This is the Theodicy I've always heard and understood. I was taught this one when I was 5 or 6 years old. I was taught it in very simple terms, and my understanding grew more nuanced with time. I've heard plenty of other potential responses to the POE, but this remains my favorite by a country mile.
Great video, mate! I like how you were addressing possible worlds. What's so cool about the Heaven Rebellion Theodicy of yours and the version I made a couple of months ago, is that they both also solve the prevention of not only another human fall in heaven and new kingdom - but also another angelic fall - for eternity. And done in such way God would want it, a mutual loving family relationship, freely given - not forced. True love. And such theodicy as here can also be applied to gratuitous evil, divine hiddenness and more if unpacked further. Keep up the good work!
Excellent video!!! ♥ Some comments: (1) You say: "One feature of being in a true love relationship is the ability to opt out of it" I'm not sure this is true. Consider: (A) Many parents -- given their constitution, character, etc. -- are simply unable *not* to love their children -- they are simply unable, themselves, to opt out of such a relationship. [Not in every case, but in many cases. Also: my criticism really only needs this to be *possible*.] Nevertheless, surely such parents are in a true love relationship with their children. (B) None of the divine persons within the loving relationship of the Trinity could opt out of their relationship, and yet surely this is still true love. Indeed, surely this is true love par excellence under Christianity. (2) You give a good reason for rejecting the argument sketched from 2:05 to 2:43, but let's add another reason to the mix! ☺ The argument seems to rest on some deeply utilitarian, non-[actually-anti-]deontological reasoning. For, plausibly, there are *deontological constraints* on which worlds God can permissibly actualize that are entirely overlooked by merely comparing the net utility of worlds. Suppose in world w1, person A's life, filled with atrociously protracted and horrendously extreme but nevertheless finite suffering, is used [and abused] as a mere means to secure someone else's eternal happiness. This world has greater net utility compared to a world in which God refrains from creating anything. And yet it is absurd to say that God would prefer the former, indeed it would be absurd to say God even *could* actualize such a world, since it is impermissible to do so [given plausible deontological ethical claims]. (3) "How many feasible worlds containing E will have X? P of them" This initially struck me as plausible, but upon reflection, I'm starting to have some doubts. It seems to rest on at least two assumptions: (C) actual objective probabilities track [i.e., correspond to] modal space (D) Not only that, but they also track *feasible* modal space But it's not clear that we should accept either (C) or (D). Perhaps objective probabilities are grounded in causal powers. Causal powers, importantly, have manifestation conditions. But perhaps modal space isn't uniform with respect to the range of possible manifestation conditions in which the relevant causal power could find itself. [Consider: perhaps a match has a 50% objective chance of producing flame. Now, this has manifestation conditions: the match needs to be struck, it needs to be in a flame-appropriate environment, and so on. Why think the modal space of manifestation conditions perfectly matches up [pun intended] with the objective chance here? Maybe it's really hard to get all the manifestation conditions in place, and so far fewer than 50% of the worlds in which the match exists will be such that the match produces flame.] Now, you might just say that all those manifestation conditions must be included in E. That might be cheating, but I'll allow it. It takes me to my second point: My second point is that even if we grant -- after including the manifestation conditions within E -- that 50% of the *possible worlds* with E also have X, why suppose that 50% of the *feasible* worlds will also have X? Feasible worlds are a proper sub-set or sample of possible worlds. Why think the proportion in the sample, here, must reflect the proportion in the population? Perhaps lots of the possible worlds in which E doesn't co-occur with X have a sucky proportion of damned to saved people, and so the feasible worlds are disproportionately populated with worlds in which E co-occurs with X. This would be a case where an objective probability doesn't track feasible modal space. I don't see why we should think objective probability [automatically] tracks feasible modal space. (4) At 5:44, you say "it seems like human decisions never make choices with probabilities of 0 involved" I'm not sure this is true either. Granted, you assumed molinism at the beginning, and molinism is usually combined with incompatibilism. But it need not be. So, suppose the conjunction of [semi- or source-]compatibilism and determinism [either by divine decree, or past+laws, or whatever] is true. None of us have the ability to do otherwise under these stipulations; and yet we make lots of free decisions and choices and whatnot. Assuming [quite innocuously] the principle that S's lacking an ability [of themself] to do phi entails that the probability of S's doing phi [of themself] is 0, it follows that all of our decisions involve choices with probability zero involved [assuming there is a range of 'in principle open options', all of which are p=0 except for the actual choice made, which is p=1]. (5) Regarding the equation at around 8:30 This equation doesn't seem right. It crucially ignores that these events might not be probabilistically independent. And, indeed, surely they aren't. Surely the probability of subsequent ones is affected by the occurrence of earlier ones. Surely having already experienced perfectly heavenly bliss will alter one's likelihood of not rebelling and hence retaining one's perfect heavenly bliss. The equation instead should prolly be P(~rebel-d1) x P(~rebel-d2 | ~rebel-d1) x P(~rebel-d3 | ~rebel-d1 & ~rebel-d2) x ... and so on. But why think *every single one* of these multiplicands is going to be less than one? At some point, surely one's will might become so oriented towards Beauty, Goodness, and Truth that one becomes 'fixed' or 'habituated' to the point of the relevant probability being 1. This doesn't at all seem implausible, especially given how good perfectly heavenly bliss is. And if at some point we reach probability 1, then, plausibly, every subsequent multiplicand will be 1. And if the preceding multiplicands are super duper high -- say, 0.9999...9 -- then it is not at all plausible that the overall probability [of the entire equation] will be non-zero. (6) Regarding the stuff about reasons for rebellion even in heaven This seems to assume a very particular version of heaven that many Christians will [and have traditionally] reject[ed]. Many Christians have traditionally viewed heaven as, among other things, perfect conformity to the divine will. But one simply cannot exercise pride if one's will is perfectly conformed to God's, since God doesn't will pride or will that we are the center of the universe or whatever. We will whatever God wills when our will is perfectly conformed to his, and this simply debars acts of pride in heaven. Rejecting this traditional view [it's *a* traditional view; I don't have enough historical knowledge to say it's *the* traditional view] will surely accrue at least some cost. Hope all this helps! Fun video to think about. 😁♥
Good stuff lol, I wonder what squared is gonna say. Anyways a lot of your responses go over my head but I have a reply to your first point. I've recently read Joshua Rasmussen's paper on the value of freedom to do evil (which was amazing btw). Your counterexamples seem right to me, so maybe we could modify squared's argument. Rather than saying "One feature of being in a true love relationship is the ability to opt-out of it" instead we can say "the ability to opt-out of a relationship can create certain good situations which are extremely valuable". This will allow squared to keep his original argument. The free will to refrain from being saved might be so valuable to God that he must allow it. Take these two scenarios, one where forced love is involved and the other where unforced love is involved, to steal from Rasmussen: "(Forced-Love) Sally loves daffodils, and her husband, Sam, knows this. Rather than wait to see if Sam will decide to buy her daffodils, Sally discreetly pours a love potion into Sam’s soup. After Sam eats his soup, the potion deterministically causes him to form a desire sufficiently strong so as to causally determine that Sam expresses love to Sally by surprising her with a vase full of daffodils. As a result, Sam does exactly that." "(Unforced-Love) Sally loves daffodils, and her husband, Sam, knows this. One day, Sam decides, of his own accord, to express love to Sally by surprising her with a vase full of daffodils." Intuitively it seems like the unforced love scenario is better than the forced one. Nothing intrinsic to it being forced or unforced makes a relationship better, rather, unforced relationships produce better quality situations that unforced ones cannot. So perhaps, rather than requiring unforced love to have a true relationship, it's needed to create (very) valuable situations. This would justify God in allowing people the option to opt-out of a relationship, freely choosing to enter into a relationship is far better than forcing someone else to do it. So although the unconditional love of the mother and the trinity might be forced love, God can create greater goods from allowing these instances of unforced love. Tl;DR God allows the freedom to opt-out of a relationship for greater goods. If anyone wants to read Rasmussen's article here's the link: philpapers.org/rec/RASOTV 10/10 would recommend reading.
Well yeah, he's making equations based on a completely unknown item (heaven). The fact that equations don't hold realistic application or a completely skewed for some lopsided desired result should be no surprise whatsoever.
