Calvin on the Sensus Divinitatis

[Immanuel Can]

You did not respond to my elaborations on my argument that God's foreknowledge + creation entails at least *some* degree of creatorial responsibility for everything, including the free will decisions of His creatures, given that He foreknew them in advance, with the possibility of altering them based on tinkering with the parameters and interventions of His Creation, yet chose to create anyway.

I am very interested to know whether you *finally* accept this argument.

No, I don't think it does, because I think "freedom" can be a genuine, non-illusory property. By "non-illusory," I mean, "not a delusion that conceals the deep fact of cosmic determinism." Once the genuineness of "freedom" is granted, then only the "free" agent himself/herself is morally responsible for what he/she choses.

And again, "foreknowledge" is generally conceded by theologians to be a different position from "predestination" or cosmic determinism. To know what a person is going to do beforehand does not take us even one small step in the direction of evidence of predetermination of that action. He/she alone is responsible, even if I happen to know what he/she is going to do.

I know what you'll say: "Yeah, but if he *made* that human in the first place..." Yet again, "making" a free agent does not entail moral culpability for his/her actions, if he/she is genuinely free. Pace John Milton, those who are made "sufficient to have stood" are responsible to "stand: and those who are "free to fall" are responsible if they choose that option. If one prevents a free agent from acting, then one is a tyrant, no? On the other hand, the problem with leaving people free is that sometimes they do that which you would much, much rather they did not do.

Did I miss anything you want to go back to?

Feel free to say so. I'm still trying as hard as I can not to become too lengthy in my responses, but I always risk bypassing something.

[Harry Baird]

--- The Euthyphro Dilemma ---

I would suggest that there is no coherent way to sever the concept "good" from a correct understanding of "God."

Well, to me that reads, as I wrote in my last post, that you and Dr. Craig have chosen the first horn of the dilemma. I would say that your re-framing of the situation simply changes the Euthyphro question into: "Is God good because we simply define Him to be, or is He good because He conforms to the standard of goodness?". You apparently don't want to choose the second horn of this new dilemma, so you're left with the first: you have simply defined God to be good - which seems more arbitrary than objective.

--- Self-evidence ---

Ah. By "self-evident" you just mean "really, really simple." You don't mean what the word analytically means, which is a thing so clearly true that it isn't even *possible* not to agree to it.

I'm not sure that self-evidence does entail the necessity of agreement. I mean by it pretty much what is spelt out in the Wikipedia article on self-evidence. Note in particular near the bottom of the article the reference to self-evident moral propositions.

--- Moral disagreement ---

Harry: At your prompting, I won't enter into the abortion (or slavery) debate, suffice it to say that you guessed my view on that issue correctly.

IC: Oh, but I don't prompt that at all -- In fact, I would strongly invite you to get into them; but not for their own sake, but rather as counterexamples to your (possibly too sanguine) conviction that people will "self-evidently" reject them.

[...]

Let's tackle that one head-on.

But I've already dealt with it. Twice.

Quoting myself from the second attempt (in my last post; you even quoted it below): 'to be explicit and repeat myself: as I've explained, I see morality as objective only at the most abstract level of "that which detracts from the well-being of feeling creatures (which includes human creatures) ought to be avoided, and that which leads to the well-being of feeling creatures ought to be promoted". *How* to achieve those abstract aims, and what *specifically* counts as "well-being" (other than the blatantly obvious - being fed, watered and sheltered, etc) is to some extent a matter of opinion/heuristics'.

In any case, I'm pretty surprised you'd bring up the issue of slavery - surely this is *far* more damaging to your own view of morality than mine, for does not the Bible expressly permit slavery?

The quickest way to justify doing "harm" to someone is just to redefine them as "not someone." Then the "harm" issue is entirely avoided, and your precept against doing it becomes impotent.

Not so. My precept doesn't rely on a definition, it relies on the capacity for a being to feel.

Yes, some people *do* justify harms through such a redefinition. I think they're utterly wrong. I'm not sure what else you could want me to say to that.

Then there's redefining "harm." What if we allow that, say, third-timester fetuses are truly "human," but tell ourselves that the supposed "harm" occasioned in killing them is less than the "harm" of letting them grow up as a mentally or physically handicapped person, or even as a person in an economically-deprived family? Or what if we admit that grandma is a human, but justify harvesting her organs because five younger people can be saved by so doing?

Right, this is utilitarian thinking of a certain variety. I believe Peter Singer has even advocated (I am not sure whether he still advocates such a thing) that it is in some cases morally permissible to terminate the life of a disabled child *after* birth, given that such a thing would save its parents and community the trouble of having to look after it.

Earlier, I said that I am not sure I am a "pure" utilitarian because my morality is to some extent also rights-based, and this is a case in point. In my view, "right to life" is an overriding right - more overriding than the (utilitarian) convenience of others.

This is just the beginning of sorrows for your program.

But I don't claim that *all* moral prescriptions are self-evident, merely several of the most abstract ones. And I think that to be fair, we must contrast my program against yours, where we take as God-given the moral prescriptions in the Bible (unless you have some more sophisticated way of working out what God deems to be moral). So, I sure hope you're not wearing polyester-cotton blend clothing. Or eating shellfish. And you'd better not be trimming your beard, or cutting your hair at the sides. And I hope you're not beating your slaves *so* badly that they die - it's just *fine* if they don't. But if I catch you working on the Sabbath.. well, let's just say I don't much enjoy putting another man to death.

Well, whether or not you (or I) are particularly "comfortable" with allowing multiplicity of opinions is not the problem. The real problem is that you've provided absolutely no basis for moral judgment.

Not true. I've provided a basis for *developing* more specific moral prescriptions/systems. Just because I haven't offered my own more specific prescriptions/system doesn't mean I don't have them, or at least that I am not in the process of developing them, nor that I don't think they're very reasonable and worth promoting.

We can't base a just law on such an idea. Not only that, but when our children ask us what right is, we can't explain in a way that instructs them how to avoid things like slavery, infanticide or sexism.

Sure we can: because those things cause harm that can be avoided. It's pretty simple.

We can't even show that a "feeling of well-being" is a thing we are entitled to have

Why would we not be? The only hypothetical reason I can think of is "because it would be harmful to others for us to seek out our own well-being". Can you think of others?

what if we really need is a certain mount of creative unease, struggle, competition and strife?

To what end would we "need" that? Surely only to the end of some sort of satisfaction, pleasure or well-being - for either ourselves or others?

What if a self-sacrificial life, a giving up of my happiness for the good of another is what's really good?

Again, that's perfectly consistent with my conception of morality: short-term pain (mine) for long-term pleasure (others').

But I don't need to defend the Christian view in order to point out that your perspective isn't capable of being that meta-perspective. So even if I were not a Christian at all, your view would still have the same problems.

Well, I would suggest that to the extent that my moral perspective suffers from this "problem" (lack), *all* moral perspectives suffer the same thing, so it's hardly a reason to disqualify mine.

