Atheists can see that there is pointless suffering in the world, which an all-good God could reduce. Pate claims that we don't know what an all-good God would do. All I can do is repeat the common-sense saying that if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it is a duck. Of course, it might be that for some reason way beyond our mortal , limited comprehension, God has decided to disguise some chickens as ducks, for reasons which we can never understand, but the burden of proof is not on the people who call a duck a duck.
It is for Pate to show that the common-sense view of the world is wrong, and that there really is an all-good God who allows childhood cancer, and does not help doctors to find cures. I content myself with pointing out that curing childhood cancer is good, as even Pate agrees, so why does God not help doctors to find the cures? Why does God not help doctors research areas which will lead to a quick cure?
Does Pate really think God finds it more desirable that doctors have the freedom to do medical research in areas which might never lead to results, rather than there curing cancer more quickly?
Pate claims it is good to cure childhood cancer and claims we do not know why God does not think it good to help doctors cure childhood cancer. There is a huge contradiction in his views.
He claims that we have sufficient knowledge of what is the morally right course of behaviour. Then , by his own logic, we know that it is wrong for God to pass by on the other side.
Pate is being very inconsistent, as deep down he knows that his 'epistemic gulf' defence doesn't work. Indeed, he claims that we really do have knowledge and he has clearly stated that this epistemic gulf has been reliably crossed. How can he state that there is a vast epistemic gulf and then claim that this epistemic gulf has been reliably crossed? He has destroyed his own case.
Similarly, Pate claims that we do not know what level of suffering is 'optimal' and he also claims to know that the suffering in the Holocaust was not optimal and should have been stopped by us.
Can Pate not see how inconsistent he is? He claims we have no rational grounds to say that any world , even a world with a hyper-Holocaust , contains unnecessary suffering. So where are his rational grounds to say that the suffering in the Holocaust was not necessary? Why does he feel the Holocaust should have been stopped when he claims that the suffering was necessary, and he claims it is irrational to say the suffering was not necessary?
I asked Pate if it was right for God to treat us as pawns in chess, sacrificing us for unknown reasons (this was his analogy). Pate said it was morally right for God to sacrifice some of us without even our knowledge, let alone consent, but, inconsistent as ever, said that the ultimate responsibility was ours.
No, Pate, it is you who claim that God is masterminding our suffering, and moving us around the celestial board, in the way a grandmaster masterminds the loss and sacrifices of his pieces. The pawns do not take responsibility for moves that somebody else is making.
The difference is that pawns in chess are made of wood and feel nothing, while the children who get cancer , feel and suffer. Perhaps Pate can tell us how a child can grow into a moral and spiritual human being , when she dies of cancer at the age of three? How much moral and spiritual growth had Pate done by the age of three? If Pate wants children to be morally responsible beings, then why does God allow some of them to die with cancer before reaching the age of moral responsibility?
Thursday, 11 December 2008
Wednesday, 10 December 2008
Pate - Round 5 - April 10 2003
PATE
Previously, I said that I'm surprised to see how hard it is for Steven to understand the points I've made. Well, I may not be so surprised this time, as I've realized by now that Steven either is not able or not willing to seriously interact with the points that I've presented. But if I'm not surprised, I'm somewhat disappointed. As the debate has progressed, it has become more and more evident that the misrepresentations and straw men that Steven has made, as well as his ignoring my responses, are not the result of his failure to understand my position, but rather they are deliberate debater's tricks.
Before I deal with the points that Steven raised, I want to mention something that may be relevant when evaluating Steven's latest reply. Some days before he posted his reply, he started a thread about this debate at Internet Infidels discussion forum. That thread can be found at http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...5&pagenumber=1
I don't know how the readers of this debate will interpret his first post to that thread, but it seems to me that he was asking comments about possible ways to respond. He gave a link to the second page of this debate thread, adding only that "Page 1 can also be read if wished." After that, he just quoted certain things that I said in my previous post. I think it's quite reasonable to interpret this as a request for helpful comments. I don't have anything against this procedure as such. I think it's completely acceptable to request comments and hints. But when I saw that Steven just chose to ignore in his reply some of the very points that he quoted from me at Infidels forum, possibly because he didn't receive the help that he was hoping, it's hard for me to think that he hasn't realized their relevance to the central issues of this debate. If my interpretation is entirely wrong, Steven is free to correct me. But I don't think that it's entirely wrong.