// (1) You say: "One feature of being in a true love relationship is the ability to opt out of it." I'm not sure this is true. [...]// I should have been more clear. While I don't think that this principle is necessarily true, I think that it is true whenever one party could have a reason for opting out (and I posit such reasons for humans later on). My main motivation for referencing this principle is that I need to explain why God doesn't just override our free will and coerce us into a relationship with Him. // (2) You give a good reason for rejecting the argument sketched from 2:05 to 2:43, but let's add another reason to the mix! ☺ [...] Suppose in world w1, person A's life, filled with atrociously protracted and horrendously extreme but nevertheless finite suffering, is used [and abused] as a mere means to secure someone else's eternal happiness. This world has greater net utility compared to a world in which God refrains from creating anything. And yet it is absurd to say that God would prefer the former, indeed it would be absurd to say God even could actualize such a world, since it is impermissible to do so [given plausible deontological ethical claims]. // I am sympathetic to this reasoning, but I do have some reservations. Like, if someone was getting tortured on the other side of a city, it seems plausible that I would be allowed to steal a bike to more quickly go and stop the torturing. If there were a hundred people being tortured, I could plausibly steal someone's car. If we continue to increase the net utility that I am promoting, then my intuitions tell me that otherwise impermissible actions become permissible. On the other hand, intuitions are famously bad at dealing with scope. I also go back and forth on whether the Principle of Double Effect actually *would* allow God to create w1, so I'm undecided about this consideration. // (3) "How many feasible worlds containing E will have X? P of them." This initially struck me as plausible, but upon reflection, I'm starting to have some doubts. [...] Perhaps objective probabilities are grounded in causal powers. Causal powers, importantly, have manifestation conditions. [...] Maybe it's really hard to get all the manifestation conditions in place, and so far fewer than 50% of the worlds in which the match exists will be such that the match produces flame.] // I would just say that all those manifesting conditions are part of E. // Now, you might just say that all those manifestation conditions must be included in E. That might be cheating, but I'll allow it. // Yay! // It takes me to my second point. My second point is that even if we grant -- after including the manifestation conditions within E -- that 50% of the possible worlds with E also have X, why suppose that 50% of the feasible worlds will also have X? Feasible worlds are a proper sub-set or sample of possible worlds. Why think the proportion in the sample, here, must reflect the proportion in the population? Perhaps lots of the possible worlds in which E doesn't co-occur with X have a sucky proportion of damned to saved people, and so the feasible worlds are disproportionately populated with worlds in which E co-occurs with X. This would be a case where an objective probability doesn't track feasible modal space. I don't see why we should think objective probability [automatically] tracks feasible modal space. // Now, I'm a little unclear on what you're saying here. But if I understand it correctly, you're saying that probabilities describe the distributions of possible worlds, not feasible ones. So, looking at the probabilities might not give us a good insight into what feasible worlds there are. I think that's wrong. If we look at the second Jim case, where the coin has a 1/100000 chance of heads, then there are equally as many possible worlds where Jim gets heads as where Jim gets tails. For, we can specify any world segment containing everything up to the outcome of such a coin flip, and there will be exactly two possible worlds containing this segment: one where Jim gets heads, and one where Jim gets tails. By this measure, then, 50% of possible worlds have Jim getting heads, and 50% of possible worlds have Jim getting tails. But, the space of feasible worlds is totally different, with 0.001% getting heads and 99.999% getting tails. So, probabilities don't tell us much of anything about the distributions of possible worlds. They only can describe feasible worlds. // (4) At 5:44, you say "it seems like human decisions never make choices with probabilities of 0 involved." I'm not sure this is true either. Granted, you assumed molinism at the beginning, and molinism is usually combined with incompatibilism. [...] // Yeah, the way I conceive of this theodicy, it relies on incompatibilism. // (5) Regarding the equation at around 8:30. This equation doesn't seem right. It crucially ignores that these events might not be probabilistically independent. And, indeed, surely they aren't. Surely the probability of subsequent ones is affected by the occurrence of earlier ones. Surely having already experienced perfectly heavenly bliss will alter one's likelihood of not rebelling and hence retaining one's perfect heavenly bliss. // 110% agree. The equation I gave was a simplification of the broader point I was trying to make; that the nonzero probabilities can accumulate. I myself think the probability that we will rebel indeed decreases over time. So, if I would frame my view precisely, I would say that for any individual, there would be an infinite set of moments in time, {t1, t2, t3,...} such that for any n, the probability that the individual would not rebel within t_n and t_n+1 would be less than 0.9999...9. So, there is a gurantee that the individual has a zero percent chance of being saved, but the difference between t_n and t_n+1 can always be miniscule when compared to the difference between t_n+1 and t_n+2. Like, there would be a 0.9999...9 chance of not rebelling in the first day, then a 0.9999...9 chance of not rebelling in the subsequent year, and then a 0.9999...9 chance of not rebelling in the next googolplex years, and so on. // The equation instead should prolly be P(~rebel-d1) x P(~rebel-d2 | ~rebel-d1) x P(~rebel-d3 | ~rebel-d1 & ~rebel-d2) x ... and so on. But why think every single one of these multiplicands is going to be less than one? At some point, surely one's will might become so oriented towards Beauty, Goodness, and Truth that one becomes 'fixed' or 'habituated' to the point of the relevant probability being 1. This doesn't at all seem implausible, especially given how good perfectly heavenly bliss is. // Hmmm... that still seems weird to me. For example, on day 1126894 of Heavenly bliss, there is a less than 1 probability that I will not rebel, but a probability of 1 on day 1126895. What accounts for this arbitrary cutoff? It seems something "special" would need to account for this transition, but as a proponent of this theodicy, I would just deny that such a thing exists. // (6) Regarding the stuff about reasons for rebellion even in heaven. This seems to assume a very particular version of heaven that many Christians will [and have traditionally] reject[ed]. Many Christians have traditionally viewed heaven as, among other things, perfect conformity to the divine will. But one simply cannot exercise pride if one's will is perfectly conformed to God's, since God doesn't will pride or will that we are the center of the universe or whatever. We will whatever God wills when our will is perfectly conformed to his, and this simply debars acts of pride in heaven. // Well, tradition is mostly right. It will indeed be the case that Heaven involves perfect conformity to the divine will. We just have a never-exercised power to _not_ conform. See, tradition just needed a bit of nuance! :) // Rejecting this traditional view [it's a traditional view; I don't have enough historical knowledge to say it's the traditional view] will surely accrue at least some cost. // Yeah, I ultimately think that this is right. But I don't think it's a *huge* cost. Thanks for commenting Joe! I always appreciate your contributions! :)
"There is a zero percent chance that a human left or their own devices will stay in an eternal relationship with God. Coolio!" You were very excited about this lol
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Great video! I liked it 99.9999999%. BTW, I believe that we will eventually be one with God and therefore will never be able to rebel against God. Joh 17:21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us. We will be married to Him: Rev 19:7 Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready.
I have to give an explanation to the problem of evil next saturday. Now I won´t say this because nobody will get it, but it´s great insight nonetheless, and adds to my study. Thank you!
The 10 second summary version is super intuitive though. You don’t have to run the advanced argument, just say we have free will for all eternity, so evil exists in order for us to always maintain a firm memory of how sucky life is without God.
Yeah, it really is interesting. The conclusion I’ve come to, that there’s a 100% chance we will rebel but we never will, is certainly intriguing, but not contradictory. :)
One way I think about it is even if we aren't 100% sure how to solve the problem of evil (although I think we can do a great and sufficient job), I still don't think it should ever cause one to overlook the overwhelming reason we have for belief in God anymore than a perceived defect in a painting (especially if the painter tells us what went wrong) should lead us to overlook the obvious reason for believing its a painting with a painter. That's just one point in response to it
Stumbled on this today and it closely matches a thought I'd had on the subject as well. All exists to glorify god. God and his attributes are good, but Evil is a lack of or corruption of the attributes. This lack or corrupted attributes serve to demonstrate the good-ness of the good attributes. Even people who reject god and do evil, glorify god in demonstrating how life is without him.
Wait, doesn't that mean that you just created a deterministic universe? 1) God knows the outcome of indeterministic events. 2) God can freely choose between possible worlds where the outcome of indeterministic events differs from one another. 3) God is a perfectly rational agent, with the goal of maximizing the people in heaven (without rebelion) 4) Given 1) 2) and 3) god will set the outcome of every indeterministic event (which is relevant for salvation) in such a way as to maximize the people saved by choosing exactly the universe where those choices are made. I very much doubt the truth of 2), since if god where able to freely choose any possible world with an arbitrary set of indeterministic event results, where would be the functional difference between molonism and determinism? Every event (that god deems to be vital to salvation) will be set with a 100% probability, just as in determinism
The only problem that I have with this molinist line of thinking, aside from the grounding problem, is that I struggle with the problem of who gets saved. Imagine person (a) is saved in all possible worlds except for 1, but there is 1 more person (b) saved in that one possible world than in all other possible worlds. Does God then choose to let a not be saved in order to save b? How could God decide?
Love your videos man, but I got lost in the probabilities lol... I believe Molinism doesn't tackle probabilities when it talks about possible or feasible worlds... I'll get back on this video though and try to understand better.
You should be a bit more careful with calculations involving infinity. I see a tendencies to try to multiply things with infinity. Divide infinity by infinity etc. I facepalmed when you did. 9999 to the power if infinity. Please use limits or something. Or just accept infinitesimals or surreal numbers.
@@ApologeticsSquared Seems like you didn't at many points and I also know of other instances where you are a bit hasty. As long as you are thinking about it in terms of limits that's okay with me.
Hey, Squared, have you considered making a video resolving the prayer paradox? Cosmic Skeptic has a video that explains it pretty well here th-cam.com/video/i7PivoK2fA8/w-d-xo.html. I'd like to see how you would resolve it.
Do you think that ability to restore relationship after opting out is a feature of a true love relationship? If so I don't think that 14:59 "it explains why god didn't just make humans in heaven straight away humans would have rebelled" Humans would rebel, go to hell, see that it not cool and go back to God. It's exactly the way it goes on earth (rebel by sinning>forgiveness>heaven) and I don't see why starting in a different realm matter if evil is possible in both cases.
The problem I see with this theodicy is that there are clearly instances of evil that do not serve that purpose. Like, a lot of unnecessary animal suffering isn't ever witnessed by humans! Another (silly) example: take the last time a random atheist accidentally stubbed their toe, yet they pretty much forgot about it the next week, and didn't mention it to anyone. You're asking us to accept that if that particular instance of suffering didn't happen, at least one more person would've gone to hell. That's just inconceivable. Also, why can't God have a finite lasting relationship with some of his children? It seems like going to heaven for a while then rebelling and going to hell is straight up better than going to hell from the start. Yet the only two options ever depicted are either heaven forever or hell forever. Does our world contain the HUGE coincidence that absolutely everyone in hell couldn't have been in heaven for even one second without rebelling?
Good questions. I’m not sure what to say about the second point.. I think for the first point, one possible line of reasoning might be to say that God would only intervene specifically to cause suffering (or perhaps to prevent it, etc), if it will lead to that person being saved. But he won’t intervene all the time, preferring instead to have the Universe run according to the usual laws of nature and probability. If he constantly steered things towards his own preferences, it would probably skew people’s understanding of cause and effect. I think this preference would be compatible with the argument given here. I might be misremembering, but I think the “Really Annoying Theodicy” tries to address questions like “why not one stubbed toe fewer?” but possibly from a different perspective.
