Theodicy: Questions And Explorations

[mfbukowski]

I'm not sure I'm able to enter this discussion at the philosophical level desired. I do, however, have some comments to add about the kinds of evil that "appear to be in play in most of these discussions" of what might be called "absolutist" theodicy, as opposed to "finitist" theodicies, such as the LDS Church's.

Some critiques of theodicies based on Platonic absolutist views of God ignore more systemic or structural kinds of evil. I'd argue that these kinds of evil--for some reason excluded from discussion--are particularly relevant to LDS theodicy, which emphasizes the lawfulness of both creation and the creative act. I suggest that if God has found it unwise to eliminate, or it is not possible for Him to eliminate, things like hunger and disease completely, there is less reason to obligate God to eliminate all instances of certain evils that are less common.

The way many speak, it's like the only suffering that matters is due to "natural evil" such as disaster casualties, or immediate victimization by individuals. So we hear about murders and the kind of things discussed on an episode of the Nancy Grace show or the news. The tacit assumption is that these things should be more distressing or interesting. Another is that there is a clear boundary between these crimes and other categories of evil that make the former worthy of more attention among other things. In reality, there are far more deaths due to preventable/treatable disease than there are murders. Three thousand people die from malaria every day, five times more than the number who die from murder. The number of deaths due to malaria alone is a hundred times the number who die from even earthquakes. That is not to minimize murder etc., but to give them context.

Besides being a product of sensationalism or an entertainment-related mentality, the relative absence in discussions of the more systemic kind of evil that is malaria mortality may be philosophically significant. Why should God be expected to intervene miraculously to stop every murder by an assailant on a street, but not be expected to end infant malaria deaths?

If we got over the idea that suffering is due to either accidents or specific deliberate/negligent acts by individuals, or else has to be of direct divine origin and have a purpose, we might realize most of the suffering in the world is related to issues of socioeconomic development. The question is then how could God "calibrate" the world so that natural and social forces would never give rise to malaria mortality. It may be, though, that malaria mortality is more or less inevitable for a period of time. When God gave us mortal bodies, we had to start off in a situation of low socioeconomic development. Malaria mortality is just one result of low socioeconomic development. Malaria mortality doesn't have to have a specific purpose. We may nonetheless develop from our experience with it.

In absolutist theology, God can do anything logically possible: everything except things like making square circles. In finitist theology, it is conceivable that God isn't able to create a world that we can inhabit with mortal bodies, but without disease. To populate the world with our mortal bodies, we have to grow in population, and this implies the existence of social, economic and technological change--and an initial low level of development. Disease is inherent in the laws of this world. At the same time, we do have the power to stop malaria deaths. We shouldn't try to turn God into a crutch to take care of things for us that we have the power to handle through spiritual development and becoming more righteous. Though God may have been able to influence the development of the world so the particular disease malaria wouldn't be a cause of death, it's more difficult to imagine how God could calibrate a world to avoid deadly disease altogether. If it weren't malaria, it would be something else.

The issue of population brings me to another example: birth defects. Some of these are extremely emotionally difficult for parents. It's hard not to question God and wonder what is the point. If something like DNA is integral to reproduction, though, defects are inevitable. They are inherent in the reproduction process, and mutations are a mechanism of evolution in the first place. Even if one views God as having guided evolution or doesn't believe in evolution for humans at all, birth defects seem inherent in the very means by which we gain mortal bodies. If genetic birth defects weren't possible, meiosis, and other processes in which random changes in genes can be duplicated, wouldn't be thinkable.

Much evil is pointless in the sense that it serves as no particular or specific lesson. Evil can be a side effect of something necessary, like having a medium for genetic information. It does not mean God inflicts the evil or neglects to prevent it.

Matthew 26:

6Now when Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, 7There came unto him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious ointment, and poured it on his head, as he sat at meat. 8But when his disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, To what purpose is this waste? 9For this ointment might have been sold for much, and given to the poor. 10When Jesus understood it, he said unto them, Why trouble ye the woman? for she hath wrought a good work upon me. 11For ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always. 12For in that she hath poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial. 13Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her.

14Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priests, 15And said unto them, What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver. 16And from that time he sought opportunity to betray him.

Makes you wonder about the "gospel of social justice".

[LeSellers]

Why should God be expected to intervene miraculously to stop every murder by an assailant on a street, but not be expected to end infant malaria deaths?

Well, He darned near did the latter, but Rachel Carson stepped in and got DDT banned. Malaria was nearly eradicated, but Silent Spring came out, people panicked needlessly (hers was the epitome of junk science), and now people are reduced to buying expensive and ineffectual mosquito nets while watching their children dying by the thousands.

What's the use of God's directing His (secular) servants to discover the means of controlling such pestilences if other servants, those of Satan, work tirelessly to block his work?

Lehi

Edited December 13, 2011 by LeSellers

[supersnail]

[i'm not baptized. I do have a spiritual testimony that Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit exist. The below is immediately a response to a reference to Matthew 26:6-16 made in reply to my first post in this Internet forum thread, but additionally it reflects an intellectual testimony repudiating a position I ardently held for many years: atheism. I realize that the theory I express below isn't precisely or specifically Mormon, but I believe it is consistent with major LDS tenets.]

I doubt anyone would call an earthquake evil if it didn't kill or hurt anyone. The reason natural events come up in discussions of the problem of evil is that they cause death and suffering.

If there were more earthquake-proof buildings, fewer people would die. That there aren't more earthquake-proof buildings is partly related to socioeconomic development.

Homicide isn't outside the scope of explanation either. The fact that some countries have homicide rates multiple times the rates of other countries is largely due to socioeconomic development. It's not that the countries with higher murder rates all necessarily have less spiritual development. As Spencer W. Kimball pointed out in "The False Gods We Worship" (http://lds.org/ensig...orship?lang=eng), idolatry is still a major reality in countries with enormous prosperity and resources. Some of these countries have low murder rates, but they may also be spiritually deficient for the most part in comparison with other countries. It is notable that countries with widespread adherence to particular, narrow doctrines of solifidianism--which, while preaching faith in Jesus Christ in words, depreciate efforts to improve the conditions of others and end injustice--are also countries where open atheism and paganism, as well as less obvious forms of idolatry, are rampant.

