Originally posted by kirksey957Thanks Kirk, I think that's a very interesting idea. Your claim seems to be that some of our darker qualities (e.g., aggression, jealousy) are also aspects of God's character. On this interpretation the strict problem of evil does not arise; the putative explanation for why God would allow people to suffer apparently unnecessarily is the God is not morally perfect, and has failings similar to our own. I wonder though, if this claim is correct, then what would be the reason for worship? How are we to understand the 'Glory of God' if God is in fact a relatively vicious, vengeful creature? I suppose if this were the case, then our relationship with God ought not be one of worship, rather we should look to God in order to understand our own moral imperfections. In being made in God's image God is, in effect, providing us a model with which to understand ourselves. We would look to scripture for lessons about our own moral imperfections. Just as our zealousness and aggression lead to atrocity, so God's zealousness and aggression lead to atrocity during the genocidal campaign through Canaan, when women and children were ordered put to the sword. I think this is a very fruitful line of thought. But this is also a line of thought that many, many people would find just absurd. I think there is little chance that many christians would find palatable the idea that God was morally imperfect in the way we are, or that his power and knowledge is limited like ours.
The book of Job is a very perplexing and offers a complicated God that as you say, Bennett, participates or is complicitus in Job's suffering. Help me out with the logic here as it may not make any sense. But we read in Genesis that mankind was made in God's image. If we as part of God's creation have a "shadow" or a part of ourselves that is brok ...[text shortened]... ng in the midst of whatever. I think Jung had something to say about God's shadow in Job. Kirk
Originally posted by OmnislashIt seems that you try to have it both ways in your introduction here. If I find your argument persuasive, then that would seem to demonstrate that it is a strong argument. If I find your argument unpersuasive, then you would have us believe that it is not because it is a weak argument, but rather because you have misrepresented it. If we accept that premise, then there is no way for us to logically analyze your argument at all. I will attempt to do so nonetheless.
I'm very glad you brought this up, for I think this is one of the most misunderstood books in the Old Testament. First off, I run my disclaimer again that I am but a man who speaks what he thinks and you should read the scriptures for yourself if you want to know the truth about them. I am only a man.
I presume from your post that you are one of the m ...[text shortened]... about the power of God. Not your specific requested statements, but a good read nonetheless. 🙂
Some states in the US have Good Samaritan laws, wherein people can be punished for failing to act if they witness a crime being committed. Perhaps god did not directly torment Job, but in refusing to intervene while Satan did so, he exhibited a lower sense of morality than we mere humans expect of each other.
In Exodus 12:29, god killed all the firstborn of Egypt. Not only did he directly kill the son of the Pharoah and the sons of the Egyptian elite, but he killed the sons of even the lowly captives in the dungeon. His blood lust was so great that he even killed the firstborn cattle. He didn’t just allow Satan to commit these atrocities, he committed them himself. Some might argue that god was only punishing Pharoah for his refusal to free the Hebrew slaves, but couldn’t god have just changed Pharoah’s mind or killed only Pharoah’s son or done something a bit less drastic? Genocide is a behavior normally associated with Nazi war criminals, not a supposedly omnibenevolent god.
A god which has the power to prevent evil, but chooses not to is not omnibenevolent, and is of questionable moral character. A god which directly commits atrocities of the magnitude listed in the bible deserves to be openly shunned. In any event the christian is unable to reconcile these types of behavior with the concept of an all-powerful and all-loving god. The hypothesis in untenable.
As for my "disclaimer", I want you to understand that it comes from a theological standpoint. I accept that I am but an imperfect man and that no matter how much I may honestly reflect upon the texts of scripture I may still not see it correctly. As a believer of those texts I would like to have others opinions formulated upon their own reading and reflections and not just upon my own comprehension. The decision of what is the truth must be the responsibility of the individual and their relationship to God.
If we are to analyze Gods actions from a scientific point of view, then shurely we shall evaluate him as imperfect. I mean not to criticize scientific thinking as I love the process myself, but we must also consider that science is uncapable of accurately evaluating that which it cannot completely explain. I have long said that science is an organized system of ignorance, but such is the physical limit of our comprehension of the universe in all regards.
