[Vision2020] Response to Joe, Donovan [More]
Art Deco
deco at moscow.com
Wed May 18 13:21:09 PDT 2011
Joe writes:
"First, determinism does not entail predictability." & "Nor does predictability ensure determinism."
For ordinary mortals, this is true. Events may be completely determined, but not enough is known to predict them with 100% accuracy, for example, the weather.
However, in the context of the Problem of Evil, these claims are irrelevant:
An alleged omnipotent, omniscient God is a God that knows everything can predict with 100% accuracy all outcomes, events, etc. In this case 100% error free predictability means that everything is determined -- it is bound to happen, it can happen only in the manner ordained and thus predicted by God, especially in this context where this alleged God knew everything that would happen henceforth in its creation at the moment of creation (foreknowledge).
Similarly, in this context if everything was ordained and thus determined by an omnipotent, omniscient God, then that God can predict everything with 100%, error free accuracy.
Simply, in the context of an alleged omnipotent, omniscient God, "determined" entails "predictability" by that God and "predictability" entails "determined."
In this context, asserting there is freewill or real choice by humankind means that the chooser can choose to do something not completely determined or predicted by an omnipotent, omniscient God, an obvious contradiction.
What others may have said, including big name philosophers, at this point is irrelevant to the simple arguments presented. If you want to refute these argument, then do it by showing a mistake in logical structure, not by changing the context of the assumptions and assertions or by changing the meaning of words that I have taken pains from the beginning to make clear.
You offer the following:
"C) God created the world fully determined and humans have free will. Further the world is chaotic and God is unable to predict the outcome of the world in complete detail even though it is fully determined. You are likely correct that on this model you'd have to reject God's omniscience but there would be an explanation of his "ignorance," e.g. the chaotic nature of the universe.
D) God created an undetermined world and humans have free will. Since the world is undetermined he is unable to predict the outcome of the world in complete detail. In this option God is still omniscient since the future is unsettled; God still knows all that is true it is just that propositions about the future are neither true nor false, so he doesn't know those."
Earlier, to forestall these kinds of claims, I clearly defined the "omniscience" of the alleged God: "At all times past, present and future God knows everything, past, present, and future." There are no gaps in God's foreknowledge or knowledge. I believe that this is the traditional definition used by philosophers and theologians who have discussed this subject. Regardless, this is how I have used the concept of omniscience in this discussion. If you want to show that my analysis is in error, please use words in the same way I have.
In the context of the Problem of Evil including an omnipotent, omniscient God the creator.
In C above "God is unable to predict the outcome of the world in complete detail even though it is fully determined" means that God's foreknowledge at the moment of creation is denied. As you point out, this is contradictory to God's omniscience since foreknowledge is part of the definition/conditions of omniscience.
In D above "God still knows all that is true it is just that propositions about the future are neither true nor false, so he doesn't know those" acknowledges that there is something that an omniscient God with complete foreknowledge doesn't know. This is a contradiction. If the future is undetermined and unsettled, God is not omniscient.
D is curious in other ways. It assumes that an omniscient God's knowledge is propositional. There can be many ways of knowing which are not propositional. For example, my dog Star knows that when I say "Come and get your vitamin" that if she comes I will give her a dog vitamin. It would be hard to argue that Star's knowledge is propositional in the same way human knowledge is propositional since so far as is known, Dogs only have phatic language communication skills. Knowing how to dunk a basketball is not propositional knowledge. An omnipotent, omniscient God cannot be restricted to one way of knowing.
There is no doubt that the concept of free will can have many meanings. Some of these meanings may (and have) lead to meaningful research about how much fee choice really exists.
However, again if you want to refute the arguments in my analysis of the Problem of Evil, then do it by showing a mistake in their logical structure, not by changing the context of the assertions or by changing the meaning of words that I have taken pains from the beginning to make clear, and meanings which as far as I know are the traditional meanings used by philosophers and theologians. Such tactics are like someone changing the definition of a topological space in order to refute a theorem in topology.
Wayne A. Fox
1009 Karen Lane
PO Box 9421
Moscow, ID 83843
waf at moscow.com
208 882-7975
----- Original Message -----
From: Joe Campbell
To: Art Deco
Cc: Vision 2020
Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2011 7:41 AM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Response to Joe, Donovan [More]
A few points.
First, determinism does not entail predictability. Chaotic systems, for instance, may be determined yet not predictable. Nor does predictability ensure determinism. I make predictions all the time about a variety of human behavior and so do you. That in and of itself does not mean that human behavior is determined. So you can't use "determinism" and "predictability" as if they mean the same thing. They don't. One is a metaphysical thesis about the structure of the universe; the other is an epistemological thesis. See this article for support of these claims:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/determinism-causal/
Second, you can't just assume that free will is incompatible with determinism. Some people (Descartes, Leibniz, Hume, Kant, G.E. Moore, myself) believe that determinism is compatible with free will, that the very same event may be determined from the beginning of time and still (if it is an act) be free. You yourself pointed out the pitfall of thinking of free will as indeterminism, for undetermined events are random and randomness is not the same as freedom. Well if randomness can't get you free will, it is hard to see how the opposite -- determinism -- can take free will away.
