tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post8943886289737957785..comments2024-03-28T03:20:15.940-07:00Comments on Edward Feser: Law’s “evil-god challenge”Edward Feserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13643921537838616224noreply@blogger.comBlogger80125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-54817466656717456632023-06-26T09:58:29.441-07:002023-06-26T09:58:29.441-07:00British atheists are odd ones; there's a pecul...British atheists are odd ones; there's a peculiar tone about them that I find grating if not weird.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-4416384442081289142018-03-01T11:24:34.338-08:002018-03-01T11:24:34.338-08:00I would say that if we can't know God's re...I would say that if we can't know God's reason to allow those evils, then we can't know that His reason to allow them is to allow us to stop them, thus growing in moral character, virtue, and experience of causing good. In which case, we should still stop said evils from occuring.Seosaidhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11197152121576303440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-48341609645532863252016-01-12T09:12:25.499-08:002016-01-12T09:12:25.499-08:00Hello Ed,
I have a problem with the response to th...Hello Ed,<br />I have a problem with the response to the Inductive Problem of Evil based upon our cognitive limitations. While I fully accept the position (as advanced by Alston and others) that we have these cognitive limitations, I am left with wondering the following: Suppose (as seems likely) that God actually does have sufficient reason for allowing evils like the ones experienced by Sue and Bambi, and I know that he does, although I don't know what that reason is. Don't *I* then have a good reason to allow those evils, even if I could prevent them ? After all, God has a good reason, and if *he* has a good reason, then my knowing that he has a good reason is a good reason for me. This would force me toward a sort of "quietism" in the face of evil that is unacceptable. Any comments would be appreciated.<br />Regards,<br />MichaelMichaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-44501674249496726872015-10-25T13:15:32.446-07:002015-10-25T13:15:32.446-07:00Law just got spanked- LOL!!!
I just love Feser.Law just got spanked- LOL!!!<br /><br />I just love Feser.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06681663496831841288noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-41448828196783822762010-10-24T03:16:17.070-07:002010-10-24T03:16:17.070-07:00Shiva,
You write: “Semantics aside, God can only...Shiva, <br /><br />You write: “<i>Semantics aside, God can only do what God is capable of doing</i>”<br /><br />In our context semantics is important, because if one thinks that the concept of “can” applies to God, when in fact it doesn’t, then one is apt to get confused. <br /><br />Consider, for example, the question of whether God can create a stone so heavy that S/He can’t lift. On the view that what matters is what God wants that question immediately reduces to incoherence. The question of whether God can create a square triangle reduces to “Does God ever want to create a square triangle?” and here, given that God is perfectly rational and would therefore never want to do absurd things, the answer is clearly No. The question of whether God can lie, reduces to whether God ever wants to lie. I personally do not know of any state of affairs where God would want to lie. The state of affairs with the salty sauce you mention in a previous post is clearly unrealistic. <br /><br />“<i>to claim that God can do whatever God wants is simply speculation</i>”<br /><br />Not at all. First of all the claim is that God does whatever God wants. And this is a rather clear implication of St Anselm’s definition of God. Surely you agree that a being who is perfectly good and moreover does whatever that being wants is greater than a being who is perfectly good but sometimes can’t do what that being wants. (Incidentally, an interesting question to ponder is *how* we know such things about God.)<br /><br />“<i>e.g. does God want us to suffer?</i><br /><br />If there is good and necessary reason for that suffering then God, being perfectly good, will want us to suffer. <br /><br />“<i>In my understanding it is because God cannot avoid having us suffer even though God doesn't desire us to suffer</i>”<br /><br />You are saying the same using other words, but you are using the “can” concept in the context of God which is confusing - if not right now then certainly somewhere down the line. The same goes for the concept of “desire”. When thinking about God I think it’s a good idea to use the verbs “values” and of “wants/does”. Verbs such as “can” and “desires” reflect an imperfect anthropomorphic condition. <br /><br />I have observed that words have sometimes the power to lead our thoughts (instead of the other way around, as should always be the case). God is the most important concept one may think about, and good linguistic discipline is highly recommended. It is true that as far as we are concerned the personal attributes of God are the most relevant ones; on the other hand to think about God in anthropomorphizing terms is clearly a bad idea. (After all God is not only a personal being existing and acting in space and time, but also the impersonal ground of all existence, including the ground *of* space and time.) So thinking about God requires the appropriate God-language. Of course that’s easier said than done. After all our language is such that terms refer