I presume that my belief won't sway you and you will probably think it illogical, but I shall convey the concept nonetheless. A point that must be understood is that all which occurs in the Old Testament works under a different "code of law" than that in the New Testament. The very purpose of Christs coming is so that we might not be judged for our imperfectness. In the times of the Old Testament people WERE shown great mercy, but as sinful beings they were subject to justice. The key word is justice. The idea is that as imperfect beings who have fallen from the light we are deserving of nothing more than Hell. I don't want this to sound fire and brimstone, fear Hell and all of that crap. It is simply what we deserve as the rebellious and wicked creatures we are. I would say that to a perfect being such as God, would not even the slightest disobediance be an abomination in his sight? And yet, he shows mercy to us. I would point out that the texts specifically point out that God DID intervene to save Jobs life. You can either focus upon what God did do (save Jobs life) or on what he didn't do (prevent harm to his body and household). It's up to you to decide when your house burns down if you should be upset at the loss of your house or grateful that you got out of it in time.
As shown in the book of Job (if I may be unserious for a moment), I think God is a wonderful insurance agent. No premiums, no annual fee, and your posessions are covered 200%.
Originally posted by OmnislashI haven't said anything about science, so I'm a bit confused as to why you claim that I'm trying to subject God to scientific analysis. I am trying to make sense of what God is traditionally claimed to be, namely a morally perfect being, given that he clearly acts immorally in various scriptures, Job being prominent among them. If you are claiming, if effect, that logical analyis is merely organized ignorance, then that seems to ential that we are never justified in inferring a conclusion from a set of premises, given that it is only in virtue of our taking logical claims to be necessarily true that we think particular forms of inference are guaranteed to arrive at true conclusions given the truth of a set of premises. If you claim that logical analysis is merely organized ignorance, then you couldn't infer from the premise that God is morally perfect to the conclusion that God won't punish us just for fun. God's punishing us just for fun is ruled out by God's moral perfection only if it is impossible that there exist such a manifest contradiction. But if our adherence to the logical law of non-contradiction is merely a dogma on our part, then we would never be justified in thinking that becasue God has a particular nature he will act in accord with that nature, for what would justify that inference, if not a rule of logic? Furthermore, if you take the claim seriously that logical analysis is merely organized ignorance, then what could possibly justify that claim itself. Presumably only some argument or other. And any argument will only provide justification upon its conclusion if there is some logical relationship between the premises of the argument and its conclusion. So if you take your claim seriously, then an implication is that you could never justify your claim. So the truth of your claim would undermine its own justification. So your claim could never be justified. But since your claim could never be justified, why ought I take it seriously?
As for my "disclaimer", I want you to understand that it comes from a theological standpoint. I accept that I am but an imperfect man and that no matter how much I may honestly reflect upon the texts of scripture I may still not see it ...[text shortened]... premiums, no annual fee, and your posessions are covered 200%.
But back to Job. If God is omnipotent, couldn't he have taught Job a lesson just without allowing him to suffer? Wouldn't this be exceptionally easy for God? I'd really like you to try your best and answer this question, because it seems like if God is morally perfect, omnipotent and omniscient, then he shouldn't allow any unnecessary suffering at all. It seems an implication of those properties would be that all evil in the world was absolutely necessary to make the world, somehow, the best possible world. But if this is the case, if this is the best possible world, then for any sinful deed I commit, the world would have been a wrose place if I had not sinned. Surely this is counter-intuitive to say the least. Furthermore, if I end up being punished by God for sinning, when the evil I commit contributes essentially to making this the best of all possible worlds, then God is, in effect, punishing me for not making the world a worse place. But this is clearly incompatible with God's being morally perfect, because such punishment would be unjust.
Any help you can provide on these issue would be greatly appreciated.
As for my statement of logical analysis being organized ignorance, you can judge that as you like and dispute it if you like. Perhaps an arguement for another day? Anyway, back to God.....