--- Descartes ---

What I meant was this: "I exist" is not, per se, "self-evident"

Oh, but I disagree. It simply is self-evident, without any need for Cartesian rationalisations of such a thing. I exist, and I experience that existence self-evidently in every moment. In any case, such a Cartesian rationalisation seems compatible with self-evidence anyway.

--- Our book ---

I feel we're on the verge of a book.

"In dialogue: Harry and IC. A book of reasoned theistic disagreement and intellectual mastication".

I wonder whether it would sell.

--- The choice of relationship with God, and God's plan ---

OK, so, it was *your* turn in those two posts to switch on your ballpoint pen and write, write, write. And it's my turn to try to respond pithily, without filling up an entire chapter in our book (we need to have *something* new for the punters to read when they buy it).

I think the simplest way to respond to all of that is as follows: you suggest that once the choice is made to be with God, to pass on to heaven for eternity, one need not be free to reconsider it over that eternity - one need make it only once, and still be considered to be "genuinely free". Well then, why not set it up like that right from the start? Adam and Eve in the garden, and God asks, "Do you want to live here in paradise for eternity, or do you want to 'fall' and be kicked out of the garden, condemned - both you and your descendants - to death, hard labour, original sin and (for many of your descendants, if not yourselves too) eternal suffering in hell?". What do you think Adam and Eve would have said? Of course it's going to be "We love it here, this is our choice", and then your criterion for "genuine freedom" is met (in a single, everlasting choice) and there is no need for any temptation any longer. The whole shemozzle of the fall could have been avoided very simply.

Of course, I don't recognise the necessity for the temptation *at all* in the first place, I'm simply using your own arguments/framings against you.

--- Creatorial responsibility given foreknowledge ---

You did not respond to my elaborations on my argument that God's foreknowledge + creation entails at least *some* degree of creatorial responsibility for everything, including the free will decisions of His creatures, given that He foreknew them in advance, with the possibility of altering them based on tinkering with the parameters and interventions of His Creation, yet chose to create anyway.

I am very interested to know whether you *finally* accept this argument.

No, I don't think it does, because I think "freedom" can be a genuine, non-illusory property.

In that case, yes, I would very much like you to go back to something: my free will android analogy, and answer specifically the questions I put to you - which of the two responses would be more reflective of your *actual* attitude towards me, had I set loose with foreknowledge such a being who committed an offence so personal against you and your family? I deliberately made it as personal as possible to try to drive home the point.

[James Markham]

Can I suggest that the point you seem to be stuck on, freedom, and the choice to chose evil, is one which needs some elaboration in order to discern what it is which is actually being asked.

So to begin with the question of evil, it's not enough to simply say that this act is evil, this act is benevolent, or this act is innocent, because acts are not in themselves good or bad. A child may chose to drop a heavy toy on a dogs head, and although we may think the child naughty, we can't say for sure if the result of such an act was really understood, if the act was carried out by an adult, we could say the intention was to cause unnecessary harm, and therefore slightly evil, but in the case of the child he's actions may have been innocent. And so it is with many actions that take place, it isn't so much the actions that can be called good or bad, but the intention of individuals, coupled with their unique perspective, understanding of consequence, and capacity to relate to emotion within others.

So it would seem to me that if there is a god, and he did indeed create all things, then when we ask why he created evil, it's the same as asking why he gave us the capacity to understand anything, because along with knowing in general, comes a knowledge of the difference between good and bad. We see many things in nature, that if were we to see acted out by humans, we would call evil, but because of an animals lack of emotional intent, and cognitive capabilities, they are simply neutral, or innocent.

So I'm not well versed in biblical matters, but I seem to remember there being three distinct arenas of existence created by god. The first I believe was Eden, in which it's said there was no evil, and this state of existence was marked by an absence of understanding. If Adam and Eve truly lacked the ability to distinguish between good and bad, then evil, being an intention, didn't actually exist, and it was only a possibility because god created us with a capacity to develop our understanding of such things. So I think in this sense, god did not create evil, what he created was the cognitive ability to understand and classify acts, relating to their effects on ourselves and others.

The thing that is important about the Eden allegory, is that god warned Adam about knowledge, and as it is with our own children, he insisted on obedience to be of paramount importance in his ability to guide, and it seems to me that once this structure breaks down on a fundamental level, it becomes beyond a fathers ability to properly care for, or protect. So the point at which Adam disregards gods instruction, is the point at which he steps forth under his own guidance, and must decide what good and bad means to him personally, it's no longer of any purpose that god knows right from wrong, because Adam is now following his own council.

So now Adam steps into the next arena of existence, which is that of natural law, and it's now within his power to seek the laws of nature, and question reality as to its form and purpose. For a lot of people, this task of responsibility that Adam has excepted, to look after his own affairs, and not be forever naive, and innocent of natures truth, may seem logical and progressive. This journey from ignorance to knowing, may also seem to be quite a simple step, but all that would depend on what the truths are, and in what capacity they can be understood and accepted as the fundamental basis of existence. If, as I believe, the truth about existence is open to interpretation, in the sense that it can both please, and distress, according to perspective, then Adam represents the principle state of consciousness, and we now exist in a transitional state that is between what a Buddhist would term ignorance, and enlightenment.

So the third realm, which abrahamic religions call heaven, is one in which consciousness is fully aware of the fundamental reality, and is of a positive perspective, but as for it being free of sin, this is only as a result of the fact that any soul that yields to temptation, necessarily forfeits their heavenly abode. The story of satan as a fallen angel, is an allusion to this fact, and I believe it signifies that there is a realm that is free from evil, not because it is not understood, or that it doesn't exist, just that it is excluded by virtue of choice, that is the choice to resist behaving in a manner that is detrimental to any purely positive perspective.

[Harry Baird]

Hello, James,

Was your post addressed to me? I'm guessing that it was, but if I am wrong, then please correct me.

I agree with you that evil involves intent as well as action. It's something that hasn't come up in this thread yet, and that might well have caused me to have slightly modified some of my statements about (im)morality had anyone raised it earlier.

I don't think, though, that this affects my fundamental point, which is that an all-powerful, good God need not have created a world in which suffering (*regardless* of intent) existed in the first place. I've offered a few examples of how such a world might work in past posts: one being that whereas one's wife may have rejected other suitors in choosing oneself, this need not have caused those other suitors any emotional pain; rather, they may have (in this ideal world created by a truly good God) simply accepted it with equanimity, pleased enough that she and oneself at least were happy. I gather that you are familiar with Buddhism, which deals in part in techniques to eliminate such emotional pain, and surely a good God could have created humans from the start as though they had accomplished all of those techniques.

As far as your Biblical interpretations go, all I will say is that they are... unconventional. Conventionally, Adam's choice to disobey God is seen not as a "logical and progressive" stepping into "natural law" but as a foolhardy *violation* of [God's] natural law, especially given the consequences: the wages of sin being death; expulsion from Paradise; hard labour; etc.

