Omniscience and omnibenevolence

[Dubious]

Romans 3:23-24 "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus..."

This is truly beneath the intelligence of anyone who claims to have some.

Sorry god if we can't live up to your glory, (btw, whose fault is that?) but it really wasn't necessary to sacrifice anybody - or even sheep, lamb and goats - to make up for the deficit.

[Astro Cat]

B1) If God is good, then God will seek to prevent or minimize all gratuitous suffering (and so gratuitous suffering will not exist)
B2) Gratuitous suffering is observed (theoretically)
Conclusion: God is not good

Again, the non-cognitivist doesn't have to even know what "good" means any more than you had to know what an "unie" was above in order for this to work.

Well, that's because in logic there are two qualities demanded of a syllogism. They are 1) formal validity -- that the "pieces" of the "puzzle" are all in place, in the right order, and 2) truthfulness-- that the terms therein are all accurate to reality. If a syllogism has both formal validity and factual truthfulness, it is termed "sound." A "sound" syllogism is one that should compel assent, because it's genuinely logical and truthful.

Good so far? (Sorry for the Philosophy 101 stuff, which I'm sure you already know: I'm not thinking there are any such, but if anybody else happens to be interested, this might help them, too.)

Unfortunately, one can have 1) without 2).

For example,

P1:All unicorns are pixies.
P2: Pixies only eat ambrosia.
C: Therefore, unicorns only eat ambrosia.

This syllogism is perfectly valid: that is, all the "pieces" are in the right place, and all the terms used are stable. But where is the truth value?

And this is the problem for your syllogism. It has the pieces in the right place, now. But the pieces you are offering are not evidently related to reality. We still don't know things we would need to know in order to accept the syllogism.

We don't know what "good" means, in your usage of it. You say it's not to be understood as a moral term. Okay. But how are we to understand it, then? And you say this "good" Entity will "minimize or prevent" something. But not by way of duty, presumably, because that would require reference to morality; so we would need to establish that "goodness" (non-specified) and this "will" of yours (though not referring to a duty) should be appropriately connected to a "suffering" (understood as a neutral property) that is "gratuitous" (without implying a badness in gratuity) really exists.

And to do that, you would have to refer to the empirical, not the purely-logical. That means you would have to leave the world of pure-logic, or of pure theory, and get into the world of experience, testing, evidence, reality, and how-things-really-are. You would have to show that this "gratutious suffering," now known to be both negative and existent in the real world, is incompatible with the "good God" and His now-duty-conferring "responsibility" to "prevent or minimize."

In other words, you've made a valid syllogism, but devoid of any proven truth-value. But I'm hoping I can find out on what basis you hope to overcome this problem, and make your claim both valid and true, so we can take it to be sound, as well. Because only then can the argument have any convincing force.

That's the main issue with which I ended. I'll do the rest in turn, if I may, but in separate messages. That way, you can take your time with each. And it may make the whole more manageable.

Ah! I get what you mean about being valid and true. Yes, I was just being a bit colloquial. That's easily fixed though. We don't have to mention "goodness" at all because it's irrelevant. Consider:

P1) If God has a behavioral property such that He will always seek to prevent gratuitous suffering, then gratuitous suffering will not exist in the world
P2) Gratuitous suffering exists in the world
Conclusion: God doesn't have a behavioral property such that He will always seek to prevent gratuitous suffering

And voilà. We have a valid syllogism, but is it true? I certainly know that you reject that P2 is established, but the point is that this is a very simple version of the framework being done by the PoE-style argument (I say "PoE-style" because it's more a Problem of Suffering). It doesn't matter why God might have this behavioral property for the argument, it only matters that He is supposed to.

Also, keep in mind, like most reductio ad absurdum arguments it gets a bit difficult to say what's valid and true because the arguer is adopting a position they do not believe in order to show it leads to absurdities: I don't believe a God even exists, but I can make arguments about what would contradict about what if one did.

Edit: I almost forgot. It's a "very simple" version because remember, the PoE-style argument involves multiple properties of God, not just a behavioral property. I don't think it's possible to put a PoE-style argument into a single syllogism because of this. But this is enough to get the point across.

[Gary Childress]

Are you married? Have you ever had sex outside of wedlock?

Gary, Gary, Gary...

What's appropriate to a public forum is appropriate to a public forum. Either way, this ain't the place to talk about that.

But let's say I slept with the entire cheerleading squad. If that were true, it would still have zero impact on the truth or falsehood of any particular proposition I offered.

You're not human? You can't share some of your exploits with your buds here on the forum? I've shared about myself--things that certainly aren't resume material, just so people know where I'm coming from. I have few reservations or qualms about sharing my human side with others. You're free to ask me whatever you want. However, if you're espousing all these lofty ideals of holy piety, it might help to show others that you walk the walk also. I mean, it's how we learn who we really are and what we are and aren't entitled to say to others. I've played as fair as I know how. I've come clean where I've had to. How about you?

[Astro Cat]

"Hiddenness" is, of course, a separate issue. And it is a good discussion in its own right. But I'm going to skip it, for the simple reason that it doesn't even enter consideration without us first having solved the "gratuitious suffering" empirical burden of proof. So let's focus on that, first.

As I mentioned, the argument isn't actually about Hiddenness, but it is adjacent. What I'm actually getting at here is a position called skeptical theism in the literature.

Skeptical theism is a view that suggests we should be skeptical about our ability to understand why God permits certain things to occur in the world. For instance, according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Link):

...skeptical theism embraces two claims. First, even if theism were true, we should be skeptical of our abilities to reasonably predict all of God’s plans for organizing the world, including those about the amount and nature of evil. Second, if this first claim is true, then it undermines or otherwise greatly mitigates arguments from evil.

Put colloquially, skeptical theism is a position that we don't understand why God does certain things and that our intuitions (such as the intuition that some suffering is gratuitous) can't be trusted.

It seems to me that you come from a position of skeptical theism as defined, and this first argument is about how skeptical theism is problematic for a couple of reasons:
1) It's problematic for moral realists because if we can't trust our own moral intuitions, then a moral realist couldn't trust their own intuition that God is good, and so their own beliefs undermine themselves. They'd have no reason to even suppose that God is good if they have no reason to trust their own moral beliefs.
2) It's problematic in general if an additional argument is constructed showing that it seems to be against God's nature (as described by classical theists) to allow cognitive faculties that aren't actually geared towards the truth: it is the equivalent of God lying, in other words; or so it can be argued. That is what this argument was planting the seed for.

Obviously the second point is more interesting to me since I'm not a moral realist, but the first point is still a problem for people that are moral realists. I would be able to give arguments for both (even though I'm not a moral realist, I can put on a moral realist hat to make arguments about what would be problematic within moral realism).

...the mere appearance of gratuitousness is a problem.

What kind? What kind of "problem" is it?

Is it a problem of ontology, or of epistemology?

Is the problem that there IS "gratutious suffering," or is the problem that some suffering "appears" to be unexplained to us?

Do you see the difference? It's really key. To say that we don't have an explanation for something doesn't remotely tell us that the thing in question is a problem.

It's a problem of epistemology, but there are ontological points to be made about that (in sort of a meta way).

For instance, consider any of our cognitive faculties, let's say our ability to reason maybe. We think that our ability to reason is generally reliable and geared towards the truth (we trust that we're able to perform reasoning and generally arrive to results that correspond with reality, or that are internally and externally coherent, etc.) But suppose that it's not in this thought experiment: as it turns out, God has given us a faulty faculty that gives us unreliable, false, but strongly held intuitions.

The argument would essentially be that if God gives us faulty cognitive faculties then there are two problems: one, that it's the equivalent of God lying to us and we must question whether that's in line with God's supposed nature; and two, that if we can't trust our own cognitive faculties by our own admission by accepting that they're faulty, then we can't use our own cognitive faculties to make statements or beliefs about God in the first place: the theist would defeat their own ability to say "God is this" or "God is that" because their own faculties, by their own stated belief, are faulty and not geared towards reality or the truth!

Now, skeptical theism doesn't hold that we can't trust any of our cognitive faculties, that's not what I'm saying. But it is a form of skeptical theism to suppose that we can't trust our moral cognitive faculties, and the same problems exist.

