The Problem of Evil: Wiploc vs. Long Winded Fool

[Silent Dave]

This thread has been set up for a debate between Wiploc and Long Winded Fool on the following topic: The problem of evil proves that a perfect god does not exist. Wiploc will argue the affirmative, and LWF the negative.

Both participants have agreed to the parameters (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=72805), which allow for a debate length of five rounds. Per the parameters, Wiploc will post his opening statement within four (or, if he chooses, eight) days.

A peanut gallery (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=73381) is set up in EoG for the rest of us to comment on the debate.

Good luck to both participants!


Dave

[wiploc]

The Problem of Evil Proves That a Perfect God Does Not Exist

Wiploc vs. Long Winded Fool

First Affirmative



- The Quarter Parable:

So this eight year old kid is on the boardwalk, walking out to the pier, flipping a quarter as he goes. Oops, he misses the quarter. It bounces twice before slipping between the boards. On his hands and knees, the kid peers down at the quarter, out of reach on the sand below. There's a man sitting beside the quarter. The man smiles up benevolently.

"Hey mister, would you hand me my quarter back?"

"Certainly, there is nothing I would like more."

"Okay, great! Just hand it back."

"Certainly, there is nothing I would like more."

"So, you're going to do it?"

"Certainly, there is nothing I would like more."

"Go ahead then."

"Certainly, there is nothing I would like more."

"Are you okay?"

"Yes. In fact, I am perfect."

"Great. Okay, pass it up then."

"Certainly, there is nothing I would like more."

"Right. Okay, is there something you want me to do first, like say, 'please?'"

"Not at all. Giving you this quarter is my strongest desire. It is an unconditional desire. There are no preconditions."

"Well then, do you have some disability that makes you unable to accomplish this strongest desire?"

"No. As I said, I am perfect. My ability to give you this quarter is not only sufficient, it is plenary.

"You can do it. And you want to do it. But you don't do it. Why is that?"

"I want to give you the quarter."

"You're not blind or something, are you? Do you know where the quarter is?"

"Of a certainty. My competence to return the quarter is perfect. I can do so with the greatest of ease. Returning your quarter would be a matter of the utmost triviality."

"Is it a matter of timing? You don't want to return the quarter yet?"

"Not at all. I always want you to have the quarter. I don't want there to be any time at which you are separated from the quarter."

"Then why don't I have the quarter?"



- The Problem of Evil

We know the old man under the boardwalk was wrong. If you have the ability to easily do something, and a strong unconflicted desire to do it, then you do it. If you don’t do it, then you lack either the desire or the ability.

God is said to be powerful. He is also said to be good, to have the desire that we not suffer. Why then do we suffer?

Is it that god is good, but not sufficiently good? Apparently not. God is said to be totally good, all loving, omnibenevolent. In other words, he has a strong and not significantly conflicted desire for our happiness.

Is it that god is potent, but not sufficiently potent? Apparently not. God is said to be all powerful, omnipotent, infinitely powerful. His power is plenary.

Might god be unaware of our unhappiness, or unaware of how to fix it? Apparently not. God is said to be all knowing, all wise, omniscient. He is said to know everything, including every possible sequence of events in every possible world that he could have created, plus, according to Plantinga, all the events of the impossible worlds that he couldn’t create. So, no lack of knowledge, vision, or wisdom prevents god from acting on his desire for our happiness?

Are there any other moves the defenders of the perfect (omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipotent) god can make? Yes, they sometimes argue that we don’t suffer (which would necessarily be true if god were really perfect).

They also sometimes argue that logic is the wrong playing field, that god’s perfection is true and logic is false.

These, then, are the five moves available to the defenders of the perfect god. They can say:

1. God isn’t really strong enough to make us happy.

2. God isn’t really good enough to make us happy.

3. God doesn’t know enough to make us happy.

4. We don’t suffer.

5. Logic is the wrong playing field.

The first three moves are, of course, concessions that the PoE (problem of evil) is correct, that god isn’t perfect. The fourth move is patently false, absurd. The fifth move is a concession that belief in a perfect god is irrational. There are no other moves available. Every attempt to defend the existence of the perfect god is either a concession that he doesn’t exist, a patently false claim that we don’t suffer, or the abandonment of rationality.

And, since those are the only possible ways to approach the problem of evil, the PoE does in fact prove that a perfect god does not exist.

crc

[long winded fool]

Can God do the logically impossible for the sake of this argument?

Yes or no?

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

Hi long winded fool,

I will permit your first opening statement, but in future posts, I strongly encourage you to submit something more substantive for purposes of a formal debate.

Jason

[wiploc]

Originally posted by long winded fool
Can God do the logically impossible for the sake of this argument?

Yes or no?

It's for you to say. You can take whichever position helps you make your case. I'll play in either arena.

If you say god is truly omnipotent, that he can really do anything, then I will say you have made move number five, abandoning logic. If logic isn't reliable, then we cannot logically conclude anything about god, including that he exists. In fact, if logic is violable, then we cannot have logical opinions about anything at all.

If you say god is "punk omnipotent," able to do anything except violate logic, then I will be free to point out that this punk omnipotent god isn't really the one in charge, isn't really the master of creation, isn't really the preeminent power in the universe. Of course, pointing that out would be a digression; it would be beside the point of our debate.

I assume you'll say he can't violate logic. Then you'll say there is some logical reason he can't cure our suffering. Then I'll deal with that reason. If your reasoning contradicts god's goodness, I'll point that out. If it contradicts his omnipotence (that is to say, if it makes god out to be "extra punk omnipotent" (not even able to do everything that doesn't violate logic)) then I'll point that out. If you produce a logical reason that doesn't contradict god's (punk) omnipotence, omniscience, or omnibenevolence, then I'll be surprised and illuminated.

Next time you have a short question like this, you can private message me if you prefer. I'll be happy to work with you behind the scenes. Maybe we'll want to add another round to the debate, but we needn't decide that now.

Assuming you arrive at the unambiguous position that god can't violate logic, I'll be happy to use "omnipotent" to refer to punk omnipotence rather than true omnipotence.

crc

[long winded fool]

Actually, I believe you have to go with the premise that an omnipotent thing cannot violate the rules of logic. (No square circles. No rocks too big for it to lift. etc.) The reason for this assumption is not because you actually think that the creator of logic would be bound to His own rules, but because abandoning logic would nullify the PoE. If God can do the illogical, he can be both omnibenevolent and malevolent. The PoE automatically assumes a premise that God cannot make the illogical manifest because it assumes that God cannot be omnibenevolent and malevolent at the same time. If He could, then what's the point of the PoE?

That said; the answer to your opening statement is #1. "God is not really strong enough to make us happy." Since we've decided that there are things an omnipotent God cannot do, #1 does not necessarily refute God's omnipotence. If God's being strong enough to make us happy would present a logical contradiction, then God can be unable to make us happy and still be able to do "anything." As counter-intuitive as this sounds, it is important that we agree on this premise. God cannot bring about an illogical state of affairs for the purposes of this argument. We have to use "punk" omnipotence, because any other kind cannot be discussed rationally.

