Since God allows evil, it logically and necessarily follows that...
(a) A greater good will certainly ensue from that evil
or
(b) A greater good can (potentially) ensue from that evil
I would imagine that the answer is (a), but I want to be absolutely certain on this point, as the implications are quite profound and far-reaching, I think. Please confirm...thanks! :)
A). But "A" is not always evident in this life, but it will be at the final judgement, when all of God's providence and graces are made manifest.
Why is one of these logically necessary?
Quote from: Kreuzritter on January 24, 2019, 01:52:38 AM
Why is one of these logically necessary?
Well the only alternative that I see is:
(c) No greater good can possibly ensue from the evil
Some would say that (c) is not a logically-possible option, given the assumption that a good God cannot allow evil for the sake of the evil alone and the assumption that a reasonable God cannot allow evil for no reason whatsoever. I'm not sure whether these assumptions are solid, but if they are then (a) and (b) are the only two options.
I see a potential problem with (A)... If God lacks no good in Himself, who is ontologically equivalent to all the good that exists, then how can the amount of good increase? It can't. But if evil serves the purpose of bringing about a greater good, then we get the rather arresting result that God's integral goodness is wound up with the existence of evil, which seems absurd on its face.
Let me rephrase: If evil must bring about a greater good, then it seems as though evil must exist, so that the greater good that the evil brings can be realized.
No greater good can amount in God; but His creatures can become better and more perfect.
Quote from: Daniel on January 24, 2019, 04:56:50 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on January 24, 2019, 01:52:38 AM
Why is one of these logically necessary?
Well the only alternative that I see is:
(c) No greater good can possibly ensue from the evil
Some would say that (c) is not a logically-possible option, given the assumption that a good God cannot allow evil for the sake of the evil alone and the assumption that a reasonable God cannot allow evil for no reason whatsoever. I'm not sure whether these assumptions are solid, but if they are then (a) and (b) are the only two options.
I don't see how you've arrived at the trichotomy without imposing further assumptions. For starters, in all these discussions there's no clarification of the precise meaning of "good".
Take St. Thomas:
QuoteI answer that, Goodness and being are really the same, and differ only in idea
and
QuoteWe must therefore say that every action has goodness, in so far as it has being; whereas it is lacking in goodness, in so far as it is lacking in something that is due to its fulness of being; and thus it is said to be evil
Sorry, but doesn't follow at all from God "not lacking in anything due to the fulness of being" that he would not allow any action "lacking in something due to the fulness of being", unless x,y,z.
Quote from: Michael Wilson on January 24, 2019, 07:17:30 AM
No greater good can amount in God
Then how can evil exist? ...see below...
Prior to God creating anything, no evil existed. God already, and always, possessed and possesses every good. Then, it is claimed, God allowed evil within the matrix of His creation, in order that a greater good would ensue. But if that is true, then the amount of ontological goodness increased, which is impossible for God....which calls into question this whole idea that God allows evil for a greater good. This line of reasoning suggests that God is determined to some extent by the existence of evil, which is absurd.
Where is my mistake?
Quote from: St. Columba on January 24, 2019, 11:06:37 AM
Prior to God creating anything, no evil existed. God already, and always, possessed and possesses every good. Then, it is claimed, God allowed evil within the matrix of His creation, in order that a greater good would ensue. But if that is true, then the amount of ontological goodness increased, which is impossible for God....which calls into question this whole idea that God allows evil for a greater good. This line of reasoning suggests that God is determined to some extent by the existence of evil, which is absurd.
Where is my mistake?
The first mistake is in speaking of concepts that aren't well-defined and at the same time to expecting to be able to rigorously derive logical implications from them. You can see how this results in paradoxes within mathematics, say, with "sets" that are "defined" by some nebulous property.
"Good", and also quantifications of it like "every good", "greater good" and the "amount of goodness" that can "increase" are the culprits here.
We can meaningfully speak of goodness in a manner that points to the actual existence of the mysterious divine, in which case we're bound to the language of myth, mysticism, and poetry, or we can try to dissect it and conceptualise a mere skeleton of its dead corpse which we can then logically analyse like doctors at an autopsy. But, whatever the Stoics might have thought, we can't do both at the same time.
St. C.
The amount of good didn't increase when God created the world, that would entail that creatures add something to God, which is impossible.
But a creature can always increase in goodness and perfection, because only God is absolute goodness and perfection.
Quote from: Michael Wilson on January 24, 2019, 02:33:30 PM
St. C.
The amount of good didn't increase when God created the world, that would entail that creatures add something to God, which is impossible.
Thanks Michael. But how do you reconcile what you wrote above (good does not increase) with option A you picked above (A greater good will certainly ensue from that evil)?
S.C.
I don't see the conflict, to wit: God creates all things good; but creatures don't add anything to God, rather God to diffuse and share His goodness with creatures, created them. God can get by and is perfectly happy without creatures as He was for all eternity, but creatures need God as their final end and as their true source of happiness and beatitude. The evil that we see in the world comes from creatures turning away from their final and true end towards a created good.
Quote from: St. Columba on January 24, 2019, 05:03:25 PM
Quote from: Michael Wilson on January 24, 2019, 02:33:30 PM
St. C.
The amount of good didn't increase when God created the world, that would entail that creatures add something to God, which is impossible.
Thanks Michael. But how do you reconcile what you wrote above (good does not increase) with option A you picked above (A greater good will certainly ensue from that evil)?
God's goodness is infinite, and nothing can increase it. God IS goodness. But God created OTHER good things OUTSIDE Himself, in particular man, and their goodness CAN increase. God's goodness (God) is the SOURCE of their goodness, not one piece of it.
God becoming one of US and Redeeming US and giving us the chance of Salvation (union with Him) is the infinitely greater goodness that God gave as an answer to the great evil of the Fall and the Crucifixion and our sin and suffering. I think that is the best example of the "greater good" that comes from evil (as an answer to evil) that there is. "O Felix Culpa - O Happy Fault that merited such and so great a Redeemer!"
I think I might see the conflict, and I think I also see the problem.
Conflict: If God already possesses all goods, then there can be no good that God does not already possess. And we know that God possesses all of creation. But if there can be no good that God does not already possess, then no greater good can ever be brought into creation either, since God would then possess the greater good which He currently does not possess.
