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The Problem of Evil in M. E. Dysons Come Hell or High Water

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... to the virgin Maya-devi: She '...was beautiful as the water-lily and...lived ... of the pointless loss and agony Katrina caused for countless humans and animals. ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: The Problem of Evil in M. E. Dysons Come Hell or High Water


1
The Problem of Evil in M. E. Dysons Come Hell
or High Water
  • In his final chapter, Supernatural Disasters?
    Theodicy and Prophetic Religion, Dyson asks how
    one can maintain that God has all the power and
    goodness in the world and yet allows evil to
    flourish? 
  • One can hold that
  • a) God is almighty and perfectly good
    and
  • b) evil flourishes
  • but only by holding inconsistent beliefs.

2
Inconsistent beliefs are like viruses
  • No belief is an atom unrelated to other beliefs.
  • A belief has to get along with its neighbors.
  • When one of our beliefs contradicts another that
    inconsistency has implications for the other
    beliefs in our system of beliefs. Consider, for
    example
  • A) Santa and
  • B) The Virgin Birth of
    Jesus.
  • A) Santa
  • a. Johnnie believes that Santas reindeer can
    fly.
  • b. At school he learns that flying
    creatures all have wings.
  • c. He also knows that Santas reindeer
    have no wings.
  • B) Virgin Births
  • a. Parthenogenesis cannot occur in mammals.
  • b. The myth of virgin birth is not unique
    to Christianity. The Buddha, for example, is
    said to have been born to the virgin
    Maya-devi She was beautiful as the water-lily
    andlived on earth, untainted by desire, and
    immaculateWhen the pain of travail came upon
    her, four pure-minded angels of the great Brahma
    held out a golden net to receive the babe, who
    came forth from her right side like the rising
    sun bright and perfect.



3
What is the Problem of Evil?
  • Theists believe
  • a. God is all powerful.
  • b. God is all knowing.
  • c. God is perfectly good.
  • Non-theists believe that a., b., and c. are
    logically inconsistent with the fact that
  • d. Evil exists.
  • So the problem of evil is that these four
    propositions form an inconsistent set. That is
  • If a, b and c are true, d. must be false.
  • If b, c and d are true, a. must be false.
  • If a, c and d are true, b. must be false.
  • If a, b and d are true, c. must be false.

4
The Implications of Hurricane Katrina
  • Good people do not want to see others suffer,
    especially when it serves no purpose. Rather than
    crush a toddler who has darted in front of the
    car, good drivers, alert to the needs of others,
    proceed at a speed that enables them to stop when
    necessary.
  • Why did God not stop when he saw that the
    hurricane he was driving was headed toward New
    Orleans? How could a good, just and loving being
    simply ignore the pointless suffering of innocent
    children and pious believers?
  • If there really were an all powerful deity why
    did it not steer Katrina out to the open sea? Did
    it lack the power to do so? Thats not an option,
    since a being lacking in power could not be God.
    Perhaps this being, although almighty, is
    incapable of love and lacks a sense of fairness
    and proportion. But in that case, it could not be
    perfectly good, and so, once again, could not be
    God.
  • Neither a being that is omnipotent but not good
    nor good but not omnipotent could be God. So
    there is no omnipotent perfectly good deity.
    Atheism is true.

5
The problem of suffering cast as an argument
  • 1. If there were an omnipotent and perfectly good
    deity, there would be no pointless suffering.
  • 2. Pointless suffering was caused by Katrina.
  • So There is no omnipotent, perfectly just and
    benevolent deity.

6
What is a theodicy?
  • A theodicy is an ad hoc attempt to explain why
    God permits evil and pointless suffering.
  • According to Dyson, theodicyis aterm
    coined by the philosopher Gottfried Leibniz in
    the eighteenth century. Leibniz was arguing
    against the skeptic Pierre Bayle, who denied
    Gods goodness and omnipotence because of the
    existence of human suffering. 188
  • Dyson notes, theodicies spring upto explain
    natural disasters like earthquakes, floods, and
    droughts. 188

7
Possible Theodicies
  • Evil is a mystery. Patrick Labelle
  • Evil is not real. Saint Augustine
  • God permits evil, but does not cause it.
    Gottfried Leibniz , Edward Rothstein, Michael
    Eric Dyson
  • God can cause suffering, but does not cause
    pointless suffering. His wrath is well-deserved
    punishment for sin and a warning to the faithful.
    The Christian Right Wing, see Dyson.
  • 5. Dyson discusses 1., 3. 4.

