Apropos of this morning’s post, we should remember that many religious people really do believe in dualistic free will. In fact, it’s often their only justification for evil in the world, at least the kind of “moral evil” committed by human beings.
I’ve been reading a fairly new book by Karl Giberson and Francis Collins, The Language of Science and Faith (InterVarsity Press, 2011), which is basically an explanation of the BioLogos position that science and evangelical Christianity can be reconciled. The book apparently grew out of the “frequently asked questions” portion of the BioLogos website, leading Collins and Giberson (then a vice-president of BioLogos) to package all the answers in a book.
The book contains the usual apologetics about how evolution is really God’s best way of creating, how science and scripture can be reconciled, and so on. It even adduces two bits of “evidence” for God: the “fine-tuning” of the universe and the “moral law” (our instinctive moral feelings). Collins used the “Moral Law Proves God” argument often, but he and Giberson have apparently backed off a bit from that, saying (see below) that instinctive morality is “consistent with God” or “a pointer to God.” Nevertheless, it’s still using god as a finger in the dike of science.
In the chapter on theodicy (explaining evil), Giberson and Collins offer the usual explanation for moral evils like the Holocaust as an unavoidable result of God’s having given humans free will, and of course with that comes the ability to choose evil paths. (This is, of course, dualistic free will.) In other words, the Holocaust was the result of God wanting to give the Nazis free will, and it’s better to have free will than to not have 10 million people killed in the camps.
Of course, God could have given people the ability to choose, but choose only good actions, but that level of sophistication eludes the authors.
It’s harder, though, for theologians to explain natural evils: leukemia in children, bubonic plague, tsunamis and such. Why couldn’t God prevent those if he’s loving and omnipotent? I’ll let Giberson and Collins answer in their own words, invoking the fact that God gives nature freedom in the same way he gives humans freedom:
“Likewise, the same forces that produced a life-sustaining planet, including the laws of physics, chemistry, weather and tectonics, can also produce natural disasters. As with the free will of humans, God cannot constantly intervene in these areas without disrupting the inherent freedom of the creation and disrupting his consistent sustaining of all the matter and energy in the universe. Without this consistency, science would be impossible, moral choices would be subverted, and the world would not be as rich with meaning and opportunity.
If God blocked the consequences of human moral choices (e.g., committing murder) and natural events (e.g., tsunamis) every time they led to evil results, moral responsibility would disappear and the natural world would become incoherent. Imagine a world where we could feel totally free to lose our temper and, in a fit of road rage, run down jaywalking teenagers, confident that God would whisk them away at the last minute so we couldn’t actually harm them.” (p. 140)
Wrong. The natural world would not become incoherent if God just stopped plague in its tracks, or prevented a tsunami. We wouldn’t know about those things! And why is it so important that the natural world be coherent, anyway? It wasn’t when Jesus came back to life, or when a virgin gave birth to Giberson and Collins’s savior. Why not one more miracle: kill Hitler by giving him cancer in his teens?
Everything gets God off the hook, for there’s nothing apologetics can’t explain:
“In exactly the same way, outside of the moral dimension, when nature’s freedom leads to the evolution of a pernicious killing machine like black plague, God is off the hook. Unless God micromanages nature so as to destroy autonomy, such things are going to occur. Likewise, unless God coercively micromanages human decision making, we will often abuse our freedom.” (p. 137)
So natural evil is no problem; it’s consistent with God. And so is the ubiquity of moral standards:
What we would suggest, based on present understandings, is that the prevalence and universality of moral standards is entirely consistent with the existence of God and may even be a pointer to that God.” (p. 144)
After pondering all this, I wonder exactly what in our world would be inconsistent with the Christian God. What couldn‘t they explain away as consistent with his loving and omnipotent nature? If they can explain away the Holocaust, they can explain away anything. But they gave the whole game away on p. 127, when they began the chapter on “Science and God’s existence” with this quote:
“We begin this chapter with a different argument often used against the existence of God. This is the argument that the world is so evil and purposeless that there cannot be a creator like the Christian God behind it. Our job will be to undermine this powerful and enduring argument against the existence of God.”
