Christian historian Dr. Wallace Marshall and I are debating whether or not enough evidence points to the existence of a god. For background and format, and Dr. Wallace’s opening statement, see entry one. For subsequent entries, see index.
Now we are focusing on a broadly cast Argument from Evil, or as I prefer to call it, Argument from Indifference. Marshall is here concluding that debate with his last response to to my ninth reply. Next we move on to another argument for or against God of Marshall’s choosing.
That the Evidence Points to God (IX)
by Wallace Marshall, Ph.D.
Dr. Carrier begins his final entry on his “Argument from Indifference” by declaring that the first argument I presented, the Kalam Cosmological, constitutes no evidence for the existence of God. Yet we saw in that argument that “all the evidence” (Vilenkin, Krauss), at the very least the preponderance of evidence, supports an absolute beginning to all physical reality, which is far more likely on theism than on atheism. As the agnostic NASA astronomer Robert Jastrow wrotein the aftermath of this discovery:
[The scientist] has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries. [1]
And this was before the BGV theorem, which presented still stronger evidence for the past-finitude of the cosmos. An absolute beginning is not only more likely on theism but in the nature of the case requires (unless one is willing to embrace the absurdity of something coming from nothing) a transcendent cause that is immaterial, spaceless, timeless, immensely powerful, and plausibly personal.
I will address Dr. Carrier’s claims about evolution and beauty when I come to the Argument from Fitness.
After four entries on his Argument from Indifference, Dr. Carrier has studiously avoided telling us for what crimes, and in what manner, he would like God to punish the human race. [2] But he now makes the moderate request that God strike a balance between “oppressive policing” and “no policing at all.” This, as I will show, is precisely what God does.
In my last entry, I argued that there is a general divine justice operative in the world, as witnessed by the fact that there is more moral evil than natural evil. I proved this by pointing out that given the choice of eliminating one or the other, we would choose to eliminate moral evil. Dr. Carrier attempts to sidestep this choice by assigning the primary cause of moral evil to “our badly designed brains,” specifically our “cognitive biases,” which he in turn categorizes among natural evils.
But cognitive biases, insofar as they contribute to our moral evil (not all cognitive biases do), are simply a component of our inward evil, specifically the component of insincerity and not loving truth. And as everyone knows, people with excellent brains are as spectacularly guilty of twisting, dodging and injustice as uneducated people are—indeed often more so because their superior intellect enables them to do it with greater subtlety.
So my point stands, that moral evils are greater than natural evils. Natural evils are therefore consistent with divine justice, while the sweetness we enjoy is consistent with God’s kindness. That natural evils predate the appearance of humanity isn’t a persuasive retort, because there is an obvious harmony in God’s making the world an organic whole that ties into the whole course of its development.
Now, there is something odd about humans complaining that they will not believe in God because of all the evil and suffering in the world, when humans themselves perpetrate the greater part of that evil and suffering! As the Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius put it:
The gods, who live forever, are not vexed by the fact that they have to continually tolerate human beings as they are, and so many of them bad…. But you, who are destined to end so soon—are you weary of enduring the bad, and this too when you are one of them? [3]
Dr. Carrier further objects that natural evils “punish humans completely indiscriminately.” How could he know this without an intimate knowledge of the moral life of everyone who has been afflicted by natural evils? He would be on firmer grounds if he argued from the fact that natural evils often befall people who are comparatively innocent. Even here, however, natural evil serves as a curb upon the moral evil that we all (to some degree) participate in, provides opportunity for a richer complex of virtues to be displayed (e.g., patience, compassion, fortitude), reminds us of our mortality, enhances our appreciation for the goods and relationships we have, and opens us to deeper perspectives on life. [4]
Not only is there a general divine justice operative in the world, but ideas like karma, and numerous maxims that take the form of, “What goes around comes around,” “You reap what you sow,” etc., indicate that people do not generally experience the world as a place without a strong measure of specific and individual divine justice as well. Thus, Dr. Carrier’s assertion that God “doesn’t police us at all” is unfounded; and I have shown that there are good reasons why God doesn’t make the connection between human evil and divine punishment more immediate and obvious. [5]
Moreover, if God exists, it is obviously possible, perhaps even probable, that there is a future state after death where the inequities of this life will be rectified. [6] I am not for a moment begging the question of whether this is in fact the case, but simply pointing out that when considering the hypothesis of theism, we cannot assume that it is not, especially when we can see good reasons why God might not govern us in this life in a police-state fashion.
