 |
| Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > General Chat > Natural evil | Forum Quick Jump
|
| 
JET
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2002
Total Posts : 397
| Posted 6/30/2007 1:26 PM (GMT -6) |   | I'm asking myself this question: Is it possible that we overly anthropopathicize animal suffering?
I honestly don't know. Any thoughts? | | Back to Top | | |
 |
Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
|  Posted 6/30/2007 1:39 PM (GMT -6) | | | Corey: The line between what we call natural and supernatural may not be as distinct as supposed.
Jeff: That's true. That's why it all gets down to epistemology. How do we decide which epistemology is true and which one grounds warrant for trying to engage one another about truth? That's what all this stuff gets down to. Most people don't want to deal with it. But it is the bottom line.
Corey: As for your question about Plantinga and examples of properly basic beliefs. Well, sense perceptions come to mind.
Jeff: But can't people apply electrical stimulation to our brain and generate mental states that seem to be sense perceptions of objective realities that don't actually exist? That's the problem with that view, to my mind. Those beliefs can be known to be false. Categories, on the other hand, can not be known to be false. How can we know there is no temporal frame of reference? How can we know that events aren't caused? And so on. But we CAN know that those experiences we call sense-perceptions can be misinterpreted. Same with experiencing God.
| | Back to Top | | |
|
Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 6/30/2007 1:45 PM (GMT -6) | | Jet: I'm asking myself this question: Is it possible that we overly anthropopathicize animal suffering?
I honestly don't know. Any thoughts?
Jeff: We can certainly wonder. But there are two thoughts that suggestion brings to mind. First, we typically consider analogous reasoning to be appropriate. If you acted like you were suffering, I would assume you were even if you didn't tell me you were. That's just plain ole' analogous inference. Second, if animals can't suffer, then what is the ground of Christ's comment about the ox on the sabbath? Are we to suppose that it has nothing to do with animal suffering?
That's the point. People can say Greg has an absurd view. But on this subject, ALL views have plausibility problems. I disagree with Greg. But I respect his attempt to address the very REAL issues that need to be considered.
Post Edited (jefscott) : 6/30/2007 1:57:53 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
|
Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 6/30/2007 1:50 PM (GMT -6) | | Jeff: But can't people apply electrical stimulation to our brain and generate mental states ...
Corey: Yes, and Plantinga specifically addresses this. I'm giving the rough description, the formal description Plantinga crafted has clauses that stipulate that a person must not be in such an environment if the belief is to have warrant. The "brain in a vat" situation would not produce warranted beliefs.
Jeff: Right. Because he talks about "proper function," does he not? But how does one talk about proper function apart from the more fundamental notion of final causes? To say we need the "right" environment is just to say that we are designed to function under a specific range of conditions. But how could we even say this apart from the belief that there is design? I don't see any way around it. All assertions assume that our minds are designed to know certain things under certain conditions. Otherwise, we wouldn't confidently make assertions. But naturalism can not consistently say this, even.
| | Back to Top | | |
|
Corey
Five with a Four-wing
Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1893
| Posted 6/30/2007 2:32 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
|
JET
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2002
Total Posts : 397
| Posted 6/30/2007 2:35 PM (GMT -6) | | Jeff: I disagree with Greg. But I respect his attempt to address the very REAL issues that need to be considered.
Earl: I agree. Very real issues. I know my own attempts to address these issues are not even close to adequate. I just find Doc's view fraught with difficulties. Once you identify pain and suffering with Satan, where do you draw the line? It seems I'd have to blame Satan if I stub my toe. Doc may say, stubbing your toe is just the natural result of the fact that some objects are hard. But couldn't that reasoning apply to all animal suffering? An ox gets its hoof stuck in a crevice in a rock in a ditch because rocks are hard. Was God supposed to create matter in such a way that it would evolve with all the spontaneity that Doc wants to retain, but predetermine that rocks wouldn't be hard, or that there'd be no rocks that would be dangerous?
In what way do you disagree with Greg? Do have an explanation of natural evil that you find more plausible than others? | | Back to Top | | |
|
JET
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2002
Total Posts : 397
| Posted 6/30/2007 3:47 PM (GMT -6) | | Jeff: I suppose there is one more possibility. And that is that God intended for us to learn that animals suffered for vast periods of time prior to man and that somehow just learning that fact has some benefit. But I have no idea what that benefit would be.
