And faith is, by definition, believing in something that is not (yet) proven. You do not have faith in something that you already know to be true. — Samuel Lacrampe

Not so. What you are suggesting appears to be a radical form of fideism. Historic Christianity, by contrast, has always maintained that certain propositions can and should be logically proved. It's not necessary for belief in them that they be proved, of course, but doing so doesn't endanger faith as such. They are sometimes known as the "preambles of the faith." An argument for God's existence would be considered one of them. The dogma of the immaculate conception of Mary, on the other hand, is not something that can be proved and so must be taken on faith (if you're a Catholic).

I don't see a great semantic difference between "proof" and "argument" here. In the Middle Ages, they were called "demonstrations." All these words amount to the same thing: an Aristotelian syllogism.

God created because He knew that it was good to do so. — Metaphysician Undercover

So if he knew it was good to create, why didn't he create before he did? If he always ever created, then, once again, in what sense is he free?

You don't! It's a trick question. They reject truth and logic as tools of Western oppression. Hence, they are to be dismissed, not argued with.

God's knowledge that Jane will buy the red car does not entail that Jane will necessarily buy the red car, such that buying the blue motorcycle instead is impossible. The latter is thus still an alternate possibility, and Jane freely chooses to buy the red car (in the libertarian sense), rather than being (deterministically) compelled to do so. — aletheist

Like Chany, there's still something fishy about this. For God to know her action before she chose it may not mean that God proximally caused the action, but it does mean her action isn't free, or else he couldn't know of it in advance. Perhaps you will say that God is not in time and so doesn't know anything in advance. He knows everything all at once. But the notion of "knowing everything at once" is completely beyond our kin, perhaps even incoherent. If so, then the free will defense isn't even necessary to make. The best response to the problem of evil is God's in the book of Job, as Marchesk pointed out, which is effectively, "I hear your complaint, but you can't know with much or indeed any clarity what I am, why I do the things I do in the ways I do them, and why I permit certain things you perceive as evil." This is not a satisfying response, because it's effectively a cop out, but it's better than concocting philosophically untenable theodicies.

that God would have been a better God if He created us without the capacity to choose. — Metaphysician Undercover

I would say there is a third option that people in this debate rarely talk about: that it could be better had God not created us or anything at all. The framing of your question is such that it makes God create either way, it's just a matter of what he creates. Well, I don't think we can assume that. If God was free to create, why did he choose to do so?

Are you saying, then, that we can meaningfully talk about something that was before the Big Bang? — aletheist

I'm saying we can't meaningfully talk about there being something or not something before the Big Bang. All such talk is by definition meaningless unless and until we know more about it. The proper response is agnosticism, especially as scientific theories can and do change. The philosopher is free to speculate, certainly, but the scientist in his capacity as a scientist is not.

It is not the case that Jane buys the red car because God knows that Jane will buy the red car; rather, God knows that Jane will buy the red car because Jane (freely) buys the red car. — aletheist

I think I knew this. My issue is with the parenthetical "freely" you included. What is that adding? What does it even mean?

Yes, which was directed at your initial criticism, a criticism since shown to be based on a misunderstanding of what I intended to say. I guess we're done, then. What a pointless conversation.

Even Big Bang cosmology posits a "beginning of time." — aletheist

No, it doesn't. Lots of science popularizers say this sort of thing, but it's not technically accurate. The Big Bang is a singularity and a singularity is just a word used to describe the breakdown of physics equations. Nothing much follows from it, other than our ignorance of it.

Ultimately the alleged incompatibility of foreknowledge and free will is shown to rest on a subtle logical error — aletheist

Can you summarize the error?

What about it was 'evil', prior to Adam 'eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil'? — Wayfarer

Natural evil. I'm not actually too fond of this term, as I prefer to relegate evil to the sphere of intentional human activity, but it's one that philosophers and theologians use, so that's what I mean by evil prior to the fall.

If your account is correct, then the Genesis account is wrong, or at least has to be reinterpreted somehow to allow for suffering and death prior to the Fall. — aletheist

And this is precisely what I did. What more do you want me to say?

Is religion a superstition, in a sense? — Ann

Yes, in a sense. Or better: in certain forms.

So are you calling most religious people morons? — Ann

Most of them are, yes. Most people in general are morons.

This would then mean that you are saying only you are the logical and rational person, which no person can be — Ann

No, this is a non-sequitur. It's probably true that I am more intelligent than the average person, but I don't care much about intelligence. One could be intelligent but evil or miserable and an ignoramus but kind and compassionate. I would much rather be and/or be around the latter than the former.

there is nothing internally inconsistent with the claim in Genesis that the world before the Fall was "very good." — aletheist

And I never wished to imply that there was. Why are you being so obtuse?

God's foreknowledge that Jane will buy the red car does not cause Jane to buy the red car, He simply knows beforehand that she will freely choose to do so — aletheist

Knowing a free choice is a contradiction in terms, as freedom implies the ability to do otherwise. If God knows the choices we make before we make them, then we could not have done otherwise, or else he would not know the choices he allegedly knows.

