But we can say something about the conceptions of god others hold, and whether those are internally consistent or not.
Agreed. I hope my post to RT clarifies the unknowable discussion.
That’s what I meant by evil when initiated by someone. They are evil in a universe with an omnipotent god, but not in a universe with no god.
First of all, you don’t know that something is unknowable to you physically until you die. There are lots of things I would have thought unknowable 40 years ago which we now know. But deistic unknowability is more basic than that.
You can’t know everything about god, but you might say you know some things, assuming you believe in the Bible or other personal experiences. A true believer thinks he knows that God caused the flood, or made Mary pregnant, or any number of other things that involved interactions with humanity. If someone believes that God does not lie, he could even know God’s motivation for some act assuming God told someone why he did something.
However, in reality most of us don’t believe that the Bible is literally true, and the contradictory nature of supposed interactions with God makes him look unknowable. It’s the same as having a fictional character act in seemingly contradictory ways. Fans might spend a lot of time and bandwidth coming up with deep and subtle motivations for the character’s behavior - only to read an interview where the author admitted that she goofed. Maybe the problem isn’t that God is unknowable, but that the data you’re working with is incoherent.
I’m going to respond to what I see as the main points because of time restraints.
and from another post
- I don’t agree that purpose has nothing to do with it and that appears to be an impasse. If I smack someone out of anger that’s not benevolent. If I smack someone in the chest to restart their heart that is benevolent. Intent seems to be a crucial factor of benevolence omni or otherwise. btw I’m still not clear on the definition of omnibenevolence and it appears that you and Voyager don’t agree either.
- In an eternal God that is not bound by time and space wouldn’t ultimately benevolent and omnibenevolent be the same thing? God is omnibenevolent because he is eternally good and his purpose is eternally good.
If you’re argument is that from our linear time frame limited human perspective God appears to be illogical and contradictory I won’t disagree.
For clarities sake, this is not what I’ve attempted to do. I’m saying the logic applied is faulty. I’ve tried to explain why and admit I haven’t succeeded. I’ll take Voyager’s formula and with a little research try to be more precise and clear.
Your argument hinges on a definition of omnibenevolence that requires zero suffering at any point which is a definition I don’t agree with and it appears Voyager doesn’t as well. I’d be interested in seeing this in the doctrines of major religion or spiritual teachings.
I’m not saying God’s purpose means he has to let us suffer. I’m suggesting that the purpose of creation is to experience free will and duality, and it is set up so that cause and effect move us inevitably toward unity with the creator. The why creation at all question I won’t even approach.
Within this world of duality no perception of suffering is truly harmful to us as spiritual beings but intended to move us from seeing ourselves as separate to seeing ourselves as part of one connected living thing. {the cells in a body analogy} The ultimate good is what is good for the entire body, or all of creation. We can’t see that yet but God can.
You say God could accomplish this same purpose without suffering at all but I fail to see the basis for that other than semantics. If a world of duality in which there are choices to be made and concepts of good , evil, pain and pleasure, is indeed the purpose, and is ultimately good, then God’s omni qualities remain.
How do we experience a world of duality without suffering? Aren’t we back to logical contradictions given the strict definition of words?
If your claim is that an omnipotent God should be able to contradict another logical contradiction otherwise he isn’t omnipotent the discussion is mired in meaningless semantics.
Why wouldn’t you? If we’re going to go by strict definitions then isn’t anything unpleasant suffering to some degree?
This speaks to my point of creation and the aspect of duality and choices.
I don’t know… some religions are so extreme that if you defy them, it’s an automatic death sentence against you.
I don’t dispute that - but in the case of the CPR, the intent is immediate, and knowable. Not so with natural evil.
Not really. I’m OK with a definition that says an omnibenevolent deity would seek to minimise suffering, but when you factor in omnipotence…
Do people still suffer? Then no.
How do you know this?
No, the argument from natural evil works even with a limitless ineffable god.
Cool, take as long as you need. I’d recommend the Stanford University Philosophy pages, they’re quite good.
Like I said above, I’m OK with minimal suffering as a definition.
I think where we differ is on whther we think suffering is necessary for some reason. I see no reason for it to be necessary for growth, you do.