Problem: You're equivocating the word 'possess'. When we speak of God 'possessing' all goods, we speak of His nature (essence? substance?): God is pure act; He cannot become better than He already is. But when we speak of God 'possessing' the cosmos, we speak of Him with regard to His lordship/ownership of all creatures, i.e. we speak of His accidents (His habit, or maybe His relation). However, theologians say that God has no accidents. So I don't know.
St. Paul says, "And we know that to them that love God, all things work together unto good, to such as, according to his purpose, are called to be saints." (Rom 8:28)
St. Thomas says, "As Augustine says (Enchiridion xi): "Since God is the highest good, He would not allow any evil to exist in His works, unless His omnipotence and goodness were such as to bring good even out of evil." This is part of the infinite goodness of God, that He should allow evil to exist, and out of it produce good."
God's Goodness is such that He can produce good even from the evil we do. How He repaired the fall of Adam by His wondrous Redemption in Christ is the best example, as was said. Careful attention should also be paid to the Catholic doctrine of Merit. We merit when we courageously repay good for evil, even terrible evil, as St. Peter admonishes us (1 Pet 4:16). So God did not immediately banish evil, but allows it for a while, that His Saints may become still more glorious and virtuous by combating them and victoriously triumphing over them, among other reasons. So temporary evil serves a mysterious purpose; again, not that God wills it, but that, while it exists, all have either to choice to become ensnared in it to their own destruction, or profit from it by co-operating with grace and resisting it heroically, and striving to repay good for evil, to be more like God,
"[44] But I say to you, Love your enemies: do good to them that hate you: and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you: [45] That you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven, who maketh his sun to rise upon the good, and bad, and raineth upon the just and the unjust. [46] For if you love them that love you, what reward shall you have? do not even the publicans this? [47] And if you salute your brethren only, what do you more? do not also the heathens this? [48] Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect. (Mat 5:44-48)
.
Quote from: Non Nobis on January 24, 2019, 09:31:20 PM
God's goodness is infinite, and nothing can increase it. God IS goodness. But God created OTHER good things OUTSIDE Himself, in particular man, and their goodness CAN increase. God's goodness (God) is the SOURCE of their goodness, not one piece of it.
Thanks NN for your kind post! You are one of my favorite posters! Thank you.
You said above: God IS goodness. Are you saying that God is ontologically equivalent to goodness? If so, therein lies the crux of the issue, as Daniel more or less zeroed in on.
If God IS goodness, then a greater good cannot ensue from evil. First because God cannot become greater by any cause. Second, and even more repugnant, God cannot become greater because of the antithesis of being, namely evil.
God is identical to His attributes. So, if God is good, or possesses goodness, then He is the fullness of goodness, and is goodness itself.
You and Michael are talking about goodness increasing in an individual creature; I am talking about goodness on the level of being (ontology).
I readily grant that a person can become more holy, and therefore participate in goodness to a higher degree. But that participation in goodness is a greater "participation" in God. The amount of ontological goodness does not change, for that would mean that God changes and God increases in goodness, both of which are nonsense.
So, again, we are left with the problem: how does evil bring about a "greater good" exactly? The "greater good" here is not about creatures...it is about goodness itself.
Finally, I have to more or less concede Kreuzritter's point that theologizing about these matters is to some extent futile, as these concepts are not well appropriated by our limited minds. But if this is completely true, then there is little point to conducting any sort of theology...and we should certainly not pretend that there even exists such a thing as, "the sacred sciences"....ironically, the very name of this subforum.
Evil brings about a greater good, because while the evil committed by a creature such as murder, theft, detraction etc. Brings pain and suffering with it, yet this same action also allows the just to practice the virtues such as Charity, patience, resignation, uniformity to God's will etc. Either that they would not have practiced, if not for the misfortune, or to practice it to a greater degree than they would have done otherwise.
In the death of Our Lord, we see the Jewish leaders doing evil i.e. Seeking the death of Our Lord, yet this very evil action brings about Our Lord voluntarily handing Himself over to them and accepting to undergo the pains and sorrows of His passion, in order to gain a greater good: to wit, the infinite merits of this same sufferings along with the priceless example of His sufferings and death for those of us who would follow Him. St. Alphonsus in his "Meditations on the Passion and Death of Our Lord" stated something to the effect, that Our Lord chose to undergo such a painful death with such different tortures, in order to give us so much material in which we could find a source to meditate on and to imitate.
Quote from: Michael Wilson on January 25, 2019, 01:31:05 PM
Evil brings about a greater good, because while the evil committed by a creature such as murder, theft, detraction etc. Brings pain and suffering with it, yet this same action also allows the just to practice the virtues such as Charity, patience, resignation, uniformity to God's will etc.
Ya, except they might not practice those virtues...so it seemed you should have picked option (b) from the OP, not option (a).
But either way, I am speaking about the ontology of goodness itself, not how creatures participate in goodness.
Thanks Michael for your wise words!
Quote from: St. Columba on January 24, 2019, 11:06:37 AM
Prior to God creating anything, no evil existed. God already, and always, possessed and possesses every good. Then, it is claimed, God allowed evil within the matrix of His creation, in order that a greater good would ensue. But if that is true, then the amount of ontological goodness increased, which is impossible for God....which calls into question this whole idea that God allows evil for a greater good. This line of reasoning suggests that God is determined to some extent by the existence of evil, which is absurd.
Where is my mistake?
Ontological goodness cannot increase or be determined by the created order. It is an absolute. The "greater good" that the existence of evil (or defect) is said to enable is contingent and can be considered in two ways:
1. Not
in Deo but solely in the realm of creatures. Creation is not ontologically equivalent to the Creator. However, beings can be said to increase or decrease in moral status or virtue and, thus, participate and reflect the absolute good that in itself does not increase or decrease. The amount of goodness in the created order increases or decreases as light in a room, without the light increasing or decreasing in its own being. We can then posit that darkness, the absence of light, has been foreordained by God as an instrument to increase the full amount of light in all rooms of all time that God chose to be His, even if some rooms are contingently without any light.
2. Considered as
eschatological. The outcome can only be fully understood when all space and time continuum is thus considered and apprehended, which is impossible for the current observer. Even if murders, cancers or tsunamis have not precipitated the practice of the virtues of charity and justice in the present time, this is hardly a refutation of the point at hand. What matters is the end result when all the matrix of existence is observed and weighed. For in that day,
"there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known." (Luke 12:2). God's judgement will be just, His mercy fully apprehended and all truth unveiled.
