God and Logic
A standard argument against the notion of the God of the Bible–even deployed by Mises in Human Action–is that God wouldn’t act in the sense that Austrian economists use that term. Specifically, beings act (meaning they use means to achieve ends) in order to remove uneasiness. But an omnipotent being wouldn’t have felt uneasiness, so he/it wouldn’t need to act. Yet the God of the Bible is clearly acting throughout history.
This is related to the more general atheist argument that goes like this: It is logically impossible for God to be omnipotent and omniscient. (He could be one or the other, but not both.) If God knows for sure who is going to win the World Series next year, then He renders Himself powerless to change it.
I can’t quite remember, but I bet when I was an atheist, I thought these were knock-down arguments. Now, they seem like silly brain teasers, comparable to the trick in algebra where you divide by zero and “prove” that 1=0. To deny that the God of the Bible exists, based on the above arguments, to me now seems akin to denying that propositions have truth value, because if they did, then I could say “I am lying” and make the universe blow up.
Rather than trying to unpack the logical puzzles directly, let me first explain my conception of God’s relation to the material universe. If my description is right (insofar as it goes–not that I could conceive of the full story), then the above puzzles fall away.
First of all, I think that God existed before time itself. In other words, it’s not that a clock was running, and then after two billion years God created the material universe. No, God created space and time together. (This is even consistent with modern physics. I.e. it is an obsolete Newtonian conception that could imagine the passage of time before any matter existed.)
The way I picture it, the whole history of the universe–what we perceive as past, present, and future–is a big timeline and God is outside of that timeline. So picture a guy with a beard and white robes at the top, and then underneath him is a ruler. The universe starts (whether with the Big Bang or the Genesis account, take your pick) on the left side of the ruler. Jesus comes down somewhere in the middle section, and then Jesus returns at the right side of the ruler.
Humans live their lives, moving left to right along tiny portions of the ruler. But from God’s perspective, all time periods are equivalent; there is no “past” or “future,” just like Mercury isn’t farther or closer than Jupiter to God. He’s not a part of the physical universe, so the dimensions of space don’t make sense with reference to Him. By the same token, the dimension of time is meaningless to Him. It’s just a way of describing a particular event in the universe that He creates, the way a novelist could refer to a particular sentence in his book.
So if my description is on the right track, we see how the clever puzzles fall away. God removes His felt uneasiness in one grand action. In one fell swoop, God created the whole universe, knowing everything that would happen at its inception and exactly how it would end. From our puny human perspective, we see it unfolding “over time.” But that’s not how God perceives it.
It’s also not the case that God periodically intervenes in human history. On the contrary, every moment of existence is a total expression of His omnipresent will. It’s not that God delegates “normal events” to the laws of physics, but occasionally He doesn’t like the way things are going, so He overrides Nature by acting and performing a miracle.
No, in my view, every single thing in the history of the universe–from the resurrection of Jesus to the nuclear reaction in a star 3 billion light-years away–is a direct manifestation of the choices God made when designing His creation. As an elegant flourish–and also to make things more comprehensible and “orderly” to us–He made the material universe obey very simple laws. It’s akin to a poet telling a great story, while obeying iambic pentameter. God tells His story of love and redemption, even while the atoms in our bodies obey seemingly mechanical laws.
So Mises is right: The God of the Bible does remove His felt uneasiness in one fell swoop. It just appears to us a succession of different actions, because we move through the dimension of time. But it’s all flowing from the same design, the same original act of creation, that was conceived by God when He decided that it would be “good” to have the universe (as well as all of our souls etc.) rather than just Him existing by Himself.
As far as the World Series puzzle, again it seems sophomoric to me, a play on words and not really something that sheds light on whether the Bible is true or false. When God created the universe, it’s not as if He has to first deal with Moses, then deal with Constantine, then deal with Calvinists, then deal with the anti-Christ, etc. No, He interacts with His creation in one glorious instant of creation, because He is outside (or beyond) time itself. He doesn’t have to wait around for the end of the world; He directly experienced it the moment He created all of spacetime.
