Final response from Pate - April 16 2003

PATE
My main contentions that I've defended during this debate are:

1) The enormous epistemic gulf between God and us makes it unwarranted for us to conclude that there are no sufficient reasons for suffering, even if we are unable to see those reasons.

2) We can find possible and plausible reasons for much of the suffering.


It's a remarkable fact that during this debate, Steven hasn't even tried to refute the basis of my first contention, that if omniscient God exists, then the enormous epistemic gulf between God and us exists. In all of his arguments, he has just assumed that we are in such epistemic position that we can evaluate God's reasons. But Steven is simply mistaken if he thinks that his arguments have any force without refuting this crucial point.

I could even end my post without commenting anything else. Steven's inability to refute my first contention is enough in itself to show that the problem of suffering gives no good grounds to deny God's existence.

Steven complained that some of my other arguments are inconsistent with my point about epistemic gulf. I'm going to address those complaints and show why Steven is mistaken. But the reader should notice that even if there really is some inconsistency, that is only a reason to throw away the inconsistent argument, not a reason to deny the obvious fact that if God exists, there's huge epistemic gulf between him and us.

As for my second contention, the possible reasons that we can find for even the most horrible cases of suffering, are speculative to some extent and they should not be taken as any absolute claim to knowledge. But if these reasons are plausible at all, that makes it even more obvious that the problem of suffering does not succeed as an atheistic argument. I don't think that Steven has been able to adeqately challenge my second contention either. For every instance of suffering that he has brought up, I've been able to find a possible and not very implausible reason.

CARR
He claims there is a being, who is keeping things from us for motives which we can never know about, and which we can never criticise. If there is such a being, then Pate cannot also claim to have reliable knowledge about that being. That being might be keeping back from Pate the fact that Pate does not have any reliable knowledge.

PATE
Omniscient and omnipotent God is able to give us reliable revelation. The issue is only whether we can trust God's revelation, when he has not chosen to reveal us everything that we may want to know. This is doesn't make the Christian hypothesis self-contradictory, but only shows that we can't be absolutely sure that the Christian hypothesis is true when it states that God has given us reliable revelation. But this is not enough to make it unwarranted to accept the Christian hypothesis.

CARR
This is especially true when what Pate claims is being kept from us is, among others, why this being allows millions of children to die horribly for no reason that we can see. If such a being is keeping back from us his motives for letting millions die, then there are very good reasons to distrust what that being says on other subjects.

PATE
The same argument that I've used before, can be applied here. We may not know God's reason for not revealing the purpose of those horrible deaths, but given the epistemic gulf, this is not a good reason to claim that God has no sufficient reason.

And furthermore, would it really make such a big difference if a person would get the knowledge that her child died because of a reason similar to the ones that I've speculated about? I doubt that it would lessen her sadness very much. The issues that a person faces when experiencing such a loss, are mostly emotional, not intellectual.

CARR
As I pointed out, God's talk about Heaven, salvation etc may be just God's way of getting us to behave better, just as we tell our children about Santa Claus as a way of getting them to behave better. Pate agrees that there is a much bigger gap between God and us than between us and our children.

Pate has never refuted this claim. He wrote 'I don't think that this is possible in context of the Christian hypothesis that we are evaluating. But OK, just for the sake of an argument, let us assume that this is true. So what? This is merely a red herring. It does nothing to help Steven to establish his contention that suffering gives good grounds to deny God's existence.'

'I don't think this is possible' is not a refutation. Pate simply asserts that what I said is not true, because it contradicts his beliefs. He gave no refutation at all. He cannot, because he is also arguing that there are many things his being has not told us.

PATE
Now Steven is misrepresenting me. Before I made that "I don't think this is possible" comment, I gave the answer:

"This is not possible if the God that we are talking about is the God of Christian Theism. It is against his nature to deceive us. But if Steven is postulating a God who is a deceiver, then it is questionable whether this God is morally perfect or loving either, and in that case, Steven has also eliminated any evidential value that he thinks suffering might have against the existence of God."

OK, now Steven may say that a Christian has no basis to believe that the Christian understanding of God is correct, because given the epistemic gulf, it's possible that God is only giving us an impression of being morally perfect. But that doesn't constitute much of an argument for the claim that God really is doing what Steven suggests. There has to be a presumption of truthtelling in interpersonal relationships. If a Christian has reasons to believe in omniscient God who has given revelation in the Bible, then it has to be the defaut position with regard to him that his revelation is reliable, even if it must be admitted that it's possible that it's deceptive.

