Is this the best of all possible worlds?

[John Dibble]

If God wasn't impacting human behavior, though, why would His benevolence be relevant?

I never said he didn't impact it...but you seem to be assuming that he created the Holocaust to adjust people. Or I'm just not getting it, I don't know...

You said, "if one believes that there is a benevolent God behind the world it's kind of a given that it would be the best of all worlds."  That requires God to audit all human behavior.  Otherwise, human flaw could easily spawn imperfection (e.g., the Holocaust), making this no longer "the best of all possible worlds."

Perhaps in every other scenario, the Holocaust was worse.

Well then God wouldn't be all that powerful if he can make worlds where all the scenarios involve the Holocaust occurring, now would he?

And we're forgetting free will... why?

I could think of ways to avoid the Holocaust while respecting human free will provided I was some sort of omnipotent being. Like, you know, maybe have a rock fall on Hitler's head or something - that doesn't violate free will, unless maybe the rock has it's own will.

[ilikeverin]

If God wasn't impacting human behavior, though, why would His benevolence be relevant?

I never said he didn't impact it...but you seem to be assuming that he created the Holocaust to adjust people. Or I'm just not getting it, I don't know...

You said, "if one believes that there is a benevolent God behind the world it's kind of a given that it would be the best of all worlds."  That requires God to audit all human behavior.  Otherwise, human flaw could easily spawn imperfection (e.g., the Holocaust), making this no longer "the best of all possible worlds."

Perhaps in every other scenario, the Holocaust was worse.

Well then God wouldn't be all that powerful if he can make worlds where all the scenarios involve the Holocaust occurring, now would he?

And we're forgetting free will... why?

I could think of ways to avoid the Holocaust while respecting human free will provided I was some sort of omnipotent being. Like, you know, maybe have a rock fall on Hitler's head or something - that doesn't violate free will, unless maybe the rock has it's own will.

It would also be incredibly stupid

Besides, who says that would solve anything?  You know the plot of the Red Alert games, I'm sure.

[Alcon]

But you can argue that of any existing world.  The only criteria you seem to have for "best possible world" is "a world, which exists."  Maybe you can explain your specific interpretations here...

[John Dibble]

Besides, who says that would solve anything?  You know the plot of the Red Alert games, I'm sure.

Not entirely, but I believe it's some sort of dystopic alternative reality. But that could always be prevented with more rocks falling on more people's heads!

[Gustaf]

If God wasn't impacting human behavior, though, why would His benevolence be relevant?

I never said he didn't impact it...but you seem to be assuming that he created the Holocaust to adjust people. Or I'm just not getting it, I don't know...

You said, "if one believes that there is a benevolent God behind the world it's kind of a given that it would be the best of all worlds."  That requires God to audit all human behavior.  Otherwise, human flaw could easily spawn imperfection (e.g., the Holocaust), making this no longer "the best of all possible worlds."

If you have already assumed that an imperfection such as the Holocaust rules this out as the best of all possible worlds, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to add...I don't see why it requires God to audit all human behaviour? Perhaps the best of all possible worlds is simply a world capable of both good and bad where good prevails?

[Alcon]

If God wasn't impacting human behavior, though, why would His benevolence be relevant?

I never said he didn't impact it...but you seem to be assuming that he created the Holocaust to adjust people. Or I'm just not getting it, I don't know...

You said, "if one believes that there is a benevolent God behind the world it's kind of a given that it would be the best of all worlds."  That requires God to audit all human behavior.  Otherwise, human flaw could easily spawn imperfection (e.g., the Holocaust), making this no longer "the best of all possible worlds."

If you have already assumed that an imperfection such as the Holocaust rules this out as the best of all possible worlds, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to add...I don't see why it requires God to audit all human behaviour? Perhaps the best of all possible worlds is simply a world capable of both good and bad where good prevails?

If God isn't auditing, I don't see why His benevolence would matter.  And if he is auditing, but leaving room for free will, it isn't the best possible world.

[GMantis]

If this is the best of all possible worlds, I shudder to imagine the worst of all possible worlds.