Some problems are specific to moral realists, for instance this one:

P1) Skeptical theism challenges our moral intuitions by suggesting that we may not be able to fully understand God's reasons for allowing evil.
P2) If we cannot fully understand God's reasons for allowing evil, then we cannot be certain that our moral intuitions are correct.
Conclusion: Therefore, skeptical theism can cause moral skepticism where we are unsure about what is right and wrong at all.

Some problems are more general and about God's nature, such as this one:

P1) If God has a behavioral property such that He would not lie to us, we should expect to have generally reliable cognitive faculties that tell us about reality.
P2) We have at least one cognitive faculty (moral intuition) that is not reliable at telling us about reality.
Conclusion: God does not have a behavioral porperty such that He does not lie to us.

I don't have an explanation for the gallons or litres of water in the Pacific Ocean. I can't even tell where the Pacific Ocean ends, and the Indian Ocean begins. I'm utterly baffled by the question of how much water's in the Pacific...and am likely to remain so. Even scientists are not capable of telling us with exactitude what the volume of the Pacific Ocean is. None of that means there's no Pacific Ocean, or that it has no water in it, or that God, if He exists, wouldn't know what the parameters and volume of the Pacific Ocean are, or that there could never be such an answer.

In other words, you're setting the bar WAY too low here. You're accepting that a mere bafflement on the part of an observer is sufficient warrant to assert that something exists...that suffering IS gratuitous IF somebody doesn't understand the reasons for it.

That's a bridge far too far.

It tickles me that a theist is chiding me about accepting the existence of something with what he considers insufficient evidence (Just giving you shit lol)

So, I get and appreciate your epistemic restraint in this matter (there is a grain of truth to the giving you shit: watching your reaction is how I feel when I look at theism or moral realism). However, I some reasons to suspect that at least some suffering in the world is gratuitous. Some of these I have laid out elsewhere in these last posts, but let me see if I can list a few here.

1) Gratuitousness is parsimonious. As gratuitous suffering is by definition any suffering that isn't part of a greater scheme or plan, it is actually the default sort of suffering that could exist; and the burden of proof actually falls on the person claiming there is a greater scheme or plan. If a theodicist isn't able to eludicate a greater scheme or plan, it's more reasonable to think that gratuitousness exists than it is to think that a plan so incomprehensible it can't even be vaguely outlined exists.

2) Gratuitousness is intuitive. As noted, it's also not just in our culture and time, but this intuition pervades all cultures and times. I agree that intuition isn't a coup de grâce but it is supportive and admissable in philosophy as evidence. (For what it's worth I usually grant to moral realists that moral intuitions are just that: intuitive, while still denying them; so I'm not trying to have my cake and eat it too, just laying everything out here).

3) Suffering is extreme and ubiquitous. Suffering on Earth is so extreme and pervasive that it becomes less and less reasonable to propose there is an unknowable plan that's so incomprehensible it can't even be outlined to justify it; and since any suffering that doesn't exist to serve a plan that benefits the sufferer is gratuitous, it becomes more and more reasonable to suppose that at least some of the suffering must be gratuitous.

Now, the first one I think is one of the most important. Not just that gratuitousness is parsimonious, but who holds the burden of proof. Gratuitousness, despite being an adjective, actually describes the simplest kind of suffering. Non-gratuitous suffering (suffering that exists to serve some kind of scheme or plan to benefit the sufferer) is actually the more complex kind of suffering, and suggesting that a scheme or plan exists behind all suffering (as one must do to deny the existence of gratuitousness) is actually the position that holds the burden of proof.

Furthermore, by holding a skeptical theist position (by doubting that we can understand, even in reasonable part, what that plan is), you undermine your own position to assert that such a plan even exists: this is a problem for your position, I think. If your position is "God is good, so there is a plan," but your position is also that "Our moral intuitions are unreliable," then you have no business even believing the "God is good" portion of the first part: how would you know God is good or not if you can't trust your own moral intuitions?

If you can trust your own moral intuitions, then why can't you trust your moral intuitions that some suffering appears gratuitous? If you don't have a reason for why you can trust some, but not other moral intuitions, then you're committing the fallacy of special pleading. From my perspective, that's quite a pickle to be in!

But this is reflected multiple times in your series of given suppositions. (I shall take the liberty to respond in color, to each in turn, if I think a response is required.)

1) If God exists, then God gave us our cognitive faculties, including how our intuition functions (Are we assuming these faculties are unfallen? Are we assuming they "ought" to be such that they not only give us good knowledge of a perspectival kind, but all knowledge of all things?)
2) God has given us an intuition that some suffering is gratuitous, which is pervasive across cultures and time, and ubiquitous even among those earnestly seeking a purpose behind apparently gratuitous examples ("God has given us...?" But why think that? Why not rather think that God made our "intuitions" good, but not infinite? Why not rather say that, as Christians say, our "intuition" is a function both of our embodied locality and of our limitations of wisdom? Add to that that our faculties are damaged by the Fall, and why would we even suppose that we could attribute solely to God the fact that we don't happen to know why all suffering happens?)
3) If suffering that appears to be gratuitous isn't actually gratuitous, then our intuitions about suffering aren't reliable (Precisely.)
4) If our intuitions about suffering aren't reliable, God has given us at least one faulty cognitive faculty (No, that doesn't follow. Things can go wrong two ways, at least: one, that they were inherently flawed, flawed in design, or two, that they were fine and not flawed, but have become damaged through some other agency, perhaps even my own. If my car is scratched, dented and running down, it does not at all follow that the dealer sold it to me that way.)
5) If God has given us at least one faulty cognitive faculty, that may itself be a form of gratuitousness (it demands an explanation for why we might not have been given accurate cognitive faculties; the very idea that God may have given faulty cognitive (or moral!) faculties may itself contradict with theistic conceptions of God's nature) (Well, obviously, this doesn't follow at all, now.)

...the very appearance of gratuitousness demands an explanation.

Well, I don't know on what basis it "demands" such, but I agree with you that we are warranted in looking for one. However, now we have one: our human limitations of perspective, partial information, and fallenness. We might also add our free will, which absolutely positively requires limitiations of knowledge.

In sum, the appearance of gratuitousness is a problem of a particular kind: of epistemology, not ontology. Its implications are only that human beings don't KNOW everything...which, given our existence is localized, in bodies, of contingent, time-bound, limited creatures, turns out to be utterly unsurprising.

The assumption, tacit here, that God would somehow owe us full knowledge of why everything happens seems unsupportable and presumptuous, to me. I can't see why we ought to think it.

Christianity has, in fact, a perfectly good explanation for the fact of human epistemological limitedness, and one that does not implicate God as having failed, but mankind being both limited and fallen. And while you could say, "Well, I don't accept that explanation," that also doesn't get to the root of the question of whether or not that explanation is the right one.

I shall try to pick out things that need commenting on, I will just quote them again here separately and leave the above as complete context.

God has given us...?" But why think that? Why not rather think that God made our "intuitions" good, but not infinite? Why not rather say that, as Christians say, our "intuition" is a function both of our embodied locality and of our limitations of wisdom? Add to that that our faculties are damaged by the Fall, and why would we even suppose that we could attribute solely to God the fact that we don't happen to know why all suffering happens?

Well, on theism, God has to be the source of our cognitive faculties since He created us. I am skeptical, of course: but the whole point of this kind of argument is to put on a theist hat to argue whether it's internally coherent (which I don't think it is).

The problem here is that our intuition about gratuitousness isn't just something like "this suffering is bad" or "I don't like this suffering in myself or others," but it's also an intuition of purposelessness. We have all had this intuition upon seeing a devastating earthquake, tsunami, or outbreak of violence: "but it's all just so senseless." Why? It's a valid question. God wouldn't have to implant us with an intuition of exactly what the plan is, it seems as though it would be sufficient to supplement the intuition of shock and horror with the intuition that it's all happening for a reason.

Some people do comfort themselves by saying "it's all part of God's plan." But they always seem to be trying to convince themselves. They're not intuiting that, and God, as the giver of our cognitive faculties, is the only culprit that can explain why the intuition is so faulty. (It is faulty on the assumption of classical theism because it gives a "false positive" for gratuitousness when it very easily doesn't have to do that without even having to give details on "the plan").

As for The Fall, I believe we have a discussion somewhere that's sort of fallen off that I could comment on again -- I think if there is a "Fall" that God is culpable for that Fall -- but that might just complicate things here. Maybe later?

