The ‘problem of evil’ is a perpetual thorn in the side of the omnitheist — that is, someone who believes in an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God. For if God is perfectly good and all-powerful, why does he allow so much evil in the world? He’s powerful enough to eradicate it; and if he’s perfectly good, he should want to eradicate it. So why doesn’t he?
One response, known as the ‘Free Will Defense’, comes from Alvin Plantinga:
A world containing creatures who are significantly free (and freely perform more good than evil actions) is more valuable, all else being equal, than a world containing no free creatures at all. Now God can create free creatures, but He can’t cause or determine them to do only what is right. For if He does so, then they aren’t significantly free after all; they do not do what is right freely. To create creatures capable of moral good, therefore, He must create creatures capable of moral evil; and He can’t give these creatures the freedom to perform evil and at the same time prevent them from doing so. As it turned out, sadly enough, some of the free creatures God created went wrong in the exercise of their freedom; this is the source of moral evil. The fact that free creatures sometimes go wrong, however, counts neither against God’s omnipotence nor against his goodness: for He could have forestalled the occurrence of moral evil only by removing the possibility of moral good.
Plantinga’s position has multiple problems and shortcomings, which we’ll no doubt end up discussing in the comment thread, but for now I want to present an argument against the Free Will Defense that is similar to an argument I’ve been making in the purpose of theistic evolution thread.
Let’s assume for the purposes of this OP that libertarian free will exists and that humans possess it. (It’s actually incoherent and therefore impossible, but that’s a separate topic.)
Here’s how I presented the argument back in 2012, in a comment addressed to Mung:
You haven’t thought this through. An omniscient and omnipotent God could prevent rapes from happening, and he could even prevent the desire to rape from happening, all without controlling anyone’s thoughts and desires.
Here’s how it would work. Suppose God creates each person with free will, so that everything he or she does during life is freely chosen. If God is omniscient, he knows what all of those choices will be before the person is even created. If God simply chooses not to create the people who will go on to commit rape (or even experience the desire to commit rape), then he has prevented those things from happening without depriving anyone of their free will.
If you object that selective creation would deprive the uncreated people of their free will, then you run into a big problem: There are already zillions of uncreated people for every person who is actually born. If leaving a person uncreated violates his or her free will, then God is already massively guilty of denying free will to zillions of uncreated people. The objection thus undermines the assumption that free will is important to God, which is the basis for the whole argument in the first place!
Oddly enough, I think that you [keiths] are the one doing this. 🙂
When does God know that person ‘x’ has committed some evil act? Before the act? After the act? Coterminous with the act?
Mung,
Notice how you were able to talk about both of them even though neither one actually exists? That’s the magic of language. There doesn’t need to be a diamond-encrusted quiche lorraine with a bullfrog sitting in the middle of it for me to talk about a diamond-encrusted quiche lorraine with a bullfrog sitting in the middle of it.
Now reread our exchange and see if you can spot your error:
keiths:
Mung:
On the first page, keiths said his argument was about moral evil only. Because so is Plantinga’s.
But you are right, natural evil can also be considered evil, and would blame God, if such evil is excessive.
Right. God could have just created a world containing nothing but Mother Theresa and a bunch of jars of marshmallow fluff which she could eat freely and then die! Voila! Freedom and no evil. Why didn’t god just do that, mung? That would have shown plantinga!
Here’s the specific (disappeared) comment.
ETA: Oops — wrong thread.
walto:
I actually thought that comment was from phoodoo until I scrolled up and saw walto’s name. No joke.
Equally you can’t deprive them of free wil
Very solid response. I mean for you.
keiths,
Still lost huh keiths (keiths just loves to start every post he makes with a false claim of victory)?
There is no problem of evil keiths, until you can propose another world that accomplishes his goals and doesn’t have evil. So far, we haven’t seen you or anyone else do that.
The latest attempt is to say God knows who will do evil, then he can simply refuse to create any of the people who will do evil.
Not only is this a way of curtailing free will, it is also impossible, as everyone makes some wrong choices. We don’t know that it is possible in a world of many possibilities to only chose good every time. If your neighbor wants something, but it is different than what you want, is it better to give the neighbor what he wants, or do what you want. We don’t know. For one person the result might be good, but for another bad. God can’t overcome contradiction.
That cute blond you want to date keiths, she might have to tell you no. And you are going to think she is evil.
Objective empirical evidence is the best!
keiths,
I will take that compliment keiths. Its a good post by walto.
There are other thinkers here.
I’ve just came across an interesting take on the problem of evil that I had not encountered before. It holds that the “problem of evil” is actually evidence for the existence of the Christian God.
