Is the Christian God self-contradictory?

[Ghosty]

but that is as may be. i don’t think that a case for “good as absence of evil” is as easily made you suggest; i know that when i reflect on the terms “good” and “evil”, i can understand the former without the latter, and can imagine a world in which the latter doesn’t exist. but not vice versa.

I believe there is a reason for this, and that is goes to the very core of the universe. Namely, the ultimate evil is that of non-existance, it is the ultimate deprivation of “good”. Anything that exists, then is the deprivation of “evil”, so it’s impossible to imagine a “perfectly evil” world.

 

[Wormwood]

left and right are relations, and the terms for them are relational terms - remove one of the relata, and the relation ceases to exist, and the terms become otiose.

This is the EXACT point I was making. Good and evil are also relational to the same extent.If you remove all evil there is no good, only one constant state of existance with nothing to compare it to.

but that is as may be. i don’t think that a case for “good as absence of evil” is as easily made you suggest; i know that when i reflect on the terms “good” and “evil”, i can understand the former without the latter,

That is because you already know the difference. If you were born into an existance where there was only good, or only evil, you would have no comparisson by which to determine one state from the other.
I am not trying to argue that there are two distinct alignments to choose from. What I am stating is that deviant behavior, and the capacity to commit this behavior, were created of God. Even difining good and evil is almost impossible, some people think the way americans live is evil, some think the way the muslims live is evil. The above debate is about semantics. That there is a WORD for good and a WORD for evil they are two opposing concepts and therefore only exist in relation to each other. The real argument that I was trying to make is the capacity of any behavior was created by God. Plus you cannot be all encompassing and then exclude evil and greed and the less desirable aspects of reality.Could this lack of consistancy be why so many christians go from monotheistic to duelists, and by that I mean deifying satan as the evil god and God as the good one.

If there was only good there would be no need to say “good apples” because you could just as well say “apples”; that wouldn’t make them less good just because there’s no need for a word to indicate it.

Exactly…it is just semantics…the POINT is the capacity for the deeds and He that created that capacity.

 

[Ghosty]

What I am stating is that deviant behavior, and the capacity to commit this behavior, were created of God.

Deviant behavior was not created by God, but God DID create people with the ability to commit deviant behavior. To do less than this would prove God to not be good, as I demonstrated in post #67. Because God is good, He created people with the ability to be deviants. This does not make God the “creator of deviancy”, because God created them as in-line with His Will, but with the ability to stray.

As I’ve stated, and shown, to create people WITHOUT the ability to be deviant would prove that God is not Good.

Could this lack of consistancy be why so many christians go from monotheistic to duelists, and by that I mean deifying satan as the evil god and God as the good one.

No orthodox Christians do this. You’d have to show some actual examples for this to stand, 'cause I just don’t get where you’re going with this.

Exactly…it is just semantics…the POINT is the capacity for the deeds and He that created that capacity.

And this capacity for deeds on the part of creatures is what demonstrates God’s goodness, not what detracts from it. You must differentiate between the ability to choose evil, which God certainly put in people according to His Goodness, and the propensity to commit evil, which God most certainly did not create. All evil is by the will and “creation” of creatures, God simply allowed them that leeway as was necessary by virtue of His Goodness.

None of this changes the fact that evil is a defect, not a thing in and of itself. Good, on the other hand, IS a thing in and of itself, namely God.

 

[Wormwood]

By transcendental I simply mean non-physical questions not dealing with experiential data per se. Metaphysics fits into this, but my understanding of metaphysics is that it is much more limited in scope than the word transcendental, dealing with the origin of things.

Your explaination of transcendental fits with metaphysics. But it is all really speculation.

I think we’re just talking past eachother, then. Going back to my original point, and your statement about the sun, I see that you were addressing simple material observation,

Yeah I realized this was a poor example on my part…I just thought it clever (because sun/son)

My point was that causality is NOT important in science. Millions of lives had been saved by penicillin before they figured out how it worked. The same is true of many medications…celebrex fights certain types of cancers they discovered after it was approved for allergies…it was found to contain angigenesis inhibitors that were previously unknown. See what I mean…if something is observed to be true it is utilized regaurdless if the exact mechanism is known or not.

He didn’t “create” evil, because He did not create their wills contrary to His own. He allows them to be contrary to His own, however, which is befitting the freedom of will and what I call “perfection in kind”.

But if he is truly all knowing, he created them knowing their capacity for evil and how it would be played out.

