tergiversant

I did indeed. You have yet to show that God has supernaturally intervened to prevent any particular evil event, e.g. someone being raped and murdered. You have claimed that God prevented some particular evil (i.e. death) but you have not shown how this is so. My fourth premise was, “God does not act to prevent evil.” That is, evil acts are perpetrated here on Earth and God does nothing to stop them. All this talk of “eternal nonexistence” has no impact whatsoever on the truth of this claim, since it is not an evil action, much less one that we have witnessed being supernaturally prevented.

Even supposing that God has acted to prevent some awful eternal fate, I do not see that it would adversely effect the conclusion of the argument. We would still be morally obliged to allow those Earthly evils which God (a morally perfect agent) allows, e.g. rape, incest, genocide. Indeed so. Not so. I suppose I could, but it would not add anything to the flow of the argument.

[ August 19, 2002: Message edited by: tergiversant ]

[ August 19, 2002: Message edited by: tergiversant ]</p>

ForeverSeeking

I am going to go with this choice. If people acted as God does, we would not have survived the first 100 years. Allegedy, god is ABOVE human understanding, so any attempt to mimic "his" actions would be evil. In truth, I have seen repeatedly where god acted immoral if we are to believe the bible true, so I would choose not to act like him anyway.

Gnothi Seauton
<a href="http://www.foreverseeking.com" target="_blank">Forever Seeking Truth</a>

ManM

tergiversant,
So #4 should read "God does not act to prevent evil actions"? That's a different argument. How do you support this claim? Evil actions occur, and so it is obvious that God does not act to prevent them. But does this imply that God does not act to prevent any evil? That is a leap you are going to have to justify.

And please do not ask me to give an example of an evil action prevented by God. I hope you see just how unfalsifiable such a claim would be (eg humankind would have killed itself off had the flood not occurred).

Finally, could you please list out your theological presuppositions? I do not want to give a response only for you to say the answer is not what an atheist will accept. An atheist won't accept many of your premises either. If you want to play the theologian, stop playing the atheist. If you wish to make a claim about the Christian God, you need to work within the bounds of Christianity.

doubtingt

Notice that your refutations require the assumptions that God is either incompetant, cruel,
or indifferent to the things we consider evil.
Most God concepts throughout human
history have conceived of their God's in these ways. These religions rarely requested the kind of admiration and love of their Gods in the way that modern monotheism does. Such a God is worthy of fear and loathing and not love and respect. In fact, if such a God could be destroyed, it would be the moral obligation to do so.

This is why Christian theologians always have and always will be incapable of solving the "problem of evil". If God exists, the cruel facts of the world make it logically impossible to conclude that he is both omnipotent, and loving.

The one "way out" is to redefine evil events as "for the greater good". Facists use this excuse all the time. The problem is that it then undermines all moral authority and allows anyone committing an evil act to claim they are acting for God to promote the greater good. Since all theistic claims are equally unverifiable, theists have no rational basis to reject such a claim without rejecting their own theism.

ManM

doubtingt,
Only a person who knows the greater good with certainty has the moral sanction to act in a utilitarian manner. God has perfect foresight, and so He should always be expected to act as a utilitarian. We do not have perfect foresight, and so we do not share the same moral sanction as God. There is your rational basis.

doubtingt

Two problems: First this would exclude any possibility that God acts through the behaviors of others. Any theist who believes that God sometimes exerts his will through human actions would have no basis to distinguish Godly acts that are superficially "good" and those that appear "evil", but are for "the greater good".

Also, if God has perfect forsight then he knows all the evil acts that humans will do and he knew all this before he created us. Thus, no human action is outside of God's intended and expected plan. To punish another's actions is to punish them for NOT acting against God's plan. To avoid this, you must assume that God may have had "perfect forsight", but he did not have the power to create us according to his will.
Therefore, he is not our creator, but a mere observer of our existence.

tergiversant

Reposted FYI:

1) God is morally perfect
2) People should act morally
3) :. People should act as God does
4) God does not act to prevent evil
5) People ought not act to prevent evil


How so? These sentences seem to me to express the very same proposition. Are there some (moral) evils which are not the result of the actions of (moral) agents?

I have not yet supported it. Do you mean to dispute it?

I have knowledge of a great many evil actions, and no knowledge whatsoever of divine intervention. It follows (inductively) that God (probably) does not prevent evil.

Cannot think of any, eh?

Flood?

The only theological premise in my argument is the first one. While the argument is not intended for Christians alone, it would seem to me that most of them would assent to this premise. Do you?

tergiversant@OklahomaAtheists.org

<a href="http://www.OklahomaAtheists.org" target="_blank">OKLAHOMA ATHEISTS</a>


[ August 20, 2002: Message edited by: tergiversant ]

[ August 20, 2002: Message edited by: tergiversant ]</p>

ManM

doubtingt,
The problem you highlight extends farther than theism. We really can't judge the ultimate utility of any action given that we don't know the outcome of other possible actions.

I think this conclusion can also be avoided by differentiating between God's goal (that we be moral) and His plan for realizing that goal. We punish when people aren't being moral (hopefully) with the aim of correcting them. It might very well be God's plan that we fall, are punished, and through that return to morality. And so our punishing isn't opposed to God's plan, but rather is a part of it. God is the creator of a world going through growing pains.

tergiversant,
It’s a matter of clarity. "God does not prevent evil" could very well mean that God does not prevent people from stubbing their toes. The ambiguity of your argument only leads to confusion.

How would you know if God had prevented something? You are asking for something we can't know without certain knowledge of all the possibilities. God could be preventing evil all the time and we would have no way to know about it. Furthermore, I think your argument is assuming atheism. As I said before, you have to stop playing the atheist if you want to play the theologian. You have no knowledge whatsoever of divine intervention because you look at the world differently from the theist. You see chance and coincidence where the theist sees divine intervention. Finally, I noticed you inserted "probably" in your inductive argument, but isn't that a cop-out? If you are going to assert a strong conclusion (People ought not act to prevent evil), you must have a strong argument. As it stands, your argument only appeals to people of your intellectual persuasion and is not very convincing for the rest of us. It is quite a stretch to say that "God does not prevent any evil" follows from "God allows some evil".

Well you certainly are assuming many things. I suspect you are assuming naturalism and current scientific fads for starters. As such, you cannot allow things such as the flood or Jesus's resurrection. You are bringing in a ton of baggage. Again, that is why you shouldn't wear the theologian's hat if you are going to keep your atheist hat in place.

[ August 21, 2002: Message edited by: ManM ]</p>

luvluv

Maybe somebody has already said this, but it's pretty obvious why God doesn't prevent evil. If He did, there would be no free will.

God could intevene on every one of our actions every day. He could keep you from masterbating, playing hooky from school or work, stealing paper clips from your job, telling a dirty joke, etc. If He were to do such He could crowd out our free will to the extent that we would barely have any choices.

Secondly, there is the question of whether or not overriding someone else's will (which would be required of God if He were to stop all evil) is not an evil action. If God did stop all evil through His power, He would essentially be an Omnipotent Dictator. Can't you see that His action of controlling us against our will, even if it is for our own good, is in itself evil?

I have seen mothers try to control their adult children. Even when the mothers have good goals in mind and when they are morally right in a particular instance, I still see the desire to control someone else's life to be immoral.

bonduca

1) why would "he" keep you from masturbating?

2) what sort of amoral mother would stand by idly while her adult child murdered some helpless person, and her only comment is, "I won't infringe upon your free will by trying to stop you, but just wait til I get you home, mister, you'll be tortured for all eternity."

[ August 22, 2002: Message edited by: bonduca ]</p>