Wyrdsmyth

Indeed. And, not just difficult, but paradoxical. Or, as you might say, 'apparently paradoxical.' So, what is your criteria to separate paradoxes from apparent paradoxes?

Again with the shuffling. Truly, you are the theological Fred Astaire.

Here is a good example of the equivocating I referred to. Notice your choice of terms in reference to what God caused. "Ordained" apparently means he caused it in a general way, but not in a direct way... But for an omnipotent, omniscient being, what is the difference? That is what I meant by equivocating. This is the sort of double-talk one might expect from someone who doesn't want to face up squarely to a serious paradox. If you are omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, what is the difference between "ordaining" something to happen, and "forcing" it to happen? Face it, your choice of words only reveals you trying to make sense of something that just doesn't make sense.

Any fine evening of theological shuffling should always be capped off by a reference to one's own fallible human intellect. So, let's refer to this from now on as the 'theological night-cap.'

I can't imagine an analogy much poorer. The nation being spied on certainly did not "ordain" for itself to be spied upon, did it? It is taking advantage of something it did not plan, ordain or cause in any way to begin with. But the analogy does not work with an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God.

Face it, theophilus. You're trying to fit square pegs into round holes, and when you can't do it, you refuse to admit it's because they're the wrong shape -- you insist that the mistake is in our 'fallible human intellects.'

theophilus

Not so.

Omnipotence means the power to effect one's will. God accomplishes his will by and through the natural sinfullness of men.

theophilus

I'll respond to this when you respond to my answer to your "yes or no" question.

Otherwise, you're just blowing smoke.

theophilus

Haven't and probably won't, but thanks anyway.

There is a fine discussion of good and evil in "Religion, Reason and Revelation," by Gordon Clark; if you are really interest.

Wyrdsmyth

I did respond to it, by addressing how you have to 'shuffle' terms around to attempt to resolve a paradox.

You claim the world is perfect. Yet, you also claim that it needs to be restored to its full perfection. I provided the quotes by you in which you contradict yourself in the same thread. If you can't see it... well, I can't make you see it.

That was my response.

If the world is perfect now, it doesn't need to be restored to perfection in the future. If it needs to be restored to perfection, then it isn't perfect now.

I don't know how much more clearly it can pointed out that your position is self-contradictory, and therefore, absurd. You've said it in your own words. All I can do now is rephrase and repeat, which is tiresome, and that's why I indulge in a little bit of humor. But if you "refuse" to get it, then you do -- there's nothing I can do to make you see. I sometimes try a little humor, a little sarcasm, since straightforward argument doesn't always seem to work. But I guess the humor isn't working, either.

theophilus

Actually, here is your first and, as far as I can tell, only response to my answer.

You know what would really complete this whole act? A line of dancing girls singing:

"Do the theological shuffle, one, two, three...
For those who don't know it, theophilus will lead!
Shuffle them terms,
and move them around,
Juggle them arguments,
who cares if they're sound.

"Everybody, now! All together!

"Do the theological shuffle, one two, three...
For those who don't know it, theophilus will lead!!!"

Perhaps it's just me, but there doesn't seem to be much "response" here.

You still haven't responded to my point; Unless you know that the world is not perfect, i.e., suited to the purpose for which it was created, then you're just ranting.

As to paradox, I addressed this "apparent contradiction" in several subsequent posts; perhaps you could read them.

Wyz_sub10

Either way, it affirms the absence of perfection. We can agree that there exists material imperfection, so by that definition this is not a perfect world.

But to address ontological perfection, you are further stating that ontological perfection is an end goal. Therefore, you are confirming that it is not the current state.

Nonsense. Certainly you may be able to argue that a perfect plan might entail spilling milk just to clean it up. But once you commit to that position, it brings up a host of issues, not the least of which is the utility of such a plan, and the ramifications of the plan regarding responsibility and consequence.

It calls into question the decision of god re: the Garden of Eden, or the value of Judas, or the utility of prayer. All of these are topics for separate threads, but in essence, the acceptance of this world as perfect creates a lot of problems when addressing expected (or demanded) human behaviour.

bd-from-kg

theophilus:

I don’t understand the point of the distinction. The world is “perfect” in the sense that it achieves God’s purposes perfectly. But surely we can assume that God’s purposes are perfectly in accord with His desires, and that His desires are perfectly in accord with His nature? In which case, doesn’t it follow that this world is morally perfect in the sense that of all possible worlds, it’s the one which best fulfills His (perfectly moral) purposes?

So God is “morally perfect” only in the sense that He is the standard of morality. In the same way, if I take a metal bar and say that a “beeder” is by definition the length of this bar at standard temperature and pressure, then this bar (at STP) is exactly one beeder in length, not because it happens to have a certain externally defined length, but because its length is what’s meant by “beeder”.

But there’s an important difference. I can look at the bar, make some more bars the same length, compare stuff to the reference bar directly, etc. Ultimately we can all know what a “beeder” is. But in God’s case no one can “look at the bar”; no one can directly compare anything else to God. So we can only infer what “goodness” is from what little we know about God.

In fact, the only really unimpeachable source of information about God is the world itself. If the world is perfectly suited to God’s purpose, we can infer something, at least, about God’s purposes by examining His creation? At least we can rule out certain possibilities. For example, if this world is grossly unjust, we can conclude that justice (in this world, at least) is not high on God’s priority list. Or if people are radically less happy, on the whole, than they could be, we can conclude that human happiness must be very far from the top of this list. Or again, if people are woefully ignorant, We can conclude that providing knowledge and understanding to humans is not one of God’s main purposes. Or yet again, if the vast majority of people are headed for eternal damnation, we can conclude that human welfare in general, and saving souls in particular, is not one of His major concerns.

In fact, you say that God’s purpose in creating this world was “God’s glory”. But surely this isn’t the sort of thing that’s ordinarily meant by saying that a being is “good”. If it is claimed that a being created billions of creatures so that a few of them would become his eternal servants while the rest of them were doomed to eternal torment, and that he did this for the sake of his own glory, most people would say that this being was something of a monster. But of course, we’d be judging by our human understanding of “goodness”. There’s no justification for assuming that God’s understanding of “goodness” bears any resemblance to ours. So there’s no reason to think that God is “good” by human standards – in fact, by our standards He might be quite horrible. And we have no way of judging God’s “goodness” by God’s standards, since we have no idea what they are. That is, although we know a little about what God’s standards are for human goodness, this tells us nothing about God’s standards for Godly goodness – that is, how God Himself behaves. Isn’t this what you’re really saying?

Goober

theophilus,

You think the purpose of the world is for the glory of god?

So god created us expressly for us to worship him? Wow, he's omniegotistical as well.

Secondly, how does the existence of the ebola virus provide glory to god? Malaria? Influenza? How do the design flaws apparent in many organisms provide glory to god? See Oolon's Big List of Suboptimal Designs Part II for some examples.

What about the fact that it is ambiguous (and I'm being generous here, there isn't anything ambiguous at all) as to whether god even exists based on the evidence we see in this world. How does that help provide glory to god?

You don't think there is any free will? That's fine, but I sincerely hope you don't use the free will defense against the POE. Since "God decrees all things that come to pass", god must be responsible for damning people to hell, not the people themselves. God must decree that people will develop cancer, god must decree that people are born with horrible genetic flaws. How do you reconcile this with omnibenevolance?

theophilus

The correct word is "ordained." God ordains whatever comes to pass; he uses secondary means to accomplish his purposes, i.e., it was God's purpose that Jesus should die but it was the Romans who killed him.
Even though it was ordained and certain, there was no compulsion against will.