It has to do with what God's purpose is. Love, creating beings he loves and who are capable of internalizing through experience love of him and of the good, that is his purpose. It's teleological. If you're asking what difference it makes practically in the world that this is his purpose, as opposed to quantum fluctuations being the cause of the world, that's not the question. Theodicies only attempt to reconcile the way the world actually is with an omni-God.The Pixie wrote: You have not answered my questions at all here. I still do not understand what it means in a practical sense to say that love is your overarching meta-principle. Frankly, I am now wondering if you do.
Except that quantum fluctuations are not teleological by nature. They don't allow for anything as far as purpose.By a remarkable coincidence, my universe-creating quantum fluctuation does just that too. If it comes to that, so does the chair I am sat. My chair allows for people to love, and it also allows for suffering. Can I therefore claim that my chair has love as its overarching meta-principle?
My cat might be tortured by a sadistic neighbor who causes him the same exact amount of suffering as I do attempting to make him well. If he dies under each scenario with the same exact amount of suffering, what does my love for him mean in a practical sense? If we just look at outcomes, nothing. Looking just at outcomes is inadequate for moral evaluation.
Tell me what you don't follow, and I'll try again.Again, I am left wondering if you know what you mean by God having love as his overarching meta-principle.
You're not allowing for the possibility of equivocation.As far as I can tell, you have only given reasons for something that looks similar to a casual glance. What I have presented here is necessarily true by the law of the exclude middle. You have argued against something that is not that.
1.Causing my cat to suffer is for his greater good.
2.Causing my cat to suffer is not for his greater good.
Is this a violation of the law of excluded middle?
Causing my cat to suffer for R1 reasons does not logically contradict causing my cat to suffer for R2 reasons.
To understand proposition A, we have to know all that A means and all that A entails.
Socrates may be both mortal and not mortal, depending on how 'mortal' is defined. This does not violate the law of excluded middle but shows that the way it's applied depends on our knowledge base.
No, the argument isn't that eliminating all bad things would overall be a net increase in evil. It's that eliminating all bad things is logically impossible. Promoting the greatest good carries the necessary cost of some evils, ie suffering. Maximizing good cannot entail eliminating the possibility of suffering.Okay, so I will rephrase it somewhat.
For each a, there is an E(a), how evil it is, which is simply its negative impact on the greater good. Your argument would seem to be that the sum of E(a) is actually less than zero, i.e., eliminating all bad things would overall be a nett increase in evil. Let us suppose that is true. All God need to is eliminate each individual a, where E(a) > 0.
My point was that God's inability to draw the line other than valuationally does not argue against his omnisicience. If God has to respect an intact, integral world, that would be the default state. It wouldn't make sense then to ask why the default state holds. We can ask why there is a deviation from that state, but as I've said, it's logically possible that God has constraints on his actions that humans do not have. To ask for more details than that would be like asking for a detailed explanation of how I act.I think the above addresses this. I appreciate God may not know, but is that a moral excuse? Can I say that I did not know all the implications to saving a drowning man - afterall, he might go on to steal some bread - and so not lift a finger to rescue him?
If I am under different kinds of constraints than God, then of course I can and should save the drowning child and would be culpable for not doing so. Mankind eradicating smallpox was for the greater good as far as human actions. Mankind is not responsible for creating and maintaining an intact, integral world, among many other differences.
Yes, I think it's possible. It's also possible that God could have reasons that no human mind can grasp just as I can have reasons for acting that no dog can grasp. But to say that some explanation cannot be filled in in detail doesn't mean it can't be understood in principle. My actions can't be understood in detail but can be understood in principle.Do you think it possible he eliminates some evils? If so, you have the same problem you are trying to give me. Where does God draw the line?
So you are arguing against an omni-God because there is any evil at all that humans can eliminate? That there is a world like this one at all? You're arguing for a counterfactual world that may not be logically coherent.Yes, it very much would.And how do we know he doesn't? If God had prevented the emergence of smallpox, that would not have weighed at all for you against your argument because you could point to evil 2.....to evil n, etc. Any evil at all which is present and knowable and which humans can improve or eliminate would carry the same weight in principle.