Too, you seem to suggest that heaven is free from harm because of the ongoing choice of its inhabitants to resist temptation, and that any who fail in this choice forfeit their place in heaven. I think IC might have something to say about that! I do think you raise good evidence in support of this idea by pointing out that, Biblically, this is exactly what happened in the case of fallen angels. The only question that remains is: after Judgement Day, when this "middle" world no longer exists, where would those who forfeit their place go? Straight to hell? That seems a little extreme.

[Harry Baird]

Too, you seem to suggest that heaven is free from harm because of the ongoing choice of its inhabitants to resist temptation, and that any who fail in this choice forfeit their place in heaven. I think IC might have something to say about that! I do think you raise good evidence in support of this idea by pointing out that, Biblically, this is exactly what happened in the case of fallen angels. The only question that remains is: after Judgement Day, when this "middle" world no longer exists, where would those who forfeit their place go? Straight to hell? That seems a little extreme.

The other problem with this view is that, in an infinity of time (which is the case for heaven), chances are (sure, it's not 100% guaranteed, but near enough) *everyone* in heaven is going to screw up and succumb to temptation at least once. At some point, then, heaven would be entirely empty, and its former inhabitants... where?

[Immanuel Can]

Hello, Harry, and thank you, James. It's really a great pleasure to deal with such reflective and circumspect interlocutors.

Now, Harry, as to our joint book...

James is right, inasmuch as he sees we are hitting on some points repeatedly and persistently, yet without much progress: and while It seems we have a few differences of view, and these difference are held at a very basic level. I think this is why we continue not only to disagree on answers but even on how the correct question needs to be framed. Perhaps I can summarize as follows:

I think, Harry, that our basic understandings of the "God" concept are quite different. You see Him as a sort of large but contingent being operating within - or perhaps in parallel with - the natural order, and hence subject to adjectival classifications derived originally from natural objects, experiences and observations. My concept is of the very Ground of Being itself, and hence the progenitor and prototype of secondary concepts like "good," so that "good God" is a redundancy. This is a significant difference, and, I think, a reason why the Euthyphro dilemma continues to look coherent to you but requires assumptions that appear incoherent to me. We're actually talking about different "Gods."

That being said, I concede to you that if I were thinking of the rather contingent, Dualistic, Demiurgic being you are positing, I too might ask your question and be puzzled by the lack of an answer. However, since as a defender of a Monotheistic position I can't concede your assumptions, I can't present myself as a defender of that "god." My suggestion would be, "Your God concept is perhaps too small." Beyond that, I can make no suggestion.

The second area of difficulty is in the question of the existence of evil. Both you and James see evil as a created entity, rather than a corruption or failure in good. So you wonder who "created" it, and why. Yet my view would be that while "good" is the real thing, "evil" is the derivative corruption, rather than a created or creative entity in its own right. It is, in my view, an expression of departure from the Divine intent, and hence from the straightness of truth, the purity of rightness, the wellspring of life and the teleological purposes for which we are designed. Good is light and life; evil is darkness and death; and the latter concepts are nothing but the removal of the former two.

In other words, evil is a distancing and separation from God (and hence from good), but one that is both contingent and temporary, not one that is necessary and permanent. Yet for you (if I understand this well enough to say) evil is a necessary divine quality, the yin/yang pairing, if you will. It is not derivative, but is rather an entity-in-its-own-right, which (and here I become unclear)...can nevertheless be "defeated" by human evolution or improvement??? Well, something like that, anyway.

So for me, "evil" must be explicated in different terms than for you. For you, it is a thing "god" *created*, and so, naturally, He owes you some explanation for the production of such a thing. For me, it is not a created thing at all, but rather a derivative effect of consciousnesses and actions that are disconnected from God, and hence from goodness, like darkness is merely the effect of lack of light. So to explain why God "created evil" is not possible for me, since I don't think He did. However, I do think it is cogent to ask why human beings embraced evil rather than good, and I have no problem with the idea that that is a real issue. Yet with regard to the root nature of evil, all I can do about that is question your root assumption, but not afford you any answer according to the suppositions you hold on the subject.

The third area on which we're caught is the subject of "freedom." I think that "freedom," (or if I might say, at least the concept "choice," which I see as related to it) requires at least two options. However, you feel that this is not true with relation to God, and that He could have created a "good" order, one in which there was "freedom" as you understand that concept, has only the one option of obedience, and none of disobedience.

The problem for me is that your view of "freedom" seems to me not to be *actual* but rather merely an enacted delusion, a denial of the deep reality in which you truly believe, that is, one of cosmic Determinism. God being both Foreknower and Creator looks to you sufficient to say He is also the Predestinator of all that goes on, and hence is culpable in some fashion for all that happens, even the evil that people do. And I cannot see how that can be a correct conclusion if "freedom" is actual, and not simply a human delusion. So again, I find I cannot respond to your question directly without implicating myself in a view of "freedom" I simply do not hold, and a view of God I do not believe is correct. While I would love to answer directly, I find your declared assumptions prevent that.

I think this is why we keep going around and around on these issues, and I confess I'm at a bit of a loss to make headway with a basic vocabulary so different from my own. In short, our assumptions about the nature of God, the nature of evil and the nature of freedom are incompatible; and absent a basic agreement in any of these essential concepts, I see us as stuck at present. For I would need some assent to at least one of these concepts, or perhaps all three, before I would know what to say next -- including the promised suggestions I might make about things like "natural evils."

Any ideas? Where can we go from here? Is our joint tome in peril?

[Harry Baird]

To start with your final sentence:

Is our joint tome in peril?

No, no, never fear. Our book is predicated on reasoned theistic disagreement. We are not expecting to bridge the divide, merely to outline the differences on either side, and to clarify them as much as possible.

In that spirit, let's examine the three areas of disagreement that you outline. It's my belief that, basically, with respect to each one, the ball is in your court:

1. The goodness of God based on his basic nature.

I put to you in my previous post a re-framing of the Euthyphro Dilemma that I think applies to your own adopted answer, and yet you ignored that re-framing, and failed to respond to it. What I argued was that given your re-framing of God as "being" good rather than merely (as in the original Euthyphro Dilemma) "proclaiming" good, we might re-frame the Euthyphro question as "Is God good because we simply define Him to be, or is He good because He conforms to the standard of goodness?", and that because you apparently don't want to choose the second horn of this new dilemma, you're left with the first: that you have simply defined God to be good, and that this seems more arbitrary than objective. Let me ask you directly then: do you acknowledge this critique - that, in essence, you have simply defined God to be good, and that such a thing is more arbitrary than objective?

2. The question and nature of evil.

I explained as clearly as I could (in this post) why I believe that evil is not the mere absence of good: because good's mere absence could just as well lead to mere "neutrality" as to "evil". I even offered an example of a person who could be considered good, and explained how removing his good characteristics wasn't enough to make him evil - that we would need to *add* things to him to make him evil.