Now when conceiving of the universe, God would have known that (say) at coordinates XYZ, at time T, Bill Green would pray and ask God to tell him which team to bet on. God could choose to tell Bill or not. But God wouldn’t then be “boxed in,” because He doesn’t experience the passage of time between telling Bill and then having a team win the World Series. When God decided on the charge of an electron, how much mass the sun would have, and so forth, He already knew not only who would win the World Series at time T+5, but also that Bill would be asking Him this question at time T. Such a possibility doesn’t limit His omnipotence any more than saying, “Could God make a flying octopus?”
Could God microwave a burrito so hot, that he himself could not eat it?
Seriously though, I agree that logical arguments don’t work as an anti-God argument, though theists should feel more comfortable with the fact that faith isn’t really all that logical.
Some people do ask such questions seriously. One answer is that heat, although created by God, does not exist for him in the sense your question implies. God is a Spirit (Jn 4:24) and does not have a body like men.
Therefore God does not “feel” heat. This is similar to the question – can God create a planet so heavy he cannot lift it? The answer is that there is no such thing as weight to God.
“It’s not that God delegates “normal events” to the laws of physics, but occasionally He doesn’t like the way things are going, so He overrides Nature by acting and performing a miracle.”
If God can see into the future, he would know that he wouldn’t like the way things are going and thus he should have created the universe so that the result would be different.
Since God decrees all that come to pass and “can see into the future” he must likes the way everything is going in sense of his decree. He may condemn certain events or people in his Word, while he decrees them an their actions to the accomplishment of his purposes.
“akin to denying that propositions have truth value, because if they did, then I could say “I am lying” and make the universe blow up.”
Propositions have truth value independent of the person staing the proposition.
What does it mean to be outside of space and time? I don’t know, and I don’t think anyone else does either. Does that prove God can’t be outside of them? Of course not. It just means that there are limits to human understanding. In this sense, atheists using silly puzzles to criticize religion are being juvenile. In another sense, however, these puzzles have a point. They demonstrate the need to stop talking about stuff we don’t and can’t understand. They demonstrate the problem with theology and metaphysics. If God is something we can talk about, apply logic to, systematize, then eventually we are going to run into these sorts of contradictions. I don’t see how saying God created everyone that is going to happen in one fell swoop solves these problems. Can God unmake the universe if He wished? Does He know whether He “ever” (quotes, because He is outside of time) will? Doesn’t the silly puzzle reappear?
God is ineffable. That’s about all we can say. The sorts of silly brain teasers you dislike show problems not with religion, as atheists think, or atheism, as you seem to think, but rather with trying to mix faith and reason. Somethings just don’t mix.
That’s intended to be a general reply, not a reply to noiselull, sorry
I can’t believe an adult wrote this. I guess this is consistent with your apparent utter lack of any ability to read graphs or charts to say nothing of thinking rigorously. After all, you do lecture from a praxeological perspective, which is to say, from complete illegitimacy. I guess it shouldn’t be surprising, coming from an anti-scientific pseudo-scholar.
You’re waxing on in detail about a subject that may as well be about breeding unicorns. If you have testable evidence for any god as you explicitly operationalize it, post it. Otherwise, maybe you should refrain from embarrassing yourself in a blog on your consulting site. lol
Do you actually get clients?
Would you care to elaborate on why this is such a silly topic and that Dr. Murphy is embarrassing himself? I am really interested to see you lay out your arguments for your brand of atheism.
I always thought it was silly to try to disprove God with logic. After all, Christians never made the claim that God is subject to or restricted by logic. Logic is-like language-not something that was there before mankind, but something that we created. And by the way, logic isn’t a universally accepted concept. Many people dismiss it. The whole idea of Hegelian dialectic is to find an alternative for what we call logic. (Not that I agree with Hegel in anything whatsoever). Beyond that, there are whole countries and cultures that prefer other concepts. Most of the Asian countries regard logic as a very week argument. If any, they accept it because they know that the western world believes in it. But a Japanese would never try to use logic to convince another Japanese of anything.
So under the premise that you believe in God and believe that he created us, it is unplausible that he would be restricted by a concept that some of us-including me-believe in.
By the way, I always understood God’s being omniscient as the ability of God to know everything we do and think; not to foresee the future.
PS: I still don’t understand your point. What are you trying to achieve by blogging about God?
I actually agree with all of this except the last sentence of the first paragraph (the God of the Bible is not “clearly” acting throughout history at all… he is claimed to have acted throughout history and it’s very unclear if he did… but that’s a detail!).
