Not if it’s an evil dog who, strengthened thanks to your action, then goes on to bite the kid that would’ve grown up to be the next Beethoven in the face, which leads to him becoming the next Hitler.
Which would be the expected outcome.
Would it be a better world if everyone used this “logic”? Help no one, because you’d only be mucking up The Perfect System?
Your helping would of course be in complete accordance with the perfect system.
Anyway, I think I’ve laid the argument out as simply as I can in this post; I don’t really think there’s much to be gained from further elaboration.
An outcome that’s only even theoretically possible because I am not a god. A god would know better. And because we are so poorly designed that a Hitler is even possible in the first place.
According to your argument, so would my not helping. Some “system”.
Or, as a good friend once said,“God answers all prayers. Sometimes the answer is yes, sometimes the answer is no, but usually the answer is a drooling ‘Huh?’”
And you are right back to begging the premise that this is the best of all possible worlds. No one is disputing that God couldn’t create an optimal world - just that the evidence indicates he hasn’t.
As for moral value on the kids, even your scenario effectively assigns it. The near infinite number of possible universes includes ones where each of the kids who drowned did not, with no other changes up to that point. Since you are assuming God has some metric for goodness, the delta between the world where the kid died and where he didn’t die is the effective value on the kid - maybe an immoral value is a better term. Given this weight, a really, really big copy of Mathematica and a really, really big computer to run it on, God can do some linear programming and find the optimal universe. But our survival and the things that happen to us all get weights.
But you are assuming that the weights are correct, that the end result is optimal in some sense, and the linear programming is correct. And of course a situation in which all our choices except the desired one are edited to fit the optimal result is not one I’d call having free will.
No layman ever makes this argument, ever, which casts into doubt your claim that it’s “the most widely referred to answer”. I’ve literally never heard anybody make this argument in real life, probably because it’s so obviously obviously obviously false, what with the bad things happening to good people and all.
The POE does have a fourth premise: omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence, and the existence of evil. So technically denying the fourth premise is a fourth prong of attack - except it isn’t, because omnibenevolence means something. And what it means is, is that God agrees with us to a large degree about what’s bad. Innocent people dying horribly? If you don’t think that’s bad, then you’re not omnibenevolent, period.
So if God looks at the world as it is and say it’s perfect, then he’s provably not omnibenevolent, and that’s one of the original three arguments.
The alternate approach is to say that the world isn’t perfect, but it’s instead the best possible world. However, this horrifically nerfs omnipotence. The world would be better if good people didn’t feel pain when they didn’t deserve it and when it didn’t help them, which obviously happens. It would also be better if people had a mental aversion from doing evil, like God supposedly does. (And if he can be omnibenevolent, then in theory so could we, with no greater loss of free will than he has.) An omnipotent could make the above things so, easily If God can’t, then he’s very obviously not omnipotent, and that’s another of the original three arguments.
Or alternately maybe god just thinks the universe is optimal because he lives a very sheltered life and isn’t actually aware of the evil that’s everywhere. Which is the third original argument. And one or more of this or the prior two cases must be the case, logically.
So yeah. while abstractly one could in theory claim that there’s no avoidable evil, in actual fact given the universe we live in that’s either an obviously false claim or God’s Omnimaxness is obviously false first.
Science is a matter of observations, definitions, experimentation, predictions, and subsequent repetition of each of the steps by multiple practioners. Science has had a long history of explaining the intricate details of what, and how the elements of the universe interact, and the implications those interactions have in the constituent parts of those elements. And each time, new parts are proposed, and new experiments designed, and new methods of observation developed, and the process is reiterated.
It is fairly rare for any actual experimentation on God Himself to be done, since the preliminary steps seem to be out of our reach. Observing, and defining God are highly variant, and very difficult to repeat among different observers. Philosophical argument is fine, as an intellectual exercise, but it falls quite short of scientific examination. Also, keep in mind, almost nothing in scientific study is proven. Disproof is fairly common, and new paradigms of hypotheses are generated from each one of them, and predictions made based on their putative truth, and the cycle repeated. But the absence of disproof is not proof. It’s just fairly good evidence. Most science is just fairly good evidence, for the instrumentality of its time.
I have never heard of a true disproof of the existence of God in a scientifically rigorous experiment. I doubt that one would have completely slipped by me, since I am fairly well read in current events in the sciences, if not expert enough to even understand a lot of it.
Now on to proof. Science has no iron in that fire, really, and it doesn’t need to examine God, since God is pretty much by common definition unexaminable. How the universe works, and what it is made of are sufficient realms for science to examine. So, science is the wrong tool for the question of the existence of God.
Faith?