Dr. Carrier deems it not only “immoral” but “depraved” for God to create the animal world as it is in order to anticipate (and subsequently reflect) human evil, and to effect a drama of such grandeur and fascination as the animal kingdom presents. One can, of course, sympathize with Dr. Carrier’s desire for a gentle animal world, but he is simply not viewing this matter on a grand enough level. If God exists, we must expect him to be a great Artist operating on a cosmic scale, and not simply a caretaker. Nor does Carrier sufficiently weigh my point about the extent and severity of animal pain being considerably less than human anthropomorphizing imagines. [7]
In summary, given human evil, the world as we experience it—both in its bitterness and sweetness—is the kind of place we should expect to find if it is ruled by a God who is both just and merciful. There is a morally sufficient reason for natural evil, and there are plausible reasons why God governs the world as he does.
A final point: Given the immeasurable knowledge God would have, not just of individual facts but of their cause-and-effect relationships extending through the entire history of the cosmos, it is eminently plausible that he may have other good reasons that are unknown to us in our comparative ignorance. [8]
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Such is Dr. Marshall’s conclusion on the Argument from Indifference.
Continue on to Dr. Marshall’s next question.
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[1] Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers (New York: W. W. Norton, 1978), 116, p. 107 in paperback edition. This two-minute video where Jastrow discusses the “hopeless muddle” he found himself in when his materialism and agnosticism ran up against the evidence of an absolute beginning, is worth watching. Note also Stephen Hawking’s explicit statement that his desire to find a way around the absolute beginning of the universe was motivated by the fact that if we cannot do so, “One would have to appeal to religion and the hand of God.” Lisa Grossman, “Why Physicists Can’t Avoid a Creation Event”, New Scientist (Issue 2846) 11 January 2012, p. 6.
[2] The only exception is Dr. Carrier’s oddly persistent demand that God punish people (in a way not specified) who claim he permits slavery, etc.
[3] Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, VII (emphasis mine).
[4] Notice, then, that even though humanity deserves natural evil as a just punishment for its moral evil, the effects of natural evil can be surprisingly salutary. Sam Harris and Adam Grant discuss the paradoxically beneficial effects of suffering in a recent episode of Harris’ “Making Sense” podcast, # 158 – “Understanding Humans in the Wild” May 30, 2019, beginning near the 1 hr., 27 min. mark and recurring several times in the remaining half hour of their conversation.
[5] This method of divine government actually strikes the balance that Dr. Carrier requests of God in his last entry: something between “no policing at all” and “an oppressive police state.”
[6] An additional reason God does not judge human beings in a tit-for-tat manner, besides the ones I have given above, may be to suggest the idea of a future judgment after death, as St. Augustine observed long ago.
[7] The two articles Carrier and I cited (from the same volume in Frontiers in Physiology) agree on the two basic points I made in my last.
[8] For an extensive discussion of this last point, see the classic article by philosopher William Alston, “The Inductive Argument from Evil and the Human Cognitive Condition”, Philosophical Perspectives 5 (1991): 29-67.
Is Singularity – that ‘infinitly’ dens fizikl substuns part’v the beginning’v the univurs or not?
Or is it a seed jesus plāst which he creatid as well?
whot is the thing cal’d in which spās and tīm ixpands?
and did jesus creāt that as well befor cummanding singularity t gro?
Okay. I’m starting to find your comments so unintelligible I may have to stop posting them. They are not contributing anything here.
That’s a grossly unfair threat.
Let me try again with inferior spelling. tho please note webster’s/OED’s etc orthography isn’t gospel.
Be that as it may.
