The Logical Problem of Evil: Mackie's World

[lesliedellow]

What excuses him of the same duty?

He owes no duty to anyone. How do you suppose we can put our Creator under an obligation to us?

 

[quatona]

The Christian God desires to fulfil his plans for his creation, and that might possibly involve suffering for some of his creatures. Not that that excuses us of our duty to try and relieve that suffering.

Who am I to sabotage God´s plans?

 

[lesliedellow]

Who am I to sabotage God´s plans?

The short answer is that you can't. To quote the Westminster Confession:

"God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass."

 

[quatona]

The short answer is that you can't. To quote the Westminster Confession:

"God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass."

Ok. I just don´t understand what you mean by "duty", under this premise.

 

[lesliedellow]

Ok. I just don´t understand what you mean by "duty", under this premise.

Depending upon whether or not you are a theist, it means either:

a.) An obligation placed upon you by God or,

b.) An obligation placed upon you by whatever other source of obligation you acknowledge.

 

[quatona]

Depending upon whether or not you are a theist, it means either:

a.) An obligation placed upon you by God or,

I´m not a theist, but this discussion assumed the God of your belief to exist.
I don´t understand the concept of "duty" (or "obligation" or whatever word you may come up with) under the premises you postulated:

The short answer is that you can't.

and

"God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass."

 

[lesliedellow]

I´m not a theist, but this discussion assumed the God of your belief to exist.
I don´t understand the concept of "duty" (or "obligation" or whatever word you may come up with) under the premises you postulated:

and

What is so difficult to understand about a divinely imposed obligation?

If, for the moment, we ignore the Bible, the twin attributes of omniscience and omnipotence directly imply that God foreordains everything, but that doesn't relieve us of our moral obligations.

Look at it yet another way, at the macroscopic level quantum effects can be ignored, and that leaves us with something resembling a Newtonian universe. In such a universe everything humans do must be the result of causal laws operating. Nevertheless, if you murdered somebody, would you be able to stand up in court, and plead not guilty, because the laws of physics made you do it?

 

[quatona]

What is so difficult to understand about a divinely imposed obligation?

Well, to me (under your premises and in your scenario) it sounds like me imposing a "moral obligation" on my fridge. It´s pointless.

If, for the moment, we ignore the Bible, the twin attributes of omniscience and omnipotence directly imply that God foreordains everything, but that doesn't relieve us of our moral obligations.

Whatever that might mean.

Look at it yet another way, at the macroscopic level quantum effects can be ignored, and that leaves us with something resembling a Newtonian universe. In such a universe everything humans do must be the result of causal laws operating. Nevertheless, if you murdered somebody, would you be able to stand up in court, and plead not guilty, because the laws of physics made you do it?

I don´t know that nature or natural laws have a court in which they hold us responsible for what threy determined us to do. Thus, this analogy doesn´t seem to make any sense to me - because it isn´t analogous in the crucial point.

 

[lesliedellow]

Well, to me (under your premises and in your scenario) it sounds like me imposing a "moral obligation" on my fridge. It´s pointless.

Even though preordained, your choices are still choices you freely make without being subject to any external constraints. Therefore you are responsible for them.

Whatever that might mean.

It means that, since God is omniscient, he knows everything which will happen in his creation, and, since he is omnipotent, he can create whatever universe he likes. If he didn't like what he foresaw, he could simply create an alternative universe. Therefore, whatever universe he creates, he has necessarily preordained everything which will happen in it.

 

[Picky Picky]

He owes no duty to anyone. How do you suppose we can put our Creator under an obligation to us?

Who could be under a greater obligation than the person who created those who suffer, and who created the world in which they suffer; who created the means of their suffering; who pre-ordained all the suffering that occurs?

If our obligation is a moral one, and yet it does not apply to God, what justification can there be for this moral relativism? And why should we follow moral teachings which God himself does not follow?

 

[quatona]

Even though preordained, your choices are still choices you freely make without being subject to any external constraints. Therefore you are responsible for them.

It means that, since God is omniscient, he knows everything which will happen in his creation, and, since he is omnipotent, he can create whatever universe he likes. If he didn't like what he foresaw, he could simply create an alternative universe. Therefore, whatever universe he creates, he has necessarily preordained everything which will happen in it.

So God planned, preordained and liked everything that would come to pass. I´m sorry, but the idea that God gave me a moral duty to do something that is not part of this plan doesn´t make a shred of sense to me.

 

[lesliedellow]

Who could be under a greater obligation than the person who created those who suffer, and who created the world in which they suffer; who created the means of their suffering; who pre-ordained all the suffering that occurs?