8
Mystery
  • As for the mystery of Gods powerful hand at
    work in nature, there is no clear answer for
    this perennial question. LaBbelle
  • The problem of evil provides an escape from
    what we should really be doing helping the
    suffering. LaBelle
  • Dyson responds, LaBelles theodicy is
    disappointing because it doesnt adequately
    address the divine role in suffering. 187

9
Is premise 2 false?
  • 2. Pointless suffering was caused by Katrina.
  • Dyson documents how some conservative right
    wing apologists for theism championed the claim
    that those who suffered from Katrina suffered for
    a good reason.
  • God was trying, to rid New Orleans of gays,
    practitioners of voodo and abortion, and poor
    blacks. 182
  • So because of its abortion clinics, its annual
    gay pride parade known as Southern Decadence, and
    the slavish dependence of blacks on welfare, God
    punished New Orleans and washed away their sic
    sins in a flood of retribution brought on by
    Katrina 181

10
Its time for answers.


--- Lou Dobbs
  • Dyson asks, Did God cause the winds to roar and
    the waters of New Orleans to rage? 193
  • Atheists must say no. There is no God. And
    even if there were, there are better (testable,
    parsimonious, conservative, and fruitful)
    explanations of how hurricanes occur.
    Meteor-ologists have gotten good at predicting
    important information about the weather. While
    they sometimes make mistakes, they certainly know
    more than Pat Robertson!
  • Theists can also say no. But can they give a
    consistent explanation of their answer?

11
How can theists say no?
  • Some theists, St. Augustine (354-430) and Leibniz
    (1646-1716), bite the bullet. They simply assume,
    without proof, that there is a deity who meets
    theist requirements.
  • Given that there is a perfectly good being, it
    follows that there is no pointless suffering. An
    almighty deity could not permit it and correctly
    be called good.
  • Augustine claimed that evil is an illusion, the
    absence of good. Leibniz rejects this idea. He
    thinks evil is real, but denies that God is the
    cause of any of it. Lets look at both views.

12
St. Augustine Evil is not real
  • Augustine says if things are deprived of all
    that is good, they cease to exist. Hence, so
    long as a thing exists it is good. Confessions
  • Evil is a misunderstood privative concept. We
    mistake the absence of good for the presence of
    something real and call it evil. But nothing is
    there. Strictly speaking, evil does not exist.
  • But even if Augustine is right, if there is no
    evil, he still cant get God off the hook.

13
God is an underachiever.---Woody Alan
  • Even if there is no evil that Katrina caused, no
    one can deny that she caused immeasurable and
    pointless suffering. Because of her, people lost
    their lives, families, friends, possessions and
    pets. But why would an almighty being who is just
    and benevolent permit innocent people to suffer
    losses that can never be recovered?
  • Christopher Hitchens posed the following to
    himself at the age of nine, If Jesus could heal
    a blind person he happened to meet then why not
    heal blindness?

14
Leibniz and the free-will defense
  • Unlike Augustine, Leibniz thought evil is real,
    but denied that God is the cause of it. The evil
    in the world is all caused by people who make bad
    choices.
  • Dyson is sympathetic with Leibniz. He agrees with
    Edward Rothstein that in the case of Katrina,
    human agency has been seen as a major culprit
    in the suffering. 189
  • Dyson sides with Rothsteins attributive
    theodicy. People, not God, bear responsibility
    for the Katrina catastrophe. For people, not
    God, chose, how New Orleans was fatefully built
    on marsh, the relative political indifference to
    approaching disaster in the region, the horrid
    response by the government in the storms
    aftermath, the racial and economic inequities
    that riddled the rescue and relief efforts, the
    toll of human error and breakdown of man-made
    networks of communication, transportation,
    potable water, disposal of sewage, and food,
    gasoline, and medical supplies. 190

15
Problems with Free Will Theodicies
  • If the only causes of pointless suffering are the
    bad choices of flawed people, then why did God
    create flawed people? Surely people can make
    choices without making bad ones. And if it is
    necessary that we make some bad choices, why were
    we created to make so many? Augustine asks, How
    come I possess a will that can choose to do
    wrong?
  • To put the matter in contemporary terms, Dyson
    quotes Peter Seinfels who asks
  • How could God allow the negligence, racism
    indifference or hard-heartedness that long gnawed
    at the social fabric of New Orleans, or the
    blindness or incompetence of officials who should
    have under-stood the brewing human storm, and the
    meteorological one?191
  • These are important questions that should not be
    ignored, yet Dyson has no answer to them.

16
Katrina and Dysons Theodicy
  • Had racist biases against blacks and the poor not
    distorted the choices of those in position to
    make important choices, Katrina would not have
    caused as much pointless suffering as it did.
  • But factors other than the choices people made
    also contributed to the Katrina catastrophe.
  • Dyson never asks why God allowed Katrina to form
    in the first place, or why he did not at least
    direct it away from areas populated by innocent
    and faithful people.
  • Racism and disinterested cruelty are surely part,
    but only part, of the explanation of the
    pointless loss and agony Katrina caused for
    countless humans and animals.

17
An Inconsistent Set?
  • a. God is all powerful.
  • b. God is all knowing.
  • c. God is just and benevolent.
  • d. Pointless suffering exists.
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