@@MatthewFearnley ...but God created those laws and knew exactly everything that would happen because of those laws since the beginning. He also had the power to create the world in whatever way he wanted. If God is all-powerful and molinism is true, absolutely *everything* happens exactly how God wants it to happen. He could have created a universe where my friend Bob didn't stub his toe last week. Instead he decided to create a universe where Bob did stub his toe. According to this theodicy, that toe stubbing is absolutely necessary for someone to go to heaven
@@Nickesponja you could be right.. Perhaps this theodicy could be said to account for the toe-stubbing, but not explain it. It appeals to God's knowledge of the comprehensive workings of all space and eternal time, so while it may be true, it may not be verifiable for any specific instance. There are other theodicies that could potentially explain this better. One thing worth noting is, it could be that the number of people saved isn't the only "metric" by which God evaluates all possible worlds. Regarding your second point earlier ("It seems like going to heaven for a while then rebelling and going to hell is straight up better than going to hell from the start.").. I don't think I would agree with this, either from the perspective of the rebel or of the other people in heaven. On annihilationism it could be better for the rebel (no shock of going from heaven to hell), but the other people in heaven would still have to experience the rebellion and the loss of the rebel. Potentially it also means that noone can be secure in their salvation, knowing there's a possibility that anyone can rebel at any time. Unless God tells everyone beforehand whether they will rebel or not.
// Like, a lot of unnecessary animal suffering isn't ever witnessed by humans! // For animal suffering, I think there are two routes one could take: First, maybe animals will get free will and could rebel. I don't see any problem with that. Second, humans can become aware of their suffering in Heaven. // Another (silly) example: take the last time a random atheist accidentally stubbed their toe, yet they pretty much forgot about it the next week, and didn't mention it to anyone. You're asking us to accept that if that particular instance of suffering didn't happen, at least one more person would've gone to hell. // I think that it's not too crazy, because there are a lot of stubbed toes, which may individually do nothing, but cumulatively prevent a rebellion. // Also, why can't God have a finite lasting relationship with some of his children? // I think He can, but He's more ambitious than that. :) // It seems like going to heaven for a while then rebelling and going to hell is straight up better than going to hell from the start. // I'm not sure about that. It seems that the intensity of Hell would be dictated by the severity of the sins one has committed. And plausibly, rebelling in Heaven is quite a serious sin. // Yet the only two options ever depicted are either heaven forever or hell forever. // This theodicy actually doesn't take a stance on the nature of Hell. One could be a universalist, who believes that Hell is finitely long, and at some point everyone will be in Heaven (as far as I can see, this fits well with this theodicy). Or, one could be an annihilationist, and maintain that people are annihilated in Hell (although as far as I can see, that fits poorly with this theodicy). // Does our world contain the HUGE coincidence that absolutely everyone in hell couldn't have been in heaven for even one second without rebelling? // I don't think that the theodicy needs to maintain this, for the abovementioned reasons, but a Molinist could still say yes. Have a nice day! :)
@@ApologeticsSquared (Sorry for the late response) I don't really understand your "cumulative case" answer. You say that an individual stubbed toe may do nothing (so if you remove it, the amount of people saved doesn't change), but at the same time, the collection of *all* of the stubbed toes are necessary for some people to be saved. That seems contradictory. If *all* of the stubbed toes are necessary, then removing just one of them will change the amount of people saved!
I can honestly say I've never heard of this theodicy before! I tried searching for more information but didn't find much, although I got some results on Warfare Theodicy or the "Great Controversy." Is this related to that concept?
I really like this theodicy. Not only does it explain why a lot of evil exists but it also explains the distribution of suffering too. Maybe you would have rebelled in heaven if some horrendous evil never occurred so God is justified in permitting it. Do you know any papers on this type of theodicy? I wanna look into it more.
I kinda developed the whole thing independently by debating a Calvinist on why God hasn't saved everyone if Molinism is true. So, I don't know if there are any papers on it... :P
@@esauponce9759 If Apologetics squared worked with a professional philosopher to nuance this argument (Since its current form could probably be argued against), it might be the strongest theodicy ever since it covers the problem of evil, animal suffering, and Divine hiddeness (Although how it covers these is very unintuitive).
I don't quite agree with this one. Don't think it works because you say God can prevent you from doing evil in heaven every time by some means. But why didn't he do that in the paradise? "Well would we be truly free in paradise if God prevented us from sinning every time?" Okay good point but are we truly free in heaven if God prevents us every time? Also I think people put too heavy of a burden on themselve by saying that God has to create the world where most amount of people would be saved because He is perfectly loving. Okay I know this will sound wrong but I don't see the flaw in my thinking: God can even create a world where no-one accepts his sacrifice on the cross. That doesnt make him less loving because the creatures freely chose to rebel. That isn't Gods fault it's theirs. God is simply too loving to force them into heaven. I think the best response to the problem of evil is preaching the gospel. Show them with love a humility that they themselves are sinfull too. When people say that this world is too messed up that it can't be created by a loving God they completely forget that they themselves do evil all the time. If they don't realize it then there isnt much you can do except pray. You don't really need to have thjs complicated theodicy to solve it. You need the gospel. Cause one they the world will be renewed and suffering will disapear, but you do have to be on the right side
We won’t need to struggle with sin in heaven, heaven is a pure place and since we’ve struggled on earth than God won’t give us desire to sin. Sure you can make the argument that Satan rebelled against god out of his own freewill but you still have to prove that it wasn’t Gods will for him to do so.
This is a more advanced version of how I also understand this theodicy. This is how I understand it: The beginning of Genesis paints a picture (even if it is just symbolically) of how Heaven will be. Humanity will dwell in God’s presence and experience His goodness, but we will always have a choice. This choice is necessary for God to be a good God, otherwise we will just be meat machines without purpose. This choice explains how it was possible for Satan and some angels to rebel against God in heaven - because they had a choice. A choice that we also have. We might still be tempted in heaven, but I am convinced that nothing will come close to the great perfection and fullness we will experience in God. Thus we will most likely choose God over anything else that comes our way, because it’s all obsolete and lacking in comparison to God. Therefore we will be in union with God and His will forever after that.
i stopped listening at 1:22 after hearing a dozen assertions for which there was not even a little justification given, and, that I felt were blatantly wrong! This sounds like the opinions of someone who has zero experience in life, and thinks a deity would have little preferences for this or that 'just because it would sound better' or 'would make more sense'.... (pro tip: if deities were real they could just communicate anything individually or on masses and apologetics would be totally irrelevant and unexistant!) but hey, if you need that to make sense of existence or life in general (or abstain from doing bad things) keep keeping on ;) This lack of rational and critical thinking is dizzing!
I like this theodicy. But I want to ask: Doesn't this still imply Universalism? You showed that the experience of evil before death could be necessary to ensure people stay in heaven in eternity. And because of Molinism God knows what is necessary for everyone and does it. Then everyone would be saved in the end, right? (Of course, personally I strongly lean towards Universalism and I think that Molinism + traditional assumptions about God's character almost certainly lead to everyone being saved, or more precisely, God only creating beings who will be saved. But as far as I remember you aren't an Universalist, so I am curious how hell fits into this theodicy.)
The fact that Adam and Eve had a choice to make in the Garden of Eden shows beyond all doubt that mankind was created with a free will. The first couple chose to sin, and that choice has plunged the entire world into spiritual darkness leading to our need of salvation. Through it all, mankind has retained his free will, and we will retain free will in heaven. Is it possible that people in heaven can exercise their free will to sin again and get kicked out of heaven? No, it is not possible. To back up a bit, we need an acceptable definition of free will. We have free will, but not in the way most people think. Our freedom consists in the fact that we are free to choose according to our desires. As long as we have a minimum of two available options, we must make a choice, and we will always do so according to our strongest desire. But, in the case of a fallen sinner, he or she is not at liberty to choose according to righteousness. This is what Jesus means when He says that the one who sins “is a slave to sin” (John 8:34). This is not the language of “free will” as people typically think of it. The unregenerate person has a sinful nature; he is not just inclined to sin but driven by sinful impulses. It is perhaps helpful to say, “We are free to choose what we want but not free to want what we ought.” This greatly limits our “freedom” because the list of things we want (as sinners) coincides with whatever pleases our sinful impulses. Our choices are for things that will ultimately destroy us (Proverbs 14:12). As Paul says, “Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?” (Romans 7:24, NLT). When we are saved, we are liberated from our natural bondage to sin. The Holy Spirit sovereignly regenerates us and in grace gives us the ability to want what we ought to want, namely, forgiveness, salvation, and the lordship of Christ. When we trust in Jesus for salvation, we begin a moral progression, a journey toward holiness in which we put to death daily the sinful impulses that reside within us and strive toward godliness. In heaven we will be completely devoid of sin; our only desires will be for the things of God-things that bless us, fulfill us, and give us life. This is true liberty (see Romans 8:21). We will retain our free will in heaven, but our will is sanctified there. The sin nature will be gone. In heaven we are completely conformed to the image of Christ (Romans 8:28-30). Our sanctification will be finished; we will not even want to sin. Also, in heaven there is no temptation to lure us and no devil to deceive us. Unlike Adam and Eve, we will face no test; our moral state will be secure. No one will get kicked out of heaven. Just as our Lord Jesus has a truly free will yet is without sin, so will we retain a free will yet be without sin. We will be like Him (1 John 3:2). Before salvation, our free will on earth is limited by our inability to choose what is right. After salvation, our free will struggles between choosing what is right and what is wrong. In heaven our free will is limited by our inability to choose what is wrong. In our glorified state, we will exercise our free will to choose what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and admirable (see Philippians 4:8).
Or put it this way: Why did a Perfect all-powerful God need to create a universe with potential for flaw in order to reach some “Greater Good”? Why not just directly create that Greater Good? Answer: He did! God is ALREADY, eternally & timelessly existing in that Perfect State, at one with all His creatures, who freely choose oneness with Him over separation from Him. That’s what actually exists. Just one detail to consider. In order for said creatures to be choosing *freely* to be at one with God in that reality, they need a concept of the alternative. So God creates a back story! Now, this backstory doesn’t truly exist in the same way God & His Perfect State does. No, it exists in a type of virtual construct called Spacetime. The possibility of separation from God is not a flaw or accident or defect of the construct! It’s the whole point of this backstory! (According to Divine Simplicity, separation from God = separation from all God’s attributes. So degrees of separation from God would mean degrees of finitude, weakness, imperfection, ignorance, suffering, malevolence, mortality, & ultimately, non-existence. In a word, Evil.) This backstory doesn’t actually happen chronologically prior to the “Perfect State”of creation. It’s similar to how “2+2=“ doesn’t happen chronologically prior to “4”. 4 just is. The Perfect State just is. The backstory is just what is logically implied by the Perfect State.