Such is apologetics. What better evidence for the incompatibility of science and faith than for a religious person to nakedly state that their job is not to take the evidence on board, but to refute every bit of it that undermines what they want to be true?
I challenge Giberson and Collins to give me one horrible thing that could happen to this world that they couldn’t explain away as consistent with their God. And I wonder if, when they construct these ludicrous apologetics, people like Collins and Giberson don’t feel at least a smidgen of shame. How dishonorable to spend one’s life this way!
In addition to your arguments, Jerry, another line of attack is this:
Is there free will in heaven? Is there Holocaust-type evil in heaven?
If then answer yes and no, then one can have free will without evil (hence they’ve refuted themselves).
If they answer no to both, then that shows that things can be just fine without free will. In which case need-for-free-will provides no justification for evil (hence they’ve refuted themselves).
Thus they more or less have to answer that, yes, there is Holocaust-type evil in heaven, just like on Earth. Hmmm …
Thank you for sharing this beautifully reasoned argument.
I also find Jerry’s point that “… God could have given people the ability to choose, but choose only good actions, but that level of sophistication eludes the authors” to be compelling.
In fact, I think the only reason faithheads believe in free will is in order that bad people can be punished for choosing to do evil and (oh, yes) good people (especially them) can be rewarded for choosing to do good. I have never heard of free will being discussed except in the context of good vs evil.
I had an aunt who was paralyzed by indecision to the point that she spent an hour and a half between two stores unable to decide from which to buy oranges. I sometimes find myself in that position in a much smaller way (jam at $2.45 vs $2.75 but the dearer looks nicer, but is it nicer enough? – kind of thing), but when I catch myself, I laugh at myself and mentally toss a coin. So how free was I ever to choose other than what I finally chose?
Certainly the whole “choosing to do evil is worthy of punishment” line of thinking is contradicted by the fact that we don’t know what forces drive other people, hence “walk a mile in my shoes” – which leads to the creepy thought that if I’d had Clayton Weatherston’s genes and upbringing, I too might have stabbed my girlfriend to death in a frenzy of rage for deigning to leave me, and then defended myself for days using “provocation”.
Theists cannot claim there is no free will in heaven and still believe in the concept of Satan… an angel who chose of its own free will to disobey god.
So, box them into that corner nice and tight.
Satan claims that it was not a rebellion per se, more a proposal for management restructuring.
I have also wondered about this. If there is no free will in heaven, then that can only mean that heaven is another provisional stopping point on the way to some final destination. Or is “heaven” the ability to do bad things without fear of divine punishment?
According to the Westminster Confession the denizens of Heaven will immutably only be able to do good. I guess that means they will be free (of external restraint) to sin but not able to sin.
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They seem to say that god doesn’t intervene at all in the world then, right?
If so, why do they pray? (I’m supposing they do).
“…God cannot *constantly* intervene …”
That’s why this frequently gets snuck in and asserted. The only other option is to claim their god doesn’t intervene at all, which chucks out a personal god. We can’t be having that or else Jesus goes out the window too.
But their problem as I see it is two-fold. They presume to know what their god thinks, and while assuming that this god is omnipotent and omniscient, what it’s capable of.
That rock is simply too damn heavy to be lifted.
So the lesson is do not pray for Ebola or genocides to go away, but it’s right on top of you getting that job or house you want or healing mom’s cancer.
And why can god not constantly intervene?
Doesn’t that directly contradict any notion of omnipotence?
There are Christians of my acquaintance who claim quite forcefully that god directs every drop of rain. Without him, the entire enterprise of the universe wouldn’t work at all.
Giberson and Collins are placing an enormous limitation on the power of their god.
And also making him quite capricious. Or uncaring. Or both. (Props to Hitchens for these).
So, back to pktom64 . . . why bother? You only get to choose two out of the three: omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent . . . 🙂 Don’t see how the Problem of Evil will ever go away as long as all three are claimed.
Jerry makes one of my favorite arguments when he suggests the “miracle of killing off Hitler” before he could do damage.
