DBT01: My Response To Peter’s Closing Statement
Posted in (A)Theist Debate League, DBT01, Debate on | 8 minutes | 5 Comments →
I mostly approve of Peter’s closing statement, but I would like to clarify a few things. The rest of this post won’t make much sense unless you read his closing statement first. I’d like to commend Peter for confronting the shortcomings of his definition of “needless suffering” head-on, among other things.
With regard to his delineations over suffering, Peter writes,
I’m going to have to ask Cl if he agrees, but what I saw him doing was going in wanting to prove that all suffering is 1-suffering, realizing this was unbiblical and conceding that 2-Suffering exists, but at no point ever conceding that 3-Suffering exists. This is why I think he says his concession was “silly”, and why I’m inclined to agree. If 3-Suffering exists and God was capable of removing it, yet did not, then I see the benevolent God as impossible. I’d be interested in seeing if and how Cl disagrees.
No, you’ve misunderstood: 3-suffering exists. I am taking the stubbing of one’s toe, or gas pains, as instances of 3-suffering. Humans would be “net better off” if we didn’t have these types of suffering, God is capable of removing them, and no higher goods would be lost were these types of suffering to disappear. Would you agree?
Another confusion is whether I was advancing an evidential or a logical Problem of Evil, with a few people accusing me of “smuggling the logical POE in the back door”. I promise that this wasn’t anything I was doing intentionally, but resulted from confusing 2-Suffering with 3-Suffering.
I never insinuated that you did anything intentionally. I thought it just didn’t really occur to you that this is what happened.
My POE is definitely evidential and emphatically not logical.
I still disagree there. Are you not alleging an a priori logical incompatibility between the God of the Bible and 3-suffering? You just said,
If 3-Suffering exists and God was capable of removing it, yet did not, then I see the benevolent God as impossible.
How *ISN’T* that a logical POE?
There will always be some doubt over whether a given instance of suffering is truly of type 3-Suffering, even if it looks like it.
I agree completely. No offense, but that’s why I think your whole approach was misguided. It ultimately rests on, “I can’t imagine a higher good that would obtain from this suffering, therefore none probably exists.” IOW, it ultimately rests on incredulity.
The difference between these jumps is not something I addressed in my opening statement, and I’m interested in exploring our actual rationale for jumping between P and Q. This is why I wanted to debate more the argument from ignorance, but Cl wasn’t letting me have it.
That’s because there’s nothing to have. I explained the rationale in my rebuttal of your “reindeer” analogy. Let’s take your newest example of a bear in the closet (which is almost identical to Andrés’ “absent student” analogy that I deemed “atrocious”). First, this is another false analogy (unless of course you have an infinite closet). Any given closet is going to contain a finite amount of space in which one might search for the bear. Therefore, the negative existential claim, “there is no bear in my closet” can easily be demonstrated, beyond any reasonable doubt. Once you’ve investigated the closet (all possible options), you can safely rule out the bear. Save for appeals to solipsism (is there really no bear in my closet?), the nonexistence of the bear can effectively be proven. We don’t need to make any room for “probably.”
Now, contrast this to the claim, “there probably isn’t a higher good behind this instance of suffering.” Nothing like a closet with limited space, is it? What are we going to do? Search the entire universe? Don’t you see? Demonstrating the bear’s nonexistence in no way depends on our ability to plausibly connect the epistemic dots. We simply look and confirm its nonexistence. OTOH, we can’t investigate every possible option of a higher good. We simply don’t have the intelligence to conceive of them all. Further, it is a known fact that many types of suffering *DO* have higher goods, and that we aren’t always immediately aware of them. IOW, there’s a significant chance that any of Peter’s examples might have a higher good. Therefore, just as I said in my rebuttal:
To claim that reindeer can fly one must unjustifiedly assign a property (flight) to a member of a class (ruminant mammal). This is unjustified because no other member shares said property (no ruminant mammals fly). However, to claim that Peter’s examples of suffering might be logically required to obtain higher goods, one need only assume that a member of a class shares the same properties as other members (Peter agrees that many members of the class “suffering” are logically required to obtain higher goods).
Peter is using “probably” as a euphemism for “I feel that.” What gives Peter the right to “reason” from, “I can’t think of a higher good,” to, “no higher good exists?” This is what I demanded of Andrés, and the question has not been answered in the context of these facts.
Turning to an example of something I said which Peter apparently found lacking in tact,
…and even going as far as saying that I’ve “shown a complete disregard for rationality, integrity and evidence”.