It’s basically saying that unGodliness must originate in God, which is a contradiction in terms. UnGodliness is, by very definition, outside of God.

Not really. It is saying if a God is all knowing and all powerful and created everything…EVERYTHING that exists within or outside of his law, he created. To say that man could create what God could not is crazy.

I believe there is a reason for this, and that is goes to the very core of the universe. Namely, the ultimate evil is that of non-existance, it is the ultimate deprivation of “good”. Anything that exists, then is the deprivation of “evil”, so it’s impossible to imagine a “perfectly evil” world.

One could just as easily argue that to exist is to experience evil…as a matter of fact, buddhist argue this (to live is to suffer). Non existance is nuetral; like eating a sandwhich. There is no good OR evil in non-existance. The rest of the argument is false because it is based on the false premis of ultimate evil being non-existance.

 

[atheos_sum]

john doran:

put another way, you have to show that X cannot be a proposition including “free choice”.

i have already done enough in this debate. Why can’t you show that X must be a proposition including free will?

Every time I have ever debated such issues, the theist has always been too idle to defend his own beliefs. He has always said to me that he is not in the position to uphold the burden of proof, or that he is unprepared. Rather, e says, if I have an argument, then I should let them know the nature of it. I have never—never!—seen a positive argument in such a debate on behalf of the theist.

It is very convenient for you to act as if the burden of proof is on me to show that your God is contradictory. (And I have taken on this burden every debate.) But actually, it is your burden to take on these things. You can come up with contradictions all day, and is it my duty to prove them wrong? I could come up with political conspiracy theories all day, but would it be your duty to demonstrate their imperfection? But even when this burden is on the theist, I usually end up constructing an argument simply for the sake of argument. What is wrong? Can’t you provide your own arguments?
john doran:

why can’t a choice be foreordained to be free? why can’t god create john doran at time t in a set of circumstances in which it is necessary for me to make a free choice? while i agree that a choice can’t be free if the choice itself is determined - i.e. if i am determined to choose to eat wheaties instead of cornflakes - but that’s not the same thing as being unable to avoid having to choose wheaties or cornflakes and it being totally up to me.

more doublespeak.

If choices were “foreordained to be free,” what purpose does the word “foreordained” serve in this sentence? If you say that Peter was “foreordained to freely choose” to deny the Lord three times, then you should read JL Mackie’s point again. – why couldn’t humans then be foreordained to freely choose not to do evil altogether?

 

[atheos_sum]

john doran:
my case is simply that you have not made yours: i am not attempting to present a demonstration of the existence of free choices.

that is what every theist has ever told me. it’s complete baloney.
john doran:
your conclusion is only entailed if one of your premises is “there are no (true propositions about) free choices”.

you think that conclusion is impossible?

 

[Ghosty]

My point was that causality is NOT important in science. Millions of lives had been saved by penicillin before they figured out how it worked. The same is true of many medications…celebrex fights certain types of cancers they discovered after it was approved for allergies…it was found to contain angigenesis inhibitors that were previously unknown. See what I mean…if something is observed to be true it is utilized regaurdless if the exact mechanism is known or not.

Ahhh, you’re misunderstanding me. Assuming causality has nothing to do with knowing the mechanism, quite the opposite. Penicillan was used because “When it’s present, bacteria die”; that’s the causality I’m talking about. It must be assumed in science for science to be useful. Saying “just because penicillan is present when bacteria dies doesn’t mean it’s causing the death, so let’s stop looking at it as a possible cure” would be insane in the scientific world, but in transcendental issues it’s a perfectly valid tact to take.

But if he is truly all knowing, he created them knowing their capacity for evil and how it would be played out.

Yes, but this means nothing, espescially when the Incarnation is taken into account. If God left things in a broken state of affairs, you’d have a point, but that is not the Christian position, nor is it an aspect of the Christian formulation of God. Again, see post #67.

Not really. It is saying if a God is all knowing and all powerful and created everything…EVERYTHING that exists within or outside of his law, he created. To say that man could create what God could not is crazy.

Not when you actually look at the definition of evil, which is “to go against God’s will”. By definition God can’t go against His own Will, therefore God can’t do evil. You’re still treating evil as a created thing, rather than a state, which is why you’re hitting this snag. Omnipotence in no way necessitates logical fallacies, such “God must have the power to not be God”.

One could just as easily argue that to exist is to experience evil…as a matter of fact, buddhist argue this (to live is to suffer). Non existance is nuetral; like eating a sandwhich. There is no good OR evil in non-existance. The rest of the argument is false because it is based on the false premis of ultimate evil being non-existance.

