Stephen Fry - Why does God let children suffer?

[Lucy107]

I think I understand where you are going with this, but I disagree. CS Lewis’ point about the light by which we see the truth of everything counters what you say above.

This is still circular.

The “One Being” which contextualizes all other things also contextualizes evidence so that we begin to understand how everything fits together.

This fits very well into J Warner Wallace’s view of how evidence is used to establish a case being tried in court. Yes, the evidence does support the verdict in the sense of proving it correct, however THAT is not ALL that it does. It also explains what happened, the wheres, hows, and whys, in such a complete way that the evidence accurately rebuilds the event by sufficiently explaining all of the details. Not merely “proving” it, but making it more comprehensible.

When it comes to God, the situation is unique, because God is a unique being, and above all others at that. Therefore, for ascertaining God, we cannot adequately use the same methods as we do in other fields of life, because those methods are not adequate in this one case, as the case is unique and unlike all others.

Reason and evidence helps us to more completely understand why the physical world exists and helps us to better understand our purpose in it. I don’t think you have fully considered what evidence is and what it does.

Reason and evidence helps us to more completely understand how the physical world exists, but they cannot help us understand why is does.

As long as we agree that we are dependent, contingent beings, we cannot, by our own efforts, ascertain our own purpose. It’s only our Creator and Supplier who can determine our purpose, and, under certain circumstances, make it known to us.

I don’t think it is. It only appears to be circular reasoning and Wallace explains why in several other articles. When viewed objectively as a piece of evidence in its own right, each Gospel, for example, can be assessed for its reliability and accuracy on its own merit. This only appears to be circular reasoning to those who have a bias against using the Gospels as evidence to begin with.

To use the Gospels to prove the validity of the Gospels is circular reasoning.
To use X to prove the validity of X is circular reasoning.

His points should not be so easily dismissed based upon reading one article - he substantiates everything he says throughout his web site and in the books he has written. He applies to unravelling the evidential case for Christianity everything he learned as an expert detective. I wouldn’t dismiss his work so easily.

I argue for belief in God on the grounds of divine mercy: “I believe in God because God has made me so” is, in my opinion, the only internally consistent “reason” for belief in God.

Of course, such an approach doesn’t leave much for talking, and probably is entirely useless for the purposes of evangelization, at least the sort of evangelization we see in the mainstream.

 

[Peter_Plato]

To use the Gospels to prove the validity of the Gospels is circular reasoning.
To use X to prove the validity of X is circular reasoning.

That is like claiming you can’t use the testimony of eye witnesses in a trial to prove the relaibility of the testimony of the eye witnesses.

That would be circular – sort of.

You can, for example, use the existence of internal inconsistencies to disprove eye witness testimony. You can also use lack of corroboration with other evidence or other witnesses to establish or not the reliability of particular eye witness testimony.

What we are doing with the Gospels, however, is using the written testimony to help prove what the testimony claims actually occurred. That is done ALL of the time in courts of law ALL over the world today.

That is also what Wallace is doing. He is showing that the Gospels are reliable eye witness testimonies and we have no reason to doubt them because it is possible to prove the eye witnesses themselves are reliable. This is exactly what happens in a court of law today. Eye witnesses are summoned and those testimonies, in themselves, are taken to be evidential proofs barring those eye witnesses or their testimony being discredited.

That is precisely what critics of Gospel reliability carry the burden for doing – show that the writers were unreliable. That hasn’t been done, except by presumption.

Wallace is claiming that we have no reason to disbelieve the writers of the Gospels and every reason to believe them, therefore they ought to be taken as reliable eye witnesses just as properly vetted witnesses are presumed reliable in courts of law today.

If you want to argue that that is not the way it should be done, then you have to make that same argument against the judicial system because that is precisely the way it is done.

Wallace makes this case over and over again.

coldcasechristianity.com/2014/were-the-gospel-authors-biased/

 

[Lucy107]

Wallace is claiming that we have no reason to disbelieve the writers of the Gospels and every reason to believe them, therefore they ought to be taken as reliable eye witnesses just as properly vetted witnesses are presumed reliable in courts of law today.

If you want to argue that that is not the way it should be done, then you have to make that same argument against the judicial system because that is precisely the way it is done.

Obviously, this is the way it can be done.

