Monday, March 28, 2011

Betting on God

 A Challenge to the Author and Readers of Triablogue
A response:
Specifically, to those who adhere, more or less, to the version of Christianity which posits a place of everlasting torment for those who reject or otherwise don't believe in the biblical God (actually, I assume that rejection and non-belief are synonymous in this regard).
A Christian couple bears a child. They love her, nurture her, and otherwise provide her with the 'good life'; including an indoctrination into the religious concepts which, if cleaved to, will ultimately secure her a place in God's everlasting Heaven.
However, when the child is 15 years old, she becomes enamored of another faith, and leaves the Christian fold. Unfortunately, on her way to the train station to meet up with her 'guru', she is hit by a car and killed.
Now, leaving aside your personal regrets and/or righteous condemnations (I TOLD you so!), as well as those of the god you serve, let me ask you- Would it not have been better if the child had never been born as far as the child's welfare is concerned? I think this is a very pertinent question, since any Christian who has a child is taking the risk of something like the above hypothetical situation happening. Moreover, it seems to be a very GREAT risk, since 'narrow is the way, and few there be that find it', and with the stakes being so incredibly high and at someone else's expense, doesn't forbearance seem the wisest- and indeed, the kindest- course? After all, if this life is merely a short episode in which a single wrong decision might possibly damn your child to an eternity of unimaginable suffering with absolutely no hope of surcease, wouldn't it have been better FOR THE CHILD it she had never been born in the first place?
I look forward to your participation in this discussion.


Several issues:

i) There’s a philosophical distinction between dispositional belief and occurrent belief, as well as a philosophical distinction between implicit belief and explicit belief.

And I think that philosophical distinction dovetails into certain theological distinctions as well. In Calvinism, regeneration is causally prior to faith. It causes a predisposition to exercise saving faith.

Conversely, sin, in the elect or regenerate, can also result in false beliefs or impede the formation of true beliefs.

Likewise, I think many true beliefs involve tactic knowledge.  That varies with age, education, and intellectual aptitude.

ii) Apropos (i), I don’t assume a backslider is damned if she dies before she had an opportunity to repent. Likewise, I don’t assume that a Christian’s loved one is damned if she died before exercising explicit or occurrent faith in Christ. I make allowance for that possibility, but there’s no presumption to that effect.

iii) There is also the question of what you mean by “torment.” Critics of hell generally invest that word with a heavy payload which they bring to the word, yet fail to exegete. But as I’ve often said, I don’t think hell is the same for all damned. The duration is the same, but I don’t assume the specific punishment is the same for one and all. Indeed, I assume that’s person-variable.

iv) Yes, I think the damned are worse off than if they never lived.

However, a cost/benefit analysis (which is how you’ve cast the issue) must consider aggregate goods and evils, not isolated goods and evils.

Suppose, ex hypothesi, Christian parents have 12 children, of which 11 are heavenbound, but 1 is hellbound. The damnation of a single child is bad for the child, and tragic for the parents, but how does that outweigh the good of all the other kids?

Which is better: that good never be exemplified if evil is ever exemplified, or that evil be offset by good? Why does the tradeoff only work one way? Should the good be disallowed for fear of allowing any incidental evil?

Why deny the other 11 kids the opportunity to enjoy the goodness of a beatific existence just because one grown child is justly doomed to hell? Why should she be allowed to spoil their opportunity for eternal bliss? Why should she exercise the unilateral veto on their existence?

Why does the “risk” of evil override the “risk” of good? Should I never marry for fear my wife might be a shrew? What about Tennyson’s celebrated saying that it’s better to love and lose than never love at all?

I’d be happier single than married to a shrew, but I’d be happier married to a wonderful woman than playing it safe. Either way there’s a risking of losing something good. But does the potential gain outweigh the potential loss? Great risks over against great rewards.

It’s worse for the damned. They’d be better off had they never tasted life. But by the same token, it’s worse for the saints had they never been born.

Antinatalism is pathologically risk-adverse. Should I never leave the house lest I’m run over by a bus?

v) In terms of risk factors, we’re ultimately betting on God. Betting on the wisdom and benevolence of God. And betting on God is always a safe bet–especially in the long run.

Life’s a gamble, but God’s the dealer, so I like them odds.

vi) Should someone benefit at another’s expense? That sounds callous, but it all depends on the details. If a sharpshooter kills a schoolyard sniper, the kids benefit at the expense of the sniper. But I don’t have a problem with that outcome. Do you?

vii) I also don’t assume that only a fraction of humanity will be saved. As I’ve discussed before, that turns on a rather disputable interpretation:

27 comments:

  1. How about the mentally delayed triplets? http://www.atheistmissionary.com/2009/08/mentally-delayed-triplets-thought.html

    I guess 1 out of 3 'aint bad.

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  2. I'll take mentally delayed triplets over one mentally deranged infidel.

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  3. It could also be that they wayward child's untimely demise (in the eyes of men) could serve as an example that would cause others who might have followed her example to reconsider in light of the tragedy, and to turn away from her path.