Allah is called The All Beneficent, The Most Merciful in Essence, The Compassionate, The Most Gracious, for instance.
What tells you that this is the purpose?
This sounds like a “No True Scotsman” argument to me.
God puts the knowledge right in our brains.
Not that I can see.
No-one’s saying god has to do a logically impossible thing. He just has to act according to his own attributes…
No, I save the word “suffering” for real pain. I haven’t been using the word here in the context of oh, roses having prickly thorns or that. I’ve been using it in the context of dying of malarial fever, being ripped asunder by tsunami waves, being buried alive in hot ash, that sort of thing.
In other threads whenever this subject has come up someone has railed about how cold and heartless it is to minimize human suffering through religious belief. I’m glad we could discuss the logic of it here without much of that.
It does seem to be the degree of suffering that creates the issue and I confess it may be the hardest issue to wrestle with in God belief.
I’d add that I think eventually the suffering of others does reach us and force us to respond even though we consistently find ways to avoid it or “mind our own business” I grew up in Maine, a quiet rural state where people often moved to to avoid the crime and corruption of the cities. Now the crime and corruption is there and they or their children can’t avoid it. The world as it is will inevitably steer us to dealing with issues even though as individuals we may feel we have successfully steered clear. We hear that discussion now when we talk about what kind of world we want to leave our future generations.
I’m not letting God get away with it. I’m merely acknowledging the limits of my knowledge and understanding and remaining open to the possibility while taking in new experiences and information and continuing to refine my belief system.
In the scope of eternal I hope that creation is still going on and we, by the choices we make are participating. We can create a world where suffering is minimal and reduce suffering. It’s happening now. Once again, creation moving toward growth.
What seems to be happening in this argument is that within the scope of linear time we’re suggesting God made the suffering too severe and the time frame too long. That’s the second guessing that we really don’t have any logical basis for. It strikes me as trying to measure something we have no means of measuring and then calling that something illogical.
I know neither you or I can see how a drowning child fits into the scope of it all but thats all that means. We don’t know, just as we don’t know if God is or isn’t.
IMHO if God does have those omni qualities then in all of creation there are no accidents, none. Every event is the result of some cause and effect and fits together in a complex way to accomplish the purpose of creation. My own suffering has been pretty minor as well and much of it of my own making. Sometimes I wonder if the range in choices we have that can lead to such horrendous cruelty was really necessary. I don’t see any natural evil any worse than the evil mankind commits on his fellow man. So, If God were to limit natural evil to minimize suffering why wouldn’t that same omnipotent God limit our range of choices to minimize suffering. Who knows what the range in choices should be or the range in experiences needs to be within a world of duality to fulfill it’s purpose? Not me. My guess is an omniscient God would know. When we start drawing lines to say this much suffering is minimal and acceptable and everything over this line is not we can only do it from our human perspective which we’d have to admit is flawed and inconsistent.
Add to that the idea that creation is still occurring and we are in the process of minimizing suffering. If we say, hurry up then we eventually get back to “why creation”
If you could instead restart their heart without smacking them in the chest, would smacking them still be benevolent?
From where I sit, arguments along the line “God makes us suffer as a mean towards a benevolent end, and the end justifies the means” seem to implicitly deny that God is omnipotent. Being omnipotent means that not only can you get anything done, but also that there are no hoops you have to jump through to make it happen. That is, that any ‘means’ that he attached to the ‘end’ he puts there because he wants the ‘means’ to happen, totally independent of the end happening.
Which is to say, he’s pounding on that person’s chest because he likes pounding on people. No other reason. Assuming he’s omnipotent.
Actually I think it just requires that he not ever inflict unnecessary suffering or allow unnecessary suffering to occur that he could prevent. You know, that he not kick puppies or stand by chuckling while a baby drowns within his arms’ reach, that sort of thing
It’s only the omnipotence that makes all suffering unnecessary. You need both omnis at once to reach the contradiction.
I don’t believe you have to suffer to enjoy pleasure. I actually think that that’s a fraudulent concept at its base.
