Re: Problem of evil (was Re: Culture Wars, Old and New (Was: [Bonobos] I Am Homophobic))

On Fri, 7 Dec 2001, Kendall Clark wrote:

> On Fri, Dec 07, 2001 at 03:26:20PM -0500, Bijan Parsia wrote:
[snip]
> > Hmm. The classic early modern philosophy response tends to be a bit
> > different.
> > 
> > Descartes goes for C, I think. The presence of various sorts of
> > (perceived) evil turn out to be limitations of our understanding of the
> > grand plan. Note that this is somewhat different from Leibniz's
> > utilitarian view (i.e., that God is suppose to choose the *best* OVERALL
> > world, and a world with some evil is better than a world of pure good).
> 
> Yes, as I tried to say (c) is probably the most common theological response
> (in the West) since the Reformation.
> 
> That Cartesian version is very familiar, actually, and quite orthodox
> (though I would suspect with different explicit warrants offered).

Yes, the novelty of Descartes is that the kind of evil he talks about is
*epistemic* evil (i.e., why would god let us be deceived). Well, plus a
few twists, but D was like that.

[snip]
> > Note that Leibniz really does thing that the current world (with evil) is
> > *better* than some other worlds without evil. This is in contrast to a
> > view where a world without evil was *logically incoherent* (though it may
> > be closely related, if you go through the free will route; harder for
> > Leibniz due to his views on free will; hmm, maybe note).
> 
> What's Leibniz's view of free will (which was an important factor in
> Augustine's view)?

Hmm. Well, the view I was trying to separate out is that once god has let
us have free will, *there's no saying* what we'll do. So he has *no
control* over what we'll freely choose to do.

Leibniz, otoh, thinks god can predict everthing everyone will freely
do. Thus we're free but determined (yes, that sounds funny). Since he can
"see" all this *before* he picks a world, it's possible for him to have
picked a world where we all freely chose to do good.

So, it's not like god is on tenterhooks, waiting, hoping for us to do good
over evil. I.e., god didn't just wind up the clock, insert a bit of free
will, and let it role, come what may. God *knew* that Judas would freely
betray Jesus, it just so happens that the world in which he did so is
overall better than all the rest. Of course, it's not clear *why* it's
better. I.e., maybe we all get redeemed in the end and the good generated
out of the comparatively small bit of evil will dominate.

Of course, in general, evil in this world is going to be noise compared to
eternity. The *real* problem of evil would be why god let's folks go to
eternal *torment*, though i suspect justice vs. charity issues will crop
up.

The coolest of Leibniz's articles on this is something like "Two
Labyrinths", which Kant echoed at the poetic ending of the second
critique.

Cheers,
Bijan.