[net.religion] Jones on free will and evil

flink@umcp-cs.UUCP (06/04/84)

>>Admittedly off the subject, but it connects with the problem of evil:
>>this is exactly the way that many think that humans should have been
>>created, if God is indeed good.  One often sees this state [where you
>>voluntarily choose the optimal course for your life] denigrated by
>>Christians who want to weasel out of the problem of evil as that of being
>>a "mere automaton" (and thus for some reason not capable of "true"
>>worship, love, etc., so that God creates humans that will mostly fry
>>instead).  So, why aren't humans created that way in the first place?
>>					James Jones

A good question, and the point can be strengthened too.  It might seem that
the question has a simple answer:  humans aren't created that way (whatever
way would make them voluntarily choose good) because they can't be.  The
stipulation that the choice is voluntary contradicts the idea that they are
created in a way that makes them choose good.  In short, we have freedom VS
determinism, and we aren't created that way because we are made free.

This simple answer won't work:  the alleged contradiction is absent.  There
is no opposition between freedom and determinism; between being made good
and being made free.  Agency is simply the ability to conceive of a norm of
action and to guide one's action by it; freedom is the possession and
exercise of an optimal degree of such capacity.  A free being is one that
evaluates its action according to a best justified, consistent set of norms.
(I owe these points to Chin-Tai Kim, "Norms and Freedom", *Philosophical
Forum* 198(3?).)  Being made good would make us more free, not less.  The
question why we aren't created that way comes back with full force.

There is evil in the world:  this is a fact of our daily experience with
which any Theology must deal.  Appeals to free will do not explain this
fact, even if one ignores the (less obvious, but still real) fact that not
all evil in the world can be attributed to human agents.  We still need an
explanation for why we aren't created good.  Free will is a red herring.

				The aspiring iconoclast,
				--Paul Torek, umcp-cs!flink

rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (06/04/84)

The reason human beings don't "always do the good thing" is because our
behavior is determined by our chemical makeup.  Since we evolved from
so-called lower animals, we continue to have chemical running through our
body that result in "animal" behavior (behavior that enables animals to
survive in the "wild").  No one ever asked a carnivorous animal whether it
was being "good" or "evil" when it slaughtered another animal in combat.
("How horrible!  That great big whatever just killed that extremely cute
little whatsit and now it's going to eat it!  How cruel!")  Kind of strange
to try to impose such "good" and "evil" constructs on animals.

In human beings, the notion of good (vs. evil) has always depended on who
you were talking to when.  With our more complex brains, we invent the
notion that good is 1) that which pleases me as opposed to causing me harm,
2) [as humans grouped together] that which is beneficial to members of this
group as a whole, 3) [eventually]  that which is beneficial to a given person
without causing harm to another person.  (Given the nature of things, one
realizes that one cannot find absolute "good" and "evil" in the real world
[unless you subscribe to unilateral imposition theories], so you attempt to
work it out as best you can.)

One nice thing about these more complex brains we have, is that they provide
for the development of these sorts of societal constructs, and that they
can help us to make a logical determination (or sometimes an illogical one,
if you get the wrong info) as to what behavior patterns are worth following.
We'll continue to exhibit "animal behavior" as long as we continue to occupy
animal bodies, but it's nice to know that we have the intelligence to engage
in logical behavior patterning (in some cases called "postponement of
gratification", perhaps the first symptom of real intelligent behavior).
If only such thinking were applied by more people in more areas of living.
-- 
You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
				Rich Rosen    pyuxn!rlr