But even if it’s not, the only reason it’s not (presuming an omnipotent God) is that he made it that way. Similarly, if experiencing duality is a main purpose of creation (a notion I’ve never heard before), it is only that way because God selected it, in his omnipotence, as the purpose. If suffering sometimes is for some mysterious reason considered to ultimately good, it’s because he made it ultimately good. Being omnipotent, he could have removed the darker side of reality from the equation entirely without lessening the result in any way. The fact that he didn’t, in combination with omnipotence, proves that people sometimes suffer because he likes people to suffer - hence the conflict with pretty much any reasonable defintion of omnibenevolence that I can think of.
I think I missed this claim - and the only semantics involved are sticking to the defintions of the omni-attributes without conveniently forgetting or ignoring them when you’re arguing for the other attribute.
I agree that, by strict definitions, anything unpleasant is suffering to some degree. An omnipotent benevolent god (even without the omni, assuming he still happened to care about your happiness) would not cause or enable you to endure even mild suffering, since even mild suffering would be unnecessary.
Which is kinda my point. We may not see the intent or the point in natural evil but an omniscient being would. The fact that we can’t grasp it doesn’t lead to a logical conclusion that it isn’t there IMHO.
Let’s also factor in eternal compared to linear time. The creation of a world where suffering is minimized is happening now and we’re the participants.
So you say. IMO this comes back to why creation at all? No world of duality , no illusion of free will, no choices, no suffering. Done.
I think I’ve already said , I don’t.
Okay. If I’ve bitten off more than I can chew I’ll admit that. This has been one of the most interesting discussions on this topic in a while. Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll check it out.
I wouldn’t put it that way. I think a world of duality and choices is part of the purpose of creation. What we perceive as suffering is a component of the range in choices and experiences.
I meant a direct reference to the difference between benevolent and omnibevolent , but since you’ve refined your definition it doesn’t matter.
My own experiences and journey up to this point and the belief system that’s resulted. It’s a work in progress.
Perhaps in the form we are experiencing now?
It seems to depend on how strictly we want to define certain words. Your acceptance of minimal suffering changes a lot so I’ll work with that.
Okay but that seems to be abandoning a strict definition which is okay with me. So a world of duality where we apparently have choices but no real suffering, would include sweet and sour, cold and hot{in non dangerous levels} pleasure , but only enough pain receptors to warn us without actually inflicting suffering. or something? Is it actually a world of duality if we limit the range of experiences available to us?
Sometimes it feels that way. I think I’ve refined my position on unknowable. Progress can be made and is worthwhile.
I’m not trying to satisfy God. I’d say it’s more trying to align myself with reality as I perceive it. Whatever vehicle works for finding ethical principles and a fuller understanding is fine by me. Mine just happens to have a spiritual bent.
I appreciate your input but I don’t have time to start another discussion. When I’ve done my homework and address Voyagers logic formula you’re welcome to participate.
Briefly here though, you’ve touched on my point of why creation at all? If zero suffering in the form of any thing perceived as discomfort is the goal then no creation of a world where duality and choices exist seems possible.
If the perception of duality and free will and experiencing that duality is the purpose of creation that’s another matter.
Could you give a scenario for a possible world without even mild suffering? I could only see that for a world of robots. Consider your average love triangle - that causes suffering, and I don’t see how any world in which people are somewhat free to fall in love wouldn’t have it. As another example, pain evolved for a very good reason. If you lower the feeling of pain, we might ignore it when we shouldn’t with bad consequences.
I define omnibenevolence as allowing minimal suffering, by some metric an omniscient deity would be able to use. This might be worse than mild while still being minimal. We obviously don’t live in a world with minimal suffering, beyond the logical problems with it.
Physical suffering is easy enough; create a world where physical harm is impossible, a virtual reality style world where harm is simply against the rules. As for love triangles and such; I’d think you could create a creature that ran on pure positive stimuli, that simply gave up when it became clear that it couldn’t “Get the girl” ( or whatever ), without suffering about it afterwards. That’s more problematic than just eliminating physical suffering though.
Exactly.
First, you make a world where there are no bad consequences of the type pain would protect us from. Everybody’s invulnerable, everybody’s able to teleport at will to avoid being trapped, nobody needs food or water or air or air pressure or anything like that.
Next you’d probably better remove the human tendency towards variety described as the law of diminishing returns. This should also remove boredom. That’s what’d make heaven hell, after all.