I'll now evaluate Steven's latest response and show why he hasn't presented a successful case and why his claims that I've contradicted myself are false. This will be quite easy task for me, because in many cases, all that's required is repeating a point that I've already made before in this debate and which Steven has ignored.
CARR
Atheists can see that there is pointless suffering in the world, which an all-good God could reduce. Pate claims that we don't know what an all-good God would do. All I can do is repeat the common-sense saying that if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it is a duck. Of course, it might be that for some reason way beyond our mortal , limited comprehension, God has decided to disguise some chickens as ducks, for reasons which we can never understand, but the burden of proof is not on the people who call a duck a duck.
PATE
As I've repeated through this debate, the fact that God is omniscient and we are very far indeed from the status omniscience, is enough to show that our basis to think that God has no sufficient reason to allow some instance of evil, is extremely weak. The fact that we can't find a reason for some suffering is not good evidence against the hypothesis that God has reasons for allowing such suffering. This is so because of the enormous epistemic distance that exists between God and us. Steven has done nothing to show that this kind of epistemic gulf does not exist if omniscient God exists. He has just continued to assert that atheists are able to know whether or not omniscient God could have sufficient reasons for allowing the sufferings. But I'm not going to accept his assertion, and I will argue that no rational person should accept it, if it is not also shown that the epistemic gulf that I've mentioned does not exist if God exists.
CARR
curing childhood cancer is good, as even Pate agrees, so why does God not help doctors to find the cures? Why does God not help doctors research areas which will lead to a quick cure?
PATE
I only need to repeat what I have already said (and what Steven has already quoted at Infidels forum). It's plausible to think that if there was no severe suffering at all, or if there was extremely small amount of such suffering, then less people would experience the moral and spiritual growth that they in fact do experience. This is important, especially because God's purposes, according to the Christian view, are not limited to our mortal existence in this world. Is this speculative? Yes, it is, to some extent. But it's not implausible. So, why would the severe sufferings like childhood cancer be good evidence against God's existence, especially given the epistemic gulf between God and us? Steven has not given acceptable answer.
CARR
Pate claims it is good to cure childhood cancer and claims we do not know why God does not think it good to help doctors cure childhood cancer. There is a huge contradiction in his views.
PATE
I've explained this before (an Steven has quoted this at Infidels forum), but I'll explain it again. The free human efforts to cure childhood cancer can also contribute to the human moral and spiritual growth, and bring people closer to each other. So, there's no implausibility in the idea that a world where there's severe suffering and where humans can significantly reduce that suffering by their free efforts, is optimal for God's purposes.
The Christian basis for thinking that it is good to help a fellow human being (by efforts to cure childhood cancer, and by helping in many other ways) is the fact that this is what the Bible instructs us to do. It is not a fallacy of argumentation for me to appeal to the Bible here, because Steven is supposed to try to show why suffering gives good evidence against God as portrayed in Christian world-view, and it is of course part of Christian worldview, that Bible contains God's revelation to us.
He claims that we have sufficient knowledge of what is the morally right course of behaviour. Then , by his own logic, we know that it is wrong for God to pass by on the other side.
I've mentioned this before before (and Steven has quoted this at Infidels forum), but I'll mention it again. The moral roles between God and humans are different. God has perfect knowledge, including foreknowledge. Therefore, he's in the position where he can make warranted decision of which sufferings he'll allow because of the greater goods. We lack this kind of knowledge and therefore it is best for us to follow God's instructions, which tell us to reduce the sufferings in the world. This can plausibly be thought to be part of God's optimal plan for humanity, which produces best results available without compromising our freedom too much. But because of the different moral roles that I've just explained, we don't have basis to judge that it's wrong for God to allow sufferings.
CARR
he claims that we really do have knowledge and he has clearly stated that this epistemic gulf has been reliably crossed. How can he state that there is a vast epistemic gulf and then claim that this epistemic gulf has been reliably crossed? He has destroyed his own case.
PATE
No, I haven't destroyed my case. Steven has just destroyed one more straw man that he has himself built, that's all. From the fact that God is able to reliably cross the epistemic gulf and give us revelation, which can be our basis for knowing how we can advance God's plan, it doesn't follow that we can know those parts of God's plan that haven't been revealed to us.