I had a discussion with my brother (who is actually getting a doctorate in theology at U. Chicago right now) about the nature of time over Christmas break this year, and I noted essentially what you do here. All time exists together and what we experience as the past and what we experience as the future is only an illusion of passing through time (but a stubbornly persistent illusion). I was surprised that he strenuously objected – he’s not dumb. He’s aware of relativity, etc. Later on he actually relented. But people are predisposed to reject this view. Whether there’s a higher power operating outside (or perhaps more accurately in other planes in addition to?) is obviously not something that I would assert so boldly. But conceptually of course it all works.
Do you know about Daniel Dennett’s ideas about the relationship of time to the problem of free will? You might be interested.
This sort of proof and disproof of God shows the limits of deductive logic. They’re dependent on more fundamental assumptions that could very well be wrong (if they are based on immature understandings of space or time), and they’re almost certainly going to be an incomplete set of assumptions. It’s why Austrians shouldn’t rely on it so heavily, and it’s why atheists and theists alike shouldn’t either. Logic is a tool, and a useful one at that – but you have to understand its limits.
Hey Daniel, that sounds very Pascal-ish of you…..you sure you won’t reconsider his wager? 🙂
“Reason’s last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it.”
-Blaise Pascal (Pensées)
I’ve always maintained that belief is ultimately a wager. That doesn’t mean that Pascal makes the most sensible bet (particularly with multiple candidates all proposing equally scary eternal damnations)!
Are you saying that belief in general is a wager, or specifically the God question?
I made a theory of God this morning, it goes something like this:
-At first God is all that exists, a boundless cosmic consciousness. But he feels like he might as well not exists, since he has nothing to compare himself to.
-God creates matter, energy, time and space, things that, unlike him, follow definite rules and have definite boundaries. He can now define himself in opposition to this universe.
-God creates humanity to populate this universe, a race of beings with definite boundaries in time in space. Now that he sees other consciousnesses at work, God can imagine his own boundaries.
-God begins to envy mortal beings, who do not feel the deep loneliness that he does due to being infinite, and therefore unique.
-God decides to ease this by making humans beg for his mercy, rendering them unworthy of envy.
-God creates many more universes, adding in more “miracles” or interventions each time to convince humans of his almightyness. This culminates in God’s adoption of a material body and human identity.
I wrote this down then read your post, which seemed hilariousy similar. If considerably more sinister.
I should start my own religion 🙂
To be clear, I meant that my own take on God was sinister, not yours.
God acting throughout history is anything but clear.
If it’s true that “every moment of existence is a total expression of His omnipresent will,” then I’m not sure your theory does an adequate job explaining the God of scripture. If we accept “every moment of existence is a total expression of His omnipresent will” as true, and we accept that “evil things happen” then it must follow that evil things are an expression of His omnipresent will. This seems contrary to what is presented in scripture.
To be fair, your explanation above does not mention the problem of pain/evil, so you may have accounted for this ( a future post, perhaps?).
Epicurus provides a brain teaser that I couldn’t solve as a practicing Christian and comes very close to my own conclusions:
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?”
“Jesus comes down somewhere in the middle section, and then Jesus returns at the right side of the ruler.”
1. Are you implying that Jesus will return 14 BILLION years from now?
2. You like to pick apart the arguments of atheists (which is all well and good of course), but is your worldview any more grounded in reality than theirs is?
3. As intriguing as the picture your painted of “god” was, on what basis are we to determine its veracity?
4. If “every single thing in the history of the universe … is a direct manifestation of the choices God made when designing His creation”, what is the justification for god punishing bad behavior (i.e. behavior that is nothing more than the manifestation of god’s choices)?
5. Did god create evil?
Bob,
What makes you so sure the Christian God is the one true god? What makes Christian God any more likely to be real than the countless other deities different cultures have invented? There is no more evidence for the one than for any other. Is it just a ‘gut feeling’ type thing?
I would also like to know how you respond to the standard critique: If God is omnipotent and omniscient, why do horrible things happen to innocent people? And please don’t say, “Because people have free will.”.
Eli, why do you consider “Because people have free will” to be an invalid answer? Horrible things NOT happening to innocent people is incompatible with human free will – this is one of C.S. Lewis’ opening arguments in The Problem Of Pain.
