The dilemma of free will and necessary evil

[Hitetlen]

john doran:

sure. but the fact that it is even possible that there are good reasons means that your argument fails as a deduction. and that’s all i’m saying.

Let’s put this on hold for the time being. I will rephrase the argument, with a lot of needed clarification. This line of discussion does not really belong here and deserves a separate thread.

 

[john_doran]

Hitetlen:

Since I did not argue that there cannot be a good reason, I don’t know why you bring it up.

you presented what looked like a deductive argument to me…

Hitetlen:

Yes, there may be. However if God would be all benevolent, he would weed out all the pain and suffering which can be avoided, caeteris paribus. And it is easy to show that there are pains and sufferings which can be avoided.

not so easy, actually:

1. god eliminates all pain and sufffering that it is possible for him to eliminate;
2. there are many events of pain and suffering still in the world;
3. therefore it is not possible for god to eliminate those events of pain and suffering.

but that is as may be. i don’t think premise 1 is even true without considerable reworking. this is closer to the truth:

“god eliminates all pain and suffering that it is possible for him to eliminate in a manner consonant with the rest of his morally rectifiable goals”.

Hitetlen:

In order to absolve God, you would have to show some actual, compelling arguments why those pains and sufferings have a valid reason to exist. It is not enough to say that there MAY be good reasons. Who cares if there “MAY BE”? The question is “ARE THERE”?

yes, there are. because if there weren’t then there wouldn’t be any pain and suffering.

Hitetlen:

It looks to me that your position is based upon “let’s give the benefit of doubt” to God. Since it may be that there are compelling reasons for allowing pain and suffering, let’s suppose there are. I disagree with this. The “benefit of the doubt” is only applicable to fallible beings, God does not get it, nor does he deserve it.

this strikes me as exactly backwards: if, ex hypothesi, we are considering a being with the characteristics of omniscience, omnipotence, and omnibenevolence, then it seems to me that giving such a being the benefit of the doubt is actually required. i mean, it is an entailment of the conjunction of those characteristics that we attribute to such a being knowledge that we do not and perhaps cannot have.

Hitetlen:

If it looks like that there are no good reasons, then it is reasonable to assume that there are no good reasons. And if no arguments are forthcoming, then there are no good reasons.

right. that sounds pretty much exactly what i said to myself when i was four years old and couldn’t understand why my parents wouldn’t let me eat all of my halloween candy.

 

[adamlsp]

Hitetlen:
Hitetlen,

If chance is defined as an event produced by random motion without any causal nexus, I would say that there is no such thing as chance. - Boethius

Events at the subatomic or quantum levels are not random. I have read no scientist that, nor have any of the professors here at the university confirmed your pet theory. To say something is random is merely to be ignorant of its cause. Just because an event cannot be predicted by us as of yet does not mean that it cannot ever be predicted. This is what physical scientists usually mean by random. You seem to be the one positing the god-of-the-gaps by calling something random when causality is clearly the nature of things.

A soul, now, if one existed, would be an actual cause of something. Randomness is a fool’s assumption. I am sorry to say few scientists share your folly. You may huff and puff all you want but you really are not the expert on this. I have spoken to those more qualified than yourself to speak on behalf of the scientific community concerning determinism. They concur with me. This does not prove a soul’s existence, only that some nonphysical entity would be necessary for choice to truely be free and not to just exist under the appearance of freedom.

Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. - Albert Einstein

Soft determinists say as long as you choose to do it you are free. They don’t see a problem with freewill and determinism. But when someone is brainwashed or hypnotized their will is altered so that they choose to do what they were programmed to do. This sounds a lot like your world. An altering of the will. People do not have to choose to follow the hypnotist. It is well known that some people resist hypnotic suggestion. This is still a tampering of freewill. I have asked others about this to make sure I wasn’t missing something fundamental and I’m not. Your claim is most definitely not free. You cannot redefine freedom to suit your purposes. If your world is “free” enough for you, then fine, but do not call it truely free.

You idea of God has him being very ambitious. Using what means you deem are necessary to acheive the ends you want. Hitetlen, not everyone wnts what you want. You want a world without suffering because you do not see the point of suffering. Sacrifice is what true love is. Learn that and you’ll understand. A world without suffering is a world without true love. You cannot be predisposed to love. You treat it as if it were a genetic adaption. Love is an act of the will. Hypnotizing someone to want love you is not love.