I think Wallace’s line of reasoning is missing one crucial point, even though it in a way implies it: the importance of goodwill and the role of bad faith.

If the Gospels (or anything else, for that matter) are approached in bad faith, that way there will always appear evidence to support the bad faith.

I think that questioning the existence of God, and consequently trying to prove it, is already bad faith, and it is bound to lead to overt or covert atheism (covert atheism can externally manifest as theism).

It is impossible to be neutral; the ideal, proper investigator ought to be neutral and not disposed in one way or another in regard to the prospective outcome of his investigation. But in reality, such neutrality is not possible; one is either favorably disposed toward a prospective outcome, or one is negatively disposed toward it. And then one’s investigation proceeds according to that bias.

What we are doing with the Gospels, however, is using the written testimony to help prove what the testimony claims actually occurred.

The problem with this approach is that any fictional story that has enough internal consistency passes this test.

 

[Peter_Plato]

The problem with this approach is that any fictional story that has enough internal consistency passes this test.

No one claimed it was the only test that had to be passed, but that it must pass that test in order to move forward with the question of reliability.

Wallace makes a point that internal inconsistencies are sometimes only apparent ones which can be cleared up by a more complete assessment, which is what neither the atheist nor the fundamentalist necessarily want to do because both have a horse in the race.

Perhaps that is what you mean by bad faith – but that knife cuts both ways.

By the way, Wallace was an atheist and was moved to looking at the reliability of Scripture in order to debunk it, but found just the opposite to be true.

 

[AyJSimon]

So you allow for “needless suffering” but mock a God who does the same?

Already answered this.

 

[AyJSimon]

For the record, I do think there are compelling evidential reasons for thinking Christianity is true, but I don’t think evidence is the only means by which we know things are true. You MUST agree with that because you trust reason in the place of evidence where evidence cannot or does not provide proper grounds for belief. So you subscribe to the belief that evidence isn’t the ONLY grounds for belief. You do, however, CHOOSE to invoke “lack of evidence” to discount things you, personally, don’t believe.

I’m not treating reason as a substitute for evidence. I’m treating it as a mode of thinking, and one that doesn’t require evidence to assume its own value. One of the principles of reason is that truth claims require compelling evidence to be believed. If you discount the spiritual claims of non-Christian religions, it can only be because you don’t find the evidence for those claims compelling - nevermind that the evidence for the Christian spiritual reality is any more compelling.

 

[Peter_Plato]

No, once again, I don’t criticize God for not ending suffering. I criticize the idea of a God who has the power to end needless suffering (or prevent it), and not only doesn’t, but expects praise from his supplicants (or else). I further criticize those freely give him this praise, while suggesting that all those who decline this privilege lack moral fiber.

Generally speaking, this point is a weak one because it is basically an emotional appeal to those who may have to or are actually enduring suffering, that their suffering is without justification. There is no way of knowing that, until all contingencies are, in fact, revealed.

The only way this argument can work is if the pointlessness of evil can be proved.

The argument would have to be something like this to work logically (courtesy Tim Keller/J.L. Mackie):
If God exists he would not allow pointless evil.
There is pointless evil.
Therefore, God does not exist.

The problem, again, is that pointless or unjustifiable evil is based on both a subjective and relative determination. Merely because we don’t see a point to it at this point in time, does not mean there is no point or that God cannot have a justifiable reason.

Evil and suffering is not evidence against the existence of God, it is – including Fry’s formulation – evidence that we don’t understand or have access to all the facts surrounding the existence of evil or suffering. It isn’t nor can it be directly a logical argument against the existence of God, unless a positive case can be made that in the overall scheme of things any evil is indeed pointless and without justification.

Pointless evil is not necessarily “pointless” in this absolute or final sense.

If I break a leg, end up in a hospital and there meet a future spouse, the suffering was outweighed by the final outcome (again courtesy Tim Keller). Any determination of “pointless” cannot be made nor hold until the final tally of all purposes and possible ends becomes known. Until that point, “pointless" is a purely subjective determination by the agent involved in or experiencing evil, but that perspective does not properly reflect the complete picture. Just because you or I cannot think of a good reason at this point in time does not mean no sufficiently good reason does not or cannot logically exist.