If our obligation is a moral one, and yet it does not apply to God, what justification can there be for this moral relativism? And why should we follow moral teachings which God himself does not follow?

God is the one with the sanctions, as well as being Lord of all creation.

Normally a country's government will make extortion a criminal offence, if its citizens practice it, but it gives itself cart blanche to extort money from those same citizens, in the form of taxation.

 

[Picky Picky]

God is the one with the sanctions, as well as being Lord of all creation.

Normally a country's government will make extortion a criminal offence, if its citizens practice it, but it gives itself cart blanche to extort money from those same citizens, in the form of taxation.

We elect our governors, having chosen those whose taxation and penal policies we can bring ourselves to support. Regimes which do not work that way are tyrannies which should be overthrown.

But is that really your considered answer to my questions? It doesn't seem really to match up to the seriousness of the ethical problem.

 

[lesliedellow]

We elect our governors, having chosen those whose taxation and penal policies we can bring ourselves to support. Regimes which do not work that way are tyrannies which should be overthrown

So you are scandalised that The creator of the universe doesn't stand for reelection every four or five years.

 

[Picky Picky]

So you are scandalised that The creator of the universe doesn't stand for reelection every four or five years.

No, it was you who made the analogy with a terrestrial government and it was I who indicated that I thought you were being silly. Now I begin to suspect your thinking may not be coherent.

 

[ToddNotTodd]

The Christian God desires to fulfil his plans for his creation, and that might possibly involve suffering for some of his creatures. Not that that excuses us of our duty to try and relieve that suffering.

Round about way of saying yes, your god desires suffering, but ok...

I can conceive of a god that desires to fulfill plans that do not involve suffering. Therefore, the god that I'm conceiving is more benevolent, and greater (if you're using the typical Anselmian terms for greatest).

 

[J. Elias]

1) God has divine-foreknowledge of the actions of free creatures. In other words, God knows what an agent with free will ultimately chooses before that agent even actually exists. God knows if I will freely rob the bank or refrain from do so, for example. (Justification: God's omniscience).

2) Mackie's world is possible. Mackie's world is a possible world where all free agents choose to do the morally good action with every choice. In other words, no one does anything evil, so evil does not exist. (Justification: prima facie true. Though it seems improbable and odd, it is logically conceivable, so it is, therefore, logically possible. There is no reason to believe such a world is not possible.)

3) God can actualize Mackie's world. (Justification: Premise 1, God's omnipotence and omniscience. God is aware of Mackie's world and create said world, as God can create all logically possible worlds).

4) Therefore, the free will defense does not stand, as the existence of free will does not necessitate evil existing. God could have created a possible world with both free will and no evil.

Personally, I reject premise 3. The reason being that it would seem to me that God, being omniscient and with His alleged foreknowledge would not know the world "as it could be" but rather "as it would be" This is not to say God could not know what would happen if things were different, but given the variable of free agency, God would not prevent it. But even given that He does know what all free agents would do in given circumstances, to suggest God "stacked the deck" as it were, even if in our favor, would completely defeat the purpose of free will.

For example, let us say you are an avid ice-cream lover. I make a cake I would like you to eat. But, given the fact that you like ice cream over cake, I know you will choose to eat the ice cream and not my cake. In response to this, I hide the ice cream such that you won't find it, so you will eat my cake for dessert instead of ice cream. Now, while you may certainly have been free to have ice cream, by "stacking the deck" I have manipulated your free choice as to what you would eat for dessert.

Of course, trying to think of a time before God created time/space is a misnomer in and of itself. But even if we use the idea of God actualizing "Mackie's World," there is no justification to believe that such a world even was possible to exist. In Christianity specifically, God created Adam, a perfect being, with free will, who chose to rebel against God. Given these circumstances, we must recognize that at some point, free agents, even when perfect, rebel against God. And, as noted above, "actualizing Mackie's world" is just another way of saying "God could manipulate our free choices"

There also seems to be an error in suggesting this logic based on possible worlds. When philosophers speak about possible worlds, they are referring to a world that is much like our own in which we can conceive proposition P is true. When dealing with modal logic, we use these "possible worlds" to determine how likely proposition P is true, based on how similarly the possible world in which P is true is like our own. Needless to say, it is a far cry to suggest that anything even remotely similar to Mackie's world does not exist, and such conjecture is, quite frankly, fruitless.

