Monday, July 31, 2006

Francois Tremblay's argument from evil

At 8:02 PM, Francois Tremblay said…

Define moral righteousness (a weaker claim than omnibenevolence) as such:

"Posit a volitional being B. When making a choice where there is at least one perfect alternative and the cost of the implementation of all alternatives are identical (or in the case of a god, where the cost is automatically zero), B will choose a perfect alternative if B is morally righteous."

(1) If a god exists, then it is Creator.
(2) If a god exists, then it is morally righteous.
(3) Given (1) and (2), a god would not have created a non-perfect universe (defined as containing natural or human evil/suffering).
(4) We observe natural and human evil/suffering.
(5) No god exists. (from 3 and 4)



So a perfect God would have created a perfect universe? This of course means that a universe completely under his own control would be a better universe than one which contains creatures that have freedom in the libertarian sense. If creatures have freedom in the libertarian sense, then it's possible that those creatures will make it less than perfect despite God's wanting it to be perfect.

Further, if the universe isn't God himself, and God is the standard of perfection, then the universe, however good, would fall short of the standard of perfection, namely God.

2 comments:

Mark K. Sprengel said...

I had someone argue that being merely automotons was superior to free will as then no evil could occur. It seems to me that ignores the good only possible because of free will, such as moral responsibility/accountability and love. Also, those who deny free will tend to allow that society needs to act as if it exists so that law and order can be maintained. If the mere illusion of free-will is so valuable, the actual thing must be magnitudes greater in value.

Alethes Ginosko said...

I've been seeing a lot of people mention free will on here. I give some comments on my blog...was gonna post them here, but i thought it was too long.

I know that most people do not like to get into the whole 'Arminianism vs. Calvinism' debate, but I think it is a worth while debate.

http://www.criticalintrospect.blogspot.com/