“Horrible things NOT happening to innocent people is incompatible with human free will”
Well, that’s not quite true. Free will doesn’t guarantee that horrible things will happen to innocent people, though free will does allow for the possibility (and makes it likely). That aside, just because WE can’t conceive of a world in which people have free will and innocent people are never victims of horrific acts, that is no reason an omnipotent and omniscient god shouldn’t be able to create such a world. If he can’t, then he’s not really omnipotent.
But also, the answer kind of seems like a red herring.. Why should free will be the ultimate goal for which other ends must be sacrificed? And again, if these other ends must be sacrificed (bad things happening to good people) to achieve free will, how is this god omnipotent?
Further, if you’re of the belief that “God has a plan for all of us”, how do you reconcile that position with the belief that people have free will?
And what about natural disasters, like the Indian Ocean Tsunami that killed over 200,000 people? The water doesn’t exhibit free will.
To answer this question (plus the other question in your first post), I refer you back to one of Bob’s old posts, where (I thought) he handled this nicely:
http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2010/02/why-does-god-allow-bad-things-to-happen-2209.html
Essentially, if God were to remove from existence (and from human conception) the worst of the bad stuff, then we all would consider the “next” worst to be the “new” worst stuff.
And, I submit that a Diety could reconcile “God has a plan” and “humans have free will”. Humans cannot. I know you will think this is a cop-out….I get that.
“Essentially, if God were to remove from existence (and from human conception) the worst of the bad stuff, then we all would consider the “next” worst to be the “new” worst stuff.”
OK. But so what? This is a non-sequitur. This does not address the question of why an OMNIPOTENT deity can’t create a world with free will and no bad stuff.
A couple excerpts from Bob’s post you linked:
“This isn’t the best of all possible worlds, but it’s the best of all possible worlds that God has the power to design. … You are simply assuming that God was sloppy and could have retained all the good things about the universe, but without the regrettable necessity of allowing the Holocaust to unfold as it did.”
Does that sound like an omnipotent God to you?
“And, I submit that a Diety could reconcile “God has a plan” and “humans have free will”. Humans cannot. I know you will think this is a cop-out….I get that.”
This is the problem with arguing religion in a logical framework. Ultimately, religious people can always fall back on the “God works in mysterious ways” argument, which itself is impervious to logic.
Pics related (not meaning to offend with these, but they do drive home the point):
http://lolgod.blogspot.com/2008/11/conventional-logic-vs-religious-logic.html
http://img.chan4chan.com/img/2010-01-08/1262971156605.jpg
I didn’t see where Bob’s post answered my first question, which I will restate here: What makes the Christian God more likely to be the true god than any other deity invented by other cultures? None of them are assailable by logical argument, and if you were born into one of those other cultures you would probably believe in their religion.
Eli,
Yeah, I suppose that it is entirely possible for an omnipotent God to create a world with free will and no bad stuff. I agree. Then we would just grade on a curve, and categorize the good-but-not-great things as horrible, i.e. if I didn’t hit all green lights on my drive home I would wonder how any loving God could allow such a horrible injustice to occur. Where are you going with this, and what specific conclusion are you drawing from it? Does the fact that “bad stuff happens” falsify the possibility that a god could exist?
No offense is taken. I said earlier that I get it that you see it as a cop out, and I hope you can understand why I do not think that it is. I don’t find it illogical to assign properties to a deity that surpass what a human mind can conceive. In fact, I submit that it would be one of the essential properties of any deity. I don’t think you find it illogical either, as you believe that omnipotence could create a world with free will and no bad stuff.
Thanks for restating your first question; I must have confused another post with yours. Why Christianity and not another religion? The dead guy who was resurrected seals the deal for me.
I do not think the problem is we cannot conceive of a world where free will does not lead to pain and whatever. I think the problem is those types of worlds would be undesirable to God for one reason or another. Perhaps he can only create a world with five people for that to happen. I am only throwing that out there as a possibility, of course.
Perhaps a world free of pain is a problem because that world would lack the greatest act of love. John 15:13 (http://bible.cc/john/15-13.htm) says the greatest act of love is to give oneself for another. To Christians Jesus’ sacrifice was the greatest act imaginable. Perhaps that act (and probably with other things) is what makes this world so feasible.