Adam

 

[Huiou_Theou]

Hitetlen,

The part about “all other things being equal”, is not preceeded by an if. Therefore it is a statement, not a conditional.

There is not even a delineation of a definition here, for all other things is not specified – nor even possible for a finite being to interpret.

In essence your definition is a dishonest slight of language.
As I said before :

If you do not even have a definition of evil, then it is difficult to have any meaningful (logical) conversation about it.

I also notice that the part about “all other things being equal” is not proper english – there is not an “IF” before it. Therefore, its a statement.

No wonder we are having difficulties.
You can’t tell the difference between statements and conditionals.
And you ripped me for using a conditional???
It’s about time to report a bad post.

 

[Anonymous_1]

Free will lies in our ability to make a choice. However, if the intention(outcome) of our will is impeded it does not necesarily negate our free will. For example, suppose I decide to kill myself. I put the barrel to my head and pull the trigger. The gun goes off and the world goes dark. But then, I wake up in the intensive care unit of the local hospital. While my attempted suicide should have been fatal, due to intervening efforts of the doctors and nurses, and my brother who heard the gun go off and took me to the ER, my attempt at suicide was just that-an attempt. The intention of my will was death, and I freely made the choice, but other people freely and willfully intervened and saved my life. The intervention of these people, and my free and willful choice to kill myself are not mutually exclusive.

So you propose that there is a dilemma: if God intervenes thus bringing good out of what was intended to be evil, then that negates our free will. As I have shown with my example above, this does not necesarily follow. On the other hand suppose that God does not intervene to preserve our free-will(which is not neccesary) then he can not possibly be omnibenevolent for permitting evil which he could have avoided by His omnipotence. This is a false dichotomy. Later I will address why His permmisive allowance of evil does not necesarily lead to the conclusion that God is not omnibenevolent.

to be continued…

 

[Hitetlen]

john doran:

not so easy, actually:

1. god eliminates all pain and sufffering that it is possible for him to eliminate;
2. there are many events of pain and suffering still in the world;
3. therefore it is not possible for god to eliminate those events of pain and suffering.

but that is as may be. i don’t think premise 1 is even true without considerable reworking. this is closer to the truth:

“god eliminates all pain and suffering that it is possible for him to eliminate in a manner consonant with the rest of his morally rectifiable goals”.Decided by whom? If God is the one who decides which are those goals and he decides what methods are used, that is essentially the description of a tyrant. But I will return to this in a separate thread.
john doran:

yes, there are. because if there weren’t then there wouldn’t be any pain and suffering.

That is the quintessential circular “argument”. Not acceptable. You should be able to argue on a case-by-case basis, and only use secular reasoning. Mysticism is not convincing.
john doran:

this strikes me as exactly backwards: if, ex hypothesi

, we are considering a being with the characteristics of omniscience, omnipotence, and omnibenevolence, then it seems to me that giving such a being the benefit of the doubt is actually required. i mean, it is an entailment of the conjunction of those characteristics that we attribute to such a being knowledge that we do not and perhaps cannot have.No way. God’s alleged attributes are considered a hypothesis, and if they are not borne out by the experiments, they have to be discarded. No experimenter should give a “benefit of doubt” to the results of his experiments. That is self-deception, to say the least.
john doran:

right. that sounds pretty much exactly what i said to myself when i was four years old and couldn’t understand why my parents wouldn’t let me eat all of my halloween candy.

I will also return to this in the new thread.

Edit: the new thread is opened, its title is “God’s benevolence vs. pain and suffering.”

 

[Philthy]

Hitetlen:

Thank you, I guess. Improvent compared to what?

Well, I have a distinct memory of you attempting to argue that knowledge PER SE of an event by a third party precludes free will on the part of the participants in the event. It was ugly - you dragged up your “grandfather paradox” which had NOTHING to do with knowledge but everything to do with ACTING on the knowledge. Anyhow, this is an improvement…

Hitetlen:

Yes, it is complex, and possibly much too complex for us, human beings to find the exact mathematical “equilibrium” point. But that is no hindrance to God, is it?

