Philosoft

I don't really know what it means to be "more than simply Tri-Omni," nor do I grasp the relevance.

If God is capable of a moral wrong, then I can at least make a moral judgement.
I don't know what to make of this. If you tell me God is omnibenevolent, I can't do much better than a counterexample as a disproof.

NonContradiction

Assuming that the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God exists, then He is also the Creator, and is also all-wise. What is the relevance? If God created this vast universe, and is all-wise, then there must be some sort of wisdom behind the existence of senseless evil.

You can make a moral judgement, but don't think that you are proving that God doesn't exist by making a moral judgement.

The best that you can do is to say that you have some evidence that God may not be benevolent. There may be wisdom behind the existence of senseless evil in the world that you and I are unaware of. If that is the case, then there is no conflict between God's benevolence and the existence of senseless evil. The best that you can do is present the evidence and suspend judgement.

Philosoft

Why should I accept an assertion that God is x when my moral sense tells me God is not x? I rely on my moral sense rather heavily; if I'm fundamentally incapable of morally judging certain actions, how am I going to know when it's right or wrong?

But I also have evidence, and probability in addition to my moral sense.
Actually, it's more like this:
1. My moral sense tells me gratuitious suffering is always wrong.
2. There appears to be gratuitous suffering in the world.
3. At least some gratuitous suffering can be eliminated without affecting free will.
4. An omnibenevolent being would eliminate at least some of the existing gratuitous suffering.
5. Therefore, an omnibenevolent God doesn't exist.

vs.

1. God is omnibenevolent.
2. From 1, all apparently gratuitous suffering is not actually gratuitous.


I don't find the latter so compelling that I feel I need to suspend judgement.

NonContradiction

The existence of God is an a priori assumption in the AfE, as well as Him being knowledgable, powerful, and benevolent. The point that I am making is that those are not the only assumptions that should be made about the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God. He is also the Creator, and is all-wise. When I look at the universe, I don't see objects behaving in a nonsensical way, but rather the opposite is true. If we are going to assume that this God exists, then it also means that there is intelligent design, according to His will, behind this creation. What I see around me makes sense, but I also see senseless evil. Why? If God is all-wise, then there must be a good reason for Him allowing the existence of senseless evil.

As far as moral sense is concerned, I don't know of it's existence. As far as I know, we only have five senses and a moral sense isn't one of them. I think that what you are referring to is that you recognize, as well as I do, that when we see a woman kill her own children, for no apparent reason, that goes against human nature, which is to be loving, kind, merciful, and benevolent, especially to her own children.

The bottom line to all of this is that you must demonstrate that God couldn't possibly have a good reason to allow the existence of senseless evil in the world. Unless you can do that, then we are justified in continuing to assume, as we did before, that there is wisdom behind God's behavior. I don't think that the AfE is a very good argument.

Philosoft

I don't even know what nonsensical behavior would look like - what we observe is what we observe. There aren't any other universes with objects that we can compare. Just curious though, how would you describe behavior at the quantum level?

Fine, your conditional is not in dispute here.

No, again I'm not trying to support a proof.
I think the balance of evidence is in favor of the evidential AfE, as I outlined in the previous post. It's not a proof (and I should have noted that), and it's not supposed to be. The burden is thus on the proponent of God's benevolence. An a priori assumption is not going to cut it.

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by NonContradiction :

I attend the University of Washington, and outside the building that houses the philosophy department is the Quad, an open outdoor space with lots of cherry trees, sunbathers (on the four or five sunny Seattle days every year), and the like. Now, suppose my colleague approaches me with a claim that there's currently a herd of elephants running through the Quad, trampling everything in their path.

That's kind of surprising, and in fact I probably wouldn't believe it, especially if I didn't hear evidence of the carnage in the form of screams. So I might tell my colleague, "You know, I believe there isn't a herd of elephants in the Quad right now, because I don't hear any evidence of the destruction." My colleague might respond: "Well, unless you can show that a herd of elephants couldn't possibly be in the quad right now, what you propose as reason to believe the herd of elephants isn't there won't actually make me disbelieve it." After all, maybe there are magical elves who intercept incoming sonic vibrations and deflect them elsewhere. Maybe everyone in the Quad decided to commit suicide at the same time and is therefore unconcerned that huge animals are bearing down upon them. Maybe the building I'm in has been secretly transported thousands of miles away, so I wouldn't be able to hear the screams even if they were occurring.