“I would also like to know how you respond to the standard critique: If God is omnipotent and omniscient, why do horrible things happen to innocent people? And please don’t say, “Because people have free will.””
Bob doesn’t believe in free will:
“…every single thing in the history of the universe … is a direct manifestation of the choices God made when designing His creation.”
Therefore, the answer to your question is that horrible things happening to innocent people is “a direct manifestation of the choices God made when designing His creation.”
This relates to my current reading material: “The Case for God” by Karen Armstrong. I’m only partway through it, but for most of the book, she traces the history of spirituality in human thought, and demonstrates that, not until very recently, did we come upon this idea that holy books were the literal, historical truth. (An odd thing for a book called “The Case FOR God” to say, but I find it oddly convincing.)
Her general theme throughout (so far), is that God (god) is so far beyond our experience and comprehension, it’s silly to think in terms of such concepts as “God exists”, or try to itemize his qualities and attributes. And that this was actually how many of the great Abrahamic theologists spoke of the divine, until the last several centuries.
I’m sorta sorry for the vagueness, but not, since that’s almost the point of the book: we don’t know even how to define what we don’t know. Even Bob’s idea of God-outside-of-time would have been torn to shreds by Thomas Aquinas and his predecessors, for presuming altogether too much comprehension — or even capacity for comprehension — of what God is.
I agree with the philosophical gist but not the theological. In your conception, there is no room for free will since everything is written in advance. Without free will, man cannot be virtuous. Would God create a world without virtue?
Bob,
Thanks for relating this discussion to Mises (albeit briefly). I’m working my way through “Human Action” for the first time and that was one of the parts that stuck out for me. I know it wasn’t really the topic of this post, but I’m always interested to read things that relate generally to whether Christianity and libertarianism/anarchocapitalism are compatible.
Do you have a post that explains the positive basics of why you believe in God and Jesus Christ? That’s a much different issue than why you don’t find negative proofs convincing.
Yes please, Bob! You’ve been asked this several times at this point, and I don’t recall seeing an answer.
Why did your healing episode in college not lead you to Islam or Buddhism?
I cannot find the page now but I seem to recall Mises saying in Human Action that praxeology could not apply to sub-human or super-human beings. The reasoning, iirc, went something like, ‘we cannot know how a sub-human or super-human would act in similar situations…’ Man, I really need to try to find it!
Ah! Here we go…. well it is something similar. On page 69 under “II. The Limitations on Praxeological Concepts” Mises says, “The praxeological categories and concepts are devised for the comprehension of human action. They become self-contradictory and nonsensical if one tries to apply them in dealing with conditions different from those of human life.”
Re-reading my post it kind of seems like I left off a conclusion. What I mean by my post is it seems to me that Mises did not think praxeology would be something that could be applied to a Deity. Is this accurate?
First of all, I think that God existed before time itself. In other words, it’s not that a clock was running, and then after two billion years God created the material universe. No, God created space and time together. (This is even consistent with modern physics. I.e. it is an obsolete Newtonian conception that could imagine the passage of time before any matter existed.)
Inventing in one’s mind another dimension in which the rules of reality are not applicable, so that God can exist there, cannot lead to a meaningful argument in this reality. For if the rules of reality are not applicable there, then it might be the case that everything you say here would have the opposite meaning there.
A fundamental tenet of rational thinking is to understand that an instance is not a concept. A mathematical operation such as division is a concept that applies to any general arrangement of numbers; it cannot be called a concept if it only applies to one particular calculation. You need an “x” to have an equation. 25/5=5 is not an equation, but an instance, a particular application of a general process called division.
Similarly, alternate dimensions (a place “outside of time”) cannot be invented that only contain God, but rather must be a general concept that encompasses everything. The true argument put forward by you is not that “the dimension “outside of time” is where God exists,” but instead is “nothing true can be said about our reality, because another reality may exist where truth equals falsehood.” In other words, your position is that any positive statement about anything must be instantly negated by the possibility of an “opposite dimension.”
However, the idea that we cannot make any absolute positive claims about truth is itself an absolute positive claim about truth – i.e. that truth is impossible. If we say that certainty is impossible, then we have to instantly retract that statement, since we are making a certain statement. It very quickly becomes obvious that nothing of any merit or weight can ever be said if the truth is impossible.
One who affirms a general rule, and then creates an exception for oneself, is one who is not being consistent.