No, it is not a hindrance to God - but that is irrelevent. My point is that given our limited perspective and capacity for understanding we CAN NOT pretend to be in a position to say that
A) a fixed amount of spankings is the only amount of necessary evil that will yield the desired amount of good; and therefore
B) Since a fixed amount is required then the free will of the spanker has been eliminated

Its just too far out there with all the unknowns…way too far out there. Don’t get me wrong - it is a valid theological construct, but the unknowns of the actual workings of such a system involve so much assumption and guess work on our parts that the result is of no practical use and probably no theological value either.

 

[Hitetlen]

Philthy:

No, it is not a hindrance to God - but that is irrelevent. My point is that given our limited perspective and capacity for understanding we CAN NOT pretend to be in a position to say that
A) a fixed amount of spankings is the only amount of necessary evil that will yield the desired amount of good; and therefore
B) Since a fixed amount is required then the free will of the spanker has been eliminatedOK, let me concede that it is not necessary that a precise number of spanks is required. Also it is not necessary for us to know the exactly how many are needed. But obviously too few (zero) spanks will not do the trick. Also obviously beating a kid senseless is far too much.

Maybe it does not necessarily have to be an exact number of spanks that are needed, maybe there is a range, which will do the trick just as well. I can agree to that. But the existence of the range is indisputable.

And that is all we have to consider. If the father is not stopped at the upper level of the range, then unnecessary amount of beating has been performed. If the father IS stopped below the upper limit, then his free will was curtailed.

 

[adamlsp]

Hitetlen,

Are you a secular humanist? Do you believe humanity can “save” itself?

I’m sorry if you don’t like my answers. I should be more humble speaking to you. I also do not have all the answers.

Have you deemed my post not worth reply?

Adam

 

[Huiou_Theou]

John16:21 A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.

Rev7:15 Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them.
Rev7:16 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.
Rev7:17 For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.

 

[Hitetlen]

adamlsp:

Are you a secular humanist? Do you believe humanity can “save” itself?

Save from what? Yes, I am a secular humanist, more or less.

adamlsp:

I’m sorry if you don’t like my answers. I should be more humble speaking to you. I also do not have all the answers.

No problem.

adamlsp:

Have you deemed my post not worth reply?

It was lost it the traffic. I don’t know where you get it that the quantum world is not random. Quoting Einstein about this subject is not a good idea. He never accepted the fact that some facets of the quantum world are inherently unpredictable - and he was wrong (which shows that one should never fully rely of “authority”). The Heisenberg uncertainty principle takes care of that.

 

[Hitetlen]

Anonymous_1:

Free will lies in our ability to make a choice. However, if the intention(outcome) of our will is impeded it does not necesarily negate our free will. For example, suppose I decide to kill myself. I put the barrel to my head and pull the trigger. The gun goes off and the world goes dark. But then, I wake up in the intensive care unit of the local hospital. While my attempted suicide should have been fatal, due to intervening efforts of the doctors and nurses, and my brother who heard the gun go off and took me to the ER, my attempt at suicide was just that-an attempt. The intention of my will was death, and I freely made the choice, but other people freely and willfully intervened and saved my life. The intervention of these people, and my free and willful choice to kill myself are not mutually exclusive.

The example is not very good. If your brother would have monitored your actions and rushed in to prevent you from pulling the trigger, that would have been preventing you to act freely, wouldn’t it? Your suicide attempt in the scenario you presented was just a botched attempt, nothing more. After your recuperation you could attempt it again, this time making sure that the attempt is successful. If your brother - sensing that - would tie you to your bed permanently and feed you intravenously, that would prevent you from acting freely. And that is all there is to it.

 

[john_doran]

Hitetlen:

Decided by whom? If God is the one who decides which are those goals and he decides what methods are used, that is essentially the description of a tyrant.

i guess that makes everyone who decides how to live their own lives a tyrant…

Hitetlen:

That is the quintessential circular “argument”. Not acceptable. You should be able to argue on a case-by-case basis, and only use secular reasoning. Mysticism is not convincing.

no, it’s not. at all. the conclusion is not one of the premises, ergo, it is not a circular argument.

Hitetlen:

No way. God’s alleged attributes are considered a hypothesis, and if they are not borne out by the experiments, they have to be discarded. No experimenter should give a “benefit of doubt” to the results of his experiments. That is self-deception, to say the least.

this is also way off. experimental results are compared with the theories they are designed to test, and if those results do not seem to fit with the theory, then one has many options, only one of which is rejecting the theory outright.

once again, you are being hobbled by an enormously oversimplified idea of what scientists do when they do science. you should read more about the history and philosophy of science, and we could avoid disagreements over fundamentals like this, especially when it’s the fundamentals of your own position.