"In spite of our delight in defining ourselves as modern, and our tendency to think we possess a sophistication that no people in the past ever had--in spite of these things, we are, on the whole, an idolatrous people--a condition most repugnant to the Lord."

I'm not going to go into why there is a disjuncture between material development and spiritual development. That's a topic in its own right, and it's somewhat tangential to the topic of this thread. The point is that much suffering is related to socioeconomic development and the order that exists in nature. There is a material lawfulness to suffering, even though we have the power to change much of the way things are and end things like deaths from preventable and treatable disease.

In other words, we can, actually, think of earthquake casualties and homicide the same way we think about malaria mortality. My purpose in my first post in this thread wasn't to support the notion that earthquake deaths or murder just happen or to say that natural disasters and murder don't deserve our attention. Earthquake deaths and injuries are important, and so are malaria deaths. When it comes to the problem of evil, why do some commentators focus on things like murder? The tacit assumption is that we can do nothing to prevent it, just blame God. It's interesting that some critics of theism who express moral outrage about evil in which God is allegedly complicit choose examples of evil, senseless and seemingly inexplicable, that seem to minimize their own culpability for suffering in the world. It's easy to talk about things like serial killing--and even sometimes seemingly unanticipatable things like cancer, and things that seem very distant like a mass murder decades ago--instead of things we could take responsibility for and not just as authorities investigating murder after the fact. If we were to instead turn our attention to homelessness and the things mentioned in Mormon 8:39, it would be clearer that much suffering is both 1) inherent in the dynamics of mortal life, and 2) something that we can gradually overcome as a society, nation, or species. Stagnancy in this area is due to idolatry and a lack of faith.

The philosophical issue I was trying to get at is why does there seem to be a sharp demarcation between categories of suffering such that we fault God for not eliminating all instances of one category of suffering like physical assault, or being pursued and stabbed to death in the streets, and yet are silent about more clearly systemic evil such as famine. What are the theoretical and moral assumptions and implications; why are certain categories of suffering or evil treated as especially relevant to the problem of evil or certain formulations of the problem of evil. The accusers of God need to specify what suffering they expect God to prevent and explain why some categories of suffering should be prevented and not others. Even if they obligate God to end all suffering, mortality would remain. People could still die without having experienced evil or suffering themselves, and the loved ones they leave behind will still grieve--itself a kind of suffering.

It is more plausible that God intervenes in some specific instances of a kind of suffering--perhaps to "correct," tweak, maintain or slightly build upon what He designed--to achieve a purpose while remaining within the realm of what we perceive to be physically, naturally possible, and occasionally does miracles defying all naturalistic explanation, than to suppose that if God exists He should prevent all occurrences of a kind of suffering, perhaps spectacularly.

Even if it were possible, what message might it send if God were to prevent all murders, but not prevent deaths from hunger? Are deaths from hunger OK?

Even if we wouldn't know if God was preventing all instances of an evil, some evils may have larger or deeper causes that are themselves evils. A murder in Honduras probably has multiple causes and not just the immediate ones. If God prevented all murders and eliminated other evils that are symptoms of underlying evils, suppressing the symptoms and making them invisible, would the underlying social, political and economic forces become more tolerable? Might they even go unrecognized as evils?

If suffering didn't exist, the world would look nothing like it does. I mean in the sense that fundamental principles might have to be altered in a way somewhat analogous to not having having genes susceptible to mutation be involved in reproduction just to eliminate the possibility of birth defects. It might be logically possible to have reproduction without genes. We could contemplate how that might be possible, but we might end up contemplating life as a primitive life form that somehow reproduces without heritable variation, maybe life as some kind of molecule, if we were to indulge that train of thought. Maybe some people would rather exist as a simple combination of particles, but that is not a preference they can impose on other people.

It might be within God's power to not create a world in the first place to avoid suffering altogether, but would we want that?

Absolutist theology may not be able to adequately address the problem of evil. In finitist theology, on the other hand, it is possible that God must give us a mortal experience, with unavoidable suffering due to undeniable agency and the laws of mortal life, to achieve the purposes of salvation and exaltation. At the same time, in specifically LDS finitist theology, God's covenants are truly guarantees. Though constrained by principles to create a world with suffering if He is to create any world populated with mortal bodies, God has the power, not just the desire, to fulfill His promises. God is omnipotent in every practical sense relevant to us. He has just determined in His wisdom that it is better for us to have this experience in mortality than not. We are God's children, and though we live in a world with suffering, God loves us and will surely save and exalt us if we let Him. Our desire for God to take care of this or that instance of suffering or difficulty on our personal laundry list doesn't take away from God's power. The one true God of LDS theology is worthy of worship and is the only god worthy of worship. All other gods worshiped and all other objects worshiped are false or idols.

If the world didn't have order, God could eliminate all murders and it wouldn't affect the principles by which other things exist and move--because there would be no principles to affect. There would be no order. In reality and outside fictional fantasy land, there is order in the world, and to eliminate all murders implies the elimination of principles on which many other things might depend. Murder is due to our agency, but it is also a result of institutions, structures and forces that have their own principles, and the development of those institutions, structures and forces is also according to principles, on which numerous other things are contingent. Because of this connectedness, God may be constrained in how He can intervene. To reuse an analogy I have used elsewhere (which is mechanical and may not be the best illustration, but go with me here), we could not conceive of preventing heat generated by an integrated circuit in a computer which we have already designed and put into operation. We could ventilate and place some cooling fans and heat sinks, but that's about it. To prevent heat generation would require an alteration of the original design of the integrated circuit, perhaps changing the way the whole thing works beyond recognition. Even if such a new design were imaginable, how can the design of something be changed in the middle of its existence.