to either personal or impersonal beings, and God is both a personal and an impersonal being. That’s why at some stage either poetic or else on the surface self-contradictory language must be used (such as saying “God loves us” and “God is love”). <br /><br />Thinking about this issue, I find that intellectual theism suffers from a traditionally sloppy use of language. Even the phrase “God exists” is very misleading. Theism is not the idea that “God exists”, but rather that “existence is God based”. Nobody, whether theist or non theist, should think that theism’s claim is that alongside apples, and electrons, and numbers, and logical/physical laws, one more thing exists, namely God. Rather theism’s radical claim is about what it means to say that apples, electrons, numbers, or logical/physical laws exist. Theism says that all reality is God-structured. I am not sure that Edward Feser’s idea of moving theology back to the scholastics is a good one, but certainly some correction is needed.Dianelos Georgoudishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09925591703967774000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-1829303072393414952010-10-23T09:30:19.497-07:002010-10-23T09:30:19.497-07:00@ Dianelos Georgoudis
I was simply pointing out t...@ Dianelos Georgoudis<br /><br />I was simply pointing out that to claim God literally cannot lie is mistaken. Whether God wants to lie or not is something else.<br /><br />Omnipotence can mean different things. Semantics aside, God can only do what God is capable of doing. I know that is obvious, but to claim that God can do whatever God wants is simply speculation, e.g. does God want us to suffer? If not, than why is there suffering? In my understanding it is because God cannot avoid having us suffer even though God doesn't desire us to suffer, unless of course God is malevolent, wouldn't you agree?Vrajahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06535159097241083544noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-84054411822519394382010-10-23T02:26:18.901-07:002010-10-23T02:26:18.901-07:00Shiva,
You write: “ I don't understand why s...Shiva, <br /><br />You write: “<i> I don't understand why some of you say that God cannot lie by God's nature, that makes God less able to do things that a 3 year old child can do. If God can create the universe then surely God can lie.</i>”<br /><br />The way there are wrong answers, there are also wrong questions. For example suppose you asked a loving husband if he can torture his wife; that would a wrong question. To ask whether God can do X is even worse, for it’s like asking what the color of the number 7 is. The concept of “color” does not apply to numbers, and the concept of “can” does not apply to God. <br /><br />The concept of “can” applies to us because in our condition there is a difference between the state of “wanting” and the state of “doing”. In God there is no such difference. Thus the right way to describe omnipotence is to say that God does what God wants. Which is the same definition St Augustine gives in his City of God: "<i>[God] is called omnipotent on account of His doing what He wills</i>"Dianelos Georgoudishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09925591703967774000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-24700107699282219752010-10-23T00:29:51.426-07:002010-10-23T00:29:51.426-07:00@shiva: God cannot lie because lying is an example...@shiva: God cannot lie because lying is an example of impotence, whereas God is of all things most potent. Cf. Anselm, <i>Proslogion</i> VII.<br /><br />And, if we are so impotent to philosophically deduce the supreme Goodness of God, what say you to Aquinas' arguments at <i>ST</i> I:6?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-23645491196884005692010-10-22T23:24:28.786-07:002010-10-22T23:24:28.786-07:00I don't understand why some of you say that Go...I don't understand why some of you say that God cannot lie by God's nature, that makes God less able to do things that a 3 year old child can do. If God can create the universe then surely God can lie. I'm supposing there is some deeper philosophy which supports the idea of God being unable to lie, but it would have to be something different from God literally being unable to lie to you if you were having a conversation with him/her -- to wit:<br /><br />You: Hey God, did you like my pasta sauce?<br /><br />God: Well, sure it was great.<br /><br />Me: Didn't you think it was too salty?<br /><br />God: No.<br /><br />Why couldn't God do that? Is there some God above God who can stop him/her? Is God less than us in ability?<br /><br />You cannot prove whether God is good or evil through philosophy, you can only give reasons to have more or less faith in one or the other. The only way to prove whether God is good or evil is by experiencing it. If God is all good you will eventually experience the full result of that, if God is malevolent you will eventually feel the full result of that. Until that time of either full apotheosis or soul death, being not God, we simply cannot prove it through speculative philosophy. It's like trying to prove what life is like on a planet in a different solar system far far from our ability to see what that planet is like. <br /><br />The best philosophical argument against God being evil is the karma theology: suffering is caused by necessity to aid you in your evolution to spiritual perfection; i.e. God is able to understand what we need better than we are able to understand, like a month old baby is less able to understand what it needs to grow and become healthy than an adult. Karmic philosophy proposes that suffering creates subconscious alterations in the psyche, causing a positive disposition for empathy towards others, and a negative disposition to neglect of that. Upon attaining a perfected psyche, our spiritual evolution is complete and we attain apotheosis -- entrance into a divine perfected state of existence.