Now, God making everyone happy doesn't seem to be an illogical state of affairs. But, we have to keep the other premises in mind, namely, omnibenevolence. In addition to being unable to violate logic, God would also be unable to violate omnibenevolence. Therefore, the PoE not only assumes that an omnipotent God can't violate logic, it also assumes that He cannot violate omnibenevolence. So you've logically narrowed the definition of omnipotence even further with the PoE. I agree with this "slightly less than absolute" definition of absolute power, because we must remain within the realm of logic. So: God can do anything except logically contradict himself. Therefore all the actions and states of affairs that would lead to contradictions in God's "omni" nature are beyond God's omnipotent power. This follows logically. God can't achieve failure to be all-powerful and all-loving.

Now, what is evil? One common definition is: "arising from actual or imputed bad character or conduct: causing discomfort or repulsion: causing harm"

I combine all of these because "evil" acts are often (I'd even say usually) attributed to human motive only. A lion killing a man out of instinct is not an evil action, but a man killing another man out of greed is. A volcano wiping out a village is not evil, but a band of marauders wiping out a village is. This kind of evil is enacted solely by human choice. Without humans, there would be no evil. OR, in a reality containing humans without the ability to behave in a less than perfectly good manner, there would be no evil.

A second definition of evil, the one I use and the one that is usually used in the PoE in order to avoid the free will defense, is the broader: "something that brings sorrow, distress, or calamity: the fact of suffering and misfortune."

This kind of evil doesn't limit itself to human choices. This kind of evil can befall humans who otherwise choose good. This definition of evil includes natural disasters and accidents, thereby rendering the free will defense ineffective at reconciling evil with an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God... or so it would seem...

So if we go with the second definition of evil, (which includes, but is not limited to, the first,) we realize that evil is a value judgment. When something (some value) causes me to feel badly, I apply the label "evil" or "suffering." "Evil" is an abstract humanly applied label which communicates the actual physiological reaction to a value that is interpreted by a human as undesirable, (or negative.) When I call rape evil, it is because rape causes humans to suffer physically and emotionally and the knowledge of this fact causes me to suffer emotionally, albeit to a lesser extent. If rape did not have a negative value in my perspective, I would not label it evil. Eating a ripe peach does not have negative value in my experience, therefore eating a ripe peach is not evil. As we can plainly see, value judgments are subjective. My cat does not like ripe peaches. If she had to choose between raw hamburger and a ripe peach, her choice would be the raw hamburger whereas mine would be the peach. Of course, getting raw hamburger when I really want a peach would not make me suffer to the point of screaming "Why me God??" but it would be an example of receiving something of negative value instead of something of positive value.

I hope we agree on our terms so far. Omnipotence, despite its connotation, means that God cannot do anything which violates logic, nor omnibenevolence. And evil is a value judgment reflecting the emotional state of the labeler. (as opposed to a physical manifestation somewhere in the universe. "Satan" must be proven to physically exist before he can be introduced into this argument as an independent entity.)

Even though all value judgments are subjective, humans are very similar, therefore it would seem we could make some objective concessions for the sake of argument. We can agree that some acts are "just plain evil," implying that those who disagree are "wrong." I have no problem with this. Anyone who does not see rape as evil is wrong. From this assumption that the perception of "evil" is largely similar in humans, we can construct a numberline.


maximum evil------------------------0----------------------maximum good

All numbers to the left of 0 are negative. All numbers to the right of 0 are positive. To eliminate evil, one must eliminate the negative values, right?

0=don't care-------------------------------------------------maximum good

Does this make sense? Can we quantify all negative value in this way based solely on our assumption that "some acts are just inarguably evil?" We assume objectivity due to a certain level of human agreement on morality, but in reality value is still entirely relative. I propose that there can be no positive or negative value assignments when talking about evil apart from one particular human being's perception.

maximum evil------------------------------------------------maximum good

Zero is either maximum evil, or it is maximum good. Take your pick. I assume that zero is maximum good, because anything "less than" maximum good or perfection is negative. So the only real quantity we can speak of objectively is complete perfection and utter evil. The two theoretical "bookends" of the line. All the numbers in between are subject to individual interpretation. For instance: Assuming that a flat tire does not represent the maximum on either end, getting a flat tire cannot be quantified objectively as evil outside of personal opinion. The same goes for a paid vacation to Hawaii. This cannot be objectively quantified as good because the value judgment is subjective. What if I hate Hawaii?

Now, what happens, then, if we only call the lowest number on the numberline "evil." This is a safe bet, isn't it? We can call the worst negative that can possibly be realized in this reality "evil" without running into problems with subjective value judgments. Now, what if God eliminates this number? Whatever horrendous calamity that number represented is now gone. What are we left with? We still have "the lowest number" on the numberline, do we not? Can we call this number evil? Probably. The second worst act in the universe would probably still be seen as evil by every human, so now God has to eliminate this number to eliminate evil. In every instance, we are left with the exact same numberline:

evil-------------------------------------------------------------------------good

...just with less numbers inside it. So long as the lowest value is considered evil, the elimination of all evil can never take place without the elimination of all value apart from absolute perfection. To eliminate all evil would be to eliminate all value.*

Can this be proven in reality? I think so. In the event of the absence of lower values for comparison, the lowest value in a human's life usually causes extensive suffering. If the lowest value in a human's life is famine, then that is evil, is it not? Now here's the tricky part: If the lowest value for a child is spilling his ice cream, isn't that considered evil under the definition we're using? When there is no basis for comparison, there can be no "spilling your ice cream is not evil, it is an inconvenience." How can the child see this? Only by exposing him to values lower than spilled ice cream. I call this the "spoiled brat analogy." It shows that value judgments are subjective. If the amount of evil that exists in the world today were halved, there would actually be exactly the same amount of suffering in the world. The reason for this is that "evil" is not really what is being halved, value is being halved. On a line of any number of values from two to infinity, the scope of human emotions remains equal. The glass can always be half full or half empty until one of those options is eliminated. Since having to settle for a half-empty glass can induce suffering in someone who hasn't been exposed to lower values, the ability to settle for a half-empty glass must be eliminated before "evil" can be eliminated.

So: Why doesn't God eliminate all value and leave just the one value of absolute perfection? Free will. Free will requires value judgment, since a choice is not present without more than one value. Whether it's the choice to murder your boyfriend or bake your mom a cake, or to wear red shoes instead of blue ones, there must be more than one value in existence. The value judgment can be red vs. blue to death vs. life.

Why free will? Because I make the assumption that omnibenevolence requires love, love requires the freedom to choose (forced love being rape and therefore evil) and the freedom to choose requires the knowledge of more than one value, and anytime there is more than one value, the lowest value can result in suffering and can therefore be called evil.

The free will defense proves that there is no Problem of Evil.


*I want to stress that I'm not defining evil out of existence. I'm not saying that "we aren't really suffering," in fact, I'm making sure that I include ALL suffering. A human who gets hit in the face with a brick is really suffering if he says he is, as is a human who gets his hair messed up by a breeze.

[wiploc]

The Problem of Evil Proves That a Perfect God Does Not Exist
wiploc vs. Long Winded Fool
Third Affirmative Statement (round three, top of the inning)


By definition, Evil is what causes unhappiness. By extension, the word can refer to the unhappiness itself. These are traditional meanings of the word; they are the meanings I am using (I hope consistently) in this debate. If people are unhappy, there is evil. This is an objective fact, not a value judgment. Evil is not subjective.

Long Winded Fool (LWF) styles evil as "a value judgment reflecting the emotional state of the labeler." Perhaps this is an alternative legitimate use of the word "evil," but it is not the evil I addressed in my case, and it is not clear that it has relevance to the PoE as I presented it.

