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

[Fanman]

Bearing in mind this is a hypothetical question. The problem of evil is usually associated with the Biblical God. Therefore, we should consider some aspects of the Bible to reach a valid conclusion.

Firstly, it is purported that God created human beings with autonomy, so the choice to do good or evil is ours. Can creating us that way be called an act of good or evil on God's part?

Secondly, although he/she/it did not resolve all of the evil in the world, steps were taken to end some of the evil and suffering that was occurring. Doesn't that show that God is good?

Finally, Biblically, God sent Jesus Christ to give people a way of getting to Heaven or salvation. Why would an evil being do these things? In my view, being maximally good doesn't mean that evil cannot exist, especially if that being always causes good to triumph over evil - which is going to happen if we consider the Biblical account.

[LuckyR]

Subjective means a belief held by the subject, an opinion.
Objective means a true statement.
Meaningless means that no truth value can be assigned to a proposition. Complete subjectivity and a meaningless property of a truth value are biconditionally true - one cannot be true if the other is.

Just because something implies there is some subjectivity in a belief does not imply it is not objective. Regardless, I'm not sure how this applies to metaphysics.

Nope. That's not the definition of "meaningless". There are plenty of true, yet meaningless things. In fact the vast majority of meaningless (a subjectively derived value BTW) things are true. You may find absolutely no meaning in the true fact that I had eggs for breakfast today.

In addition, there are lots of meaningful subjective entities. Gods for example. Beauty. Pleasure.

[Lagayascienza]

Meaningless means that no truth value can be assigned to a proposition.

I don't agree with this. There are lots of things that are not truth-apt but which are meaningful. Music, works or art and literature, for example. These are neither true nor false and yet we find meaning in them. Morality is another example.

[lincoy3411]

What I would call "semantic tricks" you would call truths. It boils down to whether or not ECREE is true or not. You seem to believe it does, while I deny it. I will gladly argue against it, but if you secede, then making things seem fantastical will no longer affect any truth value.

[lincoy3411]

Subjective means a belief held by the subject, an opinion.
Objective means a true statement.
Meaningless means that no truth value can be assigned to a proposition. Complete subjectivity and a meaningless property of a truth value are biconditionally true - one cannot be true if the other is.

Just because something implies there is some subjectivity in a belief does not imply it is not objective. Regardless, I'm not sure how this applies to metaphysics.

Nope. That's not the definition of "meaningless". There are plenty of true, yet meaningless things. In fact the vast majority of meaningless (a subjectively derived value BTW) things are true. You may find absolutely no meaning in the true fact that I had eggs for breakfast today.

In addition, there are lots of meaningful subjective entities. Gods for example. Beauty. Pleasure.

Definitions are completely subjective. I could call "huysljktyh" as what I mean by meaningless. The same word can mean two different things. In the context of philosophical logic and some epistemology (not value theory), then meaningless means what I said above.
You equivocated meaningless as i defined it with meaningless as you defined it.

[Gertie]

What I would call "semantic tricks" you would call truths.

lol. OK this is pointless.

[rainchild]

Omnipotence and omni benevolence could be attributes of the theoretical god we’re dealing with here, but how about other attributes. Actually we can come up with a series of properties that this deity could have or be missing, and all their combinations make it possible to describe the same god differently:

omnipotent / not omnipotent
omni benevolent / not omni benevolent
omnipresent / not omnipresent
omniscient / not omniscient
eternal / not eternal

That's actually part of the point I'm making. Because God has other attributes than the Big Three O's, the absence of one of the Big Three O's can't rule out his existence. So, the Problems of Evil and Suffering address God's alleged character, not his existence.

I will add that this ambiguity is a key element in the way most if not all theists argue about the existence of their god. Just when you think you nailed the proper definition and proceed to demonstrate that “this god cannot exist”, they will bring up a slightly different definition that will keep their deity safe from logical demonstrations. It’s an open case fallacy.

There are plenty of theists who allow that, while God himself does not change, our understanding of God can change. This allows theology to evolve over time. That's how theology has move from the ancient desire for a God with the power and the iron laws of an ancient Middle Eastern Despot to the more benevolent God that many modern theologians believe in.

So, for example, if people say that God is "outside of time," and some astute person points out that this idea makes no sense, a theologian can agree with this, and call God simply "everlasting" without ceasing to believe in God.