I believe that God literally parted the Red Sea in a spectacular revelatory event, a "suspension" of the laws of nature that actually may have been a counteraction based on material principles unknown to us. This may sound odd to the modern ear given some of the things I've said, but it is more plausible than believing that God could have organized matter in such a way as to foreclose the possibility of intentional homicide ever arising. The parting of the Red Sea was a one-time occurrence. After it happened, there was no issue of gravity not existing and water not behaving the way it did before the Red Sea was parted.

Now, maybe God could have made us have a gene making us more averse to homicide of the interpersonal kind, but we probably would have found a way to kill each other anyway. Why God should prevent interpersonal homicide only for us to carry out collective homicide of each other from great spatial and psychological distances, with fewer murders in our own neighborhood, is unclear. So homicide exists, but we can work toward a world with less homicide--through the exercise of our agency in a way consistent with the principles that distally gave rise to homicide in the first place. We may end up removing some of the things with principles that more proximally cause homicide, but this is different from eliminating all homicide in one stroke or trying to set parameters to prevent the emergence of murder in a growing, developing, organic thing like society thousands of years later.

Besides losing property, Job experienced outliving his children, the loss of servants, and an agonizing bodily affliction. Job complains about this, his own personal misery. Eventually, though, Job takes up the cause of other people suffering in the world, on their behalf. It is no longer about just him. The reader may perceive no apparent reason for the some of the things that happened to Job, but from our modern standpoint we know that the experiences of orphans, the poor, and widows, make up patterns conditioned by explainable principles. They obviously are not divine punishment. Job's great ignorance is that he does not know that the experiences of orphans represent the dynamic order that exists in the world. God has taken into account the suffering of orphans. The suffering may serve no specific didactic purpose for many orphans, but God knows we can overcome it, and He has figured the suffering into His plan without necessarily selecting that suffering to exist specifically.

Though more righteous than many others like him at the time, Job is a product of his times, and in those times people didn't have approaches for thinking about things like poverty the same way epidemiologists look at a disease, or even the way nomads with animal husbandry techniques think about livestock--as something that develops and which is produced and can be controlled. So it may have seemed that poverty had always been there and would always be there, that one could give alms, but couldn't eradicate poverty. Instead of teaching economics, political science and sociology lessons to Job, God rebukes Job by asserting His power and knowledge. God's lengthy discourse on who knows or is responsible for various things of heaven and earth demonstrates Job's utter ignorance. God's use of numerous examples from nature suggests, among other things, that evil is importantly connected to laws Job doesn't know about. There is an order behind manifestations of evil. To some extent that order is changing and temporary--because it is God indeed "who hath put wisdom in the inward parts" and "who hath given understanding to the heart" (Job 38:36)--but evil is and has been accounted for in God's plan. It is not inexplicable. Evils have an origin, a path, and a destination. They can have an end if we aren't lacking in spiritual development and faith.

Since I've used a mechanical analogy (an integrated circuit of a computer), I would like to distinguish my view of God and creation articulated above from the so-called clockwork universe theory. In the clockwork universe theory, laws are established and matter is put into motion with God never intervening after the initializing creative act. The clockwork universe theory emphasizes the lawfulness of the created world, but in a way that precludes miracles. This theory is false. God does work miracles. These impact individuals and entire nations. God could dramatically affect the trajectory of society in its economic, political and social development without making development unnecessary or nullifying the laws underlying that development. God's miracles are within the logic of his own creation. As society and the world develop, God can and does work miracles to influence further development in a way that is logically consistent and does not annihilate the world.

We could imagine another world where reproduction of mortal bodies takes place without DNA, but we on this earth already reproduce in a process involving DNA and mutation. That's done. Consequently, God is not going to eliminate all genetic birth defects, though He could prevent some. What God may be able to do is decrease congenital birth defects by nudging things in a direction such that there is less radiation exposure, for example. This may be consistent with the laws existing in his own creation. For an analogous reason, God may not be able to eliminate suffering in general without nullifying mortality itself, but He can guide the development of the world as that development is taking place in a dynamically consistent (and self-consistent) way and in accordance with our choices as individuals with agency.

Edited December 12, 2011 by supersnail

[Loran Blood]

In other words, the very foundation of secular humanism is flawed because it is largely an understandable reaction to and rejection of a fundamentally mistaken Judeo-Christian-Islamic dogma. That dogma certainly deserves the hits it has taken from humanism, but the most penetrating attack of all would have been for humanism to point out that biblical religion (whatever it is!) has nothing to do with that dogma.

I agree in part here. The secular humanist vision is, indeed, an alternative or counter-creation mythology ranged against the Hellenistic/neo-Platonic corruption of the original Judeo-Christian cosmology. However, secular humanism also represents Korihorism; an archtypical philosophy of human self sufficiency and, ultimately, self deification in which man becomes his own god in a universe in which, if there are to be gods, there is no other alternative. This spiritual psychology is, and always would have been, just as hostile to the restored gospel as to any corruption or modification of it.

[Loran Blood]

I think all three of these notions require "a number of assumptions and presuppositions of a ...metaphysical nature", to the point it is difficult to see what they have in common, other than perhaps the fact that most humans find them to be adverse.

Exactly. All of them are "evil," to the human mind because they cause suffering and loss. In any number of cases, such suffering and loss could be construed as "unnecessary." At some point, any and all of them could be so construed.

Also, as I see things, teleology is such a metaphysical pit of quicksand discussing it is nearly useless.

What do you mean?

[Loran Blood]

The atonement does not "cover" tsunamis and tigers eating people, it covers SIN. In other words, the fact that humans suffer accidents and other adversity is not removed by the atonement.