To me, this is the central weakness of the “free will excuses evil” argument. Free will is not a get-out-of-jail-for-free card. In order for any event to occur, there are (at least) two necessary conditions: means and opportunity. If god is truly omnipotent, he can prevent bad things from happening by preventing the opportunity . . . as in having Hitler die of the plague as a teenager . . . or prevent a murder at a break-in by having the occupant stop by a bar for a drink on the way home . . .
Bottom line is that, no matter how you slice it, if you believe that god is omnipotent and he, at any time, intervenes in the world, /*somebody*/ is going to get stiffed. Simple case: American and British Roman Catholics praying that Germany will be defeated in WWII. German, Vichy French, Austrian, etc., etc. Roman Catholics praying that Germany will prevail in WWII. Everybody can’t win, and that’s what the god-botherers want.
Doesn’t that rule out all miracles? Or is it OK for “inconsistencies” like revivification of the dead and virgin birth?
I think you’re allowed only a small number of inconsistencies. That’s why God is so hidden now. He used up all his intervention cards early on, sending plagues on Egypt, answering the prayers of various patriarchs, blinding armies, stopping the Earth from turning, and so on. Now he’s all out and just has to sit idly by.
Except when the guy on my team makes the last-second shot to win the game…then god’s all over that.
My bracket is looking so good right now. I just know this is god’s handiwork. He is truly a good god. What’s that, son? You need me to turn up your morphine drip?
God’s kind of pissed at me, it seems. Probably the shrimp I ate last week.
God was clearly with Matt Prior today, ensuring that the bails did not drop when the ball hit the stumps.
as soon as Christians try to claim free will and heaven in their religion, one has got to give. If heaven is a place where we get new bodies (and some sects do insist we’ll get new physical bodies, then this god interferes with physical laws. If Christians claim that their heaven is some other kind of existence, then that’s just making up more nonsense.
If Christians claim that god can’t interfere with moral choices, then that means their claims of miracles where their god interferes in exactly those things are lies. I do see that these apologists do use “every time” as their excuse, but even one instance of god’s interference is too many for true free will. They forget that their holy book offers an out for their god to indeed “whisk away” anyone who is the target of a destructive act; we have JC saying that the intent is just as bad as the act. Keep the intent, punish the intent and then this god can indeed help people. That happens when Lot is “whisked away” or where JC escapes a angry crowd by being “whisked away”. It seems that apologists need to be selectively ignorant of their own religion to make their nonsense work.
I do not understand the theological assumption that God always allows us free will. In the story of Moses, for example, God says several times at the outset while trying to recruit Moses that he will not for awhile permit the pharaoh to set the Israelites free. And in the lead-up to passover, Exodus is explicit that God hardened the pharaoh’s heart: The pharaoh had NO free will in this situation. And thus, God got to kill all the 1st born of Egypt.
And in the New Testament, the Bible is explicit that a demon entered Judas at key moments that led him to betray Jesus. Judas was not free to be loyal to Jesus.
And finally, Paul writes that the rulers of countries are put in their positions of authority by divine will. We may think we are electing people, but in fact it is God forcing people to vote His way. It was thus God that forced people to vote Hitler into power. If there was a chapter in the Bible covering Hitler, I’d wager that it would say either that God forced Hitler’s hand, or that demons entered Hitler. Regardless, the Bible does not permit believes to let God off the hook for setting up a world in which it is freedom that inevitably leads to bad things.
The Bible repeatedly has God demanding evil acts (war crimes), forcing decisions leading to evil consequences (innocent first born killed by God), and putting in power evil leaders. Christian theologians cannot blame evil on free will alone–if they were honest, they would also be blaming their damned god!
Ah, yes, I recall struggling with each of these in Sunday School. The key device the religious employ to make all of this work for them is not to compare their answers to one question with their answers to another.
Yes, the bible actually has numerous examples of “god-blocking-freewills” both of his own people (Moses) or others (as in pharaohs).
Moreover, I think the main reasons god less intervenes in current world is because we are much less ignorant than in the past, we know now myriads of things that are not god’s handiworks.