CARR
Pate claims that we do not know what level of suffering is 'optimal' and he also claims to know that the suffering in the Holocaust was not optimal and should have been stopped by us.
PATE
We can know that holocaust was wrong, because it was against what God has revealed to us about the morally right course of behaviour for us. But because Holocaust was caused by free human actions, God could only have stopped it by severely limiting our freedom, which would not be a good thing. So, once again, there's no implausibility in the idea that actualizing this world where Holocaust happened, was optimal for God in the sense that in this world, the total amount of suffering is as good as can be achieved without God's limiting severely our freedom, but not optimal in the sense that if large enough number of humans would have freely chosen the morally right course of behaviour often enough, then preventing Holocaust without compromising human freedom could have been possible. The failure in a situation like this, is on the part of humans, not on the part of God. Is this scenario speculative? Yes, it is. But is it implausible? I don't think so. And Steven has not given good reason to think so.
CARR
He claims we have no rational grounds to say that any world , even a world with a hyper-Holocaust , contains unnecessary suffering. So where are his rational grounds to say that the suffering in the Holocaust was not necessary? Why does he feel the Holocaust should have been stopped when he claims that the suffering was necessary, and he claims it is irrational to say the suffering was not necessary?
PATE
Like I explained above, the suffering was necessary because it could not be prevented by God without compromising human freedom, if it was the case that large enough number of humans through history did not choose to be moral enough and make the world such a place where horrible things like the Holocaust do not happen.
CARR
Pate said it was morally right for God to sacrifice some of us without even our knowledge, let alone consent, but, inconsistent as ever, said that the ultimate responsibility was ours
PATE
If many of the sufferings are caused by our free decisions, and those sufferings that are not caused by our free decisions, are needed to optimize the human moral and spiritual growth to the extent that it can be optimized without compromising our freedom, then it is indeed the case that the ultimate responsibility is ours, because even the sufferings that belong to the latter category, are needed because humans would not freely choose the courses of action that lead to such moral and spiritual growth in absence of those sufferings, but they do freely choose so in the presence of such sufferings.
CARR
Perhaps Pate can tell us how a child can grow into a moral and spiritual human being , when she dies of cancer at the age of three? The difference is that pawns in chess are made of wood and feel nothing, while the children who get cancer , feel and suffer. Perhaps Pate can tell us how a child can grow into a moral and spiritual human being , when she dies of cancer at the age of three? How much moral and spiritual growth had Pate done by the age of three? If Pate wants children to be morally responsible beings, then why does God allow some of them to die with cancer before reaching the age of moral responsibility?
PATE
Steven knows perfectly well that I did not mean that the moral and spiritual growth in these cases must happen to the child herself. I was talking about the total amount of moral and spiritual growth in the world. Of course, it seems very sad that some children die at such a young age, but God is more than capable of adequately compensating this to them after their death.
In conclusion, Steven has failed to show that we are in a position where we can competently evaluate, whether or not God has sufficient reasons for any instance of evil for which we can't find any reason. Steven has also failed to show, that we actually can't find possible and plausible reasons for suffering. It seems clear that the problem of suffering doesn't give good grounds to deny God's existence.
Previously, I said that I'm surprised to see how hard it is for Steven to understand the points I've made. Well, I may not be so surprised this time, as I've realized by now that Steven either is not able or not willing to seriously interact with the points that I've presented. But if I'm not surprised, I'm somewhat disappointed. As the debate has progressed, it has become more and more evident that the misrepresentations and straw men that Steven has made, as well as his ignoring my responses, are not the result of his failure to understand my position, but rather they are deliberate debater's tricks.
Before I deal with the points that Steven raised, I want to mention something that may be relevant when evaluating Steven's latest reply. Some days before he posted his reply, he started a thread about this debate at Internet Infidels discussion forum. That thread can be found at http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...5&pagenumber=1
I don't know how the readers of this debate will interpret his first post to that thread, but it seems to me that he was asking comments about possible ways to respond. He gave a link to the second page of this debate thread, adding only that "Page 1 can also be read if wished." After that, he just quoted certain things that I said in my previous post. I think it's quite reasonable to interpret this as a request for helpful comments. I don't have anything against this procedure as such. I think it's completely acceptable to request comments and hints. But when I saw that Steven just chose to ignore in his reply some of the very points that he quoted from me at Infidels forum, possibly because he didn't receive the help that he was hoping, it's hard for me to think that he hasn't realized their relevance to the central issues of this debate. If my interpretation is entirely wrong, Steven is free to correct me. But I don't think that it's entirely wrong.