For me, examining the question of God’s existence is pointless. Seek Him, and you will find Him. Seek proof, and you will find nothing. And for whom do you seek this proof? If you seek it for yourself, I urge you, seek rather faith in what God is. If you seek it so you can show it to someone else, you are committing sacrelige, and trying to use God to make yourself important.
And if you cannot have faith, then seek to love each soul you do meet as if that person were God. Either you will have been a good person, because being good is your choice, or, as I believe, one day that person will be God. You still won’t have an answer, but you may find your questions matter less.
Tris
And you won’t until the concept and definition of God is well defined. We can falsify, not really disprove, several models of God, but there are plenty out there which cannot be, because any claims about God which are falsified are then withdrawn and called parables or stories. Then we have deistic versions which are unfalsifiable by definition, and ones like “god is the universe” which also are.
Black holes are also, directly, as is the state if the universe in the first three minutes. But we can examine the effects of these on the rest of the universe, and predict the effects we expect to find. Whenever we do this, God comes up short, so the definition gets changed. At this point god claims have diverged so far from what we actually see it makes sense for science to give up. We have one bunch of believers who say whatever science finds if fine, and is evidence of god, and other set which just refuses to accept what science finds because it goes against their concept of god.
How could there possibly be any evidence indicating that? Do you have any other worlds that are better than this one in the back of your closet you can examine (if so, boo to you for hogging them!)? If you are agreeing that there is an optimal world in which there still is some evil, then you are agreeing with me, effectively. That there is a world that has less evil than this one can’t be decided from this one.
How do you know that?
Don’t see it. God might just tally up the total hours of unit-suffering, or perhaps go the other way and add up total bliss, and in a world with more bliss than another, the kid might have died, even though his death was not causative for the world to have more bliss, but merely incidental.
Well, what metric to use is for god to decide, isn’t it? After all, he’s also (putatively) the dude we get the difference between good and evil from, so he’s kinda an authority.
Well, it’s optimal with respect to the metric god has chosen.
If god can ‘program’ the world, this should not be a too taxing task for him.
Agreed. But that depends on your definition of free will, of which I’ve never read one I found entirely convincing (or at least not self-contradictory).
Well I just did.
My claim was that in my perception, it’s the most widely referred to answer, which is not really something for you to cast doubt on. Besides, Leibniz’ essay arguably the fundamental discussion of the problem of evil, it’s even where the name ‘theodicy’ comes from, so to leave it out of a discussion of this kind seems a bit of a glaring omission.
See, it just seems that way to you, because you’re so obviously obviously obviously smarter than all those idiots who’ve been propagating it over the years. Of course, the argument predicts that bad things happen to good people, but well…
Omnibenevolence would be void of meaning without evil: if there is no evil, everything would be all good all the time anyway.
Not anymore than constraining omnipotence to the logically possible does.
Seriously, anybody posing hypotheticals or arguing that ‘the world would be better if…’ is missing the point of the argument. Basically, think of evil as being like a bump under the wallpaper: you push it down here, it pops up over there. The arguments so far amount essentially to: well, push it down over there then, too!
We should perhaps all try to get on the same page here. I’ll outline my version of the argument in a couple of basic theses, so everyone disagreeing with the argument can then point to exactly which of the theses they challenge:
- SimGod can start the simulation, and let it run through till the end. (He’s omnipotent.)
- SimGod knows what’s good and what’s evil; alternatively, he defines it.
- SimGod can keep a running total of evil.
- When the simulation has concluded, it has a certain amount of evil associated with it.
- SimGod wants the total amount of evil to be as small as possible. (He’s omnibenevolent.)
- SimGod can run the simulation again, and again, until all possibilities have played out.
- Among all these possibilities, one will have the least amount of evil.*
- This amount may not be 0.
- SimGod can choose the one with the least amount of evil as the ‘actual’ history of the world.
SimGod’s omniscience now means that he doesn’t have to go through this process to find the right one any more than we have to try all possible curves of descent to find the fastest.
Additionally, to make the argument that this best of all possible worlds is indistinguishable from the one we’re living in:
- The denizens of this world may find themselves in the presence of some evil.
- For any given act of evil, they can ask the question: ‘Without this act of evil, wouldn’t the world be a better one?’
- The answer to this question would always be no, as the resulting alternative world would always be either worse, or impossible.
- This is exactly the situation we find ourselves in.
Anybody wishing to discuss this further, please make clear which, if any, of those points you disagree with.
(*Assume to the contrary that there isn’t: then, for every world, there is a better world. However, then the problem of evil goes away on its own, as god can’t be faulted for not having created the best of all possible worlds if there is no such thing!)
Half Man Half Wit, I have numerous objections to the “best of all possible worlds” which I believe is preposterous.
However, before I go into these objections, I just want to be sure which version of the hypothesis you are suggesting.