There are unhappy people; therefore we know there is no god who is both powerful enough to make us happy and good enough to want us to be happy. This is an objective fact, not a value judgment.



I propose that there can be no positive or negative value assignments when talking about evil apart from one particular human being's perception.


People are unhappy. This is a truth, not just a perception. People are unhappy; evil exists.



So long as the lowest value is considered evil, the elimination of all evil can never take place without the elimination of all value apart from absolute perfection. To eliminate all evil would be to eliminate all value.


If I understand this, LWF is saying the elimination of unhappiness would also eliminate happiness. This is the bald assertion of the implausible. Would the opposite also be true; would the elimination of happiness also eliminate unhappiness? Let us do a thought experiment.

Suppose a baby was tortured from its first moment of consciousness onward. It never knew happiness. It was always in an extreme of agony. Would we say that eliminating the baby's happiness had also eliminated its unhappiness? No. This line of argument is a non-starter. As Socrates always said, "quel cane non caccerà." (That dog won't hunt.)



If the lowest value for a child is spilling his ice cream, isn't that considered evil under the definition we're using?

Yes. And note that an omniscient god would know that losing the ice cream would make the child unhappy. An omnipotent god could prevent the ice cream from falling. An omnibenevolent god would want to prevent the ice cream from falling. Therefore: if the ice cream hits the ground, the tri-omni god does not exist.



I call this the "spoiled brat analogy." It shows that value judgments are subjective. If the amount of evil that exists in the world today were halved, there would actually be exactly the same amount of suffering in the world.


LWF has overstated his case. He would do better to say that some people might still find ways to be unhappy even if all the tacks were removed from where they were about to step, even if all babies went untortured, and even if all the rental videotape boxes actually contained the right movie so that people who wanted to watch My Left Foot never wound up watching Road Warrior for the third night running.

But I waive that objection. Let's say LWF is right. Let's say god designed us to be unhappy half the time regardless of how well things go. Can we logically believe that a god who wants us to be happy all the time designed us to be unhappy half the time? (Hint: no.)

Furthermore, if nothing you can do will either increase or decrease people's happiness, then none of your choices can have moral significance. In which case, you don't have morally significant free will. I don't know why this keeps coming up, but Plantinga and Seebs made similar moves, so I offer this advice which free will defenders should blazon on their minds: You cannot make the free will defense work by proving there is no free will.

In any case, even if it were naturally true that human happiness never varies, that wouldn’t mean an omnipotent god couldn’t make it vary. It is a contradiction to make god both omnipotent and too wimpy to be able to help anybody.



So: Why doesn't God eliminate all value and leave just the one value of absolute perfection? Free will. Free will requires value judgment, since a choice is not present without more than one value.

I'm not sure what LWF is getting at here, so my response may be off point: Suppose I manufacture a car with great brakes. Suppose, because the brakes are so good, nobody ever crashes one of my cars. Are we to conclude that the absence of crashes means I denied my customers free will? Should I, in my benevolence, force some customers to crash so that they can be said to have free will? (And if I do so, how will I deal with charges that that was the actual denial of free will?)



Why free will? Because I make the assumption that omnibenevolence <snip> requires the freedom to choose

The unknown purpose defense (UPD) and the free will defense (FWD) are subcategories of what I’ll call the other purpose defense (OPD). For any version of the OPD to work, god has to want something (in this case, free will) other than human happiness. There has to be a conflict between the goals. Faced with that conflict, god has to want the other goal badly enough to choose it ahead of our happiness. And god has to be weak enough that he cannot overcome the conflict so as to achieve both goals at once.

Originally posted by wiploc
These, then, are the five moves available to the defenders of the perfect god. They can say:

1. God isn’t really strong enough to make us happy.

2. God isn’t really good enough to make us happy.

3. God doesn’t know enough to make us happy.

4. We don’t suffer.

5. Logic is the wrong playing field.

Anyone attempting the OPD has to make moves one and two, saying both that god isn't powerful enough to achieve both goals, and isn't good enough to prefer our happiness above the other goal.

Omnipotence: If god is unable to achieve both goals at once, either he must be less than omnipotent, or the goals must be logically incompatible. What goal is logically incompatible with happiness? Unhappiness. Only unhappiness; nothing else. There is no logical conflict between free will and happiness. A god who cannot achieve both free will and happiness is less than omnipotent.

Omnibenvolence: Unhappiness is incompatible with happiness, but if god wants us to be unhappy more than he wants us to be happy, then he is less than omnibenevolent.

The OPD, then, is self-contradictory. For any version of the OPD to work, god must be either less than omnipotent or less than omnibenevolent. If god isn’t omnipotent and omnibenevolent, the PoE is vindicated. If the PoE is vindicated, then the OPD doesn’t work. Therefore, if the OPD does work, it doesn’t work. In other words, not even an omnipotent god could make a success of the OPD.

Nevertheless, I assume that we have reached the heart of our discussion, that we will spend the rest of our posts discussing whether free will and happiness are really compatible. LWF will try to show that free will is incompatible with complete happiness; and I'll try to show where he goes wrong.

There may also be some discussion of the nature of goodness. Goodness, as I have defined it is concerned only with our happiness, not with free will. Yet it seems to me that free will can be thought of as good. If free will really did conflict with happiness, we might be willing to give up some happiness to get some free will. So, tentatively and provisionally, I’m willing to concede that a god could still be good if he wanted free will more he wanted our happiness.

This depends, of course, on what free will is. I'm certainly not asking LWF to define free will. I don't know if that can be done. In any case, I think LWF should focus on showing free will to be incompatible with happiness. But if LWF’s attempt (like Plantinga’s attempt) to establish that incompatibility turns out to make free will either valueless or non-existent, then I reserve the right to point this out. If free will is worthless or non-existent, an omnibenevolent god would not value it above our happiness.



<snip> freedom to choose requires the knowledge of more than one value,

Maybe so, but it doesn't require actually choosing more than one value. If I offer people a choice between tuna sandwiches and dirt sandwiches, the fact that they would always choose tuna does not mean they didn't have a choice. The existence of free will doesn't require people to choose moral evil any more than it requires them to crash their wiplocmobiles. If I understand LWF’s argument, this is a full refutation.



and anytime there is more than one value, the lowest value can result in suffering and can therefore be called evil.


If I'm understanding this, LWF is saying that a slightly happy person could be compared to people who are more happy, and described as relatively unhappy? This doesn't bother me. If god was good enough to make all the unhappy people slightly happy at worst, that would be really nice. He would be a good god. LWF can think of mildly happy people as relatively unhappy if he wants; it won’t hurt the PoE.


The free will defense proves that there is no Problem of Evil.

Not true. LWF may believe that if we were always ecstatic, we somehow wouldn’t be happy about that. That’s linguistic nonsense. It is a logical contradiction for ecstasy to be unpleasing. Not even an omnipotent god could make an unhappy happiness.

I’m not clear on this, but LWF may also think god has to force some people to make bad choices if he wants credit for not forcing our choices. This too is counter-rational. If we really have free will, then we get to choose well every time if we want to. There is no logical reason god can't give us free will and still have us happy.

crc


[Edit: VBB code fix - NS]

[long winded fool]

Originally posted by wiploc
By definition, Evil is what causes unhappiness. By extension, the word can refer to the unhappiness itself. These are traditional meanings of the word; they are the meanings I am using (I hope consistently) in this debate. If people are unhappy, there is evil. This is an objective fact, not a value judgment. Evil is not subjective.