Well, hold on, that’s not quite fair. I’m pretty sure you’ve quoted me out of context. I’m pretty sure I said that in response to your apparent nonchalance regarding evidence that met your criteria. IOW, I didn’t say that because you belabored the argument from incredulity angle; I said I was discouraged to debate further because you seem to have completely eschewed the evidence I presented (which you yourself said would prove God’s goodness and glory beyond a shadow of a doubt). If you have a rational response to that, my assumption was premature and I’ll apologize. Until then, it has to stand. You said that knowledge of germ theory would have “saved billions of lives” and “proved God’s goodness and glory beyond a shadow of a doubt.” I then pointed you to the Old Testament regulations concerning cleanliness, rats and bodily discharge, regulations that would have UNDENIABLY curtailed if not wholly prevented the plague had they been followed. Even Matt felt you owed a rational response. The way I see it, you need to make some serious concessions here.
Cl makes it sound like any attempt of mine to mount a response would just be not worth his time. I’m glad Cl found a claim to be so certain in, but I don’t find that certainty warranted.
I’m sorry that’s what you took from it. If it wasn’t worth my time, I would never have engaged you on it at all. However, it’s not worth my time to repeat myself, and you still haven’t given a legitimate response to the remarks in my opening statement. Instead, you offered another false analogy (the bear in the closet) which suggests you didn’t even perfunctorily grok my rejection of your reindeer analogy. Sorry, no offense, no disrespect, but I’m not going to mince words. Until you respond, I’m going to treat what I said as warranted.
Regarding my “disagreement” with Andrés,
Andrés argued that this inference was logically valid provided that we’re in an epistemic situation to make the inference, but said we were not in such a situation. Cl argued that this inference was logically invalid. From what I understood, their positions were actually identical.
That’s right. In this case the inference is spurious, for all the reasons I’ve explained in response to your reindeer / bear analogies.
WRT word count:
I guessed that I would need some extra words to introduce and close the debate.
1,500 extra? Your introduction was 92 words. I’m not accusing you of bad faith. If you say you didn’t do this intentionally, I believe you. I’m not going to pull a Stephen R. Diamond and call you a liar. At the same time, surely my initial suspicion was understandable, right?
Lastly, on how to prevent this mess from happening again:
That being said, I’d like to see the debates as a bit more fluid and dynamic as they turned out to be, even if this doesn’t lend itself well to a publishable format. There’s just very little truth-finding-relevant reason why we shouldn’t be able to spend as many words as we want if we think it will better get to the bottom of things, and there’s no reason why we can’t continue the conversation in the comment box if that’s how we feel it would take us. I don’t even mind if people give ammo to my opponent, because it just means he’s more likely to find something closer to the truth! I’d rather defeat the strongest argument, not just the one my opponent happens to have.
Third, I’d like to mention a way we can avoid repeating some of this failure: be very clear about what is being debated upfront, and how a significant victory is reached. I renew my suggestion that the debate participants agree to write a joint statement beforehand outlining the two positions, and outlining what each person would accept as a victory by the other.
Agreed, on all counts.
Stephen R. Diamond
says...But what you will do is say you assume responsibility for not catching it and then belaboring the point as if it wasn’t your responsibility. Just as you accept that you lost, but don’t really. No sense of integrity or honor.
MS Quixote
says...Too bad…this was shaping up as a good debate off the beaten path. Interesting opening salvo, cl…
Doop Snogg
says...Honestly, I have not read all the posts up to this point, so take what I say for whatever you deem it worth. Funny, I know a debate requires both sides to stick to their point of argument, but this is not really a good way to reach a realization of an objective truth, but more so who can argue better. This type of discussion makes me think of two things, which I do not see any spiritual importance in: sports and politics. Yuck.
Preface: I am a believer in Jesus Christ, just thought I’d say that. I am constantly studying and reading everything I can literally “get my hands on” aka books more so than the web when it comes to theology and science. With that in mind…
I would not call God “all good” but “all love” and everyone knows that love doesn’t always look pretty. Not superficial love, but true love. The type of love that says, “if you don’t love me, as I love you, then you are free to leave, but I will take you back in a heartbeat if you realize that you do love me and want to make this relationship work, but…if you leave, you are free to do as you wish. And, good luck.” That would be God talking.
