Recurring, but incorrect arguments (part 2): Attempt to turn the tables

[Ruqx]

Again, you’re misconstruing things. There is no ‘glory’ in the ‘suffering’. The suffering is part of the state of being human, and the end result (eventually) is ‘glory’. I’m not asserting strict causation, as if a particular quantum of ‘glory’ is caused by a particular quantum of ‘suffering’.

It does not have to be “quantified” in a precise manner. It would be enough to prove (really prove) that without the suffering even God is unable to “lift” us up into that “glory”.

Then where’s the insistence that we must ID particular specifics come from?

Because in all the specific cases there is a logical causation between the “suffering” and the “glorious” result. And it can be shown that without the workout there is no gain in strength. Where is the causative relationship between the suffering of the “teething” and the glory in heaven?

No; that’s a non sequitur. You’re asserting that the intentional infliction of particular suffering (you beating your children) is the same as allowing physical human nature to take its course.

There is no difference between actively causing and passively allowing suffering IF the agent has the power to prevent the suffering.

Again, you’re asserting ‘unnecessary’ without any demonstration that this is the case.

There is no need. The default position is that suffering is “bad”, and only the apologist can show otherwise.

‘Unwanted’ is irrelevant, I think I’d claim. Parents subject their children to experiences that the children don’t want – all the time! – but which, in the parents’ view, is in their best interest.

Small children or mentally retarded people are not the “measuring rod”… so to speak. Only normal people can make the decision if that “suffering” is desirable - “for THEM”.

You’re attempting to use a special case to disprove the general case.

Absolutely! If you present a “general” solution, and I can show one specific instance where it does not apply, then your general argument is null and void. Any kind of counter example invalidates the positive claim.

That He ‘can’ do what He wishes doesn’t imply that what He doesn’t do is evidence of lack of beatitude on His part.

But it is. There are two possible “defenses” for God, and both lead to a logical contradiction (1. God is unaware or the suffering and 2. God is unable to do anything about it). God is aware of the suffering, so he cannot claim ignorance. God is omnipotent, so he can do everything except logically contradictory actions. God is omni-benevolent so he acts in the best interest od everyone involved. So the only “defense” that remains is that God cannot instantiate the world without suffering, because it would lead to a logical contradiction. Where is the contradiction?

So the question is still there: “how can one reconcile the undeniable pain and suffering of a teething infant with God’s benevolence?” Personally, I came to the conclusion that God’s omnipotence could overcome any and all kinds of sufferings. But that claim would lead to a too long discussion. So I am sticking to my guns, and ask about the “problem of teething”, and NOT the “problem of evil” in general.

If you are interested, there is a thread opened by “e_c” (forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=1022579), where I gave a detailed analysis of the “problem of teething”.

 

[PRmerger]

Many apologists try to whitewash God’s lack of interference when it comes to help the sick, the needy, the sufferers, etc. Instead of offering an argument, they try to put the blame on the one who asks the question. They ask back: “what did YOU do to prevent the suffering?”. As if our lack of help would make God’s non-interference policy somehow acceptable.

The answer is simple: “We do whatever we can.”

Or, sometimes, if we’re, say, a good parent, we permit the suffering.

http://forums.catholic-questions.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=23415&d=1472524717

 

[goout]

Or, sometimes, if we’re, say, a good parent, we permit the suffering.

http://forums.catholic-questions.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=23415&d=1472524717

The reflexive objection is that an immunization is logical and purposeful while so much suffering seems senseless and void of purpose. I don’t think the analogy here is very effective, although I do see it.
The problem with the problem of suffering is that it is an arbitrary problem. It looks at half of life and ignores the problem of good. Oddly enough, it wants to believe in God and blame God when things go wrong, but accepts good without comment or acknowledgement.
I find that inconsistent for a system of belief that operates on logic and observable experience.
Life as experienced is not merely bad, it is a wide range of experiences.

 

[PRmerger]

The reflexive objection is that an immunization is logical and purposeful while so much suffering seems senseless and void of purpose

Not to quibble, but the above is a picture of a child getting an IV inserted, not an immunization.

However, to the point: do you think the child views the IV insertion as “senseless and void of purpose”?

Answer: yes, he certainly does.

And no amount of explaining to this little one will cause him to say, “Ok. I get it now. I need the IV so I don’t get dehydrated. Go ahead, Daddy, and let it happen to me.”

 

[goout]

Not to quibble, but the above is a picture of a child getting an IV inserted, not an immunization.