To say that God is morally imperfect due to his allowance of suffering implies that suffering is necessarily "bad" or "unjust". How do you define "suffering"? It would be my opinion that suffering by nature is purely dependant upon perspective. If suffering is having things occur in opposition of what pleases you, then it is your own perspective and motivation that defines it. If my car breaks down, causing me to lose job and be in financial hardship I might think I am suffering. If my car hadn't broken down and on my way to work I accidentaly hit and killed someone who would have later on in their life found a great medical cure for a horrible disease, would my "suffering" then still be unjust?
If you are to say that God can control everything to make a perfect world and chooses not to, then are we to say that God is himself responsible and morally reproachable for the imperfections? Would God then not also manipulate mortal man as well? If God manipulates us, then everyone is in accordance with his will, which by the very fact that we have opposing view points makes the concept rediculously impossible. Hence, if we do indeed have free will, then it is falacious to argue that God is morally responsible for our actions. Just as in Job, it was MEN who caused Jobs hardships. MEN took his animals. MEN killed his servants.
I'll stop here. If your next arguement is that if God gave us free will which is what allows us to do harm unto one another and thusly God is still to blame,then I'll let you know now that I'd be happy to explain that one as well. I refrain from it at the time because I wish to see if you want to drag this point out further. I hope this was insightful and was along the lines of what you wanted.
😉
Originally posted by OmnislashWell there's really not much more to discuss about the claim that logical analysis is organized ignorance. The claim is self-refuting.
As for my statement of logical analysis being organized ignorance, you can judge that as you like and dispute it if you like. Perhaps an arguement for another day? Anyway, back to God.....
To say that God is morally imperfect due to hi ...[text shortened]... was insightful and was along the lines of what you wanted.
😉
About suffering: Of course you're right that some suffering is brought about through having one's desires unsatisfied. But you can't be seriously claiming that ALL suffering is of this sort. In Seattle, for instance, there is a children's hospital. Recently there was a baby born there with herpes encephalitis, a degenerative brain disease. This virus causes lesions throughout the brain. The physical pain is excruciating, as the infant's constant screaming can attest. The suffering of this sort is what I'm talking about, intense physical pain. We could expand this working notion of suffering to include sever emotional pain, but in the contest of this discussion that really isn't necessary. So given that intuitive characterization of suffering, and given that a morally perfect being would want to prevent any suffering of that sort that wasn't necessary for the greater good, and given that any instance of such suffering God would not only know about but be able to prevent, it seems either that 1) All the suffering in the world is absolutely necessary for the greater good, or 2) God is morally imperfect. If you opt for the first option, then you're left with the paradoxical result that our putatively evil actions are actually necessary for the greater good, in which case the world would have ended up worse if any evil action had not actually occurred. But God supposedly punishes us for our evil. So God would be punishing us for NOT making the world a worse place. But this in unjust. Since being unjust is a moral imperfection, God would still be morally imperfect if He punishes us for evils that were necessary for the greater good.
You claim that it wasn't God who directly caused Job's hardships. But we've already discussed this in this thread. If God is morally perfect, then he would have prevented the men from successfully carrying out their will and harming Job. He didn't prevent them from harming Job, so He must be morally imperfect, or Job's suffering was somehow necessary for the greater good. Remember the example from before: Suppose while at the beach I come across someone drowning in the shallows. If I could save this persone without significant cost to myself, then saving them seem morally required. It certainly is correct that if I just stand back and watch them drown I have not acted morally perfectly. God sits back and watches these men hurt Job, so He is guilty of the same moral imperfection I would be guilty of in the above example.
Just for Kicks, here's a puzzle about the Divine Omniscience and Free Will:
1) If I do something of my own free will, say, take a swig of beer tonight at midnight, then it must have been possible, shortly before I took that swig, to have chosen to do otherwise.
2) Since I did have that swig of beer at midnight, God must have believed that I would have that swig 10 minutes before I in fact had it, in fact He alway believed it.
