rough notes on dialectical points re problems of good and evil

These are dialectical inasmuch as they do not so much demonstrate their point as argue hypothetically, piggy-backing in a sense on claims made by atheists.

If the atheist proposes that the problem of evil defeats theism AND argues that the multiplicity of universes diminishes the strength of arguments for theism based upon the anthropic principle, then...the theist may propose ad hoc that these alternate universes may have conscious life forms without evil & suffering, the preponderance of which weakens the argument for atheism. Yes, this is ad hoc, but no more so than positing imperceptible universes. The point is that a principled opposition to ad hoc arguments at least opens the door to some that the atheist may not desire to admit.

But if the atheist objects that these alternate universes are more likely to have suffering too, then the theist may ask if there is (apart from any miracles) a natural connection between life and suffering. If that is such that life naturally involves suffering, then God is not to be blamed for suffering. That is, if God wills there to be nature, including conscious life, then God must either allow suffering or continuously protect conscious life forms through purely supernatural means. We may then question why God doesn't perform miracles to prevent what is a natural consequence of the existence of conscious life. But that is not the same as the question of why God did not invent naturally non-suffering life forms. The latter objection is disallowed by one who grants a natural connection between life and suffering.

The question to focus on is whether the natural world with its conscious life forms is or is not good. If it is good, then we are asking why God didn't make it better. We may say that it is good as a whole without implying thereby that it is good in every part. Some wholes allow for bad parts for the sake of the integrity of the whole. Like the government allowing privacy to parents who mismanage their families.

The key point is that God is the source of the continuing existence of nature.... even without performing miracles. And the world is good. Even though parts of it are defecient and it could be better.

Redundant? Even with its natural problems (with the latter being a problem for atheists, but for a theist it is evidence that God is source of natural goodness).

Redundant? Point of above is that God can't make a natural universe in which there is no suffering but is evolved consciousness.

If the atheist objects that even if alternate universes have no suffering whatsoever, the example of EVEN ONE case of pointless sufferings is enough to weaken the argument for theism (Thinking here of the reference to the pointless suffering of children in The Brothers Karamazov), then I would reply that the form of this argument suits theism equally well, for even one instance of objective goodness is sufficient to indicate that the world has a purpose, a purpose... which brings us to God.

If the existence of one instance of any suffering whatsoever is sufficient to indicate that the world has no purpose, then evolution, which proceeds in part via suffering, is ugly. But it isn't, says Richard Dawkins: it is beautiful, says he repeatedly.

Is the claim that God should have made the world without suffering, the same as the claim that God should NOT have made worlds WITH suffering? Is this world fundamentally evil? Do you wish that it didn't exist? But you are part of this world? Would you rather it didn't exist, even though you too would not exist? Is it possible for your existence to be good even though the world as a whole is not good? Can you wish that you would exist but without this world? Can you exist w/o your DNA? Can your DNA exist w/o evolution? Can evolution of conscious life forms exist without suffering? Aren't you like the world, good even though you could be better?

P F Strawson's Freedom and Resentment: the argument laid out

Here is a summary and comments on the essay Freedom and Resentment by PF Strawson. He makes some great points, and when he is wrong, it is in such a way as to clarify things a great deal. My non-deterministic position is much better thanks to having read this. I’ll summarize it in this post and respond in a later one. In a nutshell: PFS first argues that personal resentment that we may feel toward another for having failed to show goodwill toward us would have no problem coexisting with the conviction that determinism is true. Moral disapprobation, as an analog to resentment, is likewise capable of coexisting with deterministic convictions. In fact, it would seem nearly impossible for a normally-constituted person (i.e., a non-sociopath) to leave behind the web of moral convictions, even if that person is a determinist. In this way, by arguing that moral and determinist convictions can coexist in the same person, PFS undermines the libertarian argument ...

response to friend who suggested that the self is a democracy of neural parts

This is a nice way to try to avoid being cornered re the irreality of the self if you're a reductionist, for you can assert that a pattern obtains at the microscopic level that is not all that unlike the pattern found at the societal level. No need for the one self that does it all: instead, you have many sub-selfs that compete for dominance or take turns guiding the whole. The problem with this is, however, that the voters/officials are all zombies. None of them thinks about the whole as such. And perhaps none of them thinks even about themselves (unless one is a panzoist). None of them makes a comparison of alternatives. The more this proposed democracy seems like a zombocracy, the more consciousness will be seem to be epiphenomenal. Furthermore, if the oneness of the self is less real than the multiplicity of explanatory neural parts, then why can't each of these neural parts be conceived of as democracy as well? And why not parts of these parts, et...

interesting article by Jimmy Akin on death before the Fall

http://www.ncregister.com/blog/jimmy-akin/did-animals-die-before-the-fall/ Akin below: Aquinas.... writes: In the opinion of some, those animals which now are fierce and kill others, would, in that state, have been tame, not only in regard to man, but also in regard to other animals. But this is quite unreasonable. For the nature of animals was not changed by man's sin, as if those whose nature now it is to devour the flesh of others, would then have lived on herbs, as the lion and falcon. Nor does Bede's gloss on Genesis 1:30, say that trees and herbs were given as food to all animals and birds, but to some. Thus there would have been a natural antipathy between some animals [ Summa Theologiae I:96:1 ad 2 ]. Aquinas thus holds that it was not all death that entered the world through man's sin, but human death.

The Human Question

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