I'll now evaluate Steven's latest response and show why he hasn't presented a successful case and why his claims that I've contradicted myself are false. This will be quite easy task for me, because in many cases, all that's required is repeating a point that I've already made before in this debate and which Steven has ignored.
CARR
Atheists can see that there is pointless suffering in the world, which an all-good God could reduce. Pate claims that we don't know what an all-good God would do. All I can do is repeat the common-sense saying that if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it is a duck. Of course, it might be that for some reason way beyond our mortal , limited comprehension, God has decided to disguise some chickens as ducks, for reasons which we can never understand, but the burden of proof is not on the people who call a duck a duck.
PATE
As I've repeated through this debate, the fact that God is omniscient and we are very far indeed from the status omniscience, is enough to show that our basis to think that God has no sufficient reason to allow some instance of evil, is extremely weak. The fact that we can't find a reason for some suffering is not good evidence against the hypothesis that God has reasons for allowing such suffering. This is so because of the enormous epistemic distance that exists between God and us. Steven has done nothing to show that this kind of epistemic gulf does not exist if omniscient God exists. He has just continued to assert that atheists are able to know whether or not omniscient God could have sufficient reasons for allowing the sufferings. But I'm not going to accept his assertion, and I will argue that no rational person should accept it, if it is not also shown that the epistemic gulf that I've mentioned does not exist if God exists.
CARR
curing childhood cancer is good, as even Pate agrees, so why does God not help doctors to find the cures? Why does God not help doctors research areas which will lead to a quick cure?
PATE
I only need to repeat what I have already said (and what Steven has already quoted at Infidels forum). It's plausible to think that if there was no severe suffering at all, or if there was extremely small amount of such suffering, then less people would experience the moral and spiritual growth that they in fact do experience. This is important, especially because God's purposes, according to the Christian view, are not limited to our mortal existence in this world. Is this speculative? Yes, it is, to some extent. But it's not implausible. So, why would the severe sufferings like childhood cancer be good evidence against God's existence, especially given the epistemic gulf between God and us? Steven has not given acceptable answer.
CARR
Pate claims it is good to cure childhood cancer and claims we do not know why God does not think it good to help doctors cure childhood cancer. There is a huge contradiction in his views.
PATE
I've explained this before (an Steven has quoted this at Infidels forum), but I'll explain it again. The free human efforts to cure childhood cancer can also contribute to the human moral and spiritual growth, and bring people closer to each other. So, there's no implausibility in the idea that a world where there's severe suffering and where humans can significantly reduce that suffering by their free efforts, is optimal for God's purposes.
The Christian basis for thinking that it is good to help a fellow human being (by efforts to cure childhood cancer, and by helping in many other ways) is the fact that this is what the Bible instructs us to do. It is not a fallacy of argumentation for me to appeal to the Bible here, because Steven is supposed to try to show why suffering gives good evidence against God as portrayed in Christian world-view, and it is of course part of Christian worldview, that Bible contains God's revelation to us.
He claims that we have sufficient knowledge of what is the morally right course of behaviour. Then , by his own logic, we know that it is wrong for God to pass by on the other side.
I've mentioned this before before (and Steven has quoted this at Infidels forum), but I'll mention it again. The moral roles between God and humans are different. God has perfect knowledge, including foreknowledge. Therefore, he's in the position where he can make warranted decision of which sufferings he'll allow because of the greater goods. We lack this kind of knowledge and therefore it is best for us to follow God's instructions, which tell us to reduce the sufferings in the world. This can plausibly be thought to be part of God's optimal plan for humanity, which produces best results available without compromising our freedom too much. But because of the different moral roles that I've just explained, we don't have basis to judge that it's wrong for God to allow sufferings.
CARR
he claims that we really do have knowledge and he has clearly stated that this epistemic gulf has been reliably crossed. How can he state that there is a vast epistemic gulf and then claim that this epistemic gulf has been reliably crossed? He has destroyed his own case.