This may make the definition of God ambiguous, but the "definitions" of individual people are ambiguous in just this way. One person can be "the love of my life" to one perceiver and be "the jerk who dumped me" to someone else. Different understandings of this person don't say anything about whether this person exists or not.

[Count Lucanor]

That's actually part of the point I'm making. Because God has other attributes than the Big Three O's, the absence of one of the Big Three O's can't rule out his existence. So, the Problems of Evil and Suffering address God's alleged character, not his existence.

You don’t know that a god has some attributes, you can only theorize about a particular god having some attributes and try to make your case. If attributes that are essential to its being (theoretically defined) are found not to be in place in a given instance, then we can be pretty sure that this particular god does not exist. To be more clear: if your god requires omni benevolence to be essential to its being, the presence of evil in its character will rule out its existence. You can then proceed to theorize a new god that does not require omni benevolence as part of its being. You can also speculate that the omni benevolence of this god is compatible with the presence of evil external to its own being, if omnipresence is not one of its essential attributes. So you can speculate with other attributes and scenarios.

There are plenty of theists who allow that, while God himself does not change, our understanding of God can change. This allows theology to evolve over time. That's how theology has move from the ancient desire for a God with the power and the iron laws of an ancient Middle Eastern Despot to the more benevolent God that many modern theologians believe in.

That’s what makes theology pointless, since it is pure theorizing and speculating about deities of which we have no firm grip in empirical reality. Any god can be, and there can be many gods, it all boils down to what they want to believe and how it advances a particular agenda.

This may make the definition of God ambiguous, but the "definitions" of individual people are ambiguous in just this way. One person can be "the love of my life" to one perceiver and be "the jerk who dumped me" to someone else. Different understandings of this person don't say anything about whether this person exists or not.

There are important differences. First, individual people are not theoretical, abstract entities, we can ground their existence and the properties of their beings empirically. There’s no good reason to keep their description in an ambiguous zone. Secondly, no one relies only on accidental, contingent attributes, assessed subjectively, to define anything. That’s the category in which you will find “the love of my life” and “the jerk who dumped me”. What we should expect is an objective definition based on concrete, essential attributes, with a firm grip on empirical reality.

[LuckyR]

Subjective means a belief held by the subject, an opinion.
Objective means a true statement.
Meaningless means that no truth value can be assigned to a proposition. Complete subjectivity and a meaningless property of a truth value are biconditionally true - one cannot be true if the other is.

Just because something implies there is some subjectivity in a belief does not imply it is not objective. Regardless, I'm not sure how this applies to metaphysics.

Nope. That's not the definition of "meaningless". There are plenty of true, yet meaningless things. In fact the vast majority of meaningless (a subjectively derived value BTW) things are true. You may find absolutely no meaning in the true fact that I had eggs for breakfast today.

In addition, there are lots of meaningful subjective entities. Gods for example. Beauty. Pleasure.

Definitions are completely subjective. I could call "huysljktyh" as what I mean by meaningless. The same word can mean two different things. In the context of philosophical logic and some epistemology (not value theory), then meaningless means what I said above.
You equivocated meaningless as i defined it with meaningless as you defined it.

Therefore all communication between individuals is moot? Okay, I guess we're done here...

[Lagayascienza]

What I would call "semantic tricks" you would call truths. It boils down to whether or not ECREE is true or not. You seem to believe it does, while I deny it. I will gladly argue against it, but if you secede, then making things seem fantastical will no longer affect any truth value.

There are no semantic tricks here. And you have nowhere demonstrated that the proposition that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" is false. In another thread you did claim this, but it was pointed out to you that ECREE is not false. For example, if I meet a stranger who purports to be from a planet in a star system 12 billion light years distant, then that, to me, would be an extraordinary claim that would require really extraordinary evidence for me to believe it. That is true for me and would no doubt be true for any person who could think straight. So, in this case, ECREE would not be false. What if we try a less fantastical claim. Say a man tells you that he saw a Plesiosaur in Loch Ness. That would still be an fairly extraordinary claim that would require fairly extraordinary evidence wouldn't it? As we move further away from the fantastical the evidence required to give credence to a claim becomes less extraordinary. But the fact remains, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence if they are to be taken seriously. So, as far as I can see, ECREE is not false.

[lincoy3411]

Subjective means a belief held by the subject, an opinion.
Objective means a true statement.
Meaningless means that no truth value can be assigned to a proposition. Complete subjectivity and a meaningless property of a truth value are biconditionally true - one cannot be true if the other is.

