Diversity, Inclusion, Equity

[Immanuel Can]

I really want to know what led you to that position.

How I personally make such decisions is by way of the traditions I was taught by significant others during my childhood and youth, and thereafter...No, I do not 'know', and moreover nobody 'knows'.

Oh. So you weren't saying, "I have reason to believe, or grounds to believe, or enough proof to conclude that God allows more suffering in the world than can every find a justification." You meant something like, "I feel I don't like how much suffering there is?"

But then, of course, as you say, you have no particular expertise in the question.

Okay, then: how can you be sure your feeling is justified at all?

Nobody can know absolute parameters of laudable or permissible suffering or grief, but have some common sense, Mannie!

What does "come on" mean? Do you mean you expect that we'll all just somehow "sense" that the "parameters of...permissible suffering or grief" have been exceeded?

But why would you attribute to me more precise knowledge in this regard than you claim for yourself? And if neither of us is equipped to say that God has exceeded the reasonable bounds of suffering in the world, then who is in a position to accuse Him of being unfair?

After that, there's a second problem. You indict God, but then list tragedies that are definitely caused by humans. The upshot of that is that you curse God for giving us moral freedom, the ability to choose between good and evil, because we turned around and used our freedom for evil purposes.

Do you want freedom or not?

As our scientific and psychological knowledge increases we learn that what were once believed to be moral evils are in fact natural evils.

I recognize the difference between human and natural "evils." And I'm glad you see the difference, too. But it makes me wonder why you accused God of allowing man to do things you now say man did...human evils.

But let us go forward. You can't blame God for the evils that men do. And more and more, what we're actually learning is that many things that look at first like natural evils are actually man-made. Starvation would be an example, as the world's current food supply actually well exceeds worldwide needs, but corrupt mankind is interfering with distribution and cultivation. Some people also assure us that even climate disasters, like melting ice caps and hurricanes or desert creep, or brush fires, are human-caused. Mankind has a lot to answer for, in the way of evil...that's for sure.

But not everything. There are still tsunamis, or earthquakes...and those things we might say are functions of a troubled environment, but not moral evils. The tsunami never means to kill anyone, even when it does. And there is also an answer for those things, though lacking direct human participation they are a little more difficult to explain to somebody who doesn't believe in God.

However, we have to ask ourselves what kind of an environment is commensurate with human freedom. IF God desires to allow people to be free, can he do so in an environment where they are constrained from a) hurting each other, and b) from experiencing the environment in a way not tightly coded to whether or not they are good or evil?

What do you think?

[Belinda]

I really want to know what led you to that position.

How I personally make such decisions is by way of the traditions I was taught by significant others during my childhood and youth, and thereafter...No, I do not 'know', and moreover nobody 'knows'.

Oh. So you weren't saying, "I have reason to believe, or grounds to believe, or enough proof to conclude that God allows more suffering in the world than can every find a justification." You meant something like, "I feel I don't like how much suffering there is?"

But then, of course, as you say, you have no particular expertise in the question.

Okay, then: how can you be sure your feeling is justified at all?

Nobody can know absolute parameters of laudable or permissible suffering or grief, but have some common sense, Mannie!

What does "come on" mean? Do you mean you expect that we'll all just somehow "sense" that the "parameters of...permissible suffering or grief" have been exceeded?

But why would you attribute to me more precise knowledge in this regard than you claim for yourself? And if neither of us is equipped to say that God has exceeded the reasonable bounds of suffering in the world, then who is in a position to accuse Him of being unfair?

After that, there's a second problem. You indict God, but then list tragedies that are definitely caused by humans. The upshot of that is that you curse God for giving us moral freedom, the ability to choose between good and evil, because we turned around and used our freedom for evil purposes.

Do you want freedom or not?

As our scientific and psychological knowledge increases we learn that what were once believed to be moral evils are in fact natural evils.

I recognize the difference between human and natural "evils." And I'm glad you see the difference, too. But it makes me wonder why you accused God of allowing man to do things you now say man did...human evils.

But let us go forward. You can't blame God for the evils that men do. And more and more, what we're actually learning is that many things that look at first like natural evils are actually man-made. Starvation would be an example, as the world's current food supply actually well exceeds worldwide needs, but corrupt mankind is interfering with distribution and cultivation. Some people also assure us that even climate disasters, like melting ice caps and hurricanes or desert creep, or brush fires, are human-caused. Mankind has a lot to answer for, in the way of evil...that's for sure.