3) If just before I took that swig of beer it was within my power to choose not to take that swig, then it was within my power to make one of God's beliefs false (his belief that I would take the swig).
4) But God can't have a false belief, becasue if he's omniscient then by definition all his beliefs are true.
5) So it must not have been in my power to choose not to take that swig of beer.
6) A similar argument can be presented for any of our putatively free actions.
7) Thus, if God is omniscient then none of our actions are free.
QED
So, I'm still waiting for a non-contradictory explanation of how God's moral perfection is compatible with the existence of unnecessary suffering. Thank you for your posts on this matter, I'm sure we'll get to the bottom of this very difficult problem.
Now, if I understand you correctly the only way you will accept that God is omniscient and morally perfect is if there is no suffering and no free will. Hence, for you to accept any arguement I may make to the contrary I would have to prove that we are mindless puppets and that everything in the world is all happy and pleasant. Since you require equations that are false to accept another equation, you will never accept my point. You would hold God responsible for what he does NOT do and that we are in no way at fault for the way the world is. From your beer example I hold it that you probably wouldn't receive the notion that God and his consciousness aren't bound by time as we are nor that we should hold Satan responsible for anything either because if God could stop him it is not his fault and all that is in this world is Gods fault.
Well, we certainly did get to the bottom of this. I regret that we won't come to agree on the possibilities in this matter, but I do hope we both learned something from it all. Since there is nothing you can learn from me, I would learn from you if you would permit. If there is no God then are we not just animals? If we are just animals, what is there in life beyond self preservation? If there is nothing beyond self preservation, then why do we take actions that are not conducive to it(i.e. suicide, overpopulation, pollution, unhealthy lifestyles, charity, etc.) ?
Originally posted by OmnislashI'm not taking a position on the properties of God. I'm just saying that the traditional christian view according to which God has the properties of omniscience, omnipotence and moral perfection is incompatible with the view that there is unnecessary evil in the world. I'm also claiming that if God is omniscient, then he knows the turht value of every proposition. Thus he has always known that the proposition 'bbarr will discuss the problem of evil today' is true. But if He knows that, then How could I have chosen to do otherwise than discuss the problem of evil today, given that if I had chosen to do otherwise, God would have been wrong. But God can't be wrong is he's omniscient, so I couldn't have chosen to do otherwise. Thus if God is omniscient we have no free will. These arguments are farily straightforward. If you want to claim that God isn't bound by time, that he is eternal or outside of time, then that doesn't effect the content of the argument. From outside of time, if God still has certain knowledge about what each of our decisions will be, then it would be logically impossible for us to ever have done otherwise than we in fact do, so we have no free will if God is omniscient. (I'm ignoring compatibilism, because I don't see how the truth of determinism is compatible with the type of moral responsibility christian doctrine requires). If God allows Satan to run around causing suffering when He could with little effort stop that suffering, then God is morally imperfect, just as if I were to watch some local kids torturing neighborhood animals and not do what was in my power to stop them. Since there is no limit on God's power, He ought to be able to stop Satan with a mere act of His will. But He doesn't, so He is morally imperfect.
Now, if I understand you correctly the only way you will accept that God is omniscient and morally perfect is if there is no suffering and no free will. Hence, for you to accept any arguement I may make to the contrary I would have to prove that we are mindless puppets and that everything in the world is all happy and pleasant. Since you require equations ...[text shortened]... conducive to it(i.e. suicide, overpopulation, pollution, unhealthy lifestyles, charity, etc.) ?
So the claims I'm making are not about whether there exists a God, merely about the deep logical incoherence of traditional christian belief.
Originally posted by OmnislashI would disagree with this claim that a lack of any god removes all meaning from people's lives. I think in actuality, it frees us to determine our own meanings. If you think about it as an existentialist, there is no meaning in the universe, there are no greater or higher principles to which we must adhere in order to be right. Therefore, all choices are equivalent. This does not mean that our lives must be worthless. It means that we are free to determine our own paths, and derive our own meaning and justification for our existences. We are not bound by a set of external constraints on our lives that force us to conclude that one action is superior to another. In fact, the challenge that faces each and every one of us is to first define our own meaning, based on our own instrinsic values and ideas, and then attempt to fulfill that meaning as best we can.
