Jamie_L

Luvluv:

In response to my thought:

Jaimie L:


You said:

As I see it, the arguement of free will basically just says that God doesn't care if there is evil in the world. So, in a way, you're right. The free will arguement invalidates my premise that God desires there to be no evil (i.e. that God is benevolent). Furthermore, if God is really omnipotent, it seems he could eliminate evil and allow us free will. Just because some humans think the two are incompatible doesn't make it so. And some of us don't even think it's so.

And anyway, free will doesn't get around earthquakes, floods, volcanoes, cancer, and all those other things that have nothing to do with human choices.

Jamie

Philip Osborne

I really don't believe this new formulation buys you anything. Here's why using the possible worlds approach....

Interesting argument, but I think it strays from the original subject. The point is that God might have the ability to do evil and yet never do it in the actual world; I think I have proven this point. However, I don't know if your possible worlds argument is a reliable one. Consider the following example:

1. There is a possible world in which I post this message once.

2. There is a possible world in which I post this message twice.

3. There is a possible world in which I post this message three times.

4. For any positive integer n, there is a possible world w such that I post this message n number of times.

Since for every world in which I post this message once, there are an infinite number of worlds in which I do it more than once, it follows that the probability of me posting this message only once is 1/infinity (probably less than this, since I cannot truly post this message an infinite number of times; this is irrelevant, however), which is zero. Hence, if it is possible for me to post this message more than once, I will.

The argument takes the same form as yours; however, I don't think it can seriously be considered as a piece of evidence which might reduce the probability of me posting this message once. The probability of me posting this message only once is actually very high, given that to do it more than once would be unnecessary and perhaps even frowned upon by others, and these are consequences I wish to avoid. The point is that if we want to draw a probabilistic inference of this sort (there might be some cases in which arguments of the above sort are reliable), we have to consider what is true in the actual world. So the question of whether or not God will do an evil thing again goes back to the question of the argument from evil, the question of the truth of religious claims, etc. Addressing such questions will certainly constitute far more substantive evidence concerning whether or not God will perform an evil act.

Concerning the spinner, we are assuming that the spinner is precise to a point; it is irrelevant whether or not any spinner in reality could ever be this precise. If you want, we could call it a random number generator, and we would still end up with the same conclusion.

Sincerely,

Philip

[ October 15, 2002: Message edited by: Philip Osborne ]</p>

K

Philip:

I'm no fan of the "possible worlds" logic. And your post shows some of the reasons why. Anyway since we're using it, I'll continue. Your analogy of message posting suffers from a fatal flaw. We used the possible worlds to model God's free will. You have no free will with the number of times that you posted your message. It's in the past and it's fixed at one. Thus, the analogy doesn't work even before adding the fact that it would be impossible for you to post the message an infinite number of times.

Philip Osborne

I'm no fan of the "possible worlds" logic. And your post shows some of the reasons why. Anyway since we're using it, I'll continue. Your analogy of message posting suffers from a fatal flaw. We used the possible worlds to model God's free will. You have no free will with the number of times that you posted your message. It's in the past and it's fixed at one. Thus, the analogy doesn't work even before adding the fact that it would be impossible for you to post the message an infinite number of times.

How is it true that I had no free will concerning the number of times I posted that message? There is no defense of this claim, other than the fact that it is in the past, which cannot be changed. However, it was obviously not in the past while I was writing it, so at that moment, I had a choice as to what I could have done. The fact that it takes place in the past is entirely irrelevant to the analogy.

Sincerely,

Philip

luvluv

Jamie:

Jaimie, I'll go out on a limb and say that you value freedom, correct? And you are also aware that many people abuse the freedom allowed in this society to do things that are evil, correct? Does this mean that you do not care if there is evil in the world?

Does it follow from the statement "God values free will" that "God doesn't care about evil"?

Are there other possibilities that you are leaving out, and have you asked yourself why you are leaving them out?

Couldn't one just as easily state "God values free will" and "God cares about evil"? It's pretty explicit from the Christian doctrine that God does care about evil, despite the fact that He won't force us to refrain from it.

In a way, though, you are on the right track. I think God cares more about promoting goodness than preventing evil. He would rather bring about the overwhelming presence of a good thing than the simply negation of all bad things. I would not necessarily call God good if He had decided not to create anything.

At any rate, even if someone values the presence of goodness over the absence of evil, it does not follow that He does not CARE about evil, only that He cares more about bringing about good.

