If God wants to destroy evil...

[Zarathustra]

God created everything that has been, is, and is going to be in existence. He created the Earth and the Heavens. He created the Lake of Fire in which he casts sinners. He created Good, and He created evil. Does not the old adage says "I have created you, and so can I destroy you"?

If God wanted to, couldn't He, in theory, destroy evil with no need for the battle of the apocalypse?

[harvey1]

That is my opinion. I'm learning just as you though

It's an interesting and thought provoking argument. There's a philosopher whom I mentioned recently, Alvin Plantinga, who has made a free will argument as a reason for the problem of evil. So, you're idea is in good company.

If you don't mind, can you rate my post (1..10) for friendliness and open-mindedness? I just would like to see how a Newbie perceives my response.

[otseng]

To harvey1 and spetey,

Gentlemen, gentlemen. You two are among the heavy debaters here and in a realm of your own when you two are debating on philosophical issues. I would have to ask though that you please tone down the rhetoric on commenting on each other. I can realize it is a blurry line distinguishing between a person and the ideas held by a person. But, it is safest to try to avoid to make any comments about another person, even if you perceive it to be true.

As you both well know, the debates here are for attacking and defending ideas, rather than attacking any individuals or any group of people. And you both have done this very well in other threads. But, it is easy to fall prey to start commenting on a person. I personally have a fear of this myself and know that I am not immune to incivility.

By reading some of the posts, I can understand how each side can get offended by some of the words said. And may I suggest that each side simply apologize for words that might have caused injury and then you both go out for a drink afterwards.

If further moderator intervention is necessary, please feel free to PM me or any of the moderators and hopefully we can bring peace into the situation.

[harvey1]

Thanks, Osteng. I knew this was coming...

Anyway, I apologize if I said anything to Spetey that could be taken as an offense. Okay, I'll do better than Senator Dirk Durbin... I did say some things which I know were wrong, and I apologize to Spetey for them.

[angelic_spirit]

As far as to me you have been quite nice and have welcomed me well.

It has made me at ease about posting my thoughts on things.

I am a moderator on the site Truthbook.com so i try to be an example as well.

But we all have emotions, and when you are speaking of things so close to ones heart and mind it's not uncommon for emotions to get the best of us.
But we always have the choice to apologize and do better.

I must say though that i'm not a 'debater". I'm just not good at it. I don't feel the need to defend my beliefs, because they are mine.
And i'm accepting of others as their own.
I consider myself a "sharer" of my opinion.

So if i was to ever feel attacked by sharing my thought i would simply quit sharing and move on somewhere else.

But so far i feel you have welcomed me well, and i give you a 10 as far as in response to my posts.

Blessings

Angelic

[harvey1]

But so far i feel you have welcomed me well, and i give you a 10 as far as in response to my posts.

That's a great score. Thanks!

[spetey]

Hi folks!

otseng, thanks for the intervention. Harvey, I have not always treated you kindly or patiently, and I have not always struggled to make you comfortable debating here. I apologize. I shouldn't let my frustration get to me. I was in the process of writing another angry post in response to this post, which I found provocative and which made me very mad. I wasn't sure I was going to post my drafted response, but I needed to vent. But now I've seen otseng's post, and like Harvey, I feel ashamed for wanting to respond to anger with more anger. I am now toning my post down and removing the personal digs.

So. <deep breath> Let's return to discussing the ideas,shall we?

First, let's remind ourselves what exactly the claims were on the table that I was asking him to defend. This is from a recent post:

Please, for at least the fifth time now: either admit you are mistaken to claim that "physical possibility supervenes on logical possibility", or give your reasons for this claim and respond to my reasons against it. And for at least the ninth time now: either admit you are mistaken to claim that "physical possibility supervenes on logical possibility but the notions are distinct", or give your reasons for this claim and your responses to my reason against it (including the proof, which stands as a reason whether or not you happen to understand the technical language you insisted on speaking).

Now, that wording is strong (those pesky emotions were starting to run high), but the point is that Harvey has made two separate claims:

1. Physical possibility supervenes on logical possibility, but they are distinct notions.
2. The physical supervenes on the logical.

(These are very different claims, and important to separate.)

Harvey claims support for (one of?) these by quoting a philosopher.