Long Winded Fool (LWF) styles evil as "a value judgment reflecting the emotional state of the labeler." Perhaps this is an alternative legitimate use of the word "evil," but it is not the evil I addressed in my case, and it is not clear that it has relevance to the PoE as I presented it.

There are unhappy people; therefore we know there is no god who is both powerful enough to make us happy and good enough to want us to be happy. This is an objective fact, not a value judgment.

People are unhappy. This is a truth, not just a perception. People are unhappy; evil exists.


Originally posted by long winded fool
*I want to stress that I'm not defining evil out of existence. I'm not saying that "we aren't really suffering," in fact, I'm making sure that I include ALL suffering. A human who gets hit in the face with a brick is REALLY SUFFERING if he says he is, as is a human who gets his hair messed up by a breeze. emphasis added

Evil exists. Evil is a value judgment. Value exists. The point is that the truth of unhappiness is relative to individual perception. This makes it subjective. That people are unhappy is an objective fact. That this unhappiness is objectively related to quantifiable events in the universe is a false statement, and this is the necessary subject of the PoE, since it is these events that God is accused of not preventing. If evil were objective in this latter sense as you seem to imply, then all events would always cause exactly the same reactions in all people, meaning that there would be no disagreement on which events are evil. That there is proves that evil is a subjective judgment of value, not a manifest entity. There are no objectively evil things outside of individual perception, even though the personal, subjective value judgment of evil objectively exists. I'm surprised you missed this point in my last post. Rereading it, I find that it was made abundantly clear, as I knew it needed to be when I wrote it.

Originally posted by wiploc
If I understand this, LWF is saying the elimination of unhappiness would also eliminate happiness. This is the bald assertion of the implausible. Would the opposite also be true; would the elimination of happiness also eliminate unhappiness? Let us do a thought experiment.

Suppose a baby was tortured from its first moment of consciousness onward. It never knew happiness. It was always in an extreme of agony. Would we say that eliminating the baby's happiness had also eliminated its unhappiness? No. This line of argument is a non-starter. As Socrates always said, "quel cane non caccerà." (That dog won't hunt.)

Actually, the argument is that the elimination of all possibility of unhappiness would also eliminate free will. I quote your very quotation of me used to formulate your above conclusion: So long as the lowest value is considered evil, the elimination of all evil can never take place without the elimination of all value apart from absolute perfection. To eliminate all evil would be to eliminate all value.

Originally posted by wiploc
Yes. And note that an omniscient god would know that losing the ice cream would make the child unhappy. An omnipotent god could prevent the ice cream from falling. An omnibenevolent god would want to prevent the ice cream from falling. Therefore: if the ice cream hits the ground, the tri-omni god does not exist.

False dilemma which leads to a slippery slope. If God prevents the child from spilling his ice cream, why doesn't he prevent the ice cream from melting too fast too? If he does that, why doesn't he prevent the child from being dissatisfied with the flavor? If he does that why doesn't he prevent the child from ever having to settle for anything less that absolute and utter perfection? Once God does this, free will is gone. You cannot stop the argument before you get to the elimination of choice without being guilty of the slippery slope fallacy, and once you eliminate all possibility of value that is less that perfect, you eliminate all value except for the one value of 100% perfect (i.e. God's will) and thus destory the possibility of human choice. Free will, of course, being the unmentioned other possibility in your false quandry above.

Originally posted by wiploc
But I waive that objection. Let's say LWF is right. Let's say god designed us to be unhappy half the time regardless of how well things go. Can we logically believe that a god who wants us to be happy all the time designed us to be unhappy half the time? (Hint: no.)

Furthermore, if nothing you can do will either increase or decrease people's happiness, then none of your choices can have moral significance. In which case, you don't have morally significant free will. I don't know why this keeps coming up, but Plantinga and Seebs made similar moves, so I offer this advice which free will defenders should blazon on their minds: You cannot make the free will defense work by proving there is no free will.

In any case, even if it were naturally true that human happiness never varies, that wouldn’t mean an omnipotent god couldn’t make it vary. It is a contradiction to make god both omnipotent and too wimpy to be able to help anybody.

Uh, yes we can logically assume that an all-powerful, all-good God who wants us to be happy all the time designed us to be able to be unhappy half the time (or more, or less, or at all) if we so choose. I refer you to my last post if you do not understand how this can be.

Nowhere did I make the argument that none of my choices can affect other people's happiness, and nowhere can my argument even romotely be read to disprove free will. My argument does not say that human happiness never varies, in fact it requires that it does! I must say I am baffled as to this respone to my last post.

I'd like to point out the quote you used to come to the above conclusions at this time:

Originally posted by long winded fool
I call this the "spoiled brat analogy." It shows that value judgments are subjective. If the amount of evil that exists in the world today were halved, there would actually be exactly the same amount of suffering in the world.


Originally posted by wiploc
I'm not sure what LWF is getting at here, so my response may be off point: Suppose I manufacture a car with great brakes. Suppose, because the brakes are so good, nobody ever crashes one of my cars. Are we to conclude that the absence of crashes means I denied my customers free will? Should I, in my benevolence, force some customers to crash so that they can be said to have free will? (And if I do so, how will I deal with charges that that was the actual denial of free will?)

No. Once they stop crashing, they'll start bitching about all the flat tires. What a cruel car manufacturer you are to create cars capable of getting flat tires! ;) And once you fix those, they'll start to complain that the seats are too cold, or too hot, or the air conditioning is too loud, or too quiet, or the doors that are too shiny, or the windows that are the wrong tint, or too see-thorugh, and so on into the slippery slope that ends, (and indeed even technically starts in,) absurdity. The Problem of Evil in a nutshell.

Originally posted by wiploc
The unknown purpose defense (UPD) and the free will defense (FWD) are subcategories of what I’ll call the other purpose defense (OPD). For any version of the OPD to work, god has to want something (in this case, free will) other than human happiness. There has to be a conflict between the goals. Faced with that conflict, god has to want the other goal badly enough to choose it ahead of our happiness. And god has to be weak enough that he cannot overcome the conflict so as to achieve both goals at once.

And you've already accepted the premise that God is too weak to overcome both goals. Since eliminating our unhappiness would contradict his omnibenevolent nature (by eliminating free will) and since the premise that you use is that God cannot contradict his own nature, I can only assume we are in agreement here.

Originally posted by wiploc
Anyone attempting the OPD has to make moves one and two, saying both that god isn't powerful enough to achieve both goals, and isn't good enough to prefer our happiness above the other goal.

Omnipotence: If god is unable to achieve both goals at once, either he must be less than omnipotent, or the goals must be logically incompatible. What goal is logically incompatible with happiness? Unhappiness. Only unhappiness; nothing else. There is no logical conflict between free will and happiness. A god who cannot achieve both free will and happiness is less than omnipotent.

Omnibenvolence: Unhappiness is incompatible with happiness, but if god wants us to be unhappy more than he wants us to be happy, then he is less than omnibenevolent.

The OPD, then, is self-contradictory. For any version of the OPD to work, god must be either less than omnipotent or less than omnibenevolent. If god isn’t omnipotent and omnibenevolent, the PoE is vindicated. If the PoE is vindicated, then the OPD doesn’t work. Therefore, if the OPD does work, it doesn’t work. In other words, not even an omnipotent god could make a success of the OPD.