The understanding that God is perfect Goodness and that we His creatures reflect and participate in that goodness in various limited degrees, prepares the way for the Gospel message of supernatural union with God through Christ in His Spirit. For God calls us in Christ through His Holy Spirit to perfect union with Him, according to "Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect."(Mat 5:48) and "But he who is joined to the Lord, is one spirit." (1 Cor 6:17) This doctrine, of becoming One Spirit with the Lord God through Grace, is the heart and purpose of Christian life. Theosis means that perfect santification by which, by participation in God, we are to become holy as He is Holy, good as He is Good, perfect as He is perfect. And so it will be for us all in the end. The sins of man are causes of all evil upon earth; yet even so evil is temporary and the perfect world we naturally desire is already there in Paradise just waiting for all of us. In order to attain to that perfect world, we must be made perfect. As St. Paul says, all creation waits to be fully transformed to its final destiny, Rom 8:21 "Because the creature also itself shall be delivered from the servitude of corruption, into the liberty of the glory of the children of God."
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on January 25, 2019, 05:48:06 PM
Quote from: St. Columba on January 24, 2019, 11:06:37 AM
Prior to God creating anything, no evil existed. God already, and always, possessed and possesses every good. Then, it is claimed, God allowed evil within the matrix of His creation, in order that a greater good would ensue. But if that is true, then the amount of ontological goodness increased, which is impossible for God....which calls into question this whole idea that God allows evil for a greater good. This line of reasoning suggests that God is determined to some extent by the existence of evil, which is absurd.
Where is my mistake?
Ontological goodness cannot increase or be determined by the created order. It is an absolute. The "greater good" that the existence of evil (or defect) is said to enable is contingent and can be considered in two ways:
1. Not in Deo but solely in the realm of creatures. Creation is not ontologically equivalent to the Creator. However, beings can be said to increase or decrease in moral status or virtue and, thus, participate and reflect the absolute good that in itself does not increase or decrease. The amount of goodness in the created order increases or decreases as light in a room, without the light increasing or decreasing in its own being. We can then posit that darkness, the absence of light, has been foreordained by God as an instrument to increase the full amount of light in all rooms of all time that God chose to be His, even if some rooms are contingently without any light.
2. Considered as eschatological. The outcome can only be fully understood when all space and time continuum is thus considered and apprehended, which is impossible for the current observer. Even if murders, cancers or tsunamis have not precipitated the practice of the virtues of charity and justice in the present time, this is hardly a refutation of the point at hand. What matters is the end result when all the matrix of existence is observed and weighed. For in that day, "there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known." (Luke 12:2). God's judgement will be just, His mercy fully apprehended and all truth unveiled.
Thanks Vetus Ordo for your beautiful post.
Ok then, well it seems the consensus here is that God allows evil, so that creatures will (or may) participate in divine goodness (light in a room, to use Vetus' image) to a greater degree. The actual "amount" of ontological goodness, if we may speak this way, remains the same.
Enlightening...thank you all! :)
Quote from: St. Columba on January 25, 2019, 12:45:08 PM
Finally, I have to more or less concede Kreuzritter's point that theologizing about these matters is to some extent futile, as these concepts are not well appropriated by our limited minds. But if this is completely true, then there is little point to conducting any sort of theology...and we should certainly not pretend that there even exists such a thing as, "the sacred sciences"....ironically, the very name of this subforum.
I'm not saying it's futile. I'm saying that, one, there is far to much being taken for granted here as far as language goes, and two, that it's totally misguided to expect to be able to apply rigorous procedures of logical deduction to words that have not been equally rigorously defined, in order to draw inferences from them. At its worst this leads to a belief in mere semantic constructs representing the true reality and dictating to one of immediate experience what is or isn't real.
I'm also not saying that this is fundamentally a problem of the limits of human intelligence. I'm saying that this is a limit of reason in itself and, in defiance of the Stoics, that not only some things, but most of everything is in principle not "understandable" in the sense of being "grasped" by reason.
Quote from: Kreuzritter on January 26, 2019, 08:59:08 AM
Quote from: St. Columba on January 25, 2019, 12:45:08 PM
Finally, I have to more or less concede Kreuzritter's point that theologizing about these matters is to some extent futile, as these concepts are not well appropriated by our limited minds. But if this is completely true, then there is little point to conducting any sort of theology...and we should certainly not pretend that there even exists such a thing as, "the sacred sciences"....ironically, the very name of this subforum.
I'm not saying it's futile. I'm saying that, one, there is far to much being taken for granted here as far as language goes, and two, that it's totally misguided to expect to be able to apply rigorous procedures of logical deduction to words that have not been equally rigorously defined, in order to draw inferences from them. At its worst this leads to a belief in mere semantic constructs representing the true reality and dictating to one of immediate experience what is or isn't real.
I'm also not saying that this is fundamentally a problem of the limits of human intelligence. I'm saying that this is a limit of reason in itself and, in defiance of the Stoics, that not only some things, but most of everything is in principle not "understandable" in the sense of being "grasped" by reason.
Thanks Kreuzritter. I agree my friend! You speak the language of neither a sophist nor a skeptic, but of a believer...and I truly appreciate that!
But despite all of the imprecisions in language, and yes, the realization that reason can only go so far, etc., is it not incumbent upon us theists to able to mount at least some kind of meaningful defence when we are asked, "Why does God allow so much evil?" Should we not all have some rudimentary understanding of our standard, pat answer, "so a greater good will/may result"?
Given the answers in this thread, it seems to me God is only allowing evil so that His creatures might realize a greater good. But does this not redound back to God in the form of an increase in "accidental glory"?
I am also unsure if every individual creature benefits from the "greater good that ensues from the allowance of evil" proviso, or the mass of creation taken collectively.
You're right of course. But how I respond there is how I respond here. What do you mean by "evil"? How do you imagine God could stop evil from existing? Why do you think God would not allow evil to befall us?
It's like my question to atheists: how is it you have so many preconceptions about necessary attributes of something you don't believe exists, or worse, haven't even defined?