Also it says that in proverbs 16:4. I won’t tell you what it says because I want you to tell me that God isn’t sovereign or that he doesn’t have the power to do as he will.
Problem of evil= Proverbs13:24. Evil exists: 1 we are evil less than God who is good, 2 Evil exists as punishment a result of our choice. 1 & 2 Are allowed to exist because God is loving and allows us & our choice to exist to have true power & true consequences as a result. In short Evil exists because Love & Good exist and what falls short of Love & Good is called Evil.
So it seems like the difficulty in making this happen would be a countable infinity. We want a countable decisions to go the right way in heaven. But God can analyse what would happen if he created an uncountable infinity of worlds. Let's take our world as an example, he could realise this world with an invisibe note with any irrational number on it. So he has at least aleph1 different possibilities and he is trying to get aleph0 things to go right. Seems like he has ample oppurtunity to make things tip top.
Interesting point(s)! Now, a similar sort of objection has been brought to Molinism before, with the response being that our decisions wouldn't have been any different unless our mental states are different. So, if a CCF of the form, "S would do A in C1," is true, then any other CCF of the form "S would do A in C2" is also true if S has the same mental state in both C1 and C2. Another point, though, is that it's not clear that individuals will make only countably finite decisions. If I wave my hand around in the air randomly, then _maybe_ I'm making a decision at an uncountably many points in time about how to move my hand. But this response doesn't work because then God can just write out members of the powerset of all possible human actions on invisible note. So, I think, yes, we need to deny that invisible notes influence decision-making, or deny the metaphysical possibility of such infinitely long notes. Have a nice day! :)
@@ApologeticsSquared It's highly unclear on molinism why any change (even note ones) wouldn't make contingent things go the other way. It's not like any world with the same causal stuff determines the outcomes right.
5:07 to 5:16 - Infinitesimals don't make sense to me. We can prove for example that 0.9999... = 1. Let x = 0.9999.. 10x = 9.999999... 10x - x =9 9x = 9 x = 1
I’m binge-watching your channel. It’s great. But as for the POE, my pet theodicy is “Perfected Love”, which basically states: God would be *less than perfect* if there was no universe that was fundamentally evil, with potential for Evil. God *logically needs* non-God-entities to love, in order for His love to be up to His standards of perfection. As all God’s attributes are identical, any non-God-entity will be non(all God’s attributes). Why can’t God just perfectly love Himself (or the members of the Trinity)? Jesus makes it super clear that “being perfect, as your Father in Heaven is perfect” requires loving your enemies, & that simply “loving those who love you” is not sufficiently perfected love. (See Matthew 5) & God demonstrates His love for us in that *while we were at enmity with His nature* (sinners), Christ died for us. 1) ~EvilPotential -> ~Evil -> ~nonGodEntities -> ~PerfectedLove -> ~PerfectGod 2) Necessarily: PerfectGod 3) Necessarily: EvilPotential Furthermore, the act of Creating the “Potential for Evil” from a perfect state, cannot itself be an act of Evil, since the potential for Evil would have had to pre-exist itself. So, IF the act of creating the Potential for Evil is not itself Evil AND it is necessary to Perfection, THEN it is an act of Perfection. As for the question of God “needing” something: Firstly, God doesn’t “need” things in the same way we do. We need things outside of ourselves like oxygen, food, friendship, etc.. There is nothing outside of God. He supplies all His own needs from within His own Nature, He grounds His own being. So God’s “needing” doesn’t detract from His omnipotence since He is ultimately self-sufficient. Secondly, being outside of time & unchanging, anything He will ever get from the universe (like the love & praise of generations yet to come, etc.) He is in the eternal state of already having. So while He *Logically needs* xyz, at no point in His existence does He ever lack xyz, long as they are attained at some point in time.
So your saying that when we get to heaven, we can reject God because we’re saved by his grace and mercy, that commits a logical fallacy. You can’t reject a free gift that you never worked for, if you ended up rejecting God even in heaven than that’s suicide because than you would need for him to take you out of his hand and throw you to hell and than god would be going against himself and his word. So no you can’t have someone that’s been regenerated and justified before, only to suddenly see himself out of the kingdom.
The number of possible worlds is a potential infinite. You could always add more staplers to a world much like how you can always count to a higher number. That doesn’t mean these worlds actually exist.
@@doggoslayer5679 Oh I understand that they don't actually exist but my confusion is surrounding the "infinite". I thought what makes a possible world different from this one is that it is just at least one change away from being this world. So a neighbouring world to this one is the one in which you used the name Doggoslayer 57 rather than 56. While we can go on and on listing every change, I don't see how the number of changes is actually infinite because as far as I know there is a finite amount of possible ways that the actual world could have been. I see the use in calling the total 'infinite', because it might as well be infinite when we speak a certain way. But that's as far as I manage before I'm confused.
You forgot to account for why God's decision is up to chance. You ramble about feasible and infinite worlds. There is only one World, and God is the cause of it, and God doesn't owe his existence to this world, nor does what he decide to do depend on random chance
That's an interesting theodicy. I do have one objection though, and it's an objection typically used against the skeptical theist theodicy. One could call this the moral paralysis objection. Let me give an overview of this objection with regards to skeptical theism. Let's say that you're a child and you're in the doctor's office. You see that your sibling is about to get a shot. You feel like intervening at first because the needle looks like it could cause gratuitous suffering, but then you realize that your parents wouldn't allow gratuitous suffering to occur to you or your sibling even though your cognitive capacities aren't capable of grasping the reason, so you realize that you have no obligation to stop the vaccination because it's clearly for the greater good. We can apply to the case of God. Let's say that you see a person dying on the street, and you want to help them, however, you remember that God doesn't allow anyone to suffer gratuitously even though you can't really grasp the reason, so you let them die. I think most of us would see that you do have an obligation to stop them from dying, but this would seem to entail that there's no greater good to come out of that suffering. We can apply this to your theodicy. Let's say that I see a man dying on the street, and I feel compelled to help them. However, I remember that God has morally sufficient reasons to let the man die such as preventing them from rebelling in heaven, and because it would be wrong of me to prevent a greater good, I have no obligation to help the dying man. I hope we all see that we do in fact have a moral obligation to help the man, but that would mean that their suffering wasn't actually for the purpose of preventing them from rebelling.
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding your objection, but I think Molinism solves this one. Since God has selected and actualized a possible world, I can do whatever seems right without fear of preventing an intended greater good. Whatever I choose will have to be consistent with God's plan since this is the world that has been actualized. Additionally, I would maintain my moral obligations because these are still my own free actions under certain circumstances, even if they are fine-tuned by God.
@@esoptron3983 It might defeat the objection. But I'd like to put my objection into the form of a syllogism, and I want to see which premise you'd object to. 1. If God exists, then any instance of evil is not gratuitous and is used for a greater good. 2. If an evil leads to a greater good, then we have no obligation to prevent it. 3. God exists. 4. So, every instance of evil is not gratuitous. 5. So, we have no obligation to prevent any instance of evil. 6. We do have an obligation to prevent certain instances of evil.(Contradiction) 7. So, God doesn't exist. Apologies if this formulation is invalid. I can't think at night time.
@@crabking6884 I realize I can't speak on behalf of @Esoptron, but I'll take a stab at this anyway because I think I understand the objection. I would attack premise 6 on the basis that if we successfully prevent an evil, it isn't an instance of evil at all.
@@crabking6884 The response to both arguments is generally always that the greater good in either scenario, should always be presumed to be the good gained by you preventing it, and thus 6 is actually what is entailed by your argument, not the contradiction. Other people have said this better than me
@@crabking6884 I would object to premise 6. I don't think "instance of evil" in premises 1-5 is the same as "instances of evil" in premise 6 within the context of Molinism. The first premises seem to refer to an actualized instance of evil, but I would only accept premise 6 if "instances of evil" refers to possible instances of evil. We would have an obligation to prevent possible instances evil, but not actualized instances of evil. Since Molinism places freewill choice logically prior to actualization, we would still have an obligation to minimize possible evil even if we can't affect what is actualized. I'm also pretty tired so this comment may need further clarification. It also might just be wrong. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@@ApologeticsSquared not for me. The only reason your channel works is because you are really good at making small assumptions without grounding them in anything but your own choice. You write a bunch of things which are incredibly hard to follow without looking up half of the words you use as a response to comments criticizing your points, and delete replies. And it doesn't have to be that way. You are an amazing TH-camr, you can create good videos, but you don't. I propose a challenge: You try to think like an atheist. When you think you did a good job, go to an actual atheist and ask her if this is the way she thinks. Just try it. If Christianity is true, you will always stay a true Christian. If not, well, you stop being one. And you publicly say so
This is the Theodicy I've always heard and understood. I was taught this one when I was 5 or 6 years old. I was taught it in very simple terms, and my understanding grew more nuanced with time. I've heard plenty of other potential responses to the POE, but this remains my favorite by a country mile.
Wow. How was this described to you as a child of 5 or 6?
Lol I was thinking the same
Great video, mate! I like how you were addressing possible worlds. What's so cool about the Heaven Rebellion Theodicy of yours and the version I made a couple of months ago, is that they both also solve the prevention of not only another human fall in heaven and new kingdom - but also another angelic fall - for eternity. And done in such way God would want it, a mutual loving family relationship, freely given - not forced. True love. And such theodicy as here can also be applied to gratuitous evil, divine hiddenness and more if unpacked further. Keep up the good work!
Excellent video!!! ♥ Some comments:
(1) You say: "One feature of being in a true love relationship is the ability to opt out of it"
I'm not sure this is true. Consider:
(A) Many parents -- given their constitution, character, etc. -- are simply unable *not* to love their children -- they are simply unable, themselves, to opt out of such a relationship. [Not in every case, but in many cases. Also: my criticism really only needs this to be *possible*.] Nevertheless, surely such parents are in a true love relationship with their children.