<br /><br />Of course that is impossible to prove, but on the philosophical level it always impossible to prove an unknown, the proof of the pudding is in the tasting, and only there. We can prove a God exists because we experience a world and a mind that cannot exist as the product of blind unintelligent forces. We know from experience that we exist as intelligence beings in a world that is working in an intelligently arranged system. We know that from experience it takes intelligence to cause anything which shows interconnected design principles, therefore we can say with dead certainty that we have experience of and therefore can prove a God exists. The same experience is needed to prove God's true mental nature, we need to experience it for ourselves, it can never be proven %100 by philosophy.Vrajahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06535159097241083544noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-76336998960607695762010-10-22T18:13:44.111-07:002010-10-22T18:13:44.111-07:00Clearly the existence of moral evil poses no chall...Clearly the existence of moral evil poses no challenge to the absolute goodness of God since He is neither the direct nor the indirect author of moral evil, which is a possible consequence of the free will of creatures, which in turn is necessary in order for love to exist.<br /><br />Therefore the only possible challenge to the absolute goodness of God is physical evil. I penned an essay about it some time ago, where I showed (at least to my satisfaction) that physical evil is tragic only when it is suffered by humans, and the remaining problem is solved by the Catholic doctrine that holds that exposure of humans to physical evil was not part of the original design in creation, as man was originally "shielded" from the physical evil that would have affected him otherwise as a result of its biological nature, but was a result of original sin. <br /><br />http://defeyrazon.blogspot.com/2010/04/reflections-on-physical-evil.htmlJohanneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05371418313799513738noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-75356737687527644552010-10-22T17:38:16.137-07:002010-10-22T17:38:16.137-07:00"What my little thought experiment tries to d..."<i>What my little thought experiment tries to demonstrate is that, obviously, the world just as it is now has a huge value despite the many evils in it, even from our point of view.</i>"<br /><br />And my earlier comments about God and not-God (and about the meaning of 'perfection') were intended to show the logic/reason behind or justifying that point of view -- that it is logically impossible for God to simultaneously create a "perfect world" and a world in which his creatures grow ... and live.Ilíonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15339406092961816142noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-35642092314981613512010-10-22T16:24:04.703-07:002010-10-22T16:24:04.703-07:00What my little thought experiment tries to demonst...<i>What my little thought experiment tries to demonstrate is that, obviously, the world just as it is now has a huge value despite the many evils in it, even from our point of view</i><br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Robert_Eduard_von_Hartmann" rel="nofollow">Eduard von Hartmann</a> took the other side of that argument.Jinzanghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04155467948613318531noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-89959941639593491932010-10-22T15:13:58.421-07:002010-10-22T15:13:58.421-07:00Anonymous said: “The world as it currently is - an...Anonymous said: “<i>The world as it currently is - and let's be honest - is utterly disgusting on so many levels.</i>”<br /><br />If God, while there was no creation, had brought you into existence, showed you the world S/He was about to create, and asked you whether to create that world or else not create anything - what would your answer be I wonder? Would you really say, “no, that world is so utterly disgusting on so many levels that it is best not to create anything; now let me slip back into non-existence”? <br /><br />What my little thought experiment tries to demonstrate is that, obviously, the world just as it is now has a huge value despite the many evils in it, even from our point of view. I mean let’s discuss the problem of evil with some sense of proportion.Dianelos Georgoudishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09925591703967774000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-26892217930662703082010-10-22T13:22:47.887-07:002010-10-22T13:22:47.887-07:00Hello everyone,