[Gustaf]

If God wasn't impacting human behavior, though, why would His benevolence be relevant?

I never said he didn't impact it...but you seem to be assuming that he created the Holocaust to adjust people. Or I'm just not getting it, I don't know...

You said, "if one believes that there is a benevolent God behind the world it's kind of a given that it would be the best of all worlds."  That requires God to audit all human behavior.  Otherwise, human flaw could easily spawn imperfection (e.g., the Holocaust), making this no longer "the best of all possible worlds."

If you have already assumed that an imperfection such as the Holocaust rules this out as the best of all possible worlds, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to add...I don't see why it requires God to audit all human behaviour? Perhaps the best of all possible worlds is simply a world capable of both good and bad where good prevails?

If God isn't auditing, I don't see why His benevolence would matter.  And if he is auditing, but leaving room for free will, it isn't the best possible world.

I had forgotten about this thread ... I couldn't come up with a good answer because I don't think we understand each other anymore. I don't see why his benevolence wouldn't matter. And I'm not following why it couldn't be the best possible world.

[Alcon]

Sorry, I'll try to make myself clearer:

If God's benevolence is relevant, that means God interferes.  You're essentially having to argue against free will.  I'm not sure; maybe you're a Calvinist or something?  But otherwise God's benevolence has no relevance.  In fact, you could argue this is true regardless of free will, and the only prerequisite is omnipotence, unless there is a categorical evil in interfering with free will.

[ilikeverin]

Huh?  One of the biggest ways God shows his omnibenevolence is free will.

[Alcon]

Huh?  One of the biggest ways God shows his omnibenevolence is free will.

I'm trying my best to explain this.  Apparently not doing so hot.

Gustaf said "if one believes that there is a benevolent God behind the world it's kind of a given that it would be the best of all worlds."

If free will exists, that makes the benevolence of God irrelevant.  You can't simultaneously argue that God is great because God gives us free will, and this is the best possible worlds because God is benevolent.  They're contradictory.  God would have to interfere completely for his benevolence to be relevant.

Am I (finally) making sense?

[John Dibble]

Let me try to expound upon what Alcon is saying in case it doesn't make sense yet.

First, some suppositions:
1. We all have roughly the same definition of what the ideal state of the world is. Some slightly different states where some minutia like what side of the street you live on might differ, but by and large everyone agrees on the big stuff like for example not having poverty, war, crime, etc. This rids us of having to deal with the notion of different people having different ideas on what the best possible world is.
2. God is benevolent.
3. God created us with free will.

Now, let's say you're traveling. Walking down the road, you come to a fork. It's up to you to decide which way to go, and you don't know what's in either direction. Down the left path is a pack of hungry wolves, and down the right path is, oh, I dunno, perhaps a village full of buxom Swedish babes. (or muscular Swedish dudes if you swing that way) Details don't really matter much - left path bad for you and sorrow for your loved ones, right path very good for you and an interesting vacation story to not tell your loved ones because well... they don't need to know about the buxom Swedish babes you've been hanging out with, now do they?

Now, since both paths look equally good to you due to being ignorant of which path has what on it. Using your free will, you decide on left. God sees this. Now God has two choices. The first is to let you exercise your free will and deal with the rather nasty consequences. The second is to interfere somehow - he can  make rain clouds in the distance of the left path to make you change your mind, or just scare the wolves away.

If he goes with the first option, then the fact that he's benevolent doesn't matter - by exercising your free will the world ceased to hold to the ideal, becoming less than the best possible world.

If he goes with the second option, interference, you're getting into the problem of whether free will actually exists or not. If he interferes in the first way by manipulating your decisions so that you don't encounter any consequences that will affect the ideal state of the world, then free will is an illusion. The second type of interference, in which he leaves the actual decision to you but removes the negative consequence of the decision, actually made me stop and think for a bit. While no direct interference is made in you exercising your free will, you will never encounter any negative consequences. So then, can that actually be said to be real free will? I would say no. It is instead a twisted, false version of free will.