I'm not at all sure this is correct, in a larger sense. Does not the Atonement cover the effects of hungry tigers and raging tsunamis have on human beings? That is to say, natural disasters and accidents can, and often do produce sin as a byproduct of the experience of that suffering. Hence, the Atonement can be understood to exist as a means of support as we confront our reactions to that which befalls us in mortality. To the extent natural calamities of various kinds move us away from our Father in Heaven due to our normal mortal reactions to them, to that extent the Atonement is closely connected to the existence of natural calamities.

Many people, in other words, do not experience tsunamis (and war, famine, criminal attack etc.) and go on they way, rejoicing. The effects of such experiences will, in many cases, require the power of the Atonement to heal.

[Sandy Petersen]

To me, the problem of moral evil is trivial. If God wants free-willed entities, then they must be able to behave badly, or they cannot choose to be good. Done.

But the problem of natural evil is a far more difficult question. Take birth defects as mentioned before. It is not the case that using a method of genetic transcription MUST lead to defects, surely. In the first place, obviously God could have created a transcription system without flaw. In the second place, even in our fallen state, many genetic deficiencies result in the embryo aborting naturally. If some can result in this, why not all?

That several posters have mentioned that a tsunami does not strike them as "evil" astounds me. An event that destroys families, ruins homes, kills, injures, causes poverty, spreads disease, and overturns even the ecological order is not evil? Maybe not "moral" evil, but even impersonal, mindless evil is still certainly not a good thing. Cancer and diabetes are clearly evils. I regret bitterly the loss of my beloved younger brother from diabetic complications, and mourn for the loss of my Uncle Arthur and Uncle Earl to the painful and humiliating ravages of cancer.

The underlying issue here is that God designed the world and the world system. Therefore, in a very real sense, tsunamis, malaria, cancer, birth defects, man-eating tigers, and all the panoply of real-world non-moral pains and disasters are there because God put them there. So the question is, why did God do so? No wonder some humanists reject a God that would perpetrate such horrors. No wonder some people lose their faith after a tragedy. It cries out for explanation. And only Mormonism has, in my opinion, such a response - the necessary dualism of the universe. There CANNOT be good without evil, even if only impersonal, natural, evil. I think the answer goes even further - the deeper and more profound the Evil, the more divine and blissful the Good is capable of being.

C. S. Lewis points out as two of the obvious personality traits of God that (A) He loves beauty - look at the natural world and (B) he is no friend to mankind - again, look at the natural world.

[Loran Blood]

The atonement gives you a subjective belief which allows you to do away with all emotional pain and grief.

The Atonement provides a subjective belief? I"m not sure what this actually means, within the scope of gospel doctrine. The effects of the Atonement do not extend beyond mere belief?

That is precisely what all religions do- but for me the LDS explanation is the best explanation which is most effective because it coheres with all the elements of my world view including theories of multiverses, the nature of truth, etc. All those rational views cohere perfectly with my spiritual and religious views of the atonement, and morality etc.

Would you say that your have received a testimony of the restored gospel, or is this just a matter of intellectual/cognitive "coherence" with other preexisting theoretical structures?

Using another linguistic context, the beliefs I have take away, or can take away, all my emotional pains when I understand the atonement. To me that is the meaning of "putting the atonement to work in my life".

"Beliefs" certainly could either produce or take away pain, if held strongly enough (just as belief can create facts and evidence where none exists, and make facts and evidence disappear where it very clearly exists) but that would leave open the distinctive possibility that the taking away of the pain was a phantasm; a masking of the pain through self delusion. The gospel teaches us that the Atonement, in a very real and fundamental metaphysical (and psychological) sense, goes well beyond the level of believing that something has happened to us sufficient to anesthetize our pain and compartmentalize us from our guilt and bad conscience. The Atonement, in other words, is something that actually happens to us through the power of Christ. It is a intrinsic ontological change and endowment that we receive, not just as a matter of belief but as a change of state.

It can be seen as literally true if desired, or symbolically true, or pragmatically emotionally true. They all work just fine and are coherent as different ways of seeing the same thing

Symbol, emotion, and result are all the same? Is the Atonement symbolic, purely emotional, or simply a result from a emotional state one symbolizes as a doctrine? I think this is an imprecise and sloppy use of language. If the Atonement is an actual change in one's ontological state, then we can certainly symbolize it, experience it emotionally, and see its results, but I'm not sure we can fully and legitimately conceptualize it, at a fundamental level, in those manners without substantially distorting its essence, if that is as far, or as deep, as we go.

Edited December 12, 2011 by Loran Blood

[mfbukowski]

...However, secular humanism also represents Korihorism; an archtypical philosophy of human self sufficiency and, ultimately, self deification in which man becomes his own god in a universe in which, if there are to be gods, there is no other alternative. This spiritual psychology is, and always would have been, just as hostile to the restored gospel as to any corruption or modification of it.

Well I understand what you mean, and I partially agree, but Korihor preached that there would be no Christ- and that is far different from my view.

Let me break it down:

Korihorism; an archtypical philosophy of human self sufficiency...

Yes, a Godless self sufficiency- I would certainly differ with that. I also would disagree in his morality- that we should do whatever is necessary to get gain.

ultimately, self deification in which man becomes his own god

And yet, of course we do believe that God has given us the gift to become like him, so that part of humanism- that man is god, can, with modification, be seen as "true".

I think you are attributing to Korihor a lot of advanced doctrine which is not there, but I think that your view of humanism has not perhaps been thought through as clearly as it might be. The notion that "man is god" - with a capital G inserted - turns humanism into LDS theology.

[mfbukowski]

That several posters have mentioned that a tsunami does not strike them as "evil" astounds me.

Think what you like, but if you think that accidents are "evil" you are left with the silly notion that God causes "evil". If that's what you want to believe, be my guest.

I think such a notion is horribly confused. Yes, may believe that. And, in my opinion, they are confused.

[mfbukowski]

The Atonement provides a subjective belief? I"m not sure what this actually means, within the scope of gospel doctrine. The effects of the Atonement do not extend beyond mere belief?

