tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5375330549366725595.post7212940831143984147..comments2023-11-26T21:30:21.796-08:00Comments on The Analytic Scholastic: False Senses of God's Goodnessawatkins909http://www.blogger.com/profile/04272494240109130737noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5375330549366725595.post-85108620881406875142011-03-27T17:56:22.544-07:002011-03-27T17:56:22.544-07:00Thanks for the link. I'm not sure that I agre...Thanks for the link. I'm not sure that I agree with the author's argument, but I'd have to chew on it before making an adequate reply.<br /><br />This conversation will get us nowhere if we don't agree upon some standard of world-goodness. I was invoking a Leibnizian view, according to which a world is better insofar as it combines a greater economy of means with a greater diversity of ends, whereas you seem to hold to a standard in which a world without any immoral decision is better than one with the same. (On this, see <i>Theodicy,</i> I:10ff.) Similarly, we cannot debate the possibility of a best world without such a standard.<br /><br />I should add that, while I find the case for a Leibnizian best of all worlds more credible than it usually gets credit for, I'm not entirely convinced by it, and only brought the matter into this discussion as a possible account of Divine omnibenevolence that avoids your criticisms.<br /><br />(I have a post at my blog up on the subject of omnibenevolence, if you're interested.)Leohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06297966783686086577noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5375330549366725595.post-69462425799140216302011-03-27T16:20:13.999-07:002011-03-27T16:20:13.999-07:00It seems Aquinas does not believe in the BoAPW hyp...It seems Aquinas does not believe in the BoAPW hypothesis either: http://www.aquinasonline.com/Topics/boapw.htmlawatkins909https://www.blogger.com/profile/04272494240109130737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5375330549366725595.post-83783077315861038192011-03-27T15:42:14.503-07:002011-03-27T15:42:14.503-07:00Sorry to if I'm pushing the point too much but...Sorry to if I'm pushing the point too much but I am pretty curious about all this. That does help with option (A).<br /><br />But yes, my argument is that this is not the best of all possible worlds, and that God could even actualize a world which is worse than the best of all possible worlds. I think there is a world where each moral agent always freely chooses to do what is good. God could actualize that world, but as we see in the post, God could actualize a worse world and still be omnibenevolent. Hence, omnibenevolence can't consist in actualizing the best of all possible worlds.<br /><br />It also seems that there is no upper bound in the ordered set of "good worlds". For each world there is always some world that is better. This means the concept of "best of all possible worlds" remains undefined, just like "largest natural number", and hence God's omnibenevolence can't consist in actualizing the best of all possible worlds.awatkins909https://www.blogger.com/profile/04272494240109130737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5375330549366725595.post-461576009094809482011-03-27T12:15:05.952-07:002011-03-27T12:15:05.952-07:00I don't think you understand my point in (A): ...I don't think you understand my point in (A): I am not saying that an action-type t is a good action-type only if God will that t be a good action-type; rather, I am saying that saying that any individual creature is good only on the condition that God wills it to be so. Mary, for example, is pious and wise only because God wills that she be pious and wise. This thesis is really just an extension of universal Divine sovereignty.<br /><br />I do not see how you've refuted (C): to do that, you would have to prove that the BoaPW contains no unpreventable evils, which is a tall order. Or am I misreading you here?Leohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06297966783686086577noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5375330549366725595.post-50843227199514001982011-03-26T23:42:56.598-07:002011-03-26T23:42:56.598-07:00Leo:
Isn't (A) just the usual divine command ...Leo:<br /><br />Isn't (A) just the usual divine command theory one? That doesn't seem adequate does it. Also, in my post didn't it show that God's goodness is compatible with his not actualizing the best of all possible worlds, meaning (C) must be wrong (the coherence of "best of all possible worlds" is dubitable anyway)?<br /><br />(B) is probably true but what does it mean to say God is the whole and entire good? Maybe that's just basic though.awatkins909https://www.blogger.com/profile/04272494240109130737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5375330549366725595.post-67367239416024332772011-03-26T21:48:39.217-07:002011-03-26T21:48:39.217-07:00Possible answers to your original question:
A.) A...Possible answers to your original question:<br /><br />A.) Anything A is omnibenevolent iff any x is good only if A wills that it be good.<br />B.) God is the whole and entire good; God wills Himself; therefore, God wills the whole and entire good, i.e. is omnibenevolent.<br />C.) Dispensing with the "omni" altogether, we might say that God is <i>perfectly</i> or <i>supremely</i> benevolent because He wills the best of all possible worlds (which of course requires that God actually does will said world).Leohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06297966783686086577noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5375330549366725595.post-23117359592429311312011-03-26T21:47:43.501-07:002011-03-26T21:47:43.501-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.Leohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06297966783686086577noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5375330549366725595.post-17839235469170119462011-03-26T21:39:32.720-07:002011-03-26T21:39:32.720-07:00Re: great-making properties. My difficulties are ...Re: great-making properties. My difficulties are twofold. First, recourse thereto looks suspiciously intellectually lazy: whereas an Anselm, Aquinas, or Scotus will spend pages arguing for a single divine attribute, a perfect-being theologian achieves his task with the simple syllogism "All GMPs are Divine properties; A is a GMP; therefore, etc." Now, <i>perhaps</i> the neo-Anselmian really has proven Aquinas' efforts, say, in arguing for Divine omniscience to be a needless waste of time, but I somehow doubt it.