In response, you questioned whether the "active" nature of evil could only be attributed where there is an active agent. On consideration, your response seems to me to be somewhat of a *non*-response - you failed to either acknowledge the legitimacy of my perspective, or to explain what you thought was illegitimate about it. In hindsight, I ought to have challenged you to have done so, and in fact I will do so now: perhaps you would like to explain whether and, if not, why, you agree with my framing of the issue.

3. Freedom.

Again, I am waiting on a response from you. I provided (in this post) the analogy of a "free will android" which harmed your family in a very personal way, and I asked you what your response to such a thing would be. You asked me in a later post whether there was anything I would like you to go back to, and I indicated that I would like you to go back to that particular analogy, and to indicate which of the two responses I canvassed would be closest to your actual response, but to no avail. Perhaps you would be willing to do that in your next post.

Moreover, in my previous post, I put it to you that your notion that a "genuine" choice might need only to be made once, and never to be revisited (as in the case of those who choose heaven, and once there, are not forced to constantly choose it again and again) could be very simply applied to the Garden, thus having avoided the fall, by God asking Adam and Eve whether they would like to remain in the Garden forever or to fall and suffer the consequences - a choice, which, I suggested, they would have made "correctly", and, by your parameters, never have needed to revisit, such that the temptation could have from then on been removed from the Garden, and all could have been purely good from then on (the need for - as you would have it - "genuine" choice satisfied once and for all). Again, you failed to respond to this. I would encourage you to do so.

So, when you ask, "Where can we go from here?", I'd like to suggest (if a little assertively) that it's very much up to you. You can see my pugnaciousness asserting itself, can't you?

[Immanuel Can]

1. The goodness of God based on his basic nature.

What I argued was that given your re-framing of God as "being" good rather than merely (as in the original Euthyphro Dilemma) "proclaiming" good, we might re-frame the Euthyphro question as "Is God good because we simply define Him to be, or is He good because He conforms to the standard of goodness?", and that because you apparently don't want to choose the second horn of this new dilemma, you're left with the first: that you have simply defined God to be good, and that this seems more arbitrary than objective. Let me ask you directly then: do you acknowledge this critique - that, in essence, you have simply defined God to be good, and that such a thing is more arbitrary than objective?

No, Harry, I don't find that your critique understands the position at all, which I regard as an analytical one, not an arbitrary choice on my part. And I would suggest that in framing the concept "God" as I have, I have the vast preponderance of thought from *many* Theistic camps on my side -- which would suggest it's not arbitrary or mere personal taste.

Let me first point out that your reframing doesn't change your position in any substantial way: you're still positing the existence of a "standard of goodness" that pre-exists the Supreme Being. If such a thing were available, let me ask you, then in what sense would I be entitled to regard Him as Supreme? Surely then he would be a secondary being, one subject to abstract, ideal categories (Platonic ones, perhaps?) that precede and delimit Him, and hence are the true "supreme" reality in the universe.

A being cannot be both "supreme" and "subject" in this way. I do not share that assumption, and the self-contradiction in it seems obvious to me -- indeed, the Euthrypho Dilemma itself depends on creating such an artificial self-contradiction and then demanding that the Theist must "fix" it. It is only a more sophisticated version of the God-and-the-rock contradiction, and both are equally dependent on creating a first premise and then contradicting it with a second, yet not using genuine Theistic premises to do so. And since I find this supposed problem depends utterly on premises that make no sense with reference to a Monotheist God, I am not in a position to help you to discover any coherence in it. If you insist on a secondary, contingent God, then you must solve it as best you can -- it's not my position at all.

Secondly, on the question of whether my view is a mere quirk on my part or rather is reflective of mainline Theist thought, let me quote from a recent philosophical analysis of the Theistic position by D.B. Hart. (in "The Experience of God," 2013):

...the famous dilemma from Plato's Euthyphro is not much of a problem for any of the great theistic traditions...applied to classical theism, it is simply a meaningless query, predicated upon a crude anthropomorphism. It is no more interesting in asking whether light shines because it is light or whether it is light because it shines...For none of the great theistic traditions is "God" the name of a god, some emotionally changeable entity who has to deliberate upon his actions, either in respect of standards independent of himself or in respect of some arbitrary psychological impulse within himself. "God" is the name, rather, of the eternal and transcendent principle upon which the gods (if there are such beings) are dependent for their existence and for their share in the transcendent perfections of being. For all the great monotheisms, God is himself the Good, or the Form of the Good..."

So I am not at all alone in my view, and it is by no means arbitrary on my part. It is the only coherent Theism, the only one that can or should be defended. And Euthyphro is simply a cute play on words once it is applied to the Supreme God. It cannot be answered thus, I suggest, not because Theism lacks an answer, but because the question thus framed is simply incoherent in itself.

You may not be satisified: okay, then I cannot satisfy you: for unless you actually want to talk about what Theism actually believes, I cannot offer myself as any source of insight. I am not a Polytheist, nor a Deist, nor a Gnostic. You would need one of those to answer the Euthyphro question, because it is only to their "god" concepts that it can be coherently applied.

You may not see that; but that fact may not reflect a deficiency in my position, since all the major Theistic positions do see it.

[I have to pause there for a minute, Harry. My apologies, but I have errands to run, and so have to come back to this. I fully intend to do justice to your points #2 and #3, as well as to propose a different way forward that occurred to me this morning. I shall be back as soon as I can.]

[James Markham]

Harry, thanks for the reply. Yes, my post was intended for both you and Immanuel, I've been enjoying following the thread, so I thought I'd try to add something.

I do agree with what you say about god creating us with the capacity to cause and feel pain, it doesn't seem to make sense, but to me that is what happens when we take information we receive from an individual source, such as Christian theology, and attempt to create complete sense out of it in isolation from all the other information that reality provides us with.

As you have proposed in your posts, the definition of god and his attributes, within Christianity, doesn't seem to sit logically with his actions concerning creation in that same body of text. And like you, I see this as a problem of how the Christian god is defined, I think it pays to remember that all of what we read, are only the ideas of other people, the claim that certain texts are directly representative of gods will or mind, is simply false, it may indeed be, that certain people come closer to the truth with their deliberations, but this is purely due to their individual powers of perception. As you might say, if god gave one person divine inspiration, why not give it to all?

So although I agree that the ideas we have concerning god may not be precise, and what he is, what he does, and what he's capable of doing are simply mans reflection on the matter, I also believe that the existence of what we call evil, as it exists as intention, is still somewhat compatible with the orthodox view of a benevolent creator, I will attempt to explain.

So when I think about god, one question that has interested me, is whether or not god has unlimited power, and specifically if it is possible for god to change the circumstances concerning he's own existence. For example, can god die, or change the circumstances that allow for his existence, could he arrange reality so that he nor anything else has ever existed, or is it even possible for him to contemplate such negative actions.