The distinction here is not whether or not the effects of the Atonement "extend beyond mere belief", it is a question of if they can be SHOWN objectively to extend beyond belief. Every belief starts out as subjective- you believe you are reading this on a computer screen. You are right of course- you can show this screen to anyone else and have them verify that you are not hallucinating your present belief that you are reading these words. But you cannot ask anyone else- ie: get "objective verification" of what the effects are of the atonement.

So every belief starts out as subjective- some can be proven objectively and others cannot. So what is "real" to a single observer may not be "real" to another observer.

God is not "real" to an atheist, but they will acknowledge that belief in the atonement gives subjective comfort. I was stating something that could be objectively shown about the atonement- that it gives subjective comfort. That does not mean for one moment that I do not believe that the atonement is "real"- I just think that this belief can be stated in such a way as to convince even an atheist that belief in the atonement has some pragmatic value.

In my beliefs, of course, it goes far beyond "mere" pragmatic value- but all I can discuss with others is what is objective- what they can see for themselves to be true regardless of their subjective understanding. Since there are all kinds of people reading this board- I try to keep my comments to what can be shown to be "objectively" true.

Would you say that your have received a testimony of the restored gospel, or is this just a matter of intellectual/cognitive "coherence" with other preexisting theoretical structures?

Heck yeah! I discuss my spiritual experiences all the time!! That is the only way you can know the gospel is true! But I prefer to discuss things philosophically which means "objectively" in ways that all can understand. It is a question of a choice I make to express myself in a philosophical context rather than in testimony, which others may not be able to relate to.

"Beliefs" certainly could either produce or take away pain, if held strongly enough (just as belief can create facts and evidence where none exists, and make facts and evidence disappear where it very clearly exists) but that would leave open the distinctive possibility that the taking away of the pain was a phantasm; a masking of the pain through self delusion. The gospel teaches us that the Atonement, in a very real and fundamental metaphysical (and psychological) sense, goes well beyond the level of believing that something has happened to us sufficient to anesthetize our pain and compartmentalize us from our guilt and bad conscience. The Atonement, in other words, is something that actually happens to us through the power of Christ. It is a intrinsic ontological change and endowment that we receive, not just as a matter of belief but as a change of state.

Of course I BELIEVE that, but it cannot be proven objectively. I have experienced that in my own life- subjectively. But belief is a powerful thing and in some cases may not be distinguishable from what is "real"- so in order to be able to discuss the objective "reality" of something, I think it is essential to look at it in ways we can- individually as different human beings- KNOW the truth of a principle.

From that perspective, the subjective and objective are two sides of the same coin- you can only KNOW what is real subjectively in any ultimate sense. You must know it for yourself- at least with my incredibly speculative nature, I must. I mean I have been known to do things like boil water and put a thermometer in there to test for myself- subjectively- what I already "know" objectively- that water boils at 212 Fahrenheit.

If I don't know it for myself, it is not "true". I must prove every principle. But I know as surely as I am sitting here that God has answered my prayers and told me that the church is "true".

Symbol, emotion, and result are all the same? Is the Atonement symbolic, purely emotional, or simply a result from a emotional state one symbolizes as a doctrine? I think this is an imprecise and sloppy use of language. If the Atonement is an actual change in one's ontological state, then we can certainly symbolize it, experience it emotionally, and see its results, but I'm not sure we can fully and legitimately conceptualize it, at a fundamental level, in those manners without substantially distorting its essence, if that is as far, or as deep, as we go.

Anything expressed in language is a SYMBOL. Period. It is self evident. Try to talk about anything without using language! Chairs and atonements don't come out of one's mouth when we speak- words do, and words are symbols.

No way to get around that one!

[mfbukowski]

Ontological states and teleological states cannot be shown to exist objectively so I choose not to talk about them.

That's all. Maybe they're "real" or maybe not, but their existence is subject to argumentation and so it is not very useful to argue about them.

[Loran Blood]

Ontological states and teleological states cannot be shown to exist objectively so I choose not to talk about them.

How do you hybridize B.F. Skinner with Joseph Smith?

Interesting problem.

Edited December 12, 2011 by Loran Blood

[Calm]

"Evil" for me at least includes intent to harm. Natural accidents may or may not cause harm depending on the presence of humans and their preparation for it. Is a tsunami that hits in an unpopulated area causing no death or injury "evil"? Is a man who would like to kill and torture people but is prevented from doing so due to physical disability not evil due to no harm occurring?

Natural disasters and accidents are tragic, but not evil. "Evil" is a moral term in my view and it is confusing to the discussion to apply it generally to any misfortune, whether caused by another's intent or accidental.

[supersnail]

But the problem of natural evil is a far more difficult question. Take birth defects as mentioned before. It is not the case that using a method of genetic transcription MUST lead to defects, surely. In the first place, obviously God could have created a transcription system without flaw. In the second place, even in our fallen state, many genetic deficiencies result in the embryo aborting naturally. If some can result in this, why not all?

I will gladly revise my post when astrobiologists discover that method, especially if they can produce evidence of a complex organism that reproduced with the method. Maybe, in a paradisaical or other type of world, laws could be in place so there wouldn't be birth defects. My suggestion was that it may have been necessary, because of laws that God was bound by or upholding, to have a reproduction process open to mutation, for this world, and in that respect we shouldn't wonder why God doesn't prevent all birth defects--as an example.

The idea of a reproduction method that doesn't involve mutation has implications seen in the history of pre-evolutionary thought (Linnaeus etc.). What I'm saying doesn't require one to accept "evolution" as presented by atheists. It is just useful to think about why God might not eliminate all birth defects or choose a method of reproduction different from the one we know about just to avoid birth defects (which anyway don't always or necessarily cause the people born with them to themselves suffer).

If God were to intervene to increase the relative frequency of some kinds of birth defects or make some calibration before things have been set into motion, I would think He would increase the frequency of those birth defects that aren't painful to the child or don't cause miscarriages.