The syllogism looks something like this
premise 1: A universe created by the Christian God* would exhibit both similarities and dissimilarities with things that human beings would create if we could.
premise 2: Things that are not like we would create are seen by us to be evil and things that are similar to how we would do it are seen by us to be good.
conclusion: Therefore since the universe has what we deem to be both “good” and “evil” aspects it’s existence is evidence for the Christian God
* The Christian God is both transcendent and very familiar because we are created in his image
I have no idea what I think about this argument but it is interesting at first glance
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
Put ‘evolution’ in for ‘The Christian God’ and see what happens.
Now put ‘Donald Duck’ in there and make a third argument.
Off the top of my head
I see no reason why to expect a universe created by evolution or Donald Duck to exhibit both similarities and dissimilarities from what humans would consider an ideal universe.
But I do agree that all of this seems to be hard to quantify.
Would evolution produce any thing that we would consider morally good or evil? I don’t think so, you need a mind for morality to make any sense at all.
I think Donald Duck probably would create a universe pretty much like we would do it in that he is highly anthropomorphized, in fact he seems to be just a human with a funny voice and odd appearance.
I’m not sure what he would do differently.
There might be more wetlands in a Donald Duck universe but i don’t think we would consider that to be evil per se
Anyway this is fun to speculate about.
peace
Sure. Why not? Wherever there is pleasure and pain, satisfaction of desires and utter failures, empathy and feelings of injustice, those with sufficient capabilities are likely to produce a moral code. It might not have anything about fish on Fridays or holy and unholy words in it, but most of the rest seems pretty straightforward.
walto,
Why would evolution produce feelings of injustice? Do monkeys feel that?
Does a mindless process of “evolution” have a moral code?
If not I don’t see how it can be said to do good or evil
If so that would be an interesting discussion
The point is things like satisfaction and empathy are definitely restricted to minds.
I don’t think you are going to posit that “evolution” is capable of such emotions. Are you?
peace
walto,
Are you just saying that we humans might perceive things produced by evolution to be good or evil when in fact they are not?
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
This is what all evolutionists must honestly say.
Actually studies have shown that.
phoodoo:
Yes.
Capuchin monkey protests unequal pay
If evolution is the cause of the mind ,then the products of evolution are capable of such emotions.
OK
but that is not at issue.
What I what to know is if evolution itself is capable of these things. It seems that it needs to be before we can say that it’s “products” are good or evil.
If that is what walto is implying.
Again It’s possible that what he means to say is we that humans merely perceive things produced by evolution to be good or evil when in fact they are not
If that is the case then evolution is irrelevant because a universe created by evolution would not contain both good and evil aspects by definition.
peace
I’m not sure that follows. I think something can be quite real, and objective, even if produced by evolution.
Put another way, I don’t believe that man knows good from evil because Adam ate a literal piece of fruit from a literal tree. So where does the knowledge of good and evil come from?
I agree.
That is not what I saying,
I’m asking if something can be moral (good or evil) if it is not produced by a mind? Can a thunderstorm be held morally culpable for damage it causes?
I think the knowledge of good and evil in the text is referring to personal knowledge as apposed to propositional Knowledge. Additionally In Hebrew “know” has the additional connotation of deciding.
After they ate the fruit Adam and eve had personal experience of the contrast between good and evil because they chose to decide for themselves what was good and what was evil instead of trusting God.
This concludes today’s sermon 😉
peace
Fmm, I don’t think earthquakes are moral agents. I’m pretty sure nobody does or ever has. Only agents can be moral agents. I hope it’s obvious that nothing follows from that obvious point regarding whether moral codes require anything besides evolution to have come into existence.
Sometimes I wonder whether you’re just kidding with some of the stuff you post.
Not just a mind but a mind which is competent to judge.
Allegory or not?
allegory………… and true
peace
Good for them.
In a universe without sentient creatures with capable of both pursuing what they need to satisfy their goals and avoiding what interferes with satisfying their goals, nothing would be intrinsically aversive or desirable, and in that that sense nothing would be good or bad.
For some reason, lots of folks think this obvious fact threatens to make a dog’s breakfast out of objective morality. I don’t see why.
In a universe without sentient creatures with capacities of perceptually distinguishing different wavelengths using photoceptors that contain rhodopsin molecules, nothing would be red. Yet it is a fact, as objective as one likes, that roses are red and violets are blue.
It’s just that some objective facts are relational facts — objective truths about relations. And some of the relata are the perceptual, motor, and motivational abilities of sentient beings, a few of which are also sapient. If there were no such relata, there would be no relations, so the objective fact about those relations would not obtain.