Sorry for the radio silence -- it...Hello everyone,<br /><br />Sorry for the radio silence -- it's been a very busy week. I'll put up a separate post soon on the questions of whether God has obligations to us, and whether He can be said to be morally good.Edward Feserhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13643921537838616224noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-90146414601844701362010-10-21T19:58:30.217-07:002010-10-21T19:58:30.217-07:00Vincent, I believe that one of the ways that the F...Vincent, I believe that one of the ways that the Fathers talk about God is that his "obligation" to act a certain way is based on His logically prior utterly free choice: choice to love us, to create us, to make us capable of receiving good, and make us need His action on us. Given all those free choices, He has an kind of obligation toward fulfilling that need in us. But that obligation still has its first roots in pure, unadulterated free gift, not in justice. So it is certainly an extended sense of obligation.Tonynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-24932702083564474782010-10-21T18:03:24.827-07:002010-10-21T18:03:24.827-07:00Hi Ben Yachov, Codgitator and James Chastek,
Than...Hi Ben Yachov, Codgitator and James Chastek,<br /><br />Thanks for your comments. Ben Yachov, you're right: I suppose I should read Davies' book <i>in toto</i> before pronouncing further on it.<br /><br />Regarding God's inability to tell a lie: Codgitator has argued that a Being which is Truth Itself cannot (a) be a lie or (b) tell a lie. I think that (a) follows, but (b) doesn't. The idea of Truth telling a lie sounds very odd, but is not logically absurd. Ditto for Goodness. Another argument that someone might want to make is that telling a lie necessarily involves some sort of change - however, I see nothing inherently contradictory in a Being timelessly deciding to tell a lie at time t. However, there <i>is</i> something contradictory in loving someone perfectly and lying to them - as though falsity could possibly benefit them.<br /><br />Both Codgitator and James Chastek appear to believe that God's having obligations to other agents would entail that God's actions are "measured against some measure distinct from himself." Heaven forbid! I completely agree that God, the Ultimate Standard, is the only yardstick against which His actions can be judged, and I would also agree with your solution to the Euthyphro dilemma, Codgitator. However, I can't see why an agent A's having a duty towards agent B logically entails the existence of a yardstick outside A, against which A's actions can be judged.Vincent Torleyhttp://www.angelfire.com/linux/vjtorley/index.htmlnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-59775261990567773612010-10-21T11:30:29.595-07:002010-10-21T11:30:29.595-07:00Evil.
Love.
I'll bet for everyone of us, ...Evil. <br /><br />Love. <br /><br />I'll bet for everyone of us, there is a different definition each of these terms w/r people, let alone coming up with a commonly shared definition of the two terms w/r deity.<br /><br />And as life's dynamics change our views, we will likely not agree with our own formerly held meanings.just thinkingnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-57869476229279730762010-10-21T10:09:17.230-07:002010-10-21T10:09:17.230-07:00Vincent,
I think the difficulty in speaking of d...Vincent, <br /><br />I think the difficulty in speaking of divine obligations traces back to our difficulty in unifying the various looks that we get of what is absolute and most perfect. On the one hand, what is Absolute is unchanging so far as all change relates to another, and consists in being other and other and other. In this sense the absolute is like a law of nature or an ethical imperative. On the other hand, what has intellect and will is more perfect than what does not, and so the absolute must be personal and with will. But we don't tend to see the will as being like an eternal law - in fact its hard to see how a will could be truly free and be like an unchanging law. <br /><br />Aristotle's great contribution to human thought was his concept of act, which on the one hand is opposed to potency (the principle of change and motion) but on the other hand has its fullest existence in the interior operations of intellect and will (which are actions that do not consist in change). This is why as soon as Aristotle concludes to some unmoved mover, he can say it is living and blessed, for the notion of act contains both. <br /><br />The idea that God would be under an obligation to us places both he and us under the absolute considered as unchangeable. There is something correct about this but it is a partial view, and of itself more distorts the truth than revealing it. To see God as pure act can preserve this sense of the absolute as unchangeable without subordinating the divine existence to it. If being is act, the most personal is the most like an unchanging law, and the most unchanging law is a person. It is not that God is obliged, as though his actions are measured against some measure distinct from himself; at the same time in making something with a will the absolute does no require that all goodness is sheerly arbitrary.James Chastekhttp://thomism.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-51684805227680720672010-10-21T08:55:41.769-07:002010-10-21T08:55:41.769-07:00JT,
