Philosophy Discussion Forums

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑January 15th, 2023, 5:28 pm

If, as you are contending, an omni-God cannot do two contradictory things, He may not be able to produce the ultimate good without the potential for "bad".

SO you are saying god can make a round square. They you might as well go to cloud cookoo land,And the conversation ends here

and Winning a game wouldn't be much fun were it not for the potential of losing. Are you suggesting that in an ideal world games would have all winners and no losers? What's the fun of that?

The "Worm Ouroboros" is a great novel, I think.

I just got the kindle version and will take a nother look soon

I'm saying exactly the opposite. Since God cannot make a round square, He may not be able to make a perfect world without evil (and other bad things). Just like a round square is impossible, such virtues as courage and fortitude are impossible without the existance of suffering. If God values such virtues, he must create a world in which suffering exists.

"The Worm Ouroboros" has an awkward, old fashioned start, and is written in archaic English (which I like). After the beginning, though, it's a great fantasy novel.

Ecurb wrote: ↑January 15th, 2023, 6:32 pm

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑January 15th, 2023, 5:28 pm

If, as you are contending, an omni-God cannot do two contradictory things, He may not be able to produce the ultimate good without the potential for "bad".

SO you are saying god can make a round square. They you might as well go to cloud cookoo land,And the conversation ends here

and Winning a game wouldn't be much fun were it not for the potential of losing. Are you suggesting that in an ideal world games would have all winners and no losers? What's the fun of that?

The "Worm Ouroboros" is a great novel, I think.

I just got the kindle version and will take a nother look soon

I'm saying exactly the opposite.

Yes. I get it.

Astro Cat wrote: ↑January 14th, 2023, 11:32 pm
However, there isn’t anything illogical about making other omnibenevolent or omniscient beings.

Not logically impossible, but existentially impossible. Benevolence is a property attributed to sentient creatures and their acts, denoting that those acts confer benefits upon other sentient creatures (or more broadly, other creatures with some moral standing). Presumably, an omni-benevolent being would be one 1) all of whose acts conferred benefits on some other creature(s) with moral standing, or 2) some of whose acts conferred benefits on all creatures with moral standing (the term is ambiguous between those two interpretations). Both interpretations are impossible in the present world:

1) is impossible because not all creatures with moral standing have the same interests, and some of those idiosyncratic interests are incompatible. Hence an act which confers a benefit on one creature may not benefit, and may even harm, another creature. Thus an act that confers a benefit on coyotes, such as providing rabbits to eat, confers harms on the eaten rabbits.

2) is impossible because no act can confer benefits on all creatures, due to the relativity/idiosyncrasy/incompatibility of benefits.

Omnibenevolence may be logically possible, but only in a world in which the interests of all creatures were identical.

A similar problem arises with the notion of omniscience. That property is (presumably) applicable only to sentient creatures, i.e., creatures capable of gaining, retaining, and applying knowledge. But if both Alfie and Bruno are omniscient, then each will know, not only everything the other knows, but also what are the other's interests and what he will do to satisfy those interests. If their interests are not compatible (which some of them will be in the present world) then each will also know what the other will do to thwart those incompatible interests, and what the other will do in response, ad infinitum --- leaving both in the paralyzed position of Buridan's ass.

There are other problems with the notion of omniscience as well, perhaps the most serious being that it presumes that knowledge is an infinite but closed set of "facts," which an "infinite" being with infinite time could accumulate. But infinite sets are never closed; not even God, in infinite time, could reach the "last" datum in that set. There is no "last" datum. And finite humans, of course, with finite brains and finite lifespans, could come nowhere close.

Ecurb wrote: ↑January 15th, 2023, 6:32 pm If God values such virtues, he must create a world in which suffering exists.

Then he is not omnibenevolent.

Astro Cat wrote: ↑January 14th, 2023, 11:32 pm It is logically impossible for God to have created people with omnipotence because there can only be one omnipotent being (lest you run into the immovable object/irresistible force paradox).

However, there isn’t anything illogical about making other omnibenevolent or omniscient beings.

Why did God not make humans omniscient and omnibenevolent to avoid the instantiation of evil and suffering? Why not make angels that way too (to avoid Satan existing as a deceiver)?

