God's Priorities

Originally posted by vistesd
Yes, I see that.

On page 1 of the GAFE II thread, LH wrote:

“Let's take a concrete example. In his defence of Premise 2, bbarr raises the example of a Nazi killing an infant. There are at least two [classes of] alternate states of affairs that could have attained instead:

A1. The Nazi freely chooses not to kill the infant.
A2. God causes some sup that neither seems powerful enough to prevent. I trust that God is doing the best [s]he can.”

I'm not sure that it is impossible for God to bring it about that the Nazi freely chooses not to kill the infant. If the choice is truly free, as LH understands the term, then it seems that prior to creation God had the choice of actualizing a world wherein the Nazi freely chooses to kill the baby or some other world that is identical to the first right up until the Nazi freely chooses to not kill the baby. There is only a potential conflict here if one assumes that the only way for God to bring about the free choice not to kill is to directly intervene in the Nazi's deliberations (or something to that effect). But even if we grant this assumption, it doesn't follow that God cannot cause it to obtain that the Nazi freely chooses not to kill the baby. After all, I cause people to freely choose to do things all the time by convincing them to do things. It simply can't be the case that being convinced by another that some action ought to be done constitutes a violation of one's free will. So, it is perfectly consistent with one's will being free that one is caused to will in a particular way by virtue of being presented with reasons. So, it is perfectly possible that God could convince the Nazi to freely choose not to kill the baby (though perhaps LH would say that persuading the Nazi would qualify as an instance of A2).

Originally posted by lucifershammer
I can't "show" that A2 necessarily represents a scenario where God's intervention leads to greater evil - that requires near-omniscience. Yes, your question still stands - but that's a question no human can ever answer.

[b]what exactly does “maximally potent” mean?

I suspect this is one of those terms that can only be understood [i]via negat ther, it's more like greenhouse gas emissions in Texas contributing to global warming.[/b]

[/i]I can't "show" that A2 necessarily represents a scenario where God's intervention leads to greater evil - that requires near-omniscience. Yes, your question still stands - but that's a question no human can ever answer.

Well, it strikes me that—here, and also with your via negativa comment—we’re to a place similar to our disagreements about what is and is not effable, and to what extent. My question about such questions that “no human can ever answer” is, To what extent do our speculations about the nature of the divine raise more questions than we can answer?

It is if one views natural evil as a consequence of moral evil. I'm not positing the Pat Robertson view that Katrina was the consequence of New Orleans citizens' sinfulness or such. Rather, it's more like greenhouse gas emissions in Texas contributing to global warming.

Well, I suspect there are cases of natural evil that do not fit the greenhouse-gases/global-warming scenario. Earthquakes and tsunamis caused by shifting tectonic plates, for example. Forest fires caused by lightning. (We can’t also assume the knowledge of modern humans about, say, building your cities on fault lines.) This also goes to your comment about there being no evils that both God and humanity cannot prevent.

Therefore, as a general principle, I think this argument has to be stated in terms of either (1) “fallen nature” as a result of the “sin” of the original humans, or (2) a God who created a flawed cosmos (or, going back to the GAFE, just the best of all possible worlds that God could, in fact, create). Now, you know that—neither from the general perspective of Judaism, nor from my own monistic view—do I read the Genesis account in a manner that supports the “fallen world” scenario. Since I have no evidence that nature is fallen, I have no evidence that all “natural evil” is a consequence of moral evil. I don’t have any “answers” for the “problem” of natural evil—but I don’t posit the kind of God that raises the “problem” to being with.

Originally posted by bbarr
I'm not sure that it is impossible for God to bring it about that the Nazi freely chooses not to kill the infant. If the choice is truly free, as LH understands the term, then it seems that prior to creation God had the choice of actualizing a world wherein the Nazi freely chooses to kill the baby or some other world that is identical to the first right up unt ...[text shortened]... (though perhaps LH would say that persuading the Nazi would qualify as an instance of A2).

I'm not sure that it is impossible for God to bring it about that the Nazi freely chooses not to kill the infant.

Well, that’s another interesting spin that I hadn’t thought of. But, if God’s persuasive powers are such as to be 100% effective, then (1) what differentiates them from being, de facto, coercive; and (2) why would God not exercise such powers in all cases (back to the GAFE)? If God’s persuasive powers are not of that nature, then a Christian, for example, can argue that the gospels are intended to “freely” persuade us not to commit such crimes...

I want to try another scenario, in which there is no question of omnipotence or omniscience—

(1) Moral evil arises due to a flaw in the creation. The view of Lurianic Kabbalah—without going into too much detail—is that a mistake occurred in the process (the shevirah, the shattering of the vessels). Had this mistake not occurred, humanity could have lived a perfect moral existence. (Most Kabbalists may also apply all of this to “natural evil” as well; I don’t—except, as lucifershammer pointed out, in those cases where moral evil may contribute to ultimate natural evil. I simply take such things as earthquakes as a brute fact; what we can do to ameliorate suffering from natural occurrences, we can do.)