Actually, if God is boundlessly omnipotent then the PoE is refuted, since if God can bring about absolutely anything, God can be both omnipotent and impotent at the same time. The PoE, in positing that God cannot contradict logic or omnibenevolence, is reducing God's power for the sake of argument. The OPD, as you put it, uses the weak version of omnipotence because this is required by the PoE. If the PoE used the absolute version of omnipotence as you suggest, then IT is the argument that is automatically self-refuting. That is why you agreed with my (actually your) "punk omnipotence" premise. Because to do otherwise would destroy your argument. You cannot use this premise to discredit the free will defense because it is your premise.

Originally posted by wiploc
Nevertheless, I assume that we have reached the heart of our discussion, that we will spend the rest of our posts discussing whether free will and happiness are really compatible. LWF will try to show that free will is incompatible with complete happiness; and I'll try to show where he goes wrong.

Free will is not incompatible with complete happiness. I suggest you take a while to ponder my posted argument wiploc, since it is clear that you missed it completely.

What is incompatible with human free will is the elimination or prevention of every possibility of unhappiness by something outside of human free will.

Originally posted by wiploc
Maybe so, but it doesn't require actually choosing more than one value. If I offer people a choice between tuna sandwiches and dirt sandwiches, the fact that they would always choose tuna does not mean they didn't have a choice. The existence of free will doesn't require people to choose moral evil any more than it requires them to crash their wiplocmobiles. If I understand LWF’s argument, this is a full refutation.

Then you do not understand my argument. I agree with the above totally. The existence of free will doesn't require people to choose moral evil. It requires that an outside entity not force them to "choose" a value that it, in actuality, is choosing by eliminating all other choices.

Originally posted by wiploc
If I'm understanding this, LWF is saying that a slightly happy person could be compared to people who are more happy, and described as relatively unhappy? This doesn't bother me. If god was good enough to make all the unhappy people slightly happy at worst, that would be really nice. He would be a good god. LWF can think of mildly happy people as relatively unhappy if he wants; it won’t hurt the PoE.

Actually, it destroys it. It is provably false that: "If god was good enough to make all the unhappy people slightly happy at worst, that would be really nice." You would never believe this were you in such a reality. The PoE would still apply just as strongly in this case due to the spoiled brat principle. God would have to never have created said evil in the first place to even come close to evading the PoE, and in that case, it would NOT be "really nice" that God had prevented all that evil that had never existed. I could easily argue that we live in that state right now. The only way to entirely avoid the PoE is by eliminating all but one single value.

Originally posted by wiploc
Not true. LWF may believe that if we were always ecstatic, we somehow wouldn’t be happy about that. That’s linguistic nonsense. It is a logical contradiction for ecstasy to be unpleasing. Not even an omnipotent god could make an unhappy happiness.

I do not, and I find it curious that you have reverted to referring to me in the third person.

Originally posted by wiploc
I’m not clear on this, but LWF may also think god has to force some people to make bad choices if he wants credit for not forcing our choices. This too is counter-rational. If we really have free will, then we get to choose well every time if we want to. There is no logical reason god can't give us free will and still have us happy.

crc



Please refrain from attacking strawmen, wiploc. I assume my very last post as my position in this one since it clearly renders your last sentence false, (having wasted a turn mostly pointing out strawmen and other blatant misrepresentations) and eagerly await an honest critique of my already posted argument.

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

long winded fool,

Please note that your recent statement has exceeded 1800 words as agreed to from the debate parameters (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=72805). Quotes are counted within the total amount as well.

I'll permit your statement to remain as is, but please try to keep future statements within the word limit.

Thanks,

Nightshade, FD Moderator

[wiploc]

The Problem of Evil Proves That a Perfect God Does Not Exist
wiploc vs. Long Winded Fool
Fourth Affirmative Statement (round four, top of the inning)

I'm not at all confident that I know what Long Winded Fool is talking about. He gets cranky when I ask. When I offer clarifying examples, he dismisses them as straw men and gets even hotter. So, what to do?

I'm going to take a guess about what LWF is thinking. And I'm going to ask the peanut gallery to steer me straight if I have guessed wrong. If anybody there thinks they know what LWF is getting at, please post an explanation.

Okay, here's my guess. LWF's free will is the same worthless and non-existent (if god exists) kind of free will that Plantinga deals with. Call this FWp (free will, Plantinga style). If this is really what LWF is talking about, then a conversation between wiploc (W) and Long Winded Fool (L) might go like this:

L: If there is free will, there must be the possibility of unhappiness; the one can't exist without the other. There doesn't have to be actual unhappiness, but there has to be the possibility. Therefore, god cannot arrange our happiness without eliminating free will.

W: So why doesn't he just eliminate the unhappiness --- not the possibility, just the unhappiness itself? That way we could have both free will and perfect happiness.

L: You fool! If god eliminates the unhappiness, he will eliminate the possibility of unhappiness. Who could be unhappy if god fixes it so that everybody was happy? Nobody, that's who. Nobody could be unhappy if god made everybody happy.

W: But what if he just, you know, left lots of ways that people could get unhappy, but fixed it so those things didn't actually happen to happen?

L: You fool! You straw man slippery slope fool! If god fixed it so they didn't happen, then they couldn't happen! Don't you see --- blind though you are --- can't you at least see that if god won't let something happen, then it can't happen? And if human beings, by their own choices, can't make unhappiness happen, then they don't have free will!

There, maybe I just saved us a couple of rounds of debate.

My objections to this kind of free will are two. First, it is worthless. Either god made this world, planned all the events that would ever happen in it, or he didn't. If he did, then we can't, by our own choices, affect our happiness. Whatever we do will always result in exactly what god planned when he created the world. We have no free will. But if there is no god, then we do have free will. Here's the problem: In real life, we either do or we don't have FWp, but our situation is exactly the same either way. In other words, FWp is of no significance. It isn't worth anything; it certainly isn't better than happiness; and therefore a god who traded happiness for FWp would be bad. Not good, bad.

Second, FWp cannot coexist with a perfect god. If a future-knowing god created and manipulated the world to get a given result, then that result is what he gets. Nothing humans do will deflect the course of events from what god chose at the beginning of time. If human choice can never affect events in ways that god didn't already plan for it to, then FWp doesn't exist. If there's a perfect god, FWp cannot exist. It doesn't matter whether we're unhappy; and it doesn't matter whether we have the possibility of unhappiness; FWp can't exist in a universe with a perfect god. We can therefore conclude with absolute certainty that a perfect god did not trade our happiness for FWp. If FWp can't exist, then we can't be unhappy because of it.

I hope it's not to soon to repeat the dictum that you can't make the free will defense work by proving that free will doesn't exist.

So, once again, if I understand LWF's argument, I have disposed of it. If I don't understand it, I hope someone in the peanut gallery will put me on the right track. I will now proceed to the notes.


Notes:

False dilemma which leads to a slippery slope. If God prevents the child from spilling his ice cream, why doesn't he prevent the ice cream from melting too fast too? If he does that, why doesn't he prevent [yada yada yada]

Why indeed. It might be an infinite amount of work. It might take miracles. A perfect god would be happy to do it anyway. If the ice cream hits the ground, we know that a perfect god does not exist.



