Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[JackDaydream]

I do wonder about the problem of evil and suffering and wrote a thread on the topic in the last week. During that discussion what has been one of the prominent issues is to what extent are the concepts of good, evil and suffering human constructs?

All concepts are human constructs.* The terms "good" and "evil" merely denote someone's desire for, or approval of, something (or for "evil," the desire to avoid or be rid of something, or disapproval of it). They don't denote natural or objective properties of things, and certainly not any transcendental" substances, forces, entities, etc. As such they are idiosyncratic and subjective.

* At least, all those invoked in human conversations. It doesn't preclude other sentient creatures having/creating similar cognitive structures.

Your outpost seems to be similar to the one on omnipotence but with a long thought experiment. However, unless your post is simply about trying to argue there is not a God, which does not rely on the issue of evil, I am unsure what philosophy question you are actually raising. So, perhaps you could clarify your own position in regard to the issue of good, evil and suffering.

I took her post to be arguing that the concept of "God," as usually defined, is incoherent. That would be the case with any "being" described as having infinite attributes (whether infinite power, wisdom, benevolence, extent, duration, etc.).

I am interested in discussion but it may be better in my thread which is a current one going because the author of the thread has just commented that people are going off topic in her threads. The reply you have written is only slightly off topic but my thread is on the exact area of discussion raised about the constructs of good, evil and suffering and AstroCat has said that she wishes to discuss theodicy in particular, in the post she has just written.

[GE Morton]

For instance, if I say “hey, I’m interested in responses to the greater good theodicy” and I get back “well classical theism is riddled with problems” or “humans are conceited for thinking the PoE is worthwhile” (obviously paraphrasing here), the thing I came here to discuss has been sort of set aside.

You did a fine job outlining the problems with that theodicy. But it isn't off-topic to point out other (and perhaps more fundamental) problems with the notion of "infinite benevolence").

[Astro Cat]

I am interested in discussion but it may be better in my thread which is a current one going because the author of the thread has just commented that people are going off topic in her threads. The reply you have written is only slightly off topic but my thread is on the exact area of discussion raised about the constructs of good, evil and suffering and AstroCat has said that she wishes to discuss theodicy in particular, in the post she has just written.

You did a fine job outlining the problems with that theodicy. But it isn't off-topic to point out other (and perhaps more fundamental) problems with the notion of "infinite benevolence").

Now I feel bad

I didn't mean to stifle any kind of discussion or anything. I think I was just venting that posts will go on for pages and pages and pages and PAGES, and in terms of responses I feel actually sort of address the original intent of the OP, sometimes it's 0%. Sometimes I get a little bit luckier.

I agree GE Morton for instance that trying to whittle down concepts of benevolence would be on topic or topic-adjacent.

I guess I'm just saying something like this. Imagine it's a mathematics or logic forum and I asked, "Is it really true that if A > B and B > C, then A > C?"

Then the responses I get back are "actually, have you considered this other nomenclature that I like better to represent this concept?" and "well, let's have a debate over whether A really is > B" (despite the topic sort of implying it's just assumed for the sake of argument), and so on. Ultimately there are no replies that just actually talk about the original question. All of the responses are at least topic adjacent, so the author, she feels a little frustrated but doesn't feel slighted or anything since people are at least topic-adjacent. But ultimately, her post never really talks about what she came here to talk about.

[Astro Cat]

To be ultra-clear, I love chatting in posts and I do not mind AT ALL off-topic posts, or friendly chatter in posts that don't even try to address the topic but are just people hanging out. I was just expressing frustration that sometimes I feel like my topics aren't discussed at all. Which is probably more my problem than anyone else's, maybe my interests are weird XD

[thrasymachus]

JackDaydream wrote
That was the reason why I wrote the thread on what do people understand by the idea of 'God'. That was intended to look more at the nature of ideas in depth, as opposed to the simple for and against, which often seems more about battling against the opposition. I did feel that it generated some worthwhile discussion beyond the level of just winning arguments or attacking opponents. Of course, constructing rational arguments is important and is essential to philosophy but, sometimes, it is disappointing when the discussions don't go into much in depth analysis of both concepts and the strengths and weaknesses of both sides of any argument.

