Well, this thread is about to make it to a fourth, difficult to follow page, so let’s take stock:
Half Man Half Wit is an atheist, however, he finds Leibniz’ defence of the POE to be quite an elegant one, which works. However, few (zero?) people on this thread have agreed with this perspective.
This thread has proceeded, as Half Man Half Wit believes that we do not understand the theory or understand that it is merely one of doubt: that we cannot be certain we are not in the optimal universe.
Meanwhile everyone else believes either the premises are wrong, or that they unnecessary to draw the conclusion. And that the conclusion doesn’t adequately defend the POE or is vulnerable.
My own POV is that the conclusion is vulnerable: I can trivially think of ways to improve our universe for any named property, and speculating that such realities may be impossible is just pleading. We have no reason to suppose they are impossible beyond trying to defend the theory.
The need to add on extra postulations is a sure sign of a bad theory.
I don’t really think doubt is a good expression. What I believe most people are missing is not that we can’t be certain to live in the best possible world, but that the merest possibility (even if it’s as unlikely as having a coin come up heads infinitely often) that we do is enough to rob the POE of its teeth. For instance, it might be that there is only exactly one way to create a world in a self-consistent manner. That’s possible, right? Recall that whole ‘unique TOE’-business. And if you grant me that possibility, Leibniz’ argument goes through.
We have also no logical grounds for believing they are possible. It’s similar to Hume’s problem of inference: knowing that the sun rose at days 1,…,n is not sufficient grounds for concluding that it will rise on day n+1. It is logically possible for it not to. In the same vein, it is logically possible for any world that deviates in any respect from this one to be inconsistent, as our knowledge of the consistency of this world is not sufficient grounds to judge any other world consistent. The same argument essentially holds for all ‘the world would be better if…’ scenarios. There are no logical grounds on which to conclude that the future of that world would not end up worse after all (of course, there are no logical grounds to conclude that it will, either).
There’s nothing extra being added; it’s a key element of the argument from the start.
It’s NOT possible if you’re talking about an omnimax God. There isn’t the slight ghost of a hint of a possibility that that an omnimax God can’t make a better universe. To say that it’s possible conflicts ith omnipotence.
I admit, I’m struggling to refute the theory in its own terms.
Not because I think it works, but because I think it’s a paradox; there’s a logical sleight of hand here, and maybe my familiarity with formal logic is not up to identifying the problem.
Normally the neutral position is that anything may or may not be possible. The argument is basically saying that it’s possible that every alternative is impossible, and that this is a neutral statement with no burden of proof.
It’s fishy, but I can’t articulate why.
But getting away from logical constructions, it’s pretty clear that the idea that this is the optimal universe is at least implausible. For one thing, our universe is ever changing. Shouldn’t one of its states be better? And therefore, why does god need to transition via imperfect states?
And given the infinity of trivial alterations we can imagine that would reduce our universe’s evilness from its current high level, it at least stretches credulity to suppose all these alterations are logically impossible.
And the plausibility of the theory is significant. If the theory found a crack in POE, but it’s an implausible, then its importance is correspondingly reduced.
Again I ask, what definition of “omnipotence” are you using? One that means “God can _________” becomes a true statement if you fill in the blank with anything, no matter how illogical, self-contradictory, or nonsensical?
The way I see it, the moment that you argue that THIS is the best possible world, you are basically arguing that every instance of suffering and evil is, in effect, necessary. I think that’s a bigger leap than positing that we are NOT living in the best possible world.
Sure you do, unless you know in advance which choices you will make. Even if your choice is predetermined, if you don’t know the result of the predetermination in advance your choice seems free.
This is precisely true if and only if god can create any world at all, which is refuted if god can’t create worlds with square triangles. If there are worlds that god can’t create, it’s possible less evil worlds are such worlds.
What, exactly, do you think is paradoxical? All the logic that goes into it is in essence that the negative of necessity is possibility that not. Where the disconnect happens is that it’s easy to think that the negative of necessity is necessity that not. So if the problem of evil amounts to saying that (in the presence of an omnimax god) there is necessary no evil, then the negative of that is that there is not necessarily no evil, which is equivalent to saying that there is possibly evil (which is of course equivalent to saying that it is not impossible that there is evil, though emotionally, this phrasing carries more impact).
The two say the same thing: if something is possible, it must be possible for it to be possible, which is the same as saying it is possible for it to be not impossible (i.e. for it to be not necessarily not the case).
That I agree with completely. But while emotionally compelling, this does have no impact on the reasoning of Leibniz’ argument.
This doesn’t follow, I think. If there is a crack in the POE reasoning, this means it is logically possible for omnimaxness and evil to coexist, which refutes the POE completely.
I do not argue that this is the best possible world, merely that it is possible for it to be.
This is beside the point somewhat, but one could still argue that the evil we did was of our own volition, since we do not know which of our acts leads to a ‘better’ world and are thus in our actions independent from ‘god’s plan’. But I agree that this is somewhat problematic, since, as Voyager has pointed out, it is somewhat of a strange idea of freedom if we are necessitated to freely choose only one option. One could modify the argument so that god optimizes both for a maximum of freedom and a minimum of evil (or a maximum of good), so that there would be at least some actions that are largely free choices, and, since any choice may a priori be one of that kind, then just go with the usual idea of sin, but this is really not very salient to the present discussion.