I believe the answer to all these questions is no, I think there are certain fundamental circumstances, that are set as a foundation on which reality exists, and in the sense that god exists as a principle within the foundational circumstance, he's limited in that he lacks the power to change the principles that determine he's own existence.

I know this may be hard to understand, but what I'm trying to say is that basically god does not determine everything that is. To give an example of this, if we imagine god as a conscious entity, then we could say that because he exists, then it automatically entails the concept of number, god knows he exists as one example of consciousness, so there automatically follows the possibility of many, but not because god wills it to be this way, but simply because the concept of number exists to be contemplated. So in the same way, we could postulate that certain conceptual ideas, such as time, space and location, are just as fundamental as number, and that rather than having their existence through the virtue of gods will, they have an existence in parallel with god.

So in this same way, I also believe there are fundamental principles concerning the existence of perception and emotional awareness. So to imagine a god who is purely positive, automatically entails the concept of something negative. If we say god experiences joy, love and compassion, then we necessarily need to ask why, and to what these emotions relate, what is the object of his love, what is the source of his joy, and to what does he direct his compassion on. And whatever the answers to these questions are, by asking them, we automatically assume the existence of emotions which are the opposite of positive, that could also be caused by the same source.

If we make the assumption that god is all things, then it would seem to me that the only form of stimulant for emotional activity, would come in the form of first principles, or simply facts that exist, and can't be altered by gods consciousness. So for example, the fact he is everything, would mean he's alone, in a conditional sense. Although he would have the power to create, he alone would actually know he was the creator, and actually the only soul within everything, even if we could approach this knowledge with belief or faith, only a god who is everything, can actually know.

So the existence of this fact, is something that can also be said to exist along side god, and if we assume by our own existence, that although god may be everything, we exist as perspectives within him, and by virtue of our movement from an innocent perspective we also become subjected to face certain truths, the implications of which may or may not be assessed as pleasant.


And I'd also like to add that although no one could blame a father from wanting his children to remain innocent for as long as possible, it takes nothing away from his benevolence if we accept the fact that our growth is simply something he must allow. And if by allowing us to mature spiritually, we become aware of the fact that there exist both positive and negative emotional perspectives, I don't think it necessarily follows that it's so because god created it that way.

So does any of this make sense?
Sorry I haven't addressed many of the issues you raised, but I felt the post was getting slightly long.

[Immanuel Can]

2. The question and nature of evil.

I explained as clearly as I could (in this post) why I believe that evil is not the mere absence of good: because good's mere absence could just as well lead to mere "neutrality" as to "evil". I even offered an example of a person who could be considered good, and explained how removing his good characteristics wasn't enough to make him evil - that we would need to *add* things to him to make him evil.

In response, you questioned whether the "active" nature of evil could only be attributed where there is an active agent. On consideration, your response seems to me to be somewhat of a *non*-response - you failed to either acknowledge the legitimacy of my perspective, or to explain what you thought was illegitimate about it. In hindsight, I ought to have challenged you to have done so, and in fact I will do so now: perhaps you would like to explain whether and, if not, why, you agree with my framing of the issue.

Fair enough, Harry...I may not have given this all that was its due. I shall try do so now. I don't at all mind you pointing out anything you think I should have given more expansive treatment.

Your view, it seems to me, requires a tri-polar view of the moral landscape: there's a position called "good," one called "evil" and one called "neutral." On the other hand, my suppositions, based on Theism as I understand it, would be that there are only two such positions: "good" and "evil." Of "neutral," I can make no sense. However, I would be interested to see if you can.

From a Theistic perspective, there is really only one important moral question, and that is, "What is the relationship between this person, action, character, inclination or impulse (on the one hand), and God (on the other)?" That which is conformable to the character of God and stands in a correct relationship to Him is "good": that which departs from His character, denies His nature, departs from right relationship to Him and asserts autonomy from the Supreme Being is all "bad," regardless of the human inclination to treat some of this badness or goodness as merely "neutral." Anything which distracts, detracts or diminishes the supreme value in the universe -- relatedness to God -- is evil.

Now, of course, a view that does not see relatedness to the Creator as the totality of good will not share this perspective. For such a view, there might be one concept "good" which relates either to religious pieties or to human goals and values, a second "evil" which represents some sort of a thwarting of those ambitions, and a third, "neutral" into which category falls all that is unhelpful-but-unhurtful to the goals that are taken to be the ultimate human purpose but do not include relatedness to the Creator.

Thus a "neutral" human being, as you describe such a creature, would be from a secular perspective, possible; but given that he/she would not (presumably) stand in any relation to the Supreme Being, from a Theistic perspective, he/she would not be neutral but rather a passive entity within what we would term here the "evil" zone. He/she would be "dead" spiritually, and failing (though only passively) to relate to the source of being, life and light. So the category "neutral" would be a fiction.

Thus a Theist can make no sense of your example, since again it participates in what he regards to be false ontological and moral assumptions.

[Pause again: must run. Back soon for part 3.]

[James Markham]

Emanuel, you stated in a previous post that there is no such thing as an evil act, and that what we call evil is simply an act that is lacking in goodness. I think this is the usual way a theist avoids considering that ether god is not all good, or that god is not all powerful, but either way it is slightly ignorant in that it simply redefines the word good to include all acts, as however nasty they appear, they still exist somewhere on the scale, and if that scale doesn't include any ability to register negative acts, then all acts become slightly positive.

[Immanuel Can]

3. Freedom.

I provided (in this post) the analogy of a "free will android" which harmed your family in a very personal way, and I asked you what your response to such a thing would be. You asked me in a later post whether there was anything I would like you to go back to, and I indicated that I would like you to go back to that particular analogy. Perhaps you would be willing to do that in your next post.

Moreover, in my previous post, I put it to you that your notion that a "genuine" choice might need only to be made once, and never to be revisited (as in the case of those who choose heaven, and once there, are not forced to constantly choose it again and again) could be very simply applied to the Garden, thus having avoided the fall, by God asking Adam and Eve whether they would like to remain in the Garden forever or to fall and suffer the consequences - a choice, which, I suggested, they would have made "correctly", and, by your parameters, never have needed to revisit, such that the temptation could have from then on been removed from the Garden, and all could have been purely good from then on (the need for - as you would have it - "genuine" choice satisfied once and for all). Again, you failed to respond to this. I would encourage you to do so.

Okay, then...let me have a go at those.

First, let us go back to your "free will android."

Of course, Harry, my initial reaction your suggestion is disgust, as I suppose it should be. At the same time, I cannot help but notice important deficiencies in the account. It's not just that "android" reduces us again to a mechanistic picture of the universe and brings back in, implicitly, Determinism (though of course, all that's true), it's also that reduces cosmic evil to an individual incident. A poignant one, yes: but a dramatically insufficient one. I actually think the problem is much, much worse than you suggest by reducing it to a single case.