A hard issue to penetrate, philosophically, mostly because most are not willing to budge an inch from routine atheism. What atheism is really about is moral nihilism, and, I argue, God is not just a bad argument against this. To understand the generative source of God, we have to understand the actual human condition that nihilism plays against; we have to ask questions like, why are born to suffer and die? and attempt to see this in an analytical light that is not influenced historical metaphysics. To do this, we have to be honest. After all, it is not as if there is nothing to argue about once the historical veil is lifted, and it is not as if the complaint against nihilism is just aa vacuous abstract exercise.

For me, the question then moves to the actuality that is plainly in sight: the pure phenomenon, if you will, of suffering, delight, misery, happiness, and so on. It is this value-dimension of our existence that is brought to analysis, something Wittgenstein called "mystical". He said, in his Value and Culture, "the Good, this is what I call divinity." Keep in mind that Wittgenstein is one of the gods of analytic philosophy, and these guys hate to talk about this as much as they hate to talk about Kant. But Wittgenstein was right! And one has to deal with this: what is value? This is what lies beneath talk about God.

[Astro Cat]

Perhaps it will help to explain why I'm interested in the greater good theodicy and the problem outlined in the OP.

The part that interests me is that the theodicy's objection -- "but you don't know everything, so there might be some reason this apparent evil is actually good" -- is technically true. Yet my intuition still tells me to reject the argument. I think that's very interesting: arguing why something that's technically true should be taken with a heap of salt.

Doing something like that bothers me. So this topic is interesting to me: because I have conflicting feelings and epistemic ideas about it.

[thrasymachus]

Astro Cat wrote
This post is about responding to theists that would give the greater good theodicy, whether the analysis of the greater good theodicy given in the OP has bite

But then, what is a theist really saying? Or, what does a meaningful statement of about a defense of God given the presence of evil in the world look like? I am arguing that one has to say this first. Otherwise the argument descends into trivia.

[Astro Cat]

Astro Cat wrote
This post is about responding to theists that would give the greater good theodicy, whether the analysis of the greater good theodicy given in the OP has bite

But then, what is a theist really saying? Or, what does a meaningful statement of about a defense of God given the presence of evil in the world look like? I am arguing that one has to say this first. Otherwise the argument descends into trivia.

In this case, the theist is acknowledging that suffering exists, but rejecting the idea that any physical suffering is gratuitous suffering. Classically, "gratuitous suffering" is defined as suffering that is just suffering and not there for some greater purpose. The very term requires an omniscient view to use though, and that's the heart of the problem: I have an intuition that cancer is gratuitous suffering, but I can't know that without being omniscient, for instance. Vice versa, the greater good theodicy is to suppose in the strong form that cancer definitely isn't gratuitous (because God has some unknowable greater purpose for it that ultimately makes creating cancer congruous with being benevolent in the same way a doctor is ostensibly benevolent despite stabbing a patient with a vaccine needle) or in the weak form that we must at least be agnostic about whether any suffering is gratuitous (which is widely regarded to be a defeater for the strong/logical PoE, which I'm inclined to agree that it is).

I think the evidential PoE is still quite strong, one of the strongest arguments against classical theism though. So my interest in this theodicy stems from these interesting interplays.

[JackDaydream]

Perhaps it will help to explain why I'm interested in the greater good theodicy and the problem outlined in the OP.

The part that interests me is that the theodicy's objection -- "but you don't know everything, so there might be some reason this apparent evil is actually good" -- is technically true. Yet my intuition still tells me to reject the argument. I think that's very interesting: arguing why something that's technically true should be taken with a heap of salt.

Doing something like that bothers me. So this topic is interesting to me: because I have conflicting feelings and epistemic ideas about it.

Your own position here probably makes the thread topic more honest and I hope that your feelings about off-topic discussion are read, because your other thread went way off topic. I can understand why you felt disappointed and are starting a fresh one.