My own view is that the thesis of determinism as absolutely nothing to do with free will. If we think the two are linked it is pretty easy to show that no one has free will. Too easy. This was the point of my thought experiment. We need a better conception of "free will" than the one we get by contrasting it with determinism. That in a nutshell is what most of my own philosophical research is concerned with doing: providing us with a better understanding of what it means for a human act -- or any act -- to be free.
Putting these two points together, I think that there are more options available than the two that you sketch out below. Here are some of the other options:
C) God created the world fully determined and humans have free will. Further the world is chaotic and God is unable to predict the outcome of the world in complete detail even though it is fully determined. You are likely correct that on this model you'd have to reject God's omniscience but there would be an explanation of his "ignorance," e.g. the chaotic nature of the universe.
D) God created an undetermined world and humans have free will. Since the world is undetermined he is unable to predict the outcome of the world in complete detail. In this option God is still omniscient since the future is unsettled; God still knows all that is true it is just that propositions about the future are neither true nor false, so he doesn't know those.
Of course, this is not really a response to your argument. At most, there will just be a few more options to consider -- maybe just one more, in fact -- and likely you'll find that model unsatisfactory in light of the evil in the world and God's supposed attributes. I don't suppose to have a solution to the problem of evil! I just think that fully stating the argument is difficult and that it isn't obvious that God's existence is inconsistent with the existence of evil.
On Tue, May 17, 2011 at 5:12 PM, Art Deco <deco at moscow.com> wrote:
Joe,
I just can't follow your argument, nor your thought experiment. I suspect that we are using different definitions of "free will" and "determinism."
Let's start with the word "determinism" in an effort to clarify. [Note: "God" in the following means "alleged God."]
Suppose you had a perfect die throwing machine, a machine that tossed a die in a completely controlled micro-environment. This machine was set to hold and to toss the die in the exact same way each time. Barring some anomaly in what in what are called for the sake of expediency the "laws of nature" -- in this case physics -- the result will always be the same. The outcome is "determined." Given the constancy of the "laws of physics", no other outcome is possible. Betting on the outcome would be a sure bet; a bet that is never lost. The outcome is complete predictable without a chance of error.
If, however, the "laws of physics" were not constant, but were subject to an occasional anomaly, then there would be some randomness, and there would not be any sure bet. There would be errors in predictions.
In short, I am using the word "determined" to mean always completely predicable without error or chance of error.
Given the above, the issue of determinism and freewill in the context of the Problem of Evil can then be characterized thusly:
A. Did God when creating the universe, plan it down to the very last detail and then executed that plan exactly? Did God impose upon all things a "law of all things" from the beginning such that everything in the universe always acts like the die in the perfect die throwing machine -- all outcomes, events, etc were/are completely predictable (known) to God. If so, that is what I mean by "determinism" in the context of the Problem of Evil. There is no outcome that God, being omniscient, did not know (predict) would happen. There is no randomness in the system.
Or
B. Did God when creating the universe leave an element of randomness in its plan of the universe, and did not attend to every last detail, randomness say in the form of human "freewill," so that not all outcomes were completely predictable (known) by God.
If the later, then there are random events of which God would not have been cognizant of at the moment of creation or before they occurred, and therefore God would not be omniscient at the moment of creation or at anytime before any of these random events occur.
Simpler:
A. Did God plan everything, and being omnipotent, everything happens that way, and being omniscient, God knows exactly what will happen, and hence everything is determined (predictable by God), despite appearances?
or
B. Did God plan almost everything, but left an element of chance/randomness in its plan in the form of the freewill of humankind, and thus God could not predict everything from the moment of creation, and hence God not omniscient?
Simpler yet (like the old Clairol ads):
A. Does He know
or
B. doesn't He know?
If A, then all is determined, regardless of the conscious feeling of choice experienced by humankind.
If B, then freewill exists, but God is not omniscient having chosen to give up complete predictability.
What is very important in discussing this issue is to distinguish between there being actual freewill and there being the appearance of free will. There is little doubt that many people believe they are exercising free will. That belief may or may not be true. The more we learn about human behavior, the more determined (and predictable) it becomes.
God, being omnipotent, could certainly create a universe where people believe they were exercising free choice, but in fact, their actions were completely determined (predictable) by God at the point of creation.
w.
----- Original Message -----
From: Joe Campbell
To: Art Deco
Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2011 2:26 PM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Response to Joe, Donovan [More]
I can agree with much of this argument, Wayne, but not the claims about free will.
For instance, you write: “If A, then all actions of humankind were part of God's creation plan, and thus all human actions were predetermined/preprogrammed including acts of disobedience from the beginning according to God's plan, and hence, freewill cannot and does not exist, and thus evil is totally and completely the creation and the fault of God, and therefore God is not omnibenevolent.”
