public hermit OP said:
Various analogies are offered to show that the noseeum inference is logically dubious. For example, a novice chess player's inability to discern a chess master's choice of moves cannot be used to infer that there is no good reason for the move.
Of course not. It would be atypical for a chess master to make moves without good reason. However, as far as I know it is not atypical for deities to allow gratuitous evil.
Here is a reason to accept the existence of gratuitous evil as likely : it appears true.
That constitutes evidence according to the following principle :
Without good reason to doubt it, an appearance is probably true.
By giving God certain attributes, that creates certain expecations for his behaviour, like doing good and preventing evil. God does not meet those expections, which casts doubt on his attributes or his existence.
Why did Superman not rescue the people trapped in the World Trade Center on september 11th 2001 ? It would be easy to argue based on his inaction that Superman doesn't exist. However, it would be a weak argument, because Superman could have good reason for not intervening. Yet almost no Christians believes in Superman.
public hermit OP said:
Skeptical theism provides a defense against the evidential argument from evil, but does not take a position on God’s actual reason for allowing a particular instance of evil.[1] The defense seeks to show that there are good reasons to believe that God could have justified reasons for allowing a particular evil that we cannot discern.[2] Consequently, we are in no position to endorse the minor premise (2) of the argument from evil because we cannot be more than agnostic about the accuracy of the premise. This conclusion would be an undercutting defeater for the premise because there would be no justification for the conclusion that evils in our world are gratuitous. To justify this conclusion, the skeptical theist argues that the limits of human cognitive faculties are grounds for skepticism about our ability to draw conclusions about God's motives or lack of motives;[3]
[1] Of course not, for the actual reason is not known.
[2] Could have ? That is a weak defense. It would not imply he has reason.
[3] The skeptical theists are free to present reasons for their skepticism.
I tend to interpret POE argument in context. There is no compelling evidence on God's morality. All theists have is ''The Bible says so'' and personal experience. Are these so-called skeptical theists as skeptical about the Bible as they are about the POE argument ? I suspect not. So they have almost nothing. In that context a weak argument suffices to counter the evidence for God's benevolence. It may not be good, but it's good enough.
Consider the Problem of Good argument :
1. If an omniscient, omnimalevolent and omnipotent god exists, there should be no gratuitous good.
2. There exist instances of gratuitous good.
3. Therefore, an omniscient, omnimalevolent and omnipotent God does not exist
Premise 2 of that argument is just a weak as the POE argument, yet it is strong enough to convince me that it is unlikely that such omnimalevolent god exists.
Christians are also happy to dismiss God's omnimalevolence without any other evidence. They praise and worship God like there is no tomorrow. Without any evidence, that God deserves any praise or worship is just their personal opinion, an opinion no better or worse than the one from someone who is loathing and cursing God like there is no tommorrow. However, the former are dominating the world, while the latter are insignificant. There clearly exists a strong bias in favour of God.
Tolworth John post 9 said:
public hermit OP said:
If an omniscient, omnibenevolent and omnipotent God exists, there should be no gratuitous evil
It does not follow that God will not permit the existence of evil.[4]
If man has the ability to choose between good and evil, there has to be the option for the consequence of that choice.[5]
Adam choose evil.
Apart from this what is 'good' and what is 'evil' ?[6]
Without defining these the discussion is meaningless.
[4] God is exaggerating in his permissivness. There is no conclusive evidence that he stops any evil.
[5] Why is that ?
[6] It doesn't seem important as long as we mostly have the same intuitive understanding of it and there is no disagreement on important examples. A pandemic is evil, right ?
com7fy8 10 to public hermit said:
There is evil, but this does not have to mean God is allowing it.
Not preventing or stopping something you could, qualifies as allowing it.
com7fy8 10 said:
Well, I do not think God is allowing evil, but He has control of what can happen and how far it can go. Plus, He makes His good use, somehow, of every thing.
God makes good use of the evil he is not allowing ? How and where is the evidence ?
ZNP 11 said:
I think it is an excellent question, it leads to wonderful insights into God and the Bible, but I am always disappointed in the atheists who ask this because they are asking a question that they feel is unanswerable and in my experience will close their ears to the answer.
Maybe that is because the answer is usually an unevidenced story. Skeptics want evidence.
ZNP 11 said:
1. I believe that God is omnipotent and omniscient, two attributes that define what it is to be God.
If God is not also supposed to be benevolent, then the POE does not apply.
ZNP said:
Now I would also like to point out that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. He cannot lie.
If God is light, then it is true that he (or rather it) cannot lie. However, it would also contradict your beliefs, for light is omnipotent nor omniscient.
ZNP 11 said:
Now most atheists who bring this argument feel that it is rock solid. God created everything, if we have evil then God created it, yet I argue that in God there is no evil and therefore could not have created it [7] and yet I also agree that many things that have happened in human history are evil.
[7] How is that supposed to follow.
ZNP 11 said:
To me the Bible gives a very clear answer on this and it is the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil.
Without evidence your story is not any more plausible than a story I would make up.
ZNP said:
God gave us two choices, we could obey God unquestioning, whether we understood or not, whatever He says do it, and that would have been the tree of life. Or we could choose to “be like God” figure these things out for ourselves by trial and error, learn from our mistakes, and basically take a scientific approach to life. That is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. However, if you choose the second approach it means that we will make every single possible mistake, and we will have evil men like Hitler.
A problem with your story is that it equates everyone (referred to as 'we'), that we all agree and take decisions and responsibilities as a group.
Why would 'we' make every possible mistake if 'we' chooses the tree of knowledge of good and evil ?
ZNP said:
So just like scientists go into controlled environment of the lab to do experiments God said that if we choose this second tree that the moment we do that it is a controlled environment. The first thing that happens is that we die even though our souls are eternal. This limits the potential damage to an extraordinary degree (what is our life compared to eternity -- a vapor, a mist)
What damage does people dying limit ? You seem to suggest that killing people is good thing, because when they are dead, they can't do bad things.
ZNP said:
2nd we cannot take the tree of life and cannot live eternally, for someone like Hitler to do that would clearly violate what a benevolent God could allow.
There are many things a benevolent god clearly would not allow, yet happen. That is why skeptics reject the existence of such god.
ZNP said:
God has essentially created a simulated world.
ZNP said:
You can move and act in this world, it reveals the thoughts and intents of the heart, but when your time in the simulation is up you must wait for the final judgement. Hebrews describes those in the simulation as being on the field of play while all those who have died before us surround us in the stadium and are watching what is going on intently because apart from us they cannot be made perfect. Determining whether or not your life is perfect is dependent on the life and actions of those that follow you, similar to the Lord saying “you will know them by their fruit”.
Why would whether or not someone's life is perfect depend on later lives ?
ZNP said:
No one views the horror of a commercial airline filled with passengers and crashing into apartment complexes in a computer simulation as truly evil, only simulated evil. Likewise this life there is no real evil the can touch eternity, only simulated evil.
So, the holocaust wasn't really a problem because it was just a simulation. Is that correct ?
ZNP 14 said:
public hermit 13 said:
So, contra Rowe, are you saying God is morally justified in permitting the evil and suffering in this world because it is only simulated?
I am saying that the evil you see is no more real than the evil that takes place in a video game when you see the little pixels change color. The Bible says the same thing:
4 “I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more.
5 But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.
According to WL Craig, objective moral values and duties exist because deep down we all know some things are really immoral, like raping children for fun. Do we all know wrong ?