Is singularity ie the infinitely hot/dense
substance part of the universe or not? where did singularity come from and is it really infinite or figuratively so – as ‘actual infinities can’t exist’ &c
And what did it expand into – ie what did the expansion displace? Was that created by Jesus too as befor space and time there was only jesus.
Was that displaced item non-natural?
I suppose singularity like a seed Jesus fertilised, if so what is the matrix?
I don’t fully understand your questions here.
Singularities, first of all, don’t exist. They are contradicted by quantum mechanics (e.g. at a scale smaller than a graviton, gravity stops working, thus preventing the formation of true singularities; singularities are now just fictional stand-ins for “unknown state” in modern science). And this means there won’t have been “infinite” density or heat.
But if you mean to ask, “whence came” the “first primordial state” whatever that was (and we currently have no science to describe what it was; though many hypotheses proposed), the question is the same as “whence came” God. If it all began (and we don’t in fact know it did) there is always going to be some first thing that exists unexplained. By definition—as the only logically available alternative is an infinite series of explanations, and thus past infinity (which is also possible, we don’t know).
Ergo, it is logically necessarily the case that, if there was not an infinite past series, there must be some first thing that must have no explanation. It will just exist. So the only question is: if that’s so, what thing is that most likely to have been? An extremely simple point of physical chaos? Or an extremely complex magical entity?
As to “what did it expand to replace” that is a nonsensical question, like asking what’s north of the North Pole. There was no “there” until the expansion created a “there.” So it does not expand “into” anything. It replaces nothing. It creates something instead: an expanding place to exist. This is standard physics now.
Ta (that means thank u) – that’s most informativ.
Not sure physics or any sciences ought ever t be ‘standard’. Or at least these standards ar ever in flux, and flux diminishes value in a ‘standard’.
‘whence god’ isn’t comprabl t ‘whence the universe’ one’s the prime mover the other is moved. whhat applies to the universe can’t apply to god by definition.
At least in standard theistic definition.
You’r saying that beyond the limits of the seen (and unseen) universe there is no ‘there’ there?
What’s that ‘black’ I see ‘above’ and ‘below’ the oblate (or prolate) spheroid of the universe.
No north beyond the north pole? OK but yesterday’s northpole isn’t where today’s northpole is – ie the pole has managed to find a new north.
It’s begging the question to suppose the universe is moved by anything but its own original state. The prime mover can just as well be a simple unconscious state of chaos. As abundant science shows. If there even is one; the universe could well be past eternal and thus have no prime mover.
But yes, there is no “there” there where there is, by definition, nothing. “Nothing” does not mean an expanse of empty space; that’s actually something (it has the properties of shape, volume, quantity, etc.). There is no property of “being black” where there is nothing to even have properties (much less colors).
That the north pole moves has no relevance to the fact that you can never be north of it wherever it is. Just as you can never stand or reside where there is nowhere to stand or reside. By definition. They are literally nonsense for exactly the same reason.
Singularities are mathematical extrapolations beyond the realm of currently known physics.
Q: Where did it come from?
A: From mathematical extrapolation of the data.
Q: Is it really infinite?
A: Only mathematically.
Q: what did it expand into.
A: Since it’s based on an extrapolation of the data of our universe the answer is: our universe.
Q: what did the expansion displace?
A: There is no displacement so nothing was displaced.
Q: Was that created by Jesus too […]
A: Yes, nothing was created by Jesus.
Q: […] as befor space and time there was only jesus.
A: “Before time” is nonsense as “before” is a temporal qualifier that requires time.
That also refutes that Jesus existed before.
All this time this tedious and annoying troll has had the ability to write in English but has chosen to instead write phonetically? I was giving him the benefit of the doubt that English was not his first language, that he was using some kind of translating software, that he was doing is best… Oh my god you should delete every one of his asinine messages. Or I should say, yu shud deleet evry wun uv hs assinine mesigs.
Dr. Marshall wrote:
“(unless one is willing to embrace the absurdity of something coming from nothing)”
Ummm….like God?