Buddhists have a fundamentally different worldview and metaphysics, so of course some may view existance as evil (this is not the universal Buddhist belief, BTW). They take it for granted that to exist is to suffer, which is not an assumption that Christians make. It’s not a necessary assumption, after all, but once made it does shape the development of philosophy. In the Christian model, non-existance is indeed the ultimate evil.

 

[Ghosty]

I have never—never!—seen a positive argument in such a debate on behalf of the theist.

That’s because you close your eyes to them. We’re not debating now, but I made a positive argument in post #67. You’ve continually overlooked it, not even addressed it, and I don’t expect you to now.

Again, saying “there is no spoon” doesn’t make it so.

 

[Wormwood]

“God must have the power to not be God”.

If he is “all powerful” he does.
If he created a universe seperate from himself (meaning containing ungodly behavior) Then he created the setting and circumstance for corruption. Also by creating such a universe he proves that he is capable of “ungodly” behavior and/or creation by definition set within this argument

Also thank you for clarifying your causality issue. But it still sidesteps the issue of “all encompassing” “all knowing” and “creator of all”. I look forward to your reply.

 

[john_doran]

atheos_sum:

i have already done enough in this debate. Why can’t you show that X must be a proposition including free will?

but i don’t have to show anything of the sort: all i need to show is that it’s **possible **that there be propositions about free choices. which is exactly what i have done.

look, atheos, all i am doing is trying to show that your argument doesn’t go through, and that’s all: i am not trying to demonstrate that there are, in fact, free choices - maybe there aren’t. all i am observing is that your argument that there are not free choices doesn’t work.

which means that i do not have to show that X must be about free choices, but rather simply that it could be about free choices.

atheos_sum:

Every time I have ever debated such issues, the theist has always been too idle to defend his own beliefs. He has always said to me that he is not in the position to uphold the burden of proof, or that he is unprepared. Rather, e says, if I have an argument, then I should let them know the nature of it. I have never—never!—seen a positive argument in such a debate on behalf of the theist.

i am not sure what point you are attempting to make here. i am not shifting the burden of proof at all; nor am i making any claims about my preparedness to offer positive proofs for the reasonableness of my beliefs. all i am doing - and i’ll say it again - is pointing out that your own arguments fail. period.

do you see what i’m saying? you may, in fact, be right, and omniscience may be incompatible with the existence of free choice, but even if you’re right, it’s certainly not because of the arguments you’ve provided here.

atheos_sum:

It is very convenient for you to act as if the burden of proof is on me to show that your God is contradictory. (And I have taken on this burden every debate.) But actually, it is your burden to take on these things. You can come up with contradictions all day, and is it my duty to prove them wrong? I could come up with political conspiracy theories all day, but would it be your duty to demonstrate their imperfection? But even when this burden is on the theist, I usually end up constructing an argument simply for the sake of argument. What is wrong? Can’t you provide your own arguments?

what are you talking about? once again, i am not “acting” like the burden of proof belongs to anyone in particular - i am simply responding to your arguments, which seem rather straightforwardly to be bad. and i have provided an abundance of support for this claim. what else do you want me to do?

atheos_sum:

more doublespeak.

If choices were “foreordained to be free,” what purpose does the word “foreordained” serve in this sentence?

well, i’d say none, unless it’s to make the point that human beings are determined to be free. but then, it’s ***your ***point, not mine.

atheos_sum:

If you say that Peter was “foreordained to freely choose” to deny the Lord three times, then you should read JL Mackie’s point again. – why couldn’t humans then be foreordained to freely choose not to do evil altogether?

sure. and you should read plantinga’s point again concerning transworld depravity.

 

[Wormwood]

Oh Ghosty, also I read #67, but I am still unclear.

It seems that the only factor that makes any of this make sense is randomization. I think we touched on this in another post, but the only way anything could be randomized in the presence of an all knowing God in the sense you are using it, is if free will allowed us to think and react in a way that God does not expect. For example: if God knew the future of everyman, and everything that would ever unfold on the earth, then all of our punishments were predetermined.
Why would God be sad about the corruption during Noah’s time if he knew it was going to happen? Why would he kill most of the world if he knew? What if the gift of free will and “knowledge” (from the tree in the garden) were the ability to surprise even God? That would put more meaning into God saying "look, he has become as one of us…able to distinguish GOOD FROM EVIL

 

[john_doran]

atheos_sum:

that is what every theist has ever told me. it’s complete baloney.

ok, i’ll bite - all you have to do now is demonstrate that it’s baloney. just sayin’ it don’t make it so…

but then, i’m preaching to the choir. right?

atheos_sum:

you think that conclusion is impossible?

no. of course not. it’s just not a conclusion that’s entailed by the premises of your argument.

i am operating under the assumption that you want to have good arguments for your conclusions…don’t you?