Maybe the best way to make my point is that I deny the slide from “determinism” to “predetermined” to “preprogrammed.” Or if I accept the slide, I deny that being preprogrammed is incompatible with being free and morally responsible for one's actions. In other words, I don't find determinism to be particularly problematic for free will -- at least not any more problematic than indeterminism.
Here is a thought experiment. Suppose you get to "rollback" time and relive a choice 100 times over. You choose the black iPod over the white iPod and you get to make this same choice 99 times over again. But each time the situation is exactly the same. Each time you have the same reasons, the same information, etc. What would you choose?
If you choose the black iPod 100 times out of 100 choices, it seems like no choice at all. What you did was determined and not up to you. That is the problem of free will and determinism.
Suppose instead you choose the black iPod 50 times and the white iPod the other 50 times. Then your choice was random and, for that reason, no choice at all. This is the problem of luck, the problem of free will and indeterminism.
And what set of probabilities would satisfy you? 90-10? 75-25? 51-49? This is the problem of free will. Free will is an enigma whether determinism is true or false.
On Mon, May 16, 2011 at 3:33 PM, Art Deco <deco at moscow.com> wrote:
Thank you, Joe for pointing my out unintended use of "omnificent" and "omnificence" instead of "omniscient" and "omniscience." This mistake originally started with a lapse of not carefully looking at spell check alternatives. I have replaced correct versions of the initial post and the response to Donovan's initial reply below.
I hope the following will address your questions.
The discussion of the Problem of Evil that has occurred was not intended to show that some superior being, a possible creator of the universe, or at least some God does not exists.
The scope of the discussion was much more limited. The intention was, and I hope, did show that the following assertion leads to a contradiction: "The universe was created by an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God." And therefore such an assertion is false. As you know, the belief in such a God with these traits is dogmatically asserted by many religious sects including the Catholic Church and our own local cult. In shorter terms the demonstration was that "The existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God who created the universe is a logical impossibility."
It is possible, though at this point in time, clearly undemonstrated, that the universe was created by some being, call it God, who was not omnipotent, omniscient, and, omnibenevolent. For example, one possibility is that of a God as described by Alfred North Whitehead. That particular God was not quite up to the entire task, though it tried its best, and therefore humankind needs to help it achieve a moral earth.
Each argument purporting to show the existence of some God(s) or other must be examined on its own merits including looking at the evidence for included or assumed knowledge claims, looking for logical consistency, looking for consistency with known probabilities, etc.
But on the issue of whether freewill and combined omnipotent/omniscient God are possible in the universe as we now know it, I can only repeat and augment a little the simply stated argument I made in response to Donovan.
Assuming an omnipotent God had a plan and from that plan created the universe exactly according to that plan, then:
Simply put, at the point of creation, either:
A. God knew that humankind would disobey it, and knew all other actions of humankind that would occur.
Or
B. God did not know that humankind would disobey it, and did not know some of the actions of humankind that would occur.
If A, then all actions of humankind were part of God's creation plan, and thus all human actions were predetermined/preprogrammed including acts of disobedience from the beginning according to God's plan, and hence, freewill cannot and does not exist, and thus evil is totally and completely the creation and the fault of God, and therefore God is not omnibenevolent.
If B, God lacked specific knowledge of the outcomes of his creation plan at the point of creation, and therefore God is not omniscient – there is something that God did not know.
Freewill (vs. determinism) is possibly compatible with the assertion that God is not omnipotent and/or omniscient. But whether freewill exists in reality would be difficult to prove or disprove -- no one has yet to do so. Certainly there is there appearance of freewill, but as you know with the advancement of the psychological sciences, particularly the work of B. F. Skinner and followers, and the advancement of the biological sciences, particularly the work of geneticists, the amount of freedom of choice available to humankind when carefully examined, appears to have shrunk and continues to shrink.
You posit:
"God could create a world where determinism is false (to say otherwise means he's not omnipotent)," or rephrased: "Could God create a world where determinism is false (to say otherwise means he's not omnipotent)?"
This is asking whether an omnipotent, omniscient God could create a world where that God itself was not omniscient, or asking if God could negate his own omniscience. This argument analogous to the argument in the form of a question: "Could God create a stone so heavy that it could not lift it?" When a question contains a contradiction, then there is no possible comprehensible answer except that the question calls for the existence of an impossible state of reality.
Although omniscience is used as a separate property in the discussion of the Problem of Evil, in really omniscience is a sub-property of omnipotence -- the power of knowing everything. So then the question becomes: "Could an omnipotent being destroy its own omnipotence?" This is another example of a question containing or leading to a contradiction, and thus without a possible comprehensible answer except that the question calls for the existence of an impossible state of reality.
The question of whether causation is transitive or not, or stated as "Is the universe a system of inexorably related (call the relation cause) between everything in it or not?" is not relevant to the issue. Either an omnipotent God knew exactly what it was doing when it created the universe or not. If so, then everything resulting from his plan of creation is determined, and if not, then God lacks omniscience.