If evil were objective in this latter sense as you seem to imply, then all events would always cause exactly the same reactions in all people, meaning that there would be no disagreement on which events are evil.

I'm not saying everybody reacts the same. I'm only saying that in those cases where the loss of the ice cream will cause unhappiness, a good god would catch the ice cream.



That there is proves that evil is a subjective judgment of value, not a manifest entity.

I'm not sure what this "manifest entity" talk is about; but I'm confident that it has nothing to do with the PoE as I presented it.



Uh, yes we can logically assume that an all-powerful, all-good God who wants us to be happy all the time designed us to be able to be unhappy half the time (or more, or less, or at all) if we so choose.

:)



Nowhere did I make the argument that none of my choices can affect other people's happiness, and nowhere can my argument even romotely be read to disprove free will. My argument does not say that human happiness never varies, in fact it requires that it does! I must say I am baffled as to this respone to my last post.

May I quote you? "If the amount of evil that exists in the world today were halved, there would actually be exactly the same amount of suffering in the world.¡¨



and since the premise that you use is that God cannot contradict his own nature

Nut's to that. I disavow any such claim. I think you made it up.



Actually, if God is boundlessly omnipotent then the PoE is refuted,

I don't know why you keep bringing this nonsense up. Neither of us is taking the position that god can violate logic, and you killed a whole round of the debate getting clear on that.

But, since you do keep bringing it up, I'm going to respond. This is where you take leave of rationality. (And how often does someone get to say that judiciously?) If logic were unreliable, then we could not logically conclude that god exists. The assertion that god exists would be illogical.

If logic didn't work, then you could not logically conclude that the PoE was refuted. It would be illogical to assert that the PoE was refuted if logic didn't work.

Don't even step into that swamp.



That is why you agreed with my (actually your) "punk omnipotence" premise. Because to do otherwise would destroy your argument.

Bingo. Well said. And when you do otherwise, it destroys your argument.

crc

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

Hi folks,

I'm getting the impression that the debate is getting somewhat heated. Let's just try to cool it down a bit so I won't have to douse any flames.

Thanks,

Jason

[long winded fool]

Originally posted by wiploc
There, maybe I just saved us a couple of rounds of debate.

My objections to this kind of free will are two. First, it is worthless. Either god made this world, planned all the events that would ever happen in it, or he didn't. If he did, then we can't, by our own choices, affect our happiness. Whatever we do will always result in exactly what god planned when he created the world. We have no free will. But if there is no god, then we do have free will. Here's the problem: In real life, we either do or we don't have FWp, but our situation is exactly the same either way. In other words, FWp is of no significance. It isn't worth anything; it certainly isn't better than happiness; and therefore a god who traded happiness for FWp would be bad. Not good, bad.

Second, FWp cannot coexist with a perfect god. If a future-knowing god created and manipulated the world to get a given result, then that result is what he gets. Nothing humans do will deflect the course of events from what god chose at the beginning of time. If human choice can never affect events in ways that god didn't already plan for it to, then FWp doesn't exist. If there's a perfect god, FWp cannot exist. It doesn't matter whether we're unhappy; and it doesn't matter whether we have the possibility of unhappiness; FWp can't exist in a universe with a perfect god. We can therefore conclude with absolute certainty that a perfect god did not trade our happiness for FWp. If FWp can't exist, then we can't be unhappy because of it.

I hope it's not to soon to repeat the dictum that you can't make the free will defense work by proving that free will doesn't exist.

But I'm not the one disproving free will, you are rejecting it on the assumption of destiny. If humans cannot make a choice, then how can God be considered omnibenevolent? In order to keep God from being a "slave master" and therefore less than perfectly good, and to prevent us from being nothing more than automatons marching lockstep under the compelling commands of a tyrant god to our deaths, doesn't the choice for a human to accept or reject God's will have to be there? I don't believe in destiny because all of my experience as a human points to the fact that I can alter my future as I see fit. If you are rejecting the premise that humans have free will, the ability to make any choice in any matter, you are doing so against all human nature and experience. If every single experience that humans have leads us to believe that we are in control of ourselves and therefore have free will, and if free will is necessary for omnibenevolence, (being necessary for love,) why assume that we don't have free will?

But let's assume that you are correct and assume that in real life our perceptions would be identical whether we had free will or not. There would still be a difference from the point of view of this argument. While human perceptions of reality might not chance, the nature of God would and this is the subject of the PoE. Therefore the free will defense cannot be rejected based on the "worthless" free will assumption. God's nature is still what is under attack, not the nature of human interaction. While we can examine human interaction, we cannot lose sight of what the elimination of free will does to an omnibenevolent creator God. By introducing the possibility that we are not free, you are essentially refuting your own premise that God is omnibenevolent.

In other words, I think you have to assume that humans are not slaves to a slave master god in order to use omnibenevolence as a premise in the Problem of Evil. If we are slaves, then there is no problem of evil, since there is no omnibenevolence.

Originally posted by wiploc
I'm not sure what this "manifest entity" talk is about; but I'm confident that it has nothing to do with the PoE as I presented it.

It doesn't. The only way for evil to be objecitve in the sense that you were using it was for it to be a manifest entity, that is, for it to exist outside of human value judgment. Since it doesn't, it's subjective.

Originally posted by wiploc
I'm not saying everybody reacts the same. I'm only saying that in those cases where the loss of the ice cream will cause unhappiness, a good god would catch the ice cream.

Can you explain how this can be possible without eliminating all possibilities except for the will of God? i.e. how can God logically prevent all possibilities while still granting free will? That's like claiming that a computer program has the ability to choose to disobey its programming and simply "never chooses to." Why doesn't it? "Because I designed it that way." This is nonsense. You didn't design it with choice, you designed it to follow orders and nothing more.

Originally posted by wiploc
May I quote you? "If the amount of evil that exists in the world today were halved, there would actually be exactly the same amount of suffering in the world.¡¨

I'm glad you brought this up, since it's a key point of the argument. The reason my actions have moral significance is because I can eliminate evil that already exists. Do you agree that God could not do this by the rules of the PoE? God cannot eliminate evil, he can only prevent it from occurring if we are to assume that the presence of evil contradicts omnibenevolence. Otherwise he would be harming someone, then having mercy on them, and this would not be a good thing to do. If we took ourselves out of time and before creation and we made it so that only half the amount of evil that exists in the world today would actually become manifest, in the sense that it would never be manifest in the universe at any time, the amount of suffering would still remain because of the spoiled brat principle, which is entirely a function of free will. You might say that human actions are morally significant to humans living in a fixed reality, but the decisions of a creator God before creation of that reality (where it is fluid and not static) would not be morally significant to humans, since they could only base their judgments of moral significance on space and time bound reality. As I said in my second post, the "lowest value" can be, and often is, judged by a free willed human being to be evil. In any reality of any number of values, there will always be a lowest value, therefore there is always the possibility of evil.

Originally posted by wiploc
I don't know why you keep bringing this nonsense up. Neither of us is taking the position that god can violate logic, and you killed a whole round of the debate getting clear on that.

But, since you do keep bringing it up, I'm going to respond. This is where you take leave of rationality. (And how often does someone get to say that judiciously?) If logic were unreliable, then we could not logically conclude that god exists. The assertion that god exists would be illogical.