So if my description is on the right track, we see how the clever puzzles fall away. God removes His felt uneasiness in one grand action. In one fell swoop, God created the whole universe, knowing everything that would happen at its inception and exactly how it would end. From our puny human perspective, we see it unfolding “over time.” But that’s not how God perceives it.
If God knows exactly what will happen, because he designed the whole universe, then anything any human ever does must be according to God’s design, and that includes humans hurting other humans via murder, rape, and theft. If you claim God designed and plans everything, then you must accept that an evil God exists.
And what makes you think the universe is going to end? My guess is because you know it is impossible for any “thing”, including God, to fully design and have full knowledge over everything that will happen in an infinite future. It is a logical impossibility for any thing to plan and have full knowledge of infinite events in an infinite future. There is no way to “discount”, so to speak, an infinite sum of future events down to a finite instance such that the thing “God” knows it at once. In order for anything to be known at once, it has to be finite. This is why I think you casually slipped in the assumption that the universe is going to end. It is to give the universe and time a finite lifespan, so that the entirety of it can be said to be planned for and known at once.
However, there is no justification for assuming the universe will ever end, other than faith, but that is endogenous to the primary argument of justifying God’s existence.
It’s also not the case that God periodically intervenes in human history. On the contrary, every moment of existence is a total expression of His omnipresent will. It’s not that God delegates “normal events” to the laws of physics, but occasionally He doesn’t like the way things are going, so He overrides Nature by acting and performing a miracle.
So genocide, war, torture, and every other evil act humans can think of committing, are the expression of God’s will? Why the ten commandment then? If people violate the ten commandments, it must be according to God’s will, which means the ten commandments are either a sick game, or they are not a reflection of God’s will for humanity.
No, in my view, every single thing in the history of the universe–from the resurrection of Jesus to the nuclear reaction in a star 3 billion light-years away–is a direct manifestation of the choices God made when designing His creation.
God chose the Holocaust?
As an elegant flourish–and also to make things more comprehensible and “orderly” to us–He made the material universe obey very simple laws. It’s akin to a poet telling a great story, while obeying iambic pentameter. God tells His story of love and redemption, even while the atoms in our bodies obey seemingly mechanical laws.
What would a disordered, incomprehensible universe look like?
So Mises is right: The God of the Bible does remove His felt uneasiness in one fell swoop. It just appears to us a succession of different actions, because we move through the dimension of time. But it’s all flowing from the same design, the same original act of creation, that was conceived by God when He decided that it would be “good” to have the universe (as well as all of our souls etc.) rather than just Him existing by Himself.
Any being that can create time cannot logically be metaphysically separate from time. In order for a creator to create anything, the thing created must be a part of the creator. Humans cannot create anything material if it weren’t for the fact that materiality is a part of humanity. Similarly, God would not have been able to create time if it weren’t for the fact that time was already a part of God.
As far as the World Series puzzle, again it seems sophomoric to me, a play on words and not really something that sheds light on whether the Bible is true or false. When God created the universe, it’s not as if He has to first deal with Moses, then deal with Constantine, then deal with Calvinists, then deal with the anti-Christ, etc. No, He interacts with His creation in one glorious instant of creation, because He is outside (or beyond) time itself. He doesn’t have to wait around for the end of the world; He directly experienced it the moment He created all of spacetime.
If God is in another dimension, “outside time”, then how can you know anything about God? Human knowledge comes from that which can be detected in some way. How can you claim to know anything about God if God is in another dimension?
Now when conceiving of the universe, God would have known that (say) at coordinates XYZ, at time T, Bill Green would pray and ask God to tell him which team to bet on. God could choose to tell Bill or not. But God wouldn’t then be “boxed in,” because He doesn’t experience the passage of time between telling Bill and then having a team win the World Series. When God decided on the charge of an electron, how much mass the sun would have, and so forth, He already knew not only who would win the World Series at time T+5, but also that Bill would be asking Him this question at time T. Such a possibility doesn’t limit His omnipotence any more than saying, “Could God make a flying octopus?”
If God designed everything, then he must have designed atheist humans who rape, murder, and steal. If that is the case, then there is no reason for theist humans to stop atheist rapists, murderers, and thieves, since they are just doing God’s will.