Some suffering related to birth defects can be overcome by us on this earth. The concept of so-called natural evil is questionable in that regard.

In my previous post, I suggested that earthquakes actually would not be a good example of a contemporary natural evil, because sin and low socioeconomic development are obstacles to earthquake preparedness.

Not only are deadly tsunamis evil, they are more than a natural evil. Many deaths from tsunamis can be prevented.

I'd say the same thing about cancer due to smoking or some sources of radiation, for example. It is more than, or other than, natural evil.

I am not trying to defend the apostate so-called theodicy of the Platonists or their idolatrous theology. I am only suggesting here that when atheists condemn God for what is called "natural evil" when speaking about God's omnipotence as (mis)understood by "traditional" Christianity, they usually don't address how LDS theology might resolve the issue in the ways I've suggested. I recognize that there may be other ways to resolve the issue from an LDS perspective that are valid and emphasize other elements of LDS doctrine.

Edited December 13, 2011 by supersnail

[mfbukowski]

How do you hybridize B.F. Skinner with Joseph Smith?

Interesting problem.

Here's the deal:

From safely within the Walls of Zion, one may peer out over the battlements and dismiss it all as "philosophies of men mingled with scripture", but when I was out there as an atheist in the cold cruel world with no direction except the philosophies of men, all these ideas made it possible for me to find the church.

I think there might be one or two still out there looking for someone who speaks their language, and sees a tiny flashlight blinking in their direction from the grey battlements.

[Loran Blood]

Here's the deal:

From safely within the Walls of Zion, one may peer out over the battlements and dismiss it all as "philosophies of men mingled with scripture", but when I was out there as an atheist in the cold cruel world with no direction except the philosophies of men, all these ideas made it possible for me to find the church.

I think there might be one or two still out there looking for someone who speaks their language, and sees a tiny flashlight blinking in their direction from the grey battlements.

I'm not exactly sure how this relates to the statement I made regarding your comment that it is not worth while to discuss states of existence or phenomena that "cannot be shown to exist objectively." It would appear that this would preclude you from discussing pretty much everything related to Church doctrine, from the existence of God, to the resurrection, to the efficacy of taking the sacrament.

Edited December 14, 2011 by Loran Blood

[mfbukowski]

I'm not exactly sure how this relates to the statement I made regarding your comment that it is not worth while to discuss states of existence or phenomena that "cannot be shown to exist objectively." It would appear that this would preclude you from discussing pretty much everything related to Church doctrine, from the existence of God, to the resurrection, to the efficacy of taking the sacrament.

I can see that the way I put it was perhaps not the best statement of what I meant; I see the problem ultimately as an epistemological one, that ontology is largely irrelevant because we cannot ever really get "down" past our perceptions and experience to get to what "exists".

All we have is our experiences and how we speak about them.

So any discussion of what "exists", for me, becomes quibbling about definitions and artificial categories and linguistic structures which really are non-problems ultimately. If you are not familiar with this branch of philosophy (I am not saying you are not- I just don't know you) perhaps the most relevant category to put me into would be as an "anti-foundationalist".

On most of these issues, I suppose I am closest to Richard Rorty, who has serious problems with ontology

Edited December 15, 2011 by mfbukowski

[Cobalt-70]

1. How is "unnecessary" evil to be defined? What are the criteria? It would seem that that bar, so to speak, from a human perspective, as to what would count as "unnecessary" in the realm of the kinds and forms of evil that could befall a human being (from being paralyzed from the neck down in a skiing accident, to a child drowning in a pool during a moment of inattention by the parents, to something like the Japanese tsunami, to being randomly struck down by a gang member's bullet) is going to end by being extremely low. That is to say, unless we are prepared to admit that we enjoy some forms of suffering, when given the choice, the vast majority of human beings are always going to choose non-suffering over suffering.

...

At bottom then, there can be no "unnecessary" evil in the sense of there being evil that is not and cannot be accounted for and mediated by the Atonement and the eternal background against which evil in the mortal world occurs. At the same time, we can also admit that no particular act of evil is necessary in the sense that our progression could not have gone on, and at a better clip, without it. What the gospel does tell us is that we will sin and encounter evil, both in ourselves and in others, in some form, along numerous points in our lives. That is the essential nature of mortality.

I have never thought that theodicity had any relevance to Mormonism, because the Mormon God is neither truly omnipotent, omniscient, or omnibenevolent. The Mormon God is not responsible for all the good in the world, nor is he responsible for all the evil, but he is responsible for some good and for some evil. "Necessary" evil could be simply defined as evil caused by God, or to which God approves (such as Abraham's attempted murder of Isaac, the genocide of the Canaanites, or the killing of women and children in Alma 14). All other evil is unnecessary as far as God is concerned, but God is not responsible for such unnecessary evil simply because he failed to be sufficiently benevolent to have prevented it--any more than a human is responsible for such evil.

Moreover, good and evil are not absolute categories within Mormonism. They are not only relative to each other, but they exist on a scale that is informed by the circumstances and context, as Joseph Smith believed. What may be good in one context, may be evil in another. What may be "good" for God may be evil for humanity. What may be good for one culture (e.g., gentiles eating bacon) may be evil for another. Ultimately, it comes down to the fact that good and evil are social and cultural categories.

[mfbukowski]

I have never thought that theodicity had any relevance to Mormonism, because the Mormon God is neither truly omnipotent, omniscient, or omnibenevolent. The Mormon God is not responsible for all the good in the world, nor is he responsible for all the evil, but he is responsible for some good and for some evil. "Necessary" evil could be simply defined as evil caused by God, or to which God approves (such as Abraham's attempted murder of Isaac, the genocide of the Canaanites, or the killing of women and children in Alma 14). All other evil is unnecessary as far as God is concerned, but God is not responsible for such unnecessary evil simply because he failed to be sufficiently benevolent to have prevented it--any more than a human is responsible for such evil.