If logic didn't work, then you could not logically conclude that the PoE was refuted. It would be illogical to assert that the PoE was refuted if logic didn't work.

Don't even step into that swamp.

That was clearly my point. If we throw away logic, then not only does the free will defense fly out the window, (by saying "God would still be able to find a way to eliminate evil without eliminating free will,) the PoE itself flies out the window by saying exactly what I said in the previous post. You know this was not an argument wiploc. It was an illustration to prevent you from saying that if God is omnipotent, then He is strong enough to do anything. Obviously He isn't, right?

Originally posted by wiploc
Bingo. Well said. And when you do otherwise, it destroys your argument.

crc

Quite right. I concede, (actually, I assumed this as my very first premise, so I guess it's not really a concession) that for the sake of logical discourse, one must assume that the rules of logic still apply to the creator of logic. Even though we can imagine that they wouldn't, we can't get anywhere unless we assume that they do. Therefore, with God's inability to violate logic, we can see that He would logically be unable to prevent evil from occurring if He were omnipotent. Taking it further, we can even assume that He would be logically unable to want to prevent evil from occurring if He were omnibenevolent. The reason for this is that free will is necessary for love to exist and unhappiness must be an allowable choice for free will to exist. And, of course, an omnibenevolent God would want humans to be able to choose to love Him and to love each other. (The two most important commandments.) Clearly, an omnibenevolent God would have no desire to in any way prevent us from making up our own minds.

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

We are about to enter the 5th and final round of the debate. The debate participants will submit their closing statements.

Jason

[wiploc]

The Problem of Evil Proves That a Perfect God Does Not Exist
wiploc vs. Long Winded Fool
Fifth Affirmative Statement (affirmative conclusion)

Once again I will close by quoting Epicurus:

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"


This is bulletproof, unbeatable.

Long Winded Fool (LWF) has posited that free will might be an additional good, something besides happiness that can be called good. Tentatively, I agreed to accommodate the idea. LWF then posited a logical conflict between happiness and free will. Obviously this is false. Any conflict between free will and happiness is a practical conflict, and an omnipotent god can overcome all practical problems.

A perfect god could overcome anything except a logical conflict. Logical contradictions involve opposites. God cannot make something be both light and dark, or both hot and cold, or both smooth and rough. But things that are not logically incompatible, god could do. He could make something be both light and hot, or rough and dark. Even if it took a miracle, he could do stuff like that. So he couldn't make people both happy and unhappy, but he can give them both happiness and free will. There is no logical conflict, so a perfect god could do it.

It is patently obvious that there is no more conflict between free will and happiness than there is between smoothness and cold. Therefore, if LWF wanted us to believe there was a conflict, he should have affirmatively presented justification for his claim. Why should we believe in the conflict?

LWF reiterated his claim well enough, but never tried to justify it. I offered the suggestion that maybe LWF was talking about Plantingan free will, which is of no value, and which doesn't exist if god exists, but which really is incompatible with a perfect god making us happy (because it is incompatible with a perfect god). LWF offered no feedback. Was I on the right track? We have no idea. We don't know why LWF thinks free will to be incompatible with happiness.

But we do know that LWF has not made his case. It is obvious that happiness and free will are not logically incompatible; and LWF has given us no reason to think otherwise.

Note that this is the final round. If LWF tries to justify his position in this round, I never had an opportunity to respond to it.

I wish we were sitting across a table from each other. A few quick rounds of discussion might reveal what he is thinking. Then we might move on productively.


Notes:

I don't think I ever responded when he asked why I refer to him in the third person, so I'll do that now. I found that I was being inconstant, sometimes using third person and sometimes second. So I asked a friend which was better. The friend said to imagine that I was in a public debate, because I am. Senators don't call each other, "Joe," they say, "My learned colleague." So anyway, that's why I’m using third person, and trying to be consistent about it.



Originally posted by long winded fool
But I'm not the one disproving free will, you are rejecting it on the assumption of destiny.

I don't know how destiny got into this.




If humans cannot make a choice, then how can God be considered omnibenevolent? In order to keep God from being a "slave master" and therefore less than perfectly good, and to prevent us from being nothing more than automatons marching lockstep under the compelling commands of a tyrant god to our deaths, doesn't the choice for a human to accept or reject God's will have to be there?

What you want is a way to differentiate cases. Why do we have free will with unhappiness but not with happiness? You need a reason that we can't have free will that works in the one case and not in the other. If you come up with one that you can articulate clearly, then I'll be glad to start over and do this again.




I don't believe in destiny because all of my experience as a human points to the fact that I can alter my future as I see fit.

I agree. Interestingly, I feel that way even when I'm happy.



If you are rejecting the premise that humans have free will, the ability to make any choice in any matter, you are doing so against all human nature and experience.

I absolutely agree. What you want is a way to argue that this wouldn't be true if we were happy.

(I notice my third person has slipped.)


If every single experience that humans have leads us to believe that we are in control of ourselves and therefore have free will, and if free will is necessary for omnibenevolence, (being necessary for love,) why assume that we don't have free will?

Good argument! Now you have to refute it for happy people.



But let's assume that you are correct and assume that in real life our perceptions would be identical whether we had free will or not.

It is a fact that my perceptions are what they are, regardless of whether there is a god.



By introducing the possibility that we are not free, you are essentially refuting your own premise that God is omnibenevolent.

Even if we don't have FWp, we still have regular free will. The thing about regular free will, the ability to make choices, is that it wouldn't evaporate just because somebody made you happy. The kind of free will that is desirable is not the kind that is incompatible with happiness.



Clearly, an omnibenevolent God would have no desire to in any way prevent us from making up our own minds.

This would be as true if we were happy as if we were not.



Can you explain how this can be possible without eliminating all possibilities except for the will of God? i.e. how can God logically prevent all possibilities while still granting free will? That's like claiming that a computer program has the ability to choose to disobey its programming and simply "never chooses to." Why doesn't it? "Because I designed it that way." This is nonsense. You didn't design it with choice, you designed it to follow orders and nothing more.

So if this argument works when we are happy, why doesn't it work when we are unhappy?

Imagine that god had to choose between two worlds to create, a happy one and an unhappy one. Why do you say we have free will in the unhappy one when we don't in the happy one? It was god's choice either way.

Or why do you say we don't have free will in the happy one when we do in the unhappy one? We have regular-style free will either way.

You need an argument that works in the one case and doesn't work in the other.


You might say that human actions are morally significant to humans living in a fixed reality, but the decisions of a creator God before creation of that reality (where it is fluid and not static) would not be morally significant to humans, since they could only base their judgments of moral significance on space and time bound reality.

That's like saying you don't get to be mad at me for hitting you with a snow ball if I throw it from behind a tree.

More importantly, it is two-stepping. Either we get to have opinions about whether god is omnibenevolent, or we don't. Pick one.



It was an illustration to prevent you from saying that if God is omnipotent, then He is strong enough to do anything. Obviously He isn't, right?

Interesting question. I'll take a position on whether god can really violate logic when you take a position on whether Santa Clause really wears a red suit.

[long winded fool]

Originally posted by wiploc
LWF reiterated his claim well enough, but never tried to justify it. I offered the suggestion that maybe LWF was talking about Plantingan free will, which is of no value, and which doesn't exist if god exists, but which really is incompatible with a perfect god making us happy (because it is incompatible with a perfect god). LWF offered no feedback. Was I on the right track? We have no idea. We don't know why LWF thinks free will to be incompatible with happiness.