[Immanuel Can]

And voilà. We have a valid syllogism, but is it true?

That's the question. And that's the thing you have to show.

To say "We don't know why suffering X happens" even if true, wouldn't tell us anything more than that we are epistemically-limited creatures.

But we know that, already.

So now, we need something ontological, some real, empirical evidence that there is suffering in this world that not even God could potentially explain.

That's a pretty high bar of evidence. I'll be interested to see if any sort of evidence can come even close to clearing it.

[Astro Cat]

Part 2: Soul-Making Theodicy
Here I will be responding to the Soul-Making Theodicy and further providing reasons to reasonably suppose that at least some apparently gratuitous suffering is actual gratuitous suffering.

Put briefly, the entire notion behind the Soul-Making theodicy is that suffering may serve a positive role in the development of human character.

Let me stop you there.

In the Christian view, the relation of suffering to "development of human character" is strictly limited to Christians. We make no glib claims about the general sufferings in the world, nor even of the sufferings of non-Christians, which have quite different purposes, in our estimation -- some perhaps intuitable by us, and some not. But even more importantly, it's basic to Christianity that sufferings that are NOT explicable to us right now DO and WILL exist. Their ultimate explanations are only ever to be found in eternity, in whatever God chooses to provide.

First, you say that the sufferings of non-Christians "have quite different purposes" than the sufferings of Christians: wouldn't you need to know what the purposes are to declare that? If so, what is the purpose of suffering in non-Christians vs. the purpose of suffering in Christians?

Secondly, "we'll find out after we die" is exactly what I would call "punting to mystery." It is the same as saying "there is an unknowable reason" because it removes from all possibility the ability to find out while philosophizing right here on Earth.

"Soul making" is not, per se, a Christian idea. I've heard it from Muslims, but not Christians. Rather, what is Biblically spoken about is that certain kinds of suffering (such as resisting temptation) produce character qualties like endurance and faithfulness, or (like being persecuted or making charitable sacrifices) result in eternal rewards and the honouring of God. And the Christian guarantee is that:

"The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the eagerly awaiting creation waits for the revealing of the sons and daughters of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only that, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons and daughters, the redemption of our body. For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, through perseverance we wait eagerly for it." (Romans 8:16-25)

There isn't, though, the idea that suffering is the only or ultimate improver of human character, nor that the work of perfecting "the soul" is accomplished within this earthly horizon. So we must be careful not to make our view of the Biblical account of this more simplistic than it actually ever is. It's actually very complex, nuanced and sophisticated...and not at all summarizable in any trite sentence.

But again, we're back again to the fundamental problem: does the appearance to us unexplained suffering give us any warrant to think sufferings happen for which there IS no explanation? And it's clear that the answer to that just has to be, "No."

Ok, so let me just pick an example of suffering; say, a child suffers excruciatingly from leukemia and then dies very young. If there isn't a possible purpose for their suffering such that they benefit from it, then the suffering is gratuitous.

If you say, "I can't even reason what the purpose might be because it's unknowable, but a plan does exist despite appearances to the contrary," then you're punting to mystery, flirting with special pleading, and triggering what the entirety of that one other post I wrote was about.

But I'm not sure what else you can even try if you're not even going to try soul-making theodicy.

[Astro Cat]

Principle of Proportionality
1) The principle of proportionality states that the strength of our beliefs should be proportional to the strength of the evidence that supports them.
2) The evidence for the existence of gratuitous suffering in the world is strong and compelling (the appearance of gratuitous suffering and other arguments given above)

Yeah, I don't find that. Not only do I not find we have "strong and compelling" evidence for it, I find we have no more than intuitive guess-making from inherently limited, lately-fallen and clearly fallible creatures. And that's just not very good evidence, I'm afraid.

If what I've said about Christians is true -- that they ought not to go imposing meanings on the suffering of others -- is it any better if a secular person demands such answers? I don't see how. And I'm certain neither has the justification in demanding to have the kind of ominiscience they're demanding or evincing.

I think that it's more reasonable to suppose that there is at least some gratuitous suffering in the world than it is to doubt there is any gratuitous suffering, or even to attempt to be entirely agnostic on the issue.

From a human perspective, I completely understand that intuition. It's all so easy for us to suppose that if I can see no answer, in a given case, and I'm a very sensible and reasonable person, there might BE no answer. But as understandable as the intuition is, it's not warranted by anything.

I also agree that we ought to take a kind of "agnostic" position with regard to the nature and meaning of suffering -- that is, to admit what we do not know, and only to say as much or as little about it as Scripture itself actually reveals. "I don't know" is a perfectly good answer to the question, "Why am I suffering?"

But it never means there's no why. All it means is that we don't know it. It's a human-epistemological fault, not a failure on the part of God to have sufficient reasons to permit what He permits.

Here's a modelling of it, straight from Scripture.

"As Jesus passed by, He saw a man who had been blind from birth.

And His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?”

Jesus answered, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him." (John 9:1-3)

So they think they know. They have two trite options: this guy deserved it because he was bad, or his parents did, and he caught the flak. They were both wrong.

This ought to chasen us, and help us to be mindful that neither the secularists nor the disciples of Christ have the ultimate answers as to why things happen. But it doesn't mean there are no answers.

Thanks for your responses. Always enriching, even when I don't necessarily always participate in the requisite assumptions.

If a man is blind and suffering not because of something he did (or his parents, not that most of us would understand that as just even if it were his parents), what does it mean "so that the works of God might be displayed in him?"

[Astro Cat]

And voilà. We have a valid syllogism, but is it true?

That's the question. And that's the thing you have to show.

To say "We don't know why suffering X happens" even if true, wouldn't tell us anything more than that we are epistemically-limited creatures.

But we know that, already.

So now, we need something ontological, some real, empirical evidence that there is suffering in this world that not even God could potentially explain.

That's a pretty high bar of evidence. I'll be interested to see if any sort of evidence can come even close to clearing it.

We'll see what you think of the other posts (and I will stop responding now until you catch up, lol). This whole section was just to demonstrate to you that I don't have to be a moral realist to make the kind of argument I'm making. It seems we are hopefully past that objection now.

[Immanuel Can]

Put colloquially, skeptical theism is a position that we don't understand why God does certain things and that our intuitions (such as the intuition that some suffering is gratuitous) can't be trusted.

Better to put it this way: we don't know whether or not we can trust our intuitions in that regard. But to be sure, we would need to have sufficient reasons to trust that intuition. But that would pretty much require omniscience, which by all accounts, we do not have.

So it's a bit of a pickle, you'll have to admit.

It seems to me that you come from a position of skeptical theism as defined, and this first argument is about how skeptical theism is problematic for a couple of reasons:
1) It's problematic for moral realists because if we can't trust our own moral intuitions, then a moral realist couldn't trust their own intuition that God is good,

No, that won't work. That God is good is not a matter of intution, but of revelation. The predication comes from the Biblical record, not from our personal imaginings. However, that suffering is "gratuitious" clearly is nothing but intuition. So it would be a problem for that.

2) ...it seems to be against God's nature (as described by classical theists) to allow cognitive faculties that aren't actually geared towards the truth...

Also not a problem. Biblically, mankind's moral orientation is described as "fallen" and flawed...so it's deliverances are never more than approximately right, and often not even that. But that was no "gift of God." That was a "gift" of man's fall.

And that's pretty obviously empirically correct. For there is almost no practice so barbaric and vile (female circumcision, slavery, abortion) that it has not been advocated as "moral," and even sometimes "religiously moral" by some group of human beings. So that's not even a matter of uncertainty.

Did you not ever wonder why God gave the Law? If our faculties were already telling us the truth in all cases, then why would we need Laws to tell us what we already knew?

And even if you don't believe God gave the Law, you can see that it's not at all the case that a Theist is obligated to believe in the infallibility of the human moral mind. In fact, no thinking Theist, or even any sensible secular observer, should be inclined to believe in that.

...the mere appearance of gratuitousness is a problem.

What kind? What kind of "problem" is it?

Is it a problem of ontology, or of epistemology?

Is the problem that there IS "gratutious suffering," or is the problem that some suffering "appears" to be unexplained to us?

Do you see the difference? It's really key. To say that we don't have an explanation for something doesn't remotely tell us that the thing in question is a problem.