If you are really on an honest search for the truth, you should let yourself really think through every possible conclusion.

As far as tornadoes and earthquakes go, check out the thread entitled "The neccesity of a fixed external world (POE argument)" which I believe is on page 2 of this forum.

[ October 17, 2002: Message edited by: luvluv ]</p>

K

Philip:

The reason is that we already had the data to know that you only posted once. At that point, there is no possible world where you have posted more than once. The many possible worlds before your post have been forced into only one possible world - the one where you have posted only once.

We could look at your next post and treat that in a possible worlds way. However, you don't total free will in the number of times you post. The effort you put in to post large numbers of posts will make the worlds with growing quantities less and less likely. So, due to the limits of your own nature, there are some worlds that are vastly more likely than others. There are also an infinite number of worlds that the limits of your nature makes impossible.

HRG

Only if you assume that all those different worlds are equally probable.

A perfectly valid alternative would be that the total probability of those world where you post the article n times is 1/2^n. Those probabilities sum to 1, although every single one is finite.

A random number generator produces integers within a fixed and finite interval - and not real numbers.

As a set of measure (aka probability) zero, a single real number is "almost nothing" in the language of measure theory (where "almost everywhere" means "everywhere except of a set of measure zero). How can you land on almost nothing ?

Regards,
HRG.

Philip Osborne

The reason is that we already had the data to know that you only posted once. At that point, there is no possible world where you have posted more than once.

It would be incorrect to say that if something is in the past, there are no possible worlds in which it is false. Things that have occurred do not become necessarily true (logically equivalent with "true in all worlds") simply because they have ocurred in the past. From the perspective of now, I cannot change that I have only posted once. However, it still makes sense to say I could have posted more than once before the moment in which I made the decision.

We could look at your next post and treat that in a possible worlds way. However, you don't total free will in the number of times you post. The effort you put in to post....

Why couldn't the same considerations apply to God? After all, even if we assume God can do evil, we do not have to assume that the probability of God doing an evil action is the same as the probability of God not doing so. For instance, God may have a nature which inclines Hims not to do evil, even if it is possible that He do evil.

Only if you assume that all those different worlds are equally probable.

The same objection holds, of course, for K's original argument.

Concerning random number generators, there is perhaps some specific mathematical definition that I have missed. So I will use the term random number generator*, which is not bound by the restriction of choosing only integers. If you are suggesting that such a generator is impossible, I would be interested to hear an argument that demonstrates this conclusion.

As a set of measure (aka probability) zero, a single real number is "almost nothing" in the language of measure theory (where "almost everywhere" means "everywhere except of a set of measure zero). How can you land on almost nothing?

Even if it is ridiculously unlikely, there is nothing conceptually or logically possible in an absolutely precise spinner landing on 0.35. A zero probability simply means that for every world on which such a spinner lands on 0.35, there are an infinite number of worlds in which it does not. Hence the probability of the world in which the spinner lands on 0.35 obtaining is 1/infinity, or zero; but 0.35 still obtains in a possible world, and so is possible.

Sincerely,

Philip

K

Philip:

I guess I misunderstood what you were trying to model with the possible worlds. You could say that there were possible worlds where you posted more than once, but that would be irrelevant since we know which world we're in. The possible worlds doesn't tell us anything if we know for sure which world we're in.

That's fine as well, but it just reduces to the same argument I made before.

1. Assign a probability to each of the worlds where God does evil.

2. If all probabilities for worlds where God does evil are zero, then it is impossible for God to do evil - your modal sense of God's ability to do evil falls apart.

3. If the probabilities for the worlds where God does evil are non-zero, then how can you know that you are in a world where God doesn't do evil since there are an infinite number of possible world where God does do evil to the one in which He doesn't?

Philip Osborne

2. If all probabilities for worlds where God does evil are zero, then it is impossible for God to do evil - your modal sense of God's ability to do evil falls apart.

I fail to see how my modal sense of God ability to do evil "falls apart," since your crucial premiss seems rather question-begging. Specifically, it seems to be an instance of the more general principle "If x has probability 0, then x is impossible." But this crucial assumption is exactly what you are trying to prove with your argument, so it seems bound to be unpersuasive.

Yes, it might be true that in all possible worlds, P(God does evil)=0. But as I have been saying before, there may be a world in which P(God does evil)=0 and yet God does evil. This is exactly what I have been trying to establish, and I haven't seen any convincing argument against it. Your argument, by already assuming otherwise, begs the question against my position.

Sincerely,

Philip