Finally, I wish to share that any problem of evil, regardless of whether inductive or deductive in nature, does not hold any water against Christian theism:

Part 1: The Limited Knowledge Defense (LKD) in Refutation of all Deductive Arguments from Evil:

1) If some deductive argument from evil is sound, then there is a logical incompatibility between the divine attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence and the existence of some evil state of affairs.

2) It is not the case that there is a logical incompatibility between the divine attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence and the existence of any evil state of affairs. [Limits of human knowledge must be admitted in that there logically possibly could be a morally exonerating reason for God’s non-prevention of even horrendous evils even if we do not know what that reason is, and this is true even if we have no viable hypothesis as to what it could possibly be. In order to prove this premise, one simply has to recognize that it is coherent to suppose that there could be limits to human knowledge on this topic. Provided there is possibly an unknown morally exonerating reason for God’s non-prevention of evil, there is no logical contradiction between the divine attributes and the existence of evil of any form.]

3) It is not the case that any deductive argument from evil is sound. [From 1 and 2 modus tollens]

Part 2: The Expectations Defense (ED) in Refutation of all Inductive Arguments from Evil:

1) If some form of an inductive argument from evil can provide evidence against the existence of the God of Christian theism, then one should not expect evil (of whatever form referenced by the particular argument in question) to exist if the God of Christian theism exists. [This expectation of the improbability of the coexistence of the God of Christian theism with a given kind of evil is the only possible basis for any inductive judgment that the reality of a particular type of evil makes the existence of the Christian God improbable.]

2) One should expect there to be evils (of every kind to be potentially referenced by any inductive argument from evil) if the God of Christian theism exists. [If it is the case that the God of Christian theism exists, then at least certain aspects of the Bible are generally historically accurate. In these parts of the Bible, there are evils of all types corresponding to a realistic description of the human condition concerning the experience of moral evil, suffering, and death. Furthermore the existence of these evils is explicitly guaranteed up until the return of Christ at the end of the world.]

3) No inductive argument from evil can provide evidence against the existence of the God of Christian theism. [from 1 and 2 modus tollens]

http://newapologetics.com/the-tractatus

 

[SkyWriting]

The reason being that it would seem to me that God, being omniscient and with His alleged foreknowledge would not know the world "as it could be" but rather "as it would be" This is not to say God could not know what would happen if things were different, but given the variable of free agency, God would not prevent it. But even given that He does know what all free agents would do in given circumstances, to suggest God "stacked the deck" as it were, even if in our favor, would completely defeat the purpose of free will.

You can't jump back and forth. God creates everything that happens from before time began
to the end times. You only get to see the "Now & Then" part of the story. God reacted
to what you did before time began. Your goal is to pray and hope to catch up with His story for you.

 

[J. Elias]

You can't jump back and forth. God creates everything that happens from before time began
to the end times. You only get to see the "Now & Then" part of the story. God reacted
to what you did before time began. Your goal is to pray and hope to catch up with His story for you.

At first I was wondering what you meant, but then I went back and figured it out!

I must apologize for seeming to contradict myself -- I do believe God has knowledge of all events that will transpire. I also believe He has knowledge of all counterfactuals and sub-counterfactuals. However, as I (hopefully) was able to demonstrate above, the fact that God has knowledge of these things does not mean God is at fault for creating the universe in a particular fashion. In fact, "avoiding" actualizing a particular possible world over another is God's manipulation of free will, thus, the OP argument against Plantinga's Free Will Defense fails. (or so it seems)

I do agree with you, SW, wholeheartedly. As the Psalmist writes, "I knew you before you were born, I knit you in your mother's womb" We would do well to try to keep up with God and his plan, not only for us, but for the world.

 

[SkyWriting]

At first I was wondering what you meant, but then I went back and figured it out!

I must apologize for seeming to contradict myself -- I do believe God has knowledge of all events that will transpire. I also believe He has knowledge of all counterfactuals and sub-counterfactuals. However, as I (hopefully) was able to demonstrate above, the fact that God has knowledge of these things does not mean God is at fault for creating the universe in a particular fashion. In fact, "avoiding" actualizing a particular possible world over another is God's manipulation of free will, thus, the OP argument against Plantinga's Free Will Defense fails. (or so it seems)

I do agree with you, SW, wholeheartedly. As the Psalmist writes, "I knew you before you were born, I knit you in your mother's womb" We would do well to try to keep up with God and his plan, not only for us, but for the world.

What I meant was we can consider that God created all events before time began
including what you will ask of him tomorrow.
And we can look to God and do as He asks us tomorrow.
But we cannot reconcile the two processes and think that we have no choices.
We do. It just so happens that God knows those choices.