Do you think these possibilities undermine the justification for the belief that there's no herd of elephants in the Quad? I don't think they do. Sure, it's possible that God has a reason for all this evil -- that is, that all this evil is justified -- but there's no reason to think it's likely. And therefore, evil still provides evidence against God's existence.

NonContradiction

I should qualify my statement by saying that most of what we observe appears to make sense. However, at the quantum level, it seems as though there are many paradoxes. Is light a particle or a wave?



Okay, good.

Here is where we disagree. The burden isn't upon me to demonstrate that God is benevolent. It has always been an a priori assumption that He is. The burden upon you is to argue that there is evidence which shows that God isn't benevolent. My job is to raise objections to your argument, which I am doing. I have nothing to prove.

Having said the above, my first objection to the AfE is that it defines God as being Tri-Omni, instead of Quad-Omni ( I am not sure that Quad is the right word, but you get my point). If we assume that God is all-knowing, all-powerful, all-benevolent, and all-wise, then we can look at the AfE from a completely different angle.

If God doesn't know about evil, then He isn't all-knowing. If He is incapable of preventing evil, then He isn't all-powerful. If He doesn't want to prevent evil, then He isn't all-benevolent. If He doesn't have a good reason to not prevent evil, then He isn't all-wise.

If God has a good reason for not preventing evil, then it's quite possible for Him to not prevent evil, even though He knows about it. It's quite possible for Him to not prevent evil, even though He is able to do so. It's quite possible for Him to not prevent evil, even though He wants to. In other words, the question is no longer is there any evidence that indicates that God isn't benevolent, but rather, is there any evidence that God doesn't have a good reason for not preventing evil? If God has a good reason to not prevent evil, then He can be Quad-Omni without any contradiction whatsoever.

Philosoft

Well, I suppose someone is making that assumption, but it isn't me. I'm not obliged to agree with your a priori assumption on the claim that "it has always been."

Which I have done. Repeatedly.

But all your objections affect the deductive AfE. You have done nothing to counter the balance of evidence that there is probably gratuitous suffering.
But not only are we not aware of any good reason, the evidence suggests no good reason exists.

NonContradiction

I don't think they do, either. However, I think that your analogy of a herd of elephants breaks down, as do most analogies used in arguments. What constitutes evidence of elephants isn't the same as what constitutes evidence that God exists. The existence of elephants can be empirically verified, whereas the existence of a transcendent being cannot. If I don't observe any elephants in the room I am in, then I am quite justified in believing that there are no elephants in my room. On the other hand, if I don't observe God in my room, then I am not justified in believing that He doesn't exist.

If you knew that somebody was a very calm, easy-going person, you would be shocked if you heard that he killed somebody in a fit of rage. On the other hand, if you knew that somebody was a hot-tempered person, you wouldn't be shocked if you heard that he killed somebody in a fit of rage.

Similarly, we have every reason to believe that God, assuming He does exist, is all-wise by looking at the creation around us. I have every reason in the world, based upon looking at the wisdom behind His creation, to believe that God has a good reason why He doesn't prevent evil. I have no reason to assume that He doesn't have a good reason.

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by NonContradiction :

Wait a minute; of course it can. Suppose I posited a very powerful transcendent being who absolutely hates SUVs and does anything she can to minimize the number of SUVs on the road. You'd think that from this hypothesis there'd be fewer SUVs around than there are now. Otherwise, what would it mean to say that this being has any effect on the world at all?

All-knowing, maybe, and really smart. But why morally good? There's quite a lot of evil around, and no one can think of any evidence that it's all justified. And if even one bit of gratuitous evil exists, God doesn't exist. But it's not the case that if lots of goodness exists, God must exist. Yes, the Creation is really complicated and works together pretty well, but that just means God is smart, not that God has any desire to help humans out or to reduce their suffering.

The two parts of your post seem to be inconsistent with each other. In the first part, you claim that the hypothesis of a transcendent being makes no predictions. And in the second part, you say that the hypothesis of God predicts that the Creation will be a certain way. So which is it?