Thomas Metcalf

The UPD is the only real defense against the evidential argument from evil (or deductive argument from evil) available to the apologist. Every popular theodicy has been thoroughly refuted, in my experience, and the theist therefore only ever uses UPD.

The UPD states that it's possible that some evils are necessary for some greater goods. This is not very convincing against the evidential argument, and most professional apologists are aware of this fact. Therefore, they try to justify theism independently, to provide indirect evidence that there is no gratuitous suffering.

The only way for lack of suffering to be logically incompatible with some good is for this good only to result from suffering. For example, maybe for us to perceive goodness, we need the sort of contrast that only actual suffering produces.

For every instances of goodness, we can make a list of its properties. For example, "contrast" might have "is noticed by humans, is created by suffering, is of intensity X," etc. Now, it seems as though it is logically possible for us to remove one of those properties while not logically affecting those other properties. That is, the only property that would logically be tied to "is created by suffering" is "must be created by suffering."

I can accept that some good is only maximally good if it was brought about by suffering, but it makes no sense to me to say that some good is only maximally good if it must have been brought about by suffering. It seems that that's what the theist needs. Am I missing something?

Kantian

Leibniz's optimism carried the day in the 18th century. What theological tricks in apologia are being employed these days?

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Thomas,


Uh...no.


Most (80%-90%) people in the world (including theists) don't see a problem with evil...only atheists do.

Your UDP (or whatever you wish to call it) is completely unnecessary.

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Kantian

Hello!

Before i dismiss this fallacious argument, do you have evidence to back up that guess? I hope you do know what an argumentum ad populum is.

Do you mean that almost 2000 years of theodicy has evolved to this self-abnegation? Then inconsistency or paradox is left and you have no qualms with that.

Jobar

SOMMS, unless you can back any of your statements up, I'll accuse you of doing a really bad ostrich imitation. They don't *really* hide their heads in the sand, you know...

Vorkosigan

Can you clarify? You mean, they don't feel that evil is a problem and they accept it? Or what? It is my understanding, after a couple of millenia of Christian attempts to deal with this, and the development of a whole apologetics regarding the Problem of Evil, that Christians do indeed have a problem with the gratuitous evil and suffering their deity inflicts on the world.

Vorkosigan

Synaesthesia

Inscrutability of purpose, structure, intention and form are inherent in the notion of God. He is a being invented to break rules. Here is the uncaused causer, the merciful killer, transcendent beyond all logic but that of faith.

The one infallible defense of God, Its utter lack of parsimony and unescapeably ad hoc nature is in my mind the critical flaw which places it laughably low on a theoretical scale of plausibility.

Thomas Metcalf

I'm not talking about 80-90% of people in the world. I'm talking about professional apologists. Read some philosophy journals if you want an idea of what defense they use, or you can just save time and accept that they depend on UPD.

Plenty of professional apologists see a problem with evil, and in my experience, none of them use anything other than the free will defense and UPD anymore.

Are you a theist? How do you explain evil? Or do you?

Thomas Metcalf

That's a good way to think about it. These are important contradictions and doubts to keep in mind. Here I'm just trying to strain out something in the UPD that doesn't make sense to me.

Thomas Metcalf

Oh, the usual. Not much has changed in the past five hundred years, or so. In my experience, the only real development has been the happy abandonment of most theodicies in favor of the UPD. I'm looking for a way to argue against UPD other than the following two criticisms.

Transcendental Argument from Skepticism

If we can't know whether God would have a perceptible reason for allowing these evils and not telling us why, we can't know whether God would have a perceptible reason for allowing anything and not telling us why. We really can't believe anything, because God might have a morally sufficient reason for deceiving us.

Transcendental Argument from Fatalism

If this is always a maximally good world, then every action we take either increases goodness or has no effect. Therefore, we have no reason to perform good acts, because if we successfully don't, that just increases the goodness in the world. So evil is kind of defined out of existence.