Steven Carr

It really would help if you read Guthrie's argument. His Ivan is such that *whatever* his circumstances, he would freely refuse to do a certain action.

So in circumstances (S), Guthrie's Ivan would *always* freely choose the same way.

So Guthrie's argument , means God can create an Ivan, who , in all circumstances,would freely refuse to do a certain evil action.

Secondly, in your example where the same circs (S) lead to two totally different actions, this is the very definition of randomness. We only have free will, if our actions are random?

As circumstances S include Ivans' wants ,desires, emotions etc, all we can conclude is that no matter how much Ivan wants to do something, he cannot stop himself doing the opposite.

You have defined the circumstances as being identical, so there is literally nothing Ivan can change which will allow him to keep his aardvark if he wants to. To his astonishment, he may desperately want to keep his aardvark, and for literally no reason at all end up selling it.

Is this really your idea of free will? That I only have free will , if under the circumstance (S) of wanting only to sell my aardvark, I end up keeping it.

DO you believe we have no free will, if for the circumstance (S) of me wanting to sell my aardvark, I end up selling it? Surely the very definition of free will is that I will do what I want to do, not free will means 'in circumstances where I want to do X , I end up doing the opposite of X.'

Guthrie also believes his free will decisions being to exist. And Guthrie (as you will know if you read his work) believes that it is an obvious truth that all things which begin to exist have a cause.

So Ivan's free will decisions have a cause.

How then can exactly the same causes (S) produce two different free will decisions?

[ December 18, 2002: Message edited by: Steven Carr ]</p>

mattbballman

Thomas,

I've enjoyed our exchange, but given this last set of responses they still seem to commit the same mistakes (and some new ones) that have already been dealt with. I do not want to end up simply "cutting and pasting" responses here, so I'm letting you have the last word.

Thank you for your interest in the subject matter and, if it is feasible, don't be a stranger.

matt

mattbballman

Clutch,

My concerns have been framed in the form of four arguments under three headings.

The citation I gave reflects the attitude of the vast majority of logicians. Lund's citation is meant to serve as a recent representative of that consensus (and he's not even a theist!). Thus, in the absence of any criticisms of three of those four arguments and no good reasons provided to abandon Lund's observation, not much is salvaged for the proponent of the argument from evil.

matt

mattbballman

Carr,

I'm thinking of your criticisms for now.

matt

Clutch

matt, the quote from Lund is a triviality; reciting trivialities is pointless.

And you have given no relevant argument, under no heading, with respect to my observations. Was I misled by your addressing remarks to me, into thinking that you meant to address my observations?

In any case, your "feasibility" strategy reduces God's purported goodness to a triviality via redefinition and argument from ignorance. The strategy: For any evidence that a 3-omni god could reduce the suffering in the world all things considered -- eg, notice that we can, ergo God could -- define an interpretation of the modal "could". Call this "could*". Its defining features are that (i) "S is omnipotent" is stipulated to be consistent with "S could* not perform some logically possible acts"; and (ii) for all we know, God could* not reduce the suffering of the world all things considered.

Or, in other words: Sure, it seems conceivable that God could reduce suffering from actual levels. But since we don't know whether it's, ummm... feasible for God to do this, we must withhold judgement.

A transparent, if baroque, appeal to ignorance. The net gain is zero. Less, counting effort.

[ December 18, 2002: Message edited by: Clutch ]</p>

Thomas Metcalf

mattbballman:

I agree that we seem to be suffering some repetition.

You have not answered my (and others') point that Drange's formulation is an evidential argument, and therefore, the theist will require more than "maybes" and "possiblies." There is always antecedent reason to think God will be good at bringing about His goals (especially because, as Steven Carr has pointed out, we bring about similar goals all the time), so the burden of proof always lands, by default, upon the theist. "Possibly, L is infeasible" just won't get you very far. I see it as just another breed of Unknown Purpose Defense. This fact has been recognized in this thread by myself, by Dr. Retard, and by Steven Carr, and I do not think Guthrie can be plausibly defended on this point. To borrow and modify an analogy from Russell: Possibly, the infeasibility of a world with enough goodness in which humans are aware that earth is actually 1,000 years old may prevent God from allowing it. Do you suspend judgment on the question of the age of earth?

You have not answered my point that God is always in a position to choose to populate His world with a free person who is more likely to choose the good. This is certainly so if there is a person who is not at all likely to choose something, yet free, such as Ivan. Again, you begin with a burden of proof because God is omnipotent and able to populate His world very carefully, and there is prima facie reason to think a person that didn't choose evil would be better, viz., she doesn't choose evil, yet is free. The fact that this person who isn't as likely to choose evil would be just as free as Ivan provides good reason to think God wouldn't be losing anything. I have provided support for my side, so more "maybes" alone will not suffice to tip the scales toward your favor.