I am at a loss to understand your fourth point. In the context of those who believe in an omniscient God, the word "omniscient" means: "At all times past, present and future God knows everything, past, present, and future. There is nothing (no bit of knowledge, fact, fancy, or feeling) that God does not know or did not know." In my discussion that is the meaning I have taken. How can there be a lesser kind of omniscience than full and complete knowledge? "God is omniscient and knows everything except what will happen next Tuesday" would be a contradiction.
There are very interesting questions arising from the assertion that an omniscient being exists or could even exist. How could such a being be sure of its knowledge? Where and how is this knowledge stored? What does it mean to say that some being knows everything? Etc. I have not addressed these issues. I have only addressed the problems that arise when it is asserted along with other statements that "At all times past, present and future God knows everything, past, present, and future. There is nothing (no bit of knowledge, fact, fancy, or feeling) that God does not know or did not know."
Further, I make no claim that the traditional usage of the words "omnipotent," "omniscient," and "omnibenevolent" make sense or describe possible states of reality. I am merely taking the words as they are used by certain believers and apologists then showing that such linguistic usage leads to a contradiction. I suspect that asserting "God is omnipotent" makes about the same amount of sense that asserting that "The square root of jelly vulcanizes justice" does.
----- Original Message -----
From: Joe Campbell
To: Art Deco
Cc: Vision 2020
Sent: Monday, May 16, 2011 10:36 AM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Response to Joe, Donovan
My own view is that the problem of evil is unsolvable, an enigma. Thus, I don't think you can that God does not exist, given the existence of evil, either.
Thanks, Wayne! A few quick questions and points.
1/ Why think that you can settle one of the perennial philosophical debates (whether or not God exists) by assuming the answer to another perennial philosophical debate (whether free will is compatible with determinism)?
2/ Neither omniscience nor predetermination wrecks free will. It is predetermined that you will leave some of your clothes on while purchasing your next set of groceries. I am certain that you will. Is it unfree? No, I think you freely do so.
3/ Why must an omnipotent, omniscient (omnificent = unlimited in creative power), and fully benevolent being be the CAUSE of everything? (Note, I'm not denying that God is the cause of everything. I take it that that is the issue in (2). Here I'm questioning this view.) First, God could create a world where determinism is false (to say otherwise means he's not omnipotent). Second, causation is not transitive. It might be true that something I wrote caused you to write one of the sentences below but it doesn't follow that I wrote the sentence below.
4/ You write: If there is something that is not predetermined (unknown to or unpredicted by God), but somehow left to chance at the moment of creation, then God is not omnificent [or omniscient].
Suppose "omniscience" means "someone knows everything that is true," that states of affairs make things true, and that the future is open: undetermined and unrealized. God might know everything there is to know -- he might not miss any of the facts -- yet still not know everything (all that was, is, or will be true).
More later!
Donovan writes:
"I just think you have too many false assumptions and false definitions of words in your arguments."
However, no specific examples of false assumptions or false definitions (which is taken to mean words used in other than their ordinary established manner) are cited even though the arguments have been presented in a numbered sequence making them easy to cite and to discuss. Therefore, Donovan's above assertion has not been shown to have any merit, but has the appearance of a rhetorical trick used when one side of a debate does not have a plausible answer to the arguments presented by the other.
Next, Donovan cites one of Zeno's paradoxes to show that anything can be proven by false assumptions and definitions. However, there is no explanation or illustration of how the arguments presented in the discussion of the Problem of Evil are structured in a similar manner to Zeno's argument that was given.
Since no evidence of false assumptions and definitions has been presented, and no demonstrations of specific invalid or fallacious arguments have been made, these two claims are without even attempted demonstrated merit.
Moving on, Donovan then writes:
"Evil, is to disobey God's command. It is not a specific act in and of itself. God created people with the ability to decide if they wish to obey or not obey. He can do that because He is all powerful. Humans create evil by doing what God has given them the ability to do, disobey God. God gave humans this ability because He wants people to freely choose to be with Him, not be forced to. Just like me and you don't want to be around just people that are forced to be.
God always does the most benevolent thing He can without eliminating our ability to disobey Him. If God prevented people from killing or hurting each other He would be doing something far less benevolent then anything else by eliminating our ability to obey and be with Him after we die."
Consider: "Evil, is to disobey God's command. It is not a specific act in and of itself." This is an example of the fallacy [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persuasive_definition] of offering a persuasive definition:
"A persuasive definition is a form of definition which purports to describe the 'true' or 'commonly accepted' meaning of a term, while in reality stipulating an uncommon or altered use, usually to support an argument for some view, or to create or alter rights, duties or crimes. … Persuasive definitions commonly appear in controversial topics such as politics, sex, and religion, as participants in emotionally-charged exchanges will sometimes become more concerned about swaying people to one side or another than expressing the unbiased facts."
