Great exchange. Lots to think about it. Loved Emerson's bold strategy of getting some of the smartest Theists in the PhilRel community to focus their intellectual energies debating each other instead of targeting Atheism.
What I like about Emerson is that although he is an atheist (as I understand) he is not chasing after theist like "ha ha that's silly and I am much more smart than you." This allows other people to develope ideas freely so that the discussion does not turn in the boring circles we all already know. I guess most of us secretly hope that the problem of evil can be broken. I would suggest that making us happy would mean absolute controll over matter. But in the moment matter rather seems to controll us. One possibility is that only as long as it can controll us it can create us. So to create a paradise God would effectivly have to make matter infertile (no new beeings created). This could solve the problem of "if he is now unable to give us a better life, will he ever be and why not now?"
A great reason God can't be omnipotent. As none of the things you just said would matter as a omnipotent miracle working God has no regard for established rules on how something has to work in any domain, as He is the one who made them in the first place and can unmake them at will. Temporarily or permanently.
53:29 "For people that are not willing to undergo moral sanctification or transformation, like actually changing their character so that now they desire the good and reject the bad, that sort of offer is going to be put into the hands of the creatures themselves. So if they would rather not undergo that sort of moral transformation then it's perfectly within their right to refrain. ... God puts them in a state in which they are no longer suffering and being inclined towards evil." So it's our choice, based on our natural inclinations, whether to follow God or not, and he won't force us. But if we choose not, then he's going to change our natural inclinations? Seems like an all-powerful god could skip the middle step and just create us with no inclinations toward evil. "I can't get rid of evil because it's just part of man's nature." My omnipotent brother Christ, you created man.
The methodology for discovering the powers of a limited god makes so much more sense than omnipotence methodology. If you ask how powerful is Russia? You look at facts like the wars they’ve won and how many cars they’ve sold. Same with god, you look at the universe and deduce their nature from how much happiness they’ve produced and the miracles they’ve performed. You don’t start with conceptions and reason backwards, even if those conceptions are theoretically convenient. But the problem with if you go the limited route is that the realm of all possible gods explodes, and how you get to Christianity is even more fraught. It seems to me.
Regarding the fine-tuning problem for finite theism raised starting at 1:46:23, one follow up. As John said, the credence of non-anthropic worlds *per world* would be higher on finite theism than omni theism. But what's relevant for the fine-tuning argument (FTA) is not the amount of probably per anthropic vs non-anthropic world, but the sum total probability of non-anthropic worlds vs anthropic worlds, which is just a rewording of "what is the probability of a life-permitting universe?" If the probability density function has a roughly Gaussian shape, decreasing the range of possibilities would still smush the probability inward, toward the anthropic range, so the probability favors finite theism. John and I argued about this again last month in-person, but I don't think we managed to figure out our exact disagreement here haha. In other words, he is still wrong! :p (Actually, I'm going to write a python script to model this mathematically. I'll be back)
*Grue!* 🤷♂ Isn't God just grue? The complaint against grue is that it _masquerades_ as parsimony by taking complex explanations and slapping a simple label on them. It seems like this is precisely what is being done by those who offer God as the most parsimonious explanation for things. Even the "modest" claim of infinite power is just shorthand for, "… and he can do that … and he can do that … okay, obviously not that … and he can do that …" 🤔
Speculating about God is fun, even helpful, so long as we do so with William James' metaphor in mind, that we're dogs in a library staring at stacks of books. It may be mistaken to focus such speculation more on the nature of God than on the nature of His creation. Might not a radical view of creation, somewhat akin to a radical view of incarnation, a view entailing radical divine self-limitation, better grasp the inevitable consequences of God choosing not to clone but to create; i.e., to bring into being Not-God, the opposite, perhaps necessarily, of God? Indeed, if you flip the classic divine attributes, do you not have a pretty good description of the characteristics of our universe? Just as a radical view of incarnation means that Jesus, for example, did not know everything, so a radical view of creation means that God cannot, or at least can no longer, do everything--everything, that is, within the confines of this world.
It's wild to me the lengths a theist will go to in order to avoid admitting they don't know something. Why not merely posit that God has power sufficient to create our universe as we observe it? God could have more power, but we don't know. Indeed, how could we possibly know what power God has that God has not exercised?
The problem changes, but this is also assuming this no longer omnipotent God created us, created good, evil etc. For the problem to "go away" it would mean that the God that made us didn't make good or evil. But then as I said the problem just shifts, to whoever or whatever made our creator. theists won't accept that though, as they are looking for the ALL, not realizing each one of us is the ALL living consciously through it's own creation.
You know that the theism defender is a dishonest coward when they throw their own mythology under the bus just to use the extreme post hoc of the "phylosophical god"
Great exchange. Lots to think about it. Loved Emerson's bold strategy of getting some of the smartest Theists in the PhilRel community to focus their intellectual energies debating each other instead of targeting Atheism.