You might argue that God could have found a different way for me to meet my future spouse, but that is only speculation on your part and does not take into consideration the entire network of human interactions and outcomes that God has to manage. It is easy to take the event out of context by creating other imaginable scenarios, but that isolation has to ignore and discount a myriad of relevant factors.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I’m not treating reason as a substitute for evidence. I’m treating it as a mode of thinking, and one that doesn’t require evidence to assume its own value. One of the** principles of reason** is that truth claims require compelling evidence to be believed.

No that isn’t one of the “principles of reason.” All truth claims DO NOT REQUIRE “compelling evidence.” In particular, if you define "compelling evidence” as “physical evidence,” it is even less true.

This is the problem of induction, by the way. There is no logically necessary connection between causes and effects. Those are, even according to the darling of atheism, David Hume, circumstantial generalizations. There is nothing in the effect that says it has to have come from the cause, merely that it has consistently been observed to have in the past. That is not a logical relationship and therefore NEED not be logically true.

Ergo, “compelling evidence” is not required for determinations of truth. In fact, compelling evidence isn’t even sufficient, on its own, to substantiate a truth claim.

If you discount the spiritual claims of non-Christian religions, it can only be because you don’t find the evidence for those claims compelling - nevermind that the evidence for the Christian spiritual reality is any more compelling.

Absent any direct reference to particular evidential claims by Christian and non-Christian religions and how they can be substantiated by the evidence itself, this is merely so much handwaving on your part.

 

[AyJSimon]

Generally speaking, this point is a weak one because it is basically an emotional appeal to those who may have to or are actually enduring suffering, that their suffering is without justification. There is no way of knowing that, until all contingencies are, in fact, revealed.

The only way this argument can work is if the pointlessness of evil can be proved.

No, it doesn’t need to be proved. The arguments that apparently needless suffering actually serves some greater purpose simply needs to be compellingly evidenced. Much like the spiritual reality you posit, these arguments lack that evidence, and must be accepted on faith.

Much of the world’s suffering appears needless. If you say it’s not, it’s on you to provide evidence that it’s not. It’s not on me to dig into all the assorted contingencies (many of which are unfalsifiable in the first place) to solidify my own position.

You might argue that God could have found a different way for me to meet my future spouse, but that is only speculation on your part and does not take into consideration the entire network of human interactions and outcomes that God has to manage. It is easy to take the event out of context by creating other imaginable scenarios, but that isolation has to ignore and discount a myriad of relevant factors.

Just curious, why should the complexity of the entire network of human interactions and outcomes be of consequence to an all-powerful God? Based on what I’m given to understand about this God, it’s not speculation that he could’ve orchestrated your meet-cute in a different way, it’s actually self-evident that he could’ve done that.

 

[AyJSimon]

No that isn’t one of the “principles of reason.” All truth claims DO NOT REQUIRE “compelling evidence.” In particular, if you define "compelling evidence” as “physical evidence,” it is even less true.

This is the problem of induction, by the way. There is no logically necessary connection between causes and effects. Those are, even according to the darling of atheism, David Hume, circumstantial generalizations. There is nothing in the effect that says it has to have come from the cause, merely that it has consistently been observed to have in the past. That is not a logical relationship and therefore NEED not be logically true.

Ergo, “compelling evidence” is not required for determinations of truth. In fact, compelling evidence isn’t even sufficient, on its own, to substantiate a truth claim.

I didn’t say that compelling evidence was a requirement to substantiate a truth claim as true. I said compelling evidence was a requirement to believe a truth claim. That we might have different standards for what “compelling” actually means w/r/t evidence doesn’t invalidate the general principle.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I didn’t say that compelling evidence was a requirement to substantiate a truth claim as true. I said compelling evidence was a requirement to believe a truth claim. That we might have different standards for what “compelling” actually means w/r/t evidence doesn’t invalidate the general principle.

Sure, compelling evidence from the physical world is a requirement to believe claims about the physical world. That says nothing about qualitative or metaphysical claims which may be corroborated by physical evidence, but not established by it, necessarily.

 

[Lucy107]

By the way, Wallace was an atheist and was moved to looking at the reliability of Scripture in order to debunk it, but found just the opposite to be true.

Such people are suspicious. Their conversion - and their arguments for it - could simply be a form of compensation, rationalization, idealization, or introjection as psychological ego defense mechanisms at work.