#specialpleading
OU8121NVU- After eight previous exchanges on the Kalam cosmological, you must surely be aware that when I write, “the absurdity of something coming from nothing,” I mean, “the absurdity of something COMING INTO EXISTENCE from nothing.”
One of the two premises of Kalam is, “Whatever BEGINS TO EXIST has a cause.” But God, if he exists, didn’t begin to exist, doesn’t come into existence. If he did, he obviously wouldn’t be God.
As Dr. Carrier already pointed, if there are no causal laws to govern this nothingness, why would something coming into existence from nothing be absurd?
Dr. Marshall wrote:
Response: The absurdity is that you can somehow conceive of a God that has always existed but nothing else.
#specialpleading
Dr. Marshall wrote:
Response: But nobody in their right might makes the bold claim that humans are all good. Since such a claim is made about God should he not be held to that standard? It seems to me that your point here is that God might not be all good after all but at least he is not as bad as us mortals.
OU8121NVU- An essential part of goodness is justice, which includes punishment in accord with ill doings.
A central claim of the Argument from Evil is that the natural evils in the world (the ones that affect human beings negatively, anyway) are unjust. But since human moral evils exceed natural evils, this obviously isn’t the case, at least generally speaking, with regard to the human race.
But if Jesus forgave all ill duings that wud still be ‘justis’ – just as the prodigal sun’s fathr forgav his sun without punishmunt – but it was still just.
why du xtians assume that jujmunt intails punishmunt rathr than forgivness?
This tensiun between forgivniss and punishmunt is a contradiction at christianity’s core as Don Cupitt puts it.
In muhummudunism, there is a Hadēth Qudsē ie a report where Muhummud quotes God’s wurds – but it’s not the Quran:
“When God completed creation, he wrote in His book with him upon the throne: Verily, my mercy prevails over my wroth.”
Notis that God’s justis is different tu our own eg
“They have certainly disbelieved who say that God, He is Christ, the son of Mary. Say [o muhummud], “Then who could prevent God at all if He had intended to destroy Christ, the son of Mary, or his mother or everyone on earth?” And to God belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth and whatever is between them. He creates what He wills, and God hath power over all things’ Quran 5:17
If God destroys christ and all humanity he’d still be Just, ‘He shall not be questioned as to what He does, but they shall he questioned.’ quran 21; Isaiah 64; Romans 9.
Beware the ellipse!
“The gods who are immortal are not vexed because during so long a time they must tolerate continually men such as they are and so many of them bad; and besides this, they also take care of them in all ways. But thou, who art destined to end so soon, art thou wearied of enduring the bad, and this too when thou art one of them? ”
That’s right, Aurelius is saying “the gods” take equal care of the bad, and the good. Quite a thought: equal care for the bad and the good, in all ways. Quite a thought. Thanks, Marcus.
Is there a published source for this statement:
“But cognitive biases, insofar as they contribute to our moral evil (not all cognitive biases do), are simply a component of our inward evil, specifically the component of insincerity and not loving truth”
Just wondering if there’s been any scientific progress nailing down the location of our “inward evil’.
MBENSON- What is this “beware the ellipse”? That clause, “they take care of them in all ways,” is simply a repetition of what I’ve written above, namely that it’s not like God (gods in Marcus Aurelius’ case) only punish humans; they also provide good things for them, which is an additional reason why humans ought not to complain against the gods for what they suffer.
What do you even by the “location” of our inward evil, and what would it matter, since everyone knows that humans have both inward and outward evil?
Hi. Thanks for responding.
Actually, Dr. Carrier taught me to “beware the ellipse” in his post entitled, “That Christian Nation Nonsense (Gods Bless Our Pagan Nation)”. I’ve been wary of ellipses ever since. Perhaps I’m hypersensitive about it. My apologies if I sounded snarky.