(B) None of the divine persons within the loving relationship of the Trinity could opt out of their relationship, and yet surely this is still true love. Indeed, surely this is true love par excellence under Christianity.
(2) You give a good reason for rejecting the argument sketched from 2:05 to 2:43, but let's add another reason to the mix! ☺
The argument seems to rest on some deeply utilitarian, non-[actually-anti-]deontological reasoning. For, plausibly, there are *deontological constraints* on which worlds God can permissibly actualize that are entirely overlooked by merely comparing the net utility of worlds. Suppose in world w1, person A's life, filled with atrociously protracted and horrendously extreme but nevertheless finite suffering, is used [and abused] as a mere means to secure someone else's eternal happiness. This world has greater net utility compared to a world in which God refrains from creating anything. And yet it is absurd to say that God would prefer the former, indeed it would be absurd to say God even *could* actualize such a world, since it is impermissible to do so [given plausible deontological ethical claims].
(3) "How many feasible worlds containing E will have X? P of them"
This initially struck me as plausible, but upon reflection, I'm starting to have some doubts. It seems to rest on at least two assumptions:
(C) actual objective probabilities track [i.e., correspond to] modal space
(D) Not only that, but they also track *feasible* modal space
But it's not clear that we should accept either (C) or (D). Perhaps objective probabilities are grounded in causal powers. Causal powers, importantly, have manifestation conditions. But perhaps modal space isn't uniform with respect to the range of possible manifestation conditions in which the relevant causal power could find itself. [Consider: perhaps a match has a 50% objective chance of producing flame. Now, this has manifestation conditions: the match needs to be struck, it needs to be in a flame-appropriate environment, and so on. Why think the modal space of manifestation conditions perfectly matches up [pun intended] with the objective chance here? Maybe it's really hard to get all the manifestation conditions in place, and so far fewer than 50% of the worlds in which the match exists will be such that the match produces flame.] Now, you might just say that all those manifestation conditions must be included in E. That might be cheating, but I'll allow it. It takes me to my second point:
My second point is that even if we grant -- after including the manifestation conditions within E -- that 50% of the *possible worlds* with E also have X, why suppose that 50% of the *feasible* worlds will also have X? Feasible worlds are a proper sub-set or sample of possible worlds. Why think the proportion in the sample, here, must reflect the proportion in the population? Perhaps lots of the possible worlds in which E doesn't co-occur with X have a sucky proportion of damned to saved people, and so the feasible worlds are disproportionately populated with worlds in which E co-occurs with X. This would be a case where an objective probability doesn't track feasible modal space. I don't see why we should think objective probability [automatically] tracks feasible modal space.
(4) At 5:44, you say "it seems like human decisions never make choices with probabilities of 0 involved"
I'm not sure this is true either. Granted, you assumed molinism at the beginning, and molinism is usually combined with incompatibilism. But it need not be. So, suppose the conjunction of [semi- or source-]compatibilism and determinism [either by divine decree, or past+laws, or whatever] is true. None of us have the ability to do otherwise under these stipulations; and yet we make lots of free decisions and choices and whatnot. Assuming [quite innocuously] the principle that S's lacking an ability [of themself] to do phi entails that the probability of S's doing phi [of themself] is 0, it follows that all of our decisions involve choices with probability zero involved [assuming there is a range of 'in principle open options', all of which are p=0 except for the actual choice made, which is p=1].
(5) Regarding the equation at around 8:30
This equation doesn't seem right. It crucially ignores that these events might not be probabilistically independent. And, indeed, surely they aren't. Surely the probability of subsequent ones is affected by the occurrence of earlier ones. Surely having already experienced perfectly heavenly bliss will alter one's likelihood of not rebelling and hence retaining one's perfect heavenly bliss. The equation instead should prolly be P(~rebel-d1) x P(~rebel-d2 | ~rebel-d1) x P(~rebel-d3 | ~rebel-d1 & ~rebel-d2) x ... and so on. But why think *every single one* of these multiplicands is going to be less than one? At some point, surely one's will might become so oriented towards Beauty, Goodness, and Truth that one becomes 'fixed' or 'habituated' to the point of the relevant probability being 1. This doesn't at all seem implausible, especially given how good perfectly heavenly bliss is. And if at some point we reach probability 1, then, plausibly, every subsequent multiplicand will be 1. And if the preceding multiplicands are super duper high -- say, 0.9999...9 -- then it is not at all plausible that the overall probability [of the entire equation] will be non-zero.
(6) Regarding the stuff about reasons for rebellion even in heaven
This seems to assume a very particular version of heaven that many Christians will [and have traditionally] reject[ed]. Many Christians have traditionally viewed heaven as, among other things, perfect conformity to the divine will. But one simply cannot exercise pride if one's will is perfectly conformed to God's, since God doesn't will pride or will that we are the center of the universe or whatever. We will whatever God wills when our will is perfectly conformed to his, and this simply debars acts of pride in heaven. Rejecting this traditional view [it's *a* traditional view; I don't have enough historical knowledge to say it's *the* traditional view] will surely accrue at least some cost.
Hope all this helps! Fun video to think about. 😁♥
Good stuff lol, I wonder what squared is gonna say. Anyways a lot of your responses go over my head but I have a reply to your first point. I've recently read Joshua Rasmussen's paper on the value of freedom to do evil (which was amazing btw). Your counterexamples seem right to me, so maybe we could modify squared's argument. Rather than saying "One feature of being in a true love relationship is the ability to opt-out of it" instead we can say "the ability to opt-out of a relationship can create certain good situations which are extremely valuable". This will allow squared to keep his original argument. The free will to refrain from being saved might be so valuable to God that he must allow it.
Take these two scenarios, one where forced love is involved and the other where unforced love is involved, to steal from Rasmussen:
"(Forced-Love) Sally loves daffodils, and her husband, Sam, knows this. Rather than wait to see if Sam will decide to buy her daffodils, Sally discreetly pours a love potion into Sam’s soup. After Sam eats his soup, the potion deterministically causes him to form a desire sufficiently strong so as to causally determine that Sam expresses love to Sally by surprising her with a vase full of daffodils. As a result, Sam does exactly that."
"(Unforced-Love) Sally loves daffodils, and her husband, Sam, knows this. One day, Sam decides, of his own accord, to express love to Sally by surprising her with a vase full of daffodils."
Intuitively it seems like the unforced love scenario is better than the forced one. Nothing intrinsic to it being forced or unforced makes a relationship better, rather, unforced relationships produce better quality situations that unforced ones cannot. So perhaps, rather than requiring unforced love to have a true relationship, it's needed to create (very) valuable situations. This would justify God in allowing people the option to opt-out of a relationship, freely choosing to enter into a relationship is far better than forcing someone else to do it. So although the unconditional love of the mother and the trinity might be forced love, God can create greater goods from allowing these instances of unforced love.
Tl;DR God allows the freedom to opt-out of a relationship for greater goods. If anyone wants to read Rasmussen's article here's the link: philpapers.org/rec/RASOTV 10/10 would recommend reading.
Well yeah, he's making equations based on a completely unknown item (heaven). The fact that equations don't hold realistic application or a completely skewed for some lopsided desired result should be no surprise whatsoever.
// (1) You say: "One feature of being in a true love relationship is the ability to opt out of it." I'm not sure this is true. [...]//
I should have been more clear. While I don't think that this principle is necessarily true, I think that it is true whenever one party could have a reason for opting out (and I posit such reasons for humans later on). My main motivation for referencing this principle is that I need to explain why God doesn't just override our free will and coerce us into a relationship with Him.
// (2) You give a good reason for rejecting the argument sketched from 2:05 to 2:43, but let's add another reason to the mix! ☺ [...] Suppose in world w1, person A's life, filled with atrociously protracted and horrendously extreme but nevertheless finite suffering, is used [and abused] as a mere means to secure someone else's eternal happiness. This world has greater net utility compared to a world in which God refrains from creating anything. And yet it is absurd to say that God would prefer the former, indeed it would be absurd to say God even could actualize such a world, since it is impermissible to do so [given plausible deontological ethical claims]. //
I am sympathetic to this reasoning, but I do have some reservations. Like, if someone was getting tortured on the other side of a city, it seems plausible that I would be allowed to steal a bike to more quickly go and stop the torturing. If there were a hundred people being tortured, I could plausibly steal someone's car. If we continue to increase the net utility that I am promoting, then my intuitions tell me that otherwise impermissible actions become permissible. On the other hand, intuitions are famously bad at dealing with scope. I also go back and forth on whether the Principle of Double Effect actually *would* allow God to create w1, so I'm undecided about this consideration.
// (3) "How many feasible worlds containing E will have X? P of them." This initially struck me as plausible, but upon reflection, I'm starting to have some doubts. [...] Perhaps objective probabilities are grounded in causal powers. Causal powers, importantly, have manifestation conditions. [...] Maybe it's really hard to get all the manifestation conditions in place, and so far fewer than 50% of the worlds in which the match exists will be such that the match produces flame.] //
I would just say that all those manifesting conditions are part of E.
// Now, you might just say that all those manifestation conditions must be included in E. That might be cheating, but I'll allow it. //
Yay!
// It takes me to my second point. My second point is that even if we grant -- after including the manifestation conditions within E -- that 50% of the possible worlds with E also have X, why suppose that 50% of the feasible worlds will also have X? Feasible worlds are a proper sub-set or sample of possible worlds. Why think the proportion in the sample, here, must reflect the proportion in the population? Perhaps lots of the possible worlds in which E doesn't co-occur with X have a sucky proportion of damned to saved people, and so the feasible worlds are disproportionately populated with worlds in which E co-occurs with X. This would be a case where an objective probability doesn't track feasible modal space. I don't see why we should think objective probability [automatically] tracks feasible modal space. //
Now, I'm a little unclear on what you're saying here. But if I understand it correctly, you're saying that probabilities describe the distributions of possible worlds, not feasible ones. So, looking at the probabilities might not give us a good insight into what feasible worlds there are. I think that's wrong. If we look at the second Jim case, where the coin has a 1/100000 chance of heads, then there are equally as many possible worlds where Jim gets heads as where Jim gets tails. For, we can specify any world segment containing everything up to the outcome of such a coin flip, and there will be exactly two possible worlds containing this segment: one where Jim gets heads, and one where Jim gets tails. By this measure, then, 50% of possible worlds have Jim getting heads, and 50% of possible worlds have Jim getting tails. But, the space of feasible worlds is totally different, with 0.001% getting heads and 99.999% getting tails. So, probabilities don't tell us much of anything about the distributions of possible worlds. They only can describe feasible worlds.