Case closed.
“I wonder exactly what in our world would be inconsistent with the Christian God.”
God reaching down and sticking “a nickel’s worth of sense into our days”?
Reminds me of a line I lifted from a recent posting here:
It’s amazing to me that, rather than interpret the “hiddenness of God” as evidence against God, theologians twist their brains into knots trying to explain why God would actually want to remain hidden.
As Delos McKown said, “The invisible and the nonexistent look very much alike.”
“After pondering all this, I wonder exactly what in our world would be inconsistent with the Christian God.”
lol.
Oh that’s aasy! God’s Word isn’t even consistent with itself!
haha
The theologians duty first and foremost is to talk gibberish and second it is not to be understood, that way they can explain away anything
Special pleading from start to finish.
When an argument results in a contradiction, you cannot, repeat, cannot, evade the contradiction by invoking special entities or considerations. The contradiction must be resolved only using the terms within the contradiction. If I am accused of bank robbery, and my attorney proves I was across town eating lunch at the time of the robbery, the prosecution cannot argue that I created a hologram of myself in the cafe while I snuck out and robbed the bank. It can argue the witnesses are mistaken or lying, but it can’t argue that they saw my doppleganger.
The Eurythpro dilemma is clear: If God exists, evil cannot exist, at any time or any place, for any reason. Invoking free will as an explanation is special pleading as it attempts to evade the contradiction by invoking a fact not in the contradiction. This demolishes the free will apologia once and for all.
I would like to bring attention to the group on the issue of proprioception.
This issue may or may not have been brought forth in the past.
Proprioception is a difficult word to define but It addresses the issue of self consciousness, self-awareness, awareness of one’s body – torso and limbs – in three-dimensional space: the awareness of self.
Philosophical and physiological examination of proprioception adresses the issue of substance dualism. It addresses Descartes’s famous Conceit I mean Cogito: “I think therefore I am”.
Clinical work conducted by philosophically oriented physiologists or physicians, neuroscientists stongly weakens Descartes substance dualistic stance.
I would like to elaborate on this in a latter post, If it has not been addressed in this forum already.
For a reference see the article entitled ‘Self-Consciousness and the Body, Author, Monica Meijsing. Journal of Consciousness Studies, Volume 7 Number Six 2000
Good point about questioning what would be inconsistent.
Some philosophers have objected to skeptical theism using the example of Hell World, a world in which, e.g., billions of conscious beings are continually tortured.
Suppose that in such a world, someone pipes up and says, “You know, I don’t think there’s an omnipotent, omniscient, morally perfect God in this world.” Why couldn’t Collins et al. simply offer skeptical theism against that position, too? Would even Hell World provide no evidence against the existence of God?
You make excellent points. If all natural and human evil is the result of God respectively “allowing” nature to take its course and giving humans [dualistic] free-will, then there is NO difference between the world with God in it and the world with no god.
RE: Free-will: I’ve been reading a book [which I found in the bibliography to Kaufmann’s _The Faith of a Heretic_, incidentally] called _The Comforts of Unreason_ by R. Crawshay-Williams. He has an interesting take on the free-will question. First, he points out that there is a slight but important difference between the common usage of “free-will” and its use in discussions of determinism (every thought, feeling, or action has a cause). I may be misreading him, but what I get out of it is that, in the “common” usage, it is the notion that our choices are not governed by any external force (i.e., that they are rather the result of our own reasoning, and our “inborn and acquired impulses and preferences.”) When you bring determinism into the discussion as being opposed to free-will, however, “free-will” then implies that some decisions between alternatives just happen. Crawshay-Williams likens that to a “deus ex machina”. He says that free-will in that sense does not exist, and I agree with him. The common sense of “free-will” implies that one isn’t coerced by any external force into choosing between alternatives.
His point is that persons debating the free-will question need to agree on what they mean by “free-will”; otherwise they won’t get anywhere.
Free will only for Christians?
I have spent much time keeping quiet amongst my work colleagues with whom I meet from time to time. Imagine 8-10 evangelical Christians around the breakfast table, the lunch table and the dinner table and then atheistic me. The mission is simple – to convert me.