Finally, you have not answered my point that prevention of more baby-torture, prima facie, does not seem likely to constrain free will prohibitively, especially given the fact that God constrains our free will in thousands of other ways. My point here is that God ought to constrain the actualization of our free will choices more carefully, and it is thus independent of the foregoing paragraphs.

If I have simply missed something (or, I hope, several things), please re-direct me.

Restated...

I assert: Drange's argument is evidential, and therefore, the theist will require more than to cite possibilities.
I support this with: God is omnipotent, and humans bring about L all the time, so there is reason to suspect it is more likely than not that God could bring about L.
The burden of proof is now upon: the theist.
It may be discharged with: to show that my reasons to believe God could bring about L are inadequate, or, it is likely that for every change in the world that God could make to bring about L, this change is infeasible.
Inadequate would be: "Maybe for every change in the world God would make to bring about L, this change would be infeasible."

I assert: A free being S* that was less likely to choose evil would be better than a free being S.
I support with: This being would choose evil less often, yet would still be free.
The burden of proof is now upon: the theist.
It may be discharged with: to show that, while S* would choose evil less often, something else bad will probably happen because S* exists rather than S, for every S*.
Inadequate would be: "Maybe S* would screw up the world some other way if she existed."

I assert: God ought to constrain the actualization of our choices more carefully, with the undetectable use of natural laws.
I support this with: If this were so, there would be fewer horrendously evil choices in the world; it is not likely that the lack of free will would present a problem, because we already mostly lack free will (as far as number of evil actions in our repertoire), based upon the constraints of natural laws, to a very great degree. And it has never been clear why God values the actualization of humans' free will choices so much, rather than just the existence of the choices themselves. No one, in my experience, has told a plausible story that would explain why God doesn't just let the decisions themselves happen and then prevent the more of the actualization of those choices.
The burden of proof is upon: the theist.
It may be discharged with: to show God's constraining our ability to torture babies as often would probably be somewhat worse than His constraining our ability to perform minorly evil actions, and somewhat worse than is presently the case.
Inadequate would be: "Maybe it's actually best if we can torture babies as often as we do, but we can't perform any of thousands of minorly evil actions."

[ December 18, 2002: Message edited by: Thomas Metcalf ]</p>

mattbballman

Mr. Metcaf,

Let me use your summary to drive home my points at-a-glance.

"I assert: Drange's argument is evidential, and therefore, the theist will require more than to cite possibilities.
I support this with: God is omnipotent, and humans bring about L all the time, so there is reason to suspect it is more likely than not that God could bring about L.
The burden of proof is now upon: the theist.
It may be discharged with: to show that my reasons to believe God could bring about L are inadequate, or, it is likely that for every change in the world that God could make to bring about L, this change is infeasible.
Inadequate would be: "Maybe for every change in the world God would make to bring about L, this change would be infeasible."

-- This is exactly why the atheist cannot avert the burden of proof here. Since Drange is proposing a proposition, he has to support it. Also, your idea that humans bring about L all the time is not proven either. How do we know that by making certain good choices that we actually didn't propogate past atrocities? Again, how could you prove this? And the presence of counterfactuals only compounds the mission of the atheist for now she must account, not only for causal connections but decisions of free will, and not just of one person but of everyone!

"I assert: A free being S* that was less likely to choose evil would be better than a free being S.I support with: This being would choose evil less often, yet would still be free.
The burden of proof is now upon: the theist.
It may be discharged with: to show that, while S* would choose evil less often, something else bad will probably happen because S* exists rather than S, for every S*.
Inadequate would be: "Maybe S* would screw up the world some other way if she existed.""

-- You see, the burden of proof is wrongly switched because it argues from the possibility of there being S* that, therefore, God can feasibly create S*. What if by creating someone who chooses less evil that the evils such a person does commit are qualitatively more atrocious. Or, what if by creating S* that Hitler ends up winning World War II? On what basis do we say S* is better if we do not appeal to the interrelated panoply of history? And this is not inadequate, it serves to show why the atheist does not win by default. She must prove how S* is feasible.

"I assert: God ought to constrain the actualization of our choices more carefully, with the undetectable use of natural laws.
I support this with: If this were so, there would be fewer horrendously evil choices in the world; it is not likely that the lack of free will would present a problem, because we already mostly lack free will (as far as number of evil actions in our repertoire), based upon the constraints of natural laws, to a very great degree. And it has never been clear why God values the actualization of humans' free will choices so much, rather than just the existence of the choices themselves. No one, in my experience, has told a plausible story that would explain why God doesn't just let the decisions themselves happen and then prevent the more of the actualization of those choices.
The burden of proof is upon: the theist.
It may be discharged with: to show God's constraining our ability to torture babies as often would probably be somewhat worse than His constraining our ability to perform minorly evil actions, and somewhat worse than is presently the case.
Inadequate would be: "Maybe it's actually best if we can torture babies as often as we do, but we can't perform any of thousands of minorly evil actions."