// (4) At 5:44, you say "it seems like human decisions never make choices with probabilities of 0 involved." I'm not sure this is true either. Granted, you assumed molinism at the beginning, and molinism is usually combined with incompatibilism. [...] //
Yeah, the way I conceive of this theodicy, it relies on incompatibilism.
// (5) Regarding the equation at around 8:30. This equation doesn't seem right. It crucially ignores that these events might not be probabilistically independent. And, indeed, surely they aren't. Surely the probability of subsequent ones is affected by the occurrence of earlier ones. Surely having already experienced perfectly heavenly bliss will alter one's likelihood of not rebelling and hence retaining one's perfect heavenly bliss. //
110% agree. The equation I gave was a simplification of the broader point I was trying to make; that the nonzero probabilities can accumulate. I myself think the probability that we will rebel indeed decreases over time. So, if I would frame my view precisely, I would say that for any individual, there would be an infinite set of moments in time, {t1, t2, t3,...} such that for any n, the probability that the individual would not rebel within t_n and t_n+1 would be less than 0.9999...9. So, there is a gurantee that the individual has a zero percent chance of being saved, but the difference between t_n and t_n+1 can always be miniscule when compared to the difference between t_n+1 and t_n+2. Like, there would be a 0.9999...9 chance of not rebelling in the first day, then a 0.9999...9 chance of not rebelling in the subsequent year, and then a 0.9999...9 chance of not rebelling in the next googolplex years, and so on.
// The equation instead should prolly be P(~rebel-d1) x P(~rebel-d2 | ~rebel-d1) x P(~rebel-d3 | ~rebel-d1 & ~rebel-d2) x ... and so on. But why think every single one of these multiplicands is going to be less than one? At some point, surely one's will might become so oriented towards Beauty, Goodness, and Truth that one becomes 'fixed' or 'habituated' to the point of the relevant probability being 1. This doesn't at all seem implausible, especially given how good perfectly heavenly bliss is. //
Hmmm... that still seems weird to me. For example, on day 1126894 of Heavenly bliss, there is a less than 1 probability that I will not rebel, but a probability of 1 on day 1126895. What accounts for this arbitrary cutoff? It seems something "special" would need to account for this transition, but as a proponent of this theodicy, I would just deny that such a thing exists.
// (6) Regarding the stuff about reasons for rebellion even in heaven. This seems to assume a very particular version of heaven that many Christians will [and have traditionally] reject[ed]. Many Christians have traditionally viewed heaven as, among other things, perfect conformity to the divine will. But one simply cannot exercise pride if one's will is perfectly conformed to God's, since God doesn't will pride or will that we are the center of the universe or whatever. We will whatever God wills when our will is perfectly conformed to his, and this simply debars acts of pride in heaven. //
Well, tradition is mostly right. It will indeed be the case that Heaven involves perfect conformity to the divine will. We just have a never-exercised power to _not_ conform. See, tradition just needed a bit of nuance! :)
// Rejecting this traditional view [it's a traditional view; I don't have enough historical knowledge to say it's the traditional view] will surely accrue at least some cost. //
Yeah, I ultimately think that this is right. But I don't think it's a *huge* cost.
Thanks for commenting Joe! I always appreciate your contributions! :)
@@ApologeticsSquared Could you put English subtitles on the videos, please?
"There is a zero percent chance that a
human left or their own devices will stay in an eternal relationship with God. Coolio!" You were very excited about this lol
Great video! I liked it 99.9999999%. BTW, I believe that we will eventually be one with God and therefore will never be able to rebel against God.
Joh 17:21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us. We will be married to Him: Rev 19:7 Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready.
I have to give an explanation to the problem of evil next saturday. Now I won´t say this because nobody will get it, but it´s great insight nonetheless, and adds to my study. Thank you!
The 10 second summary version is super intuitive though. You don’t have to run the advanced argument, just say we have free will for all eternity, so evil exists in order for us to always maintain a firm memory of how sucky life is without God.
Aquinas should have said “Coolio” more
Wow the part about being able to rebel in heaven would lead to everyone going to hell is something I have thought about since I was a young lad.
Yeah, it really is interesting. The conclusion I’ve come to, that there’s a 100% chance we will rebel but we never will, is certainly intriguing, but not contradictory. :)
One way I think about it is even if we aren't 100% sure how to solve the problem of evil (although I think we can do a great and sufficient job), I still don't think it should ever cause one to overlook the overwhelming reason we have for belief in God anymore than a perceived defect in a painting (especially if the painter tells us what went wrong) should lead us to overlook the obvious reason for believing its a painting with a painter. That's just one point in response to it
But that's just a vague deism.
Stumbled on this today and it closely matches a thought I'd had on the subject as well.
All exists to glorify god.
God and his attributes are good, but Evil is a lack of or corruption of the attributes. This lack or corrupted attributes serve to demonstrate the good-ness of the good attributes. Even people who reject god and do evil, glorify god in demonstrating how life is without him.
Great stuff Squared. Also I think a good sequel to this theodicy would be John C. Peckham Theodicy of Love, the cosmic conflict between Satan and God.
Wait, doesn't that mean that you just created a deterministic universe?
1) God knows the outcome of indeterministic events.
2) God can freely choose between possible worlds where the outcome of indeterministic events differs from one another.
3) God is a perfectly rational agent, with the goal of maximizing the people in heaven (without rebelion)
4) Given 1) 2) and 3) god will set the outcome of every indeterministic event (which is relevant for salvation) in such a way as to maximize the people saved by choosing exactly the universe where those choices are made.
I very much doubt the truth of 2), since if god where able to freely choose any possible world with an arbitrary set of indeterministic event results, where would be the functional difference between molonism and determinism? Every event (that god deems to be vital to salvation) will be set with a 100% probability, just as in determinism
The only problem that I have with this molinist line of thinking, aside from the grounding problem, is that I struggle with the problem of who gets saved. Imagine person (a) is saved in all possible worlds except for 1, but there is 1 more person (b) saved in that one possible world than in all other possible worlds. Does God then choose to let a not be saved in order to save b? How could God decide?
Love your videos man, but I got lost in the probabilities lol... I believe Molinism doesn't tackle probabilities when it talks about possible or feasible worlds... I'll get back on this video though and try to understand better.
You should be a bit more careful with calculations involving infinity. I see a tendencies to try to multiply things with infinity. Divide infinity by infinity etc.
I facepalmed when you did. 9999 to the power if infinity. Please use limits or something.
Or just accept infinitesimals or surreal numbers.
Well, I did say, “or the limit as n goes to infinity of that to the power of n” so I think I’m okay.
@@ApologeticsSquared Seems like you didn't at many points and I also know of other instances where you are a bit hasty. As long as you are thinking about it in terms of limits that's okay with me.
Can you make a video about Felix's Culpa! theodicy? I think that BY FAR this is the best theodicy that exist (as far as I know).
Poor turtle.
Hey, Squared, have you considered making a video resolving the prayer paradox? Cosmic Skeptic has a video that explains it pretty well here th-cam.com/video/i7PivoK2fA8/w-d-xo.html. I'd like to see how you would resolve it.
That sounds fun. Molinism solves the problem quite nicely, but I could also go into how other views of Foreknowledge would respond to it.
Do you think that ability to restore relationship after opting out is a feature of a true love relationship?
If so I don't think that 14:59 "it explains why god didn't just make humans in heaven straight away humans would have rebelled"
Humans would rebel, go to hell, see that it not cool and go back to God.
It's exactly the way it goes on earth (rebel by sinning>forgiveness>heaven) and I don't see why starting in a different realm matter if evil is possible in both cases.
Thank you for this. Great video. 🙌🏼
I cannot kill the leviathan. I could not begin to assume what the thoughts of such a being that could.
The problem I see with this theodicy is that there are clearly instances of evil that do not serve that purpose. Like, a lot of unnecessary animal suffering isn't ever witnessed by humans! Another (silly) example: take the last time a random atheist accidentally stubbed their toe, yet they pretty much forgot about it the next week, and didn't mention it to anyone. You're asking us to accept that if that particular instance of suffering didn't happen, at least one more person would've gone to hell. That's just inconceivable.
Also, why can't God have a finite lasting relationship with some of his children? It seems like going to heaven for a while then rebelling and going to hell is straight up better than going to hell from the start. Yet the only two options ever depicted are either heaven forever or hell forever. Does our world contain the HUGE coincidence that absolutely everyone in hell couldn't have been in heaven for even one second without rebelling?
Good questions.
I’m not sure what to say about the second point..
I think for the first point, one possible line of reasoning might be to say that God would only intervene specifically to cause suffering (or perhaps to prevent it, etc), if it will lead to that person being saved.
But he won’t intervene all the time, preferring instead to have the Universe run according to the usual laws of nature and probability. If he constantly steered things towards his own preferences, it would probably skew people’s understanding of cause and effect.
I think this preference would be compatible with the argument given here.
I might be misremembering, but I think the “Really Annoying Theodicy” tries to address questions like “why not one stubbed toe fewer?” but possibly from a different perspective.
@@MatthewFearnley ...but God created those laws and knew exactly everything that would happen because of those laws since the beginning. He also had the power to create the world in whatever way he wanted. If God is all-powerful and molinism is true, absolutely *everything* happens exactly how God wants it to happen. He could have created a universe where my friend Bob didn't stub his toe last week. Instead he decided to create a universe where Bob did stub his toe. According to this theodicy, that toe stubbing is absolutely necessary for someone to go to heaven
@@Nickesponja you could be right.. Perhaps this theodicy could be said to account for the toe-stubbing, but not explain it. It appeals to God's knowledge of the comprehensive workings of all space and eternal time, so while it may be true, it may not be verifiable for any specific instance. There are other theodicies that could potentially explain this better.
