luvluv

ex-preacher:

As opposed to what? An evil God? An indifferent God? As I said before, I'm not sure I can convince you that there is not an indifferent God. An evil God is an absurd proposition to me.

The only kind of suffering which would cause me to question the existence of an absolutely good God would be totally purposeless suffering imposed on innocents directly from God Himself. (Cue totally digressive arguments about Hell: I'll just state pre-emptively that I don't believe in the Hell of popular imagination.)

I don't think there is a way, simply from observing suffering, to determine whether there there is an indifferent God, a God committed to human freedom, or a God who does not exist. That's the basis of my contention with the problem of pain. You cannot have freedom without suffering. We have to decide then, whether we would rather be slaves in total safety or free men in the face of danger. I know what my choice would be.

I'm not sure I understand this question in it's context. To me, so long as the suffering is explicable as a direct consequence of creating an environment where freedom is possible, and as long as the suffering is not imposed directly by God for no purpose whatsoever, then it is possible to state that there is still a loving God. No amount of evil committed by a free agent is ever an indictment on the goodness of God.

This would be a good question coming from anyone else, but you and I have already been over the numerous reasons why heaven would probably have much less suffering than earth would. I've already discussed that in earlier parts of this thread. You can go back and read them, it's kind of silly to expect me to keep re-stating the same arguments when no one has raised specific objections to them.

Hobbs:

Exactly. That's my whole point. You cannot tell from observing the suffering in the world, whether or not God is nonexistant, exists but is indifferent, or values freedom. So the problem of pain is not a good disproof of God, because it omits the possibility of a God who values freedom.

I think He does, occasionally, to establish his identity more than His existence. I think He has done this sparingly throughout time. As I have argued before, He would have to intervene at some point with someone in order to reveal Himself so that people could make their decisions about Him. But there is a huge difference between God intervening sparingly to establish who He is so that people may make a decision about Him, and Him constantly intervening in everyday life to prevent anyone from so much as stubbing their toe. Also, it is interesting to note that when God did do miracles to establish His existence in one time isolated events, people who did not want to follow Him still found reasons to disbelieve. When Jesus and the prophets in the Bible performed miracles, quite often the skeptics who witnessed them found another explanation for the occurance to continue to enable their disbelief. My point in saying this is even when God has performed miracles, He does them in such a way as to still enable people to have the option of not believing in Him. Constant intervention to prevent any suffering, however, would soon become undeniable, and compelling, evidence. My contention is that God does as little as He has to, He has an official policy of minimum interference, in order that humanity itself may decide humanity's course, for good or for ill. Again, for Him to do less would be a far worse crime than all the suffering that has ever existed in the world.

How many times are we going to go over this? This is basically the same objection I answered pages ago slightly re-worded. I said that even in such a world where all the predators kill painlessly, there is still suffering. A predator could fall off a cliff and break it's leg for instance. That would be unnecessary suffering. So you'd still have the same problem. You are suggesting that there can be a consistent, objective, non-partial laws (they have to meet these criteria to be laws) that can gurantee there is no unnecessary suffering without need of divine interference. I say this is a total impossibility, and further a logical contradiction. Laws exist completely apart from and indifferent to the suffering they can create. The same force that keeps us all from floating out into space is the same force that throws you to the ground and breaks your leg if you fall off your roof. If you make laws that change whenever it is convienient for it's subject you have not made laws at all. If such were the case we would live in an essentially lawless universe where not only our decisions, but our actions, would be virtually meaningless because any mistake we made would automatically be edited by the universe. In such a world, real moral freedom is simply not possible. It means nothing to love my brother if I never had the possibility of doing anything else. As I have posited on this board many times before, in Christianity there are many sins of OMMISION. How can God stop these without overcoming our free will? For instance, it is considered a sin for a Christian to simply pass by a hungry man without feeding Him. How can God overcome this evil, the evil of human apathy and all the suffering it produces, without disrupting the person's free will? Could a person in this universe which automatically corrected mistakes walk past his hungry brother? In fact, would the brother ever BE, hungry, or would the universe automatically create food for Him? Can't you see that in a world with no possibility of suffering there isn't even a morality at all? There is no subject for morality in a world where people are forcefully restrained from doing anything negative to each other. These people are not free.

I would be really interested, Hobbs, in you explaining how you managed to eliminate a God who values free will from the logically possible conclusions you have drawn.

That goes for everybody, what is wrong with considering the possibility that God values freedom from the possible answers to the problem of pain? What makes that proposition unacceptable?

Point of fact, you can't directly perceive a mind at all. You could be surronded by them and still would never know it. You have no direct access to any mind but your own, the others you know through the medium they express themselves through (bodies, words, etc.). You are hardly justified in concluding that minds cannot exist apart from brains, since you can't directly percieve a single mind other than your own. That's a subject for another day, I guess.