For what it's worth, I'd like to comment on this position.

As far as God being "omni" anything, I think that it makes perfect sense to think of him as omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent, but not in the classic Neoplatonic sense.

To me it comes down the the old saw of "can God make a rock so big that he cannot lift it?". Ultimately, that line of thinking leads to a contradiction. That does not mean that God is not "omnipotent", it just means that the denial of his omnipotence leads to logical contradiction in this case, due to a contradictory description.

The same is true I think of thinking of him as "omniscient". I think he knows all that there is to know, but even for him there are things not yet known. For me, knowledge itself is created since it amounts to a certain statement which is perfectly true in its "correct" organization of reality. In other words it is a perfectly coherent linguistic description which, within its context, interprets, describes, and defines a given situation which enables us to act perfectly in that particular situation.

For me, knowledge is certainty about how to think and act in a given situation to achieve predictable ends, nothing more, nothing less. And in that I think that God is perfect- and indeed we can be also in certain limited cases.

So in a sense, he knows all that can be known, he is maximally good in every way it is possible to be good, (given agency) and able to "do" all that can be done without contradiction of the laws of the universe which he has created for himself as the self-defining, self-determining universal "I AM".

So indeed I would call him omniscient and omnipotent and any other omni's you have to measure by.

So I don't think it is so much that we disagree on this, I would just say it in another way.

Edited December 15, 2011 by mfbukowski

[Cobalt-70]

To me it comes down the the old saw of "can God make a rock so big that he cannot lift it?". Ultimately, that line of thinking leads to a contradiction. That does not mean that God is not "omnipotent", it just means that the denial of his omnipotence leads to logical contradiction in this case, due to a contradictory description.

This is an apology for why the Trinity is omnipotent. However, the Mormon God lacks true omnipotence for other reasons than merely this paradox. Unlike the traditional Christian God, the Mormon God is not the creator ex nihilo of the universe. The universe existed before he became God, and exists from moment to moment independently of God's will. Plus, there are other "necessary beings" than just God, and God cannot wink these other gods and intelligences out of existence. God is impotent when it comes to the destruction of other coeternal gods and intelligences. Therefore, he is not truly omnipotent.

The same is true I think of thinking of him as "omniscient". I think he knows all that there is to know, but even for him there are things not yet known. For me, knowledge itself is created since it amounts to a certain statement which is perfectly true in its "correct" organization of reality. In other words it is a perfectly coherent linguistic description which, within its context, interprets, describes, and defines a given situation which enables us to act perfectly in that particular situation.

You are using the term "omniscient" in a way foreign to traditional Christian theology. If knowledge can be created, as you imply, then God cannot yet know the knowledge that has not yet been created, and he is not truly "omni" in the absolute Christian sense. But I think the Mormon God is not omniscient for other reasons as well, because: (1) He cannot know in advance, for certain, the choice that will be made by every being with agency. Mormons do not believe in predestination, and therefore there are at least two possible future timelines until a choice is made. The Mormon God cannot be omniscient because of the inherent uncertainty which Mormons acknowledge exists within the universe. (2) God is made of matter composed of individual "elements" and exists in a finite space, and therefore the number of "elements" within him is finite, and thus he cannot contain within himself an infinite amount of information.

So in a sense, he knows all that can be known, he is maximally good in every way it is possible to be good, (given agency) and able to "do" all that can be done without contradiction of the laws of the universe which he has created for himself as the self-defining, self-determining universal "I AM".

"Maximally good" is not the same as "omnibenevolent." Moreover, if he could do more good than he does, by changing the laws of the universe which he has created for himself, then he is not even "maximally good." For example, according to Mormon theology he chose to reject Lucifer's plan which would have eliminated evil from the earth. By rejecting this plan, he increased the amount of evil in the world, and therefore he is not "maximally good."

Edited December 16, 2011 by Cobalt-70

[supersnail]

I have never thought that theodicity had any relevance to Mormonism, because the Mormon God is neither truly omnipotent, omniscient, or omnibenevolent. The Mormon God is not responsible for all the good in the world, nor is he responsible for all the evil, but he is responsible for some good and for some evil. "Necessary" evil could be simply defined as evil caused by God, or to which God approves (such as Abraham's attempted murder of Isaac, the genocide of the Canaanites, or the killing of women and children in Alma 14). All other evil is unnecessary as far as God is concerned, but God is not responsible for such unnecessary evil simply because he failed to be sufficiently benevolent to have prevented it--any more than a human is responsible for such evil.

Moreover, good and evil are not absolute categories within Mormonism. They are not only relative to each other, but they exist on a scale that is informed by the circumstances and context, as Joseph Smith believed. What may be good in one context, may be evil in another. What may be "good" for God may be evil for humanity. What may be good for one culture (e.g., gentiles eating bacon) may be evil for another. Ultimately, it comes down to the fact that good and evil are social and cultural categories.

God in theologies like LDS theology easily solves what's called the logical problem of evil in that God isn't viewed as being omnipotent in the classic sense and so the apparent logical contradictions of a just God in so-called traditional Christianity are avoided. A finite God isn't able to do everything even logically possible.

That solution, however, raises two questions: whether a finite God is worthy of worship (and in what way), and whether a finite God, unable to do everything logically possible, could still be considered responsible for evil and in what way. This is where a lot of the current (or I should say most advanced) debate is. Those proposing a finite God have been called to specify God's limitations and explain why those limitations are likely and why God, given the concrete evil that exists in the world, is just.

blakeostler.com seems like a good starting point. I'm interested in other suggestions of LDS writings on theodicy.

Some solutions to the problem of evil appear less relevant to some kinds of evil, such as natural evil. One of the reasons why so-called natural evil comes up in problem-of-evil/theodicy discussions is that it is harder to explain in terms of free will, besides being perceived as random.