 

[Hitetlen]

john doran:

i guess that makes everyone who decides how to live their own lives a tyrant…

In a sense, yes, but as long as they only affect themselves, that is their own business.
john doran:

no, it’s not. at all. the conclusion is not one of the premises, ergo, it is not a circular argument.

If the premise is that God is benevolent, and the conclusion is that all the remaining “evils” in the world are necessary, because otherwise God would have removed them (and no other argument is given), then it IS a circular argument. The only way to argue your side would be to posit a convincing secular arguments which show that some evils are cannot be removed, without referring to God’s alleged benevolence.
john doran:

this is also way off. experimental results are compared with the theories they are designed to test, and if those results do not seem to fit with the theory, then one has many options, only one of which is rejecting the theory outright.

That is true, sometimes it is not necessary to completely reject the theory, it may be sufficient to rework the pertinent parts, especially if the theory is complex. But when the theory is simply a binary one (as it is in this case), then the only valid option is to reject it.

 

[john_doran]

Hitetlen:

In a sense, yes, but as long as they only affect themselves, that is their own business.

everything everyone does affects everyone else: because i pursue a career and family here in north america, i’m not helping poverty-stricken people in the sudan. i’m also not doing everything i could be doing for the homeless in my own community.

Hitetlen:

If the premise is that God is benevolent, and the conclusion is that all the remaining “evils” in the world are necessary, because otherwise God would have removed them (and no other argument is given), then it IS a circular argument.

no, man, it’s really, really not. look:

1. an omnibenevolent being exists (arguendo).
2. an omnibenevolent being eliminates all of the pain and suffering that it is logically possible to eliminate (consistently with its other morally rectifiable goals).
3. there are events of pain and suffering in the world.
4. therefore it is not logically possible for an omnibenevolent being to eliminate those events of pain and suffering.

there is nothing question-begging about that argument. at all. this is rock-bottom logic here, i’m afraid, and you just can’t make the accusation of circularity stick.

Hitetlen:

The only way to argue your side would be to posit a convincing secular arguments which show that some evils are cannot be removed, without referring to God’s alleged benevolence.

that may be the only way to be ***convincing ***(at least to you), but it’s certainly not the only way to be logical.

Hitetlen:

That is true, sometimes it is not necessary to completely reject the theory, it may be sufficient to rework the pertinent parts, especially if the theory is complex. But when the theory is simply a binary one (as it is in this case), then the only valid option is to reject it.

but it’s not binary. there’s no such thing as a binary theory - every theory is capable of modification. unless, of course, you mean to suggest that modifying the theory makes it into a totally different theory, in which case every theory is binary.

 

[Hitetlen]

1) an omnibenevolent being exists (arguendo).

1. an omnibenevolent being eliminates all of the pain and suffering that it is logically possible to eliminate (consistently with its other morally rectifiable goals).
2. there are events of pain and suffering in the world.
3. therefore it is not logically possible for an omnibenevolent being to eliminate those events of pain and suffering.

there is nothing question-begging about that argument. at all. this is rock-bottom logic here, i’m afraid, and you just can’t make the accusation of circularity stick.

You are right, my wording was incorrect and sloppy. It is not circular, it is even logical, but not sufficient. (I appreciate your insistence to avoid sloppiness.)

The first premise should be slightly reworded:

1. Let’s suppose that an omnibenevolent being exist.
2. an omnibenevolent being eliminates all of the pain and suffering that it is logically possible to eliminate (consistently with its other morally rectifiable goals).
3. there are events of pain and suffering in the world.

From this it simply does not follow that the only conclusion would be that these pains and suffering cannot be logically removed. I agree that it is one of the possible explanations. But that is not the only logical conclusion. It is also possible that an omnibenevolent being does NOT exist.

Both are logical conclusions. To decide which one is true, we have to step outside the realm of logic, and examine if actual observations support one or the other. And that requires arguments based upon the real world, and secular arguments at that.

If I can bring up examples which show pains and sufferings which can be removed or lessened, then the only logical conclusion is that an omnibenevolent being does NOT exist.

You may try to counter this by proving that those alleged removals or lessenings deprive the sufferer of a greater benefit, or invoke an even greater amount of pain and suffering, AND the sufferers of the said pains agree that their pain was worth the prize.