Quote from: Kreuzritter on January 26, 2019, 01:22:31 PM
You're right of course. But how I respond there is how I respond here. What do you mean by "evil"? How do you imagine God could stop evil from existing? Why do you think God would not allow evil to befall us?
Off the top of my head, evil is the privation, or corruption of something that is integrally good in itself. Do you agree with this definition of evil? If not, why not?
Thank you Kreuzritter!
QuotePrior to God creating anything, no evil existed. God already, and always, possessed and possesses every good. Then, it is claimed, God allowed evil within the matrix of His creation, in order that a greater good would ensue. But if that is true, then the amount of ontological goodness increased, which is impossible for God....which calls into question this whole idea that God allows evil for a greater good. This line of reasoning suggests that God is determined to some extent by the existence of evil, which is absurd.
Where is my mistake?
Category error. You are using temporal language to describe the Eternal Being. Real easy to fall into.
Quote(a) A greater good will certainly ensue from that evil
And we can name that Greater Good: Free Will.
QuoteOff the top of my head, evil is the privation, or corruption of something that is integrally good in itself. Do you agree with this definition of evil? If not, why not?
I'm undecided on this. The privation argument has many good points to it, granted. However a demon is an infinite abyss of hatred. Look at the utter hatred of Christ being hurled about, e.g. against the Covington kids.
I find evil to be something more substantial than a mere privation. It's the hatred that gives me pause. As Catholics, such hatred, at least to this degree, is completely absent. It's something we do not readily understand. Even now, while I accept that it exists, I can't understand it.
Give Ayn Rand credit, she addressed it prophetically in The Fountainhead. According to her theory, it is a lust for power. The scum of the Earth know that they can not create beauty, so in order to have power they seek to destroy beauty. So their hatred is a symptom of a need for power. You can see that applying to the demons also. Why do leftists want to flood the US with people from sh!thole countries. In the past we attributed it to "bleeding heart" liberals. We now see it is the hatred of Christendom which they seek to destroy. Barbara Spectre basically admitted this if you pay attention to where she pauses in the interview.
QuoteBut despite all of the imprecisions in language, and yes, the realization that reason can only go so far, etc., is it not incumbent upon us theists to able to mount at least some kind of meaningful defence when we are asked, "Why does God allow so much evil?" Should we not all have some rudimentary understanding of our standard, pat answer, "so a greater good will/may result"?
Yes. Faith AND Reason. When debating the heathen, there are two points to make:
1. There is a misconception that Catholics believe in dualism, e.g. that God creates a "ghost" and puts it into any old meat robot. Technically this is likely correct for a vast majority of Catholics, however that is not Catholic teaching. The soul is merely our Form. Our Form is the information about us. I have made the provocative statement that I am glad Stalin lived, otherwise I could not exist. Some jump on me for being conceited not realizing the point I've made (and not realizing I am a stand in for billions and billions of people). But the point remains, if the world would be different, billions of people would never have existed. You can see this even from a material argument. American soldier marries a French chick after WWII. No WWII, no baby. There is no "ghost" that God could just stick into some other baby.
2. Catholics believe in Free Will. Heathens end up with a straw man, or maybe even a circular argument. We believe in Free Will. The correct objection is not "why is there evil", which is easily answered. The question is "Why did God create us with Free Will?".
edit: 3. The problem of evil is a problem for heathens, not Catholics. If they admit evil exists, then they will eventually be forced to admit God exists.
Quote from: St. Columba on January 26, 2019, 03:23:43 PM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on January 26, 2019, 01:22:31 PM
You're right of course. But how I respond there is how I respond here. What do you mean by "evil"? How do you imagine God could stop evil from existing? Why do you think God would not allow evil to befall us?
Off the top of my head, evil is the privation, or corruption of something that is integrally good in itself. Do you agree with this definition of evil? If not, why not?
Thank you Kreuzritter!
I'm not even sure what a
general "disagreement" with a definition is supposed to be. Definitions aren't true or false but, as it were, establish concepts themselves. However, they may inadequately express what a person has in mind. But then, to be "right" or "wrong", one has to be specific as to what one is trying conceptualise. What I genuinely want to know from a person is, what do
you intend by some word, and knowing this is can try grasp what he means and judge his inferences.
Imagine an order of relations like this
phenomenon <-> word that points to phenomenon <-> conceptualisation of this phenomenon as thing in relation to others <-> word pointing to concept <-> precise formal definition <-> word pointing to concept as definition
and speak of senses 1,2 and 3. It's easy to know you're on the same page with 3. 1, however, has to reside in a shared experience. 2,a nd also in confusing 1,2&3, is where so much confusion and talking past one another happens.
For my own part, I definitely have a living experience of a characteristic essence I will call "evil", one I've learned to associate with the presence of demonic powers, sin, corruption, hatefulness, ugliness and wicked deeds. I don't think it can be magically turned into a definition that reflects what it is. But, I suppose, we can abstract concepts from it and take relationships of function and order among other concepts to create a scheme of rational understanding. "Privation, or corruption of something that is integrally good in itself" is fine if we've pinned down "good", but it doesn't exhaust the phenomenon. No concept can.
If you'd like to know my own opinion here, I think truth lies somewhere between the conventional theistic ideas and dualism. Evil considered in itself has no independent existence, its very essence being conceivable as a great empty nothingness and drive to swallow up and annihilate, but, given God and his work ad extra, it
necessarily exists and will always exist, and is actualised through subjective freedom. It
isn't God's "evil twin", but it
is a kind of anti-God, deprived of self-existence, personhood and omnipotence, an acosmic parasite that is in itself no act and all potency, and whose first victim, as it where, was Satan. :pray3:
Quote from: james03 on January 26, 2019, 09:08:57 PMAnd we can name that Greater Good: Free Will.
Free will explains moral evil but not natural evil, unless we are to deny the existence of prelapsarian natural evil.
But I'd question whether free will is this 'greater good'. My thought is that free will is not the 'greater good', but that God's glory is the 'greater good'. And in at least some cases there might also be various other, more trivial, 'greater goods' in addition to God's glory, many of which we are not able to identify.
Quote from: james03 on January 26, 2019, 09:33:21 PM1. There is a misconception that Catholics believe in dualism, e.g. that God creates a "ghost" and puts it into any old meat robot. Technically this is likely correct for a vast majority of Catholics, however that is not Catholic teaching. The soul is merely our Form. Our Form is the information about us.
