From: lippard@milori.ccit.arizona.edu (James J. Lippard)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: The "God Does Not Exist" Proof
Date: 7 Apr 92 02:33:00 GMT
Article-I.D.: milori.6APR199219330862
 <5APR199214474472@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu> <1992Apr6.154504.1@ulkyvx.louisville.edu>
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In article <1992Apr6.154504.1@ulkyvx.louisville.edu>, pralmo01@ulkyvx.louisville.edu writes...
>In article <5APR199214474472@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu>, lippard@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu (James J. Lippard) writes:
>> Because God supposedly has divine foreknowledge, he knows what actions
>> each of his creations will freely choose to perform throughout their
>> lifetimes.  He may therefore choose not to create any of those which
>> will choose to perform evil acts.
> 
>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.

>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.

>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?

>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.

>>>The statement 'an omnipotent being should have access to such alternative
>>>means' is precisely the point in question.  I say it has not been 
>>>demonstrated.  I certainly don't have any sort of metaphysical proof that
>>>sainthood can be achieved just as well with a non-evil universe
>>>as with an evil universe.
>> 
>> The only way in which an omnipotent being *wouldn't* have access to such
>> alternative means would be if such means were logically impossible.
>> Since people here seemed to be able to formulate several coherent
>> such means, that seems unlikely.  (Unfortunately, I did not save any
>> of those postings.  Perhaps those who posted them before would be
>> willing to post again.)
>> 
>>>Also, you're introducing the classification of ends and means.
>>>Does this mean that you are in fact assuming that every means must 
>>>be classified as either good or bad?  Or can you demonstrate that in
>>>fact every means is either good or bad or neither?  I would be 
>>>interested in that demonstration.  Now here we are embroiled at just
>>>the point I thought would be crucial:  just what are good and evil?
>>>Also, is 'bad' the same as evil?
>> 
>> This seems irrelevant since the problem of evil argument does not
>> require such a universal generalization to work. 
> 
>Doesn't the argument pivot on the idea of a 'perfectly good' God?
> 
>> One instance
>> suffices.  Neither are necessary and sufficient conditions for
>> "good" and "evil" required for the argument to work (if such
>> conditions could even be formulated, which I doubt).
>> 
> 
>ONE INSTANCE OF WHAT????  You say all you need is one instance of 
>something, but you don't know what that something is?

One instance of evil (or of a class of evils) which is not outweighed
by good consequences for which it is necessary.

>>>Now reality is made up on a basic level not of 'goods and evils' but of
>>>events in a continuum.  I deny that on a theoretical OR practical
>>>level that one must classify EVENTS as good or evil but not both.  In fact,
>>>I live my life classifying many things as good and evil both.
>>>  
>>>> It is sufficient for the argument to show that there is a single
>>>> instance of an event which is evil which could have been prevented
>>>> by God without creating greater evil as a consequence.
> 
>I have already gone into the qualities of the universe which appear to 
>be such that to violate them would require 'greater evil'.
>                                                          
>>> 
>>>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.

>>>>I think that
>>>> plenty of examples can be enumerated which virtually everyone would
>>>> agree are evils.  The only disagreement is likely to be over whether
>>>> or not such evils could have been prevented.  Your use of the free
>>>> will defense is an argument that they could not have been.  Your
>>>> argument above appears to be an argument that they aren't really
>>>> evils.  I don't think either one works.
>>> 
>>>Good God!!  I never said I have shown they couldn't be prevented!! I said
>>>that if God wants to create beings with free will in an autonomous universe,
>>>then it does not appear to me that God could guarantee a non-evil 
>>>universe.  And no I never said they aren't evils!!!
>> 
>> Implied in what I wrote above was that they couldn't be prevented
>> *without losing other things desired as good*, e.g., free will.
>> See above, where I write "It is sufficient for the argument to show
>> that there is a single instance of an event which is evil which could
>> have been prevented by God without creating greater evil as a consequence."
>> I take it that your view is that loss of free will would qualify
>> as such a "greater evil."
> 
>My view is that the debater has not shown conclusively that there is no
>such loss.  I have suggested several possibilities for such a loss.  I do 
>not claim that I have exhausted the possibilities because I do not know
>what God eventually has in store.  I view the loss of free will as being a
>*possibly* great evil.
>>                                
>>>>>Lastly let me add that I think what the post does disprove is 'The
>>>>>Nice Guy Theory of God':  God is such a nice guy, he wouldn't do anything
>>>>>to hurt me.  In my opinion, that's just a different version of a dysfunctional
>>>>>psychology. 
>>>> 
>>>> If you add "intentionally" to the above, then "the nice guy theory of
>>>> God" seems like a logical consequence of the claim that God is
>>>> perfectly good.  And the problem of evil still goes through.
>>> 
>>>Sure, sure, if you want to DEFINE a perfectly good being as one who is only
>>>associated with perfectly good things, then in fact God is not perfectly 
>>>good.  He wouldn't like most of the people I know.
>> 
>> That's not what I said, nor would I accept that definition.  An omnipotent,
>> omniscient, perfectly good being, however, would only *create* perfectly
>> good things.
> 
>I say we have a tautology here.  Perfectly good including in it's definition:
>a being which does not create non-perfectly good things.
> 
>See, there we are arguing over what perfectly good means.
> 
> 
>> 
>>>In my view, this argument against the existence of God is weak primarily
>>>because it doesn't deal with the purpose of creation.  Now, if you could
>>>show that God had a certain good purpose in creating the world, and it was
>>>possible to attain that good purpose, and God has in fact, or will in fact,
>>>fail to attain that purpose, now that would be something!
>> 
>> What is the purpose of creation?
> 
>Hell if I know.  'Eye has not seen and ear has not heard.'
> 
>                                                          
>See ya,
>Joe Deasy

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