He created time — aletheist

The word "create" implies an act in time. To say that time did not always exist is to say that there was a time before time, which is absurd.

I still do not see the problem. — aletheist

:-| This is the problem:

The Genesis account gives no indication of any suffering, evil, or death until the Fall, which it presents as happening fairly soon after the beginning, not hundreds of millions of years later. — aletheist

Either address it or stop replying.

How could a world exist without predation, hazard, and death? — Wayfarer

It apparently did, prior to the fall. That's the problem to which I addressed my post. The rest of your post I'll interpret as a general comment.

You're being coy I see. Of course it doesn't. It claims that the world, pre-fall, was "very good." The history of life we now know about says otherwise.

Your problem with the Genesis account is that you believe a different account, one that involves "hundreds of millions of years" of "horrendous suffering, evil, and death." — aletheist

Go on.

What means all this?

First let me say that I've enjoyed reading both this thread and the other one on the free will defense, as I think your criticisms are cogently expressed. I've been thinking about similar things recently, too. My problem with the Genesis account is that the history of life on the planet as we now understand it rubbishes God's boast that it was created "very good" prior to the fall. The world has always ever been fallen, that is to say, has always contained horrendous suffering, evil, and death. For hundreds of millions of years, a timescale so vast it can't even be properly imagined, various living organisms have preyed on each other, fought each other, starved, become sick, or suffocated to death in sink holes, bogs, and under volcanic ash, which preserved their skeletal remains we now gawk at in museums. These processes continue today as well. Just look around or watch any nature documentary.

Creation has never been good, unless one is so callous as to call the processes just described as "good." Some theologians do this. They say the lion eating the lamb is good for the lion but bad for the lamb. Therefore the lion does no wrong. Yet to admit that the bad existed alongside the good still means that the pre-fallen world was not good, or not wholly so. So what accounts for this state of affairs? To answer this question with "the fall" would have to mean that it affected two temporal dimensions: the past and the future, not just the future, as traditionally believed and as implied in Genesis. If granted, whatever it means, we must then ask what accounts for the fall. The traditional answer is that our ancestors were tempted by Satan to rebel. But now, having pushed back the problem of evil to Satan, we seem to have reached a dead end. In other words, if the natural evil in the world is due to the corrupting influence of Satan and his minions, both pre and post-fall, and moral evil is due to the choice of human beings tempted by Satan to do evil, then we have satisfactorily explained the problem of evil with respect to the world. However, we are still left with accounting for Lucifer's fall. It appears as a dead end because there isn't a second Satan who tempted the first to rebel. One fall explains the other, but the first, the fall of the angels, seems to admit of no good explanation.

If the answer is "pride," we can ask: why was Lucifer created to be susceptible to pride? Why also was he created at all, since his creation precipitated the whole tragic history just enumerated? Indeed, why did God create anything at all? Did he have to? If God had a reason to create, then he was determined to do so by that reason and so did not do so freely (or at least isn't free in one sense of the word). If God created freely, then he had no reason to do so, and so is capricious, or seemingly capricious. Perhaps, as you said in the other thread, the only answer to these questions is what we find in Job. But as you also said, this leaves one deeply unsatisfied, as it sounds like a cop out. We might then consider the following mottos: intellectus quaerens fidem et fides quarens intellectum. The former, "understanding seeking faith" is perhaps what you are doing now, inasmuch as you are seeking to believe but find there are theoretical difficulties in doing so due to your understanding of what Christianity claims. So maybe you ought to adopt the latter motto first, i.e. "faith seeking understanding," such that you believe in order that you might understand. Understand what? The meaning of problems like the one you have addressed above. It could be that if you remain on the outside looking in, the problem will never be understood. Perhaps its solution isn't strictly communicable in the form of an air tight syllogism either. Notice the phrase does not say "understanding seeking understanding." Faith is not so much intellectual assent to a set of propositions but a way of life. Try living as if the claims of the religion were true and see where that gets you. It could be nowhere or it could be to understanding. I myself haven't yet made such a leap, but the temptation is there.

"We?" Speak for yourself!

And the answer is because people are morons.

Dennett or Nagel? And at what?

Holy wall of text, Batman!

To kick ass and take names.

Love, but not the erotic kind.

I must say that Middle Earth: Shadow of War looks pretty neat. Didn't play the first and might try that if it goes on sale. As a Tolkien fan, my concern has been the seemingly ridiculous and lore-breaking premise, but I suppose it could still be a good game on its own.

I'm also fairly healthy and young so I might as well enjoy it while it lasts. — darthbarracuda

This in particular commits the fallacy I mentioned.