JET: Just ran across this quote from John Hicks:
...sentient nature supports and serves its human apex [] by helping to constitute an independent natural order to which man is organically related and within which he exists at an epistemic distance from which he may freely come to God who has thus bestowed upon him the autonomous status of a person... from the point of view of the divine purpose of soul-making, animal life is linked with human life as the latter's natural origin and setting, an origin and setting that contribute to the 'epistemic distance' by which man is enabled to exist as a free and responsible creature... | | Back to Top | | |
|
JET
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2002
Total Posts : 397
| Posted 6/30/2007 4:46 PM (GMT -6) | | From Greg's blog:
"I then asked him [Jeffrey Schloss] if he felt evolution HAD to be this destructive to produce creatures like us, and, interestingly enough, he denied this. He admitted natural selection didn't require any death or violence at all. . . .
"Then, getting rather animated, he said, "I'm hestitant to admit it in academic circles because no one seems to take it seriously, but I think there is absolutely NO WAY to adequately account for the carnage in nature unless you accept there's an evil destructive force that pervades nature . . .
"Folks, this is the first live, professional scientist I've ever found who agrees with me . . . "
As a lay person, what am I to make of the fact that, as long as Greg Boyd has been doing his thing, he has only found one "professional scientist" who agrees with this? | | Back to Top | | |
|
Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 6/30/2007 5:46 PM (GMT -6) | | |
Jet: In what way do you disagree with Greg?
Jeff: I disagree because given how problematic all major paradigms of science are, I see no reason to reject the cosmic history of the bible. Granted, I would have to allow for a very long time period for that history. But I don't even know how long. There myriad problems with radioactive dating while there are good reasons for believing erosion would not have left many existing earth features intact as long as scientists posit they have been here. But the allowance for a significantly old earth is about it.
Apart from that I don't see why the biblical history is any more problematic than the big bang, plus star formation, plus galaxaxy formation, plus all the other astronomical phenomena that there are no go good explanations for, plus solar system formation, plus abiogenesis, plus continental drift, plus evolution, plus strata formation, plus fossil formation, and on and on. There are so many mind-boggling problems in all these theories it hurts the head trying to figure out where to begin cataloguing them.
Jet: Do have an explanation of natural evil that you find more plausible than others?
Jeff: Nope. I just think that it seems pretty clear that the perfect Son of God had no problem with the Mosaic cosmology. So I figure I'll go with that until someone does come up with something plausible enough to reject it over. So far I don't see any plausible explanations of earth/cosmic history from a purely inductive perspective. All views seem utterly implausible for various reasons. Given that, I think Greg is right that the degree of natural evil in the world is somehow related to volition. I just don't think it's related to volition in the way he supposes. Nor does scripture even hint at such a thing, to my mind, though it does link it to volition.
But if the degree of natural evil has nothing to do with God's sense of beauty, and if we aren't going to accept Moses' history of the world as a constraint upon our speculation, we need an explanation as to why God finds it beautiful for humans to alleviate animal suffering that has some kind of analogy with alleviating human suffering. For that is exactly the way Christ talks about it. We are greater than the sparrow and the ox. So God cares for us more. It doesn't seem at all that Christ is saying God has no sympathy for mere animals. But why sympathize with death and suffering that you bring about because you find it beautiful? It makes no sense to me. And apparently it doesn't to Greg.
Post Edited (jefscott) : 6/30/2007 5:58:12 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
|
JET
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2002
Total Posts : 397
| Posted 6/30/2007 7:17 PM (GMT -6) | | Jeff: . . . given how problematic all major paradigms of science are, I see no reason to reject the cosmic history of the bible. . . . I don't see why the biblical history is any more problematic than the big bang, plus star formation, plus galaxaxy formation, plus all the other astronomical phenomena that there are no go good explanations for, plus solar system formation, plus abiogenesis, plus continental drift, plus evolution, plus strata formation, plus fossil formation, and on and on. There are so many mind-boggling problems in all these theories it hurts the head trying to figure out where to begin cataloguing them.
Earl: For the sake of convenience, I'll use the term "mainstream cosmology" (without meaning to imply anything about whether "mainstream" equals "true" ) for those aspects of the major paradigms of science (i.e., big bang, star formation, galaxy formation, continential drift, evolution, strata formation, fossil formation, etc.) that would be commonly agreed upon and taught as non-controversial among most faculty at most major public research universities. (First, do you even believe there is such a thing as "mainstream cosmology" as defined above?)
Would I be correct to say that your predisposition is to interpret the Genesis creation account as a literal, historical cosmology (since Jesus had no problem with the Mosaic cosmology), and that you don't believe the weight of the evidence proffered for "mainstream cosmology" is sufficient to rebut this predisposition? Am I understanding you correctly?
Jeff: . . . we need an explanation as to why God finds it beautiful for humans to alleviate animal suffering that has some kind of analogy with alleviating human suffering. For that is exactly the way Christ talks about it.
