Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: The "God Does Not Exist" Proof
From: lippard@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu (James J. Lippard)
Date: 7 Apr 1992 16:58 MST  
  <6APR199219330862@milori.ccit.arizona.edu> <1992Apr7.132628.1@ulkyvx.louisville.edu>
Distribution: world,local
Organization: University of Arizona
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

In article <1992Apr7.132628.1@ulkyvx.louisville.edu>, pralmo01@ulkyvx.louisville.edu writes...
>In article <6APR199219330862@milori.ccit.arizona.edu>, lippard@milori.ccit.arizona.edu (James J. Lippard) writes:
>>[Joe Deasy wrote, and I accidentally deleted the attribution:]
>>>First of all:
>>>I do not believe divine foreknowledge necessarily extends to all possible
>>>universes, but only to those which actually exist.
>> 
>> This is a denial of omniscience.
> 
>That depends on your definition of omniscience.  If O. means:  God can know 
>anything, then yes this is a denial of O.  If you mean (as I mean)
>God can know everything which can be known, then no, this has certainly not
>been shown to be a denial of omniscience, since knowing what uncreated beings
>who are supposed to have free-will will in fact do appears to me to be 
>logically impossible.  Similarly, it does not in fact appear to me that it
>is possible for God to know how a given *autonomous* universe will evolve
>*exactly*
>physically since this appears to be denied by both QM and modern dynamics. 

By "omniscient," I mean "knows everything that it is logically possible to
know."  This may or may not be the same as your formulation.  Since you
speak of physical constraints on "can," we appear to be using different
definitions.  I do not think it is consistent with Christianity to claim
that God is constrained by physical laws.

>Am omniscience which knows things which can't be know by definition cannot
>be a property of any real creature.

Agreed.

>>>Secondly:
>>>To say that God 'imagines' human beings and then aborts them based on the
>>>trouble they would probably cause is certainly not a vision of a good God.
>>>I seems to me that such actions would be so unloving and unjust as to be 
>>>incompatible with a good God.  It would seem that it is impossible for a 
>>>perfectly  good
>>>God to abort persons on the basis of foreknowledge.  It follows that God
>>>does not do this. (An assumption I make is that life is itself a great good.)
>> 
>> Merely imagined beings do not exist.  To fail to create them harms no
>> one, and it is misleading to speak of "abort[ing] them."  Further, if
>> God's decision is based on his foreknowledge, there is no question of
>> "trouble they would probably cause"--God knows that they *would* in
>> fact cause trouble.
> 
>Although no harm is done to already existing things, is it fair to say 
>that denying you or I
>existence based on our forecast sins is the work of a loving God?
>Remember, although the being in question has yet to be created, there
>*is* a being in question.  It is the loss of a great good which makes that
>scenario unpalatable.
>That is certainly not the God of Christianity.

There *is* a being in question only in the same sense that there *is* a
person named Sherlock Holmes.  If the creation of such a person would
be, on the whole, a good thing, then there is certainly a sense in which
that person's non-creation is a bad thing--but there is no harm to that
person in virtue of not being created.

>To put it another way:  If I sit on my butt and don't do any harm, is that
>good?  Maybe not, if a greater good would be the result of my doing 
>something.

Perhaps so, but one would like to know what the greater good is.  The
problem of evil argument is that there is no greater good which
could not have been achieved without the accompanying evil.

>It is interesting to note that we seem to be arguing about a 
>'Maxwell's Demon' view of God, sitting at the entrance to existence,
>turing on existence for 'good souls' and truning off existence for
>'bad souls'.  Instead of raising the temperature, God raises the
>'goodness' of the universe.  Can anyone out there tell me what physics 
>did with Maxwell's demon???

But what's the relevance of physics to the abilities of an omnipotent
being?

>>>Thirdly:
>>> 
>>>Without perfect foreknowledge of uncreated universes (something I do not accept
>>>as a necessary characteristic of God)  it is impossible to tell what 
>>>will happen in an
>>>autonomous environment due to non-linearities in certain features of 
>>>reality (not even considering free beings).  This is a clear result
>>>of modern dynamics.  The mechanical universe of Leibniz is dead, killed by
>>>a non-linear oscillator.  It is therefore somewhat rediculous to me to 
>>>hear people argue that God must have had the means to stop certain 
>>>individual evil things from occuring, simply be refusing to create 
>>>those universes.  God may be able to run simulations of the universe,
>>>but he can't tell which simulations will correspond to which actual universe.
>> 
>> Why should God's omniscience be limited to the physically possible?
>> 
> 
>I am not talking about 'physical impossibilites' I mean (here and
>everywhere) impossible for God=logically impossible.  Modern dynamics
>says that many systems (perhaps most) have later states which cannot
>*in principal* be predicted exatcly from earlier states, even for God.  
>Furthermore,
>QM predicts that at least some outcomes much occur according to probability
>distributions.  It is impossible, even for God, to predict what the a priori
>unpredictable will do.

But this "principle" is a nomic one, i.e., a physical one.  And the
physics of the universe was presumably created by God.  The limitation
you are describing is, if it applies to God, a denial of divine foreknowledge.

>>>As I said before, I don't accept the proposition that God must have
>>>divine foreknowledge of uncreated universes.  God can only know 
>>>everything which can possibly be known.  I don't see how it is possible
>>>to know what a universe will do before it exists, unless the universe is
>>>of a very restricted type (far and away simpler than our own).
>> 
>> "Possibly" = what is logically possible, not just physically possible.
>> 
>I agree, as I say above.
>>>>>In my opinion, the argument should be formulated as:
>>>>>Could God create the good things of life without creating the 
>>>>>bad things too, since given the choice, I want the good things even if
>>>>>I have to have the bad things.
>>>> 
>>>> Fair enough.  Then the Christian viewpoint is that these good things
>>>> cannot exist without bad things existing also.  The Panglossian view
>>>> ridiculed in _Candide_.
>>> 
>>>Do you really think I sit on my butt and simply
>>>wave at the evils of the world???  Pangloss is a for cry from Teilhard
>>>de Chardin, or Jesus.  By the way, 
>>>I don't have my Voltarie handy, but wasn't Pangloss so rediculous not because
>>>he accepted bad things, but because he eliminated any reason to work against
>>>evil, being that this must be the best-of-all-possible worlds.?  I didn't say 
>>>this was the best-of-all-possible worlds.  I am saying that it's
>>>not clear that God hasn't done the best he could.  It's pretty obvious
>>>people haven't.
>> 
>> In other words, you are claiming that it may be logically impossible for
>> an omnipotent and omniscient being to create a best of all possible worlds.
> 
>NO.  I am saying that God cannot guarantee that any particular
>world God creates will in fact be the best-of-all-possible worlds.   Maybe
>he's created so many that somewhere, there exists the said world, or one
>close enough.

Let me try another rephrasing:  You are saying that it is logically
impossible for an omnipotent and omniscient being to guarantee that
any given world it creates will be a best of all possible worlds.
(God really does play dice with the universe.)

>I've certainly enjoyed this.  If you want to send me any final
>comments, send them to pralmo01@ulkyvx.

[This message is also being sent in email.]
I have likewise enjoyed the discussion, though it is very similar to
a discussion on exactly the same subject some months back I had with
Michael Bumbulis.

>See ya,
>Joe Deasy

Jim Lippard              Lippard@CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU
Dept. of Philosophy      Lippard@ARIZVMS.BITNET
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721