Clearly, a persuasive definition is given for "evil" in above argument offered by Donovan. For most people, the real evil of the rape and murder of young children is found in the harm, pain, degradation, and other life long consequences suffered by the victims, their families, and associates, not that some alleged God was disobeyed.
There are many other problems with the above argument, including that it is full of knowledge claims about the traits of some alleged God which appear impossible to verify or even to give any cogent evidence for. Once it asserted that God is omnipotent, then it follows that God can do anything, which includes deceiving humankind without any fear of detection, therefore all knowledge claims about any other traits of God cannot be given any convincing or reliable evidence. Only those claims which contain contradictions can be conclusively refuted.
The Problem of Evil shows that asserting the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God leads to a contradiction, and thus one or more of the premises of the argument (omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence) must be false. Elementary logic.
The above argument given by Donovan asserts:
"God created people with the ability to decide if they wish to obey or not obey. He can do that because He is all powerful. Humans create evil by doing what God has given them the ability to do, disobey God. God gave humans this ability because He wants people to freely choose to be with Him, not be forced to…"
This claim does not refute the conclusions drawn from the Problem of Evil, but, in fact, supports them. This is the claim of the existence of 'freewill' or 'freedom to choose' to explain the existence of evil.
To see the fallaciousness of this claim of freewill in Donovan's assertions masquerading as an argument, consider the fundamental question engendered by the assumption that some alleged omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God created the universe: "Did God know exactly what it was doing at the moment of creation of the universe?"
If God knew exactly what all the consequences/outcomes of his act of creation were at the moment of creation, including whether humankind would "choose" to disobey him or not, then these so-called "free choices" by humankind were totally and completely predetermined by God's creation plan and execution thereof, and therefore, the freedom to choose to do anything not originally planned by God does not exist, freewill/freedom to disobey God is an illusion/delusion, and thus any argument using freewill or freedom of choice to justify the existence of evil is erroneous without any hope of redemption.
On the other hand, if God did not know whether humankind would choose to disobey him or not, then God had gaps in his knowledge at the moment of creation, and thus is not omniscient.
Hence, the conclusions drawn from the Problem of Evil withstand Donovan's perhaps quite emotionally satisfying for some, but transparently fallacious attempt to explain evil, among other things, away.
Simply put, at the point of creation, either:
A. God knew that humankind would disobey it.
Or
B. God did not know that humankind would disobey it.
If A, then all actions of humankind were part of God's creation plan, and thus all human actions were predetermined/preprogrammed including acts of disobedience from the beginning, and hence, freewill cannot and does not exist, and thus evil is totally and completely the creation and the fault of God, and therefore God is not omnibenevolent.
If B, God lacked specific knowledge of the outcomes of his creation plan at the point of creation, and therefore God is not omniscient.
Points of Interest and Corollaries
Ironically and similarly, the Bible, allegedly the Word of this omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God, offers many illustrations that God, in fact, is not omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, but prone to error, intemperate, childish, irritable, petulant, and vengeful. These illustrations include the terminal incident in the Garden of Eden and the advent of Jesus.
Did God know at the moment of creation that those ingrates, Adam and the particularly fickle Eve, would choose to disobey God's big command? If God knew, then Adam and Eve's actions were predetermined – they had no real choice in deciding to chomp the apple, but were acting in a preprogrammed manner. If God didn't know what these naked, thankless rotters would do, then Got is not omniscient.
The Garden of Eden incident also raises extremely serious, if not fatal, objections to the assertion that God is omnibenevolent. God punishes all succeeding generations of humankind with innumerable instances of pain and suffering because two people disobeyed him by performing the heinous act of eating an apple or the symbolic act of attempting to acquire knowledge. Punishing billions of people for one misdeed of someone else, a deed over which the billions punished had no control or choice, is good? Sorry Charley, but this is next to impossible to accept as a sane assertion, let alone a plausible one. Most of us find it abhorrent when only one person is punished for some evil they did not commit, let alone billions.
Why was it necessary for Christ to appear to save humankind from their folly? Did God know at the moment of creation that people were going to turn out to be such rascally miscreants? If not, God is not omniscient. If God is, in fact, omniscient and knew exactly and completely all the outcomes of his creation plan, then all the sins and debaucheries of humankind were predetermined at the point of creation, and regardless of any claim of freewill, such evils were inexorably part of God's creation plan, pure and simple. And yet most of humankind is to suffer eternal punishment for their actions which were completely determined by God's creation plan. And this is omnibenevolence? Wonderful.
Both the alleged incident in Garden of Eden and the advent of the alleged Savior Jesus also raise serious, if not fatal objections to the claim of God's omnipotence. If God had to intervene at least at these two points of its creation, thus have to try to alter its original plan due to unanticipated events, errors, and bumblings, how can God be omnipotent? Omnipotent beings, by definition, cannot make mistakes. And if God screwed up in the creation of parts of the universe (humankind), what else has it screwed up? Can it deliver without error on any of the many fantasies of some alleged heaven?
Donovan's argument further asserts:
"God always does the most benevolent thing He can without eliminating our ability to disobey Him."