It's still a fantastic leap to assume that your mind is the result of trillions of trillions of beneficial accidents. I don't believe there is that much good luck in the universe.

I would be eternally in your debt if you could PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE tell me how you have eliminated the possibility that God desires our freedom and that given freedom suffering is inevitable. You really act as if this option does not exist and you have yet to give me a good reason why.

Is there an advocate of the problem of pain who can explain why this is not an option?

Furthermore, for you atheist types:

I think that we have earlier made the concession (concEEded, if you will) that suffering is a totally acceptable occurance that we will all willingly endure if the goal for which we suffer is worth it.

If we can agree on that, then in order to state that the problem of pain disproves the existence of a good God you must first be able to 1) Know exactly what God's end goals for allowing suffering are and 2) Establish that the goal is not worth the allowance of suffering. If you cannot do that, you are unjustified in making the claim.

[ August 27, 2002: Message edited by: luvluv ]</p>

MrDarwin

I haven't had much time to devote to this discussion (or to II in general) but one thing luvluv says intrigues me:

luvluv, how would you recognize "totally purposeless suffering"? It seems that you have already defined "suffering" such that it must have some purpose, whether or not that purpose is apparent to us.

For example, I might offer the example of babies born with certain birth defects, who will suffer and die without the slightest glimmer of hope of ever knowing pleasure or happiness, or any life beyond a few days, weeks, or months. Who could be more innocent than a newborn baby? Yet I'm sure you'll come right back with some way to justify this suffering such that it has a "purpose".

Finally, if you believe that God is both omniscient and omnipotent (do you?) then what does it matter whether suffering is imposed directly or indirectly? Either way, the suffering has been caused by God, who created the world to be the way it is, fully knowing right from the beginning precisely how much suffering it would entail.

luvluv

Guys, I'd like to say one more thing.

I admit that there is a problem of pain, but it is not a logical problem. Suffering does not make the existence of a loving God illogical. After all, the God-humanity relationship is often described as a parent-child relationship, and loving parents quite often allow their children to suffer unecessarily. We could prevent our children from befalling much of the suffering they encounter if we simply never left their side from the time they were born until the day they died. But we would consider a parent who did such a thing a worse parent than the parent who tried to present a good moral foundation for their children and then left them to be free (more or less) to make their own decisions.

Therefore, I think the problem of pain is not a logical problem, as it is often presented, but an emotional problem. It does not make God absurd, it makes Him frustrating and perplexing. We just don't like suffering, and have a natural resentment toward any power which allows it to happen. I know, for instance, that I would have a serious emotional reaction if one of the small children in my immediate family died. It would not make God logically impossible, but it would make me, personally, mad at God. I would have an emotional problem with the specific suffering with which I have been confronted, and I think in general THIS is the problem that most people are tallking about when they talk about the problem of pain.

I want to make it clear that just because I know, logically, that I don't have a leg to stand on in blaming God or complaining to God about the suffering of the child, that doesn't mean I probably wouldn't have a serious chip on my shoulder until I had enough time to get over my grief. I think it is a perfectly natural reaction to be mad at God ocassionally. One of my favorite books is C.S. Lewis's A Grief Observed, a book which records a lot of his rather hostile thoughts about God while Lewis was mourning the death of his wife. I think that book might be an invaluable resource with how Christians deal with the emotional problem of pain, and how their relationship with God can lead them to endure their pain and still believe in and have a relationship with a loving God. The book is not fictional, it is snippets from his actual diary in which he lashes out at God.

At any rate, I just wanted to let you folks know that just because I do not consider suffering to be an intellectual difficulty in positing God's existence, I am not indifferent to it and I am, emotionally, troubled by it. I ocassionally wish that Jesus had already returned when I see some instance of suffering that I can't do anything about. I am sometimes angry at God for not have putting an end to it by now. But I realize why He hasn't and realize there are many good reasons for this. What I notice during this time is that God does not condemn me for those thoughts but He comforts me and encourages me that I can help in my own way to alleviate suffering in the world, and that is my only proper response to it. I don't think God gets mad at us for sometimes blaming Him for the suffering in the world, I think He expects it. I just don't think that this emotional reaction is solid ground for atheism. Even Christians feel it. God's probably heard more complaints about the existence of suffering from religious people than from atheists. I don't like suffering and it hurts me to see it as much as anyone else.

So, I just wanted to say that because I'm afraid I may be coming off like a robot or something. Also, read A Grief Observed. It's terrific insight into the issue.