But not everything. There are still tsunamis, or earthquakes...and those things we might say are functions of a troubled environment, but not moral evils. The tsunami never means to kill anyone, even when it does. And there is also an answer for those things, though lacking direct human participation they are a little more difficult to explain to somebody who doesn't believe in God.

However, we have to ask ourselves what kind of an environment is commensurate with human freedom. IF God desires to allow people to be free, can he do so in an environment where they are constrained from a) hurting each other, and b) from experiencing the environment in a way not tightly coded to whether or not they are good or evil?

What do you think?

I keep saying nobody 'knows'. Neither you nor I 'know'. It is vain to be sure.We do the best we can . You think you get supernatural help and advice from The Bible but I think The Bible is literature.

I do not blame God . I do not believe in your god 'who' is all powerful. Therefore I cannot blame someone who does not exist for me.

Men are what we are, super predators who will soon be extinct. If there be a creator god then it made men what we are and exactly as determined by the creator god . Nothing of moral import is added by positing a creator god.

Human freedom is such as men claim for ourselves. We have limited capacities for attaining freedom and one of these is reason such as it is.

[Immanuel Can]

However, we have to ask ourselves what kind of an environment is commensurate with human freedom. IF God desires to allow people to be free, can he do so in an environment where they are constrained from a) hurting each other, and b) from experiencing the environment in a way not tightly coded to whether or not they are good or evil?

What do you think?

I keep saying nobody 'knows'.

My question is more specific than that, B. And I think even logic will tell you the answer.

You think you get supernatural help and advice from The Bible but I think The Bible is literature.

One of us is wrong, then.

I do not blame God . I do not believe in your god 'who' is all powerful. Therefore I cannot blame someone who does not exist for me.

Quite right: logically, you cannot. And then, you're in no position to ask why "evil" is allowed in the world, if that's the case; for how can anything that "just IS" be "evil"? You cannot blame rocks, trees and birds for what they do or don't do. If human beings are here by the same impersonal processes that brought them into being, then there is no one to blame, and nothing you can complain about.

But I think that's wrong, and I think you sense it's wrong, too. You DO feel justified in asking the question, and you DO feel you ought to get an answer, do you not? You know, just as I do, that suffering is real, and it is "evil" in the sense you want to say it is.

If there be a creator god then it made men what we are and exactly as determined by the creator god . Nothing of moral import is added by positing a creator god.

That would only be a reasonable way to speak if reality were not free, but was predetermined. Of course, from an evolutionary perspective, that's exactly what you'd have to think it is. "Evil" is not real, "suffering" is just a description of "things B. doesn't happen to like," and none of it is in the least avoidable, because it's all been predetermined by material forces to happen regardless of what B. wants or likes.

But I don't think you really believe that's the way it is. I think you believe (and you certainly take in your suppositions) that mankind is, in some important measures, free to choose. And so your question does make sense, when you ask, how come our being free involves so much suffering?

C'mon, B. I'm giving you more credit than you're giving yourself. I'm defending your right to question God. Meanwhile, you're the one backing off as fast as you can.

[KLewchuk]

Well, we'll see, won't we? And sooner, I think, than many suspect.

In any case, you and I both can see it's "authoritative" so far as what somebody who rightly calls themselves "Christian" ought to believe. If they don't regard the Biblical definition of "faith" as authoritative, then what's their basis for saying their definition is authentically "Christian" at all?

You do make me laugh. You now get to define who is a Christian.

Look again.

You'll find I didn't say I get to. After all, who am I?

The Bible gets to. And you get to, based on how you read the Bible. Moreover, I invited you to suggest anything else, other than the Bible, that must justify the claim that one was a Christian.

But in point of fact, what you ascribe to me was not even what I actually said. All I said is that a Christian definition of faith had to come from the Bible, and I asked you where else you think you could get a legitimately "Christian" definition of that word.

One way to investigate whether a belief is based on evidence is to query as to what contrary evidence would result in a person changing their belief. If a person cannot formulate the type of evidence that would cause them to change their belief, if it existed, then their beliefs are probably based on "faith".

That's the mistaken definition of "faith" again. You're assuming that both evidence and counter-evidence cannot be considered in a "faith" situation. I'm arguing both can be considered, and indeed must be, if the situation is to involve any genuine "faith." For "faith" always takes an object; and as such, it always is based on something.