Even though my own thread is less focused on theodicy itself, my own perspective is about mixed feelings on good, evil and suffering is similar, if I understand your brief remark. In a reply which I just wrote on that thread I was just saying that I while suffering is a terrible facet to life, the experience of suffering may lead to people being deeper and wiser. Suffering in its various forms can be destructive leading to mental health conditions and suicidality. However, sometimes those who have endured most seem to have a special rare quality, often embracing compassion.

Generally, this may apply to many traditions of thought, including Buddhism and Stoicism. Going back to the Christian idea of God the problem may be where suffering and evil are glossed over as the will of God, almost with a sense of making people subservient, carrying their crosses, without looking at challenging the sources of suffering, including oppression and social injustice. This is the basic problem with theodicy, but at the same time there is a danger of overgeneralisations, with some very radical forms of Christianity, including liberation theology.

[thrasymachus]

GE Morton wrote
All concepts are human constructs.* The terms "good" and "evil" merely denote someone's desire for, or approval of, something (or for "evil," the desire to avoid or be rid of something, or disapproval of it). They don't denote natural or objective properties of things, and certainly not any transcendental" substances, forces, entities, etc. As such they are idiosyncratic and subjective.

But you have forgotten, as Kierkegaard put it, that you exist. But first you have to deal with where and if the language connects to the world: Language is not idiosyncratic and subjective, at least, this is not how a responsible accounting talks about contextually grounded centers of meaningful utterances. Then, as to the terms good and evil, if you were to follow someone like Derrida, you would admit that, yes, indeed, language is not the kind of thing that "point out" affairs and objects in the world apart from context, which is what he meant by "there is nothing outside of the text." He is with you (as did Quine in his radical indeterminacy thesis). BUT: human existence IS existence, and regarding what is good, the context of ethical and aesthetical thinking, refers us to our existence, and here, there is a spear in your kidney, a child screaming in a burning car, and so on. If you think this kind of thing is simply dismissible with a metaphysical wave of the hand, you have entered into a no man's land, of sorts. You are in the void of vacuous analytical philosophy. Remember, Wittgenstein NEVER thought like this. And Quine, he was a Catholic.

[Astro Cat]

Perhaps it will help to explain why I'm interested in the greater good theodicy and the problem outlined in the OP.

The part that interests me is that the theodicy's objection -- "but you don't know everything, so there might be some reason this apparent evil is actually good" -- is technically true. Yet my intuition still tells me to reject the argument. I think that's very interesting: arguing why something that's technically true should be taken with a heap of salt.

Doing something like that bothers me. So this topic is interesting to me: because I have conflicting feelings and epistemic ideas about it.

Your own position here probably makes the thread topic more honest and I hope that your feelings about off-topic discussion are read, because your other thread went way off topic. I can understand why you felt disappointed and are starting a fresh one.

Even though my own thread is less focused on theodicy itself, my own perspective is about mixed feelings on good, evil and suffering is similar, if I understand your brief remark. In a reply which I just wrote on that thread I was just saying that I while suffering is a terrible facet to life, the experience of suffering may lead to people being deeper and wiser. Suffering in its various forms can be destructive leading to mental health conditions and suicidality. However, sometimes those who have endured most seem to have a special rare quality, often embracing compassion.

Generally, this may apply to many traditions of thought, including Buddhism and Stoicism. Going back to the Christian idea of God the problem may be where suffering and evil are glossed over as the will of God, almost with a sense of making people subservient, carrying their crosses, without looking at challenging the sources of suffering, including oppression and social injustice. This is the basic problem with theodicy, but at the same time there is a danger of overgeneralisations, with some very radical forms of Christianity, including liberation theology.

I think there's merit to the idea that suffering may lead to people being deeper and wiser; but I feel like most of the time the sort of suffering that does that is mental/emotional suffering. Touching a hot burner may teach me not to touch hot burners, but that's a pointless lesson in a toy world where a hot burner couldn't hurt me in the first place.