So killing millions of people, sometimes in very torturous, grim, and disgusting ways via natural disasters is "the most benevolent thing He can without eliminating our ability to disobey Him," and is good, not evil? God is doing us wondrous, great, colossal favors by causing natural disasters and murdering millions? Get real.
If God cannot prevent natural disasters, events like earthquakes, volcanoes, and tidal waves, over which humankind has no control or choice, events that have killed millions in horrible ways and deprived the living of their presence, God is not omnipotent. If God can prevent these natural disasters, God is not omnibenevolent, unless God considers these gruesome, painful deaths to be good, not evil, something that most of us do not. If God considers these events to be good and not evil, what kinds of surprises await humankind in some alleged heaven, a place of allegedly infinite good?
Consider also the following assertion:
"God gave humans this ability [freewill] because He wants people to freely choose to be with Him, not be forced to."
Poor God. God is lonely and insecure, and thus needs our praise, reassurance, and company. If so, then God is incomplete, has vulnerable human traits, and thus cannot be said to be omnipotent, but dependent on some lowly beings to satisfy its cravings for attention, love, and approbation. Further, as illustrated by characterizations in the Bible, God is tetchy, petulant, spiteful, and vengeful to the point of inflicting immense and widespread pain, suffering, and sorrow on those that displease it. These cannot be the traits of an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, or even greatly forgiving being, but are the traits generally found in maladjusted, egotistical, power hungry humans who cannot brook, and are not open and mentally healthy enough to brook dissent.
Does it make sense that some alleged being, a being with the alleged ability to create the universe with all of its complexities and to keep it operating, is so vulnerable and incomplete that it craves humankind's praise and approval, and then tests the strength of that approval by making damningly evil many things it knowingly and intentionally programmed as natural parts of humankind's biological, psychological, and social makeup? Such a view is really a damning insult to this alleged God intelligence, powers, and goodness by its believers.
So failing to show any false assumptions and definitions, failing to show that any fallacious arguments have been offered, and offering as an alternative an argument which also proves that God cannot be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, we await the next transparent attempt to deny reality.
[Footnote: In addition to authoring the present sacrilegious discussion of the Problem of Evil, I have been reprimanded for calling God, the alleged creator of the universe, "it" instead of "He." I am unaware of any credible argument demonstrating that the alleged creator of the universe has male genitals.]
_______________________________
The Problem of Evil: One Formulation
Did some allegedly all-powerful (omnipotent), all-knowing (omniscient), perfectly good (omnibenevolent) God Create the Universe?
Let's assume so for the sake of argument.
If this omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God created the universe, then God is the cause/determiner of everything which happened/happens/will happen or exists in the universe because if this God is omniscient, it had exact foreknowledge of everything that would happen as a result of this omnipotent creation from the moment of creation. To say otherwise would be to contradict God's omniscience and omnipotence.
Hence, everything that happens in the universe was predetermined by God at the moment of creation. This includes all acts of humankind, and excludes completely the possibility of actual freewill/freedom to choose between performing good and/or evil acts, but not does not exclude the possibility of the fallacious appearance to humankind that freewill exists.
Simply stated: If there is something that is not predetermined (unknown to or unpredicted by God), but somehow left to chance at the moment of creation, then God is not omniscient.
If all is predetermined, the appearance that freewill exists is like a Hollywood set – possibly convincing to look at, but with naught behind it. To say there is a meaningful, left-to-chance choice is to say that God did not either cause/determine and/or know what the result of that choice would be – a denial of God's omnipotence and/or omniscience. If there is real choice (something God left to chance), then there is not predetermination, and thus a gap in God's knowledge, and therefore God would not be omnipotent and/or omniscient.
If God is omnibenevolent (perfectly good), then everything within God's control that happens, including all human acts is good, not evil: God would not knowingly and intentionally perform any evil act, any act that would result in evil, or even allow anything evil in itself to exist. Nothing evil (the opposite of good) can exist if God is omnibenevolent and in total, complete control and the determiner of all that happens in the universe.
For example, the acts of Jeffrey Dahmer where he tortured and murdered at least seventeen persons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Dahmer) were good, not evil acts.
Nor were the acts of Joseph Duncan evil acts, who among other crimes murdered three adults who were in the company of eight-year old Shasta Groene, abducted her and her nine year old brother Dylan, then raped, sexually tortured, and murdered Dylan in view of Shasta (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_E._Duncan_III). But such acts, having been initially knowingly and intentionally determined by an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God, were good, not evil acts.
Therefore, the belief by humankind that evil exists is in grievous error, if God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent.
The Problem of Evil occurs because many persons believe that evil acts actually exist – the acts of Dahmer and Duncan would be called evil by many. Asserting that these acts were evil (not good) and were knowingly predetermined/caused by an omnibenevolent God, who could have done otherwise, creates an obvious contradiction between God's alleged omnipotence and omniscience on one hand, and God's alleged omnibenevolence on the other.