Omer gerd;

You are projecting; that is not what I wrote. For example, if you believe a book to be authoritative based on evidence... you should be able to articulate what contrary evidence would result in you changing your position.

[KLewchuk]

God

So, your supposition would be that God "does not resist evil"? What makes you think that?

Suffering exists.

If God is all powerful and all good He will not allow suffering , perhaps a little suffering so we know what is the nature of good. But an all powerful and all good Being would not allow the degree of suffering we poor men know about.

One of the traditional attributes of God must be abandoned if this Being is to be comprehensible. Either He is

1.
all-good and all -knowing but not all -powerful:
or He is

2.

all-knowing and all-powerful but not all- good:
or He is

3.

all-good and all-powerful but is painfully ignorant.

Belinda,

What you wrote is the "irrefutable" argument against classical theism. At least irrefutable in that I've never read a "argument" against it that does not require the "leap of faith"... and that others have agreed on this point.

Of course, it is not necessarily logical to conclude that "God" does not exist. Rather, it may be our definition of God which is the issue.

[KLewchuk]

Well, we'll see, won't we? And sooner, I think, than many suspect.

In any case, you and I both can see it's "authoritative" so far as what somebody who rightly calls themselves "Christian" ought to believe. If they don't regard the Biblical definition of "faith" as authoritative, then what's their basis for saying their definition is authentically "Christian" at all?

You do make me laugh. You now get to define who is a Christian.

Look again.

You'll find I didn't say I get to. After all, who am I?

The Bible gets to. And you get to, based on how you read the Bible. Moreover, I invited you to suggest anything else, other than the Bible, that must justify the claim that one was a Christian.

But in point of fact, what you ascribe to me was not even what I actually said. All I said is that a Christian definition of faith had to come from the Bible, and I asked you where else you think you could get a legitimately "Christian" definition of that word.

One way to investigate whether a belief is based on evidence is to query as to what contrary evidence would result in a person changing their belief. If a person cannot formulate the type of evidence that would cause them to change their belief, if it existed, then their beliefs are probably based on "faith".

That's the mistaken definition of "faith" again. You're assuming that both evidence and counter-evidence cannot be considered in a "faith" situation. I'm arguing both can be considered, and indeed must be, if the situation is to involve any genuine "faith." For "faith" always takes an object; and as such, it always is based on something.

Omer gerd, these are layups. Fundamentalists have often used the term "Bible-believing Christian". The reason they use the term is that there are those who call themselves Christians who don't believe in the authority of the Bible or in the fundamentalist interpretation of it. For example, if I accept evolution, gay marriage, etc., and call myself Christian, some fundamentalists would accuse me of not being a "Bible believing" Christian. Catholics have sometimes been accused of not being "Bible believing" Christians because of the authority of the pope.

One can be a "cultural Christian" just as there are "cultural Jews" who adopt the culture but not the "parting of the Red Sea" or "Israel is ours" stuff.

This is where critical thinking comes in... very useful once you get the hang of it

[Immanuel Can]

...that is not what I wrote. For example, if you believe a book to be authoritative based on evidence... you should be able to articulate what contrary evidence would result in you changing your position.

I can. Why would you suppose I couldn't? After all, I believe in rational faith.

[Immanuel Can]

What you wrote is the "irrefutable" argument against classical theism.

How odd, then, that this allegedly "irrefutable" argument has been abundantly and repeatedly refuted.

It's as old as Epicurus, actually, and is known as his "trilemma." Unfortunately for Epicurus and his admirers, it's simply a false trilemma, because it takes for granted that God can have no sufficient reason for allowing any evil or suffering in the world...and obviously, as B. recognizes, He can.

[Immanuel Can]

One can be a "cultural Christian" just as there are "cultural Jews" who adopt the culture but not the "parting of the Red Sea" or "Israel is ours" stuff.

There are very good reasons why your analogy fails. For one thing, "Jewishness" is not merely a matter of belief, but one of DNA, and in particular, as any Jew can tell you, of your matrilineage. Thus, one can biologically be a Jew, and be anything else as well...even a Christian (though a rabbi once told me personally that orthodoxy holds "That's too far.")

One cannot be a biological "Christian," because Christianity is entirely founded on belief, not on DNA.

And, I will also say, one cannot be a "cultural Christian" either; for Christianity is trans-cultural and supra-cultural. The first Christians were actually all Jews. Later, there were Romans and Greeks, and now people of all sorts, from all manner of cultures. So no, even if there are those who misunderstand this fact, there are no such things as legitimate "cultural Christians."