One thing worth noting is, it could be that the number of people saved isn't the only "metric" by which God evaluates all possible worlds.
Regarding your second point earlier ("It seems like going to heaven for a while then rebelling and going to hell is straight up better than going to hell from the start.")..
I don't think I would agree with this, either from the perspective of the rebel or of the other people in heaven.
On annihilationism it could be better for the rebel (no shock of going from heaven to hell), but the other people in heaven would still have to experience the rebellion and the loss of the rebel.
Potentially it also means that noone can be secure in their salvation, knowing there's a possibility that anyone can rebel at any time. Unless God tells everyone beforehand whether they will rebel or not.
// Like, a lot of unnecessary animal suffering isn't ever witnessed by humans! //
For animal suffering, I think there are two routes one could take:
First, maybe animals will get free will and could rebel. I don't see any problem with that.
Second, humans can become aware of their suffering in Heaven.
// Another (silly) example: take the last time a random atheist accidentally stubbed their toe, yet they pretty much forgot about it the next week, and didn't mention it to anyone. You're asking us to accept that if that particular instance of suffering didn't happen, at least one more person would've gone to hell. //
I think that it's not too crazy, because there are a lot of stubbed toes, which may individually do nothing, but cumulatively prevent a rebellion.
// Also, why can't God have a finite lasting relationship with some of his children? //
I think He can, but He's more ambitious than that. :)
// It seems like going to heaven for a while then rebelling and going to hell is straight up better than going to hell from the start. //
I'm not sure about that. It seems that the intensity of Hell would be dictated by the severity of the sins one has committed. And plausibly, rebelling in Heaven is quite a serious sin.
// Yet the only two options ever depicted are either heaven forever or hell forever. //
This theodicy actually doesn't take a stance on the nature of Hell. One could be a universalist, who believes that Hell is finitely long, and at some point everyone will be in Heaven (as far as I can see, this fits well with this theodicy). Or, one could be an annihilationist, and maintain that people are annihilated in Hell (although as far as I can see, that fits poorly with this theodicy).
// Does our world contain the HUGE coincidence that absolutely everyone in hell couldn't have been in heaven for even one second without rebelling? //
I don't think that the theodicy needs to maintain this, for the abovementioned reasons, but a Molinist could still say yes.
Have a nice day! :)
@@ApologeticsSquared (Sorry for the late response) I don't really understand your "cumulative case" answer. You say that an individual stubbed toe may do nothing (so if you remove it, the amount of people saved doesn't change), but at the same time, the collection of *all* of the stubbed toes are necessary for some people to be saved. That seems contradictory. If *all* of the stubbed toes are necessary, then removing just one of them will change the amount of people saved!
I can honestly say I've never heard of this theodicy before! I tried searching for more information but didn't find much, although I got some results on Warfare Theodicy or the "Great Controversy." Is this related to that concept?
No idea. I have no idea if you’ll find more info on this theodicy because I developed it myself.
I really like this theodicy. Not only does it explain why a lot of evil exists but it also explains the distribution of suffering too. Maybe you would have rebelled in heaven if some horrendous evil never occurred so God is justified in permitting it.
Do you know any papers on this type of theodicy? I wanna look into it more.
I kinda developed the whole thing independently by debating a Calvinist on why God hasn't saved everyone if Molinism is true. So, I don't know if there are any papers on it... :P
@@ApologeticsSquared gasp, nice job. This theodicy is good. Maybe you should be the first to make a paper 😳
@@ApologeticsSquared I feel like you have the build to be the first professional, 2-dimensional stickman Philosopher of Religion.
@@petery6432 I feel it too, man.
@@esauponce9759 If Apologetics squared worked with a professional philosopher to nuance this argument (Since its current form could probably be argued against), it might be the strongest theodicy ever since it covers the problem of evil, animal suffering, and Divine hiddeness (Although how it covers these is very unintuitive).
I don't quite agree with this one. Don't think it works because you say God can prevent you from doing evil in heaven every time by some means. But why didn't he do that in the paradise? "Well would we be truly free in paradise if God prevented us from sinning every time?" Okay good point but are we truly free in heaven if God prevents us every time?
Also I think people put too heavy of a burden on themselve by saying that God has to create the world where most amount of people would be saved because He is perfectly loving. Okay I know this will sound wrong but I don't see the flaw in my thinking: God can even create a world where no-one accepts his sacrifice on the cross. That doesnt make him less loving because the creatures freely chose to rebel. That isn't Gods fault it's theirs. God is simply too loving to force them into heaven.
I think the best response to the problem of evil is preaching the gospel. Show them with love a humility that they themselves are sinfull too. When people say that this world is too messed up that it can't be created by a loving God they completely forget that they themselves do evil all the time. If they don't realize it then there isnt much you can do except pray. You don't really need to have thjs complicated theodicy to solve it. You need the gospel. Cause one they the world will be renewed and suffering will disapear, but you do have to be on the right side
We won’t need to struggle with sin in heaven, heaven is a pure place and since we’ve struggled on earth than God won’t give us desire to sin. Sure you can make the argument that Satan rebelled against god out of his own freewill but you still have to prove that it wasn’t Gods will for him to do so.
I still prefer the open theism theodicy. It's called, "there's a problem of evil?"
This is a more advanced version of how I also understand this theodicy.
This is how I understand it:
The beginning of Genesis paints a picture (even if it is just symbolically) of how Heaven will be. Humanity will dwell in God’s presence and experience His goodness, but we will always have a choice. This choice is necessary for God to be a good God, otherwise we will just be meat machines without purpose. This choice explains how it was possible for Satan and some angels to rebel against God in heaven - because they had a choice. A choice that we also have.
We might still be tempted in heaven, but I am convinced that nothing will come close to the great perfection and fullness we will experience in God. Thus we will most likely choose God over anything else that comes our way, because it’s all obsolete and lacking in comparison to God. Therefore we will be in union with God and His will forever after that.
Nice.
i stopped listening at 1:22 after hearing a dozen assertions for which there was not even a little justification given, and, that I felt were blatantly wrong! This sounds like the opinions of someone who has zero experience in life, and thinks a deity would have little preferences for this or that 'just because it would sound better' or 'would make more sense'.... (pro tip: if deities were real they could just communicate anything individually or on masses and apologetics would be totally irrelevant and unexistant!) but hey, if you need that to make sense of existence or life in general (or abstain from doing bad things) keep keeping on ;)
This lack of rational and critical thinking is dizzing!
I like this theodicy. But I want to ask: Doesn't this still imply Universalism? You showed that the experience of evil before death could be necessary to ensure people stay in heaven in eternity. And because of Molinism God knows what is necessary for everyone and does it. Then everyone would be saved in the end, right?
(Of course, personally I strongly lean towards Universalism and I think that Molinism + traditional assumptions about God's character almost certainly lead to everyone being saved, or more precisely, God only creating beings who will be saved. But as far as I remember you aren't an Universalist, so I am curious how hell fits into this theodicy.)
The fact that Adam and Eve had a choice to make in the Garden of Eden shows beyond all doubt that mankind was created with a free will. The first couple chose to sin, and that choice has plunged the entire world into spiritual darkness leading to our need of salvation. Through it all, mankind has retained his free will, and we will retain free will in heaven. Is it possible that people in heaven can exercise their free will to sin again and get kicked out of heaven? No, it is not possible.
To back up a bit, we need an acceptable definition of free will. We have free will, but not in the way most people think. Our freedom consists in the fact that we are free to choose according to our desires. As long as we have a minimum of two available options, we must make a choice, and we will always do so according to our strongest desire. But, in the case of a fallen sinner, he or she is not at liberty to choose according to righteousness. This is what Jesus means when He says that the one who sins “is a slave to sin” (John 8:34). This is not the language of “free will” as people typically think of it. The unregenerate person has a sinful nature; he is not just inclined to sin but driven by sinful impulses. It is perhaps helpful to say, “We are free to choose what we want but not free to want what we ought.” This greatly limits our “freedom” because the list of things we want (as sinners) coincides with whatever pleases our sinful impulses. Our choices are for things that will ultimately destroy us (Proverbs 14:12). As Paul says, “Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?” (Romans 7:24, NLT).
When we are saved, we are liberated from our natural bondage to sin. The Holy Spirit sovereignly regenerates us and in grace gives us the ability to want what we ought to want, namely, forgiveness, salvation, and the lordship of Christ. When we trust in Jesus for salvation, we begin a moral progression, a journey toward holiness in which we put to death daily the sinful impulses that reside within us and strive toward godliness. In heaven we will be completely devoid of sin; our only desires will be for the things of God-things that bless us, fulfill us, and give us life. This is true liberty (see Romans 8:21). We will retain our free will in heaven, but our will is sanctified there. The sin nature will be gone.
In heaven we are completely conformed to the image of Christ (Romans 8:28-30). Our sanctification will be finished; we will not even want to sin. Also, in heaven there is no temptation to lure us and no devil to deceive us. Unlike Adam and Eve, we will face no test; our moral state will be secure. No one will get kicked out of heaven. Just as our Lord Jesus has a truly free will yet is without sin, so will we retain a free will yet be without sin. We will be like Him (1 John 3:2).
Before salvation, our free will on earth is limited by our inability to choose what is right. After salvation, our free will struggles between choosing what is right and what is wrong. In heaven our free will is limited by our inability to choose what is wrong. In our glorified state, we will exercise our free will to choose what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and admirable (see Philippians 4:8).
Or put it this way: Why did a Perfect all-powerful God need to create a universe with potential for flaw in order to reach some “Greater Good”? Why not just directly create that Greater Good?
Answer: He did! God is ALREADY, eternally & timelessly existing in that Perfect State, at one with all His creatures, who freely choose oneness with Him over separation from Him. That’s what actually exists.