It's a problem of epistemology, but there are ontological points to be made about that (in sort of a meta way).

No, not really. Epistemology is about what we know. Ontology is about what is. What we know is very obviously not always what is. If it were, we would be incapable of being deceived.

Now, skeptical theism doesn't hold that we can't trust any of our cognitive faculties, that's not what I'm saying. But it is a form of skeptical theism to suppose that we can't trust our moral cognitive faculties, and the same problems exist.

You're too categorical there. Skeptical Theism, as you call it, wouldn't have to insist that NONE of our moral cognitive faculties are EVER trustworthy; only that it's possible for our cognitive moral faculties not to be ALWAYS right. That would be more than sufficient.

P1) Skeptical theism challenges our moral intuitions by suggesting that we may not be able to fully understand God's reasons for allowing evil.

No, not our "moral intuitions" only, but also the limitations of our knowledge.

And I don't think that can even be questioned. After all, which of us is in possession of more than a fallible memory of some of the facts and events that impinge on us personally. But of what the life of the next person to us is like, even of that we know practically nothing. We have a very extreme shortage of access to the relevant facts. So even if our intuitions weren't suspect (and we know empirically that they certainly are), then our lack of possession of the relevant data is even more empirically manifest.

Conclusion: Therefore, skeptical theism can cause moral skepticism where we are unsure about what is right and wrong at all.

Skepticism of any kind can be taken to that level, for sure. Nihilists absolutely do that. So do knee-jerk cynics of various stripes, and, as far as I have been able to see so far, non-cognitivists have no more than their own intuitions for evidence, as well. So while that's possible, I think the problem with your conclusion is that it suggests that the human moral compass isn't even generally right, or generally well-oriented but flawed. However, this would also make it difficult to explain the similarities among moral "intuitions" in many places. For if we needed to take our questions about human moral knowledge to the level of complete Nihilism, then that should not be possible either.

What seems to be the case, empirically, is exactly what Christians think is the case; that the human moral compass is flawed but operational. Is it completely trustworthy? No. But does it still respond to some objective imperatives? Yes.

So really, we have to stop blaming God for the faults in the human moral compass. What should we expect when we severed our relationship with the North Star of moral truth?

It tickles me that a theist is chiding me about accepting the existence of something with what he considers insufficient evidence (Just giving you shit lol)

No problem. I know that's what people like to think. They like to think that Theists all believe without evidence, and have no confirmations afterward, either. It's very comforting for people to imagine we're frauds. The alternative is a bit more daunting.

1) Gratuitousness is parsimonious.

Not much of a virtue. It's easy to adduce "parsimonious" explanations that are simply obviously wrong. It is "parsimonious" to believe that the universe is made up of a solid substance called "matter," and very much more complicated to believe in atoms, and even more complicated to believe in quarks and quantum states. But in such cases, the parsimony merely hides the superficiality of the analysis, does it not?

2) Gratuitousness is intuitive.

Well, as above, that's not saying much. To say that something is "intuitive" is only to say that it appears winsome to limited, fallible creatures working from a myopic perspective or operating according to their own prejudices. It's really not to offer anything profound.

3) Suffering is extreme and ubiquitous.

That's a quantitative complaint, offered in an effort to get a qualitative conclusion. It's actually no better than to suppose that if there are many of X, then some of X must be blue.

Non-gratuitous suffering (suffering that exists to serve some kind of scheme or plan to benefit the sufferer) is actually the more complex kind of suffering, and suggesting that a scheme or plan exists behind all suffering (as one must do to deny the existence of gratuitousness) is actually the position that holds the burden of proof.

You mean like the proof that the Pacific Ocean has X litres or gallons of water in it? That it is not possible for human beings to provide the answer doesn't actually take us a single step in the direction of concluding there's no water in the Pacific Ocean...or that God does not work out a plan from the diverse phenomena we observe...and those we do not, as well.

Furthermore, by holding a skeptical theist position (by doubting that we can understand, even in reasonable part, what that plan is), you undermine your own position to assert that such a plan even exists:

That's a complete non-sequitur, I'm afraid. It again draws on premises about epistemology to try to get an ontological conclusion. That just isn't logical.

I shall try to pick out things that need commenting on, I will just quote them again here separately and leave the above as complete context.

Well, on theism, God has to be the source of our cognitive faculties since He created us.

No, God only has to be the source of our unfallen cognitive and moral faculties. Furthermore, there is not even a remote suggestion that even unfallen faculties were complete and total in their deliverances to the percipient. So that's just not the case at all.

The problem here is that our intuition about gratuitousness isn't just something like "this suffering is bad" or "I don't like this suffering in myself or others," but it's also an intuition of purposelessness.

That's an intiution, perhaps. It might be your own, I dare say. It's not the common intuition of mankind, apparently. Mankind, historically speaking, has long been on a search for the purpose of existence. And even today, philosophers continue to search for the same.

By contrast, things like Nihilism are utterly unliveable. For if one truly believes life has no purpose, then one has not even a basic orientation point for the making of one's own daily decisions. One cannot decide if one should brush one's teeth or not, or put on one's shoes and go out. To do anything requires that we take on faith that something is worth our doing it. And that implies as well some sense, however benighted, of a purpose.

Even Nihilists seem to take for granted that the purpose of existence is to deprive others of hope, or to appear cynically "wise" to their friends, or to justify particular moral stances they favour, or excuse various excesses they enjoy. Nobody ever goes without a purpose.

And if intuition counted for anything, that would be the intuition we'd have to recognize.

We have all had this intuition upon seeing a devastating earthquake, tsunami, or outbreak of violence: "but it's all just so senseless."

Sure. But what is meant by that utterance? It's only that we don't know, if there is a purpose, what that purpose would be. It's just a confession of the limitations of our own epistemology, our own wisdom, our own access to adequate facts to explain the phenomenon.

But what would we ever expect from beings such as we clearly are? We are men and women, not gods. We can make no plausible pretenses to sufficient knowlege to explain the collocation of purposes that might go into any particular event we have seen. We're just plumb out of answers, maybe. But that's what being a human is, sometimes. We don't always have the answers.

Some people do comfort themselves by saying "it's all part of God's plan."

If so, I share your skepticism about them. They are not better positioned to "read" the meaning of events than anybody else is. I would chide them for overreaching.

[Astro Cat]

Put colloquially, skeptical theism is a position that we don't understand why God does certain things and that our intuitions (such as the intuition that some suffering is gratuitous) can't be trusted.

Better to put it this way: we don't know whether or not we can trust our intuitions in that regard. But to be sure, we would need to have sufficient reasons to trust that intuition. But that would pretty much require omniscience, which by all accounts, we do not have.

So it's a bit of a pickle, you'll have to admit.

Sure: but this is why we make reasonable decisions about things without omniscience based on things like appearances. "If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck," that sort of thing: it's probably a duck, and we're reasonable for accepting this rather than saying either "it's not a duck despite appearances because of an unknowable reason I can't even articulate" or "I feel I should remain agnostic about whether it's a duck because I'm not omniscient." Neither of those options are reasonable, though I suppose the latter option is more reasonable. I recognize that you sense that, hence your position on being agnostic about whether there is gratuitous suffering.

However, you can't be agnostic about whether there is gratuitous suffering: you're committed to the premise that there isn't gratuitous suffering if you accept the premise that "God has a behavioral property such that He would never cause or allow gratuitous suffering." That puts the onus of proof in your court.

You may be able to say, "There is a plan (and so no suffering is gratuitous), but we can't understand what that plan is." That is exactly what skeptical theism is. If that's your position, you're a skeptical theist. (Note that I'm saying "if," not presuming to put words in your mouth).

Basically, if you're agnostic about whether suffering is gratuitous, then you must be agnostic about whether God is good, or about whether God has a behavioral property such that He would never cause or allow gratuitous suffering. But if you're agnostic about whether God is good or about the behavioral property, then the Problem of Suffering no longer applies to you (it only applies when its requisite premises are believed), and we can just wash our hands of the whole thing.

However, I suspect that you're not agnostic about whether God is good, or about whether God has a property such that He would never cause or allow gratuitous suffering. If I'm correct so far, then that leaves you with only a few options:

1) You take an approach where you state definitively that no suffering is gratuitous because there is a plan for the suffering that benefits the sufferers, but we can't know what that plan is. This is what I would call "punting to mystery," you might as well be saying "God works in mysterious ways," and I'd have to change my approach.