I have many stories but just one for now as we refer to free will. It would seem that not only do they have free will but they have it exclusively alongside the ability to do good. I have always been interested in both parasitology and Africa, a great combination! When I stated how interesting it would be to become involved in supporting work within an African community the surprise was palpable. How could an atheist possibly have such compassion? Doing good, it seems, is the exclusive domain of the Christian. Clearly I am free only to do and think evil things.
Incidentally, I never regarded myself as an atheist before I met these people. I do now.
My creationism argument over breakfast can wait for another day..
I’ll repeat that if I have free will, I can freely and willingly reject the “gift” of eternal life, thereby kicking the teeth out of the extortionate salvation scam.
If the world is incoherent without tsunamis, earthquakes and natural disasters, what do we make of the fact that these are highly localized? Only people along a plate boundary has to deal with earthquakes or tsunamis, only people in certain bands have to worry about tornadoes. What about people that are living in geologically stable areas, away from storms – is there life incoherent?
There have been massive outbreaks of viruses like the Black Death or the 1918 Influenza, but nothing for recent generations – does that make our lives less coherent?
If I were to describe life while living under constant threat of natural disasters, famines, plagues and wars “coherent” would not be what I’d chose. If anything, seeing so many people struck dead through no fault of their own strikes me as the opposite of coherent.
lol.
Well genocide can’t be that bad cuz God routinely partook in those things back in the Old days.
IIRC, in some cases doG promised to look after His favourite sons if they did the smiting.
It would seem He has been remiss on His end…
I see theodicy not as an argument but as a paradox. Won’t all programs created to help humans conduct their lives face some sort of paradox?
I believe that Point 1 and Point 2 below accurately represent a humanistic view of the human condition and how we can face it.
1. The natural universe that we can measure and observe has no intrinsic human purpose or intrinsic human meaning.
2. We are still able to live meaningful lives within that universe.
If those 2 points are true, then where does the meaning in human lives arise from? It would appear to me that any meaning must be a product of human thought. Yet, if such thought is a product of only natural processes, any meaning it creates is by nature arbitrary, conforming only to the ideas that spring from any mind or group of minds. That would seem to be a similar paradox to the theodicy paradox.
I don’t see a paradox. Humanistic “meaning” is bounded at the human level. My interpretation of humanism is that any meaning we can posibly have is derived from humanity and nothing higher that what we have created. Of course, humans pretty certainly created religion, so we’re quibling on methodology on that point.
Perhaps the basic problem is the idea that we have or need some meaning beyond what’s apparent to us. The very concept has a religious flavor to it.
“Why?”, in the mechanistic sense, is a very valuable question. Science is often answering exactly that to great benefit. I’m increasingly of the opinion that it does not apply to philosophy without invoking the supernatural. The aforementioned “meaning” seems to me to be as big a pile of woo as the dualistic soul, and we’ll be just as well rid of the distraction.
The question I raise is what gives authority to any meaning? Why is any one person’s meaning more valid than anyone else’, if none can spring from an externally verifiable source? Short of infinite experimental power, we will always have unknowns. Can we ever expect empiric answers for the best, or only response to unknowns?
That is certainly the correct question. A fair amount of time and energy is put into either determining what we value, or trying to get others to share our values. Like any other technology (ethics is a technology), we use the most effective means we have available to accomplish the aims we have.
It confuses a lot of people because many of us are conditioned to think about it in terms of a single original cause. I don’t see any evidence for it in biology, and have no reason to expect it in morality. Like biology, morality is complex as hell, and there are an astonishing array of workable strategies.
How are we to live? It’s an important and difficult enough question to need everybody working on it. What is particularly grating is when someone is fighting against this by injecting a bunch of poorly reasoned and destructive bullshit that a lot of people have managed to get past. I have a hard enough time keeping things straight without someone howling insanity about how many Jesi can dance on the head of a cross or whatever.