[ August 27, 2002: Message edited by: luvluv ]</p>

luvluv

I think you may be misunderstanding me. I'm not necessarily saying that there must be a SPECIFIC reason for every single instance of suffering, I'm saying that in order for moral freedom to exist, there must be an allowance of suffering to exist in general, and God cannot interfere with nature solely to eliminate suffering. So, there may be no specific purpose for these particular children to have been born with birth defects, but there is a reason why birth defects are allowed as a possibility and why God does not intervene immediately to correct them each and every time they occur.

In other words, God does not produce many specific acts of suffering for many specific goals, he allows the overall possibility of suffering for one specific goal. (As I see it anyway, I'm not the final word on this.)

Quite often there may be a very specific reason for a very specific incidence of suffering (the crucifixion of Christ for instance) but as often as not it may simply be allowed for the overall purpose of meaningful human freedom.

Philosoft

Hmm. Why couldn't God just say, "Moral freedom is increased by my preventing birth defects"? Is there any inherent reason that that couldn't be the case? Is 'moral freedom' beyond God's capability to define?

Again, why coudn't God say, "These specific instances of suffering really add nothing; the humans could just as easily have a sufficient level of goodness without them"? It seems to me that a God who could define "meaningful human freedom" without all the gratuitous evil is a much more benevolent God than one who doesn't (or can't).

luvluv

Philosoft:


Well, most Christians believe that meta-ethical definitions come from God's character, not God's decisions. They are grounded in who He is, not in what He says or decides. Therefore, they are not really arbitrarily defined, they are essential and necessary.

I don't think it makes much sense to believe that God could just decide that "freedom" really means "slavery" and thus be justified in taking away free will. I don't think there is a semantic way out of this. At any rate, to purposely redefine meta-ethical definitions in order to limit our options would be a violation of our free will. It would be, effectively, removing options at the outset.

Is anyone going to respond to my questions or am I the only one who has to do that?

Philosoft

This may be true; however, there's no way to know if it's true. A book that lists a thing's alleged characteristics is no more a necessarily non-arbitrary source than my claiming that something has certain characteristics. Either way, does not the claim that certain characteristics are "essential and necessary" limit God's power?

<strong> You're right about that. Good thing I'm not making a semantic argument. I'd like to know if there is any reason, free of your presuppositions, why God couldn't have made us value slavery more than freedom. And I'm really going to be disappointed if you must resort to the "God's character" argument.

<strong> Good thing I'm not doing that.

luvluv

He certainly could but He could not make HIMSELF value slavery more than freedom, and He created for HIS purposes, not our preferences. He created us with His own specific purpose in mind, and His purpose, creatures who would worship Him freely, could not be achieved by Him deciding to make us value slavery. He'd still know that we were obeying Him because He made us do it, and He doesn't want that.

What we value is derivative of what God values, and that is in order to allow us to make a decision on whether or not to serve Him based on consistent values. If what we valued was totally different from what God valued, then the entire exercise of our existence, and moral freedom itself, would be useless.

And I hope you are going to say that if God cannot fool Himself then He is not omnipotent, because it is a logical contradiction for omniscience to be fooled.

I don't think that values deriving from God's character makes Him less powerful. God's nature is unchanging, so I don't see how the inability to change the unchangeable makes one less powerful.

[ August 27, 2002: Message edited by: luvluv ]</p>

wordsmyth

Where is this written? Did God tell you this? Or is this simply your personal apologetic philosophy in the guise of xianity?

Are you making it all up as you go a long or can you actually provide some reasoning or evidence for any of this?

<strong>It may simply be...
possibly...
coulda... woulda... shoulda...</strong> yeah, and monkeys might fly out of my butt.

The truth is, there <strong>may possibly be</strong> any number of reasons, what I want to know is without any evidence or sound reasoning what makes your apologetic more valid than any other explanation.

God <strong>may possibly be</strong> a one eyed, one horned, flying, purple, people eater. I can easily use apologetics to defend this till the cows come home, but it doesn't make any of it true nor would it provide even a single reason to believe it to be true.


[Edited to add]
Whenever I see theists trying to rationalize suffering with a benevolent God it reminds me of a woman married to an abusive husband and always trying to rationalize it to her friends about how "he really does love her" and its all "for her own good" or other such idiocy.

[ August 27, 2002: Message edited by: wordsmyth ]</p>

Philosoft

How do you know his purpose, his character? You have a group of sentient animals that value freedom more than slavery and a book that says, guess what? we value freedom more than slavery because of our unobservable creator's character! Convenient, eh?

<strong> But all you know is what you value. You cannot know what God values in the same way you know what you value. In this light, the "God's character" assertion seems severly ad hoc.

<strong> Actually, I rather like Thomas Metcalf's example of God's inability to learn. Either way, simply defining your problems out of existence is poor form.

<strong> You said it yourself. God cannot bring about a world in which humans value slavery more than freedom. Thus, God's power is necessarily limited.