<br /><br />Second, the notion of a great-making property is hopelessly intuitive and subjective. My list, for example, of great-making properties would include simplicity, timeless eternity, and absolute sovereignty; many a neo-Anselmian, however, would counter that these attributes conflict with smoe other "great-making properties," such as personality, omniscience, and moral goodness, and so long as we retain the language of great-making properties, we have little by way of a means to rationally dispute the matter.<br /><br />It is in this that GMPs differ from Thomistic pure perfections and Gödelian positive properties, which both contain precise criteria for the admission of a given attribute into their ranks (pure attribution and lack of potency, respectively).Leohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06297966783686086577noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5375330549366725595.post-68561601212568120772011-03-26T20:42:37.908-07:002011-03-26T20:42:37.908-07:00It seems maybe that I was somewhat wrong in my pos...It seems maybe that I was somewhat wrong in my post. Is gratuitous evil the same as unnecessary evil? Gratuitous evil is evil which has no ultimate purpose whatsoever. Unnecessary evil is evil which could have been prevented. I think what we should conclude from the argument is that God's goodness must be compatible with unnecessary evil. This doesn't say anything about gratuitous evil one way or the other. Is that correct?awatkins909https://www.blogger.com/profile/04272494240109130737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5375330549366725595.post-40676730588833700272011-03-26T20:25:44.628-07:002011-03-26T20:25:44.628-07:00I talked to James Chastek about it a little bit, a...I talked to James Chastek about it a little bit, and he confirmed my suspicions. I'm not entirely satisfied with what he says we can understand God's benevolence to be.<br /><br />Also, why not the x is a great-making property, Leo? Isn't it essential to some ontological arguments like Godel's for instance (positive properties)? I suspect you might be right though.awatkins909https://www.blogger.com/profile/04272494240109130737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5375330549366725595.post-32012944155275128382011-03-26T19:15:31.680-07:002011-03-26T19:15:31.680-07:00Brandon:
Thanks for the information. I have long...Brandon:<br /><br />Thanks for the information. I have long suspected that "omnibenevolence" enters into philosophy of religion discussions insofar only as it is needed to make the problem of evil problematic. I don't think I have ever seen it argued for independently. And now my suspicions are confirmed!<br /><br />(What's even more unfortunate is that omnibenevolence is hardly unique in being unargued for independently: I rarely hear any discussion in contemporary philosophy of religion of what good reasons we might have for thinking God omniscient, omnipotent, etc. And no, "x is a great-making property" is not a good reason for thinking anything.)<br /><br />BTW, I think that James Chastek has a recent post up on this subject. Check it out.Leohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06297966783686086577noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5375330549366725595.post-11979821882397350952011-03-26T15:52:21.069-07:002011-03-26T15:52:21.069-07:00To the extent the medievals recognized a logical p...To the extent the medievals recognized a logical problem of evil, it was based on infinite good, e.g., the one Aquinas gives:<br /><br /><i>If one of two contraries were infinite, the other would be altogether destroyed. But the word "God" means that He is infinite goodness. If, therefore, God existed, there would be no evil discoverable; but there is evil in the world. Therefore God does not exist. </i><br /><br />But it's easily answered by pointing out that you could just as easily argue the other way: since God is infinite goodness, if God is known on other grounds to exist, and evil exists, it must be the case that evil is not inconsistent with infinite goodness.<br /><br />On your question, it would depend, of course, and as you worry in the post, on what is meant by omnibenevolence. I don't think it's usually coherent: it's intended to convey something that monotheists accept generally, and that creates a logical problem when combined with omnipotence and omniscience, but what notion of omnibenevolence can do both is hard to say.Brandonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06698839146562734910noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5375330549366725595.post-61909120063956891632011-03-26T14:05:56.144-07:002011-03-26T14:05:56.144-07:00That's pretty interesting. That would seem to ...That's pretty interesting. That would seem to explain the perspicuous absence of any substantial logical problem of evil within the medieval tradition (at least from what I've read). Still, isn't a being A which is omnibenevolent greater than a being B which is less than omnibenevolent, and wouldn't this mean that if there is an Anselmian greatest conceivable being then it must be A?awatkins909https://www.blogger.com/profile/04272494240109130737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5375330549366725595.post-63017982737900508152011-03-26T13:35:16.861-07:002011-03-26T13:35:16.861-07:00As far as I can tell people only began talking abo...As far as I can tell people only began talking about divine omnibenevolence in the nineteenth century in the context of the problem of evil: the whole point of the term was to make a nice parallel with "omnipotence" and "omniscience" (also, simply saying that God is good and benevolent, or even the best good or good itself, which is pretty much what people have traditionally stuck to, doesn't seem to be strong enough to generate any of the contradictions for the logical problem of evil which dominated for so long). So the problem really is that it's a completely foreign term, introduced in order to create a refutation of a position that didn't historically use it prior to its becoming widespread in the attempted refutation. Prior to that, the closest people usually came to calling God omnibenevolent was to say that he was infinitely good. When they said, on rare occasions, that he was all-good, they typically meant that all good things come from His goodness.Brandonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06698839146562734910noreply@blogger.com