 

[Ghosty]

If he is “all powerful” he does.

That’s nonsense, because it implies that “omnipotence” means having the power to not be omnipotent. A contradiction in terms. It renders omnipotence perfectly meaningless. You can’t discuss concepts if you make them meaningless from the get go.

Also by creating such a universe he proves that he is capable of “ungodly” behavior and/or creation by definition set within this argument

Nope. Dealt with in post #67. Creating such a universe is actually a necessity of being God, not a contradiction of it.

Also thank you for clarifying your causality issue. But it still sidesteps the issue of “all encompassing” “all knowing” and “creator of all”. I look forward to your reply.

Well that’s because it was originally just a side point being made about why I dislike modern philosophy. It has nothing to do with the argument at hand, and I don’t use it as such.

 

[Ghosty]

Wormwood:

Oh Ghosty, also I read #67, but I am still unclear.

It seems that the only factor that makes any of this make sense is randomization. I think we touched on this in another post, but the only way anything could be randomized in the presence of an all knowing God in the sense you are using it, is if free will allowed us to think and react in a way that God does not expect. For example: if God knew the future of everyman, and everything that would ever unfold on the earth, then all of our punishments were predetermined.
Why would God be sad about the corruption during Noah’s time if he knew it was going to happen? Why would he kill most of the world if he knew? What if the gift of free will and “knowledge” (from the tree in the garden) were the ability to surprise even God? That would put more meaning into God saying "look, he has become as one of us…able to distinguish GOOD FROM EVIL

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that suprise is actually a prerequisite for free choice. In fact, total suprise actually rules out free choice (can’t remember the post where I dealt with that in particular, but it comes after #67). Basically, for any action to be free, it MUST be known beforehand; you can’t suprise yourself with a free action. If you ARE suprised, it wasn’t a free action. The fact that God shares in our knowledge by virtue of being outside of time in no way negates the freedom of the choice.

As for why God destroyed the world, it actually has to do with not allowing the deformity described in Genesis 6 (when the “sons of God”, possibly evil angels) procreated with human women producing Nephilim. God wiped them out, preserving the genetic line of Noah which was uncorrupted. Other punishments are corrective in nature, designed to bring a person back to righteousness through freedom of will. God doesn’t abandon even those He knows will abandon Him, because that would be a violation of Benevolence. Hell is not a punishment, however, but an aquiescence to the free desire of a free being. People who desire to be cut off from God are allowed a kind of “spiritual autism”, removed from God’s presence; it is a punishing experience, but it is not a place of punishment.

 

[Ghosty]

As for “being able to distinguish good from evil”, there’s actually a farm tale that I believe captures the essence of that story.

A young boy is cleaning out the rabbit cages with his older brother, and asks “What are those pellets under the rabbit cage?” The brother responds, “Those are smart pills. Eat them and you get smarter!” So the young boy picks one up, puts it in his mouth, chews and swallows. When finished he says, “Yuck, that tasted like ****,” to which his brother responds, “See, they’re working already.”

It was the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil because it caused Adam and Eve to intimately know both good (obedience) and evil (disobedience). It was a point of no return, not because they NOW had the ability to make a free choice, which they clearly already had, but rather than they now knew intimately what it meant to be evil AND to be good. They had freely broken themselves, and now knew what it meant to be broken and disobedient.

 

[Wormwood]

Ghosty… you missed where God himself says good and EVIL (not less good)… oh well anyway…Say you are schizo…and truly want to be good, but you kill someone. If God forsaw this and made you be born anyway, there is no free will, you were set up to die. And that would make God, especially OT be some sort of tremendous drama queen…becoming enraged and destroying towns and people, flooding the world, all of these events would have been premeditated and the dramatic sense in which they were delivered would take on a whole new (and lame) meaning.

 

[Ghosty]

Ghosty… you missed where God himself says good and EVIL (not less good)…

Evil is the word for “less good”, so I confess I don’t get your point. Do you have a specific verse in mind in which “less good” is explicitely ruled out as a meaning of evil?

…Say you are schizo…and truly want to be good, but you kill someone. If God forsaw this and made you be born anyway, there is no free will, you were set up to die.