However, to the point: do you think the child views the IV insertion as “senseless and void of purpose”?

Answer: yes, he certainly does.

And no amount of explaining to this little one will cause him to say, “Ok. I get it now. I need the IV so I don’t get dehydrated. Go ahead, Daddy, and let it happen to me.”

I accept the hidden action and purpose.
Atheists and objectors of all kinds do not.

All they see is an opportunity to object to the loophole. “Yes but why does god allow child abuse?” Your IV has a good purpose, child abuse does not. The analogy is unsatisfying.

The honest question for objectors should be “Why does God allow child abuse, and drinking water, and pleasure of all kinds, and all growing things, and life and breath itself?”

I’m wondering why any philosophy would not address the whole of life, but rather cull out half of life’s experiences, and spend all one’s energies objecting to that half-life.

If objectors want to be consistent, then object to the whole of human experience and life.

 

[PRmerger]

I accept the hidden action and purpose.
Atheists and objectors of all kinds do not.

This is irrelevant.

Anti-vaxxers do not accept the science of immunizations.

But they are wrong.

All they see is an opportunity to object to the loophole. “Yes but why does god allow child abuse?”

For the same reason that a Father allows a 3- year old child to be tortured with multiple attempts to get an IV inserted.

There’s a good reason but the child just can’t see why.

Your IV has a good purpose, child abuse does not.

From our 3 year old mentality, it certainly seems as if there’s no purpose.

But, as we grow up, we can indeed see the purpose. It’s just that no explanation will suffice to a 3 year old.

 

[PumpkinCookie]

I accept the hidden action and purpose.
Atheists and objectors of all kinds do not.

All they see is an opportunity to object to the loophole. “Yes but why does god allow child abuse?” Your IV has a good purpose, child abuse does not. The analogy is unsatisfying.

The honest question for objectors should be “Why does God allow child abuse, and drinking water, and pleasure of all kinds, and all growing things, and life and breath itself?”

I’m wondering why any philosophy would not address the whole of life, but rather cull out half of life’s experiences, and spend all one’s energies objecting to that half-life.

If objectors want to be consistent, then object to the whole of human experience and life.

I think it is possible you completely misunderstand the “problem of evil.” The existence of evil is counted as evidence against the claim that God is simultaneously omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent. If one posits that ONLY this God could possibly exist, then the argument from evil is strong evidence that there is no God.

The argument from evil is not simply the rude claim of “there is evil, therefore there is no God.” So, your observation that people don’t obsess over a symmetric claim “there is good, therefore there is no God” isn’t particularly insightful here.

Rather, there is an intermediate step: God’s supposed attributes and the reality of evil are not compossible. According to the argument, one of these four things MUST go, according to reason:

1. God is all-good
2. God is all-powerful
3. God is all-knowing
4. Gratuitous evil is real

There is abundant evidence of #4, so it seems unlikely we can jettison it, though many apologists struggle mightily. If one of the others must go, then the God described by mainstream forms of traditional Abrahmic theism are suspect, at the least. This is a sound, powerful, and effective argument both logically and emotionally. In order to combat it, you must do a ton of philosophical work, but accepting it is quite simple and straightforward. I believe atheism is spreading rapidly because people are being confronted with this argument all over the Internet, and the refutation from Christians isn’t equal to the task.

One possible solution is “skeptical theism.” In my view, it means that we are not able to know why God has created this particular universe in this particular way even though it seems inferior to the universes we can imagine. Because we cannot know why God has created evil, and we do not know if it is in fact gratuitous or not, we shouldn’t conclude that the 3-O God does not exist. Maybe we just don’t have the ability to affirm the truth value of statements 1 and 4 above.

There are consequences to this claim however. If we’re skeptical about God’s morality, how can we be certain of our own? Poetically: the snake in the garden of Eden lied to us about the effect of the fruit. We have not become like God, and we do not actually know the difference between good and evil. We form moral beliefs based on reason and evidence, but we do not have true moral knowledge. Is the cure worse than the illness? I’m not sure…

 

[goout]

I think it is possible you completely misunderstand the “problem of evil.” The existence of evil is counted as evidence against the claim that God is simultaneously omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent. If one posits that ONLY this God could possibly exist, then the argument from evil is strong evidence that there is no God.

Do you base your position on reason?
Do you reason by sensing life around you and thinking about it?
Do you sense life experiences?
Good then.