Thusly, if God is benevolently interfering we don't actually have free will. Hence the contradiction. The only way that a world in which free will exists can be the best possible world is if those exercising their free will make optimal decisions all the time. Even if that occurs and even if God gave us free will for benevolent reasons, the world becoming the best possible would not be because of God's benevolence but rather because by chance those making the decisions that affect the world made them in an ideal way.

[Alcon]

Thanks, John

[Beet]

I think the basic question here is whether a benevolent or "best" world is even compatible with free will. So far every theory advanced has been met with insurmountable objections, unless someone will correct me.

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Wait a minute here. Gustaf, if you see a crippled person who has fallen onto the tracks of an oncoming train, what would you do? After all, this person could be the next Stalin...

[John Dibble]

I think the basic question here is whether a benevolent or "best" world is even compatible with free will. So far every theory advanced has been met with insurmountable objections, unless someone will correct me.

As I stated above a "best" world is theoretically possible with free will, but it's extremely unlikely. Even if you start off with an ideal state, chances are some douchebag is going to eventually make a decision that screws things up for themselves and/or others. Take for instance that stupid bitch that was dumb enough to listen to a talking snake. Who in their right mind would do what a talking snake says anyways? Oh yeah, a woman would, duh. Lose a rib and your pad in paradise - are they really worth it? ...yeah, they are, even if God did malevolently place them here to torment us.

A "benevolent" world on the other hand is more likely, if a world that is considered benevolent can simultaneously be considered having room for improvement. Most people in the world could be brought up to be kind, considerate, etc. - some idiots here and there would certainly screw things up every now and then, but the world would overall could be in a state of "good enough".

[Beet]

I think the basic question here is whether a benevolent or "best" world is even compatible with free will. So far every theory advanced has been met with insurmountable objections, unless someone will correct me.

As I stated above a "best" world is theoretically possible with free will, but it's extremely unlikely. Even if you start off with an ideal state, chances are some douchebag is going to eventually make a decision that screws things up for themselves and/or others.

Exceedingly. I suppose there is one world that his theoretically best among all possible worlds where free will exists, within a certain range of population. But in order to have that world, one would first need to be able to predict every free willed decision beforehand. Otherwise, there can be no guarantee of a "best" world, as you said.

Furthermore, such a world would likely occur at the low ranges of population-- only a few people, maybe at most 20. Once the population starts to get in the millions, the general level of goodness should be approaching some mean, which means there is less variation.

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What determines "good enough"?

[John Dibble]

What determines "good enough"?

That's subjective I suppose, but if your require an objective measure let's go with "good enough" being that the average person isn't stupid and/or a jerk for 95% of their lifespan, not including time spent sleeping. Seems like a lofty goal, I know, but maybe if we kill off most of the stupid people or implement mass genetic engineering we might just get there.

[Beet]

What determines "good enough"?

That's subjective I suppose, but if your require an objective measure let's go with "good enough" being that the average person isn't stupid and/or a jerk for 95% of their lifespan, not including time spent sleeping. Seems like a lofty goal, I know, but maybe if we kill off most of the stupid people or implement mass genetic engineering we might just get there.

What if I am born into a world where the average person isn't stupid and/or a jerk for 95% of their lifespan, but I die of a disease after six months? Is this reality good enough?

[John Dibble]

What determines "good enough"?

That's subjective I suppose, but if your require an objective measure let's go with "good enough" being that the average person isn't stupid and/or a jerk for 95% of their lifespan, not including time spent sleeping. Seems like a lofty goal, I know, but maybe if we kill off most of the stupid people or implement mass genetic engineering we might just get there.

What if I am born into a world where the average person isn't stupid and/or a jerk for 95% of their lifespan, but I die of a disease after six months? Is this reality good enough?

You do know that that was just a cynical hypothetical on my part, right? As I said, "good enough" is subjective, so only you can really answer that.

[Gustaf]

I want to defend my intelligence and say that I did get what Alcon meant before Dibble made his.

Alcon's point seems to be, crudely and simply put:

1. Whether God does good stuff only matters if he does stuff.
2. If he does stuff there cannot be free will.

This I disagree with though. God could do things other than interfering at every turn (such as creating the world and us with certain characteristics, providing us with examples, etc). The Earth could have been made into Hell on Earth if we had a malevolent God.