The question has things the wrong way round.

If the people who created the perfect omni god were themselves perfect, and there was no evil and suffering,  they wouldn't need to invent such a god to explain their evil and suffering and save them.

Ecurb wrote: ↑January 15th, 2023, 6:32 pm If God values such virtues, he must create a world in which suffering exists.

GE Morton wrote: ↑January 15th, 2023, 10:48 pm Then he is not omnibenevolent.

I quite agree. I think it was a mistake to include omnibenevolence in the topic title. The other 'omnis' refer to limitless power (or something akin to it), in various ways. But "omnibenevolent" introduces the misleading concepts of 'good' and 'evil'; benevolent = good, more or less. But 'good' for who or what? Must God be evil to other species in order that She might be good to humans, for example? The whole discussion collapses in disarray at this point, I think.

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑January 15th, 2023, 11:23 am

Astro Cat wrote: ↑January 14th, 2023, 11:32 pm It is logically impossible for God to have created people with omnipotence because there can only be one omnipotent being (lest you run into the immovable object/irresistible force paradox).

However, there isn’t anything illogical about making other omnibenevolent or omniscient beings.

Why did God not make humans omniscient and omnibenevolent to avoid the instantiation of evil and suffering? Why not make angels that way too (to avoid Satan existing as a deceiver)?

The answer is probably because "god" is not omni-anything since that would not be consistent with the world as it is observed.
If the claim is that god is omni-potent-scient-present-benevolent then reality would have to be all good, and knowingly so. Since bed stuff happens then god has to forgo at least some of these characteristics.

It's all just incoherent fantasy made up by desperate people.

Most of the desperation was the Israelites competing with the detested Canaanites. The Canaanites had a strong main deity, Ba'al, so the Israelites kept adding more superpowers to Yahweh until they could say, 'Nyah nyah. My deity is stronger than your deity!'.

Not miles from seeing who might win between Captain marvel and Molecule Man.

Sy Borg wrote: ↑January 16th, 2023, 5:48 pm

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑January 15th, 2023, 11:23 am

Astro Cat wrote: ↑January 14th, 2023, 11:32 pm It is logically impossible for God to have created people with omnipotence because there can only be one omnipotent being (lest you run into the immovable object/irresistible force paradox).

However, there isn’t anything illogical about making other omnibenevolent or omniscient beings.

Why did God not make humans omniscient and omnibenevolent to avoid the instantiation of evil and suffering? Why not make angels that way too (to avoid Satan existing as a deceiver)?

The answer is probably because "god" is not omni-anything since that would not be consistent with the world as it is observed.
If the claim is that god is omni-potent-scient-present-benevolent then reality would have to be all good, and knowingly so. Since bed stuff happens then god has to forgo at least some of these characteristics.

It's all just incoherent fantasy made up by desperate people.

Most of the desperation was the Israelites competing with the detested Canaanites. The Canaanites had a strong main deity, Ba'al, so the Israelites kept adding more superpowers to Yahweh until they could say, 'Nyah nyah. My deity is stronger than your deity!'.

Not miles from seeing who might win between Captain marvel and Molecule Man.

Yeah, something like that.
Sort of - my dad's a fireman! No my dad's a Policeman. yeah by mine is a detective. My dad's now a soldier.
Ner nicky ner ner!!

As Byron put it in "the Destruction of Sennacherib":

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

Here's a link to the full poem:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/ ... ennacherib

Leontiskos wrote: ↑January 15th, 2023, 1:34 am I won't be able to stick around in this thread, but since I am one of the only classical theists on this board I will offer an initial response or two.

Astro Cat wrote: ↑January 14th, 2023, 11:32 pm It is logically impossible for God to have created people with omnipotence because there can only be one omnipotent being (lest you run into the immovable object/irresistible force paradox).

However, there isn’t anything illogical about making other omnibenevolent or omniscient beings.

Why did God not make humans omniscient and omnibenevolent to avoid the instantiation of evil and suffering? Why not make angels that way too (to avoid Satan existing as a deceiver)?