PATE
No, I haven't destroyed my case. Steven has just destroyed one more straw man that he has himself built, that's all. From the fact that God is able to reliably cross the epistemic gulf and give us revelation, which can be our basis for knowing how we can advance God's plan, it doesn't follow that we can know those parts of God's plan that haven't been revealed to us.
CARR
Pate claims that we do not know what level of suffering is 'optimal' and he also claims to know that the suffering in the Holocaust was not optimal and should have been stopped by us.
PATE
We can know that holocaust was wrong, because it was against what God has revealed to us about the morally right course of behaviour for us. But because Holocaust was caused by free human actions, God could only have stopped it by severely limiting our freedom, which would not be a good thing. So, once again, there's no implausibility in the idea that actualizing this world where Holocaust happened, was optimal for God in the sense that in this world, the total amount of suffering is as good as can be achieved without God's limiting severely our freedom, but not optimal in the sense that if large enough number of humans would have freely chosen the morally right course of behaviour often enough, then preventing Holocaust without compromising human freedom could have been possible. The failure in a situation like this, is on the part of humans, not on the part of God. Is this scenario speculative? Yes, it is. But is it implausible? I don't think so. And Steven has not given good reason to think so.
CARR
He claims we have no rational grounds to say that any world , even a world with a hyper-Holocaust , contains unnecessary suffering. So where are his rational grounds to say that the suffering in the Holocaust was not necessary? Why does he feel the Holocaust should have been stopped when he claims that the suffering was necessary, and he claims it is irrational to say the suffering was not necessary?
PATE
Like I explained above, the suffering was necessary because it could not be prevented by God without compromising human freedom, if it was the case that large enough number of humans through history did not choose to be moral enough and make the world such a place where horrible things like the Holocaust do not happen.
CARR
Pate said it was morally right for God to sacrifice some of us without even our knowledge, let alone consent, but, inconsistent as ever, said that the ultimate responsibility was ours
PATE
If many of the sufferings are caused by our free decisions, and those sufferings that are not caused by our free decisions, are needed to optimize the human moral and spiritual growth to the extent that it can be optimized without compromising our freedom, then it is indeed the case that the ultimate responsibility is ours, because even the sufferings that belong to the latter category, are needed because humans would not freely choose the courses of action that lead to such moral and spiritual growth in absence of those sufferings, but they do freely choose so in the presence of such sufferings.
CARR
Perhaps Pate can tell us how a child can grow into a moral and spiritual human being , when she dies of cancer at the age of three? The difference is that pawns in chess are made of wood and feel nothing, while the children who get cancer , feel and suffer. Perhaps Pate can tell us how a child can grow into a moral and spiritual human being , when she dies of cancer at the age of three? How much moral and spiritual growth had Pate done by the age of three? If Pate wants children to be morally responsible beings, then why does God allow some of them to die with cancer before reaching the age of moral responsibility?
PATE
Steven knows perfectly well that I did not mean that the moral and spiritual growth in these cases must happen to the child herself. I was talking about the total amount of moral and spiritual growth in the world. Of course, it seems very sad that some children die at such a young age, but God is more than capable of adequately compensating this to them after their death.
In conclusion, Steven has failed to show that we are in a position where we can competently evaluate, whether or not God has sufficient reasons for any instance of evil for which we can't find any reason. Steven has also failed to show, that we actually can't find possible and plausible reasons for suffering. It seems clear that the problem of suffering doesn't give good grounds to deny God's existence.
Monday, 8 December 2008
Carr - Round 6 April 12 2003
Pate continues to be extremely inconsistent. I think he is genuinely unable to see how he is wrecking his own case.
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.
So his claims that there is a huge epistemic gulf, and that this huge epistemic gulf has been reliably crossed are self-contradictory. If a being is keeping back very important knowledge from us, then we cannot say that what that being has revealed to us is the last word on the subject. By definition it cannot be the last word.
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.
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.
In fact, Pate has dug himself into such a hole with his repeated claims that there are many things we don't know about his being, that even if Pate showed that we can't find a reason for such deception, that would not help his case at all.
Pate wrote 'The fact that we can't find a reason for some suffering is not good evidence against the hypothesis that God has reasons for allowing such suffering.'