Just because someone approached the Bible in bad faith (like Wallace, trying to debunk it), and then later ended up supporting it, doesn’t already mean that this person genuinely believes it to be true, nor that their arguments for this belief are sound and that other people can copy them without ill effect.

There is another category of Christians that is taking a similar circumstantial line of reasoning to prove the validity of the Bible; namely those who emphasise the historicity of the Bible and the events therein. They argue that because there is historical evidence that supports the textual existence and history of the Bible and some of the events therein, it therefore follows that everything in it is true.
No, it doesn’t follow that because there are some old documents, some non-Biblical references to events mentioned in the Bible, some remains of old settlements, therefore, Jesus is the Son of God and Savior of all mankind.

 

[Lucy107]

If you discount the spiritual claims of non-Christian religions, it can only be because you don’t find the evidence for those claims compelling

I think this is where you’re wrong.

Keep in mind that most people who are members of a particular religion don’t even know (or only have poor knowledge of) what other religions teach.

Cradle religionists (ie. people who are born and raised into a religion) believe what they believe precisely because this is what they believe.
Their belief in the validity of their religion predates the onset of their critical epistemic capacities. IOW, they believe that their religion is the right one long before they are even old and able enough to spell their name.

Cradle religionists are thus in an epistemically unique position that a person who wasn’t born and raised in said religion cannot copy, retrace, or experience for themselves.

Similar is the case with people who have experienced a “divine revelation” and who base their conviction that their religion is valid on that experience of “divine revelation.” These people are also in an epistemically unique position that cannot be copied, retraced, or experienced by a person without that revelation.

When cradle religionists (or those with a divine revelation) preach to others and tell them it is up to their free will to acept or reject the doctrinal claims of the religion they teach (and if reject, face dire consequences), they are asking these people to do something that they themselves have never done.
These preachers have no idea what it takes to come to believe the doctrinal claims they believe in!
From what I’ve seen, this is the same in all religions, from Catholicim to Buddhism.

For the non-believer, the problem aren’t the doctrinal claims of the religion. The problem are the specific lines of reasoning that are used by preachers.

Rene Descartes did not come to believe in God and the authority of the CC by following the line of reasoning he worked out in his Meditations.

 

[PRmerger]

That would be great if we actually had a cure for cancer. Unfortunately we don’t and until we do many children will suffer and die.* If the Christian God exists *the He could cure all these children immediately. The ball is back in His court.

You do realize that it’s not a logical conclusion to assert God doesn’t exist because there’s suffering, right?

IOW: there is no logical contradiction between an all-powerful deity existing and suffering existing as well, right?

 

[PRmerger]

I have a feeling that if Stephen Fry could alleviate the suffering of children as easily as God could, he would.

Let’s see if he would.

If Fry had children, would he immunize them?

Let’s presume he would, (as the overwhelming majority of rational-thinking people do.)

He takes his 5 yr old daughter in for her pre-k checkup, and she needs 5 shots. He lays her on the table, and holds her down while strangers stab her, over and over again.

He could alleviate her suffering–quite easily, in fact. He just has to open his mouth and say, “Stop!”

But he doesn’t.

Imagine this from the 5 yr old’s POV. “Why doesn’t my daddy alleviate my suffering?”



Now, the response that is often forthcoming is: * how can you equate vaccinations with incurable cancer?*

My example is an analogy ONLY.

I am in no way saying they are equal.

Just like Jesus’ parable of the weeds is in no way saying that people* are the same as* weeds. Someone who says, “How dare Jesus compare a human person, with inherent dignity and worth, with a shrub!” clearly can’t think in the abstract.

It’s simply an example that limns my argument.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Such people are suspicious.

Not sure whether you mean you are suspicious of them or they are suspicious of truth (and, are, therefore, guilty of bad faith) by the fact that their approach isn’t as “pure” as yours. Either way, you seem to presume knowing something of them and yourself being suspicious of them.

Their conversion - and their arguments for it - could simply be a form of compensation, rationalization, idealization, or introjection as psychological ego defense mechanisms at work.

Just because someone approached the Bible in bad faith (like Wallace, trying to debunk it), and then later ended up supporting it, doesn’t already mean that this person genuinely believes it to be true, nor that their arguments for this belief are sound and that other people can copy them without ill effect.