(2) The moral responsibility of human beings is to facilitate tikkun, repair, by “freeing the sparks” of holiness that are trapped in the “shards” of our existence—shards such as hatred, xenophobia, greed, etc. We set free the sparks primarily by performing acts of justice, kindness and compassion, and promoting joy—by acts that generate shalom: peace, wholeness, well-being and harmony (shalom means all those at once). In the model, one can also raise sparks by contemplation, meditation, singing, dancing and other spiritual activities as well—that is, there is a spiritual dimension to tikkun. Making love, the relationship of lover and beloved also takes on a spiritual quality. If it all becomes a kind of orthopractic legalism, tikkun is inhibited, not enhanced (a message of both Jesus and the Baal Shem Tov, and Hafiz and Chuang Tzu).

(3) God cannot accomplish tikkun because the sparks, being splinters of the original or ein sof, light of the “without-end” (the ultimate divine ground), represent the presence of God ha Shekhinah “in exile” in the world. By performing acts of tikkun, we reunite these sparks with their source—mythically, the Shekhinah with the Blessed Holy One (in a conjugal metaphor). We are, in fact, healing God. But the urge of the One-That-Is (YHVH) is toward shalom, so we are participating in a natural process (e.g., living in accord with the Tao).

Now, all of this ought to be understood mythologically, allegorically, metaphorically. It is a story. It is an attempt to draw a moral myth out of a monistic base (God as the ein sof from which the cosmos emanates—and remember, Kabbalah is essentially the Jewish stream(s) of the perennial philosophy).

What I like about this particular spin is that it turns (and is intended to turn) moral responsibility into an enterprise of eudaimonia (especially in the Hasidic tradition), rather than a self-depriving duty (which is how I learned it as part of the protestant ethic). It is not about “self-sacrifice” (in the contemporary, derogative sense of the term), but self-expansion. As you free sparks in the world, you also free them in yourself—it is supposed to be a joyful, self-enhancing enterprise.

I left a lot out here, so perhaps it’s confusing. God is clearly not omnipotent or omniscient in any sense in this model. Our job is to engage in the process of tikkun by living and sharing lives of justness (tzedekah) and shalom and joy (simchah). To the best of our ability; perfection is not expected: “You are not required to complete the task, but neither are you permitted to withdraw from it.” To me, it seems a quite decent way to live.

A quote by Rebbe Nachman:

“If you believe that you can damage, then believe that you can fix. If you believe that you can harm, then believe that you can heal.”

Originally posted by Nordlys
My point was not that a righteous man should never pray for petty personal favours, but I would expect him to pray for some important and big things as well. And I would expect that God listens to those prayers at least as much as to the personal ones.

So god hears a prayer made several times a day for weeks on end,
which goes, 'Please lord, make little melinda whole again, save her
from the life of a leper'
Said by an extremely powerful rightous man.
So god doesn't answer, just when thinking about it, goes.
Hey screw you, I WANT melinda to be a leper, so you can forget
me answering your pathetic requests.

Originally posted by vistesd
Moral evil arises due to a flaw in the creation.

If we have good reason to hold god at least partly responsible for evil by creating beings who he knew would (freely) choose to commit evil acts, then don't we need a better reason to let him off the hook than "You can't understand god's plan"? Why should we abandon reason rather than say this counts as good evidence against the existence of an omniscient, benevolent god?

(Take you pick whether you think it counts against his existence, his omniscience or his benevolence.)

Originally posted by dottewell
If we have good reason to hold god at least partly responsible for evil by creating beings who he knew would (freely) choose to commit evil acts, then don't we need a better reason to let him off the hook than "You can't understand god's plan"? Why should we abandon reason rather than say this counts as good evidence against the existence of an omniscient, ...[text shortened]... ick whether you think it counts against his existence, his omniscience or his benevolence.)

If we have good reason to hold god at least partly responsible for evil by creating beings who he knew would (freely) choose to commit evil acts, then don't we need a better reason to let him off the hook than "You can't understand god's plan"?

I would think so.

Why should we abandon reason rather than say this counts as good evidence against the existence of an omniscient, benevolent god?

The whole thrust of the “General Argument From Evil” is that the God generally described as an entity that is omnipotent, omniscient and omni-benevolent cannot exist without contradiction. (See http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthread.php?threadid=21886, for bbarr’s original presentation.)

(Take you pick whether you think it counts against his existence, his omniscience or his benevolence.)