CARR
All Pate could do was claim that I have set up a red herring by pointing out that, for all Pate claims we know, talk of Heaven might be pure deception by Pate's secretive being (and Pate is stridently adamant that this being is keeping secrets from us.)

PATE
Well, first of all, I find it somewhat disturbing that Steven talks about God's "keeping secrets", like God had some kind of moral obligation to reveal us everything that he knows, not that we even could receive that "everything", because our minds are limited. But with regard to the revelation that God has given, the presumption of truthtelling is justified here as much (and actually more) as with any other interpersonal relationships.

CARR
So after claiming that it was a mere red herring that talk of Heaven could be pure deception, Pate goes on to make Heaven an important part of his case.

PATE
The fact that we can't decisively disprove the hypothesis that God is deceiving us about heaven, is not enough to make the Christian hypothesis (which includes Heaven) unwarranted. Further evidence would be required.

Steven's claim was red herring because the debate topic is not whether Christians belief has sufficient warrant, but whether the problem of suffering gives good grounds to deny the existence of God as He is described in Christian doctrine. Because of Steven's persistence not to give up this red herring, I've nevertheless answered these claims.

CARR
I certainly would be interested if he can find a passage which says that salvation comes to all who die young from illness.

PATE
I don't know of a passage that directly says this, but this could still be argued on Scriptural basis.

CARR
He might like to tell us how the child will ever achieve this so vital moral and spiritual growth if there is no suffering in Heaven. Or will Pate now claim that suffering is not necessary for moral and spiritual growth, or that moral and spiritual growth is not so vital after all?

PATE
Steven demonstrates again his lack of ability to think in tones other than black and white. If there are some children who get to heaven after dying at young age even if they don't grow spiritually and morally, it doesn't follow that this kind of growth can't be important for heaven (defined as a state of being in where humans are freely and eternally close to God without rebelling) to be possible.

CARR
Amazing that Pate thinks that if a child dies of illness, that is a price worth paying if it helps his moral and spiritual growth.

PATE
If more people will get to heaven in a world where there are severe sufferings like that, then it is a price worth paying.

CARR
I also found it amazing that Pate is claiming that it would have been wrong for his being to interfere with the Nazi's freedom to gas and work to death millions of Jews and Gypsies.

PATE
It may very well be that mere interference with Nazi freedom wouldn't have been sufficient. If God would have prevented by God, it could be that something comparable to it, or even worse, would have happened later. The root of the problem is not in any separate events, but in human hearts. Therefore God could only guarantee that such horrible events like Holocaust wouldn't happen, if he'd continuously intervene when humans were abusing their freedom. But that would make it impossible for humans to be morally responsible individuals. We would be like God's pets.

CARR
The sentence makes no sense. A world cannot both be optimal and not optimal, but from what I could make of it ... Pate states clearly that a world where the Holocaust happened was optimal for God! I also think Pate is claiming that we humans could have stopped the Holocaust , but his omnipotent being was powerless , once the Nazis had freely decided to murder millions.

PATE
A world can be both optimal and not optimal, if the word 'optimal' is used in two different senses. That was my intention. The idea was that a world cannot be optimal if it doesn't contain creatures with free will. And if there are creatures with free will, then it's by definition impossible for God to force them to exactly the right ways of excercising their will, because then it wouldn't be free will. Therefore, the world could be completely optimal only if humans always chose to use their freedom for good and never for evil. But even though we haven't chosen to do so, God has made the world such that the total balance of good and evil resulting from free human choices, is as good as is possible without preventing our (ab)use of freedom.

CARR
To sum up, Pate cannot make his epistemic gulf defense work consistently, and it leads to horrible moral consequences, such that Pate thinks the lives of children can be cut short if it helps Pate to grow morally and spiritually.

PATE
Steven's talk about specifically my spiritual and moral growth, instead of the wider effect on humanity, is obviously a straw man.

And as a careful reader knows, I've never said that we should make such decisions as cutting short the lives of children. I've said exactly the opposite. But Steven hasn't shown any implausibility in the idea that a world where there's certain amount of severe suffering and humans are able to freely do their best to minize the sufferings, can be a world that leads to such moral and spiritual growth that would be lacking if there were no severe sufferings.


Steven has failed to show that the problem of suffering gives good grounds to deny God's existence.