So, in your version, the best possible reality includes all human actions? So the holocaust, Dickens writing A Christmas Carol, me microwaving a meal just now…all these are part of the best possible world? They are not in any sense “external” to god’s plan?
The other question is: The sense in which this universe is “best” is just that it has the least evil, you’re saying?
Not suffering, or something else?
Theists say this when pressed into a corner, but most of them live their lives as though God interacts with the universe on a regular basis. Which means that the particular version of God THEY believe in is absolutely examinable. They just choose not to examine Him because they’re afraid of what they may find.
Any God worth paying attention to is falsifiable. And any God that is not falsifiable is indistinguishable from no God at all.
If I can imagine a better world within the realm of possibility, this is not the best possible world. I can imagine such a world. This is not the best possible world.
Mijin, I have created a new thread dedicated to this discussion here, in order to avoid further hijacking this one. I’ll also reply to your post there.
Examine in the scientific sense of the the word is not the same as living my life as though God interacts with the universe. Examining God is beyond my comprehension. Sadly, even the Universe exceeds my perception, although in that case it is a matter of individual personal educational deficits. But, the fact that God has a relationship with me isn’t examinable in the scientific sense. You are entirely correct that nothing I experience by faith is evidence of Gods existence in the sense of scientific examination. I believe that the contention that it is science is worse than useless, it is blasphemy.
God-in-box is easily disprovable as a scientific hypothesis. It is entirely without faith in Him in any form as well. That sort of posturing is self aggrandizement, and, in my opinion evil. But none of that is related to faith. Insisting that all of existence must fit into the philosophic model we call science is equally silly, but basically harmless, unless it is used to hurt people.
And, by the way, monolithic religious organizations have reasons for defending specific definitions of God, and His Will that are not matters of faith in any way. Most of religion is politics. If God doesn’t favor the priest over the congregant, then it turns out the priest is pretty much just another believer, with no particular authority. I have no desire to support the idea that any particular person has such authority on the nature of God. Faith is not a construct of logic or legalism, although religion often is. Insisting that all faith is identical with all religion is a strawman construct. I decline to defend religion, but have no need to defend faith.
Tris
You don’t actually understand what science is, do you?
If God exists, there are only two possibilities: he has observable effects on reality, or he doesn’t have observable effects on reality. If the former, he is providing evidence that science can study to understand God. If the latter, he’s literally insignificant, no more worthy of awe, study or emulation than a child’s imaginary friend.
I don’t know which God you believe in, but it can’t be the Biblical one, since in Exodus God gave very demonstrable evidence of his existence, to a lot of people, and in fact was outraged when Moses struck the rock which made it possible for a skeptic to claim the blow produced the water, not God. If you are a Christian, please explain why the evidence of the Resurrection is not the kind of evidence of divinity you think is so awful.
If you don’t believe in this, and your faith is totally devoid of present or historical evidence, it is functionally equivalent to you believing that Jodie Foster is in love with you. I trust you reject the pronouncements of any number of nutjobs out there - why?
I understand that it is a highly reliable method for studying the physical universe, and by inference, the probable history and future universe, as it appears within our observational limitations. I certainly don’t understand all of it. Many scientists have been testing the limits of the ability to know things, and continue to find things that are possibly not perceivable to us, and that is just within the physical world. My statement was that not all that is can be quantified, duplicated, and examined by that one method. That doesn’t mean it is a bad method, only that it doesn’t apply to all things.
There are two possibilities, either all possibilities in the universe are encompassed by a particular dichotomy, or that the creation of the dichotomy is inherently limited in scope by the limits of its creator.
I do not offer scientific proof of my love to my child when my child is in fear, or pain. Yet it may be that I love my child. The entire universe is not encompassed by scientific understanding.
Tris
My, contention on both sides!
OK, evidence. Ain’t got none I can share. Got all I needed all at once, and stopped having a need for it. The Resurrection wasn’t a matter of evidence for me, since I wasn’t there. It’s just reports. Never met Moses. It isn’t evidence of Divinity I think is terrible, its the blind belief, and dogmatic insistence that evidence is divine in itself, and necessary to faith. And even more terrible is the insinuation that the absence of evidence is more important than faith.
People too stupid to understand evidence, or even the concept of proof can have faith, and be faithful. So can smart people, although some of them have a tough time with it.
I evaluate the pronouncements of nut-jobs, including some professed Christians, Muslims, Jews, or Fosterites on the same basis: Do they engender love of the children of God, and the children of man? Are their acts a reliable measure of their pronouncements? Do they perceive that they are equal to their fellow children in their limits?
While I often reject pronouncements, I try to avoid rejecting nut jobs. Been there, it ain’t pleasant, they don’t need my condemnation.
Tris