Facts about colors are one such class of objective truths about relations. Fact about values are another such class.
Ok, then why did you suggest substituting evolution for the Christian God in my syllogism?
If evolution is not a moral agent then it can not be the creator of a universe with both good and evil aspects, That much seems to be obvious,
The argument is not about the origin of moral codes. It’s about the origin of a universe with both good and evil aspects
And sometimes I wonder if you are paying attention
peace
I’m really not concerned about objective morality at all right now.
I’m concerned about whether something that is not a moral agent can create a universe that contains both good and bad elements
peace
What the fuck does evolution have to do with earthquakes? Are you feeling ok, bro? Good and evil could certainly result from evolution. But it doesn’t even need evolution–let alone a diety. It could result from a Boltzmann accident. Does there need to be sentience? Yes. Does sentience need to have emanated from a deity? No. Are earthquakes bad guys? No. Can they do evil? Yes. Are you well? No.
You need a nap or something.
keiths,
I actually have seen this study before. But I was actually referring to a different meaning of the word justice-as in punishment for doing wrong. You know, like what morality entails.
I don’t believe the monkeys are thinking this is immoral, I think they just see grapes and want grapes.
I wasn’t arguing about the origin of moral codes so right now I’m not all that interested about that.
What I want to know is can the products of evolution be said to me good or evil since evolution is not an agent. The reason this is important is because the argument I posted posited that only the Christian God can produce a universe that had both good and evil aspects.
I’m not sure what I think of that but it’s interesting
peace
you are the one who suggested that I substitute evolution for the Christian God as the creator of the universe in my syllogism.
The universe obviously contains earthquakes and neither earthquakes or evolution are moral agents
This is what you need to explain. How can a non-agent do moral things????
Are you just saying that evolution produces things that we perceive to be good or bad but are in fact not?
Is evolution sentient? If not how can it do moral things?
What? How can a non-moral thing do evil?
There is no evil without evil intent.Intent is not something earth quakes have.
Are you saying the results of an earthquake are apparently but not actually evil?
peace
I don’t see why it’s supposed to be a problem that non-teleological, non-agential processes (“natural”, in one sense of that vexed term) can produce, among other things, living organisms.
For many different kinds of living organisms, there will be features of their environment that are good for them (what is conducive to flourishing, motivationally salient as desirable, relevant to the satisfaction of goals) and bad for them (what is inimical, motivationally salient as aversive, relevant to the frustration of goals).
For more on this approach, see Natural Goodness. Or Spinoza.
Kantian Naturalist,
You often have said you don’t see why it is a problem for lifeless chemicals to turn into life, because, well nature can do this,…somehow.
I don’t see why you can’t at least see why its a problem.
It’s on my list. But then, so are a lot of other books. 🙁
You’ve got no fewer than two equivocations rockin’ and rollin’ in this post, FMM. I leave it as a puzzle for you to see if you can find them.
fifthmonarchyman:
Just curious how does a being incapable of evil create evil aspects?
That would be because I’ve read Prigogine’s Order Out of Chaos and Kaufman’s At Home In the Universe and Reinventing the Sacred. Prigogine and Kaufman convinced me that at the conceptual level there is no difficulty in understanding how far-from-equilibrium systems spontaneously form under specific energetic conditions nor that under further conditions, far-from-equilibrium systems can become self-sustaining.
Maybe another way of putting the point is this: once one appreciates how active and dynamic even “lifeless” molecules are — which involves really understanding quantum mechanics and thermodynamics — one will see that “lifeless chemicals” are far more like “life” than they are to the inert “matter” of atomists and Cartesians.
Fair enough. I should say that I think there are some serious problems with Foot’s account in the details. But I think that it’s highly promising.
It’s an obvious confusion. Can a bowling ball cause pain? Does it have to feel pain to cause pain?
yes
no
Your point is? Are you saying that pain is evil?.
It seems obvious to me that only a moral agent can do moral things.
It’s sort of what the terms “moral” and “agent” mean
peace
fine,
I’m not interested right now on the origin of life but on whether a non-moral agent can do moral things. That seems to be prohibited by the law of non-contradiction. What am I missing?
It’s seems to me that moral responsibility requires a mind. Please explain why this is not the case.
peace
Producing a mind is not a moral thing ?
Not in and of itself.
Only if there is intent involved. That is sort of what it means to be a moral agent
peace
You really don’t know what I was responding to there? Please. How about a little honesty here. I expect better from you than this kind of crap.
I’m granting that the created universe contains evil for the sake of argument.
We have already established that perceived “evil” is not evil if justified because it serves a greater good
peace