But Thomistic hylomorphism also isn't 'Catholic teaching', so I'm not seeing how it's any more authoritative than dualism. Maybe hylomorphism is the better philosophical position (I'm personally not sure yet), but it's not the only position which a Catholic can legitimately hold.
QuoteI have made the provocative statement that I am glad Stalin lived, otherwise I could not exist. Some jump on me for being conceited not realizing the point I've made (and not realizing I am a stand in for billions and billions of people). But the point remains, if the world would be different, billions of people would never have existed. You can see this even from a material argument. American soldier marries a French chick after WWII. No WWII, no baby. There is no "ghost" that God could just stick into some other baby.
Here's my objection: Certainly God has the power to arrange things such that all 'American soldiers' would have met their respective 'French chicks' even if WWII had never taken place? And all such 'babies' would then be born regardless. Same form, same matter, same person. But different history.
Quote from: Daniel on January 27, 2019, 08:17:19 AM
Quote from: james03 on January 26, 2019, 09:33:21 PM1. There is a misconception that Catholics believe in dualism, e.g. that God creates a "ghost" and puts it into any old meat robot. Technically this is likely correct for a vast majority of Catholics, however that is not Catholic teaching. The soul is merely our Form. Our Form is the information about us.
But Thomistic hylomorphism also isn't 'Catholic teaching', so I'm not seeing how it's any more authoritative than dualism. Maybe it's a better philosophical position (I'm personally not sure yet), but it's not the only position which a Catholic can legitimately hold
Right. There's a misconception by some Catholics that Aristotelianism is Catholic doctrine. I'd rather call it a poisoning of Christian truth. But as long as you operate on the same dichotomic ground of "mind and matter" or "soul and body" of 99% of the rest of humanity, whether conceived dualistically or monistically by reduction of one to the other, or even by some functionally equivalent prattle about form and matter, you will never find the solution.
Here's a question to that point:
If the human soul and body together, or even the soul alone, constitute a human "I", how could the second hypostasis of the Trinity, already being an "I", have united to itself a human soul and body while remaining one, single "I"? If the latter dogma, that Christ is one divine person, is to be true, we have to postulate the subject as something transcending and prior to both soul and body.
Further: If there is no "ghost in the machine", how does the "soul" persist after the annihilation of the body? What does the soul being the "form" of the body even mean, and with this definition, where does the
subject fit in, and wherein does his self-identity reside?
QuoteAnd all such 'babies' would then be born regardless. Same form, same matter, same person. But different history.
That's the billion-dollar question: in what sense are they "the same"? For the materialist it's impossible. But for the Aristotelian it doesn't look much better. Even for those who just want to insist the human subject isn't transcendent of his mutable soul, self-identity seems not to be in reach.
Quote from: james03 on January 26, 2019, 09:33:21 PM
2. Catholics believe in Free Will. Heathens end up with a straw man, or maybe even a circular argument. We believe in Free Will. The correct objection is not "why is there evil", which is easily answered. The question is "Why did God create us with Free Will?".
Sure, but questions remain like why does God allow beings with free will to enact their evil choices and cause others to suffer. Stopping them would not deprive them of their intrinsic freedom to choose, and indeed, God supposedly does at times intervene to prevent just such a thing. And a third question exists: why does God create those free beings whom he knows will cause such evil, or even moreso, those he knows will be damned.
Quote from: james03 on January 26, 2019, 09:08:57 PM
Quote(a) A greater good will certainly ensue from that evil
And we can name that Greater Good: Free Will.
Is evil the result of free-will, or is free-will (your claimed greater good) the result of evil?
At any rate, it seems you are opting for option (b) from the OP, not option (a)....is that right James?
Thanks for your post friend!
QuoteFree will explains moral evil but not natural evil,
Correct.
Natural evil is due to viewing the soul as the Aristotelian form. IF certain information must be true about someone, and that information includes some natural evil in the past, even generations ago, then in order for that form to exist, the natural evil must be allowed.
QuoteIs evil the result of free-will, or is free-will (your claimed greater good) the result of evil?
Moral evil is the result of free-will. It is us choosing our own interests above God.
QuoteSure, but questions remain like why does God allow beings with free will to enact their evil choices and cause others to suffer.
I've given the answer. If Stalin had not done evil, I would not exist. I'm not a dualist. If someone here is a dualist, maybe he can answer the question. That question is no problem for me.
Quoteand wherein does his self-identity reside?
In Truth. At the core of our being is this simple fact: I Exist. (edit: I have a theory. If you want to understand where the hatred of the left emanates from, it is from their realization that they exist.)
Quoteor even by some functionally equivalent prattle about form and matter, you will never find the solution.
The solution has been confirmed by mostly heathens (Gibbs was some sort of prot.)
Gibbs a year before his death came close and was on the path. He started talking about information and one of his equations shows where he was headed. To Gibbs, information exists. (And since it is immaterial, the immaterial exists -- my add). Crick discovered that the most important discovery was not the double helix in DNA, but the information contained in it. Shannon developed a fundamental law for information, since named Shannon Entropy. Jaynes proved that one of the fundamental properties of nature, Gibbs entropy, is not fundamental. It is an application of Shannon Entropy. The importance of information will eventually destroy the theory of natural selection (that, and statistics).
Information about something is the Form of that thing.
QuoteHere's my objection: Certainly God has the power to arrange things such that all 'American soldiers' would have met their respective 'French chicks' even if WWII had never taken place? And all such 'babies' would then be born regardless. Same form, same matter, same person. But different history.
God does not have this power as He is constrained. What constrains God? TRUTH. God is Truth, so God is His own constraint. In other words, God can't lie. God can't make a circle be a triangle at the same time, that would be a lie. In the same way God can't make a baby born of WWII, if WWII didn't happen. At best He could intervene (not even sure about this) and make the babies have the same DNA. That would possibly result in the same matter (ignoring environmental factors), but the Form would be different.
If you don't like the Form argument, stick to the matter argument. Ok, the same DNA is present. But these people HAVE to be raised in entirely different circumstances and meet completely different people and even have completely different parents. It doesn't work. (edit: actually, this is the Form argument, but camouflaged as a material argument).