Since moral goodness presupposes freedom and choice, one cannot be created morally good (much less omnibenevolent). I think we've argued about this before in more detail, but the only created beings who are incapable of evil are unfree beings. Thus God could have avoided any possibility of evil by deciding not to create free beings, but there's really no other way than that.

But in general your definitions aren't obvious. For example, what does omniscience mean? Omniscience in God is bound up with his infinitude and the fact that he is the creator of everything that exists. But finite beings could never understand God, or the act of creation, or presumably even the term of creation. For instance, what would it even mean to know everything about a particular dandelion? Perhaps on materialism the dandelion is reducible to material quantities which could each be tied to propositions, but materialism seems to be quite silly, and it has no place in a theistic universe. Your usage of "omniscience" seems to imply that there is some stopping point of knowledge, such that science could eventually just come to know everything by stacking up fact after fact. But is that really so? I rather doubt that science could ever exhaust essence or existence (what-ness or that-ness).

Hope you're doing well

Do you suppose that for any possible proposition there is to know, an omnipotent being could make other beings that know them (especially if minds are more than emergences of brains)?

You say they couldn’t understand God but I don’t understand why not, where is the contradiction? Just because they wouldn’t be omnipotent doesn’t mean they couldn’t have understanding. I can’t make a black hole but understand an appreciable amount about them. I feel like an omnipotent being could zoop into my mind (especially if I have a “soul” or something more than emergences of my brain) knowledge of all true propositions about black holes, and then more. Why would there be a limit? Why would there be something God knows about black holes that I couldn’t, if God zooped me into knowing it?

Leontiskos wrote: ↑January 15th, 2023, 1:37 am

Leontiskos wrote: ↑January 15th, 2023, 1:34 am...the only created beings who are incapable of evil are unfree beings...

Well, that was a bit sloppy. I meant to say that the only created beings who are guaranteed to be incapable of evil are unfree beings. Free beings can become incapable of evil by means of their free will, but there is no guarantee.

Part of my argument came from a debate about the Fall. Someone said Adam and Eve were created perfectly and without the desire to do sin. This came from a question about whether people will sin in heaven, and they said no, because people will be “made perfect” and perfectly choose never to sin.

So I asked, well then how did Adam and Eve sin?

I was told, because they were deceived.

I asked, well, then how is that their fault or anyone else’s fault other than God’s and the deceiver’s? Is God not culpable for making those circumstances possible (and, per omniscience, *knowing* it?)

Good_Egg wrote: ↑January 15th, 2023, 4:47 am

Astro Cat wrote: ↑January 14th, 2023, 11:32 pm Why did God not make humans omniscient and omnibenevolent to avoid the instantiation of evil and suffering? Why not make angels that way too (to avoid Satan existing as a deceiver)?

Hi Astro Cat.

Any question that starts "Why did God..." is probably the wrong question. One of the traditional attributes of God is inscrutability, and you'd be well-advised to treat warily anybody who claims too great an understanding of what is or was in God's mind.

I guess your question amounts to whether a universe without evil is conceivable ? Which is a question about the nature of evil. Which is a fit subject for moral philosophy.

I note that you lump together evil and suffering, and there may be a worthy topic there.

Being omniscient is so far from human experience that it's hard to know anything about what that would be like.

But I'd guess that most of us experience at least a few moments of something approaching omnibenevolence. Maybe when we wake up well-rested in a comfy bed, not yet engaged with the complexities of the world, imagining everyone else in the universe to be just like us really, and wish them all well.

But maybe that's not what you wanted to discuss ?

This stems from a conversation elsewhere about the Fall. I asked, will people sin in heaven?

I was told no, people will be “made perfect,” and so forever choose not to sin.

I asked, well, why not make people that way to begin with since it’s already decided by that particular arguer to be possible?

They said, well, they were! Adam and Eve were made perfectly, they explained. They didn’t want to sin perfectly.

So how/why did they, I asked?

Because they were deceived, I was told.

But that just brings up more questions. Why would God make them able to be deceived, and isn’t God culpable for that (why do they take any blame at all if it’s already decided they were sinless?)