Earl: First, I don't think that's what Jesus is saying. He's saying that its hypocritical for humans to take care of their own ox on the sabbath while accusing Jesus of violating the law by healing on the sabbath.
Second, saying that the kind of world God wanted to create requires (or at least entails the possibility of) animal suffering does not require one to say that God is indifferent to animal suffering.
Post Edited (JET) : 6/30/2007 7:26:26 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
|
Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 6/30/2007 8:23 PM (GMT -6) | | | Earl: Here's kind of how I do science. Since I don't have the time, or the scientific training, or the research background to assimilate and interpret the data myself, I do my best to weigh the testimony of "expert witnesses". I find that there are many scientists who are theists who interpret the evidence in a way that is consistent with "mainstream cosmology".
Jeff: This has nothing to do with weighing evidence, though. It's assuming majority equals true. I don't believe that. The majority scientific opinion has virtually always been false throughout history. Scientists are perfectly content to hold to views tentatively because they don't think natural evil is anything that needs to be accounted for. Even most ID scientists are not troubled at all by the degree of natural evil. But many of the atheistic ones are convinced it is a strong argument AGAINST theism. They can't both be right.
Besides, there is a minority of highly qualifed atheistic scientists (Nobel prize winners, even) that find one or more mainstream paradigm of cosmic history pure bunk. They can't all be right, then. Someone is dead wrong.
Earl: However, I have never heard of a non-theist mainstream scientist who interprets the evidence in a way that is anything like Mosaic cosmology.
Earl: I have. First, there are many highly qualified earth scientists, though they are a minority, who think continental drift is bunk for very good reasons. They think the most compelling empirical evidence argues for earth expansion. They say the farther we go back into history, the more water there was on the continents (even drifters believe the evidence suggests this). The ocean basins are young, they say, not because they have subducted, but because the earth expanded at some point in time. By this view, if you go back far enough, the world was virtually under water once. Does this sound like something Moses said?
Furthermore, as the earth expanded, continents separated just like the drifters would argue. Can this be seen as in agreement with the fact that Moses says in Peleg's day the earth divided? One Hebraist said that word for "divided" was used that way. It would also be non-coincidental that life spans started to decline after Peleg, per the genealogies. This would, in turn, be analogous to the drop in life span after the flood. Both events are physical changes that result in changes in life-span. And as the expansion was an ongoing event, so were the life span changes thereafter, per the geneaologies.
Second, even Derek Ager, one of the best stratigraphers that ever lived, believed that the earth has experienced many huge catastrophes to explain the widespread sedimentary facies and erosional features that are non-analogous to any of those forming today. This would explain to some extent why fossils show abrupt changes at certain stratigraphic boundaries. Ager also came to believe in earth expansion before he died because the empirical evidence convinced him of it. Oh yeah, Ager was an atheist.
Third, some atheist geologists and paleontologists have noted that the fossil record corresponds strongly to the predominant facies that were preserved at a given time. The trend shows predominantly marine in the deep past leading to many land sediments in the tertiary and quartenary. The flora and fauna show a definite correlation to this preservation. That is to say, we wouldn't expect to find camels in the fossil record of the Cambrian simply because we find marine facies from that time period. All or most else from that time period has eroded away. This is on top of the fact that it is known that fossil preservation is rare and highly biased for reasons we don't fully understand. Again, this squares, as well as the wild speculations of scientists, with the Mosaic sequence of history.
Fourth, it is now accepted that red-shifts of galaxies and quasars tend to fall into certain quantized values. This seems to suggest that our galaxy is somewhere near the center of the universe (assuming that all galaxy red-shifts are distance indicators). There are other findings that are consistent with that view too. Does this sound like Moses' claim that the heavens were spread out from the earth? It does to me. Big-Bangers assume this evidence means that galaxies travel at certain well-defined velocities. But there is nothing they know about the physical dynamics of a big bang that would explain that. They simply prefer that explanation metaphysically. That's their perogative. But it's not a scientific conclusion. And I'm uninterested in their personal preferences.
All this is on top of the fact that there is good evidence that quasars and some galaxies are closer than their red-shifts would indicate by the doppler interpretation. Moreover, there are stars in our own galaxies who have red-shifts inexplicable to science. Besides all this, the big bang assumes that time and space come into being. This is why they can talk about space bending and time warping. Beings can bend and warp. But to my mind, space and time are not beings. This, alone, makes the concept of a big bang unintelligible to me. It does to a lot of other highly qualified atheistic scientists, too, though they are a minority, like open theists.  Many of these scientists hold to the Lorentzian view of relatitivity and reject the big bang for a host of other very strong empirical reasons.
