Who's left?

[_mentalgymnast]

The problem of evil merely requires that evils (usually formulated as gratuitous suffering) exist that God is able to prevent where there is no countervailing moral purpose not to do so.

But how do you know that there isn't a countervailing moral...eternal... purpose for God NOT to intervene?

King James Bible...
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.

Regards,
MG

[_Molok]

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.

So, based on the above passage, what is your basis for assuming that God is good in any way? If his thoughts and ways are so far above yours, what If God was a blood thirsty tyrant who's true eternal plan was to ensure your absolute, eternal damnation, how would you tell the difference?

You're trying to have it both ways. You can't say that it's just fine and dandy that God allows intolerable cruelty, because his motivations and goals are some Grand Enigma, and then also say that he's a Great Benevolent Being who wants to save our souls. Either God is some alien, unknowable thing, or he is relatable and understandable. Pick one.

[_EAllusion]

But how do you know that there isn't a countervailing moral...eternal... purpose for God NOT to intervene?

King James Bible...
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.

Regards,
MG

There are two options here MG. You can argue that there are countervailing purposes not to intervene and describe what they are to demonstrate this is the case. That's what theodicies, free will, testing, soul-making, etc. are. We can go down these one by one, but suffice it to say they fall short either individually or in combination.

The other option is you might be again reiterating an unknown purposes defense - that God might have reasons beyond our ken for allowing evils therefore we can't conclude from inscrutable harms that we are seeing gratuitous harms.

There are three major objections to this argument. The first was offered in this thread by Darth J and echoed by me: This makes us moral skeptics with respect to God. A bad God can allow seemingly good things to happen for evil reasons beyond our understanding just the same as a good God can allow seemingly bad things to happen for good reasons beyond our understanding. Therefore assertions of God's benevolence are irrational or empty, therefore the argument from evil has successfully defeated affirmation of the existence of God as described in classical theism*

The second major objection is that this argument implies we should be moral skeptics generally. The third major objection is that this is a specific case of the problem of induction and can be ignored like we ignore general instances of the problem of induction even though it hasn't been solved. Without detailing the latter two arguments, I will point out that one does not need to accept all three objections here. You bailed after the first objection the first go around, so I don't see why you'd bring up the argument again.

*Technically, what it defeats is believing in the existence of God on the basis of evidence. If you had an a priori argument for classical theism (such as the ontological argument being successful) that would partially get around this problem. Of course, if you had a rock-solid a priori demonstration of the existence of an all-good, all-knowing, all-powerful God, then you wouldn't need to invoke unknown purposes in the first place. Evidence, such as the observation of evils, can't touch that sort of argument. Moreover, proving that the God of classical theism exists does not prove that the God of your religion (say the God of the Bible) is one in the same with that God, so the problem of evil then simply turns on the assertion that the God of your religion is the uber-God.

[_Some Schmo]

So there are a few choices. 1. There's no God, and that pretty much takes care of having to explain anything.

Actually, saying that there is no god causes a person to have to explain far more than just offering the "god did it" excuse. It's saying "god did it" that dismisses a person from having to explain the universe, life, gravity, and a whole slew of other natural phenomena.

2. If there is a creator/God, he really screwed up when he created this earth and got the ball rolling or he's just mean and cazy. 3. There is an all knowing, perfect, loving God and what we see in the world is part of His plan.

So, if you go with the "we don't understand god's plan" excuse for evil and inconsistency in this world, then doesn't it sort of throw every logical argument for god's behavior out the window? If you just dismiss it with "we're not smart enough to understand god's motives," then what you're saying is that we don't understand anything about god. For all we know, he doesn't really care if we return to live with him, or if we even believe in him.

Basically, you can't apply logic to one aspect of god's behavior (because you happen to think it makes logical sense) and not the rest (because it doesn't make sense).

And what kind of god is so vague about the rules in the first place if getting back to him is so important?

The more I think about it, the more I realize that to believe in god (after having thought about others' opinions on the nature of god at all, mind you), you have to really want to believe. I can't believe in god because I don't buy yours, mine, or anyone else's description. They simply don't make sense.

[_EAllusion]

And what kind of god is so vague about the rules in the first place if getting back to him is so important?

That's the argument from divine hiddeness, which is the other big arrow in the atheologian's quiver.

[_Chap]

The problem of evil merely requires that evils (usually formulated as gratuitous suffering) exist that God is able to prevent where there is no countervailing moral purpose not to do so.

But how do you know that there isn't a countervailing moral...eternal... purpose for God NOT to intervene?