In your life experiences, do you experience what you might call good, and what you might call bad?
Or is your life only consisting of bad?
If you also experience good, why do you not blame God for good, as you blame him for bad?

You claim that God as omnibenevolent is inconsistent with “the bad” that happens in your life.

We claim that life is lived as a whole, and that life is good as a whole, suffering and all. That every bit of it has meaning and purpose.
And that your position is fragmented and un-reasoned, because it compartmentalizes half of life’s undeniable experiences, and proposes no meaning or purpose for any of it, good or bad.

If you are going to be consistent in your claim to meaning/lack of meaning, please account for the problem of good.

Your position is akin to an accountant who refuses to account for income on the ledger, but only accounts for the debit column, and then rails against the fact that the company is losing money. “Fire the CEO!”

 

[PumpkinCookie]

Do you base your position on reason?
Do you reason by sensing life around you and thinking about it?
Do you sense life experiences?
Good then.

In your life experiences, do you experience what you might call good, and what you might call bad?
Or is your life only consisting of bad?
If you also experience good, why do you not blame God for good, as you blame him for bad?

You claim that God as omnibenevolent is inconsistent with “the bad” that happens in your life.

We claim that life is lived as a whole, and that life is good as a whole, suffering and all. That every bit of it has meaning and purpose.
And that your position is fragmented and un-reasoned, because it compartmentalizes half of life’s undeniable experiences, and proposes no meaning or purpose for any of it, good or bad.

If you are going to be consistent in your claim to meaning/lack of meaning, please account for the problem of good.

Your position is akin to an accountant who refuses to account for income on the ledger, but only accounts for the debit column, and then rails against the fact that the company is losing money. “Fire the CEO!”

This is bigger than any of our individual lives my friend, it’s as big as the universe.

I do credit God for both good and evil. “I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster: I, the Lord, do all these things.” Isaiah 45:7. “Naked I came from my mother’s womb and naked I will go to the grave. The Lord gives and takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord.” Job 1:21

That said, I’m not sure why God is creating the universe the way he is. That isn’t the same as supposing there is no purpose.

Are we in agreement then: is God also the author of evil? Will you value consistency with me?

 

[goout]

This is bigger than any of our individual lives my friend, it’s as big as the universe.

I do credit God for both good and evil. “I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster: I, the Lord, do all these things.” Isaiah 45:7. “Naked I came from my mother’s womb and naked I will go to the grave. The Lord gives and takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord.” Job 1:21

That said, I’m not sure why God is creating the universe the way he is. That isn’t the same as supposing there is no purpose.

Are we in agreement then: is God also the author of evil? Will you value consistency with me?

God, the great author of evil…

Why does the VP of the company steal money?
Given that the VP steals money on a regular basis, does the accountant only account for his evil theft, which is only half the ledger? And as he accounts for half life’s ledger, does he then blame the CEO because the company is losing money, when in fact he only accounts for the losses?

How can that be a reasoned position?
It is not reasoned, it is blind to the whole of life’s experiences.
Incidentally, the etymology of the word Catholic is “of the whole”. “Holos”, which deals with the community as a whole, and an embracing of life, as a whole.

 

[PumpkinCookie]

God, the great author of evil…

Why does the VP of the company steal money?
Given that the VP steals money on a regular basis, does the accountant only account for his evil theft, which is only half the ledger? And as he accounts for half life’s ledger, does he then blame the CEO because the company is losing money, when in fact he only accounts for the losses?

How can that be a reasoned position?
It is not reasoned, it is blind to the whole of life’s experiences.
Incidentally, the etymology of the word Catholic is “of the whole”. “Holos”, which deals with the community as a whole, and an embracing of life, as a whole.

I feel like we might be talking past each other. How about this:

I believe that God is responsible for everything, ultimately. All good and evil, everything included. The universe is a “package deal.”

It’s a “bundle” like what cable companies offer. Sure, I don’t like most of the channels, but I do like the cheap, fast, and reliable internet. Though I would rather just buy the Internet service and can’t see any reason why the cable company won’t simply offer Internet alone, I’ll take what I can get and be happy with my internet service while griping about paying for TV I don’t watch.

What I don’t understand is when people sing the praises of the cable company for the Internet but pretend the seemingly useless TV channels included in the bundle aren’t the work of the cable company. In fact, I’ve never heard anyone do that, quite the opposite.

 

[goout]

I feel like we might be talking past each other. How about this:

I believe that God is responsible for everything, ultimately. All good and evil, everything included. The universe is a “package deal.”