Fifth, there are highly-qualified scientists who say that relativistic effects could account for faster physical processes and "greater" speeds of light farther out in space, since we seem to be in a gravitational well. I don't know if this argument works. Nor do I know if it works with Lorentzian relativity. But I haven't heard of any counter arguments yet.
The one thing I think ALL scientists agree on is that the best evidence indicates that the earth and the heavens are definitely much older than 6,000 years. I know of no one, even young earthers, who think the best available evidence is consistent with such a view. The YEC'ers hold out for explanations of anomalies just like their opposition does. I just can't see how that kind of evidence will be forthcoming. So I concede that the universe could be very old. But even mainstreamers believe that humans have been around for millions of years. Granted, they think homo erectus folks could build boats and sail across seas without inductive abilities. But I think that's non-sense. Homo Erectus was a son of Adam.
Earl: If mainstream scientists aren't categorically prejudiced against theism, why would they be categorically prejudiced against Mosaic cosmology?
Jeff: I suspect the truth will always be held by a minority. Because the truth is so full of implications about accountability.
Jeff: . . . we need an explanation as to why God finds it beautiful for humans to alleviate animal suffering that has some kind of analogy with alleviating human suffering. For that is exactly the way Christ talks about it.
Earl: First, I don't think that's what Jesus is saying. He's saying that its hypocritical for humans to take care of their own ox on the sabbath while accusing Jesus of violating the law by healing on the sabbath.
Jeff: He is at least saying that. Do you also think Jesus was saying God doesn't care about the sparrow that falls? Even though he uses the word "better," as if there is a comparison of degree in the caring?
Earl: Second, saying that the kind of world God wanted to create requires (or at least entails the possibility of) animal suffering does not require one to say that God is indifferent to animal suffering.
Jeff: I think even Greg agrees with you here. To both Greg and me, it's about the degree of suffering and the inability to see how that degree of suffering is necessary to prepare for humans or anything like that.
Post Edited (jefscott) : 6/30/2007 8:28:39 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
|
JET
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2002
Total Posts : 397
| Posted 6/30/2007 9:53 PM (GMT -6) | | | Jeff: This has nothing to do with weighing evidence, though. It's assuming majority equals true.
Earl: I deleted that part of my post (apparently too late), because I realized how badly it was worded. I didn't mean to suggest I'm "weighing evidence". I meant to say I'm incapable of weighing the evidence. Therefore, I'm like a jury weighing the testimony of an expert witness based on things like qualifications, consensus, bias, prejudice. (And after reading your post, I'm not sure I'm even capable of doing that.)
Jeff: To both Greg and me, it's about the degree of suffering and the inability to see how that degree of suffering is necessary to prepare for humans or anything like that.
Earl: Isn't this arbitrary? How would we even measure the degree of animal suffering? What if I could prove that the average animal spent 99% of its life enjoying life and only 1% of its life getting eaten by another animal? Or what if I could show that predatory animals generally don't torture their prey, but kill them rather quickly? Or what if predation actually results in less animal pain than the alternative (a la Peter Vardy from quote above)? Etc. And wouldn't we say that the the extent to which animal "pain" is analogous to human "suffering" is generally proportionately related to the amount of sentience the animal possesses? Wouldn't this relativize a large amount of animal injury and death?
Even with moral evil and the free will defense, there is still the question of why God doesn't do more to prevent this much moral evil. However, we assume that God is doing all he can given the complexity of myriad creational factors given the type of world God wants. How do we know that God could have created a world with the possibility for this much beauty without the possibiity for this much pain (assuming we could know how to measure the degree of pain in the first place)?
| | Back to Top | | |
|
Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 7/1/2007 7:24 AM (GMT -6) | | |
Jeff: To both Greg and me, it's about the degree of suffering and the inability to see how that degree of suffering is necessary to prepare for humans or anything like that.
Earl: Isn't this arbitrary? How would we even measure the degree of animal suffering? What if I could prove that the average animal spent 99% of its life enjoying life and only 1% of its life getting eaten by another animal?
Jeff: I think this would be a start. But there's still the issue of imagining why there needs to be hundreds of millions of years of animal suffering at all, in preparation for humans. How is that quantity of suffering (if we don't want to talk about degree) a means to any conceivable benevolent end? I'm not saying it can't be. I just sympathize with Greg in questioning whether there is such an explanation. For the most part, we always want to explain why suffering should be provided for by a God who, sans creation, supposedly exists in total bliss. Why wouldn't we want to explain the purpose of animal suffering, then? Short of such an explanation, the only other thing to do is think of what and how volitional beings might have led to it.
| | Back to Top | | |
|
Asher
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 477
| Posted 7/2/2007 3:37 PM (GMT -6) | | "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" has some great epsiodes in the first four seasons, but the last three seasons complete story arcs are brilliant. From season 5 there is the closing theme of "death (self-sacrificial death) as gift".