I have started addressing the issue of natural evil by noting that the harm done by at least some natural disasters is both explainable naturalistically and preventable. Damage is due to both sin and a lack of development of our ability to control/live with nature. I have focused on the idea that God and matter are co-eternal and some of the elements of LDS theology related to God's creation of laws or upholding of laws or principles. Things of society, such as poverty, pertain to lawfulness. There is geology etc., and there are also social sciences. Laws have an effect in conjunction with our agency and God's miracles. Because of the intractability of matter and perhaps other issues, God may not eliminate all instances of a particular evil.

It is more or less a tenet of postmodernism that there are no real natural or moral laws relevant to human praxis. This is ironic in that postmodernism, despite the prefix, came from modernism and secular humanism. So now it is up to monotheists like Latter-day Saints to, in a way, save science--not from itself--but from a secular idolatry that has supplanted a spirit of working out one's salvation while praying and increasing in understanding of the laws in creation.

Edited December 16, 2011 by supersnail

[mfbukowski]

Cobalt and Super

I think we are talking past each other. I disagree with probably every line in both above posts. You are both using what I think is an old Neoplatonic vocabulary to speak of God as being limited in some way or another, and using traditional Christian definitions for terms which I think need to be re-thought.

I am defining God in a somewhat different way of seeing him- I see him as a human infinitely above us in abilities, so I speak of him using humanistic and in many cases, postmodern language. For me, as I have said before, since God is human, some of humanism is can be seen as pointing to theology.

I am not quite even sure of what "omniscient" means in this context, since I think that the human (including God) organization of order out of chaos ("matter unorganized") is actually what we do every moment of our waking lives, even when we do something as simple as look across the room and our eyes and brain form, from the chaos of light waves of specific wavelengths, hitting our retinas, a "thing" we call in English, a "chair". The fact that you see the same chair I do makes it "objective". We can be "omniscient" about the "existence" of everything in that room. For me, such statements always carry some context with them.

And I have no clue what a "necessary being" is.

Speaking of something happening "before" the Big Bang makes no sense, because there was no time "before" the BB. A statement like "the universe existed before God became God" to me is virtually unintelligible when you consider the notion of multiverses etc. http://www.telegraph...avel-hopes.html

And to suggest that such a belief is biblical or doctrinal is just beyond my ability to even comprehend.

So yes, it is true that I am not using the traditional vocabulary of Christianity. That is what I think we need to all get away from since it no longer applies philosophically the a gospel that is "restored" which in many ways is synonymous with "re-translated", meaning seeing it in a new context.

If we speak of the gospel in the old contexts, it is not the "restored" gospel at all, because the old contexts don't apply.

I could take your posts and discuss each sentence by sentence, and would do that if either of you are actually interested in that, but it will be a long conversation if either of you decide to go down that road with me. On the other hand, it may not be worth it for any of us

Edited December 16, 2011 by mfbukowski

[Cobalt-70]

I think we are talking past each other. I disagree with probably every line in both above posts. You are both using what I think is an old Neoplatonic vocabulary to speak of God as being limited in some way or another, and using traditional Christian definitions for terms which I think need to be re-thought.

The "Neoplatonic vocabulary" is the only context in which the terms "omniscient" or "omnipotent" are understood within non-Mormon Western theology. Mormons who use these terms to describe non-totalizing Mormonism are violating the authority of Plato and the rest of Western theology. Not only that, if use of these terms is directed toward non-Mormon Christians, using the terms is even an act of deception (or perhaps in some cases, encryption), because Mormonism represents a break from Neoplatonic theology, and all the absolutist "omni" terms that come with it.

You cannot effectively "re-think" Christian definitions unless you have power to enforce your views on the Christian community, as did the early Christian church in the days of Constantine. Otherwise, such local re-definitions only serve as deceptions, or as wedges to further isolate Mormonism within its own self-contained textual universe--neither of which increases the religious power of Mormonism.

I am defining God in a somewhat different way of seeing him- I see him as a human infinitely above us in abilities, so I speak of him using humanistic and in many cases, postmodern language. For me, as I have said before, since God is human, some of humanism is can be seen as pointing to theology.

I agree. But I would disagree that the totalizing language of traditional Christianity, like the "omnis," is either humanistic or postmodern.

And I have no clue what a "necessary being" is.

The term "necessary being" comes from Thomas Aquinas, building on ideas from Plato and Aristotle. A necessary being is an "uncaused" being, in contrast to a "contingent being" which has a cause, or in other words, was created. Mormonism posits that all of humanity was coeternal with God, and therefore that we are all necessary beings. Traditional Christianity, on the other hand, posits that God is the only necessary being. Now, if I wanted to go into more detail I could deconstruct either of the above traditional Christian or the Mormon beliefs, but I think the point is that they are quite different from each other. On the other hand, since Mormonism was still built upon the same Neoplatonic framework that was used by Thomas Aquinas, Joseph Smith was incorrect to think that he had managed to escape the necessity of mingling his scripture with the "philosophies of men."

[mfbukowski]

The term "necessary being" comes from Thomas Aquinas, building on ideas from Plato and Aristotle. A necessary being is an "uncaused" being, in contrast to a "contingent being" which has a cause, or in other words, was created. Mormonism posits that all of humanity was coeternal with God, and therefore that we are all necessary beings. Traditional Christianity, on the other hand, posits that God is the only necessary being. Now, if I wanted to go into more detail I could deconstruct either of the above traditional Christian or the Mormon beliefs, but I think the point is that they are quite different from each other. On the other hand, since Mormonism was still built upon the same Neoplatonic framework that was used by Thomas Aquinas, Joseph Smith was incorrect to think that he had managed to escape the necessity of mingling his scripture with the "philosophies of men."

I should have said the notion of a "necessary being" makes no sense outside a traditional Christian, Neoplatonic context, and I doubt that it even makes sense there. That is what I meant. I've studied my share of Aquinas while I was a Catholic.