Just one detail to consider. In order for said creatures to be choosing *freely* to be at one with God in that reality, they need a concept of the alternative. So God creates a back story! Now, this backstory doesn’t truly exist in the same way God & His Perfect State does. No, it exists in a type of virtual construct called Spacetime. The possibility of separation from God is not a flaw or accident or defect of the construct! It’s the whole point of this backstory!
(According to Divine Simplicity, separation from God = separation from all God’s attributes. So degrees of separation from God would mean degrees of finitude, weakness, imperfection, ignorance, suffering, malevolence, mortality, & ultimately, non-existence. In a word, Evil.)
This backstory doesn’t actually happen chronologically prior to the “Perfect State”of creation. It’s similar to how “2+2=“ doesn’t happen chronologically prior to “4”. 4 just is. The Perfect State just is. The backstory is just what is logically implied by the Perfect State.
Also it says that in proverbs 16:4. I won’t tell you what it says because I want you to tell me that God isn’t sovereign or that he doesn’t have the power to do as he will.
Problem of evil= Proverbs13:24. Evil exists: 1 we are evil less than God who is good, 2 Evil exists as punishment a result of our choice. 1 & 2 Are allowed to exist because God is loving and allows us & our choice to exist to have true power & true consequences as a result. In short Evil exists because Love & Good exist and what falls short of Love & Good is called Evil.
So it seems like the difficulty in making this happen would be a countable infinity. We want a countable decisions to go the right way in heaven.
But God can analyse what would happen if he created an uncountable infinity of worlds.
Let's take our world as an example, he could realise this world with an invisibe note with any irrational number on it.
So he has at least aleph1 different possibilities and he is trying to get aleph0 things to go right. Seems like he has ample oppurtunity to make things tip top.
Interesting point(s)! Now, a similar sort of objection has been brought to Molinism before, with the response being that our decisions wouldn't have been any different unless our mental states are different. So, if a CCF of the form, "S would do A in C1," is true, then any other CCF of the form "S would do A in C2" is also true if S has the same mental state in both C1 and C2.
Another point, though, is that it's not clear that individuals will make only countably finite decisions. If I wave my hand around in the air randomly, then _maybe_ I'm making a decision at an uncountably many points in time about how to move my hand. But this response doesn't work because then God can just write out members of the powerset of all possible human actions on invisible note. So, I think, yes, we need to deny that invisible notes influence decision-making, or deny the metaphysical possibility of such infinitely long notes.
Have a nice day! :)
@@ApologeticsSquared It's highly unclear on molinism why any change (even note ones) wouldn't make contingent things go the other way.
It's not like any world with the same causal stuff determines the outcomes right.
Squared. Good day. Talking about, zero; can you respond or explain to us, the new video, uploaded by Closer to Truth about zero.
This video
th-cam.com/video/bUVN7E1wiBs/w-d-xo.html
5:07 to 5:16 - Infinitesimals don't make sense to me. We can prove for example that 0.9999... = 1.
Let x = 0.9999..
10x = 9.999999...
10x - x =9
9x = 9
x = 1
And the problem is...?
I’m binge-watching your channel. It’s great. But as for the POE, my pet theodicy is “Perfected Love”, which basically states: God would be *less than perfect* if there was no universe that was fundamentally evil, with potential for Evil. God *logically needs* non-God-entities to love, in order for His love to be up to His standards of perfection.
As all God’s attributes are identical, any non-God-entity will be non(all God’s attributes). Why can’t God just perfectly love Himself (or the members of the Trinity)? Jesus makes it super clear that “being perfect, as your Father in Heaven is perfect” requires loving your enemies, & that simply “loving those who love you” is not sufficiently perfected love. (See Matthew 5) & God demonstrates His love for us in that *while we were at enmity with His nature* (sinners), Christ died for us.
1) ~EvilPotential -> ~Evil -> ~nonGodEntities -> ~PerfectedLove -> ~PerfectGod
2) Necessarily: PerfectGod
3) Necessarily: EvilPotential
Furthermore, the act of Creating the “Potential for Evil” from a perfect state, cannot itself be an act of Evil, since the potential for Evil would have had to pre-exist itself. So, IF the act of creating the Potential for Evil is not itself Evil AND it is necessary to Perfection, THEN it is an act of Perfection.
As for the question of God “needing” something: Firstly, God doesn’t “need” things in the same way we do. We need things outside of ourselves like oxygen, food, friendship, etc.. There is nothing outside of God. He supplies all His own needs from within His own Nature, He grounds His own being. So God’s “needing” doesn’t detract from His omnipotence since He is ultimately self-sufficient.
Secondly, being outside of time & unchanging, anything He will ever get from the universe (like the love & praise of generations yet to come, etc.) He is in the eternal state of already having. So while He *Logically needs* xyz, at no point in His existence does He ever lack xyz, long as they are attained at some point in time.
First!
So good
So your saying that when we get to heaven, we can reject God because we’re saved by his grace and mercy, that commits a logical fallacy. You can’t reject a free gift that you never worked for, if you ended up rejecting God even in heaven than that’s suicide because than you would need for him to take you out of his hand and throw you to hell and than god would be going against himself and his word. So no you can’t have someone that’s been regenerated and justified before, only to suddenly see himself out of the kingdom.
MOLINISM!!
Why are there an infinity of worlds? There are a lot, but do we know if the total is a definite number or actually infinite?
The number of possible worlds is a potential infinite. You could always add more staplers to a world much like how you can always count to a higher number. That doesn’t mean these worlds actually exist.
@@doggoslayer5679 Oh I understand that they don't actually exist but my confusion is surrounding the "infinite".
I thought what makes a possible world different from this one is that it is just at least one change away from being this world. So a neighbouring world to this one is the one in which you used the name Doggoslayer 57 rather than 56. While we can go on and on listing every change, I don't see how the number of changes is actually infinite because as far as I know there is a finite amount of possible ways that the actual world could have been.
I see the use in calling the total 'infinite', because it might as well be infinite when we speak a certain way. But that's as far as I manage before I'm confused.
I’m first … squared
You forgot to account for why God's decision is up to chance.
You ramble about feasible and infinite worlds.
There is only one World, and God is the cause of it, and God doesn't owe his existence to this world, nor does what he decide to do depend on random chance
That's an interesting theodicy. I do have one objection though, and it's an objection typically used against the skeptical theist theodicy. One could call this the moral paralysis objection.
Let me give an overview of this objection with regards to skeptical theism. Let's say that you're a child and you're in the doctor's office. You see that your sibling is about to get a shot. You feel like intervening at first because the needle looks like it could cause gratuitous suffering, but then you realize that your parents wouldn't allow gratuitous suffering to occur to you or your sibling even though your cognitive capacities aren't capable of grasping the reason, so you realize that you have no obligation to stop the vaccination because it's clearly for the greater good. We can apply to the case of God. Let's say that you see a person dying on the street, and you want to help them, however, you remember that God doesn't allow anyone to suffer gratuitously even though you can't really grasp the reason, so you let them die. I think most of us would see that you do have an obligation to stop them from dying, but this would seem to entail that there's no greater good to come out of that suffering.
We can apply this to your theodicy. Let's say that I see a man dying on the street, and I feel compelled to help them. However, I remember that God has morally sufficient reasons to let the man die such as preventing them from rebelling in heaven, and because it would be wrong of me to prevent a greater good, I have no obligation to help the dying man. I hope we all see that we do in fact have a moral obligation to help the man, but that would mean that their suffering wasn't actually for the purpose of preventing them from rebelling.
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding your objection, but I think Molinism solves this one. Since God has selected and actualized a possible world, I can do whatever seems right without fear of preventing an intended greater good. Whatever I choose will have to be consistent with God's plan since this is the world that has been actualized. Additionally, I would maintain my moral obligations because these are still my own free actions under certain circumstances, even if they are fine-tuned by God.
@@esoptron3983 It might defeat the objection. But I'd like to put my objection into the form of a syllogism, and I want to see which premise you'd object to.
1. If God exists, then any instance of evil is not gratuitous and is used for a greater good.
2. If an evil leads to a greater good, then we have no obligation to prevent it.
3. God exists.
4. So, every instance of evil is not gratuitous.
5. So, we have no obligation to prevent any instance of evil.
6. We do have an obligation to prevent certain instances of evil.(Contradiction)
7. So, God doesn't exist.
Apologies if this formulation is invalid. I can't think at night time.
@@crabking6884 I realize I can't speak on behalf of @Esoptron, but I'll take a stab at this anyway because I think I understand the objection.
I would attack premise 6 on the basis that if we successfully prevent an evil, it isn't an instance of evil at all.
@@crabking6884 The response to both arguments is generally always that the greater good in either scenario, should always be presumed to be the good gained by you preventing it, and thus 6 is actually what is entailed by your argument, not the contradiction.
Other people have said this better than me
@@crabking6884 I would object to premise 6. I don't think "instance of evil" in premises 1-5 is the same as "instances of evil" in premise 6 within the context of Molinism. The first premises seem to refer to an actualized instance of evil, but I would only accept premise 6 if "instances of evil" refers to possible instances of evil. We would have an obligation to prevent possible instances evil, but not actualized instances of evil. Since Molinism places freewill choice logically prior to actualization, we would still have an obligation to minimize possible evil even if we can't affect what is actualized.
I'm also pretty tired so this comment may need further clarification. It also might just be wrong. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
You're like the Christian life noggin
I hope that’s a good thing. :)
@@ApologeticsSquared I certainly would say so XD. You're both smart and got a square head
@@ApologeticsSquared not for me. The only reason your channel works is because you are really good at making small assumptions without grounding them in anything but your own choice.
You write a bunch of things which are incredibly hard to follow without looking up half of the words you use as a response to comments criticizing your points, and delete replies.
And it doesn't have to be that way. You are an amazing TH-camr, you can create good videos, but you don't.
I propose a challenge: You try to think like an atheist. When you think you did a good job, go to an actual atheist and ask her if this is the way she thinks. Just try it. If Christianity is true, you will always stay a true Christian. If not, well, you stop being one. And you publicly say so