It’s a “bundle” like what cable companies offer. Sure, I don’t like most of the channels, but I do like the cheap, fast, and reliable internet. Though I would rather just buy the Internet service and can’t see any reason why the cable company won’t simply offer Internet alone, I’ll take what I can get and be happy with my internet service while griping about paying for TV I don’t watch.

What I don’t understand is when people sing the praises of the cable company for the Internet but pretend the seemingly useless TV channels included in the bundle aren’t the work of the cable company. In fact, I’ve never heard anyone do that, quite the opposite.

You say you believe God is responsible for everything, but your position is inconsistently focused on evil. That’t really the problem in a nutshell. We would debate whether God is responsible for evil or merely permits it as our free will deviation from good, but we will just disagree.

You are tallying up accounts, and only accounting for half of life.
In the end, it is not about settling accounts to our satisfaction. Who can do that? It can only lead to frustration and despair for the huge weight on one side of the ledger.

Catholicism is about seeing what it is, accepting what is, and finding being, meaning, and purpose in life, as a whole. The difficulties of life do not disprove goodness.

So, there is still a problem with the problem of evil, that there is no problem of the good, and life becomes a one-sided, meaningless, capricious, and blind, settling of accounts.

 

[PumpkinCookie]

You say you believe God is responsible for everything, but your position is inconsistently focused on evil. That’t really the problem in a nutshell. We would debate whether God is responsible for evil or merely permits it as our free will deviation from good, but we will just disagree.

You are tallying up accounts, and only accounting for half of life.
In the end, it is not about settling accounts to our satisfaction. Who can do that? It can only lead to frustration and despair for the huge weight on one side of the ledger.

Catholicism is about seeing what it is, accepting what is, and finding being, meaning, and purpose in life, as a whole. The difficulties of life do not disprove goodness.

So, there is still a problem with the problem of evil, that there is no problem of the good, and life becomes a one-sided, meaningless, capricious, and blind, settling of accounts.

OK how about this: the reality of evil casts suspicion on many traditional theologies in a way that the reality of good does not, precisely because those theologies do not properly account for evil but do properly account for good. Many traditional theologies cause us to expect good, and so we do and so it is. But, these same theologies can lead one to be surprised at evil, and so it is and so we are.

I like your second to last paragraph, I agree with those beliefs (but would not agree that Catholicism is the best or the only representation). Are you familiar with the Stoic concept of Amor Fati?

 

[PRmerger]

The argument from evil is not simply the rude claim of “there is evil, therefore there is no God.”

I think logic tells us that there is no reason that God couldn’t exist but permit evil.

We see an icon of that with fathers who permit bad things to happen to their children.

https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/...PwLKbutjCS2d19MCBchkB5w7WAP2lx7pa7PD6QAtZ9dig

Clearly, there’s a reason. The toddler just doesn’t see it.

It would be illogical for anyone to say, “Bad things happened to this toddler, therefore his father, who could have prevented this, doesn’t exist”.

 

[goout]

OK how about this: the reality of evil casts suspicion on many traditional theologies in a way that the reality of good does not, precisely because those theologies do not properly account for evil but do properly account for good. Many traditional theologies cause us to expect good, and so we do and so it is. But, these same theologies can lead one to be surprised at evil, and so it is and so we are.

I like your second to last paragraph, I agree with those beliefs (but would not agree that Catholicism is the best or the only representation). Are you familiar with the Stoic concept of Amor Fati?

Christianity and Catholicism specifically do not settle life merely into accounts.
When we say that God is good, we say that God is pure being and is existence itself.
It is good to be. And here we are, you and I, with all of life’s experiences to reconcile and give meaning and purpose to.

In the Christian viewpoint, goodness is not based on merely human values that we can assign.
“This is good, that is bad”. That is a human value judgment. That has a purpose also, or we wouldn’t do it. But pure being and existence is transcendent of human value judgments. Pure being is wholesome. And our goodness derives from it. Goodness takes up the whole of our experience and existence.

The fact that my wife may seriously hurt me does not disprove the good of relationship. That relationship is almost a third person. In fact Christianity believes that relationship truly is a transcendent third. The two participate in and with a transcendent third.
My wife and I may injure each other and cause each other to suffer, but the transcendent third can be durable if we do not account blindly and capriciously.

If I merely demand accounting for the bad, I cannot love, because I am not accepting the whole.
And when we say that God is good, that is what we mean, transcendent love that takes up the whole being.