2) You take an approach where you state definitively that no suffering is gratuitous because there is a plan for the suffering that benefits the sufferers, and then you provide some reasonable outlines of what sort of plan(s) that might be. This is what I thought you were attempting, hence pre-emptively taking shots at the soul-building theodicy.

I don't see any other options since I think you're committed to premises like "God is good" and "God never causes or allows gratuitous suffering" (possibly the latter because of the first). So I guess I need to know which it is to tailor responses accordingly; the first or the second. Can we know anything about what the plan that renders suffering non-gratuitous is, or can we not know anything about what the plan is? If we can, that's just doing more theodicy, and we'll discuss the theodicy. If we can't, that's punting to mystery, and I'll need to get back into why that's problematic.

It seems to me that you come from a position of skeptical theism as defined, and this first argument is about how skeptical theism is problematic for a couple of reasons:
1) It's problematic for moral realists because if we can't trust our own moral intuitions, then a moral realist couldn't trust their own intuition that God is good,

No, that won't work. That God is good is not a matter of intution, but of revelation. The predication comes from the Biblical record, not from our personal imaginings. However, that suffering is "gratuitious" clearly is nothing but intuition. So it would be a problem for that.

First: I should comment that if you commit to "God is good" not based on intuition but rather revelation, then it opens up a question of why you find said revelation to be trustworthy. That seems to be an entire other subject though. I'd love to have it, but maybe later.

Second: Have you ever heard the phrase, "absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence?" Have you ever considered how that's not really true? For instance, it is actually reasonable evidence against the existence of dragons that with the spread of humanity and advent of ubiquitous picture and video taking technology that nobody has captured credible evidence of dragons. If I were to say there's a dragon in your room, the absence of telltale signs of such an inhabitation is itself part of the very evidence you need to reasonably decide there is not a dragon in your room. That isn't just intuition, that's a use of reason on top of intuition.

Well, gratuitousness works the same way. Recall that gratuitous suffering is actually the most basic type of suffering (it's non-gratuitous suffering that is special and complex). In order for suffering to be non-gratuitous, there must be a plan enacted by the suffering that benefits the sufferer. Yet there is an abundance of absence of evidence for any such plan: it appears that in many instances of suffering, people and animals are simply suffering without any hint of a plan.

Soul-building theodicy is possibly one of the best responses to this -- presenting at least some evidence that there could be a plan involved, but I've gone over many weaknesses of soul-building in my main post.

I would say that in the case of dragons and mysterious incomprehensible plans, absence of evidence can be evidence of absence, and quite reasonably so. That isn't just intuition in either case.

2) ...it seems to be against God's nature (as described by classical theists) to allow cognitive faculties that aren't actually geared towards the truth...

Also not a problem. Biblically, mankind's moral orientation is described as "fallen" and flawed...so it's deliverances are never more than approximately right, and often not even that. But that was no "gift of God." That was a "gift" of man's fall.

And that's pretty obviously empirically correct. For there is almost no practice so barbaric and vile (female circumcision, slavery, abortion) that it has not been advocated as "moral," and even sometimes "religiously moral" by some group of human beings. So that's not even a matter of uncertainty.

Did you not ever wonder why God gave the Law? If our faculties were already telling us the truth in all cases, then why would we need Laws to tell us what we already knew?

And even if you don't believe God gave the Law, you can see that it's not at all the case that a Theist is obligated to believe in the infallibility of the human moral mind. In fact, no thinking Theist, or even any sensible secular observer, should be inclined to believe in that.

Well, this is probably going to explode into its own topic unfortunately. Where to begin? I find this whole concept that suggests God could have created humans perfectly, yet they somehow "fell" into imperfection, profoundly incoherent because the whole conclusion seems to contradict the initial premise.

Let's just get into it I guess. First I need to establish a few things about what your position even is on this matter, please answer these to the best of your ability:

1) When God created humans, did humans have reliable cognitive faculties (including any moral faculties)?
2) When God created humans, would humans have known what "deception" is and how to guard against it?
3) Do you believe it's within God's power to have given humans sufficient knowledge to make accurate moral decisions?
4) Do you believe a person can be held responsible (after making a poor choice) if they were forced to make choices that aren't informed choices?
5) If a creation is forced to exist in circumstances where they can't make informed choices, but the creator could have given them informed choices, is the creator culpable for not having done so when poor choices are inevitably made?

Thank you, I'll see how you answer these questions before I dive further in to this. (Oh, and I should explain: this will relate to gratuitousness because I think making someone make an uninformed choice that has poor consequences is a form of gratuitousness: what purpose could it possibly serve? Might as well make them make choices based on coin flips if they're uninformed choices)

Now, skeptical theism doesn't hold that we can't trust any of our cognitive faculties, that's not what I'm saying. But it is a form of skeptical theism to suppose that we can't trust our moral cognitive faculties, and the same problems exist.

You're too categorical there. Skeptical Theism, as you call it, wouldn't have to insist that NONE of our moral cognitive faculties are EVER trustworthy; only that it's possible for our cognitive moral faculties not to be ALWAYS right. That would be more than sufficient.

Sure, I will almost grant that except for one wrinkle. We can find coherence in a position where we think our moral faculties are usually or mostly reliable. But if we say our moral faculties are reliable when we say "murder is wrong" but not when we say "murder is gratuitous," that stinks a little bit like special pleading: how do you know one is reliable while the other is not?

That's part of the point here: if you cast doubt on your moral intuitions, you need something other than intuition to guide you when making moral choices as a moral realist. Perhaps you might think you're covered when you have something like "Thou Shalt Not Murder" to go off of, but the Bible doesn't give an answer for literally every moral quandary; at some point you're going to have to rely on your moral intuitions (the very ones the skeptical theist says we cannot trust). The Bible doesn't say how to solve a Trolley problem (as far as I remember), for instance; or make comments about whether it's okay to harvest stem cells (and whether it matters whether they're harvested from adults instead), and so on.

At a certain point you need to have the belief that your moral intuitions are mostly reliable. But if you say some part of them is always unreliable (namely: whether suffering is gratuitous, for a lot of people have this intuition) then you need a reason for why you can trust other parts of your moral intuition but not that part otherwise you're special pleading.

Here's another point, having typed that: this intuition that some suffering is gratuitous is very ubiquitous across cultures and time. You would have a point that our moral intuition is "mostly" reliable if people saw something like the victims of Pompeii and thought "ah yes, there is a plan to this where all of these smoking cinders that used to be people are benefiting from this, I'm happy for them" about as often as they thought "what a senseless and horrible way to die." (Technically, they'd have to think that first thing more often than the second thing in order to call moral intuition "mostly" reliable -- if half of people thought the first thing and half of people thought the second thing, that would just be "about halfway reliable!")

But practically nobody thinks that first thing. So it has to be that our moral intuition is very unreliable when it comes to gratuitousness if gratuitousness doesn't exist. But why gratuitousness and not other aspects of moral intuition? Unless you can answer that, it casts the entirety of moral intuition into doubt -- unless, of course, some suffering is actually gratuitous

Conclusion: Therefore, skeptical theism can cause moral skepticism where we are unsure about what is right and wrong at all.

Skepticism of any kind can be taken to that level, for sure. Nihilists absolutely do that. So do knee-jerk cynics of various stripes, and, as far as I have been able to see so far, non-cognitivists have no more than their own intuitions for evidence, as well. So while that's possible, I think the problem with your conclusion is that it suggests that the human moral compass isn't even generally right, or generally well-oriented but flawed. However, this would also make it difficult to explain the similarities among moral "intuitions" in many places. For if we needed to take our questions about human moral knowledge to the level of complete Nihilism, then that should not be possible either.

What seems to be the case, empirically, is exactly what Christians think is the case; that the human moral compass is flawed but operational. Is it completely trustworthy? No. But does it still respond to some objective imperatives? Yes.

So really, we have to stop blaming God for the faults in the human moral compass. What should we expect when we severed our relationship with the North Star of moral truth?

Good point about extreme skepticism.

Question, though: is it moral to "sever a relationship with the North Star of moral truth?" This is related to the commentary about the Fall above.

If it's immoral to turn away from the North Star of moral truth, then how did they do it if their moral compasses were working at the time?