Heaven could be a part of this world, in the sense that it could be a part of SimGod’s simulation; and it might not be the case that heaven works on its own.
I am not much concerned with the Judeo-Christian or whichever idea of god one might else come up with; the argument is merely concerned with whatever god’s omnimaxness.
:smack: I read you the wrong way round, Mijin. The above is true, but misses the point you made. I claim that it’s possible that every world you could propose that differs from this one is impossible, as you noted, which means that it is not impossible for this world to be the best possible one. This is the same as saying it is possible for it to be not impossible to be the best possible world, which is the same as saying it is possible that this is the best possible world. …Possibly.
THis is an intresting and fascinating theory, and I’ve wondered about an idea like this, but not in such depth, however it doesn’t really do anything to prove God, does it? So an Aethist could just reject it offhnadily with “God is not real”.
But it was still a good read and something to share with other Christians.
I’m also wondering if God’s intenton is simply for us to learn from all our mistakes. For instance maybe having someone like HItler prevents dozens of more gennocidal dictators mushrooming up. What do you think?
Well, we’ve had plenty of genocidal dictators after Hitler, so if that was the purpose it didn’t work very well.
This whole thing only refutes one particular variety of god. The ancients had no trouble with their gods being obnoxious after all - I suppose with the amount of death and suffering in the world back then, anyone saying that the gods were benevolent would have been laughed out of the temple.
But that does bring up the interesting point that an omnibenevolent god must not only be good now, but also in the past. For instance, God could have inspired someone to start using better agriculture practices which would reduce famines without violating any possibilities. Why would famine be maximally beneficial 500 or even 200 years ago but not now?
I still think the theory is suspect. It’s like the idea of god necessarily existing because perfection includes existence. It doesn’t smell right, even before you can articulate why.
First of all, as I’ve been discussing throughout this thread, I don’t think it works from a practical POV.
Rather than describing the POE as a watertight argument, if we see it as simply giving us good grounds for believing that an omnimax god cannot exist, then this refutation doesn’t affect that one iota. It depends upon the plausibility of all alternative realities being logically impossible, which in my view is highly implausible.
If you prefer, we could simply say: “Assuming the very likely possibility that there is a possible better reality than this one, the evilness of our reality rules out the existence of an omnimax god”.
But to try to attack the theory in its own terms, I’m still coming up blank. One thing I’ve realised is that when evaluating a scenario, logical consistency should be assumed.
Why? Because to assert that a scenario is logically impossible is to assert the existence of an additional “thing”: a contradiction. You can’t prove consistency, but you can prove inconsistency, hence the burden of proof.
So the theory is that “maybe” all (better) alternatives to this reality are logically impossible. That is, to posit that maybe there exist an infinite number of contradictions; a contradiction for every one of the infinite realities with less evilness that this one.
Again, this seems logically “unsafe” to me, but my formal logic skills aren’t up to completing this train of thought.
Mijin: Well the key thing with this issue is it assumes an all know, all powerful, benovalent god, and I guess what meant as an aswear to “If God is like that, why does he let crap happen?”. The whole thing doesn’t work if you just say you don’t believe in god, but I dont think its meant to prove God, just make the idea of the Christian God more plausiable, if you were open to that idea already.
Voyage: But on a smaller scale. The world is on constant watch for the next Hitler.
As for the second part of your post, I have a sub theory. What God ultimately wants for humans if for the humans themselves to learn from their mistakes, to use their increasing knowledge (including science) to create a better society)
I’m not saying that you are. However, if your argument is simply a retreat to what is POSSIBLE, then it could not be strong enough to defeat the evidential argument from evil which doesn’t argue for incompatibilty. After all, it’s POSSIBLE that Hitler is a nice guy who was morally correct in slaughtering Jews :rolleyes:- but how likely could that be?
Yes, exactly. The argument does not seek to establish grounds for belief in god, but merely to defend a pre-existing such belief in a particular kind of god (the omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent kind) against a particular kind of argument, the ‘problem of evil’. As has been pointed out, it could equally well be used to defend the notion of an omnimalevolent god against a ‘problem of good’, however, nobody believes in such a god anyway, so it’s a bit of a solution in search of a problem in this case.
Well, I think ultimately such speculation isn’t very useful. It might also be that some aliens saw the broadcast of the opening of the '38 Olympic games, and chose not to invade us because we seem to be really cool dudes – you can come up with all sorts of scenarios, neither of which ultimately seems very plausible. I think that trying to judge events in the light of supposed greater good is not ultimately very fruitful, and might, if misunderstood, cause additional hurt – both in giving an apparent excuse for all kinds of evil deeds, and by appearing to others as cold and heartless rationalisations. (‘Oh, so you think Hitler was alright after all’? ‘So you think that my mother died was a good thing?’ etc.)