If evil acts exist, then:
A. God, if omnibenevolent, could not have foreseen nor prevented such acts or God would have prevented them, hence God is not omnipotent and/or omniscient.
B. God could not be omnibenevolent in that God knowingly and intentionally caused/determined evil acts to occur despite that if God were omnipotent and omniscient, and thus the determiner of everything, could have prevented such acts.
C. Therefore, God cannot be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent.
Once the premises are accepted that this alleged God is omnipotent, omniscient, and thus this God created and determined the universe as it now exists and everything it contains and all occurrences within it, then it follows that God, given all the infinite choices open to it:
A. Knowingly and willfully chose to create/determine the universe in the way it now exactly exists, and
B. This God knew exactly everything (perfectly, to the last watermelon seed) what would occur as a result of its creation.
C. Therefore, Evil is a knowing and intentional creation of God.
There is no wiggle room here, despite centuries of theological attempts to solve this disturbing-to-the-faithful dilemma by various transparent ruses.
If God is omnipotent and omniscient, then it knowingly and intentionally caused/determined all things that happened in the universe from the point of creation onward including the acts of Dahmer and Duncan. To attempt to say otherwise is to deny either the omnipotence, omniscience, or both of God. This would be in effect saying: "Poor God. God didn't quite know or quite care enough about what it was doing and/or the consequences of its act of creation, and consequently bumbled a bit. Nice try."
To further assert that evil does not exist is to deny the basic reality of humankind's experience and pervert the established use of language beyond credibility, and thereby call certain acts not evil, thus good, that most of us find extremely and horridly evil.
There are many interesting corollaries to the consequences of the Problem of Evil – that God cannot be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent.
One is that the Bible (allegedly the Word of an alleged God), for example, acknowledges/asserts that evil acts do occur, and, in fact, asserts that God punishes and will eternally punish some people for their evil acts.
{According to the Bible didn't Jesus show up because something went radically wrong with God's creation – the super-prevalence of evil? (Isn't this assertion about Jesus an admittance by the Christian followers of God that God admits that it screwed up and needed to find a way to unscrew things [which doesn't appear to have worked either, in fact seems to have been counterproductive] another contradiction to the assertion of God's alleged omnipotence?)}
If this God is the omnipotent, omniscient creator of the universe and determiner of everything in it, then God is the determiner of all the evil acts and occurrences within it. Punishing someone for acts not even remotely within their control hardly constitutes omnibenevolence. Citing that punishing seven subsequent generations of progeny for the acts of one individual as an example of omnibenevolence indicates that such citers/believers are in greatly need of the services of competent mental health professionals and/or that their understanding of very elementary logic is egregiously defective, perhaps beyond repair.
Another problem that arises is the promise of and the nature of an afterlife. If evil does not exist, especially in the eyes of an alleged omnibenevolent God, then the good (not evil) acts of Duncan and Dahmer would not be barred from heaven, but would be allowed. The horrors experienced by Shasta Groene could be re-experienced by her and others for an eternity to provide a paradise for the Dahmers and Duncans.
If evil exists, then God cannot be omnipotent and/or omniscient. Hence, how can this God or any of its followers be confident that God can deliver on its promises of heaven and what will occur there, or even the correctness of its choices about whom will be housed there?
Another problem with the assertion of omnipotence and omniscience of some alleged God is that it makes both entreating and laudatory prayer meaningless except as phatic communication.
Why would an omnipotent, omniscient God ever change its intentions about the operation of its creation, the universe, when entreated by a much-less-wiser-than-God member of humankind? To do so would be a clear indication that God had made a misjudgment/error during the act of creation, and thus a contradiction of God's omnipotence and omniscience. Such an entreating prayer would be a gross insult to God, insinuating that God is not running things as it should and should heed the exhortations or requests of a much less knowledgeable human. Such entreating prayers are indirectly, but clearly telling God that he lacks omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence and that God better pay attention so that it gets things right.
To say that God needs or wants praise or approval for his act of creation and its consequences is attributing to God a fundamental weakness of humankind. If God is omnipotent, and thus completely and totally confident and completely assured about all its acts, why would it crave, need, or relish the approval and reassurance of one small, clearly not omnipotent or omniscient being of its creation?
A fourth problem that arises is the problem of faith in God's alleged trait of benevolence [or any other alleged trait]. If God is omnipotent (or even greatly wiser than humankind) then God could easily deceive humankind about its (God's) alleged goodness. To say that God could not deceive humankind would be to assert that humankind, or at least the believers among them, think that they are smarter than God and have him correctly pegged, clearly a contradiction to God's omnipotence. It also should be clear that asserting the omnipotence of some alleged God makes any other knowledge claims about any other of this God's alleged traits or intentions unverifiable in any way since this God could be The Great Omnipotent Deceiver, and therefore humankind would not be in a position to verify any other claims about God, or to refute them except by finding contradictions in such.
So that responses to the above, if desired, can be discussed without irrelevant side trips and emotional pleas and confessions of faith, below is the main gist of the above formulation broken down by premises, inferences, and conclusions. Those disagreeing can then state by number which they disagree with and why.