I have this intuition that physical suffering is gratuitous whereas emotional suffering is not: for instance, as I try to draw attention to in OP, you can have a world without physical suffering and still have free will, but could you have a world without unrequited love and still have free will? I don't think so. I think in emotional/mental suffering's case, there is a cognizable "greater good." As you probably know, some of this gets wrapped up into its own theodicy called the soul-making theodicy (that maybe the greater good for which suffering exists is to build better people). That's a fantastic topic I think, and also in line with the OP here.

For instance, I mentioned above but want to make more explicit, I think the soul-making theodicy can be satisfied without physical suffering: trials and tribulations that make us better people can be done without having cancer, for instance; but we can't do it without the ability to be a jerk to one another, or the ability to break a promise and so hurt someone's feelings, etc. But God isn't culpable for us doing those things, and I think that's an important distinction. God is culpable for everything from our ability to stab one another to our ability to stub our toes; and that demands an explanation from theists that insist God is omnibenevolent.

[Gertie]

Astro Cat

The PoE-giver might respond with something like, "well, what possible greater good could there be for something like child leukemia, or any other form of egregious suffering?" This is usually when the theodicy I'm interested in comes out: the theist might say, "well, as we are mere humans and can't presume to know the mind of God, all that we can know is that God has a good reason to allow child leukemia such that it isn't incongruent with God's benevolence to allow it."
I think that this line of theodicy is problematic in that it's invincible, and feels very similar to special pleading. It's a kind of trap that -- once accepted -- might never be un-accepted because God could literally do anything at that point, even kicking puppies in the street and laughing maniacally while they fly, and the excuse could still be made: "Maybe He has an unknowable reason for this such that it's good, even though it appears evil."

If someone thinks it is an irrefutable argument once you accept the premise that the tri-omni god is possible, then  yes it is special pleading, but it's a special case.  One  which can discount our mere limited human reliance on evidence, reasoning, physics, what constitutes a possible world and incredulity at the utter immensity of suffering. 

But I still don't think it passes muster.  As you point out, such a god could've made a blissfully happy and good world without the suffering.  Heaven.   Without the mortal earthly test to get there.  'Mysterious Ways' struggles to answer that I think, as any good attribute we're supposed to gain through struggle could simply be gifted us.  And once you go down the mysterious ways path you've basically admitted you can't know the nature of your god, be it good, bad or indifferent.


Also as Stephen Law's Evil God Challenge  illustrates you can just as easily argue for a tri-omni evil god by just flipping it.  Such a god might allow some good but ultimately knows (tho we can't) it will result in greater evil/suffering.  It's equally irrefutable.  Such a 'toy world' evil alien could eliminate all our sources of suffering, but only as a way to engineer even greater suffering later, plus having a good laugh.  This isn't just a cheap gotcha, it shows the problem of reasoning your way to knowing such a god's nature.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_God_challenge.

[Astro Cat]

Astro Cat

The PoE-giver might respond with something like, "well, what possible greater good could there be for something like child leukemia, or any other form of egregious suffering?" This is usually when the theodicy I'm interested in comes out: the theist might say, "well, as we are mere humans and can't presume to know the mind of God, all that we can know is that God has a good reason to allow child leukemia such that it isn't incongruent with God's benevolence to allow it."
I think that this line of theodicy is problematic in that it's invincible, and feels very similar to special pleading. It's a kind of trap that -- once accepted -- might never be un-accepted because God could literally do anything at that point, even kicking puppies in the street and laughing maniacally while they fly, and the excuse could still be made: "Maybe He has an unknowable reason for this such that it's good, even though it appears evil."

If someone thinks it is an irrefutable argument once you accept the premise that the tri-omni god is possible, then  yes it is special pleading, but it's a special case.  One  which can discount our mere limited human reliance on evidence, reasoning, physics, what constitutes a possible world and incredulity at the utter immensity of suffering. 

But I still don't think it passes muster.  As you point out, such a god could've made a blissfully happy and good world without the suffering.  Heaven.   Without the mortal earthly test to get there.  'Mysterious Ways' struggles to answer that I think, as any good attribute we're supposed to gain through struggle could simply be gifted us.  And once you go down the mysterious ways path you've basically admitted you can't know the nature of your god, be it good, bad or indifferent.