If there is no God then are we not just animals? If we are just animals, what is there in life beyond self preservation? If there is nothing beyond self preservation, then why do we take actions that are not conducive to it(i.e. suicide, overpopulation, pollution, unhealthy lifestyles, charity, etc.) ?
I find the idea of a lack of god uplifting, rather than depressing. If free will exists then surely it is the best of all possible things. What of heroism if the hero is simply acting out a predetermined sequence of events that he has no control over? The actions of an individual become much more powerful when we understand that the individual had the ability and the choice to not perform those actions, but chose to do so anyway, even at risk to himself, because he believed that his actions were fulfilling an ideal.
-mike
Originally posted by legionnaireWhat's the basis for this ostensible "freedom" which you find so inspiring? What do you mean by "choice"?
If you think about it as an existentialist, there is no meaning in the universe, there are no greater or higher principles to which we must adhere in order to be right. Therefore, all choices are equivalent. This does not mean that ...[text shortened]... us to conclude that one action is superior to another.
-mike
Are the atoms in our brains somehow outside the deterministic system of physical laws under which the rest of the material world operates? And if not, how are our so-called "choices" any different from any other automatic natural process? Does the earth "choose" to turn? Does smoke "choose" to rise? If not, what makes an event that is mediated by the human brain any different from any other event?
I don't see how the idea of free will can have any real meaning in a purely materialist system.
Originally posted by jgvaccaroWell, the libertarian notion of free will anyway, the metaphysically robust version that cashes out to something like 'the capacity to have done otherwise at time t than one in fact did at time t without some corresponding change in the complete state of the world prior to t'. I'm not sure if this is the notion that the loose group of writers now called 'existentialists' had in mind. But if we define free will alon compatibilist lines, then what prevents our choices from determining the meaning of our lives?
What's the basis for this ostensible "freedom" which you find so inspiring? What do you mean by "choice"?
Are the atoms in our brains somehow outside the deterministic system of physical laws under which the rest of the material world operates? And if not, how are our so-called "choices" any different from any other automatic natural proces ...[text shortened]... don't see how the idea of free will can have any real meaning in a purely materialist system.
Originally posted by bbarrWell-- how does a materialist maintain the idea of the human individual as anything more than an arbitrary construct? If we accept that the physical world is a deterministic system, do we then assert that the human brain is an exception to that system? If it is an exception, why? If it's not, than what can we possibly mean when we refer to "humans" or "individuals" or "us"?
Well, the libertarian notion of free will anyway, the metaphysically robust version that cashes out to something like 'the capacity to have done otherwise at time t than one in fact did at time t without some corresponding change in the complete state of the world prior to t'. I'm not sure if this is the notion that the loose group of writers now called ' ...[text shortened]... n compatibilist lines, then what prevents our choices from determining the meaning of our lives?
Originally posted by jgvaccaroI'm sorry, I'm not quite clear what you're asking. If determinism is true, then of course brain would be a deterministic system. My post above was just pointing out that only one way of understanding free will (the libertarian conception) is incompatible with the truth of determinism. The 'Soft Determinist' or 'Compatibilist' maintains that determinism is true, and we should understand free will as merely the capacity to act according to the outcomes of our deliberations, even though the course of our deliberations and the 'choices' that result from them are ultimately the result of causal forces beyond our control. For the compatibilist, as long as we are not overtly restricted fromdoing what we want to do (e.g., being ties down, or at the whim of evil hypnotists) then we are free enough.
Well-- how does a materialist maintain the idea of the human individual as anything more than an arbitrary construct? If we accept that the physical world is a deterministic system, do we then assert that the human brain is an exception to that system? If it is an exception, why? If it's not, than what can we possibly mean when we refer to "humans" or "individuals" or "us"?