In what follows, if not explicitly stated, "God" should be read "alleged God."
Main Initial Premises.
1. There is a God.
2. God is omnipotent (all powerful, can do anything it chooses, etc).
3. God is omniscient (knows all/everything there is to know, past, present, and future including the consequences/determinants of all its acts and all the conscious and unconscious thoughts and feelings of every human).
4. God is omnibenevolent (perfectly good, abhors and would not permit anything evil (clearly not good) ever to exist or to occur, if it could prevent it.)
5. God knowingly and intentionally created the universe as we know it and exactly as it is.
Beginning of Inferences
6. If this God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, and created the universe, then God is the cause/determiner of everything that happens as a result of its all-knowing and intentional act of creation from the moment of that creation. God was/is/will be in complete control and the determiner of everything at all times. To assert there is something that God is not in complete control of (something somehow left to chance) is to deny either God's omnipotence and/or omniscience.
7. Since God is omniscient, God had exact foreknowledge of everything that would occur/be determined as a result of its omnipotent act of creation. To say God didn't know exactly to a tee what would occur or be determined as a result of his creation would be to contradict God's omniscience.
8. Since God is omnipotent and omniscient, everything that happens in the universe was knowingly and intentionally predetermined from the moment of creation. Therefore, all future acts of humankind were predetermined at moment of creation.
9. If all acts of humankind are predetermined, then there can be no freedom of choice or so-called free will. If there are acts of which God did not have foreknowledge of, then God is not omniscient. If there are acts of which God is not in control of or the determiner of but are somehow left to chance, then God is not omnipotent. Therefore, the appearance of freewill is an illusion/delusion if God is omnipotent and omniscient.
10. Any act that occurs in the universe was either predetermined at the moment of creation or not. If God is omnipotent and omniscient then God intentionally and knowingly created/determined the universe to be the way it now exists. If there is something, like a human act which is not predetermined, but has been somehow left to chance (an unknown outcome), then God is not omniscient. If there is real choice, and thus an indeterminate gap in God's knowledge, there is not predetermination, and thus God is not omniscient. If there was no gap in God's knowledge/foreknowledge at the moment of creation, then all acts are therefore knowingly and intentionally predetermined by God.
11. Therefore all acts of humankind are predetermined and occur regardless of the appearance of choice/freewill, if God is omnipotent and omniscient.
12. If God is omnibenevolent (perfectly good), then every act that God has control over or determines would be good and not evil. God would not knowingly and/or intentionally perform or allow the performance of any act that was not good, that is, evil. If God is omnibenevolent (perfectly good), and thus totally and completely abhorrent to and completely opposed to evil, and this omnipotent, omniscient God was in complete control and the determiner of everything that happens in the universe from the moment of creation, then nothing evil would or could ever exist in the universe.
13. Since God is omnipotent, omniscient, and thus is in a position to unequivocally impose its omnibenevolence, then evil does not and cannot not exist. Hence, no acts by humankind are evil, but all such acts are good.
14. Since evil cannot exist if God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, the belief of humankind holding that evil exists is in grievous error. Evil cannot exist if God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent.
15. Therefore, the acts of child torturers, rapists, and murderers are not evil, but good acts.
16. Further, since evil cannot exist, the acts called evil in the Bible, the alleged word of God, are not evil, but good. Therefore the Bible is in error, and could not have been authored, even by proxy, by an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God. Therefore, the Bible is not the Word of this God, but a grand, but not evil deception of God since there is no evil – everything is good.
17. The Problem of Evil occurs because many persons believe that evil exists, for example, the acts of child molesters. Since these acts of child molestation would not have occurred unless they were knowingly and intentionally predetermined by an omnipotent, omniscient God, then God cannot be omnibenevolent if child molestation, for example, is evil.
18. If evil acts exist, then:
A. God, if omnibenevolent (perfectly good), could not have foreseen nor prevented such acts or God would have, hence God is not omnipotent and/or omniscient.
B. God is not omnibenevolent in that God knowingly and intentionally caused/causes evil acts to occur since God, if omnipotent and omniscient, could have prevented such acts of which he was the determiner.
C. Therefore, God cannot be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent.
19. Once the premises are accepted asserting that this alleged God is omnipotent, omniscient, that evil exists, and this God knowingly and intentionally created the universe and everything in it, then it follows that God, given all the infinite choices open to it:
A. Knowingly and willfully chose to create the universe in the way it now exactly exists, and
B. Hence, this God knew exactly everything (perfectly, to the last watermelon seed) what would occur as a result of its creation at the moment of creation, and evil, as we now know it is God's creation, and thus clearly demonstrates that God is not omnibenevolent.
20. We are left with the unavoidable, but unpalatable-to-some conclusion that God cannot be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent. We are then left with a host of problems created by that this clearly demonstrated insufficiency of God, if God as presently conceived by humankind, exists at all.
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