King James Bible...
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.

Regards,
MG

God invented the teflon coating, it appears.

So far as mentalgymnast is concerned, there seems to be absolutely no limit to the degree of sheer horribleness that a creator deity might arrange to have in his world and still escape all blame: however sadistic the arrangements, it is always possible to ask "How do you know it isn't all for the best?"

What can't we ask, confronted with the world as it is, "How do you know that this deity (if there is one) is not an extremely unpleasant person, or at least a very careless one? Because it damn well looks like it."

[_EAllusion]

Christians are apt to compare God and you to a Father and a young child relationship. Some variants of Christianity take this more literally than others, with Mormonism being about as literal as possible. This is usually brought up to impress upon you the expectation that you trust your heavenly father like we generally hope 3 year olds trust their parents. The idea is that children are expected to defer to the judgment of their parents because we reasonably expect parents to be in a much better position to know what is good for them.

Now, the Christian using this father-child analogy can say you are like a child unto God, and you should trust that God doing what God does has an overarching good that is beyond your grasp. They can insist God is doing this because he loves us, and sometimes it is hard for a young child to see why seemingly incomprehensible things are necessary. They can still insist, much like the battered wife, that Daddy is doing these scary things because he loves us even if it might be hard to understand why, though some of us might start to think the bruises prove otherwise.

If this is the argument MG wants to make - fine - he's far from alone. But I think it then only fair to respond to the argument Darth J and I offered rather than trail off into a completely different sort of argument.

[_Darth J]

2 Nephi 2 is a standard theodicy about free will and natural laws. There is nothing unique about it: many, many people before Joseph Smith and after have come up with these explanations.

2 Nephi 2 simply lays out rather explicitly the LDS view of opposition being a necessary part of life. It would be unremarkable to assume that elements of the doctrines taught in the Book of Mormon would also be found elsewhere.

2 Nephi 2 simply lays out that the LDS view of the problem of evil is boilerplate Christian theodicy with nothing particularly innovative or insightful to say. If Mormonism is the restoration of the one, true religion, made possible by Jesus speaking directly to Joseph Smith, then something innovative or insightful about the problem of evil is exactly the kind of thing would one expect to see.

So let's apply 2 Nephi 2 to reality. I want my kids to understand happiness. So I will beat them mercilessly from time to time, make them sleep outside in the cold, not feed them, and give them a bunch of mixed messages about what rules they are supposed to follow and no coherent way to determine if the rules they think they have to follow really came from me. And the merciless beatings will happen no matter what they do, anyway. This way, when I decide to be nice to them, they will appreciate it more.

In real life, child protective services would step in to prevent me from abusing my kids like this. But what you're saying is that our loving, wonderful Heavenly Father acts orders of magnitude worse than this, in order to make us happy. If the Mormon god has the same sense of morality we do, such that we have a valid warrant for asserting he is morally good, then why would it be wrong for me to treat my kids the way you say Heavenly Father treats his kids?

Your logic in this analogy fails on at least one point to act as an absolute PROOF that the LDS doctrine of opposition in all things doesn't hold any water. The point being, that the world "is what it is". There is opposition and evil where bad things happen to individuals and groups of people.

Yes. "We know that evil exists in the world because evil exists in the world." These are just the kinds of trenchant insights that can only be explained by prophets communicating with the divine.

So there are a few choices. 1. There's no God, and that pretty much takes care of having to explain anything. 2. If there is a creator/God, he really screwed up when he created this earth and got the ball rolling or he's just mean and cazy. 3. There is an all knowing, perfect, loving God and what we see in the world is part of His plan.

I think you've laid out your cards so that it becomes apparent that choice three is not an option for you.

Choice 3 is not an option, period. It is logically irreconcilable with the existence of gratuitous evil and suffering in the world, both for human beings and every other form of life. That is why believers in the Abrahamic God have spent centuries trying to come up with various theodicies ("theodicy," from the Greek for "moving the goalposts").

I'm assuming at this point that you are an atheist. You continue poo pooing the "Mormon god", but in essence you're also trashing the God of Christianity, or any creator/God.

That's because you're so dazzled by your own navel gazing, you take it for granted that it's either the Abrahamic God, or the Mormon god (Mormons purport the latter to be the same thing, but he really isn't), or nothing. You're not even considering deism, pantheism, pandeism, Spinoza's God, agnostic theism, paganism, or any of the other various beliefs about a deity or deities that do not posit a god that is simultaneously omniscient, omnipotent, or omnibenevolent.