What's really the case is that such things happen daily. There are not just individual atrocities but large-scale ones as well. The recent tsunami in Southeast Asia comes to mind as an example. Can anyone really presently calculate the amount of misery, suffering and death that such an event entails? And according to your view, the Supreme Being is culpable for allowing any of it at all to happen. This conclusion, you would hold, follows because the Creator knew such things were going to happen, and should not have made us in the first place -- or at least should not have made us capable of evil.

Yet here we separate over the question of "freedom." For while I concede the great evils that have followed as a result of human freedom, I still maintain that it is reasonable to think that freedom itself is such a transcendent good that it is possible to think it would not be better for God to have invented a world in which no such things could happen.
Why is this? Well, it's because I cannot make intelligible the idea that human beings can have freedom to act within a world constrained not to permit evils. If evil action, with all its effects were impossible, then in what location and in what way could human beings who were possessed of freedom actually "choose" anything? It seems clear to me that evil in human nature requires a corresponding openness in the world to the actions and effects produced thereby.

Another way of putting this is to say that the freedom to choose to do good or evil, beneficence or harm, logically entails a world in which these choices can be staged or enacted. And this includes not just self-harms but also harms enacted on other persons who share that environment. We can choose to react to others with kindness or cruelty; there's no way to avoid that without depriving persons of the choices associated with those actions. A "fallen" human race requires a "fallen" world in which to live, and other "fallen" humans with whom to participate in the social realm.

Now, the open question at the moment has to be, "Is it all worth it?" Is it worth it to allow a world to exist wherein great evils are possible? Could freedom be such a precious thing that it could ever answer the cries of injustice that rise daily, moment-by-moment even, from this sorry world of ours? For my part, I cannot answer in precise cases, because I can find no one-to-one pattern in how we act relative to what fate we receive. Our world does not work that way: evil is not herein punished, and good is not herein rewarded, and the effects experienced by individuals are not concomitant with the miseries they sometimes experience. There are no answers we know to the injustices we see daily. Evil, as the Bible reminds us, is also a "mystery" to us. One thing of which I am sure; in this place, good people experience incalculable sorrows and evil people get away with monumental wickednesses. How could we, for example, think a man like Hitler had been duly paid for his evil by his relatively swift and painless suicide? Or how could we think it fair when a kind and generous humanitarian contracts terminal cancer? How could we plug our ears to the unremitting cries of starving children?

Did God foreknow all this? Assuredly. Did He really know how we would use our freedom? Assuredly. Did He create us anyway? Assuredly. Is the plan upon which He is working to bring about ultimate relationship between genuinely free persons and Himself worth all of this? I think it's possible to think that it is, though I cannot spell out precisely how this is so. If, as I believe, He is the ultimate Source of all goodness and blessing, and if as I believe, the ultimate good is not just a temporal (75 year or so) condition in the present world, but rather is an eternal state of enjoyment of free relationship with the Creator, then I think it could be possible to offset the relatively brief miseries of the present period in favour of that far greater state of blessedness and happiness. I do not insist that I can explain in detail how it is so, since I have only the Word of God for evidence on this, and it does not tell me fully; I cannot see precisely how this works out any more than you can. Yet I do not think the idea is incoherent. It seems quite possible to me that genuine freedom is a very, very great good -- especially if it were a necessary precondition for a genuine, permanent relationship of love with God Himself, one that stood to last forever.

But this I would not think: I would not think that such a thing could be possible without justice ever being done. If your "android" were to be permitted to do as he did, and neither judgment against him for his evil nor restitution for his victim and her family's suffering were ever to be achieved, then I think we would have an indictment against God. God cannot be good and not pass judgment, not restore rightness and not eliminate injustice. These things must come about, and when the final accounting is done, then only at that point would we be able to say what it all added up to.

However, I'm less worried about androids than I am about people, for they are the real case. If, as I suggest, it turns out that in the end none of us "androids" gets away with what we do, and every bit of misery we've caused in our personal selfishness must be answered, then we are not in a good situation. We shall all need a great deal of forgiveness. And absent God, from whence will it come?



Now, finally, on the Adam and Eve question.

I have given this a little thought, though perhaps I should continue to give it more. Perhaps genuine "choice" requires something more than a sort of ignorant assent to a theoretically possible alternative, but rather some actual "knowledge," an experiential awareness, of the alternative in question. Perhaps such knowledge could not be had academically, so to speak. Yet I do not know that for certain.

In his novel "Perelandra," C.S. Lewis supposed just such a situation. His question was, "What would have happened if there had been no Fall?" His suggestion was that such a thing might indeed be possible, and out of it a "new kind of goodness" might have emerged -- an alternate history in which some new kind of "good" perhaps not equal to "freedom" and the entailed "genuine relationship" that only freedom makes possible. Yet for me, such speculations are just that -- speculations only. I do not know that Lewis is right. I do not find myself well-equipped to speculate on what alternatives could be available to those we have actually taken; and I don't actually think anyone else is likely to be either.

Yet in speaking of both "the mystery of evil" and the "possibilities of other worlds," I confess I am speaking beyond my current knowledge, and can only offer such leads as I presently have. Not all of this is settled in my mind, so I don't expect I will be able to settle it for you either. So much here depends on speculation into the eternal nature of things.

[Immanuel Can]

Emanuel, you stated in a previous post that there is no such thing as an evil act, and that what we call evil is simply an act that is lacking in goodness. I think this is the usual way a theist avoids considering that ether god is not all good, or that god is not all powerful, but either way it is slightly ignorant in that it simply redefines the word good to include all acts, as however nasty they appear, they still exist somewhere on the scale, and if that scale doesn't include any ability to register negative acts, then all acts become slightly positive.

Briefly, James, I think you misunderstand me here. I do not mean that "there is no such thing as an evil act," but rather that "evil" is derivative, parasitic property upon the concept "good." It represents a corruption of the good, a failure of the good, or an omission of the good: but evil pur laine is not an easy thing to conceive. I might put it this way: evil is terribly uncreative. But no, I am not saying there is no such thing as evil.

No attempt here on my part is being made to say that evil is not really a bad thing. It's certainly not "slightly positive." It is, however, derivative.

[James Markham]

Harry, the issue of heaven emptying out owing to the infinite amount of time it is occupied for, is quite simple to refute. Infinity is not a period of time that elapses, so for any period of duration, the end is no closer than it was at the beginning, therefore there is nothing to say this future state need ever be reached, it can forever remain in the future.