Now, Dibble moves on to a slightly different approach - either we can choose to do bad stuff and then the world isn't perfect or we can't and then there is no free will. I will note that this is a bit different though. It clearly is not the case that God created a best possible world without free will since people do bad stuff. So the question here seems to be a bit more academical. The point more relevant to this discussion seems to be his contention that this world can't be the best possible because it happens all the time that people wander into wolves.

Here my opinion has been something along the lines of this: let's say I see cripple on the tracks in front of an on-coming train. Now, I can choose to help him or I can refrain from doing it. We could also imagine a world contructed so that I couldn't do anything other than helping him - an "ideal" world without free will. My contention is that this latter would not be the ideal outcome. The ideal outcome is that I choose to help him out of my own free will. And that a world where these kind of outcomes occur, and they do quite often, is infinitely better than a world where it is impossible.

[Alcon]

You misunderstood my argument.  You argued that this has to be the best of all possible worlds, because God is benevolent.  But if there is free will, doesn't that exist for the purpose of allowing for less-than-perfect actions?  Hence, God's benevolence (since He allows free will) would not demand this be the best world, unless God exercised His benevolence on us.

Your response to Dibble's point is a little confusing to me.  What if you were a junkie, and allowed him to die because you wanted to steal his wallet.  I'm reasonably sure that sort of thing happens.  How does that fit into the "best possible world"?  I think that addressing a Huxleyan world as our "best possible" scenario is a bit of a scarecrow.

[John Dibble]

Alcon's point seems to be, crudely and simply put:

1. Whether God does good stuff only matters if he does stuff.
2. If he does stuff there cannot be free will.

This I disagree with though. God could do things other than interfering at every turn (such as creating the world and us with certain characteristics, providing us with examples, etc). The Earth could have been made into Hell on Earth if we had a malevolent God.

To clarify, these things are not mutually exclusive. God can be active in the world and free will can exist. In my example above God has to interfere constantly in order to maintain the ideal state, because with free will in play the ideal state is unlikely to be maintained. However, if God interferes every now and then free will can still exist at least on an individual level. To put it simply the more God imposes his will, the less we can impose our own, and the less he imposes his the more we can impose ours in a meaningful way. For our free will to have any meaning, God has to some degree not interfere with our choices and the consequences of our choices.

Just as an example, let's say God is manipulating world affairs at large in order to make some biblical prophecy come true. However, at the same time he is not interfering in the small choices of individuals that only affect a handful of people at best. In this example world our free will has meaning at an individual level, but our free will is limited or possibly entirely meaningless when it comes to world affairs.

[ilikeverin]

If God is omnibenevolent and omnipotent, he must've given us free will with the full knowledge that we would take the best of all possible actions.  It seems like anti-best-of-all-possible-worlds people don't take into account the word "best"... perhaps the world we live in presently has plenty of misery, but any other possible world has more.

[Alcon]

If God is omnibenevolent and omnipotent, he must've given us free will with the full knowledge that we would take the best of all possible actions.  It seems like anti-best-of-all-possible-worlds people don't take into account the word "best"... perhaps the world we live in presently has plenty of misery, but any other possible world has more.

It's a valid possibility, but before you believe that, I think you have the burden of explaining why a junkie stabbing some innocent kid makes this world better.

Moreover, why would it turn out that way, by chance, if God isn't controlling the world?  Maybe another world does have more misery.  But if humans have tons of choices (free will), what suggests they have always chose the superior one?

[John Dibble]

If God is omnibenevolent and omnipotent, he must've given us free will with the full knowledge that we would take the best of all possible actions.

Think about what you're saying for a second. Really think about it. If God has foreknowledge about what actions we would take then how could it possibly be considered free will? Free will and absolute foreknowledge are mutually exclusive.

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The problem with that thought there is that a better world than the present one is easily imaginable, even with human nature as it is now. A perfectly feasible change in one person's choice that resulted in a negative outcome could result in a neutral or positive outcome instead, making the world better, if only slightly, than it is now.