Hi Captain_Freedom,
If you want a really good Christian philosophical response you would be interested in reading or watching some of Dr. William Lane Craig’s stuff which deals almost exactly with what you are trying to critique. He discusses God’s timelessness and so forth. If you want to understand how God could have planned everything (determinism) with human libertarian free will then check out his work on Molinism, or the Middle Knowledge view. WLC has tons of information his website reasonablefaith.org and a lot of videos of professional debates and lectures on youtube and elsewhere.
Thanks very much for the information, RobertH.
I am not sure if Murphy shares the views of Dr. Craig. There are problems with the Molinist view, most notably the flawed way it conceives of “middle truths”. The typical way such middle truths are presented is by assuming a contingent event, e.g. “If you choose enter the ice cream shop”, then God will have perfect omniscience on what you will do once you go in, e.g. “you will buy a chocolate ice cream cone.” The problem here is that the initial act of entering the ice cream shop is also foreseen by God, since according to the stated premises he must have designed that action as well.
It is illogical to claim that God designs everything, but does not design whether you will choose to enter the ice cream shop or not. If he designed everything at the outset, then all events are according to his design, including the seemingly contingent event of a person walking into an ice cream shop and ordering chocolate.
Only if God did not design everything at the outset, could it be possible for a human to have chosen to walk into the ice cream shop and order chocolate. If he designed me to walk into the ice cream shop, then it couldn’t have been my choice to do so.
I understand there to be lots of debating on this issue, and I am not an expert in it, but the logic to me just doesn’t seem to add up.
I think this criticism stems from a misunderstanding or confusion. When God made his plan, or designed everything, he took human libertarian free will into account. So, when I decided to respond to this, God knew I would do it if certain conditions were met; this and I did it of my own free will.
I admit, it is perplexing and in all honesty I probably did not do it a lot of justice with the above. But I have been studying this stuff and meditating on it for a while now and *think* I am coming to some solid conclusions (about predestination, foreknowledge, etc.).
The best thing I think I can say which I will actually be reiterating is that God took human libertarian free will into account when making His designs.
I think this criticism stems from a misunderstanding or confusion. When God made his plan, or designed everything, he took human libertarian free will into account.
What do you mean God “took it into account”? Do you mean he designed us to have free will, but not what we will choose, or does he know what we will choose, which is just another way of saying he designed us to “choose” what we “choose”?
So, when I decided to respond to this, God knew I would do it if certain conditions were met; this and I did it of my own free will.
Did God design for you to respond?
I admit, it is perplexing and in all honesty I probably did not do it a lot of justice with the above. But I have been studying this stuff and meditating on it for a while now and *think* I am coming to some solid conclusions (about predestination, foreknowledge, etc.).
The best thing I think I can say which I will actually be reiterating is that God took human libertarian free will into account when making His designs.
Hmm, maybe you can elaborate on what you mean by “take into account”. If he designed us, and knows exactly what we will do, then it must be the case that he designed everything we do do.
If I designed a computer, and I know exactly what it will do on account of the programming I initially give it, then I must be the ultimate designer of everything it does. It didn’t do it on its own. Everything is traced back to my designs.
By “taken into account” God knew how the free creature “Captain_Freedom” would act and placed him where He wanted him. God did not determine your decisions, you are indeed the person that makes your decisions.
What’s the difference between that and designing my actions?
Because we are making our own decisions. We may be put in a situation God puts us but we are still the ones making our own decisions.
Daniel,
“Does the fact that “bad stuff happens” falsify the possibility that a god could exist?”
I think it falsifies the possibility that an omnipotent, omniscient, and all-good god could exist.
“I don’t find it illogical to assign properties to a deity that surpass what a human mind can conceive. In fact, I submit that it would be one of the essential properties of any deity. I don’t think you find it illogical either, as you believe that omnipotence could create a world with free will and no bad stuff.”
It’s possible, but you can understand how it might not be compelling evidence to a skeptic. But again we’re leaving the scope of logical argument here and appealing to faith, which is ultimately what backs any religious belief. On that note, I don’t get why Bob makes these types of posts trying to argue logically for something that can only be accepted on faith.
“Why Christianity and not another religion? The dead guy who was resurrected seals the deal for me.”