There is another category of Christians that is taking a similar circumstantial line of reasoning to prove the validity of the Bible; namely those who emphasise the historicity of the Bible and the events therein. They argue that because there is historical evidence that supports the textual existence and history of the Bible and some of the events therein, it therefore follows that everything in it is true.
No, it doesn’t follow that because there are some old documents, some non-Biblical references to events mentioned in the Bible, some remains of old settlements, therefore, Jesus is the Son of God and Savior of all mankind.

I don’t know about this. It seems to boil down to you alone having the correct motives for believing and everyone else being wrong, as if people should believe merely because they should believe and for no other reason. As soon as another reason is cited, you will impugn some false or questionable motive.

The other issue I have with this is that Paul, Peter and the first evangelists, generally, all gave “reasons” for believing in Jesus. Yet, according to you, having any reasons whatsoever is a sign of inferior faith.

 

[Lucy107]

Not sure whether you mean you are suspicious of them or they are suspicious of truth (and, are, therefore, guilty of bad faith) by the fact that their approach isn’t as “pure” as yours. Either way, you seem to presume knowing something of them and yourself being suspicious of them.

I presume to know something of their approach.

I don’t know about this. It seems to boil down to you alone having the correct motives for believing and everyone else being wrong, as if people should believe merely because they should believe and for no other reason. As soon as another reason is cited, you will impugn some false or questionable motive.

I’m not engaging in some kind of supremacism, mind you.
I just think that some paths are a dead end, based on my own experience. Clearly, there are paths that work for some time, but then they end.

The other issue I have with this is that Paul, Peter and the first evangelists, generally, all gave “reasons” for believing in Jesus. Yet, according to you, having any reasons whatsoever is a sign of inferior faith.

Surely those “reasons” can be a starting point, a spring board. One starts somewhere. But if those reasons are to be the be-all and end-all of one’s faith, then I find that to be a precarious situation. Because then one’s faith is only as good as those reasons, and if it should somehow happen that those reasons prove false, then the whole edifice of one’s religiosity collapses with them.

On the whole, I presume that it is my understanding that is inferior (a proposition that many Christians will gladly enforce and treat me as pretty much ignorant and inept), and I wish to be convinced that they, who are already baptized and saved and who directly or indirectly claim to know better, in fact are such, and worthy of being submitted to.

As a non-baptized person in a subordinate position I don’t really have much choice: I either unquestioningly submit to what I am being told and try to get myself to believe it; or I do my best to challenge those supposedly superior to me and get them to prove their supremacy. All religious arguments are ultimately arguments of appealing to authority, so there is minimum room for dialogue.

 

[PRmerger]

I presume to know something of their approach.

Well, no one can deny that all of us know “something” of another’s approach, inasmuch as the “something” is a very, very, very basic knowledge.

But as far as extending it to the assumptions you make, that presumes some sort of mystical gnosis.

I presume to know that you don’t have that.

 

[PRmerger]

and I wish to be convinced that they, who are already baptized and saved and who directly or indirectly claim to know better, in fact are such, and worthy of being submitted to.

Just to offer a wee correction here: since you are on a Catholic forum, in dialogue with mainly Catholics, you ought to know that Catholics do not use the claim, “I am saved” in the sense that Evanglicals and Fundamentalists do.

Which sense of “baptized and saved” did you mean–the Catholic view, where we have the moral assurance of our salvation, but not the absolute assurance–or the fundamentalist one where “If I died today I would know for certain that I am going to heaven–do you?” presents?

 

[PRmerger]

s a non-baptized person in a subordinate position I don’t really have much choice: I either unquestioningly submit to what I am being told and try to get myself to believe it; or I do my best to challenge those supposedly superior to me and get them to prove their supremacy.

Why the dichotomy where none exists, Lucy?

You need not “unquestioningly submit” at all while being a Catholic.

All religious arguments are ultimately arguments of appealing to authority, so there is minimum room for dialogue.

This is a peculiar argument being offered, being that you are here on a CATHOLIC, er, forum…which is established precisely for the purpose of…dialogue.

And given the fact that Catholic universities throughout the world have departments of THEOLOGY, whose purpose is to attempt to apprehend the numinous…and the CC has elevated intellectual giants such as St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine, St. Catherine of Sienna, St. Teresa of Avila to the status of DOCTORS of the Church…

the assertion that religious folks don’t have “room for dialogue” is a curious one indeed.