Thank you! 😉 But, as per a few posts back, I don’t posit such a God to begin with (what I call the God of “supernatural theism,” following Marcus Borg; I don’t know if that phrase is original with him or not). When I use the word “God” for myself (as opposed to addressing the God of supernatural, or “extra-natural” theism) you can think Tao or Brahman or Ein Sof—different variations on the same monistic theme. Some may object to my using the “G-word” at all, but it is still a word used in those traditions.

Now, with regard to my woefully inadequate allusion to Lurianic Kabbalah,* two points:

(1) It does not generally refer to the God of supernatural theism, but the ein sof.

(2) If it did refer to the God of supernatural theism, that God would not be omnipotent or omniscient, in that the “shattering of the vessels” (shevirah ha’kellim) was an unforeseen catastrophe—God’s error, if you will.

As I said, it’s story, myth, metaphor—part of the human endeavor to create meaning that I think we have been engaged in since the first storytellers sat around the fire and said things like: “Now the earth was without form and void....” I presented it simply as an alternative to the mythology of the triple-omni God. No one criticizes Tolkein’s mythology because it carries moral themes about good and evil; nor do I know anyone who thinks it must be history or divine revelation. (Nor do I think anyone ought to criticize art for not being science or formal logic; story-telling, mythology, is art.) Some people prefer the clarity and simplicity of Zen, some prefer Lao Tzu or the Upanishads. I enjoy the richness of the Judaic stream of the “perennial philosophy.”

* Perhaps I should apologize for any confusion on that score; some day when I have time, I may pull my resources together and try to present a more thorough exposition—just for the fun of it.

Originally posted by vistesd
As I said, it’s story, myth, metaphor—part of the human endeavor to create meaning that I think we have been engaged in since the first storytellers sat around the fire and said things like: “Now the earth was without form and void....”

Borges said that metaphysics formed part of the literature of fantasy.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
Borges said that metaphysics formed part of the literature of fantasy.

Well, that seems clear with regard to creation myths, certainly. Did Borges mean all metaphysics entails fantasy, or only that “the literature of fantasy” invariably has metaphysical themes?

Originally posted by vistesd
Well, that seems clear with regard to creation myths, certainly. Did Borges mean all metaphysics entails fantasy, or only that “the literature of fantasy” invariably has metaphysical themes?

It's open to interpretation. Since literature is as much a matter of reading as of writing, perhaps any meaningful metaphysics has to be creatively interpreted by the reader, each interpretation being duly filed without comment in the Library of Babel.

Originally posted by vistesd
[b]If we have good reason to hold god at least partly responsible for evil by creating beings who he knew would (freely) choose to commit evil acts, then don't we need a better reason to let him off the hook than "You can't understand god's plan"?

I would think so.

Why should we abandon reason rather than say this counts as good evidence against ...[text shortened]... my resources together and try to present a more thorough exposition—just for the fun of it.

[/b]For clarity, my post was not aimed at contradicting you. It was just adding my thoughts to what you had said. It was actually aimed at others.

Originally posted by bbarr
I'm not sure that it is impossible for God to bring it about that the Nazi freely chooses not to kill the infant. If the choice is truly free, as LH understands the term, then it seems that prior to creation God had the choice of actualizing a world wherein the Nazi freely chooses to kill the baby or some other world that is identical to the first right up unt ...[text shortened]... (though perhaps LH would say that persuading the Nazi would qualify as an instance of A2).

I'd say that persuading the Nazi would fall into one of the two cases below:

(1) God persuades the Nazi before the point of choice.

In this case, the sequence of events leading up to the choice is not identical.

(2) God "persuades" the Nazi at the point of choice.

I don't see how this can be accomplished without an instance of A2.

Originally posted by vistesd
Well, I suspect there are cases of natural evil that do not fit the greenhouse-gases/global-warming scenario. Earthquakes and tsunamis caused by shifting tectonic plates, for example. Forest fires caused by lightning. (We can’t also assume the knowledge of modern humans about, say, building your cities on fault lines.) This also goes to your comment abou ...[text shortened]... blem” of natural evil—but I don’t posit the kind of God that raises the “problem” to being with.

I personally read Genesis in a way that supports the "fallen world" scenario, but it is by no means a teaching of the Church (the Church has simply never addressed the issue).

My take is that all instances of natural evil are consequences of moral evil - we just don't know how they are connected.

Originally posted by dottewell
For clarity, my post was not aimed at contradicting you. It was just adding my thoughts to what you had said. It was actually aimed at others.[/b]

Gotcha. 🙂 Thanks.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
I personally read Genesis in a way that supports the "fallen world" scenario, but it is by no means a teaching of the Church (the Church has simply never addressed the issue).

My take is that all instances of natural evil are consequences of moral evil - we just don't know how they are connected.

This, from Romans:
"I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.
The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.
For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.
Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies."

Just throwing in my ray of sunshine.