The ever-estimable James Swan has done a post on the problem of evil. I’m going to seize on one insight:
“If I knew in advance that a person was going to get in their car by their own choice, and while driving down the road strike and kill someone, and I let them do it, I share responsibility. It's actually a severely culpable responsibility because I knew and they didn't.”
http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/index.php?itemid=3807
I think this point merits elaboration. From a human viewpoint, if I know that somebody is in danger, and he does not, and my advance knowledge of the danger equips me to allay the tragic outcome, then don’t I have a duty to prevent the outcome?
Even if I didn’t foreknow the outcome, if it were just a probable outcome, would it not be incumbent on me to take preemptive measures?
Suppose, instead of a reckless driver, I know that a falling tree will kill a bystander unless I intervene. The tree is not responsible. And the bystander is not responsible.
In that situation, I’m the only responsible party. Since the bystander is oblivious to the threat, he can’t step out of the way in time.
In that situation, I don’t simply share responsibility with the bystander, but I shoulder the entire responsibility. If I fail to act on my advance knowledge, then I’m culpable. And, what is more, I’m solely to blame.
If he’s an innocent bystander, then I can hardly excuse my own role in the outcome on the grounds that I merely “allowed” it to happen. For allowing it to happen is the very thing that’s culpable in this situation.
On the other hand, suppose the victim is not an innocent bystander. Suppose he’s a serial killer. And I know that. With that in mind, I let the tree fall on him and crush him to death.
I’m still responsible for the outcome. But am I blameworthy? No. To the contrary, I’d be blameworthy if I saved the life of a serial killer.
There are, of course, differences between divine and human obligations. But that just complicates the Arminian objection to Calvinism. Indeed, it generates a dilemma for the Arminian.
To the extent that the Arminian accentuates human analogies, he inculpates the Arminian God in evil.
To the extent that the Arminian accentuates the disanalogy between divine and human obligations, he exculpates the Calvinist God.
"In that situation, I don’t simply share responsibility with the bystander, but I shoulder the entire responsibility. If I fail to act on my advance knowledge, then I’m culpable. And, what is more, I’m solely to blame.
ReplyDeleteIf he’s an innocent bystander, then I can hardly excuse my own role in the outcome on the grounds that I merely “allowed” it to happen. For allowing it to happen is the very thing that’s culpable in this situation."
(I know it's not the point of the post.)
24. Jack Bauer. Terrorist attacks. Thousands of innocent lives. Real life: CIA. Waterboarding. "Torture" of terrorists. Culpability.
Scenario: Obama and the top levels of his administration know that a pending and very lethal terrorist attack is imminent on American soil, killing thousands of innocents.
Obama has advance knowledge.
The only efficacious act that he and his administration can take is to "torture" a terrorist into giving up information to prevent the imminent danger.
Obama fails to act. Many thousands of Americans die.
Is Obama culpable?
Yes.
ReplyDeleteThis is Obama's philosophy of national defense:
ReplyDeleteAttack those who defend us, defend those who attack us.
In fact, the situation looks even worse for the Arminian's conception of fairness and egalitarian love. The culpability of the person who doesn't act to prevent the outcome would seem to be accentuated if the person had this super human unconditional love for the victim in question, which apparently God has.
ReplyDeleteAs Paul Moser has argued, "One who fails to be perfectly loving toward all people (when one could be so) is morally deficient, at least regarding one's failure to love others perfectly. ... Divine moral perfection... entails morally perfect love, and such love seeks what is morally best for any person..." (Exclusivism, Inclusivism, and Kardiatheology. Philosophia Christi 11.2 (2009): 302-303)
P.S. He goes on to make the application that "God's condemning [an unbelieving] girl to everlasting death would not include seeking what is morally best for her, because God would have a morally better alternative at had: namely, at some point to remove the girl's doxastic deficiency... and thereby to enable her to enter into explicity fellowship with God" (304).
Oh and I guess if the girl, of her libertarian free will, still refuses to accept God, the morally better alternative for God in this case would be to giver her her own little paradise. Sort of like earth minus the suffering.
ReplyDeleteIn my scenario above, I should acknowledge the assumption that an opponent would make:
ReplyDelete(1) "It is uncertain whether the information obtained via torture would be the right intel to stop the terrorist attack."
My response would be: While true in the sense that you don't have certainty in whether the intel will be good, you are reasonably certain however that if you don't do anything to obtain the intel, then you can be reasonably certain that many thousands of innocent Americans will die from the terrorist attacks.
Obama would still be culpable for not doing all that he could to save innocent lives.
Just like Obama and his administration is culpable for his policies that he's instituting on abortion.
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Curious. Victor Reppert is Arminian, voted for Obama, and against waterboarding and torture.
Does he think that Obama wouldn't be culpable if thousands of Americans died from terrorist attacks and it was later found out that Obama had advance knowledge and didn't act on it?
And on the flip side, if a second terrorist attack occurred on Bush's watch, would Victor Reppert give Bush the benefit of the doubt too?
Or is Reppert so partisan that it all depends on whether it's a (D) or an (R) that occupies the White House which would then guide his moral analysis?
I.e. Leftists chant "Bush Lied, People Died."
Why don't they chant: "Obama Lied, People Died."
(Unborn babies are people.)
Of course, Obama's position is that it's ethical to kill suspected terrorists (along with "collateral damage"), but unethical to coerce known terrorists. How's that for moral clarity?
ReplyDelete"To the extent that the Arminian accentuates the disanalogy between divine and human obligations, he exculpates the Calvinist God."
ReplyDeleteDoes the Calvinist God even have any moral obligations?
If so, what are they?
If not, then He's under no "obligation" to keep His word to save anyone who places their faith in Christ, then, does He? Sure, that might make Him deceptive, but if He's under no "obligation" to be honest, who cares, and what is anyone going to do about it?
Rob,
ReplyDeleteThis blog has dealt with the Euthyphro dilemma on several occasions. Check the archives.
Scripture says God cannot deny himself (2 Tim. 2:13). So God would be "obligated" to uphold his word.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure why this would present a problem for Calvinism.
But beyond this I wonder in what sense God might be said to have obligations. God is never indebted to man. Nor is he ever answerable to man.
Does it make sense to use the term obligation with reference to himself? God is obligated to himself?
ROB ZECHMAN SAID:
ReplyDelete"Does the Calvinist God even have any moral obligations?"
Here's a hint: Calvinism subscribe to covenant theology. In making a covenant, God not only obligates the human party, but he voluntarily assumes a self-referential obligation.
Same thing with God making a promise. God is not obligated to make a promise. But having freely made a promise, he thereby assumes an obligation to keep his promise.
One thing I left out of that blog entry:
ReplyDeleteAdam blames God for evil: "The woman you put her with me.- she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it." (Genesis 3:12)
Isn't it simply the sinful mind that wants to blame God for evil?