Real "let's get the Superfriends to destroy each other" energy. Love it.
What I like about Emerson is that although he is an atheist (as I understand) he is not chasing after theist like "ha ha that's silly and I am much more smart than you." This allows other people to develope ideas freely so that the discussion does not turn in the boring circles we all already know. I guess most of us secretly hope that the problem of evil can be broken. I would suggest that making us happy would mean absolute controll over matter. But in the moment matter rather seems to controll us. One possibility is that only as long as it can controll us it can create us. So to create a paradise God would effectivly have to make matter infertile (no new beeings created). This could solve the problem of "if he is now unable to give us a better life, will he ever be and why not now?"
A great reason God can't be omnipotent. As none of the things you just said would matter as a omnipotent miracle working God has no regard for established rules on how something has to work in any domain, as He is the one who made them in the first place and can unmake them at will. Temporarily or permanently.
53:29 "For people that are not willing to undergo moral sanctification or transformation, like actually changing their character so that now they desire the good and reject the bad, that sort of offer is going to be put into the hands of the creatures themselves. So if they would rather not undergo that sort of moral transformation then it's perfectly within their right to refrain. ... God puts them in a state in which they are no longer suffering and being inclined towards evil."
So it's our choice, based on our natural inclinations, whether to follow God or not, and he won't force us. But if we choose not, then he's going to change our natural inclinations? Seems like an all-powerful god could skip the middle step and just create us with no inclinations toward evil.
"I can't get rid of evil because it's just part of man's nature." My omnipotent brother Christ, you created man.
The methodology for discovering the powers of a limited god makes so much more sense than omnipotence methodology.
If you ask how powerful is Russia? You look at facts like the wars they’ve won and how many cars they’ve sold. Same with god, you look at the universe and deduce their nature from how much happiness they’ve produced and the miracles they’ve performed. You don’t start with conceptions and reason backwards, even if those conceptions are theoretically convenient.
But the problem with if you go the limited route is that the realm of all possible gods explodes, and how you get to Christianity is even more fraught. It seems to me.
Regarding the fine-tuning problem for finite theism raised starting at 1:46:23, one follow up. As John said, the credence of non-anthropic worlds *per world* would be higher on finite theism than omni theism. But what's relevant for the fine-tuning argument (FTA) is not the amount of probably per anthropic vs non-anthropic world, but the sum total probability of non-anthropic worlds vs anthropic worlds, which is just a rewording of "what is the probability of a life-permitting universe?" If the probability density function has a roughly Gaussian shape, decreasing the range of possibilities would still smush the probability inward, toward the anthropic range, so the probability favors finite theism.
John and I argued about this again last month in-person, but I don't think we managed to figure out our exact disagreement here haha. In other words, he is still wrong! :p
(Actually, I'm going to write a python script to model this mathematically. I'll be back)
*Grue!*
🤷♂ Isn't God just grue? The complaint against grue is that it _masquerades_ as parsimony by taking complex explanations and slapping a simple label on them. It seems like this is precisely what is being done by those who offer God as the most parsimonious explanation for things. Even the "modest" claim of infinite power is just shorthand for, "… and he can do that … and he can do that … okay, obviously not that … and he can do that …" 🤔
Speculating about God is fun, even helpful, so long as we do so with William James' metaphor in mind, that we're dogs in a library staring at stacks of books. It may be mistaken to focus such speculation more on the nature of God than on the nature of His creation. Might not a radical view of creation, somewhat akin to a radical view of incarnation, a view entailing radical divine self-limitation, better grasp the inevitable consequences of God choosing not to clone but to create; i.e., to bring into being Not-God, the opposite, perhaps necessarily, of God? Indeed, if you flip the classic divine attributes, do you not have a pretty good description of the characteristics of our universe? Just as a radical view of incarnation means that Jesus, for example, did not know everything, so a radical view of creation means that God cannot, or at least can no longer, do everything--everything, that is, within the confines of this world.
So, an omnipotent being creates a race of dogs, then sets them on fire for not behaving enough like him? So love! Much mercy! 🐶
It's wild to me the lengths a theist will go to in order to avoid admitting they don't know something. Why not merely posit that God has power sufficient to create our universe as we observe it? God could have more power, but we don't know. Indeed, how could we possibly know what power God has that God has not exercised?
Very good!
If omnipotence is impossible does the problem of evil go away ? Bro, G does whatever he can.
The problem changes, but this is also assuming this no longer omnipotent God created us, created good, evil etc. For the problem to "go away" it would mean that the God that made us didn't make good or evil. But then as I said the problem just shifts, to whoever or whatever made our creator. theists won't accept that though, as they are looking for the ALL, not realizing each one of us is the ALL living consciously through it's own creation.
You know that the theism defender is a dishonest coward when they throw their own mythology under the bus just to use the extreme post hoc of the "phylosophical god"
???????
?????