Spencer Lo has sent me a version of the argument from evil, to which I would like to get some reactions before commenting myself.
1. If there's a morally sufficient reason to not prevent instances of gratuitous suffering from occurring, then one ought not to prevent those instances from occurring (God's moral justification for allowing instances of gratuitous suffering).
2. When people are confronted with an instance of gratuitous suffering S, they cannot know whether or not there is a morally sufficient reason R that would make the prevention of S's prolongation morally impermissible.
3. Only God knows whether or not there is a morally sufficient reason R that makes the prevention of S's prolongation morally impermissible.
4. If one doesn't know whether or not there is a morally sufficient reason that would make preventing the prolongation of gratuitous suffering morally impermissible, but knows that moral agent P does know, one ought to yield the decision of whether or not to allow the prolongation of gratuitous suffering to P.
5. Although people do not know whether or not there's an R that would make the prevention of S's prolongation morally impermissible, they know that God knows whether or not there's an R that would make the prevention of S's prolongation morally impermissible.
6. Therefore, people are ought to yield the decision of whether or not to prevent the prolongation of S to God.
7. Therefore, unless God gives people clear indications that there's an R that would make the prevention of S's prolongation morally impermissible, people ought not to act so as to prevent the prolongation of S.
8. It can be reasonably assumed that God did not give the people who prevented the prolongation of the Holocaust clear indications that there exists an R that would make the prevention of Holocaust's prolongation morally impermissible.
9. Therefore, the people who prevented the prolongation of the Holocaust ought not to have prevented its prolongation.
7 comments:
that's kinda lame.
Since you can't second guess the god you don't believe, you can make him non-existent by proposing that personal responsibility and divine ... uh... knowledge can't exist within the same hypothetical universe.....
or something like that.
In this universe, moral agents M are responsible to act responsibly regardless of their ability to prevent S. the R not withstanding, M is responsible to do what is possible for M, nothing less.
oh, the 'standard reformed term' (SRT?) for this is, 'when divine sovereignty and human responsibility kiss.' (I love that phrase.)
Spencer and I know each other. We've talked on the phone for a few hours before, and discussed things online many times. Regarding his argument, though: There's problems on top of problems:
1) I deny we ever run into cases of gratuitous suffering/evil.
2) The post assumes that we are in a position to "thwart God's plans." That is, God intends for S to be prolonged until time t1, and so if we step in to try and stop S, we thwart God' intention for S to reach t1. On my view of providence, the people who stop S at t1 are stopping it *precisely* when God so determined S would end.
3) There is a morally sufficient reason for all suffering, so I say. But, we also have clear commands about how to act in certain situations. For example, we know that it is immoral for a human to take another human's life in an unjustified way. The holocaust took human life in an unjustified way. Therefore the Nazis were evil doers. We have clear commands, per Romans 13, that Governments were given the sword, by God, to prevent and bring terror to evil doers. Therefore in the specific instance Lo brings up, we do know that *we* should stop S, prevent S, etc.
4) Would Lo grant that it is morally permissable to rip apart a persons intestines to get at a nuclear bomb implanted in their body (say only P knows this bomb is there, and it's at 4 a.m. in an alley way, where no one else is around, add other details as you like)? I don't know. I wonder. I seems most atheists I know would say this is morally permissable since the bomb's going off would kill, say, hundreds of thousands of people. But, if Lo saw a man ripping apart the body of a 4 yr. old little girl, perhaps even using his teeth at times(!), would he try to stop this? Why? It is a case of S. And since Lo doesn't know that there isn't an R that would make the prevention of S morally permissable, Lo should yield to the decision of whether to allow this to be prolonged to P, the one doing the ripping. Say P can't tell Lo though since P is busy biting the tender skin off the little child. P can't tell Lo that there is not a morally sufficient reason for S. Thus Lo shouldn't do anything. No, since Lo doesn't know that there isn't a bomb inside the body of any children in this scenario it follows that Lo, according to his above logic, if he holds himself to the criteria he holds us to, it follows that Lo should never step into a situation like the above and prevent S.
5) the main problems, though, are Lo's watered down view of God's providence and decree. the assumption that there is gratuitous suffering. The failure to note that in his specific illustration we do have revelation telling us what to do.
There's a lot more problems that could be addressed, but that's all I have time for...
Hm. I think some of the logic is getting lost in the attempt at rendering for technical precision. Also some tacit implications running behind the argument need bringing out more explicitly.
Elements 1-9 can be restated thusly (with a bit of preparatory fixing in light of Paul’s complaint about _gratuitous_ evil/suffering being topically inconsistent with the argument’s propositions which are otherwise constantly about _non_-gratuitous evil/suffering):
1sum.) If there is a morally good enough reason to _not_ stop a crime from occuring at all, then a person in a position to understand this therefore (morally) _shouldn’t_ stop a crime from occuring at all.
2sum.) When people are confronted with an occurence of a crime (note the category has shifted already from occurence at all to already occuring--topicality could stand to be cleaned up here), they cannot possibly know whether there is a good enough reason to consider the stopping of the continuation of the crime to be _itself_ a crime. (Note the category has shifted here, too, already. This needs tightening up, one way or another, so that the topic of the argument synchs from (1) on down.)
3sum.) Only God knows whether there is a good enough reason to consider the stopping of a continuation of a crime to be _itself_ a crime. (i.e. anyone else is a moral idiot on at least this topic--and presumably on others? Note that premise 3 and premise 1 contradict. Unless Spencer Lo is God, maybe. {shrug})
4sum.) If a moral idiot doesn’t know (which he wouldn’t per premise at (3)) whether there is a good enough reason to consider stopping the prolongation of a crime to be _itself_ a crime, but knows that not-a-moral-idiot does know whether or not there is a good enough reason to consider stopping a continuing crime to be a crime (_what_ that good enough reason is, being irrelevant in principle); then the moral idiot (morally) ought to reach the moral conclusion (i.e. ought) to yield the decision of whether stopping a continuing crime is or is not a crime, to not-a-moral-idiot.