The problem with that, though, is that the POE asserts a logical incompatibility between the premises of god’s omnimaxness and the existence of evil, i.e. that both can under no circumstances be true. So, what Leibniz did was, in effect, to say: ‘Yes, they can – here’s one set of circumstances in which both are true.’ This amounts to a total refutation of the POE, because it entails that there may be other circumstances nobody’s yet thought of in which it similarly goes away, if omnimaxness and the existence of evil are no longer thought to contradict each other.
Well, that it’s a ‘very likely possibility’ is a bit of a strong assertion to go down easily – personally, as I’ve already said, I would not be all that surprised to find this reality to be the only logically possible one, period. Besides, formulating the argument this way weakens it to the point of uselessness – every believer you approach with: ‘there may be a better possible world’ will just retort: ‘well, there may not’.
It may be the same contradiction for every other possible world. Perhaps there is some constant of nature that can only assume one specific value and be logically consistent; perhaps there is a mathematical structure that reality is founded on that is essentially unique, and necessarily leads to the world we live in.
But I still don’t get exactly where your problem with the argument lies. The logic is simple, and sound – it’s fundamentally just the first formula here, in words: ‘it is not necessarily the case that there is no evil’ is equivalent to ‘it is possibly the case that there is evil’. Hence, showing this possibility refutes the POE. There’s a vast difference between ‘it can’t happen’ and ‘it is incredibly unlikely to happen’ – think about bets: betting against something that can’t happen is always safe, and you can bet any amount you wish and win; however, betting against the merely unlikely is always dangerous, as you might, if you bet often enough, in the end lose more than you won in all previous runs combined. The POE only works if you always win, so to speak.
As for other worlds – the thing is, ultimately, postulating the consistency or possibility of any other world amounts to assuming facts not in evidence, no matter their likelihood.
Well, I really don’t think it’s a matter of likelihood or evidence at all. The assertion is that there is a logical conflict between the existence of evil and an omnimax god – which Leibniz’ argument shows just isn’t so.
I am coming around to the idea that the argument might work technically, but be meaningless practically.
Consider creation “science”. I can argue that the geologic column exists because different animals were differently able to escape the rising Flood. This hypothesis is an ad hoc excuse, but yet could be true.
So, a Creationist could argue that the theory of evolution is refuted by this theory, since the Flood and the geologic column may actually be consistent (ok, there’s more evidence for evolution that just the geologic column, but let’s hypothetically say it rested on just this).
This would be poor reasoning, but it parallels what you’re doing with the BPW theory.
In BPW an ad hoc excuse is also proposed: that all better worlds are impossible (it’s ad hoc since as I’ve argued already: logical consistency of a scenario is the default position). Therefore evilness and omnimax can coexist.
Then it’s reasoned that evilness therefore can be disregarded: the POE is refuted, end of. We can ignore the evilness, like we can ignore the fossil data.
They’re flawed in the same way.
But POE is a problem for the believer; I hear about it more often from believers having doubts than from atheists trying to prove god’s nonexistence.
Believer A has had a child die of leukemia, and wonders how this can happen under an omnimax god. Believer B says maybe it was for the best that that happened, as this is BPW. Any world better than BPW cannot exist.
Believer A wonders what reason we have to suppose all better worlds are impossible – but there is none.
Again though, we aren’t talking about God necessarily creating a spacetime universe like ours and tweaking about with planck’s constant, say.
God can create any reality at all. At the very least this means that, yes, the number of contradictions we’re talking about here is some flavour of infinity.
This is starting to sound like pascal’s wager, which has huge problems of its own.
No. There is no dichotomy of the kind ‘either god is omnimax, or there is evil’ present in this. Evolution vs. creation is a matter of degree, of evidence, if approached scientifically. Both are a priori logically possible (to the extend that god is, at least). The problem of evil asserts an a priori logical impossibility. This is either true or not; and the Leibniz argument shows that it is not.
You’ve argued that possibility is the default position; logical consistency is an entirely different matter. Throw together a random collection of axioms: should the ‘default position’ be that they are logically consistent? And if possibility is the default, then so is possibility that not: logically, it is as valid to say that a given world is possibly consistent as it is that it is possibly not consistent; both stand on equal ground. The latter is all that’s needed, not the assertion that all better worlds are impossible. Evilness and omnimax can coexist precisely because possibility is the default position – i.e. because ‘possible’ is equivalent to ‘not necessarily not’.
Why? Does the fact that there is just one shortest path between two points mean that there are infinitely many reasons the others are all longer, one for each path?
There’s not really any similarity I can see. What I wanted to express was this: if somebody offers you a bet between two outcomes, one of which is impossible, you will accept any stakes in betting that the other occurs. When, on the other hand, the other outcome has even a tiny probability of occurring, there are bets that are not reasonable anymore – those in which your expected total return is negative, i.e. in the long run you stand to loose money. The situations are qualitatively different, as opposed to the mere quantitative difference between bets where both outcomes have some probability of happening. You’re essentially saying that if the probability is low enough, the situation is still more or less the same – an attitude that has lost many a careless gambler the roof over their head.
