal morality does not make a difference if God is unable to perform any other alternative action anyway. What is it that prevents God from doing an action that is slightly less that the optimal moral action?


Regarding the translation of the word “evil”: at this point I don’t want to get mixed up in debating various translations of the Bible. The fact that there are so many translations of the Bible and so many Christian denominations indicates to me that people will always disagree on translations. There are people who claim that the Bible says there is no Hell. There are Christians who claim that everyone including atheists will go to heaven. There are Christians who say Noah’s Ark was a metaphor and others who say it actually happened. So I just don’t see getting anywhere by arguing further with translations.

mattbballman

I apologize for the wait!! School work was holding me up. This, by the way is to Sandlewood. I will get to Metcaf's response shortly.

"I don’t see the distinction between “moral values are rooted in God’s nature” and “morality is God’s nature”. "

-- I've explained the difference where the first envisages a foundation for moral values and the latter is the definition of moral values. I'll give you another example to clear up your confusion: The foundation of a house may be the cement slab it sits on but a sufficient definition of a house might be a wood dwelling with windows, doors, and rooms. And I don't understand where you are getting this idea of a "contradiction" that I have somehow made satisfactory in my own mind as if to absolve criticism superficially.

"You assume that any action God performs must be the morally optimal action. The reason you assume this is because God is the greatest conceivable being—in other words, because he is omnipotent, which is what we are trying to define. There must be some independent way to know that actions end up being morally optimal in the end."

--Notice that Guthrie's representation of what omnipotence entails does not depend on whether or not the one omnipotent is God. As it turns out, only God is the one omnipotent. And this is brought to light when one understand that God will be the greatest conceivable being (else he would not be God for there could be a greater being than he). As far as knowing if actions will be optimally moral, there is no way we could prove that someone is acting in this way. But, the greatest conceivable being would be guaranteed to act this way because he will act necessarily in this way. And it will not do to wonder if a "slightly lesser good action" is possible within one's arsenal because all actions must be weighed together to result in an optimal balance -- something that one cannot possibly assess but something we would expect of the greatest conceivable being.

matt

mattbballman

tom,

Yeah, I don't disagree with your quantitative assessment of nuclear detonation versus planting a flower. In fact, it may even appear to have qualitative differences that might make nuclear detonation conceivably superior to planting a flower (i.e. the bombing of Hiroshima in WWII may have been just such an instance). On the other hand, perhaps a nuclear detonation in a civilized population (say, a terrorist act of a "dirty bomb") would be qualitatively inferior to planting a flower for its beauty. But then this falls into the query of Guthrie's article: What is it about an action that makes it morally superior? Perhaps it is the moral trait that makes us no longer look at the magnitude of an action or set of actions but, rather, at the quality of those actions. It's a question I'm raising with the hopeful conclusion of, instead of redefining omnipotence, finding a sufficient characteristic for omnipotence.

But I could be wrong.

matt

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by mattbballman :

That would be a nice thing to have. But I'm using my nuke/flower example as a kind of test for any sort of sufficient condition. One way we evaluate definitions is we see if they cover the obvious cases. And I think it's obvious that the ability to detonate a nuke is more power-granting than the ability to plant a flower. If we accept that principle, it follows that a mere ability to bring about morally better states of affairs is not sufficient for omnipotence.

So if you accept "It is more power-granting to be able to detonate a nuke for malicious purposes than to be able to plant a flower for benevolent purposes," you must reject the "moral" criterion as a sufficient condition. My suspicion is that most people's intuitions will support the above principle.

mattbballman

tom,

As he noted in the essay, the immediate intuitive characteristic of something like nuclear explosions being quantitatively more powerful than planting flowers is surely not under dispute (He noted how odd it would be for Mr. McEar to be just as powerful as God under certain definitions of quantitative omnipotence). But his qualitative definition would take more into account than just the magnitude, it would incorporate the long-term effects from a moral perspective (think of the cliche "The pen is mightier than the sword." Such is false purely from a quantitative perspective, but not from a qualitative one when contractual situations are envisaged with the "pen" which makes the cliche an effective truth -- in fact, he might use this in an upcoming draft to explicate the doctrine further).

And I do appreciate being pressed on this because this is how we grow in our knowledge. Whether the paradigm he's erected eventually tumbles, I think, still remains to be seen, but I could be wrong.

matt

Thomas Metcalf

Matt,

I guess I don't see the prospects to be very good for such a counter-intuitive definition of "omnipotent." My only suggestion is to see T.J. Mawson's response to Morriston in a recent Religious Studies where he attempts to preserve compatibility between omnipotence and necessary moral perfection. I don't think his solution works, but it's similar to what Guthrie seems to be suggesting.

It also seems to me that, even if we adopt this sort of qualitative omnipotence ("qual-omnipotence"), God will fail to be maximally powerful and therefore the Anselmian will be left unsatisfied. Let "quant-omnipotence" be the sort Guthrie is suggesting we de-emphasize. It seems to me that a maximally powerful being, and therefore a maximally great being, will have maximal quant-omnipotence and maximal qual-omnipotence. Someone who fails to satisfy either or both will simply not be maximally powerful.

mattbballman

tom,

Guthrie's thesis extends beyond making benevolence merely linked to or compatible with omnipotence, rather he moves that the two are necessarily linked (which elicits the Anselmnian interpretation). And I'm not impressed with Morriston's attacks since his tacit premise of state-state causation (e.g., that God's eternally willing to create the universe in an omnibenevolent way is a sufficient cause for the universe and its benevolence) is unfounded. Even more disturbing is his belief that

If God is necessarily morally perfect, then there is no possible world in which he actualizes any evil.

is contradictory to

If God is omnipotent, then he has the power to actualize any evil.

If Flint's Molinism in the "Maximal Power" essay had any impact at all, it is that the first statement is false. And if one attempts to show a sufficient causal relationship between God's existence as the kind of God that He is and the state of the world (as Morriston does contra Plantinga), then she commits this state-state causation error. And aside from objections to the second statement, Guthrie's analysis makes it dubious since it is possible that some evils will be required to bring about a maximized quality of goodness. But not in the misguided interpretation of state-state causation, but in a world where there exists at least a state-agent-state causation (or where there exist both weak and strong actualizations).

matt