But this explanation doesn't really represent my beliefs, because when I think of heaven, I don't think of a place in the clouds where angels float about tending to the needs of pious souls. How I tend to see it is as a place much like earth, except without the problems that humanity currently faces. The reason I tend to have a less fanciful view of heaven, is again because I believe in certain fundamental absolutes. One of these is the concept of physicality, if we imagine a realm that is actual, then it is necessary for that realm to appear as something physical, whether or not it is, or whether or not objective physicality is possible, is beside the point, the only thing that really matters is the fact that in order for something to appear real, it must have an appearance of some sort, and that appearance is what we term as physical, now it's happened on earth, that man has probed matter to such a degree, that he no longer knows how to define the term physical, or if there can even really be such a thing, but the important thing is that conceptually, physicality is an essential feature of any domain that accommodates an experience of presence. So in my mind, if heaven is a place, it must have an appearance, an therefore will seem as physical as earth does, and the differences will concern the actions and events that take place there.

This is another example of one body of text being taken as an exact account of reality, when it's inconsistent and contradiction is apparent to a more thorough examination of actual reality. For example, it's widely believed that not only was satan cast out of heaven, but that a third of all angels were expelled with him, they apparently started a war with god, and subsequently were banished along with satan to be his demonic assistants. But in other texts concerning heaven, it's promised as being a place free of sin, a harbour of peace and tranquility away from the torments of violence and fear, so how can these two accounts describe the same place. In one heaven is imagined as an eternal paradise close to god, and in the other it is actually the domain in which sin was first nurtured.

Emanuel, I'm not sure I fully understand your position in regards to evil intent, so I'll explain my thoughts and you can show me how they differ.

So firstly I would need to distinguish between what is a good intention, and an evil one, and also, like Harry, I would add that some acts are innocent of intent. So this is not as easy as showing what is black and what is white, but I think that a start could be made by suggesting that an act which is good, is one that by intention seeks to promote a positive reaction to existence, but this idea assumes that good intention exists on a scale, whereby any act that seeks to promote ones own happy, positive position, at the cost of another, is lower on the scale than an act that seeks to promote a positive outlook for the many. So there is a point at which any act can be viewed as neutral, or innocent, and that is the point at which intention is absent, so in the case of children and animals, their actions cannot be classed in the same way. The point at which an act becomes negative, or evil, is the point at which the intention is to cause a depletion in the appreciation of existence in others. So in this way the two meet in the middle, where the innocence exists, and the three are mixed together in an inextricable tangle, and we have events such as a lion tearing the throat out of a gazelle, in full view of a bus containing a class of young girls on their way to Sunday school. But at the two extreme ends it becomes easier to see, that on the one hand we have a great man that seeks to inspire a joy of life, and on the other we have a demon that seeks to destroy all hope.

Now what interests me, is why such a situation exists, and the only answer I've been able to come up with is that emotional intention, is related to, and born of, a deep reflection on certain fundamental principles, or facts, that cannot be altered, but only reflected on and interpreted. In Hinduism the situation concerning good and evil, is referred to in conjunction with truth and lies, and in Christianity the fall of Adam is connected not just with his disobedience, but also the tree of knowledge.

This I find significant, and it's my belief that a soul which is pure evil, such as the devil, is one that believes his eternal existence can be terminated, but being as this fact is a falsehood, is condemned to an eternal torture of his own making, it's also my belief that in being of this perspective, he seeks to corrupt others to his false views, and at the opposite end of the scale we have god, who is content with his own eternity, and knows there is nothing doing in the way of change, and being of a positive view, seeks to draw us all close to share it. To me this also goes some way to explaining the Eden allegory, in that god will seek to protect the truly innocent, until such a time as it departs through its own volition.

I know that was quite a specific description, but does it make any sense to you?

[Harry Baird]

I'll start with IC's posts, then move on to James's posts (all within this single response of my own):

1. The goodness of God based on his basic nature.

No, Harry, I don't find that your critique understands the position at all, which I regard as an analytical one, not an arbitrary choice on my part.

Oh, but wait, I think you misunderstand what I meant by "arbitrary". I don't mean that your view of God is arbitrary, nor even that it is non-mainstream; I am quite happy to accept the possibility that the majority of theist philosophers hold to it alongside you. What I actually mean is that on your view, "goodness" itself is arbitrary ("contingent" is another word to describe it); it reduces simply to "Whatever God is". If "the ground of being" (your characterisation of God), were to be in fact not one which promoted love and goodwill, but rather promoted torture and pain, then torture and pain would be - by your definition - "good", since whatever God, the ground of being, is, is, by your definition, "good".

It seems to me that you have two responses to this line of reasoning open to you:

1. "Yes, goodness is contingent on God's nature, and were God's nature to be the opposite of what we currently hold it to be, then *that* would be 'good'". This response would be to acknowledge the arbitrariness of goodness, and to accept that your view doesn't, as you've been arguing it does, lead to a basis for objective morality, so I doubt you'd want to choose it.

2. "No, goodness is not contingent on (whatever) God's nature (happens to be); God's nature is instead contingent on (whatever) goodness (happens to be)". This, again, implies some objective standard of goodness prior to God, so, again, I doubt you would want to choose it either.

Either way, we seem to lack an objective basis for morality on your view.

2. The question and nature of evil.

Your view, it seems to me, requires a tri-polar view of the moral landscape: there's a position called "good," one called "evil" and one called "neutral."

You could call it tri-polar, but I think a better description is "scalar", like a number line (of real numbers): a person, action, character, inclination or impulse can be good to a greater or lesser degree, corresponding to a position further from or closer to zero on the positive side of the number line, or it can be more or less evil, corresponding to a position further from or closer to zero on the negative side of the number line, and when it is neither of the two, it might conceivably be situated right in the middle, on zero itself.

I gather from the way he frames the issue in his latest post that this roughly corresponds to James's view too, but he's welcome to correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm not sure how you avoid a scalar moral landscape on your own view: surely a person, action, character, inclination or impulse might conform more or less to the character of God, and might distract, detract or diminish the supreme value in the universe -- relatedness to God -- more or less? Or is your view binary - either an act is good or it is evil, and nothing more can be said about it? I would find this view to be very peculiar; it would seem to be very strange to characterise a brutal, premeditated, fully conscious rape and torture of a small child as *not* vastly more evil than a "white lie" to avoid your wife finding out about the surprise birthday party you'd planned for her (assuming you'd consider that to be evil too; if not, I'm sure you can think of a similarly "minor" evil with which to replace it).

3. Freedom.

First, let us go back to your "free will android."

Of course, Harry, my initial reaction your suggestion is disgust, as I suppose it should be.

Hmm. That's not quite what I asked you though. I asked not so much about your reaction to the event itself as to my role in it. Let me quote the possible reactions I asked about: 'Do you think [your reaction to my role] might be, "Oh, it's OK, Harry, I absolve you of responsibility - after all, you didn't predestine your android, and it had genuine free will"? Or do you think it might be a little more like, "Harry, how could you, you perverse man!? You *knew* what you were unleashing, and you unleashed it anyway, and now I have lost my daughter because of it, even as you knew that that was exactly what was going to happen!"?'

Perhaps you can answer more specifically with respect to those possibilities (am I being a little too insistent and demanding?).