Quote from: james03 on January 27, 2019, 01:35:20 PM
The solution has been confirmed by mostly heathens (Gibbs was some sort of prot.)
Gibbs a year before his death came close and was on the path. He started talking about information and one of his equations shows where he was headed. To Gibbs, information exists. (And since it is immaterial, the immaterial exists -- my add). Crick discovered that the most important discovery was not the double helix in DNA, but the information contained in it. Shannon developed a fundamental law for information, since named Shannon Entropy. Jaynes proved that one of the fundamental properties of nature, Gibbs entropy, is not fundamental. It is an application of Shannon Entropy. The importance of information will eventually destroy the theory of natural selection (that, and statistics).
Information about something is the Form of that thing.
This is just more mechanistic reductionism. Whatever else this abstraction of "information" is, it's not a subject, no collection of it is a real unity, it is not conscious, it is not alive, and it does not will, think and feel. It also exists
only in relation to the machine that interprets it and material that encodes it.
The "solution" already exists, in the immediate experience of my self, by my self, as my self, the transcendental, simple, irreducible "I".
Quote from: james03 on January 27, 2019, 01:25:15 PM
...
QuoteSure, but questions remain like why does God allow beings with free will to enact their evil choices and cause others to suffer.
I've given the answer. If Stalin had not done evil, I would not exist. I'm not a dualist. If someone here is a dualist, maybe he can answer the question. That question is no problem for me.
I acknowledge you exist, and I know you are glad you exist, and I can believe that if Stalin had not done evil you would not exist (chain of historic events). But that just means that YOU should be "glad" that Stalin did evil (that God permitted it, although not for the evil itself). But maybe the question is, why should God have created you at all if He had to allow evil for it to happen? The history of the world didn't HAVE to include all the evil events even if it would not be the same world without them. Adam and Eve didn't HAVE to sin and we didn't have to exist; others would exist and they would be the happier "we".
I'm "glad" that Adam and Eve sinned (that it was permitted) because the historical events that started from there lead to Christ's existing. My existence doesn't matter much to the goodness of the world, but CHRIST's existence and life is the greatest and ultimate good of the world.
Ok, here's another thought:
Privations have neither form nor telos. And all evils are privations. Therefore, evils are never ordered toward a 'greater good'.
Though there's probably something wrong in what I just said. (Probably some equivocation going on...)
Quote from: james03 on January 27, 2019, 01:44:49 PM
God does not have this power as He is constrained. What constrains God? TRUTH. God is Truth, so God is His own constraint. In other words, God can't lie. God can't make a circle be a triangle at the same time, that would be a lie. In the same way God can't make a baby born of WWII, if WWII didn't happen. At best He could intervene (not even sure about this) and make the babies have the same DNA. That would possibly result in the same matter (ignoring environmental factors), but the Form would be different.
If you don't like the Form argument, stick to the matter argument. Ok, the same DNA is present. But these people HAVE to be raised in entirely different circumstances and meet completely different people and even have completely different parents. It doesn't work. (edit: actually, this is the Form argument, but camouflaged as a material argument).
I'm not entirely sure what you're saying. The form (soul) comes from God, so the form would be the same regardless. The matter (DNA) comes from the parents, and if the parents are the same then the matter is the same.
same soul + same parents --> same person
same soul + different parents --> different person
Why would there need to be different parents? What I'm saying is, God has power to cause the father and the mother to meet through different circumstances.
e.g. It could be, as you say, that WWII happens, and the American soldier is consequently overseas in France where he meets the French woman whom he marries. But it could also be the case that WWII does not happen, and the same American soldier is by chance overseas in France on vacation where he meets the same French woman whom he marries.
What I'm suggesting is that God not only has power to ensure that the American soldier and the French woman meet through different circumstances, but that every pair of parents meets through different circumstances, such that all the exact same people are born.
I'm not sure whether what I just said is logically possible though. Some situations seem impossible, e.g. without evil, it seems that there can never be two half-brothers born of the same mother, since: either the woman would need to be a widow (impossible, since death is an evil), or the woman would need two husbands (impossible, since one-woman-to-many-husbands polygamy is evil), or the woman would need to conceive at least one of the two sons through fornication or adultery (impossible, since both are evil), or the woman would need to conceive through in vitro fertilization (also evil)... I think that this exhausts the possibilities, though I'm not sure...
However, as you point out, God could intervene and miraculously bring these half-brothers into existence by altering the sperm's DNA (matter) at the time of the child's conception. Which I'm pretty sure is theoretically possible, since according to the Catholic Church three historical persons have had their DNA miraculously altered by God: 1.) Adam, who wouldn't have even had DNA if God hadn't rearranged the 'dirt' molecules into human DNA, 2.) Eve, who would have been a man (clone of Adam) had God not changed the Y chromosome into an X, and 3.) Jesus, who would have been a woman (clone of Mary) had God not changed one of the Xs into a Y.
Quote from: Kreuzritter on January 27, 2019, 07:19:55 AM
If you'd like to know my own opinion here, I think truth lies somewhere between the conventional theistic ideas and dualism. Evil considered in itself has no independent existence, its very essence being conceivable as a great empty nothingness and drive to swallow up and annihilate, but, given God and his work ad extra, it necessarily exists and will always exist, and is actualised through subjective freedom. It isn't God's "evil twin", but it is a kind of anti-God, deprived of self-existence, personhood and omnipotence, an acosmic parasite that is in itself no act and all potency, and whose first victim, as it where, was Satan. :pray3:
Interesting Kreuzritter. This is tricky. If evil in itself necessarily exists, as you say above, does this not imply that God is incapable of preventing evil, moral or otherwise?
Quote from: St. Columba on January 29, 2019, 08:41:53 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on January 27, 2019, 07:19:55 AM
If you'd like to know my own opinion here, I think truth lies somewhere between the conventional theistic ideas and dualism. Evil considered in itself has no independent existence, its very essence being conceivable as a great empty nothingness and drive to swallow up and annihilate, but, given God and his work ad extra, it necessarily exists and will always exist, and is actualised through subjective freedom. It isn't God's "evil twin", but it is a kind of anti-God, deprived of self-existence, personhood and omnipotence, an acosmic parasite that is in itself no act and all potency, and whose first victim, as it where, was Satan. :pray3:
Interesting Kreuzritter. This is tricky. If evil in itself necessarily exists, as you say above, does this not imply that God is incapable of preventing evil, moral or otherwise?