Just because something implies there is some subjectivity in a belief does not imply it is not objective. Regardless, I'm not sure how this applies to metaphysics.

Nope. That's not the definition of "meaningless". There are plenty of true, yet meaningless things. In fact the vast majority of meaningless (a subjectively derived value BTW) things are true. You may find absolutely no meaning in the true fact that I had eggs for breakfast today.

In addition, there are lots of meaningful subjective entities. Gods for example. Beauty. Pleasure.

Definitions are completely subjective. I could call "huysljktyh" as what I mean by meaningless. The same word can mean two different things. In the context of philosophical logic and some epistemology (not value theory), then meaningless means what I said above.
You equivocated meaningless as i defined it with meaningless as you defined it.

Therefore all communication between individuals is moot? Okay, I guess we're done here...

We were referencing two different concepts in the same word, so it seems that communication was moot, but that does not imply all communication is.

[lincoy3411]

What I would call "semantic tricks" you would call truths. It boils down to whether or not ECREE is true or not. You seem to believe it does, while I deny it. I will gladly argue against it, but if you secede, then making things seem fantastical will no longer affect any truth value.

There are no semantic tricks here. And you have nowhere demonstrated that the proposition that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" is false. In another thread you did claim this, but it was pointed out to you that ECREE is not false. For example, if I meet a stranger who purports to be from a planet in a star system 12 billion light years distant, then that, to me, would be an extraordinary claim that would require really extraordinary evidence for me to believe it. That is true for me and would no doubt be true for any person who could think straight. So, in this case, ECREE would not be false. What if we try a less fantastical claim. Say a man tells you that he saw a Plesiosaur in Loch Ness. That would still be an fairly extraordinary claim that would require fairly extraordinary evidence wouldn't it? As we move further away from the fantastical the evidence required to give credence to a claim becomes less extraordinary. But the fact remains, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence if they are to be taken seriously. So, as far as I can see, ECREE is not false.

I pointed out in that same thread that the only way I can see ECREE being true is in a Bayesian analysis, that if it has a low prior probability of being true, then it must require more evidence to overcome that low prior probability. Claiming something to be "extraordinary" in this sense requires more than just trying to make it seem fantastical.

[Lagayascienza]

Well, the claims of theism are as fantastical as any. All the miracles and magic - they are extraordinary claims that would require extraordinary evidence for people who are thinking straight to take seriously. Thus, it would seem that ECREE is not false.

If we come back to the question of the OP, the problem of evil remains, and no theodicy I have seen adequately explains it. Therefore, the answer to the question of the OP would seem to be in the affirmative - the problem of evil is relevant to the question of the existence of a tri-omni god. And, if theists cannot deal with this problem, then we have no reason, in the absence of some extraordinary evidence, to believe in the existence of god(s). Since there is no evidence for the existence of god, there remains for theism only the vacuous Cosmological argument which is no more of difficulty for atheism than it is for theism. In short, if theism wants people to believe in the extraordinary claim that the universe was brought into existence by a tri-omni god then they have much work to do in coming up with some extraordinary evidence for the claim. Thus, again, it would seem that ECREE is not false.

[lincoy3411]

Well, the claims of theism are as fantastical as any. All the miracles and magic - they are extraordinary claims that would require extraordinary evidence for people who are thinking straight to take seriously. Thus, it would seem that ECREE is not false.

If we come back to the question of the OP, the problem of evil remains, and no theodicy I have seen adequately explains it. Therefore, the answer to the question of the OP would seem to be in the affirmative - the problem of evil is relevant to the question of the existence of a tri-omni god. And, if theists cannot deal with this problem, then we have no reason, in the absence of some extraordinary evidence, to believe in the existence of god(s). Since there is no evidence for the existence of god, there remains for theism only the vacuous Cosmological argument which is no more of difficulty for atheism than it is for theism. In short, if theism wants people to believe in the extraordinary claim that the universe was brought into existence by a tri-omni god then they have much work to do in coming up with some extraordinary evidence for the claim. Thus, again, it would seem that ECREE is not false.

You seem to be confusing fantastical with extraordinary. Unless you want to make a case for fantastical claims requiring extraordinary evidence, then I don't see a point here. Many theodicies have been proposed, and I don't seem to see any rejection (save that they are 'fantastical' solutions) coming from you.

[Lagayascienza]

Now your just playing word games. You introduced the word, "fantastical" not me. But maybe fantastic claims require fantastic evidence.