08-21-2005, 10:49 PM
God can't supposedly just come down and start doing a water-into-wine show for everyone to get people to believe in him... that would be slavery; such a display would overpower a person's free will and thus that person would not believe in God of his own free will, something he values so much that he is willing to allow evil in the world. So, here's a tenative maxim for a believer:
(~G) Good influences cannot unduly overpower a moral being's decision making process.
So far, so good. But, what about evil influences? What about the Holocaust? Many people came away from that with a firm belief that there is no God. The sheer inhumanity of the death camps (or Somalia or Rwanda... WWII is used so many times as an example that it, unfortunately, almost has a political taint to it) was the main reason. Being there, it was said, was like being washed in evil.
So, here's a dilemma for a believer. Such evidence would seem to lead to this conclusion:
(E) Evil influences can unduly overpower a moral being's decision making process.
But, to accept both (~G) and (E) seems absurd. Why would God allow (say) Satan to throw the book at you evil-wise while God restricts himself to enhancing the redness of the rose by a few microns to try to, as C.S. Lewis put it, "whisper in your ear?" Evil, but not good, can overpower your thought process? It would seem much more reasonable for the believer to argue for this:
(~E) Evil influences cannot unduly...
There are two problems with this, though. The first is, obviously, reconciling this with the evidence of overpowering evil mentioned above. How does the believer account for people saying they were literally dragged away from belief in God? To say that they were weak-willed is slightly condesending: saints may have weathered the storm, but we're not saints.
Another problem is more subtle. Let's say God is using 4.38% influence (for simplicity's sake) in trying to convince Smith not to kill himself. Suppose that this influence is being channeled into the color of the flowers around him in the garden, as he holds the point of the spade to his chest, to try and convince him of the beauty of life. Suppose God can't use 4.39% (and make the color a few microns richer) because, in his omniscence, he sees that this extra percentile will just go over the 'overpower' line in terms of influence on his moral decision he is about to make.
Smith decides not to kill himself. Three cheers for God! But, why did Smith decide not to do it? "Well," he says, "the color of the flowers convinced me of the beauty of life. I was literally about to plunge the spade into my heart, but those vibrant colors just barely, barely saved me."
Now, why not construe what just happened this way: if God's influence were 4.37%, Smith would have killed himself. What saved Smith was that God's influence was at 4.38%. Hence, according to (~G), God's good influence overpowered Smith's reasoning abilities.
I suppose my problem is with the concept of moral decision, or just ordinary decision itself. What's the dividing line between influencing and overpowering? Every theory of the causal interaction of the mind that I've seen has a hard time making this kind of distinction. I'm personally lead to believe that there isn't a distinction at all.
There's always a fallback for the believer:
(G) Good influences can unduly...
That, however, would seem to shatter any free will defense a believer may make in answering the problem of evil.
(~G) Good influences cannot unduly overpower a moral being's decision making process.
So far, so good. But, what about evil influences? What about the Holocaust? Many people came away from that with a firm belief that there is no God. The sheer inhumanity of the death camps (or Somalia or Rwanda... WWII is used so many times as an example that it, unfortunately, almost has a political taint to it) was the main reason. Being there, it was said, was like being washed in evil.
So, here's a dilemma for a believer. Such evidence would seem to lead to this conclusion:
(E) Evil influences can unduly overpower a moral being's decision making process.
But, to accept both (~G) and (E) seems absurd. Why would God allow (say) Satan to throw the book at you evil-wise while God restricts himself to enhancing the redness of the rose by a few microns to try to, as C.S. Lewis put it, "whisper in your ear?" Evil, but not good, can overpower your thought process? It would seem much more reasonable for the believer to argue for this:
(~E) Evil influences cannot unduly...
There are two problems with this, though. The first is, obviously, reconciling this with the evidence of overpowering evil mentioned above. How does the believer account for people saying they were literally dragged away from belief in God? To say that they were weak-willed is slightly condesending: saints may have weathered the storm, but we're not saints.
Another problem is more subtle. Let's say God is using 4.38% influence (for simplicity's sake) in trying to convince Smith not to kill himself. Suppose that this influence is being channeled into the color of the flowers around him in the garden, as he holds the point of the spade to his chest, to try and convince him of the beauty of life. Suppose God can't use 4.39% (and make the color a few microns richer) because, in his omniscence, he sees that this extra percentile will just go over the 'overpower' line in terms of influence on his moral decision he is about to make.
Smith decides not to kill himself. Three cheers for God! But, why did Smith decide not to do it? "Well," he says, "the color of the flowers convinced me of the beauty of life. I was literally about to plunge the spade into my heart, but those vibrant colors just barely, barely saved me."
Now, why not construe what just happened this way: if God's influence were 4.37%, Smith would have killed himself. What saved Smith was that God's influence was at 4.38%. Hence, according to (~G), God's good influence overpowered Smith's reasoning abilities.
I suppose my problem is with the concept of moral decision, or just ordinary decision itself. What's the dividing line between influencing and overpowering? Every theory of the causal interaction of the mind that I've seen has a hard time making this kind of distinction. I'm personally lead to believe that there isn't a distinction at all.
There's always a fallback for the believer:
(G) Good influences can unduly...
That, however, would seem to shatter any free will defense a believer may make in answering the problem of evil.