5sum.) Although people, being moral idiots (as well as non-omniscient), do not know whether or not there is or even can be a good enough reason to consider stopping a continuing crime to be a crime (contra 1 again), they do know God knows whether there is a good enough reason to consider stopping a continuing crime to be a crime.
6sum.) Therefore, moral idiots, incapable of sufficiently judging such things themselves, have a moral obligation to realize this and, following _this_ conclusion about moral obligation, yield the decision of whether or not to stop the continuation of a crime to God. cuz, y’know, it’s the right thing to do. {g}
7sum.) Therefore, _unless_ God gives moral idiots clear indications that there _is_ a good enough reason to consider stopping a crime from continuing to be itself a crime, the moral idiots should morally conclude (having been given a good enough reason thereby from the fact that God has _not_ given a good enough reason thereby) that stopping a continuing crime _is_ itself a crime.
i.e. _unless_ God says stopping the crime _is_ a crime, moral idiots have a moral obligation to render the moral conclusion that stopping the crime _is_ a crime _instead_.
Yes, I have to agree, I can see moral idiots coming up with something like that... {wry g} (The ‘unless’ needs changing at the very least.)
8sum.) It can be reasonably assumed that God _did not_ tell the people who stopped the Holocaust from continuing that there was a good enough reason to consider stopping this crime from continuing to be _itself_ a crime.
9sum.) Since these people who stopped the Holocaust were moral idiots, and didn’t know a good reason (from someone who wasn’t a moral idiot) to believe that stopping the Holocaust from continuing would _itself_ be a crime, therefore they had a moral obligation to reach a moral conclusion to believe that stopping the Holocaust from continuing would _itself_ be a crime.
So!--I’m thinking the argument could stand revision in places... {g!}
JRP
I appreciate Jason's reductio. On SPencer's assumptions, no one should stop any immoral criminal acts. That's what I said in (4) above.
That God has morally sufficient *reasons* for allowing an immoral act, the *act* is not thereby now moral.
Humans/ governments/civil magistrates are morally obligated to act in ways which prevent, stop, hinder, immoral civil/public crimes/acts of immorality.
Given a strong view of sovereignty and providence, humans do not need to worry that their preventing or stopping an immoral criminal act is a crime itself, since God's plans cannot be thwarted, and the stopping of the act was even ordained.
Furthermore, the Bible does not share the sentiments of the argument. Why would Paul in Romans 13 give government the power and moral authority to stop evil doers? Governments are *ministers of God's justice.*
We are told to love our neighbors. This includes *much* moral responsibility on our part. To not prevent immoral civil acts is to show hatred toward our neighbor. So, humans should stop other humans from commiting crimes against their neighbor (providing for some qualifications), *even though* God *uses* the crimes/immoral acts for a larger moral purpose.
The two are on a different scale.
Paul: {{On Spencer's assumptions, no one should stop any immoral criminal acts.}}
To be fair, I think Spencer was _trying_ to aim for that conclusion, knowing it to be morally absurd, and knowing that a Christian would agree that it was morally absurd.
I didn't bother criticising the premises (mostly); the wording and the logical invalidity of the attempt (as it currently stands) were enough for me to pick on. However, if he tightened up the logical validity and synched up the wording and topicality, the next thing would be to check the premises. I expect he thinks he has given premises which this-or-that 'Christian' would agree to. Since the premises are currently a mess, it's hard to say whether or not they could be polished up; but let's be fair: whatever else is wrong with the argument, Spencer _is_ trying to give a strong-sovereignty set of premises. And I've run across the equivalent of 'moral idiocy' in Calvinistic theologies (not to say elsewhere on occasion), too.
I could make some guesses as to how best to polish up the argument (insofar as it goes--I trimmed out a complaint that the argument as it stands is also unclear about what it's supposed to be an argument _from_ evil _to_). But Spencer ought to have the opportunity to do that work himself. {g}
(Note to Spencer: be sure you've got a sufficient set of premises, though. If you're going to present oppositional premises in order to illustrate absurdity following from them, it's important to make sure you include all the relevant premises your opponents are including. For example, another thing I edited out of my critique, is that Christians usually claim God works in various ways to help us make moral judgments. I expect if we polled the people who stopped the Holocaust, and asked them whether they thought God in one way or another was letting them know that it ought to be stopped, most of them would say 'yes!')
JRP
Jason,
The premises apply equally for atheists. So, he doesn't believe his premises (i.e., if we cant know that there is no morally sufficient reason for an immoral act, then we shouldn't stop it), why should I? That is, Spencer ends up arguing that *he* shouldn't stop immoral crimianl acts. At least that's what I'd argue.
I don't see how Spencer is trying to give a "strong sovereignty" argument. His premises assume that we can thwart God's plans, or if we try to stop S we are aiming to end the prolongation of the moral good he brings out of S. That's light years away from any reformed view of Sovereignty I know of. My success in *ending* the act would also be ordained by God. Further, he confuses the decreteive and perceptive wills. Humans are only morally obligated to act according to the latter. This is stock reformed theology.
I also noted that the Bible *does* give us info on his specific instance of evil - the holocaust. Any argument that is trying to go where Spencer wants to go needs to deal with, *at least,* Romans 13.
Anyway, I think I agree with you, but maybe a bit more strongly... I don't see any way the premises can be cleaned up.
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