..which you know happened because you read it in a 2000 year old book. Why don’t you worship Zeus? He’s the god of sky and thunder and he shoots lightning bolts. Is that not an equally impressive claim to fame? The evidence for one is no stronger than the evidence for the other. If you say you accept Jesus as your lord and savior because you have faith, that’s fine, but then there is no reason for us to be having a logical argument.
Eli,
There really is no similarities except at a superficial ill-conceived look between YHWH of the Bible and Zeus (or insert name here). Here is a link of a skeptical non-Christian historian on a pop-atheist show that you, if seriously wanting to understand the issue, will find very interesting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRx0N4GF0AY
The fact that Jesus lived, was crucified, and his believers had a sincere belief in his post-mortem appearances are hardly called into questions by serious historians that have studied the issue.
“There really is no similarities except at a superficial ill-conceived look between YHWH of the Bible and Zeus (or insert name here).”
Both YHWH and Zeus are believed by their respective followers to have performed miracles beyond human ability that have never been verified or repeated since the age of enlightenment. That doesn’t qualify as a similarity?
Do you believe God spoke to Moses from a burning bush that didn’t burn? Do you believe Moses parted the seas? Do you believe Jesus walked on water? What gives any of those claims more credibility than the claims Zeus’ followers made of Zeus?
“The fact that Jesus lived, was crucified, and his believers had a sincere belief in his post-mortem appearances are hardly called into questions by serious historians that have studied the issue.”
Right, I never argued otherwise. But nothing you mentioned has any bearing on whether he was ACTUALLY resurrected or not. As far as that goes, Christians’ belief that Jesus was resurrected is just as sincere as Muslims’ belief that Mohammad was the final prophet. Many ancient peoples had strong beliefs that we learned were wrong as scientific knowledge evolved.
It is a matter of historical fact that Jesus the person lived, but you accept on faith that he was the son of God, born of a virgin mother, and that he was resurrected. As far as the evidence goes, it is no more in favor of YHWH than it is in favor of Zeus or Shiva or any other deity.
Exactly as I said, superficial similarities. Thank you for confirming that with your response; now go further to get at the meat.
Historians accept that Jesus’ followers had a sincere belief in the post mortem appearances and Paul, an enemy of the Christians previously called Saul, persecuted the church and then converted. The resurrection is the best explanation and a better one is unlikely at best.
I do not doubt non-Christian believers are as sincere as I am. But my faith is backed by history. ~Two years ago I tested the waters to see if any religion had any validity to their claims about truth and Christianity is unequaled.
“I do not doubt non-Christian believers are as sincere as I am. But my faith is backed by history”
No, your faith is not backed by history. That’s why it’s called faith; you believe it without any rigorous evidence in support of it.
You’re argument is that you know Jesus was resurrected from the dead 2000 years ago because a small group of people said he was — 2000 years ago, when people often resorted to fantastical reasoning to explain phenomena they couldn’t understand.
People make miraculous claims all the time, especially back then before science was a well-developed branch of study.
It’s simply impossible to read your argument objectively and consider this as conclusive or persuasive evidence.
Don’t tell me what my faith is, I know what it is and will tell it to you. Even if I didn’t believe it without “rigorous evidence” it would do nothing to take away from the warrant for it.
Apparently you have not studied the resurrection. Before you start making bold assertions you have to know what the other party is claiming and knows otherwise you are knocking down strawmen and being willfully ignorant.
“If he designed everything at the outset, then all events are according to his design”
So many things to say, but about to board a plane, so may need to clarify later.
First, God did not design all events at the “onset”, since he is eternal by definition and his knowledge did not begin at t=0. The total sum of God’s knowledge existed eternally in the past, exists now, and will exist eternally into the future.
Second, it is not necessary that God “design” all human acts in order for him to assert sovereignty over them.
All human action occurs in accordance with God’s sovereign *will* in the sense that he has the power to prevent any particular human action which would violate his will. Otherwise, human will would be sovereign over God’s. God by definition has the power to vaporize any volitional creature according to his will.
However, if people are programmed like a machine by God to do evil, then God is not all good. Theists like myself deny this is an accurate conception of God and his sovereignty. One thing God cannot do is evil.
How might we imagine that a supreme being could precisely decree the exact evolution of society if he did not actively control all the actions of all individuals?
You seem like a smart person. Surely you can creatively think of a way this might be accomplished?