You're also taking it as a given that spirituality and/or religion necessarily demand theism, which Buddhism and Taoism, for just two examples, demonstrate not to be the case.

So, if I default to belief in a creator/God

You mean if you beg the question

I am also accepting "things as they are" in the world. Opposition and evil being two obvious realities. I'm not quite sure what it is that so violently offends you concerning the doctrine of opposition in all things except to think that you would rather keep away from any possibility that earth life is part of a testing program to weed out and categorize those that desire to serve God and keep all of His commandments from those that would rather take a different course. Opposition and evil provide an ideal testing ground for this to occur.

See, the thing is that nobody disputes that opposition and evil exist in the world. That's exactly the point that non-theists (which isn't necessarily the same as an atheist) are making when they refer to the problem of evil to show that the Abrahamic God is logically impossible. "Opposition in all things" is a banal, undisputed observation about the obvious. It's not some profound mystical truth that only a prophet speaking with a deity could have known.

And what you're saying here is the standard, trite soul-making theodicy that lots of people have asserted completely independent of Mormonism. It has been around since at least the due cento, and it is riddled with problems. E.g.,

http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php? ... evidential)

Distinctive of the soul-making theodicy is the claim that evil and suffering are necessary for spiritual growth. This theodicy was developed by the second-century Christian theologian, Irenaeus of Lyons, and its most recent and outspoken advocate has been the influential philosopher of religion, John Hick. A perceived inadequacy with the theodicy is that many evils do not seem to promote such growth, and can be positively destructive of the human spirit. A second issue concerns the distribution of evils suffered: were it true that God permitted evil in order to facilitate spiritual growth, then we would expect evil to disproportionately befall those in poor spiritual health. This does not seem to be the case, as the decadent enjoy lives of luxury which insulate them from evil, whereas many of the pious are poor, and are well acquainted with worldly evils. A third problem attending this theodicy is that the qualities developed through experience with evil seem to be useful precisely because they are useful in overcoming evil. But if there were no evil, then there would seem to be no value in such qualities, and consequently no need for God to permit evil in the first place. Against this it may be asserted that the qualities developed are intrinsically valuable, but this view would need further justification.

Every time you are critisizing what the "Mormon god" is/does, essentially you're also explaining away or putting the Heavenly Father of Christianity on the shelf with a box over his head and sidelining any creator/God who could somehow be involved in any way with this world that exists "as it is".

No crap. That's what the problem of evil is.

In summary, the following points stand:
--Neither your religion in general nor your denomination in particular have given you any particular insights or answers to the problem of evil.
--It is reasonable to assume that if the LDS Church really had prophets who were receiving revelation from an omnibenevolent deity whose work and glory was to bring about our immortality and eternal life, and if the purpose of the alleged restoration was to open the heavens once more to end sectarian confusion and bring the true gospel to the world, said deity might have something to say about the most problematic philosophical issue in theism, which has been debated for centuries.
--Yet no such insights are present in the LDS Church.
--As an extra bonus, the boilerplate theodicies the LDS Church and its adherents have borrowed from other theists are inconsistent with the LDS narrative.

May I suggest, for starters, that you go to:
http://mimobile.BYU.edu/?m=5&table=book ... 00&id=1111

You will find some "particular insights" that may be unique to critical thinkers with an LDS background/belief.

Thanks for the Insta-Fail, mentalgymnast.

One, the vacuity of Mormon apologetics is what turbocharged my loss of faith in the LDS Church and Mormonism in general. So thanks for giving me more of same. I have no idea why you think that people who quit believing in your religion just must not have read all these dazzling apologetics, when this message board came into existence in part because of former believers being intimately familiar with Mormon apologetics.

Two, the Maxwell Institute has no authority whatsoever to speak on behalf of the LDS Church. You had insisted, contrary to what I said, that LDS prophets had many unique things to say about the problem of evil. Now you've decided that you really meant "critical thinkers with an LDS background." Besides changing the parameters of your assertion, that appellation would be a lot more convincing if there was any apparent critical thinking in this article. (When your conclusion and your premise are the same thing, you're not thinking critically.)

Three, there's not a single unique insight in this article. They just regurgitate the boilerplate excuses of free will and so on before finally deciding that "soul making" is probably the best one. Then they try some rhetorical sleight of hand by asserting that the Mormon Elohim is different from the traditional Christian God, in that evil inherently exists in the Mormon cosmos; Elohim did not create it. As EAllusion explained above, this distinction is irrelevant. Elohim is purported to have all of the characteristics of power, knowledge, and goodness that put him right in the crosshairs of the problem of evil.