In any case, here's a respected philosopher making the same claim as I:

]It might be suggested, as an alternative, that a physically possible branch or state of affairs is definable as whatever is permitted by the laws of nature. This alternative is not available, however, since in Ch.3 below the laws of nature emerge as themselves supervenient upon the structure of (physically possible) branches. As 'physical possibility' and 'law of nature' are interpreted here, both supervene upon the branched structure. (Storrs McCall, A Model of the Universe: Space-Time, Probability, and Decision, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1996, p. 8n)

Notice here that McCall claims that laws of nature supervene on a branch structure of what is physically possible. This is eminently plausible as a claim--essentially, he claims there is no change in physical laws without a change in what is physically possible (as formalized in a branch structure). Makes a certain amount of sense, right? (Notice though that McCall isn't committed to it here--he just says it "might be suggested".) Notice, most importantly, that this does not seem relevant for establishing either of Harvey's claims above. Again, because A supervenes on B does not mean that C supervenes on D. This passage toys with the plausible claim that natural laws supervene on physical possibility. That does not have anything obvious to do with whether (for example) physical possibility supervenes on logical possibility.

And, what is this branched structure that physical possibility supervenes upon?:

It should be emphasized that the universe tree contains no branches which are logically possible without being physically possible... On a branch which is merely logically possible, anything can happen which does not involve a contradiction. The notion of physical possibility is much stricter, however, and embraces only a tiny fraction of the logically possible branches. (ibid, p.7-8 )

Note several things about this passage:

• McCall does not say anything about supervenience here. Harvey owes us an explanation of how it does support any supervenience claim.
• The elided context is mysterious. As the quotation stands, the author is committed to a straightforward contradiction. First he says there are no branches that are logically possible without being physically possible. In logical terms, ~Ex(Lx & ~ Px) ("there does not exist a branch that is logically possible and not physically possible"). Now, as this claim stands, it just would mean that the logically possible and the physically possible are coextensive--that is, non-distinct notions. (The claim is logically equivalent to "all logical possibilities are physical possibilities", and the converse obviously holds, so they are coextensive.) So at any rate this point only contradicts Harvey's claim that the one notion supervenes on the other and they are distinct. This part of the passage, then, seems to be a reason against Harvey's first claim above.
• Later in this quotation the author says that physical possibility is "much stricter" than logical possibility, and that what's physically possible is a proper subset (a "tiny fraction") of the logical possibilities. In other words, there are logical possibilities that aren't physical physical possibilities. In other words, Ex(Lx & ~Px) (that is, "there is something logically possible and not physically possible"). This straightforwardly contradictis the immediately earlier claim (note the formalizations only differ by the not-sign!). Since this author seems to know philosophy, and wouldn't be caught in such an obvious contradiction, I can only guess that some important context is missing. For example, I wonder what is in the '...' Harvey skips, and in the context on either side of the passage. My guess is that the author is playing devil's advocate with the first claim. (I don't know, since I can't get my hands on a copy myself, at the moment.) But we are left thinking that either the author made a horribly embarrassing mistake in the opening pages of his book, or there's something important about this quotation we don't know.
• Even if this somehow showed that physical possibility supervenes on logical possibility but are distinct notions (though, as I've argued, it doesn't), it would not do anything to help Harvey's other claim, that the physical simply supervenes on the logical. It is that claim that seems to entail real absurdities: for example, that you can deduce what I had for lunch from the armchair, using pure logic and no empirical information. To his credit, Harvey has attempted to provide support for his first claim. But he has not yet touched the second.

Now. Let's also remind ourselves of the main issue at hand, which is in perfectly accessible English and doesn't need talk of supervenience claims and the like.


spetey

[QED]

Notice though, if there isn't a sufficient cause for evil even in an atheists conception, then the problem of evil is an unsolvable problem for both theist and atheist. Therefore, until it is solved there's no reason to believe that atheism has an edge in its solution.

OK, I don't know if everyone else is nodding with agreement here -- but I'm still scratching my head on this one. To clarify do you mean that because we can never say we fully know the reasons for some event, that we may be missing a good reason why god has permitted some evil or other?

[spetey]

Oops, I wanted to add: in my haste (and anger!), I see I misread this first quotation.