Also as Stephen Law's Evil God Challenge  illustrates you can just as easily argue for a tri-omni evil god by just flipping it.  Such a god might allow some good but ultimately knows (tho we can't) it will result in greater evil/suffering.  It's equally irrefutable.  Such a 'toy world' evil alien could eliminate all our sources of suffering, but only as a way to engineer even greater suffering later, plus having a good laugh.  This isn't just a cheap gotcha, it shows the problem of reasoning your way to knowing such a god's nature.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_God_challenge.

Good points, and I’ve had an interest in the maltheism argument as well for a while. I remember when I was a child I once asked something to the effect of “how do we know God is good; because He says so?”

It’s why I bring up the Mars Attacks example often (I’m on my phone and don’t remember if I did anywhere here, but in the film, there’s a scene where violent aliens are blasting people in the streets while saying, “do not run, we are your friends.”)

[JackDaydream]

Perhaps it will help to explain why I'm interested in the greater good theodicy and the problem outlined in the OP.

The part that interests me is that the theodicy's objection -- "but you don't know everything, so there might be some reason this apparent evil is actually good" -- is technically true. Yet my intuition still tells me to reject the argument. I think that's very interesting: arguing why something that's technically true should be taken with a heap of salt.

Doing something like that bothers me. So this topic is interesting to me: because I have conflicting feelings and epistemic ideas about it.

Your own position here probably makes the thread topic more honest and I hope that your feelings about off-topic discussion are read, because your other thread went way off topic. I can understand why you felt disappointed and are starting a fresh one.

Even though my own thread is less focused on theodicy itself, my own perspective is about mixed feelings on good, evil and suffering is similar, if I understand your brief remark. In a reply which I just wrote on that thread I was just saying that I while suffering is a terrible facet to life, the experience of suffering may lead to people being deeper and wiser. Suffering in its various forms can be destructive leading to mental health conditions and suicidality. However, sometimes those who have endured most seem to have a special rare quality, often embracing compassion.

Generally, this may apply to many traditions of thought, including Buddhism and Stoicism. Going back to the Christian idea of God the problem may be where suffering and evil are glossed over as the will of God, almost with a sense of making people subservient, carrying their crosses, without looking at challenging the sources of suffering, including oppression and social injustice. This is the basic problem with theodicy, but at the same time there is a danger of overgeneralisations, with some very radical forms of Christianity, including liberation theology.

I think there's merit to the idea that suffering may lead to people being deeper and wiser; but I feel like most of the time the sort of suffering that does that is mental/emotional suffering. Touching a hot burner may teach me not to touch hot burners, but that's a pointless lesson in a toy world where a hot burner couldn't hurt me in the first place.

I have this intuition that physical suffering is gratuitous whereas emotional suffering is not: for instance, as I try to draw attention to in OP, you can have a world without physical suffering and still have free will, but could you have a world without unrequited love and still have free will? I don't think so. I think in emotional/mental suffering's case, there is a cognizable "greater good." As you probably know, some of this gets wrapped up into its own theodicy called the soul-making theodicy (that maybe the greater good for which suffering exists is to build better people). That's a fantastic topic I think, and also in line with the OP here.

For instance, I mentioned above but want to make more explicit, I think the soul-making theodicy can be satisfied without physical suffering: trials and tribulations that make us better people can be done without having cancer, for instance; but we can't do it without the ability to be a jerk to one another, or the ability to break a promise and so hurt someone's feelings, etc. But God isn't culpable for us doing those things, and I think that's an important distinction. God is culpable for everything from our ability to stab one another to our ability to stub our toes; and that demands an explanation from theists that insist God is omnibenevolent.