GE Morton wrote: ↑January 15th, 2023, 2:34 pm

Astro Cat wrote: ↑January 14th, 2023, 11:32 pm It is logically impossible for God to have created people with omnipotence because there can only be one omnipotent being (lest you run into the immovable object/irresistible force paradox).

However, there isn’t anything illogical about making other omnibenevolent or omniscient beings.

Why did God not make humans omniscient and omnibenevolent to avoid the instantiation of evil and suffering? Why not make angels that way too (to avoid Satan existing as a deceiver)?

All of the infinite attributes ascribed to God lead to paradoxes. Any description of a "being" with those attributes is incoherent.

I think a couple of them (omnipotence and omniscience) can be scrutinized to sensibility. Power within logical possibility for instance seems OK, and knowing all true propositions or something like that. Omniscience is admittedly hairier.

GE Morton wrote: ↑January 15th, 2023, 10:44 pm

Astro Cat wrote: ↑January 14th, 2023, 11:32 pm
However, there isn’t anything illogical about making other omnibenevolent or omniscient beings.

Not logically impossible, but existentially impossible. Benevolence is a property attributed to sentient creatures and their acts, denoting that those acts confer benefits upon other sentient creatures (or more broadly, other creatures with some moral standing). Presumably, an omni-benevolent being would be one 1) all of whose acts conferred benefits on some other creature(s) with moral standing, or 2) some of whose acts conferred benefits on all creatures with moral standing (the term is ambiguous between those two interpretations). Both interpretations are impossible in the present world:

1) is impossible because not all creatures with moral standing have the same interests, and some of those idiosyncratic interests are incompatible. Hence an act which confers a benefit on one creature may not benefit, and may even harm, another creature. Thus an act that confers a benefit on coyotes, such as providing rabbits to eat, confers harms on the eaten rabbits.

2) is impossible because no act can confer benefits on all creatures, due to the relativity/idiosyncrasy/incompatibility of benefits.

Omnibenevolence may be logically possible, but only in a world in which the interests of all creatures were identical.

A similar problem arises with the notion of omniscience. That property is (presumably) applicable only to sentient creatures, i.e., creatures capable of gaining, retaining, and applying knowledge. But if both Alfie and Bruno are omniscient, then each will know, not only everything the other knows, but also what are the other's interests and what he will do to satisfy those interests. If their interests are not compatible (which some of them will be in the present world) then each will also know what the other will do to thwart those incompatible interests, and what the other will do in response, ad infinitum --- leaving both in the paralyzed position of Buridan's ass.

There are other problems with the notion of omniscience as well, perhaps the most serious being that it presumes that knowledge is an infinite but closed set of "facts," which an "infinite" being with infinite time could accumulate. But infinite sets are never closed; not even God, in infinite time, could reach the "last" datum in that set. There is no "last" datum. And finite humans, of course, with finite brains and finite lifespans, could come nowhere close.

Typing away on my phone here but this is a really good post I should have used a keyboard for.

On omnibenevolence and other creatures’ interests I think you have me there: this can maybe be answered with omnipotence because an omnipotent being could simply remove the need for wolves to eat rabbits, it’s the classical “why did Thanos snap away half of all life instead of making more resources” question: an omnipotent being could make infinite resources, and alternative resources, and remove the need for a kind of resource altogether.

But then one of the caveats of my original point was that there can only be one, so all the created beings wouldn’t be omnipotent. What if “omnibenevolence” were just changed to something like never-malevolence? And if it ever came down to things needing resources or anything like that, leave that to the one omnipotent thing? Me not slapping someone’s face is more what I’m talking about with omnibenevolence than me providing nourishment to that someone: less a positive good and more just the absence of causing them to suffer physically.

The omniscience thing seems answerable too: is it conceivable that the omnipotent being could make the environment such that Alfie and Bruno’s interests don’t meaningfully clash? Alfie can’t seek to control all iron because iron isn’t needed or is so plentiful without end. The only cases I can see would be if Alfie simply wants to hurt Bruno. But isn’t that superceded by making Alfie and Bruno never-malevolent?

I am sorry for skipping some responses that are less to the heart of my question, nothing against the posters, their thoughts, or their intentions: a limitation of mostly posting from my phone during busy times of my life.