So the fact that we can't find a reason for some deception is not good evidence against the hypothesis that God has reasons for allowing such deception.' This is Pate's own logic!
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.)
Of course, Pate would not be Pate if he did not go on to contradict himself.
After conceding that he has no way of showing that there are no reasons why his being would not deceive us about Heaven, Pate wrote about a child who dies of cancer at the age of three 'Of course, it seems very sad that some children die at such a young age, but God is more than capable of adequately compensating this to them after their death.'
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.
So Pate now has to show that there is a Heaven (after claiming that I had set up red herrings by talking about Heaven). He also has to show that children who die of cancer at an early age go to Heaven - a claim that he will never find in his so-called reliable revelation. I certainly would be interested if he can find a passage which says that salvation comes to all who die young from illness.
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's full paragraph read 'Steven knows perfectly well that I did not mean that the moral and spiritual growth in these cases must happen to the child herself. I was talking about the total amount of moral and spiritual growth in the world. Of course, it seems very sad that some children die at such a young age, but God is more than capable of adequately compensating this to them after their death.'
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.
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 wrote 'So, once again, there's no implausibility in the idea that actualizing this world where Holocaust happened, was optimal for God in the sense that in this world, the total amount of suffering is as good as can be achieved without God's limiting severely our freedom, but not optimal in the sense that if large enough number of humans would have freely chosen the morally right course of behaviour often enough, then preventing Holocaust without compromising human freedom could have been possible.'
The sentence makes no sense. A world cannot both be optimal and not optimal, but from what I could make of it (and English is not Pate's mother tongue - I am not criticising), 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.
Perhaps I will be saved after all. I just have to tell God that I have freely decided to enter Heaven, despite not having Jesus as my Saviour , and God will be unable to stop me without severely limiting my freedom.
To sum up, Pate cannot make his epistemic gulf defence 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.
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.
So his claims that there is a huge epistemic gulf, and that this huge epistemic gulf has been reliably crossed are self-contradictory. If a being is keeping back very important knowledge from us, then we cannot say that what that being has revealed to us is the last word on the subject. By definition it cannot be the last word.
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.
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.
In fact, Pate has dug himself into such a hole with his repeated claims that there are many things we don't know about his being, that even if Pate showed that we can't find a reason for such deception, that would not help his case at all.
Pate wrote 'The fact that we can't find a reason for some suffering is not good evidence against the hypothesis that God has reasons for allowing such suffering.'
So the fact that we can't find a reason for some deception is not good evidence against the hypothesis that God has reasons for allowing such deception.' This is Pate's own logic!
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.)
Of course, Pate would not be Pate if he did not go on to contradict himself.
After conceding that he has no way of showing that there are no reasons why his being would not deceive us about Heaven, Pate wrote about a child who dies of cancer at the age of three 'Of course, it seems very sad that some children die at such a young age, but God is more than capable of adequately compensating this to them after their death.'
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.
So Pate now has to show that there is a Heaven (after claiming that I had set up red herrings by talking about Heaven). He also has to show that children who die of cancer at an early age go to Heaven - a claim that he will never find in his so-called reliable revelation. I certainly would be interested if he can find a passage which says that salvation comes to all who die young from illness.
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's full paragraph read 'Steven knows perfectly well that I did not mean that the moral and spiritual growth in these cases must happen to the child herself. I was talking about the total amount of moral and spiritual growth in the world. Of course, it seems very sad that some children die at such a young age, but God is more than capable of adequately compensating this to them after their death.'
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.
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 wrote 'So, once again, there's no implausibility in the idea that actualizing this world where Holocaust happened, was optimal for God in the sense that in this world, the total amount of suffering is as good as can be achieved without God's limiting severely our freedom, but not optimal in the sense that if large enough number of humans would have freely chosen the morally right course of behaviour often enough, then preventing Holocaust without compromising human freedom could have been possible.'
The sentence makes no sense. A world cannot both be optimal and not optimal, but from what I could make of it (and English is not Pate's mother tongue - I am not criticising), 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.
Perhaps I will be saved after all. I just have to tell God that I have freely decided to enter Heaven, despite not having Jesus as my Saviour , and God will be unable to stop me without severely limiting my freedom.
To sum up, Pate cannot make his epistemic gulf defence 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.
Sunday, 7 December 2008
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.
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.
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