I am not saying that suffering is beneficial. I have known people who have committed suicide and that was what led me to question Christianity more than anything else. That was partly because one of my friends, who was 19 killed himself through jumping out of a college winter. I am sure he had a number of issues but he had become unwell after giving his life to Jesus at an evangelical event. The last time I saw him he was talking about being evil and not being able to live up to the writings in St Paul's writings. He was admitted to psychiatric hospital briefly after I last saw him but jumped from a college window the next day. Mental suffering and emotional, including worry over religious ideas, can do so much harm. Nevertheless, I am not sure that physical suffering is not just as real. At this stage, I don't have any major physical health problems but when they do come oneday, it may be completely devastating. People with pain and lack of mobility suffer so much. I do have a few eye problems and I have thought that blindness would be one of the worst possibilities. Similarly, I was on the verge of potential homelessness recently and do think that living rough in the streets would be one of the harshest forms of suffering to endure.

The one aspect of your thinking which I am confused about though is why you frame the issue in relation to God if you are an atheist and I do wonder if this means you are a bit unsure of atheism. That is because you say that God could do differently and prevent suffering, which is only relevant if you believe in God. Even those who are theists clearly don't raise this as a problem because in order to decide this one would have to be God. Or, maybe that is the point you are making about theodicy. Generally, though, whether one believes in God or specific 'good' and 'evil' the experiences we have of suffering and we can only try to understand, live with and challenge these rather than eliminate them completely. It is only in the Christian dreams of heavenly paradise, especially after the resurrection, that evil would be eliminated into the wastebin of hell. Such is the problem of getting rid of evil entirely and if heaven were to be eternal bliss would life make sense at all?

[Gertie]

Astro Cat

The PoE-giver might respond with something like, "well, what possible greater good could there be for something like child leukemia, or any other form of egregious suffering?" This is usually when the theodicy I'm interested in comes out: the theist might say, "well, as we are mere humans and can't presume to know the mind of God, all that we can know is that God has a good reason to allow child leukemia such that it isn't incongruent with God's benevolence to allow it."
I think that this line of theodicy is problematic in that it's invincible, and feels very similar to special pleading. It's a kind of trap that -- once accepted -- might never be un-accepted because God could literally do anything at that point, even kicking puppies in the street and laughing maniacally while they fly, and the excuse could still be made: "Maybe He has an unknowable reason for this such that it's good, even though it appears evil."

If someone thinks it is an irrefutable argument once you accept the premise that the tri-omni god is possible, then  yes it is special pleading, but it's a special case.  One  which can discount our mere limited human reliance on evidence, reasoning, physics, what constitutes a possible world and incredulity at the utter immensity of suffering. 

But I still don't think it passes muster.  As you point out, such a god could've made a blissfully happy and good world without the suffering.  Heaven.   Without the mortal earthly test to get there.  'Mysterious Ways' struggles to answer that I think, as any good attribute we're supposed to gain through struggle could simply be gifted us.  And once you go down the mysterious ways path you've basically admitted you can't know the nature of your god, be it good, bad or indifferent.


Also as Stephen Law's Evil God Challenge  illustrates you can just as easily argue for a tri-omni evil god by just flipping it.  Such a god might allow some good but ultimately knows (tho we can't) it will result in greater evil/suffering.  It's equally irrefutable.  Such a 'toy world' evil alien could eliminate all our sources of suffering, but only as a way to engineer even greater suffering later, plus having a good laugh.  This isn't just a cheap gotcha, it shows the problem of reasoning your way to knowing such a god's nature.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_God_challenge.

Good points, and I’ve had an interest in the maltheism argument as well for a while. I remember when I was a child I once asked something to the effect of “how do we know God is good; because He says so?”

It’s why I bring up the Mars Attacks example often (I’m on my phone and don’t remember if I did anywhere here, but in the film, there’s a scene where violent aliens are blasting people in the streets while saying, “do not run, we are your friends.”)

I had to google 'maltheism', this is the first thing that popped up -

''Maltheism is an ad-hoc coining appearing on Usenet in 1985, referring to the belief in God's malevolence inspired by the thesis of Tim Maroney that "even if a God as described in the Bible does exist, he is not fit for worship due to his low moral standards." ''

I kind of agree with the quote, I reckon given omniscience and omnipotence even I could do better at the benevolence!