-- i've already noted that someone who makes the assertion that God can constrain our choices more carefully leading to a world with fewer evil choices must prove it. Remember the movie Back to the Future where Marty goes back in time and prevents his father from being hit by a car? If Marty had known that that evil was the contingency of his family's existence he would not have prevented it. I am also reminded of a famous classic Star Trek episode where Captain Kirk falls in love with a woman, Edith. He finds out that she will be hit by a car and killed in the near future. He also knows that by preventing her death that a great amount of evil ensues the world. So, he works hard to refrain from saving her life. In the same episode, something as simple as Doctor McCoy going back in time prevents the human race from existing beyond the 20th century! Now that this is in perspective, how do we know that by creating S* we are not actually creating a Dr. McCoy or a Marty? That's why the proponent of the inductive problem of evil with its assumption that Situation L can be actualized must prove how this can be accomplished. Why in anyone's wildest imaginations, not to mention standard logic textbooks on the subject, should we think that this argument is the only one immune from the argumentum ad ignorantiam? Why is it priviledged?

You can have the last word.

mattbballman

Clutch,

I'm glad you finally got around to discussing some of what I said two posts ago.

And my reply here will be brief for it concerns your remarks that "it seems conceivable that God could reduce suffering from actual levels. But since we don't know whether it's, ummm... feasible for God to do this, we must withhold judgement." Right. And this is the point I'm making. No atheologian can begin with the assumption that God can feasibly create any world that is logically possible to create due to the existence of counterfactuals, and neither ought we to assume that the argument of evil is by default true. It requires support.

So the challenge is, How can God feasibly create a world with less evil but the same amount of good in it?

matt

[ December 18, 2002: Message edited by: mattbballman ]</p>

mattbballman

carr,

(i) Again, the issue is not whether or not one can reduce evil but, rather, whether one can reduce evil and maintain the same good as the actual world. As I have already explained, this claim does not win by default. It requires evidence by someone proposing that God can feasibly do this. And I can't imagine how anyone can prove it.

(ii) You refer to angelic beings in your remarks about free creatures not exercising their free will toward evil. That's understandable. Granted that most Christians believe this, these are not beings suffering from transworld depravity as human beings are. If you are suggesting that God only create an angelic population and no earth then we clearly have a disanalogy. But, as I already noted, it is irrelevant because the actual state of affairs does not inform us how an improved possible world can feasibly be created. Or, I should ask, How does one create a possible world where some people do not exercise their free will toward sin but with the same amount of good in it? Since you are proposing this, then you shoulder the burden to explain how this can be done.

Also,
Once somebody has made a decision that they will do A under circumstance C then A will occur. It is now not true that they will refrain from A under circumstance C. This is a propositional sequence, not a lesson in free will. Free will is assumed to be true in this thought experiment. And it concerns what someone will or will not do, not what one must or cannot do. Think about this from a foreknowledge perspective. Suppose you foreknow that Peter will not freely sell his aardvark under any circumstance due to reasons of his own. Now, is it possible for the proposition "Peter will freely sell his aardvark under some circumstance?" Of course not because the former true proposition makes the latter one impossible. Likewise, if the reverse were true, then the former would be impossible if the latter were true.

And by noting that someone can, at the last minute, go against their strongest desire shows that the intellect does not have any constraining causes imposed on it. But this is not relevant to the case because the example and my argument depend on what Peter and Ivan will do and not on what Peter and Ivan must do.

matt

Steven Carr

a) reducing suffering. I get thirsty, I drink to reduce my suffering. I have not reduced the amount of good in the world.

I can reduce suffering, and I am not even omnipotent.

b) Angels do not suffer from transworld depravity but humans do?

This is *really* special pleading on a huge scale.
First of all, Christian dogma is that angels could sin (see Satan), but God has created beings with free will who never have.

It becomes totally baffling why God was stumped by transworld depravity when creating humans, but was not faced with that difficulty when creating angels. How could this be?

You also have to show that humans suffer from transworld depravity, as this is *your* free will defence.

c)

And, of course, your saying that somebody 'can change his mind at the last minute', contradicts your claim that the circumstances were identical, and Peter can do A and not A.

'changing your mind' is a clear change of circumstances. (Hint - there is the word change in your sentence, indicating that something has changed)

Even the most determined determinist thinks people will decide different things if they have different thoughts.

And, going against your strongest desire, is illogical. What *causes* you to desire to go against your strongest desire? (Note. Guthrie *insists* things which begin to exist, like a change of mind, *must* have a cause.)