I can only say that in my mind the opposite of science is not religion, it is dogma. Neither science, nor religion can rely on certainty. I also don’t believe that science can answer all of the questions about how we should conduct our lives.
Reminds me of the apologetic drivel inherent with such masterpieces as “When God Doesn’t Make Sense” by James Dobson.
Anything to square the circle of unfalsifiable yearning.
Thanks for locating and providing Crawshay-Williams’s definition of the ‘common’ usage of the term free will, Krzyztof1.
‘… the common usage of “free-will”: … our choices … are rather the result of our own reasoning, and our “inborn and acquired impulses and preferences.” ‘
I think Craw-Will is right on the money with this definition. Personally, free will instantly registers in my internal dialogue as personal moment-by-moment volition, but never yet in 61 years as a faculty made available by a supernatural agent for constant evaluation purposes.
Neuroscience imaging information may provide currently absent rationality to jurisprudence sentencing guidelines of benefit to society and the advance of civilization.
I suspect proponents also see it as a potential tool for changing attitudes toward the existence of supernatural agency. If so, best wishes.
Evolution evidence, DNA, and the Human Genome Project (archeological results, geology, cosmology, physics, etc. also) to date have limited efficacy in undermining belief in 2-person creation myth, ensoulmment, the fall/original sin, sacrifice/atonement/resurrection/eternal life; they need all the help they can get. It seems to me that creating a different label than the confusing term Free Will would be a good move by the neuroscience community at this point.
“After pondering all this, I wonder exactly what in our world would be inconsistent with the Christian God. What couldn‘t they explain away as consistent with his loving and omnipotent nature”
Nothing. God is not falsifiable. However, I don’t see how apologetics is dishonorable. I find it strange and unfruitful but I’m certain many people would think the same of my interests. I would be amazed if a single human being decided to believe in a god and worship him because of arguments promulgated by the apologetics community.
You seem to think of apologetics as nothing more than a Star Wars book club. If that’s all it was I don’t think anyone would care. But the rationalizations of apologetics are used every day to keep seats in pews and minds entrapped. And the toxin pours out into our schools and government policy. It matters that people think this way.
You might be amazed that people decide to believe in god/gods because of apologetics but that is what happens. Wanting to believe and then given a excuse why it’s okay grabs converts and keeps them chained to religion. I find apologetics dishonorable because it is nothing but lies; lies that only willful ignorance allows to exist.
-Does the author mean “not killed in the camps”?
Yes, a typo, and I’ve fixed it. Thanks!
“And I wonder if, when they construct these ludicrous apologetics, people like Collins and Giberson don’t feel at least a smidgen of shame. How dishonorable to spend one’s life this way!”
__
If they somehow woke up from their religious stupor, then they would feel immensely ashamed they said all the crap that they have. Until then (don’t hold your breath), it is business as usual for these guys: pray for guidance, imagine that you are given such guidance, enact such guidance by saying the most egregious crapola ever, rinse and repeat. Instead of shame, they feel good–they are doing the work of the creature in which they believe.
A few years ago my book discussion group read Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel The Road. For those who haven’t read it, the writer sets out the absolute bleakest situation that can possibly be imagined: something has happened which has blocked out the sunlight so that nothing at all can grow and several generations later all that is left of humanity are roving bands of cannibals and a few straggling survivors who are trying to eke out a few more miserable days before they are either caught or die of starvation. It is the end of all civilization; it is the end of all humanity; it is virtually the end of all vegetation and life. The only thing left of value is the will to survive coupled with the belief that life and love — as minimal as they are — still matter because they only matter for their own sake.
I’m a secular humanist. I saw a humanist theme here. But a Catholic friend insisted that no, this was a vindication of God’s existence. Every time the man and his son looked like they were doomed … something happened which allowed them to live a bit longer. Even though this obviously wasn’t going to last, it was clear that there was a Force for Good running behind the events of the world, saving the main characters throughout the story. It was a vindication of faith in God.
W.T.F.