1) Gratuitousness is parsimonious.

Not much of a virtue. It's easy to adduce "parsimonious" explanations that are simply obviously wrong. It is "parsimonious" to believe that the universe is made up of a solid substance called "matter," and very much more complicated to believe in atoms, and even more complicated to believe in quarks and quantum states. But in such cases, the parsimony merely hides the superficiality of the analysis, does it not?

I agree that parsimony isn't a coup de grâce, but it does count as evidence; that's all I was saying here. However, as noted in my original piece, one of the reasons I was bringing up gratuitousness's simplicity was because this influences who has the onus of evidence. Suffering is just suffering: it is gratuitous suffering unless there is a plan that benefits the sufferer. Seems as though the person that argues there is a plan that benefits the sufferer is the one that holds the burden of proof. In this case, that is the theist.

2) Gratuitousness is intuitive.

Well, as above, that's not saying much. To say that something is "intuitive" is only to say that it appears winsome to limited, fallible creatures working from a myopic perspective or operating according to their own prejudices. It's really not to offer anything profound.

Granted, of course. But again, I was only providing some evidence. Intuition and parsimony are evidence even if they don't close a case by themselves. But sure, if someone were to tell me God exists and all they gave was parsimony and intuition I'd probably say the same thing. Granted, I don't know how I didn't see that coming. Still, the burden of evidence portion of the parsimony argument is an important one I think.

3) Suffering is extreme and ubiquitous.

That's a quantitative complaint, offered in an effort to get a qualitative conclusion. It's actually no better than to suppose that if there are many of X, then some of X must be blue.

Ha, ok, fair enough. Granted.

Non-gratuitous suffering (suffering that exists to serve some kind of scheme or plan to benefit the sufferer) is actually the more complex kind of suffering, and suggesting that a scheme or plan exists behind all suffering (as one must do to deny the existence of gratuitousness) is actually the position that holds the burden of proof.

You mean like the proof that the Pacific Ocean has X litres or gallons of water in it? That it is not possible for human beings to provide the answer doesn't actually take us a single step in the direction of concluding there's no water in the Pacific Ocean...or that God does not work out a plan from the diverse phenomena we observe...and those we do not, as well.

But you wouldn't have to give specifics on the plan, just some kind of plan. You'd be defending that "there is some water in the ocean," not "there are X liters of water in the ocean." This is why I made an opening salvo against soul-making theodicy: it does present some evidence that there could be a plan, so it's a credible threat. Saying a plan is incomperehensible and cannot be described or perceived at all, though, is not a very credible threat (one might as well say "God works in mysterious ways").

Furthermore, by holding a skeptical theist position (by doubting that we can understand, even in reasonable part, what that plan is), you undermine your own position to assert that such a plan even exists:

That's a complete non-sequitur, I'm afraid. It again draws on premises about epistemology to try to get an ontological conclusion. That just isn't logical.

It's a transcendental argument. For instance, if I were to say with speech that I don't think words convey meaning (and expect you to receive meaning from my utterance), I have contradicted the foundation of my own argument. If I were to say that because unies exist, I must doubt that any propositions are true; then I have undermined my own ability to say that it's true that unies exist. Finally, if I think God is good, but then for any reason doubt my ability to make moral judgments, then I have undermined my own ability to say that God is good.

I have snipped (but read) the rest as it was all in some way addressed above.

[Immanuel Can]

Put colloquially, skeptical theism is a position that we don't understand why God does certain things and that our intuitions (such as the intuition that some suffering is gratuitous) can't be trusted.

Better to put it this way: we don't know whether or not we can trust our intuitions in that regard. But to be sure, we would need to have sufficient reasons to trust that intuition. But that would pretty much require omniscience, which by all accounts, we do not have.

So it's a bit of a pickle, you'll have to admit.

Sure: but this is why we make reasonable decisions about things without omniscience based on things like appearances. "If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck," that sort of thing

No, that's not a good analogy, because we don't know "what it looks like." We have no reasonable expectation that observations some of us personally may have about that are reliable at all.

At one time, there was an intuition that the world was flat. That was an incredibly strong intuition...it looked totally right, based on visible evidence, and it was general, in that 100% of the people on the planet felt they had every reason to believe it. It matched common sense, not just intuition.

And it was utterly wrong.

You may be able to say, "There is a plan (and so no suffering is gratuitous), but we can't understand what that plan is." That is exactly what skeptical theism is. If that's your position, you're a skeptical theist. (Note that I'm saying "if," not presuming to put words in your mouth).

No, the burden runs the other way: if somebody says, "This suffering is gratuitious," and if they need that premise for their argument to work (which your argument certainly requires) then it's on them to show that they know, and we should know, that gratuitious suffering exists.

I haven't seen anything like that yet.

Basically, if you're agnostic about whether suffering is gratuitous, then you must be agnostic about whether God is good,

No, that doesn't follow either. In fact, if one believes God is good, that only strengthens one's conviction that suffering is unlikely to be "gratuitious." And one can believe God is good, not on intuition, but on revelation and even on experience. So the evidentiary basis is there, for the goodness of God; but there's still nothing for "gratuitous suffering."

1) You take an approach where you state definitively that no suffering is gratuitous because there is a plan for the suffering that benefits the sufferers, but we can't know what that plan is. This is what I would call "punting to mystery," you might as well be saying "God works in mysterious ways," and I'd have to change my approach.

This isn't at all a "punt to mystery." Rather, it's merely the statement of obvious fact.

It is not even contestible that you and I lack the relevant data to make an assessment showing that "gratuitious" suffering is going onm, even in our own cases, let alone in anybody else's, or in the cases that have existed in history, or exist now elsewhere. That's indisputable and perfectly obvious. No sane person would claim to have sufficient data to make such a claim. Thus, the claim, "suffering is gratuitious" relies totally on one's personal intuition. And there's nothing at all "mysterious" about saying so.

It seems to me that you come from a position of skeptical theism as defined, and this first argument is about how skeptical theism is problematic for a couple of reasons:
1) It's problematic for moral realists because if we can't trust our own moral intuitions, then a moral realist couldn't trust their own intuition that God is good,

No, that won't work. That God is good is not a matter of intution, but of revelation. The predication comes from the Biblical record, not from our personal imaginings. However, that suffering is "gratuitious" clearly is nothing but intuition. So it would be a problem for that.

First: I should comment that if you commit to "God is good" not based on intuition but rather revelation, then it opens up a question of why you find said revelation to be trustworthy. That seems to be an entire other subject though. I'd love to have it, but maybe later.

Yes, it does. But there's a very good answer for that.

Second: Have you ever heard the phrase, "absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence?"

Of course. But you're right to point out that it's a half-truth. It's dangerously close to the assertion, "It's true because it isn't known to be false," which would be a fallacy. So far as I can see, though, it's irrelevant to any objection I'm offering.

Recall that gratuitous suffering is actually the most basic type of suffering (it's non-gratuitous suffering that is special and complex).

I don't think that's obvious at all, and I don't concede it now. I would argue that "gratitious suffering" is possibly the most "imaginary" type of suffering, not the most "basic," and that it's more plausible, if God exists, to suppose that suffering is purposive.

...there is an abundance of absence of evidence for any such plan: it appears that in many instances of suffering, people and animals are simply suffering without any hint of a plan.

You're arguing again from nothing more than personal intuition. It seems this becomes the default right away. But by any account, it's not very good data, coming from a limited, embodied, time-bound, fallible entity such as we are.

The Biblical account is, as Hamlet puts it, that "...there is providence in the fall of a sparrow." That you and I may not know the plan really isn't any argument at all as to whether or not God has such a plan, especially if He claims He does.

Well, this is probably going to explode into its own topic unfortunately. Where to begin? I find this whole concept that suggests God could have created humans perfectly, yet they somehow "fell" into imperfection, profoundly incoherent because the whole conclusion seems to contradict the initial premise.

I don't think so, at all. In fact, it seems quite obvious that one cannot "fall" unless one was once, in some sense "higher." Your supposition in your critique has perhaps been that human moral faculties have been historically uniform. Of course, moral evolutionists, progressivists and developmentalists like Kohlberg and Gilligan would eagerly deny that they have been uniform at all...and they're entirely secular in their theorizing.