It's not just that "android" reduces us again to a mechanistic picture of the universe and brings back in, implicitly, Determinism

No, no, please don't get hung up on that word ("android") and its usual connotations. It was simply the best word I could think of to describe the fact that the creature was humanly-created; in fact it *doesn't* imply determinism or a mechanistic view of the universe given that I stipulated that the creature had genuine free will. Perhaps, if it helps, you might forget that word and substitute "creature" or "created being" instead.

[Your (Harry's) example] reduces cosmic evil to an individual incident. A poignant one, yes: but a dramatically insufficient one. I actually think the problem is much, much worse than you suggest by reducing it to a single case.

I don't know why you're so willing to give me a freebie like that.

Well, it's because I cannot make intelligible the idea that human beings can have freedom to act within a world constrained not to permit evils. If evil action, with all its effects were impossible, then in what location and in what way could human beings who were possessed of freedom actually "choose" anything?

Well, as I keep on pointing out to you, you *do* believe in such a "world" - you aspire to such a "world" going by the name of "heaven". Is this, in essence, not "the Garden" revisited? And yet in the one (the Garden) there is the possibility of falling, yet in the other (heaven) there is not (at least as far as I have been able to understand of your own beliefs on the matter). Now, you (as far as I understand it) believe that we all inherited the consequences of the fall; we are all sinners. Thus, for us to enter heaven and lose the possibility of sinning, some sort of purification of our natures must take place, no? We must, in some sense, be "stripped of the possibility of evil", mustn't we? All I'm asking, then, is: if it is possible, and in fact *desirable*, in principle to strip a person of the possibility of evil, then why not *create* people stripped of that possibility from the start? I don't understand what benefit is gained from creating people with the capacity to "fall" when the fall is in *nobody's* interests, and when it is *possible* to create beings without that capacity, and when a realm full of such beings is the ultimate aim of Creation anyhow. You say that the possibility of doing evil is "genuine" freedom, yet you believe in a place where such freedom is lacking, so how can this freedom be of any real value, especially given the pain and suffering it leads to?

But to answer your question more directly, as I have already done in previous posts: there are an infinity of possible choices even *without* the choice to do evil. I have offered plenty of examples of such choices, and have suggested that they are more than satisfying (and genuine) enough for anybody.

Now, finally, on the Adam and Eve question.

I have given this a little thought, though perhaps I should continue to give it more. Perhaps genuine "choice" requires something more than a sort of ignorant assent to a theoretically possible alternative, but rather some actual "knowledge," an experiential awareness, of the alternative in question. Perhaps such knowledge could not be had academically, so to speak. Yet I do not know that for certain.

Fine, so then, given your suggestion of the need for "experiential awareness", I would suggest the same sort of "genuine" choice for the Garden as I suggested for the choice between heaven and hell: Adam and Eve are presented, in a clear and sane state of mind, with the options, and are free to experience them to any degree that they desire. "Here", says God, "This is what it would be like to taste of the forbidden fruit; this is what you would experience both immediately and in perpetuity; I want you to know both the positive and negative consequences so that you can choose, in a perfectly objective state of mind, whether you would truly like to experience it, or whether you would like to remain in the state in which you are currently. You need make this choice only once, and if you reject the tree, then it will be removed from the Garden, never to tempt you again, and the experience of tasting the fruit that I am giving you now will be erased from your memory, never to haunt you with sadness".

Wouldn't this be more of a "genuine" choice than leaving it up to temptation in ignorance of the full consequences of one's choice? I'm really not sure how you could consider the choice described in Genesis to be "genuine"; it seems more like a poorly-considered choice in ignorance of the consequences, more of a *deception* than a genuine choice - how do you reconcile "being deceived" with "a genuine choice"? It hardly seems to be the type of choice that a wholly good God would predicate the future well-being of His Creation upon.

Moreover, consider a very simple probabilistic analysis of the Garden scenario. There is some probability, p (recall that probabilities range from 0 to 1), that, within a finite period of time, t, Adam and Eve will disobey God. Now, for one period of time, t, the probability that Adam and Eve will *not* disobey is (1-p). For two periods of time, the probability that Adam and Eve will *not* disobey is (1-p)^2, where ^ represents "to the power of". In general, for n periods of time, the probability that Adam and Eve will *not* disobey during those n periods is (1-p)^n. Now, as n approaches infinity (I'm assuming the garden could potentially have lasted indefinitely), this formula approaches zero, no matter *what* p is - unless p is exactly 0. In other words, probabilistically, Adam and Eve had effectively no chance of avoiding succumbing to temptation *eventually*, unless they were wholly purified from evil to start with. Again, this hardly seems like a "genuine" choice - the odds are stacked horrendously against the original humans.

---

James,

You ask at the end of your first post in response to me, "So does any of this make sense?". I have to admit that I'm struggling to make sense of it. Let me try to summarise what I think you're saying, and you can correct me if/where I'm wrong:

There are some phenomena "prior" to, or at least "independent of", God - phenomena like numbers (if God has "one" consciousness, then already we have the first number, which suggests a numerical system "prior" to God's creation of such a thing). Other such phenomena are the nature of perception and emotional awareness. [From here on is where you lose me:] For some reason (you will have to explain this reason to me) it is impossible because of this to imagine a wholly good God/Creation.

At the beginning of your second post in response to me, you write, "Harry, the issue of heaven emptying out owing to the infinite amount of time it is occupied for, is quite simple to refute. Infinity is not a period of time that elapses, so for any period of duration, the end is no closer than it was at the beginning, therefore there is nothing to say this future state need ever be reached, it can forever remain in the future".

In fact, this does not represent a problem to my assertion, the very fact that infinity never elapses counts *in favour* of my view. Basically, I'm applying the same very simple probabilistic analysis to your view of heaven that I applied above to IC's view of the Garden: if p is the probability of any inhabitant of heaven succumbing to temptation and making a wrong choice in heaven during any finite period of time, t, then (1-p)^n as n approaches infinity is the probability of that inhabitant not *ever* making a bad choice, and, as for the Garden, this formula approaches 0 as n approaches infinity (i.e. as time continues on and on and on and ...) - so long as p is *not* 0.

For example, it's widely believed that not only was satan cast out of heaven, but that a third of all angels were expelled with him, they apparently started a war with god, and subsequently were banished along with satan to be his demonic assistants. But in other texts concerning heaven, it's promised as being a place free of sin, a harbour of peace and tranquility away from the torments of violence and fear, so how can these two accounts describe the same place. In one heaven is imagined as an eternal paradise close to god, and in the other it is actually the domain in which sin was first nurtured.

I think this is something better addressed to IC than to me, because I recognise your critique; I'm not sure what IC would have to say about it. Perhaps my assumption that in IC's view, heaven entails no possibility of sin/harm/evil, is false. Or perhaps he would find a way to justify that view in the face of the purported revolt of certain angels within heaven itself.