The Road as an example of God’s divine presence still caring for the fate of humanity? Really? No trees, no animals, no beauty or hope. 99.99% of everyone has died in agony or committed suicide … the last .001% has a similar fate in the next year or so … and yet we can see God’s presence in the miraculous fact that somebody found a cabinet with some unopened canned goods still in it?? And sure, why not argue that the fact that the human cannibals were still alive — and thus always must have found another victim just when things looked bleakest — is evidence for a Force for Evil running behind the events of the world?
Frankly, I can’t imagine a more childish, narrow-focused, dogmatic, and depressing example of an apologist always spinning events into being “consistent with God” than someone searching The Road for signs that God still cares.
No, that is not optimism in the face of disaster. A humanist interpretation is optimistic. That is just intellectual dishonesty on a mind-boggling scale. And I bet that Giberson and Collins would say nope, even if The Road was reality it would only strengthen their faith in God’s love for humanity.
Did you find any redeeming value in that book? I could not stand it, not even the writing.
The thing I’m struck with is how crushingly BORING their arguments are.
How trite. How insipid. How completely and totally unoriginal.
There’s not one word they’ve written that wasn’t covered thousands of years ago.
Seriously, is this the best they can do? Rehash Aquinas?
“Fine-tuning” is evidence commensurate with the existence of a multiverse. If and when science has revealed that there is indeed a multiverse G&C won’t flinch though their fine-tuning evidence only holds water in case there is one and only one universe. They will accommodate any and many physical worlds, any amount of abomination and suffering. They are beyond all reason when it comes to God. They need to believe so they do believe – whatever the world or worlds may be like.
§
“…disrupting his consistent sustaining of all the matter and energy in the universe”
What, have Giberson and Collins never taken a freshman course in Newtonian physics? Energy and matter do not need to be sustained. Energy cannot be “used up”, only transferred from one object to another. I’m always amazed when I read arguments like this; they show that the person making the argument is either dishonest or breathtakingly ignorant.
The irony is amazing.
Christians will complain that if atheism is true, anything goes: anything can be morally justified on atheism…rape, murder, genocide…
Meanwhile their Theology, Theodicies and Apologetics amount to the moral justification for EVERY act of evil and suffering that has ever occurred on the face of the earth, all that will occur, and pretty much any evil someone can dream up to act out.
Take a hammer to a baby’s head: yes the action may not be morally prescribed but on theism the baby’s suffering is morally justified.
It’s morally justified because a Good God who could have stopped the suffering from happening did not stop it, and thus it must be morally justified that the evil occurred.
Yup. Things sure shake out better in the Christian worldview.
Even IF..and I don’t believe this…secular morality had only our subjective basis, it’s still the case that many of us agree on a morality that does not seek to justify all the horrors committed by mankind and nature…all that is on the theist’s side of the ledger of “suffering that must remain justified.”
Sometimes I dunno how they sleep at night.
Vaal
Christians worship a god who trotted around the Middle East desert as a man.
Which means that they worship a god who belched, farted and squatted over a hole to shit.
I’d rather my god not have an anus.
So I’m sticking with the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Dishonorable yes, but I can only see it as a form of ignorance so well refined that it appears intelligible (sort of). It may be that I am learning and becoming more sophisticated (thanks WIET)because I immediately find these arguments so preposterous that I am embarrassed for the authors. It’s bizarre. I believe, they believe the stuff they’re making up, and they are making it up.
If that’s the case, then this universe seems to be particularly poorly constructed, especially if ascribed to an all-knowing, omnipotent and benevolent supreme creator. On one hand, we are told that the moral order is the ultimate value. On the other, constant indescribable suffering of billions of living creatures appears to be unavoidable. Is this really the best the creator can do?
Something that would be inconsistent with the existence of god?
Easy.
Rabbits in the pre-Cambrian.
Or have I misunderstood?
And what about eternity? What happens when we are in heaven? All of a sudden everything is fine! No natural disasters or decease! No crime! And no free will anymore? Why is it that in heaven everything is fine?
an any of you christians tell me how?
Peter van der Feen
the Netherlands
Right. In which case it becomes simpler, and thus consistent with science, if we remove the unnecessary magical-yet-no-longer-working-magic agencies from the picture.