Thus, ascetic denial of Will, somehow breaks the cycle for the will-less hero.. Even if his metaphysics was true.. do you believe someone has the ability to deny their will to such a degree? Would you say a yogi in India or the truly enlightened Buddha? What does that even look like? Is this Ego-Death? Is it truly not caring about anything or anyone? That is the most ambiguous. — schopenhauer1

I think the ambiguity lies in what the denial of the will means. Does it mean the destruction or annihilation of the will? That can't be it, since the will as thing-in-itself cannot be destroyed, only its phenomenon, the body, can. To will to deny the will is also a contradictory impossibility. Does it mean the alleviation of suffering resultant from the quieting of desire? Possibly, and Robert Wicks in the secondary literature argues this, but this could never be permanent, and so hardly qualifies as salvation. So too does it conflict with Schopenhauer's frequent declarations as to its "permanent" and "annihilatory" nature. Schopenhauer is thus not only ambiguous but inconsistent. It seems to me that the denial of the will, or salvation, cannot be achieved in this life, despite Schopenhauer suggesting that it can through the use of examples from Hinduism and Buddhism.

Notwithstanding the probable heresy in my uttering the following remarks, I will say that it is for the reason just given that I have come to see Christianity as a possible solution to the problems in Schopenhauer's system. Only by placing one's faith and hope in salvation in the hereafter, while in the meantime directing one's will to God, the transcendent, can one find any modicum of peace or bear living in this sad little world. If the will cannot be destroyed, then it must affirm something when it is denied. It can't very well affirm itself, for that is just the phenomenal world. So what does it affirm? God is the only answer I can give. Schopenhauer, in his immanentizing, never goes this far, but it doesn't follow that because the principle of sufficient reason is the basis of all the teloi we know of, that there isn't one for the will itself. Not to worry, for I have as of yet done nothing, nor changed my beliefs, but I do feel a pull in the direction just now sketched.

Curiosity, a fear of death, the aesthetic of a spontaneous explorer, and the attitude of "modest arrogance", i.e. I'm sticking around to see if anyone can convince me there's a reason to stick around. I'm also fairly healthy and young so I might as well enjoy it while it lasts. — darthbarracuda

Well, forgive me, but this sounds hypocritical and seems to commit the naturalistic fallacy I mentioned.

I also failed to mention that a major part of my "reason" to live has to do with a personal commitment to the welfare of sentient organisms, particularly non-human animals. I can't exactly help those in need if I'm rotting in the ground. — darthbarracuda

That sounds better.

It is to see it as the striving-but-for-nothing that it is. — schopenhauer1

I'm not so sure about this. It seems this way, but that doesn't mean it is. Schopenhauer, for example, is ambiguous on this point. Perhaps you have shifted to a more full blooded nihilism, though.

I don't think it's adequate to say all suffering arises through lack or want. Clearly getting impaled through the stomach will cause someone to suffer, but it's not as if the only thing going on is a desire to not be impaled. — darthbarracuda

In that case, being impaled causes one to lack health, indeed, to literally lack a stomach.

I don't see this as very satisfactory. Who gives a damn about the noumenon? — darthbarracuda

Well, I do. It's what enables the possibility of salvation. Against Schopenhauer, though, I would say that it can't be attained in this life.

To be short and sweet, then, I don't see any rational reason to continue living. It's absurd. — darthbarracuda

Absent the possibility of salvation, I would agree. So why do you continue living?

I'm not saying we should launch the nukes. — darthbarracuda

And neither would I. This is the side the pessimist should be on.

But certainly we can still approach an Armageddon with open arms. — darthbarracuda

It depends on what kind and how it occurs.

Technology has shown its ability to change something that seemed to be metaphysically un-changeable. — darthbarracuda

I don't think it has done any such thing.

Why are we choosing to be part of the maintenance crew? — schopenhauer1

Because people are going to procreate whether you like or not. It's all well and good to point out the contingency of civilization and our existence, but it's also objectively pointless. I agree with you, but the agreement changes nothing, for there isn't a live option between continuing and not continuing as a species that this thread is going to settle. The best we can do is make peace with this fact and try to live accordingly.

Yes, life is not a self-justifying peepshow, but that doesn't mean it can't be justified. Because it's not self-justifying, there needs to be an argument as to why suicide is not the most rational response to it. "Because it's painful and other people might feel sad" doesn't cut it, for to be opposed to something merely on instinctual or emotional grounds is to commit the naturalistic fallacy. Not everything painful need be bad, just as not everything pleasurable need be good.

Being, life — darthbarracuda

I've come to see this equation as problematic. Life is suffering, but all suffering arises through lack or want of a thing, and so life as a whole is a kind of non-being that lacks being.

That ideology is a tired and true safe bet against the impending fears of existential dread. — schopenhauer1

Yes, and underrated in this regard.

So Trump's a fascist. Got it.

Lol. It's still a red herring.

So? Trump didn't cause the recession. You're bringing up red herrings.

It's been a litany of errors and bad judgements. — Wayfarer

Yeah, but nothing approaching the apocalypse, so you can cool your jets.

In this century, nobody comes near Trump in those stakes. — Wayfarer

How could you possibly know that?