From there, you could either simply make their brains secrete a drug that gives them passive bliss, or (if you don’t want people to just lie around all the time), instill in them all the attribute, as Der Trihs suggests, to simply be unconcerned by failure and loss, and not driven to anger or feelings of frustration by the appearance of them*. The “loser” of a love triangle would either give up and move on without concern, or continue pursuing fruitlessly; either way he would be happy to do what he was doing.
*This might be easier to achieve with creatures that would not know physical privation, shortage, or threat of loss.
To an omnipotent being, wouldn’t the minimal level of suffering be zero, though? I mean, you ask the diety: “Can you remove all suffering with no negative effects” and the diety, being omnipotent, says “Yes”.
And you’re right, we obviously don’t live in a world tended to by such an ultimate Rich Uncle. Which simply means that the tri-omni god is a figment, a result of a combination of wishful thinking and the “My God can beat up your god” effect. Of course, if you drop omnibenevolence, then things rapidly ratchet back towards plausibility. The problem here is that the god-inventors are invested in believing in their own importance as individuals. If you discard that, then it’s quite easy to envision an all-powerful god, who created this world as a stage to play out stories for his own amusement, with no care whatsoever for humans that didn’t interest it, and who could lose interest in any given human at a moment’s notice. That’s a perfectly plausible, not-contradicting-with-evidence scenario - but probably not an appealing enough one to gather a following. Which is why instead we have the more appealing but impossible tri-omni.
Boy, that would suck. I hate games where I point my rifle at my squad commander and the crosshairs vanishes. Or swing the crowbar at my female guide’s head and it passes right through with a “swish.” No God of mine would be into that lame-o, family-friendly shit.
Fair enough. I ruled out robots, not a world in stasis. Since in this world no one needs anything, no one would have the desire to get off the divinely given couch. Sounds just like the kind of world that Captain Kirk, violating the prime directive, stirs up by blowing up the ruling computer.
I think it is pretty clear that the inhabitants of this world don’t have free will. Maybe they fall under the robot heading after all.
The problem I see is where we draw the line on what is minimal, and minimal to accomplish what? Just a nicer physical existence? What if there is a purpose to creation beyond that?
In another post I said
How much range in a world of duality and choices is required to accomplish this? Doesn’t that speak to your point of suffering that we observe that seems pointless and with no purpose?
You said earlier,
and that’s true of me as well. Lot’s of folks in modern societies who are gainfully employed with access to food and ample shelter might say that. With all the suffering that we see we are still slow to act and do all that we are able to minimize the suffering of our fellow man although I think we can see progress.
So, if the purpose of a world of duality with it’s range of choices and experiences is to move us toward unity with our creator by the exercise of free will, how would a world where duality had a lot less of what we perceived as suffering accomplish this? Perhaps it is within our power to be co creators in a world with a lot less suffering and that creative act is unfolding as we speak {type}
Perhaps you should reread what I wrote. Having removed the impetus of pain does not remove the impetus of pleasure. If we don’t go the 'happy mind drug route", people will look around for other ways to find increases in pleasure and happiness. Some people are going to seek companionship, find pleasure in painting or arts or having sex with as many people as they can. They just won’t mind failures and rejections along the way.
Or perhaps you were bothered by the removal of the law of diminishing returns? Admittedly, that would allow people to find and remain at local maxima of happiness for long periods of time, approximating ‘statis’ in the same way a lifelong happy marriage does. I mostly included this removal to rule out anyone getting bored of the happy mind drug, though - it wouldn’t be particularly necessary in the other scenario. You’d want to give people finite lifetimes to avoid terminal boredom, of course, but as long as you just make them disappear painlessly at the end I don’t see why that would be a problem. So you could omit this change if you like.
Based on…what, exactly, do you arrive at this conclusion? For any definition of free will?
No one, including God if he exists has free will; as I’ve said, the concept makes no sense. If you mean that they can’t make choices, how are they unable to make choices ? Give someone like that a choice between two options and he’s choose the one he likes most; he just wouldn’t dislike the other. Rather than his emotional register going from “Wonderful” to “Horrible”, it would go from 'Wonderful" to “Indifferent”; that doesn’t make him incapable of choice. If anything he’d have more choice, since negative stimuli are so very overwhelming.