But I would argue they're wrong; I would say that history demonstrates that human moral improvement is actually not very evident in the last several thousand years of history, and that a uniform fallibility, morally speaking, is much more evident. We killed more human beings in the last century than in all the previous centuries combined. We now have global scale, existential threats abundantly. And practices like slavery, child-murder, sex-trafficking and pornographic exploitation have never been more widespread. How has the "reliable" moral sense of human beings issued in such disasters?

However, take their version or mine, and you get the same thing: your confidence in a uniform, perfect moral intuition in the human species is simply not consonant with the evidence of history, or with the evidence today. It's pure assumption.

Let's just get into it I guess. First I need to establish a few things about what your position even is on this matter, please answer these to the best of your ability:

I shall do so, but briefly, so you can choose what you wish to pursue and we can let the rest slide, if we wish, okay?

1) When God created humans, did humans have reliable cognitive faculties (including any moral faculties)? "Reliable" for what? Were they still embodied beings, with only a limited perspective on the world? Yes. Did they have knowledge of good and evil? No.
2) When God created humans, would humans have known what "deception" is and how to guard against it? They knew who God is. Thus, they had good reason, and they should have known better than to choose what they chose. However, they were free to choose.
3) Do you believe it's within God's power to have given humans sufficient knowledge to make accurate moral decisions? Of course.
4) Do you believe a person can be held responsible (after making a poor choice) if they were forced to make choices that aren't informed choices? That's complicated. It requires us to consider the issue of "sufficient" knowledge. But nobody is ever "forced to make a choice": that's a contradiction in terms, of course.
5) If a creation is forced to exist in circumstances where they can't make informed choices, but the creator could have given them informed choices, is the creator culpable for not having done so when poor choices are inevitably made? I don't find the speculation here makes sense. It seems to require incoherent things. For example, how do you make the Creator "culpable"? Who's putting the cuffs on Him, and on what basis, since He's the locus of moral rightness itself? But if I can try to make sense of it, it seems to me it again misses that complicated question of "sufficient knowledge." "Sufficient knowledge" is, of course, considerably short of a standard like "comprehensive knowledge" or "omniscience."

Now, skeptical theism doesn't hold that we can't trust any of our cognitive faculties, that's not what I'm saying. But it is a form of skeptical theism to suppose that we can't trust our moral cognitive faculties, and the same problems exist.

You're too categorical there. Skeptical Theism, as you call it, wouldn't have to insist that NONE of our moral cognitive faculties are EVER trustworthy; only that it's possible for our cognitive moral faculties not to be ALWAYS right. That would be more than sufficient.

Sure, I will almost grant that except for one wrinkle. We can find coherence in a position where we think our moral faculties are usually or mostly reliable. But if we say our moral faculties are reliable when we say "murder is wrong" but not when we say "murder is gratuitous," that stinks a little bit like special pleading: how do you know one is reliable while the other is not?

Well, you know murder is wrong because God says it is. You also know it intuitively; but the intuitive is not at all decisive here. But there's not even such a thing as "gratuitious murder," because part of the definition of "murder" (as opposed to "manslaughter") is intent.

That's part of the point here: if you cast doubt on your moral intuitions, you need something other than intuition to guide you when making moral choices as a moral realist.

Absolutely true. Good on you for seeing it.

Perhaps you might think you're covered when you have something like "Thou Shalt Not Murder" to go off of, but the Bible doesn't give an answer for literally every moral quandary; at some point you're going to have to rely on your moral intuitions (the very ones the skeptical theist says we cannot trust).

The proper response to this is also complicated, and leads to a long discussion. But correct moral judgment is actually a composite of various elements, not the product of a single thing, like "intuition." And I think this accounts for the mess that is secular Ethics today; each of the various ethical theories tends to grab hold of one strand of the tapestry and pull hard, distorting the whole beyond recognition. But it can't do anything else, because it's wildly in search of some single, basic universal ("categorical imperatives," "the pleasure principle," "virtue," "pragmatics," "intuition," "care," whatever) from which to bring ethical judgment down to size where human beings can control it without the aid of God.

Of course, if you know the field, you know it's not working. What secular ethics has instead, today is a cacophony of problematic theories, each disagreeing with the others, and none yielding reliable results. It's not even a coherent field, really. It's troubled at the base level of legitimation.

However, all of these grasp at one of the complex elements of real moral reflection...such as reason, motive, conscience, social function, emotion, well-being, tradition, and so on. What they all refuse, though, is any assistance from appeal to God. So for them, there cannot be any appeal to revelation, either, and no Law, and no "spirit of the Law" judgments, and no role for the Spirit of God, and no such thing as divine leading or aid. And Jesus Christ cannot be called the paragon of moral virtue, but must rather be judged by a secularly-generated moral theory of some kind.

So secular moral reflection hamstrings itself. Moral reflection of an accurate kind is simply not practical apart from divine aid, in its various forms. This is why Christ said, “For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” (John 9:39) What becomes most clear, as a result of Jesus Christ, is who there is who really sees what's moral, and who is truly blind.

And the whole field of secular ethics today is blind. There is no secular theory that unites the various ethics "schools" into any kind of harmonious consensus, and nothing capable of doing so. As a result, we are all governed not by ethics, but by power.

But as you can see, this is a huge topic.

At a certain point you need to have the belief that your moral intuitions are mostly reliable.

"Mostly" won't be enough. If it's possible your intuitions of "gratuitiousness" are false, that's enough to fix the case. You might be able to use your intuitions in general matters, and I don't doubt you can, sometimes; but what we need to know is if they're telling us the truth in the specific case of the meaning of suffering. And that, we just don't have.

Here's another point, having typed that: this intuition that some suffering is gratuitous is very ubiquitous across cultures and time.

That would only be to point out that human beings are all contingent, flawed, fallible, and not in possession of the relevant data to make a good judgment. And we know those things are true. They're quite evident.

Conclusion: Therefore, skeptical theism can cause moral skepticism where we are unsure about what is right and wrong at all.

Skepticism of any kind can be taken to that level, for sure. Nihilists absolutely do that. So do knee-jerk cynics of various stripes, and, as far as I have been able to see so far, non-cognitivists have no more than their own intuitions for evidence, as well. So while that's possible, I think the problem with your conclusion is that it suggests that the human moral compass isn't even generally right, or generally well-oriented but flawed. However, this would also make it difficult to explain the similarities among moral "intuitions" in many places. For if we needed to take our questions about human moral knowledge to the level of complete Nihilism, then that should not be possible either.

What seems to be the case, empirically, is exactly what Christians think is the case; that the human moral compass is flawed but operational. Is it completely trustworthy? No. But does it still respond to some objective imperatives? Yes.

So really, we have to stop blaming God for the faults in the human moral compass. What should we expect when we severed our relationship with the North Star of moral truth?

Good point about extreme skepticism.

Question, though: is it moral to "sever a relationship with the North Star of moral truth?" This is related to the commentary about the Fall above.

How can it be anything but disastrous? What's a compass without a magnetic north?

If it's immoral to turn away from the North Star of moral truth, then how did they do it if their moral compasses were working at the time?

We're back to the issue of "...sufficient to have stood, but free to fall," as Milton put it.

1) Gratuitousness is parsimonious.

Not much of a virtue. It's easy to adduce "parsimonious" explanations that are simply obviously wrong. It is "parsimonious" to believe that the universe is made up of a solid substance called "matter," and very much more complicated to believe in atoms, and even more complicated to believe in quarks and quantum states. But in such cases, the parsimony merely hides the superficiality of the analysis, does it not?

I agree that parsimony isn't a coup de grâce, but it does count as evidence;

Not as "evidence." That's the wrong word, I think.

"Parsimony" actually fits into a package of what has been called "epistemic virtues," along with criteria like "simplicity," "elegance," "comprehensiveness," "coherence," and so on. The idea of the epistemic virtues is not that one of the criteria is sufficient for the discerning of truth, but that a large collocation of all the epistemic virtues would give us reason to consider it a higher probability (though never a certainty) that we know something is true.

In other words, something like "parsimony" is often (but not always) a good quality in a theory. But it's very far from something that can stand alone. It would need substantial support from the other epistemic virtues to give us even probabilistic reason to favour a particular theory.

Seems as though the person that argues there is a plan that benefits the sufferer is the one that holds the burden of proof.