No, it doesn't stop God from preventing the work of evil manifesting. But it will always exist, like a black hole of nothingness, in relation to everything else, waiting to swallow it up. Evil has no absolute existence just as there is in no conceivable sense any "absolute nothingness" - that is the truth in the deprivation concept.
Malicious hatred and perversion exist, as do those demonic essences we encounter and feel in the soul that shake us to the bone, whether those who call evil a mere "deprivation" or not, and they are not reductionistic deprivations of a good; they are exactly what they are. It's not that it's inconceivable how somebody intentionally raping, torturing and murdering little kids could have its cause in a mere deprivation and it's motive in willing some lesser good. No. It's that no logic or causal chain can take one from a good or neutral phenomenon, via some deprivation, to the real, vital, experiencable essences of these things, any more than a collection of photons can make a colour or chemicals and electrical signals an emotion. It's more semantic juggling that reduces the world to intelleigible concepts at the expense of the phenomena themselves.
Quote from: Kreuzritter on January 29, 2019, 10:21:20 AM
Quote from: St. Columba on January 29, 2019, 08:41:53 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on January 27, 2019, 07:19:55 AM
If you'd like to know my own opinion here, I think truth lies somewhere between the conventional theistic ideas and dualism. Evil considered in itself has no independent existence, its very essence being conceivable as a great empty nothingness and drive to swallow up and annihilate, but, given God and his work ad extra, it necessarily exists and will always exist, and is actualised through subjective freedom. It isn't God's "evil twin", but it is a kind of anti-God, deprived of self-existence, personhood and omnipotence, an acosmic parasite that is in itself no act and all potency, and whose first victim, as it where, was Satan. :pray3:
Interesting Kreuzritter. This is tricky. If evil in itself necessarily exists, as you say above, does this not imply that God is incapable of preventing evil, moral or otherwise?
No, it doesn't stop God from preventing the work of evil manifesting. But it will always exist, like a black hole of nothingness, in relation to everything else, waiting to swallow it up. Evil has no absolute existence just as there is in no conceivable sense any "absolute nothingness" - that is the truth in the deprivation concept.
Malicious hatred and perversion exist, as do those demonic essences we encounter and feel in the soul that shake us to the bone, whether those who call evil a mere "deprivation" or not, and they are not reductionistic deprivations of a good; they are exactly what they are. It's not that it's inconceivable how somebody intentionally raping, torturing and murdering little kids could have its cause in a mere deprivation and it's motive in willing some lesser good. No. It's that no logic or causal chain can take one from a good or neutral phenomenon, via some deprivation, to the real, vital, experiencable essences of these things, any more than a collection of photons can make a colour or chemicals and electrical signals an emotion. It's more semantic juggling that reduces the world to intelleigible concepts at the expense of the phenomena themselves.
Fascinating. Thank you. I like it when you are on "Kreuz-control"! :)
(a) "
as a great empty nothingness and drive to swallow up and annihilate" . How can nothingness have a drive? Whom, or what, is setting this "drive" in motion and maintaining it?
(b) You seem to be saying that evil, even as a no-thing, is "ontologically" prior to the exercise of freedom. So why does God allow evil, even absent freedom? Or is it simply temerarious (and necessarily overly reductionistic and low-resolution) to even attempt an answer?
Can evil ever result from a mistake, or mishap? (specifically, a physical evil) If so, how can we account for this possibility?
It seems to me that if you equate suffering with evil, then it does happen all the time; an example that just occurred here in town: One of my former students went to the Dentist to have her wisdom teeth extracted; she was anesthetized, but the anesthesiologist made a mistake on the quantity he gave her, and she went into a comma; she eventually came out of the comma after 6 mo. But its been over a year and she is still suffering from the effects of this error.
Quote from: St. Columba on January 29, 2019, 01:26:59 PM
Can evil ever result from a mistake, or mishap? (specifically, a physical evil) If so, how can we account for this possibility?
What do you mean by a 'mistake' or 'mishap'?
Humans make mistakes all the time. And evil often follows from those mistakes.
But to God there are no mistakes. Every mistake made by a man, and every evil which follows from that mistake, was no mistake to God. Not only did the evil happen, but it was God who arranged/willed/caused that evil to happen. Why? Nobody knows. My guess is that it's for some 'greater good', though I cannot prove it. The 'greater good' would need to be something which is somehow better with the evil than without it. For that end God not only makes it possible that evil can follow from human error, but He ensures that evil does follow from human error.
QuoteThe form (soul) comes from God, so the form would be the same regardless.
This is ambiguous. In order to be a premise for what you wrote after, this has to be interpreted as dualism. I reject dualism, the idea that God puts a ghost into a meat robot.
Yes, God Wills the soul, and He creates it by permitting moral and natural evil. The moral evil is also a direct consequence of the Greater Good of Free Will.
QuoteBut maybe the question is, why should God have created you at all if He had to allow evil for it to happen?
One possibility, God created me because He knew in my later years I'd commit some horrible moral evil: I'd become a communist and go to hell. This change in my life would shock 10 heathens who would convert to the Faith and go to heaven. I go to hell, and 10 heathens go to heaven. Would a sane, intelligent god allow this to happen? Of course.
QuoteThe history of the world didn't HAVE to include all the evil events even if it would not be the same world without them. Adam and Eve didn't HAVE to sin and we didn't have to exist; others would exist and they would be the happier "we".
Happiness? The only thing that matters is heaven.
I have my own theory, and I don't hold by it much: Existence is an optimization problem. The constraint is Free Will, plus all of the attributes of God, primarily Truth. The objective is to optimize the situation such that you maximize heaven and limbo, and minimize the suffering in hell.
QuoteThis is just more mechanistic reductionism. Whatever else this abstraction of "information" is, it's not a subject, no collection of it is a real unity, it is not conscious, it is not alive, and it does not will, think and feel.
Mechanistic reductionism? It opposes mechanistic reductionism.
QuoteIt also exists only in relation to the machine that interprets it and material that encodes it.
No. The
representation of information has those attributes. The information is real, but it is immaterial. Furthermore I'm more interested in what created the information and what perceives it. These too are immaterial.