Those morally rectifiable goals you mentioned are subject to the evaluation of the sufferers. They are the only ones who are qualified to decide if those goals are worth their suffering. That is an elementary requirement.

This is precisely the question which I started to examine in the thread I mentioned above:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=105455

I would prefer to continue over there, since it looks like that no poster is willing to invest their time to read it.

 

[FightingFat]

I’ve read two books about this that were really good. May I recommend them?
The first is God, Time, and Knowledge by William Hasker. For a book that offers an advaced philosophical defense of open theism, as well as an assault on the other views, read this book by Hasker. He gives a very well-orchestrated exposition of open theism as well as insights that are helpful to the overall philosophical discussion of this question.

The second is The Dilemma of Freedom & Foreknowledgeby Linda Zagzebski. This book is an advanced technical approach to this problem. Zagzebski offers some of the most rigorous and interesting theistic responses to the dilemma including her own view dubbed “Thomistic Ockhamism.” She basically concludes that God is a benevolant risk taker. This book is a “must read” for any analytic philosopher interested in this topic. I loved it and I love the way she thinks about God.

 

[Hitetlen]

FightingFat:

I’ve read two books about this that were really good. May I recommend them?
The first is God, Time, and Knowledge by William Hasker. For a book that offers an advaced philosophical defense of open theism, as well as an assault on the other views, read this book by Hasker. He gives a very well-orchestrated exposition of open theism as well as insights that are helpful to the overall philosophical discussion of this question.

The second is The Dilemma of Freedom & Foreknowledgeby Linda Zagzebski. This book is an advanced technical approach to this problem. Zagzebski offers some of the most rigorous and interesting theistic responses to the dilemma including her own view dubbed “Thomistic Ockhamism.” She basically concludes that God is a benevolant risk taker. This book is a “must read” for any analytic philosopher interested in this topic. I loved it and I love the way she thinks about God.

Thank you very much. Time permitting I will check them out.

 

[Philthy]

Hitetlen:

OK, let me concede that it is not necessary that a precise number of spanks is required. Also it is not necessary for us to know the exactly how many are needed. But obviously too few (zero) spanks will not do the trick. Also obviously beating a kid senseless is far too much.

Maybe it does not necessarily have to be an exact number of spanks that are needed, maybe there is a range, which will do the trick just as well. I can agree to that. **But the existence of the range is indisputable. **

---

It is not indisputable - it is simply a necessary assumpition for your argument. I disagree with the assumption, and that was my point. You have ARBITRARILY assigned the spanking as the ONLY necessary evil capable of achieving the desired end. And on what basis have you done this? I disagree with your “eye for an eye” characterization of Gods judicial providence and believe it is a product of our limited capacity to understand the depth with which a blend of goods and evils can be matched by an omniscient God.

Hitetlen:

And that is all we have to consider. If the father is not stopped at the upper level of the range, then unnecessary amount of beating has been performed. If the father IS stopped below the upper limit, then his free will was curtailed.

Is it possible that both good and evil result from the spanking? How would that fit into your paradigm? Is it possible some other good unrelated to the spanking can counter balance the same evil that the spanking was meant to offset? How does that fit into your paradigm?

 

[adamlsp]

Hitetlen:

Save from what? Yes, I am a secular humanist, more or less.

No problem.

It was lost it the traffic. I don’t know where you get it that the quantum world is not random. Quoting Einstein about this subject is not a good idea. He never accepted the fact that some facets of the quantum world are inherently unpredictable - and he was wrong (which shows that one should never fully rely of “authority”). The Heisenberg uncertainty principle takes care of that.

And also could you answer the other part of the einstein post?

Hitetlen,

I know. Einstein was always looking for the hidden variable. Neils Bhor was not.

I was under the impression Heisenberg’s equation stated when you try and find a more exact position of the electron you lose the ability to determine where it’s going. And if you focus the equation on where it’s going you don’t where it is currently. It looks like the equation just a limit of our perceptive powers. How does it prove randomness in the electron position if it can be predicted? Heisenberg said it was the act of measuring and that disturbed the next measurement thus limiting our ability to measure, nothing else. This just plays up wave particle duality does it not?

Also as I understood it that Eistein’s hidden variable was never found in light of the new quantum mechanical theory and it found other causes for what Einstein searched for.

Adam