In this instance, after looking up and reading the entire paragraph, I thought the left out bit of this quote changed its meaning. In my reading “they also take care of them in all ways” implies that the gods make no distinction between the good and the bad and take care of both “in all ways”. The quote includes the words “human beings” (your translation) or “men” (my translation) so, in total, I take it to mean all human beings are considered, good and bad. You quoted this in the context of a discussion of a monotheist god, so I assume you are including a “god” in this statement as well. I take the omitted part to mean that the god(s) are indifferent to human behavior, evil or good, and neither punish or reward either. You are saying, I think, that he/they do pay attention and punish or reward accordingly.
I’m unconvinced by that. Actually, it’s people that punish evildoers. With criticism, ostracism, prison, execution, war. Don’t the world’s religious texts include laments and complaints about god(s) inaction in punishing evildoers?
“But cognitive biases, insofar as they contribute to our moral evil (not all cognitive biases do), are simply a component of our inward evil, specifically the component of insincerity and not loving truth”
Sorry, but in my opinion that simply sounds made up. Perhaps a “deepity” (Google Dan Dennet and deepity). Sincerely, please, if you have information about the casual chain of cognitive biases leading to moral evil please share it with the scientific community so the information can be used to break the casual chain. By “location” I mean the neurological process by which internal bias leads to outward evil behavior. What a great discovery that would be. Actual scientists are working on it, I’m sure, and I hope they’re successful.
Well, I’m off to enjoy the refreshment of a cold, crisp beer, as you suggested earlier in this debate. Cheers!
Dr. Marshall wrote:
Response: So this “just” God just haphazardly doles out punishment to mankind, including innocent children and other creatures of this planet (not even capable of sinning), in the form of natural evils.
That would be like a police force and justice system that just randomly prosecutes and executes people, with the reason or justification being an unacceptable crime rate among the population.
As much as people might complain about our police force and justice system at times I don’t think anyone would accuse them of operating at that level of carelessness, incompetence, or unfairness.
I would expect a “just” God (without limitations) to be at least as good as our justice system when it come to assessing and doling out punishment for the wrongdoings of mankind.
Spot on.
sevral errurs. your ‘haphazardly’ may be jesus’
‘wisely’. we havn’t got the cumplete picture – once we hav, then u can say ‘haphazardly’ – but god – by definition – can’t act haphazardly.
‘innocent children…not capable of sinning’..
This may be news but mankind ixists in a state of rebelliun against god. sin isn’t nesasrily an act but it’s infused in our nature. no wun is morally innusunt.
u cunfuse this with legally innusunt.
by the way are these innusunt childrin the wuns u allow to be kild in the woom in the name of reproductiv ‘rights?’ Life begins at conception which is a scientific fact (eg Keith L Moore, the develuping human etc).
why set up straws only t nock down? why not ingage with what theists actually say and believe?
mutatis mutandis etc
That’s all pseudoscientific baloney.
does ‘all’ mean ‘all’?
Dr. Alfred M. Bongioanni, professor of pediatrics and obstetrics at the University of Pennsylvania, stated:
“I have learned from my earliest medical education that human life begins at the time of conception…
Dr. Jerome LeJeune, professor of genetics at the University of Descartes in Paris, was the discoverer of the chromosome pattern of Down syndrome. Dr. LeJeune testified to the Judiciary Subcommittee, “after fertilisation has taken place a new human being has come into being.” He stated that this “is no longer a matter of taste or opinion,” and “not a metaphysical contention, it is plain experimental evidence.” He added, “Each individual has a very neat beginning, at conception.”
Professor Micheline Matthews-Roth, Harvard University Medical School: “It is incorrect to say that biological data cannot be decisive…. It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception…. Our laws, one function of which is to help preserve the lives of our people, should be based on accurate scientific data.”
etc.
hardly ‘baloney’ – but then again, most atheist hav no trubl killing humans in the woom in the name uv ‘reproductiv rights’ by dismembring litl childrin.
At least Chris Hitchens got it right.
My son, who I love more than any in this world, requires no policing. He requires parenting, which my wife and I lovingly and patiently provide, without threat of punishment or fear of disruption to the safe and secure order he’s grown accustom. One would expect a so called “loving” god to do at least as much.
ALIF wrote:
In response I would like to quote Sam Harris on this topic:
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