As a side note, you're also unwittingly writing yourself into a cosmic horror story. Even if one were to accept yours and the MI's premise, which does not absolve Elohim of the problem of evil, it means that evil inherently exists in the universe and always has, and you deity has no power to prevent its existence, then the force of evil is at least as powerful as your deity. If this is the case, then your deity has no ability to triumph over evil. Not only can he do nothing more than stay at an eternal stalemate with evil, the laws of the universe require him to do so.

And four, you are contradicting your own argument. You said that your default position (a.k.a., unproven assumption) is in a Creator God. But the article you offered tries to get out of the problem of evil by presenting Elohim as not being a Creator God at all. That is why I keep referring to the Mormon god with a small "g." Post-Lecture on Faith Mormonism doesn't believe in a Creator God at all, but an infinite regress of gods that are not only part of the physical universe (instead of transcending it), but subservient to it. So you have in Elohim this kind of amalgam of Zeus and the Christian God, who has the philosophical/logical problems of both, but no apparent philosophical/logical benefits over either. Elohim being an ascended alien man-god who organized pre-existing matter like he was playing with Lincoln Logs doesn't get him away from the problem of evil, because he is supposed to have all the characteristics that would make that problem applicable.

Your best case option is to concede what you're already admitting, which is that Elohim has some inscrutable, blue and orange sense of morality that we can't understand. And since we can't understand what Elohim sees as good and evil---which you explicitly said several times---you're in fact conceding my point that you have no basis for asserting that Elohim is all good, because his sense of morality is different from yours.

But then you can't really concede that, either, because it means that LDS dogma about the nature of your god is wrong, and if the Church is wrong about the nature of its own god, what exactly is the Church bringing to the table?

If you go here:
http://blakeostler.com/complete_works.html

You will find other "insights" available to those that subscribe to LDS belief.

Thanks. Since, you know, I've never encountered Blake Ostler's bastardized pseudo-Mormonism and metaphysical bong hits before.

This would be the same Blake Ostler who has no authority whatsoever to speak for the LDS Church, right?

Hint: he does the same free will, laws of nature, and soul making stuff that every other theistic apologist does.

Hey, I was wondering something. Say you have a rape victim. Elohim has to allow this suffering to happen because he can't interfere with free will. But why does Elohim prefer the free will of the rapist over the free will of the victim? By failing to intervene and/or setting up the world such that this victim gets raped, isn't he interfering with the victim's free will to not get raped? When Elohim allows this to happen, he allows the rapist the free will to hurt someone, but deprives the victim of the free will not to be hurt.

Oh, but sometimes Elohim intervenes and prevents or rescues someone from the rape, right? So is Elohim arbitrary, or are there some of his beloved children who just need to get raped for their souls to grow? The latter necessarily means that Elohim in fact wants some of his children to be raped for their own good. And since Jesus commanded us to be perfect like our Heavenly Father is perfect, I should allow my own children to get hurt so that they will grow, right?

Or maybe Elohim allows the rape to happen for reasons we can't fathom---which means conceding the point that you can't assert that Elohim is good because his standard of morality is different than your own.

What a problem. Maybe next time one of the Lord's living prophets, seers, and revelators is dedicating a law office or a bank or a luxury mall, he'll get a couple extra minutes to explain all this with his inspired counsel.

[_EAllusion]

...Abrahamic God is logically impossible.

For what it is worth, I think Plantinga's argument against the logical problem of evil is good, as do most people who think about such things, and the MI article misplaces its criticism of it by conflating the type of problem of evil it is answering. Bare logical possibility is such a low bar to meet; however, and I think the evidential argument has a great deal of force.

[_Chap]

...Abrahamic God is logically impossible.

For what it is worth, I think Plantinga's argument against the logical problem of evil is good, as do most people who think about such things, and the MI article misplaces its criticism of it by conflating the type of problem of evil it is answering. Bare logical possibility is such a low bar to meet; however, and I think the evidential argument has a great deal of force.

Plantiga's argument goes like this:

It is possible that God, even being omnipotent, could not create a world with free creatures who never choose evil. Furthermore, it is possible that God, even being omnibenevolent, would desire to create a world which contains evil if moral goodness requires free moral creatures.

Even if you find that adequate (which I don't) it completely fails to address the presence in the world of evil that is not the consequence of human choice. And there is a lot of it about. To get out of responsibility for that, a creator deity would have to be made so limited in its powers as to deprive it of godhood status as commonly recognized.