That depends. Who is making the claim?

In our case, the claim we are examining is "There is gratuitious suffering." In this case, anyone skeptical of the claim bears no burden of proof at all; it's the claimant who has to make the case.

Non-gratuitous suffering (suffering that exists to serve some kind of scheme or plan to benefit the sufferer) is actually the more complex kind of suffering, and suggesting that a scheme or plan exists behind all suffering (as one must do to deny the existence of gratuitousness) is actually the position that holds the burden of proof.

You mean like the proof that the Pacific Ocean has X litres or gallons of water in it? That it is not possible for human beings to provide the answer doesn't actually take us a single step in the direction of concluding there's no water in the Pacific Ocean...or that God does not work out a plan from the diverse phenomena we observe...and those we do not, as well.

But you wouldn't have to give specifics on the plan, just some kind of plan.

Not that much, even.
I have to make this point again, but forgive the repetition. The epistemic limitations of mankind are no kind of data on the question of the ontological fact of God's having a plan. That's a category error, there: epistemology being mistaken for ontology, again.

Do we have any reason to think that if God has a plan, He owes it to explain it to all of us? I don't think that's a warranted supposition. He might, plausibly, choose to explain parts of it to some of us; but even that would be an exercise of grace on His part, not deserving or entitlement on ours. Or He might not. That would be in his brief, not ours.

We might only say that He would have to tell us THAT there was a plan. He wouldn't owe us to explain it to us all, in detail. And if there were such a plan, would it not be so immensely complex, involving all sorts of causes-and-effects, big and small, main and tangential, and an infinite chain of consequences...how would we get such a comprehensive plan into our tiny brains? It's not even possible to expect that He would do it.

Furthermore, by holding a skeptical theist position (by doubting that we can understand, even in reasonable part, what that plan is), you undermine your own position to assert that such a plan even exists:

That's a complete non-sequitur, I'm afraid. It again draws on premises about epistemology to try to get an ontological conclusion. That just isn't logical.

Finally, if I think God is good, but then for any reason doubt my ability to make moral judgments, then I have undermined my own ability to say that God is good.

Then it's a very good thing that the goodness of God is a reality prior to any moral judgments you and I happen to make. Or, to put it plainly, that God's ontological righteousness does not depend on our flawed human epistemology.

So far, so good? I'm wondering if you have a mind to go back to that list of questions you gave, or whether you want to go in a new direction. I'm open to wherever the conversation needs to go.

Thanks for your thoughts.

[promethean75]

Yes I'd like to have a minor query of mine addressed, if I may.

"e.g., pointing out that knowing a future freely chosen action will occur doesn't mean the future action wasn't freely taken"

"However, there isn’t anything illogical about making other omnibenevolent or omniscient beings."

from the first posts in this thread before it turned into a rhizome and went in all directions. I'm wondering how u reckon with the same problem IC tried to reckon with when i aksed as Averroes did; if god ever believed joe could have chosen x instead of y, but at the same time knew joe would end up choosing y, god would be wrong about joe being free to choose x. in that case, god wouldn't know everything, which conflicts with his omniscience. or in other words, if god could have genuinely believed that joe wuz free to choose x, he'd have been wrong.... and god can't be wrong.

anyway i feel like these same logical consequences would exist for an omniscient human being, creating a similar conflict with his/her freewill. in the omniscient human's case, knowing in advance that one would choose y (becuz they know everything, remember), one couldn't have been free to choose x. if one wuz free to choose x, they'd have been wrong about what they thought they knew (that one would choose y).

i forget how the argument wuz handled by Averroes but his solution involved something about god having to be in a state of timelessness or something for him to be able to retain his omniscience if/when humans have freewill. cuz God can't be wrong... but at the same time, he can't be able to know what humans will inevitably do with their freewill in order for it to be truly free. bit of a pickle, that.

[Gary Childress]

Yes I'd like to have a minor query of mine addressed, if I may.

"e.g., pointing out that knowing a future freely chosen action will occur doesn't mean the future action wasn't freely taken"

"However, there isn’t anything illogical about making other omnibenevolent or omniscient beings."

from the first posts in this thread before it turned into a rhizome and went in all directions. I'm wondering how u reckon with the same problem IC tried to reckon with when i aksed as Averroes did; if god ever believed joe could have chosen x instead of y, but at the same time knew joe would end up choosing y, god would be wrong about joe being free to choose x. in that case, god wouldn't know everything, which conflicts with his omniscience. or in other words, if god could have genuinely believed that joe wuz free to choose x, he'd have been wrong.... and god can't be wrong.

anyway i feel like these same logical consequences would exist for an omniscient human being, creating a similar conflict with his/her freewill. in the omniscient human's case, knowing in advance that one would choose y (becuz they know everything, remember), one couldn't have been free to choose x. if one wuz free to choose x, they'd have been wrong about what they thought they knew (that one would choose y).

i forget how the argument wuz handled by Averroes but his solution involved something about god having to be in a state of timelessness or something for him to be able to retain his omniscience if/when humans have freewill. cuz God can't be wrong... but at the same time, he can't be able to know what humans will inevitably do with their freewill in order for it to be truly free. bit of a pickle, that.

It seems to me that people can't have free will if God is omniscient. And God can't be omniscient if people have free will. I suppose it's possible that God knows HOW to create a universe, however, maybe he doesn't know where it will end up because he can't know beforehand what a conscious being will do. Maybe the problem is that Christian theologians want to have their cake and eat it too. Their God is a series of paradoxes and contradictions (free-will yet omniscience; evil yet benevolence; one God yet a Trinity). If we can't come up with a God that isn't paradoxical and contradictory, then maybe we need to find another route. I don't know. However, God the jealous, genocidal but loving father, doesn't sound like a God at all, more like Archie Bunker raised to divinity. The greatest most powerful entity, one that created our universe is Archie Bunker. Who knew!

[promethean75]

well IC and cAstro aren't wrong when they say knowing someone will choose x doesn't MAKE them choose x. the real problem is the conflict between god being able to honestly believe joe COULD choose other than what god knows he'll end up choosing. seewuh I'm sayin?

"I suppose it's possible that God knows HOW to create a universe, however, maybe he doesn't know where it will end up because he can't know beforehand what a conscious being will do."

ya can't square that with omniscience either. your clockmaker's knowledge of what his clock will do follows logically from his knowledge of how each part works and what the part does. or think of the universe as a giant 350 and god as a mechanic. he built the engine, so he knows what the engine will do becuz he knows what the crankshaft and alternator and transmission and oil pump will do, etc.

in creating the universe, god had to assign rules for behavior and function to everything existing in it. that means whatever anything does is what it's supposed to do or had to do. nothing can just suddenly do some random shit that god didn't foresee happening.

[Gary Childress]

well IC and cAstro aren't wrong when they say knowing someone will choose x doesn't MAKE them choose x. the real problem is the conflict between god being able to honestly believe joe COULD choose other than what god knows he'll end up choosing. seewuh I'm sayin?

"I suppose it's possible that God knows HOW to create a universe, however, maybe he doesn't know where it will end up because he can't know beforehand what a conscious being will do."

ya can't square that with omniscience either. your clockmaker's knowledge of what his clock will do follows logically from his knowledge of how each part works and what the part does. or think of the universe as a giant 350 and god as a mechanic. he built the engine, so he knows what the engine will do becuz he knows what the crankshaft and alternator and transmission and oil pump will do, etc.

in creating the universe, god had to assign rules for behavior and function to everything existing in it. that means whatever anything does is what it's supposed to do or had to do. nothing can just suddenly do some random shit that god didn't foresee happening.

Wouldn't that be assuming that the universe and everything in it is little different than a wind-up clock? Maybe there is no determinism in the universe when it comes to consciousness. Perhaps, an atom is either (in relative terms) at rest or else in motion according to deterministic laws when I encounter that atom. What I do to the atom, push it, stop it, or break it up maybe isn't a matter of pre-determined necessity. Heck, according to quantum physics, even motion at the atomic level maybe isn't predetermined. I don't know.

As far as knowing someone will choose x versus making them do x, if God knows what I'm going to do, then what's the point of making me at all and what's the point of judging me based on that behavior that he already knows I'm going to do? And if I am truly able to do other than what God knows I will do, then it seems to me that God can't be omniscient in the sense that he knows beforehand what I will do.