QuoteThe "solution" already exists, in the immediate experience of my self, by my self, as my self, the transcendental, simple, irreducible "I".
I pretty much said the same thing:
QuoteAt the core of our being is this simple fact: I Exist.
Quote from: james03 on February 02, 2019, 10:13:17 AMMechanistic reductionism? It opposes mechanistic reductionism.
Yes, reducing the soul to a set of information that, moreover, has meaning as a quantified abstraction in relation to measurable physical variables. It doesn't matter that it's "immaterial". So are the laws fo physics and its theories; they are nevertheless mechanistic reductions fo reality.
QuoteQuoteIt also exists only in relation to the machine that interprets it and material that encodes it.
No. The representation of information has those attributes. The information is real, but it is immaterial.
Immaterial or not, it exists only
in relation to the machine that interprets it and material that encodes it. Everything you've cited in relation to DNA and the formalism of Gibb's and Shannnon entropy has this property. The idea of
information in itself is just nonsense, as much nonsense of that of a
word in itself, but given the Aristotelian world view in which you're formulating this, with information as "form" of a material object, and your stance against the notion of a "ghost in a meat robot", I would think you'd be ready to admit as much.
(Nothing new or particularly interesting is being put forward here by citing "information". This whole conversation could just as well have taken place over the ideas and truths of mathematics and its laws, which are immaterial.)
QuoteFurthermore I'm more interested in what created the information and what perceives it. These too are immaterial.
In which case we're straight back to the "ghost in the machine" problem. A collection of information no more constitutes a real, self-identical unity and makes a conscious subject than does a structure of matter or the two considered together.
QuoteThis is ambiguous. In order to be a premise for what you wrote after, this has to be interpreted as dualism. I reject dualism, the idea that God puts a ghost into a meat robot.
There are more conceptions outside of the Scholastic dichotomism of human nature than just dualism and monism.
As it is, most systems are set on confusing materiality with corporeality and nowadays both of these with a law-bound external physicality reduced to the abstract theoretical world of atomistic physics. But they are equally set on confusing the immediate material object of consciousness and impressions, feelings and movements of the body and soul, with spiritual acts and the individual spirit itself under the term "mind". Of course I reject dualism too, but I reject it on the very grounds of its blind and erroneous categorisation of "body" and "mind", and that error may very well have its roots in Western theology.
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 02, 2019, 11:18:43 AMOf course I reject dualism too, but I reject it on the very grounds of its blind and erroneous categorisation of "body" and "mind", and that error may very well have its roots in Western theology.
Body and Mind is only one of hundreds of examples, big ones, of a dualist nature to this world.
To our natural minds, it is apparent and undeniable. The presence of evil is undeniable and cannot thoroughly
be explained away as just another tool God uses to save us. This is because Satan is real and Original Sin is real,
they caused this condition as a matter of God's Justice. We are told and believe this.
Consider upon the juxtapositions and splits that are manifest in twos:
2 arms, 2 hands, 2 thumbs, 2 legs, 2 eyes, 2 ears, 2 spheres of the brain, 2 testes, 2 breasts, 2 nostrils, arteries/veins,
male/female, sun/moon, day/night, light/dark, fire/water, air/earth, heaven/hell, life/death, love/hate, right/wrong, god/satan, sons of light/sons of darkness, cain/abel, doing/thinking, up/down, east/west, north/south, health/illness, truth/deceit, knowledge/ignorance, spirit/matter, joy/sorrow, angels/demons (shall I go on? no reason to... )
The House divided cannot stand.. and it won't, it will be judged on the Last Day. We are subject to living in these conditions and dying in them until the Second Coming.
Kreuzritter, this is for the benefit of others.
I consider myself still at the beginner level of theology, so I'm writing this aside for the benefit of others who are just starting out. In what I'll call Greek Realism, there are four causes. An example demonstrates this the best: the human heart.
Material Cause: The matter. We'll sum it up with "cardiac tissue".
Efficient Cause: The actions that create it. We'll sum it up with "embryology".
Formal Cause: The form that distinguishes it from a potato. Four chambers, valves, etc... I have been theorizing that this can also be called the information about something. Furthermore, Information Theory is now a mainstream branch of mathematics and has been forced to accept that there is something that exists called "information". It even has a unit of measure, the "nat". Information Theory gave us crypto-currency so it is even an applied science now. This is a major problem for the heathen.
Final Cause: It's purpose. The Final Cause of the heart is to pump blood.
Modern heathens try to deny the last two. I've read "The Atheist's Guide to Reality" written by one of their leading philosophers. They hold that there really is no such thing as a heart and that there is no purpose in existence. Basically what "we" (their self contradiction) call a heart is just the result of random actions of the physical world.
So ends the aside.
QuoteIn which case we're straight back to the "ghost in the machine" problem.
I see my problem, I wasn't clear. I'm not addressing the human soul. That was me going off on a tangent. I was addressing your characterization of Greek Realism as "prattle". In summary, my point is that even the heathens are accepting that there is something called "information" and Jaynes has shown that the information about things is a fundamental State function for basically everything. Basically modern mathematics now accepts the Form, though I doubt that they would admit this.
As far as the interface problem, I concede that Greek Realism does not solve it. The soul perceiving things is more easily accepted. The soul moving things is a mystery. For that matter, how immaterial field and charge exert a force on the matter of an electron is also unknown. Described, yes. Explained? No.
QuoteImmaterial or not, it exists only in relation to the machine that interprets it and material that encodes it. Everything you've cited in relation to DNA and the formalism of Gibb's and Shannnon entropy has this property. The idea of information in itself is just nonsense, as much nonsense of that of a word in itself, but given the Aristotelian world view in which you're formulating this, with information as "form" of a material object, and your stance against the notion of a "ghost in a meat robot", I would think you'd be ready to admit as much.
Yeah, probably true. The form is part of something. Then there are the Transcendentals, but I would not categorize them as information. I'd say information is a subset of the immaterial world. The perception and creation of information are the interesting part. For now I view our ability to perceive as God's fiat. We perceive because it is True that we perceive. A tautology, but it provides clarity.
QuoteThere are more conceptions outside of the Scholastic dichotomism of human nature than just dualism and monism.
If you can suggest something to read on this, I'd be much obliged.
Thanks for the interesting conversation.