It might be suggested, as an alternative, that a physically possible branch or state of affairs is definable as whatever is permitted by the laws of nature. This alternative is not available, however, since in Ch.3 below the laws of nature emerge as themselves supervenient upon the structure of (physically possible) branches. As 'physical possibility' and 'law of nature' are interpreted here, both supervene upon the branched structure. (Storrs McCall, A Model of the Universe: Space-Time, Probability, and Decision, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1996, p. 8n)

As I say, my first reading of this passage was wrong, and I apologize. Clearly McCall claims that both physical possibility and the laws of nature supervene on the "branched structure". I would have to hear more about the "branched structure" to know what this has to do with logical possibility. I'll try to find out more about McCall's position.


spetey

[Curious]

I merely pointed out that the reasoning you gave did not prove that God is not these things.

It is not a deductive proof. There are three claims that are (logically) inconsistent:

1. There is an all-good, all-powerful God.
2. If there is an all-good, all-powerful God, then all evil present is absolutely necessary.
3. There is unnecessary evil (indeed, in abundance, as the tsunami demonstrates).

You have to throw one of these out on pain of contradiction. Of course I think it's most reasonable to throw out (1). Most theodicists (defenders of God in the face of evil) want to throw out (3). But they owe us some reason for thinking that evils like the tsunami were necessary--that the tsunami was really (net) good. On the face of it this is a remarkable claim. Usually the defense for throwing out (3) ends up sounding just like Hitler Freak's defense: in essence, theodicists throw out (3) only because they can't bear giving up (1). But this begs the question against the atheist.

If a ball is all white does this mean that nothing else can be white or that a block cannot be black or white? If the block is a subset of ball then the block must be all white also but if not then it might be any colour. A white block could be white by divergence or black through design or necessity.
Perhaps if God was all-good, containing the subset principles of motivation,impetus and outcome, where method is an external set, how does the method reflect upon the characteristics of God? The conclusion that for evil to exist, there can be no-all powerful, all-good God, cannot be accepted unless it can be shown that method is a sub-set of God. To be all-powerful would not require method but only motivation and impetus leading to the desired outcome.

I'm no longer clear on your position. Perhaps you could clarify. Do you believe there is an all-good, all-powerful being?

On this point I could be regarded as agnostic. In my experience, God seems beneficent in the extreme although I have not been without my own personal tragedy. As for omnipotence, I'd need to know a lot more than I do at present and be a hell of a lot smarter to even attempt to answer that one with any conviction.

course I think the Hitler Freak defense is ridiculous, but my point wasn't ridiculous, I think--my point was that it's hard to tell why that defense is bad but the claim "God is good, God surely had reasons for the horrors of the tsunami" is a good one, given that structurally they look like identical arguments.

Are you suggesting that evil in the world is the result of Satan? This of course makes us ask: is God powerful enough to stop Satan? If so, why doesn't God? If not, then how is God all-powerful? In other words, positing a Satan doesn't solve the Problem of Evil--it just restates it.

I did not mean that your point was ridiculous only that the argument was ridiculous. I think here though that the tsunami is being thought of as evil. The tsunami was a natural phenomenon and cannot be imbued with the characteristic of intent. The tsunami itself cannot seriously be considered to have been motivated by the desire to destroy. If you could show that the tsunami was created by something with the specific intention of killing thousands then you might have a case for calling the intent evil, but the tsunami itself cannot be considered evil by nature, although it is by nature destructive.
I am not suggesting that Satan is responsible for the evil in the world. I think that people are quite capable of immense evil without any additional help.

[Curious]

To all,

Spetey claimed that I was being absurd and foolish for making the claim that physical possibility supervenes on logical possibility. I'd like to show that Spetey doesn't know as much as he claims about such matters:

harvey1, please chill out before you give yourself a coronary. I had hoped we had got past this point but since you bring up supervenience again I would like to make my own point.
In a previous discussion between ourselves you put forward the argument that logic and mind were necessarily antecedent to the physical creation of the universe. I, on the other hand, put forward the argument that both logic and physical fact are inter-dependent. My position was that the physical fact determines the logical fact which in turn determines other physical fact. How is this position incorrect when stated by myself but correct when stated by you?