When people speak of the “all good God” they are mainly thinking of God (Yahweh) from the Old Testament, the all powerful God. As a true Christian, or someone who is looking with skepticism towards the faith, you need to really look at the New Testament, specifically the “New Covenant” and life of Jesus Christ for where the perspective of, and presence in our lives…dare I say…has evolved. In our weakness we will find strength. If we loose our life in this world, we gain a better life in the next, when we trust in the life of Jesus Christ.
Biblically speaking, God tried to lay down 10 simple commandments to the Jews on how to live properly. But, with this they failed. Adam & Eve couldn’t even follow one law. In a layman’s sense, God tried to be the tough dad by putting fear into mankind, but as anyone who has parents knows, this never makes you behave. In fact it might stir rebel feelings. Did it? Seems like it.
The life and testimony of Jesus Christ was God’s offering of sacrifice and chance to genuinely experience real empathy for human suffering of pain and temptation. Not to sound blasphemous, but think of God as the prodigal father.
As far as the presence of evil, it might add some insight to think of sin and not evil. Sin is to not have or to be without. So, the matter of evil is more truly, in a Biblical sense, sin, or a life of sin as a life without God.
Peter Hurford
says...Cl, thanks for your response. I’m sorry it took so long to get time to respond back, but I appreciate the thoughtfulness and want to respond in kind.
That being said, there are three places I’m confused and would like your help, and help from everyone else:
What Would a “Benevolent” God Not Do?
I think I would agree, then. But we don’t know definitively that there are no higher goods for such suffering, so we don’t definitively know that they’re 3-Suffering. I just think it’s our best guess, so far.
I am kind of interested in where you are taking this, because I feel like anything that is benevolent would remove any form of 3-suffering. You disagree. Are we just using different definitions of benevolent, or is there some greater argument I’m missing?
How do you, for lack of a better word, reconcile “gas pains” with benevolence? Do you just say that gas pains are so trivial we needn’t be overly concerned with them in the grand scheme of (a)theism?
~
Why Can’t We Explore Incredulity?
Exactly! There’s room for diologue on this issue, we can go back and forth on this, and explore it. You just demonstrated the possibility of back and forth by continuing the debate. I have things to say in response. I wanted to say them in context of continuing the debate, because I think this is where the argument ultimately ends up, except for what you said above.
I could just respond here, but I want to do a bit more investigation in the philosophy of religion literature first to get my grounding, because I feel like I may just be forced to concede the issue and agree that it is grounded on incredulity.
But where I’m confused here is you deciding that there is nothing more to be said on the issue. You just declared it over, saying you’re position was irrefutable. I think that in itself is ironically also incredulity: “I, Cl, can’t see any way Peter could refute me on this argument from ignorance issue, therefore my argument is irrefutable.”
I’m also a little confused about how all inferences to 3-suffering are unjustified, yet you agree that some inferences can be made. Perhaps you’re not really saying that, but that’s what I’m reading.
I find the rest of what you said in response to me well said. Look forward to a follow up essay from me on this.
~
When Should I Have Rebutted Your Opening Statement?
Here’s the thing, though: when did you want me to respond to that? You wrote your rebuttal, and then the debate was paused and eventually cancelled before I even had a chance to rejoin. Thus, I never was provided an official opportunity to give my rational response.
Did you want me to provide it to you in email? Did you want that to become the contention of the debate? It’s a good argument, and definitely merits consideration, but it is rather periphery to the grander scheme of POE.
But it really looks like you’re just saying that because I didn’t send you a personal email, or respond in the comments section, that therefore I have no response, and thus my lack of an immediate conversion to Christianity is deeply and hopelessly irrational.
As for an actual response, if you don’t want it to continue in a debate, I’ll do so in a future blog post. In fact, I’ll throw the gauntlet down and promise a personal response in full on my blog within a month. Please hold me to this.
~
Closing Comment on Word Count
It’s understandable, but you could just ask me. The moment you pointed out that it was unfair, I immediately conceded and agreed with you. We messed up in calculating the word count. I messed up. We both weren’t paying attention. We’ve lived and learned.
Stephen R. Diamond
says...Undefended assumption: “fair” means both sides getting equal time. NO! Fair is what the parties agree to, with good reason for giving the party carrying the burden of proof greater time. In the courts, which have had a few years of experience developing procedural rules, the maker of a motion or filer of an appeal gets an opening brief and a reply brief, whereas the respondent gets on an opposition or respondent’s brief sandwiched between. That’s 50% more words allowed the moving party, who carries the burden of proof.
One could as easily maintain that you expected and would have fostered “unfair” arrangements by not adjusting the word limits to the burden of proof.