This is an interesting observation which points to the very heart of my argument. I agree with your claim. Happiness is not incompatible with free will. What I disagree with is your assumption that this implies that God can prevent evil without creating a contradiction in his nature. Absolute happiness forced on a human from an outside source 100% of the time is not compatible with free will. Prevented evil is forced absolute happiness, not chosen, and also absolute perfection, (only one value allowed by an absolutely perfect and good being) when viewed on an absolute scale. We have to take it on an absolute scale (i.e. absolutely no evil) to avoid the PoE. Therefore, though happiness is not incompatible with free will, the elimination of all unhappiness by an outside force is incompatible with free will in the thing being prevented from suffering, and therefore the prevention of all possibility of unhappiness is in conflict with the premise of divine omnibenevolence.

Originally posted by wiploc
What you want is a way to differentiate cases. Why do we have free will with unhappiness but not with happiness? You need a reason that we can't have free will that works in the one case and not in the other.

Why? We can have free will with both. We only cannot if God eliminates all unhappiness, OR if He eliminates all happiness. I refer back to the number lines in my second post. Keep in mind that there is no reason that the thing with the free will cannot logically eliminate its own unhappiness, and by doing so help to alleviate the unhappiness of others. The choice to eliminate evil is the thing in question. If humans have the choice to eliminate their own unhappiness, then they have free will. If God has the choice to eliminate humanity's unhappiness, then logically humans do not. Therefore one can say without contradiction that God does not have the choice to prevent evil since humans do, owing to the fact of His omnibenevolence.

The only reason that this wouldn't be considered a reversible argument ("The Problem of Good" in relation to an omni-malevolent deity) is that free will is not required for absolute malevolence, therefore the complete absence of good is required for an all-powerful, all-evil entity. Free will is a special case and required for omnibenevolence which alleviates the assumed requirement of the absence of evil. In the case of omni-malevolence, however, if we were to assume that an omni-malevolent deity desired to give its creation free will (which, though it wouldn't make sense, would be required to make it analogous to our argument) then the argument works both ways. If an all-evil, all-powerful devil wanted humans to have free will, he COULD NOT logically prevent all good/happiness. His ultimate power would be bound by the parameters of logic and therefore those of us bound to the rules of logic can only rationally assume that he would be morally exempt from the problem of good, just as the omnibenevolent God in the reverse case is morally exempt from the problem of evil.

Originally posted by wiploc
I absolutely agree. What you want is a way to argue that this wouldn't be true if we were happy.

It COULD be true if we were absolutely happy all the time. It COULD NOT be true if our absolute happiness was due solely to a choice made by something other than us. Were this the case, free will would be violated. And, due to the subjective nature of the value judgment of "unhappy" and the spoiled brat principle we find that free will would not only be violated, it would be eliminated.

Originally posted by wiploc
Even if we don't have FWp, we still have regular free will. The thing about regular free will, the ability to make choices, is that it wouldn't evaporate just because somebody made you happy. The kind of free will that is desirable is not the kind that is incompatible with happiness.

Free will doesn't evaporate because someone makes you happy. It does when someone eliminates all value that could possibly cause you unhappiness. It CERTAINLY does when someone never creates any value that could ever make anyone unhappy in the first place and therefore creates only one value.

Originally posted by long winded fool
Clearly, an omnibenevolent God would have no desire to in any way prevent us from making up our own minds.

Originally posted by wiploc
This would be as true if we were happy as if we were not.

Yes it would be. The crucial difference being that the possibility of either cannot be eliminated by something other than the thing with the free will, or that thing cannot be said to have free will. This is due to the fact that for perception (necessary for free will) to occur, there must be more than one value, and any value perceived as less than the other (which must occur for a choice to be made) can cause unhappiness if received. Note that in order to choose A, I must be able to perceive B and what it would be like to get B as opposed to A. B, therefore, must exist.

Originally posted by wiploc
Imagine that god had to choose between two worlds to create, a happy one and an unhappy one. Why do you say we have free will in the unhappy one when we don't in the happy one? It was god's choice either way.

Or why do you say we don't have free will in the happy one when we do in the unhappy one? We have regular-style free will either way.

When you say a "happy" world are you referring to the complete absence of unhappiness by divine decree, and when you say "unhappy" world, are you referring to the complete absence of happiness by divine decree? If you are, then we have free will in neither world. The only way to allow for free will to be defined is for both happiness and unhappiness to be allowed, and that’s the world in which we live.

Originally posted by long winded fool
You might say that human actions are morally significant to humans living in a fixed reality, but the decisions of a creator God before creation of that reality (where it is fluid and not static) would not be morally significant to humans, since they could only base their judgments of moral significance on space and time bound reality.

Originally posted by wiploc
That's like saying you don't get to be mad at me for hitting you with a snow ball if I throw it from behind a tree.

More importantly, it is two-stepping. Either we get to have opinions about whether god is omnibenevolent, or we don't. Pick one.

Actually, it's more like saying that I don't get mad at you for hitting me with a snowball if you decide not to hit me with a snowball before you actually do it. While that is a ridiculous way to say it, it is absolutely relevant to a fact implied in the argument that I don't think you've grasped: Eliminating all evil doesn't get God out of the PoE. He must never have allowed it to become manifest in the first place. The only logical way this can be accomplished is if every single choice made by anything capable of unhappiness was first made by God. Doesn't this render the so called "choice" of the human to be nothing more than programming?

And the opinion about whether or not God is omnibenevolent is already assumed in the PoE. He is. If He’s not, there’s no PoE.

Originally posted by wiploc
I'll take a position on whether god can really violate logic when you take a position on whether Santa Clause really wears a red suit.

Then you forfeit your argument until you do. Let me reiterate: No one can possibly use the Problem of Evil in a discussion without taking the position that God cannot violate logic. The position is explicitly implied in all forms of the PoE. To use the PoE and then say that God can do illogical things is the equivalent of arguing "I don't believe in God because that's the way God made me." When you refuse to take a position, you are teetering on the edge of a self-refuting argument.


I'll try to wrap up the main points you seem to have questions about, and I'll be more than happy to continue this discussion informally.

Free will is not incompatible with happiness or unhappiness.

Having our choices made for us is not compatible with free will.

Excluding all values that can ever result in unhappiness from our list of choices requires eliminating all but one value, that value being God's will, rendering human will, and therefore choice, non-existent. God is choosing the one value that he allows humans to experience; therefore, the choice is God's, not ours.

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"

God is neither able nor willing to prevent evil. The reason to call Him God is because He is both able and willing to teach us how to prevent evil. In other words: He knows how, He just can't do it for us because He is bound by the parameters of omnipotent moral perfection. If this sounds counterintuitive, it's because humans cannot rationally communicate outside the bounds of logic, where God would technically exist. By binding God to the rules of logic, the theist becomes capable of discussing His nature, and the atheist becomes capable of refuting Him. While God's nature clearly would never be entirely apprehended, the theist can deduce from inside the creation bits and pieces of the nature of his or her creator and subject it to logical critique, enabling both the theist and the atheist to learn. And what more benevolent goal can there be for one's creation than for it to learn?


[Edit: VBB Code fix - NS]

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

This concludes the formal debate on the Problem of Evil. We would like to thank wiploc and long winded fool for their participation. This thread will now be closed.

Jason