Cancer has a likeness to poison, and taken i...JT, <br /><br />Cancer has a likeness to poison, and taken in this way Augustine's observation is helpful: "if poison were evil in itself, it would kill the snake first". The idea is that it is not the thing taken absolutely or in its nature that is evil (since in this case it would destroy itself first) but rather the disharmony or incompatibility of two things. In fact, the evil consists not in the cancer taken as cancer (for then it would be evil even if it were not in a man's body; and the tumor would consume itself first) but in the corruption of a man who has the tumor. But if its evil consists precisely in this corruption, then the being as such (of both the corrupter and corrupted) is good, as Augustine proves in <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/110107.htm" rel="nofollow">Confessions Book VII chap. 12 (scroll down)</a> <br /><br />There is nothing wrong in saying "cancer is evil", but it is not a statement about the nature of the thing, but about its incompatibility. God did in fact create things that were incompatible with each other, and it was good that he did so. Here at the bottom rung of existence, to be is to move and be immersed in becoming and temporality. The universe would not have been complete without something at the bottom, and this bottom rung of existence would not be possible without some things passing away to give rise to others. Human beings are only bothered by this to the extent that we do not exist wholly on this lowest level of existence.James Chastekhttp://thomism.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-2263438630094163262010-10-21T08:53:35.832-07:002010-10-21T08:53:35.832-07:00Oops, I see I am as bad at writing people's na...Oops, I see I am as bad at writing people's names and surnames as Prof Law himself. I think she will understand.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-4513029924864182232010-10-21T08:50:38.508-07:002010-10-21T08:50:38.508-07:00I wonder if Stephany Law can distinguish between s...I wonder if Stephany Law can distinguish between substance and accident or get to grips with the concept of prime matter?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-43629240369596335392010-10-21T05:55:24.216-07:002010-10-21T05:55:24.216-07:00Ed
Don't listen to him...you know you wanna&#...Ed<br /><br />Don't listen to him...you know you wanna' see it...nobody will ever know...your secret can stay between the two of us...it can't hurt anyone :)<br /><br />Seriously though, if you (and any of your readers) haven't already heard of it, I think you will appreciate how well written and surprisingly philosophically rich the story is.just thinkingnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-73641708838174555482010-10-21T01:45:58.238-07:002010-10-21T01:45:58.238-07:00Thanks for the post Dr. Feser. Just a quick note: ...Thanks for the post Dr. Feser. Just a quick note: Don't watch "Leaves of Grass". Yes, it has a philosopher. However, it doesn't fulfill the formal telos of its nature. (It's evil.)awatkins909https://www.blogger.com/profile/04272494240109130737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-64701058416117303572010-10-20T22:00:14.642-07:002010-10-20T22:00:14.642-07:00Hi, Vincent:
I basically side with BenYachov'...Hi, Vincent: <br /><br />I basically side with BenYachov's latest reply to you (9:03PM). A further reason I think it's incorrect to speak of God's duties to His creatures, is because He is the authority by which all defections from duty are judged, the power by which are duties are ordered, and the truth by which all duties are measured. Cf. Aquinas' De Veritate. <br /><br />I suppose in some minds this raises Euthyphro's dilemma, but the immediate point is that there is no truth other than God Himself which God is obliged to tell us. What's true in and of itself--God's existence--can't be a lie and can't tell a lie. Therefore God, in Himself, can't be expected not to tell a lie anymore than He can be imagined suddenly to drop out of existence. <br /><br />As an aside, the reason I am not terribly worried about Euthyphro's dilemma, is that I think it fails to consider a purely existence and wholly self-conceiving Deity, as Plato and Aristotle presented. In De Veritate, Thomas makes the point that there would be no truth if there were neither human nor the divine intellect. Since, however, there is at least always the divine <br /> intellect, then there is always truth: truth is eternal. The one truth that would abide even without created intellects would be that grasped by the divine intellect in knowing its own essence. This I take to be an analogue for how goodness is neither imposed upon God nor merely "invented" by Him. For the only subsistent goodness that abides is one with the only subsistent being that abides: God's total actuality in and of Himself. Apologies if I'm sounding obscure again. <br /><br />Best,Codgitator (Cadgertator)https://www.blogger.com/profile/00872093788960965392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-19760010114498056102010-10-20T21:40:11.257-07:002010-10-20T21:40:11.257-07:00JT:
It's a tricky question about how to pars...JT: <br /><br />It's a tricky question about how to parse God creating cancer. I mean, we believe He created the elements out of which cancer is formed. Natural evil only exists because of the Fall. because of a primordial defect in human nature which ramifies to displace all other levels and components of nature. I have a friend (on Facebook, so it's official!) who thinks slugs are amazing and beautiful. And I must concede that just by existing and thriving, they reflect the Creator's goodness. But if you were in a room that was suddenly filled with slugs (yes, I just vommed in my mouth), you'd die, and slugs would be a kind of evil. Likewise, dirt is good in a lowly sense, but when it forms a landslide and kills a town of people, it's a natural evil. Hence, while prolific tissue is good in its own way, its an evil in connection with the human organism. The problem of the Fall seems to be that all things are vulnerable to each in improper ways. Dr Magee has some good articles on natural evil in Thomism. <br /><br />Best,Codgitator (Cadgertator)https://www.blogger.com/profile/00872093788960965392noreply@blogger.com