A schizophrenic who kills due to illness would not be held accountable for their action by God. This is an explicit aspect of Church teaching. The schizophrenic’s exercise of free will is impeded by their illness, and therefore is not accountable. I’m not sure where you’re going with this point.

As for the Old Testament plagues and such, they always served a learning purpose, and were ALWAYS precipitated by warnings about the behavior that would lead to them. They never come out of nowhere to smack the world broadside. Each individual’s accountability before God is known only to God, but we know of certain mitigating factors (such as the aforementioned madness). All of the punishments used by God in the Old Testament are corrective measures, either for the individuals or the world, and are never arbitrary or even final (neither Jews, nor Catholics, view death as the “last thing” by any stretch). Mortal death and suffering can actually do wonders for bringing people back in line with God, so that they can eternally enjoy happiness, hence so many “deathbed” and “death-row” conversions. God knows this better than anyone, I’d imagine.

 

[atheos_sum]

john doran:

but i don’t have to show anything of the sort: all i need to show is that it’s possible that there be propositions about free choices. which is exactly what i have done.

have you though? if what i have done is what you call stipulating, then what have you done that is better?
john doran:

look, atheos, all i am doing is trying to show that your argument doesn’t go through, and that’s all: i am not trying to demonstrate that there are, in fact, free choices - maybe there aren’t. all i am observing is that your argument that there are not free choices doesn’t work.

which is essentially what plantinga says too, if i’m not mistaken: not that it’s impossible to be totally predestined, and that it is possible to be free. Well, then, to this shouldn’t we ask, if both are possible, are both ***equally ***possible? Or does one view have a leg up on the other.

– in a lot of apologetics, there is a certain strategy which seems to be prevalent. Such as in presuppositional apologetics (i’m sure you’re familiar with) in which the objective is to make all the alternatives to faith in God seem just like faith positions themselves, in a sense, making each alternatives seem equally valid. The idea is that if we can get both views to seem “possible” in some sense, then we can say that preferring one of the other is basically a presuppositional move. (but not that what i have said on this matter is necessarily conclusive. i’m just pointing it out.)
john doran:

which means that i do not have to show that X must be about free choices, but rather simply that it could be about free choices.

i would like to know, and not in a sarcastic way, in what possible universe it is possible to make free choices in, God being omniscient and all that. Could you describe it for me?
john doran:

i am not sure what point you are attempting to make here. i am not shifting the burden of proof at all; nor am i making any claims about my preparedness to offer positive proofs for the reasonableness of my beliefs. all i am doing - and i’ll say it again - is pointing out that your own arguments fail. period.

well, then, that’s fair enough. i just had a strange hunch you were being evasive–and needless to say, burden of proof smoke screens are very irksome.
john doran:

do you see what i’m saying? you may, in fact, be right, and omniscience may be incompatible with the existence of free choice, but even if you’re right, it’s certainly not because of the arguments you’ve provided here.

yes i see
john doran:

sure. and you should read plantinga’s point again concerning transworld depravity.

all transworld depravity states is something very much like, “In every possible universe God could have created there is at least one sin (or one smudgeon of evil, or something like it.)” isn’t this correct?

but i’m not sure if this answers Mackie’s point. Surely there is at least one possilbe world in which creation freely does not choose evil. To say this is impossible would seem, frankly, unimaginative.

 

[atheos_sum]

ghosty,

you act as if all the answers to our problems were written in post #67. frankly, i find that post very unhelpful. For one thing, you go very off-topic and you entertain some far-out issues, ones that we’re not dealing with. Plus it’s terribly long, and nobody wants to read long, rambling posts. It’s also not very clarifying. You don’t put very many breaks in your paragraphs. Psychologically, huge block paragraphs are unappealing, especially when each couple of sentences within the paragraph seems to have a mind of its own.

your key piece of defense was what you called “perfection of kind”. but, as i’ve said, i don’t think this explains much, and it’s not clear how this applies to a defense of free will, other than simply saying “perfection in kind necessarily implies free will.”

 

[Ghosty]

Atheos_sum: If anyone has problems with the post, they can ask further questions. I just won’t presume someone can’t understand what I wrote and retype everything I’ve already said. Just because you can’t follow it doesn’t mean that nobody can. If Wormwood can’t follow it, he’ll say so. Regardless, it’s actually the most on-topic post of our entire discussion, because it took place before you ran off with analogy misdefinitions and laying down your own brand of “petitio principii”.

I recommend you focus on actually making a point in your own posts rather than commenting on mine