Do you regard England as Christian? So many of the people in Rotherham will be delighted to hear it...or Birmingham, perhaps. They have been labouring under the delusion they're still Muslim. Do you regard America as Christian? Well, they're not British, but I wonder if you would include Sam Harris as one. And does that mean that all the Christians in India are actually closet Hindus? And those in Africa...closet Animists?

You see that the idea of a "cultural Christian" quickly becomes absurd.

[Belinda]

So, your supposition would be that God "does not resist evil"? What makes you think that?

Suffering exists.

If God is all powerful and all good He will not allow suffering , perhaps a little suffering so we know what is the nature of good. But an all powerful and all good Being would not allow the degree of suffering we poor men know about.

One of the traditional attributes of God must be abandoned if this Being is to be comprehensible. Either He is

1.
all-good and all -knowing but not all -powerful:
or He is

2.

all-knowing and all-powerful but not all- good:
or He is

3.

all-good and all-powerful but is painfully ignorant.

Belinda,

What you wrote is the "irrefutable" argument against classical theism. At least irrefutable in that I've never read a "argument" against it that does not require the "leap of faith"... and that others have agreed on this point.

Of course, it is not necessarily logical to conclude that "God" does not exist. Rather, it may be our definition of God which is the issue.

[Belinda]

Suffering exists.

If God is all powerful and all good He will not allow suffering , perhaps a little suffering so we know what is the nature of good. But an all powerful and all good Being would not allow the degree of suffering we poor men know about.

One of the traditional attributes of God must be abandoned if this Being is to be comprehensible. Either He is

1.
all-good and all -knowing but not all -powerful:
or He is

2.

all-knowing and all-powerful but not all- good:
or He is

3.

all-good and all-powerful but is painfully ignorant.

Belinda,

What you wrote is the "irrefutable" argument against classical theism. At least irrefutable in that I've never read a "argument" against it that does not require the "leap of faith"... and that others have agreed on this point.

Of course, it is not necessarily logical to conclude that "God" does not exist. Rather, it may be our definition of God which is the issue.

Our definition of God is the issue. There is no need to abandon The Bible as a source of inspiration, especially the life and work of Jesus both as a historical source of morality and as mythic perfection of man in a dangerous and uncertain world.

Whatever attributes the deity has we cannot know them except by way of something in the world i.e. the myth of Christ, or myth of a holy book and holy prophet.

The classic attributes of God with accompanying need for a leap of faith no longer serve men who trust probability, for want of better. We can still worship (worthship) universal wisdom and universal kindness and also ourselves bear the responsibility for making the world wiser and kinder.

[Immanuel Can]

Our definition of God is the issue.

Not really, unless we decide to make it an issue.

If, as you have suggested, God can have sufficient reason for allowing some suffering in the world, and indeed, if a world with suffering can be ultimately morally and teleologically better than one entirely devoid of the same, then an all-powerful, all-loving God would surely choose that world.

And then, as for the trilemma, it is just a false trilemma. Not only are there more options than it says there are, but then the claim, "an all powerful and all good Being would not allow the degree of suffering we poor men know about" is plausibly a false premise. There might be justification for all the things we observe, were the good to come out of them very great.

As it turns out, then, it's not much of an objection, is it?

[Belinda]

Immanuel Can wrote:

And then, as for the trilemma, it is just a false trilemma. Not only are there more options than it says there are, but then the claim, "an all powerful and all good Being would not allow the degree of suffering we poor men know about" is plausibly a false premise. There might be justification for all the things we observe, were the good to come out of them very great.

The trilemma, i.e. the definition of God as all -knowing, all-powerful, and all-, benevolent, are the three classic attributes of God. Any other attributes, e.g. omnipresent, and all-merciful, and loving heavenly father are sub categories among these three.

IC wrote:

There might be justification for all the things we observe, were the good to come out of them very great

Then the end would justify the means. You are on politically dangerous ground ; this ethic led to the final solution that was invented by Hitler's Nazis.

IC wrote:

There might be justification for all the things we observe, were the good to come out of them very great

Why would a benevolent deity choose to mystify us?
I have heard the answer is "to test our faith". But Jesus did not set out out test our faith, and Jesus is God manifested as man.The sort of people who set out to test others' faith is jealous spouses.Insecure people.