And then there are so many ways that natural and moral evil are addressed in the show, in all shades of ambiguity.
I think it was the best TV show ever.
Rob | | Back to Top | | |
|
One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 7/2/2007 3:51 PM (GMT -6) | | Maybe Greg can answer this...
How is God related to the "eschatological essence" of a sheep liver fluke?
Being quite serious.
Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
"My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be One, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be One as we are One— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete UNIty. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me."
For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to SONship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. | | Back to Top | | |
|
Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 7/2/2007 9:19 PM (GMT -6) | | | Alan made the following interesting observation of the conference:
One final thought before closing. It's really struck me at this conference that there's a three-way conversation going on between metaphysical materialists, process theists, and classical theists. Materialists and process theists tend to gang up against classical theists in the name of "science" while making heavy wind of the problem of evil. Process theists and classical theists tend to gang up against materialists by opposing the atheism and barren reductionism of the latter. And both materialists and classical theists tend to gang up against process theists as fuzzy-thinking "have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too" types.
Behe has rightly said that it's silly to say of theists they adhere to a god-of-the-gaps view. On the contrary, theists go with what seems to them to be evidence of design, but are open to evidence to the contrary. After all, what theist doesn't believe that some structures, forms and phenomena are the result of blind causes? It is the materialists who are materialism-of-the-gaps no matter how improbable a given structure or phenomena seems in terms of naturalism. And for many of them, this is because they are convinced the problem of evil has deductively ruled out theism, as Alan observed them contend.
But it is interesting that there always have been and probably always will be theists that are just as troubled by the "problem of evil" as those materialists. To the extent that Greg says:
I'll end with a reflection on the aspect of Haught's view that deeply concerns me. Like many other theologians who center their theological reflections on the evolutionary process, Haught simply has no place for a historical "fall." In his view, there never was a primordial paradise or a primordial rebellion (Genesis 3). What we call our "fallen nature" is for these theologians simply our inherited animal instincts that we need to tame and transcend with our higher, ever-evolving, spiritual capacities. This is already troubling, but what makes it worse is that if there's no historical "fall," it's not clear how there could be a historical "redemption." Jesus isn't rescuing us from sin and the devil. He's simply helping us evolve, or something of the sort.
This, obviously, constitutes a signfiicant revisioning of biblical thinking about Christ, and because of my commitment to biblical inspiration, I'm not willing to go there. Jesus and the whole New Testament clearly affirms a historical fall (e.g. Rom. 5), and since I have very good grounds for thinking Jesus is the Son of God, I have very good reasons for thinking he's right about such matters. Nor do I see any good philosophical or scientific reasons to deny a historical fall or historical redemption. Indeed, it seems to me almost self-evident that there's something profoundly wrong with human nature and society -- as well as the "natural world" -- as we presently experience it.
Post Edited (jefscott) : 7/2/2007 9:24:58 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
|
Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 7/4/2007 9:31 AM (GMT -6) | | | Tom: Why would the benevolent God create a context for human becoming that was capable of such violence if, as Greg argues, God didn't HAVE to do this? Greg will want to argue that the possibilty of nature's becoming this violent WAS a necessary part of the free context required of human becoming.
Jeff: I've started reading Greg's piece in the atonement book because of his new post about forgiveness. Therein (the book, that is), he talks about humans being created to be viceroys that have the role of guardian. This, to my memory, was the how Greg explained the purpose of our arrival into the Satan-dominated order. Humans were supposed to guard creation from Satan. How they were supposed to keep Satan from fiddling with animal genomes is beyond me. Nevertheless, I don't see anything Greg says about animal suffering as having to do with preparing for human becoming, per se. IOW, the role of humans as viceroys, per Greg, is DUE to what Satan had done to creation--it is NOT that God INTENDED that animal suffering as preparation for human choice-making.
| | Back to Top | | |
| 124 posts in this thread.
Viewing Page : 1 2 3 4 5 |
| Forum Information | Currently it is Monday, November 09, 2026 3:50 PM (GMT -6)
There are a total of 97,718 posts in 6,040 threads.
In the last 3 days there were 0 new threads and 0 reply posts. View Active Threads
|
Forum powered by dotNetBB v2.42EC SP3
dotNetBB © 2000-2026 |
|
|