You , Immanuel, are like those Muslims who hold to the belief that the last word has been spoken on the history of God. This religious injunction is a clear case of intentional social control.

[Immanuel Can]

Immanuel Can wrote:

And then, as for the trilemma, it is just a false trilemma. Not only are there more options than it says there are, but then the claim, "an all powerful and all good Being would not allow the degree of suffering we poor men know about" is plausibly a false premise. There might be justification for all the things we observe, were the good to come out of them very great.

The trilemma, i.e. the definition of God as all -knowing, all-powerful, and all-, benevolent, are the three classic attributes of God. Any other attributes, e.g. omnipresent, and all-merciful, and loving heavenly father are sub categories among these three.

Debatable, but not the point, anyway. It's not the description of the two features of the character of God that are wrong in the trilemma: it's the interpretation of suffering as necessarily always nothing but bad, and its outcome as never capable of issuing in any good.

It's that false supposition that you were too wise to take, and which undermines the solidity of the trilemma. For it is certainly clear that an all-good, all-powerful and, if we might say, all-wise God would choose a universe with some measure of suffering in it, IF that universe were also ultimately a better one than the alternative.

There might be justification for all the things we observe, were the good to come out of them very great

Then the end would justify the means.

Only in one sense, but not in another. If freedom is a very great good (which almost everyone believes it is, it seems) then there would be nothing mysterious about saying that mankind must not only have the necessity of always doing what God commands, but also the option of choosing to do what God does not command. And that's definitional in what it means to have a "choice," or to "be free," and even "to have distinct identity."

Thus it is not merely God's ends that are in view, but mankind's present good. So the "means," human freedom, are not bad either, and it is not the case that only the ends are in view there.

There might be justification for all the things we observe, were the good to come out of them very great

Why would a benevolent deity choose to mystify us?

Maybe he hasn't. Maybe he's told us what we need to know. But people have freedom, and some choose not to listen.

I have heard the answer is "to test our faith".

There's something in that, but not enough of an answer, I think. To give that answer its due, it would be the case that in a universe in which you and I already knew all the answers, we would have no need of faith. And maybe faith is also a very great good; in which case, it would be better if God left us with some things we didn't know beforehand, so we could experience the goods associated with faith. That might be right.

But it makes it sound like God's putting us to some kind of endurance test, or test of a character we may not actually be capable of passing. And I don't think either is true. I think that God, being all-knowing, must surely know that we are frail and fallible -- in fact, the Bible says, "He is mindful that we are only dust," so He does know that. And you don't "test" stuff you know is going to fall short -- not unless you're being destructive. What you do instead, if you are wise and good, is see if you can supplement that weakness, that frailty, that susceptibility, so as to rescue something out of the situation...you "save" that person.

But Jesus did not set out out test our faith, and Jesus is God manifested as man.The sort of people who set out to test others' faith is jealous spouses.Insecure people.

Right. And that's the misinterpretation, possible from the idea of "testing," that I think we have to be cautious not to buy into.

You , Immanuel, are like those Muslims who hold to the belief that the last word has been spoken on the history of God.

Heh. Well, I could list a thousand ways in which I'm not "like those Muslims," but the more important question would not be what I think, but what God has actually said about that. And in point of fact, a great deal of Scripture is devoted to the question of what the future holds. We have certainly not seen the last in the "history of God."

However, we might well have seen the last in terms of His present self-revelation to mankind: for Hebrews says "God, who in times past spoke to the fathers in many ways and by different means, has, in these last days, spoken to us in His Son." That Son is the ultimate in God's self-revelation, as the passage goes on to reveal. So all that God needs to tell us about Himself has already been revealed in Jesus Christ. In that sense, the Last Word has indeed been spoken.

It depends on what the wording of your comment means.

[Belinda]

Immanuel Can wrote:

However, we might well have seen the last in terms of His present self-revelation to mankind: for Hebrews says "God, who in times past spoke to the fathers in many ways and by different means, has, in these last days, spoken to us in His Son." That Son is the ultimate in God's self-revelation, as the passage goes on to reveal. So all that God needs to tell us about Himself has already been revealed in Jesus Christ. In that sense, the Last Word has indeed been spoken.

It depends on what the wording of your comment means.

The historical Jesus is dead and gone. The Christ of faith and myth can 'live' in fleeting moments of real lives that we have either seen for ourselves, or read about perhaps in the newspapers, in poetry, or in historical photos.

Jesus never wanted to be idolised. I bet neither did the BVM.