    Also her funeral may be the providential arena where God uses a faithful witness to share the Gospel with someone in attendance resulting in the angels in heaven rejoicing over one sinner repenting.

    God has a funny way of turning "bad" into "good", for example Christians.

    In Christ,
    CD

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  4. This is interesting, Steve. So you're suggesting that, as long as God does his work of regeneration prior to death, it may not be strictly necessary for a person to make a full, explicit declaration of faith before death, the basic inclination to make such a declaration being already present?

    And could this train of thought be potentially taken in an inclusivistic direction? That some of the heathen who died without hearing the Gospel were nevertheless regenerated? Gerald McDermott argues in "Jonathan Edwards Confronts the Gods" Edwards was moving in the direction of such a view as he came into closer contact with virtuous representatives of other faiths.

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  5. JD SAID:

    “This is interesting, Steve. So you're suggesting that, as long as God does his work of regeneration prior to death, it may not be strictly necessary for a person to make a full, explicit declaration of faith before death, the basic inclination to make such a declaration being already present?”

    Correct.

    “And could this train of thought be potentially taken in an inclusivistic direction? That some of the heathen who died without hearing the Gospel were nevertheless regenerated? Gerald McDermott argues in ‘Jonathan Edwards Confronts the Gods’ Edwards was moving in the direction of such a view as he came into closer contact with virtuous representatives of other faiths.”

    Considered in isolation, it could be taken in that direction. However, there are delimiting factors which must also be taken into consideration:

    i) I don’t think the Bible treats heathenism as an alternate route to God. Rather, it treats heathenism as a path away from God. So this couldn’t be the type of inclusivism, a la Lewis or Hick, where God has many faces.

    ii) The hypothetical I was addressing deals with a Christian family, and what the loss of a loved one would mean to the Christian survivors. That’s not something one can extrapolate to a situation in which all parties are unbelievers. There’s an obvious difference between saying the damned would be miserable knowing their loved ones are damned, and the saints would be miserable knowing their loved ones are damned.

    In the former case, that would be a punitive aspect of hell. Consistent with their fate. In the latter case, that would be inconsistent with eternal bliss. So assuming, for the sake of argument, that Christians couldn’t be happy unless their loved ones were saved, it doesn’t follow that God will do the same favor for unbelievers. Indeed, we’d expect a stark contrast in their respective situations.

    iii) Likewise, a predisposition to Christian faith has Christian faith as its goal. The spiritual predisposition is merely a means to an end, not an end it itself. In a Christian family, all parties have been evangelized. The question is whether there can be a delayed effect, or temporary lapse in faith, consistent with the salvation of the individual.

    There’s a reason why God puts some people in a Christian environment to begin with, while leaving others outside the pale of the gospel. Regeneration is goal-oriented: terminating (sooner or later) in Christian faith. Not surprisingly, God normally coordinates saving grace with the means of grace. The grace of faith and the object of faith.

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  6. I'd add that it need not be inclusivist because *if the regenerate did profess faith,* it would be explicit faith in Christ, not in some nebulous "light" or some other aspect of their own cutlural religion. So, a Mormon could be regenerate while sitting in a Mormon church. He could die regenerate without professing faith, and go to heaven. However, if allowed to flourish and develop, the Mormon would eventually profess faith in Christ.

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  7. "Betting on God"

    This post is quite different from Pascal's Wager.

    Good post! Reasonable question by the antinatalism proponent.

    Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Steve!

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  8. Yes, let me clarify, I didn't mean inclusivism in the sense that another religion would provide salvific access to God. I was referring to the kind of inclusivism where the heathen would be saved in spite of their heathenism through a direct work of regeneration, not through that heathenism. But your qualifications are well taken.

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  9. "I don’t assume a backslider is damned if she dies before she had an opportunity to repent"

    Does anyone actually believe it's possible to perfectly repent of any and all sins one commits before death, anyhow? One can offend God but not be aware of it, or one can simply have forgotten about it.

    Otherwise, salvation hinges upon not only a perfect conscience and memory but a perfect sense of timing as well.

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  10. JD asked: “This is interesting, Steve. So you're suggesting that, as long as God does his work of regeneration prior to death, it may not be strictly necessary for a person to make a full, explicit declaration of faith before death, the basic inclination to make such a declaration being already present?”

    Steve replied: "Correct."

    Steve, in a situation such as was described in JD's scenario, and which you subsequently expanded in your fuller comment, what is the instrument of justification if not faith? Or was faith the instrument, only the faith had not explicitly manifested in a confession?

    I'm not sure I'm following the implications clearly.

    Could you point me toward a resource that explores this subject in the light of Scripture?

    In Christ,
    CD

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  11. Take the stock case of elect infants dying in infancy. They are saved even though they didn't exercise saving faith at the time of death.

    You could say they're proleptically justified by the faith they will exercise as they mature in heaven, as a result of regeneration and glorification.

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  12. Thanks for the example, Steve.

    May the untimely-infant-death narrative can be sustained and extended in application to rational adult persons, as JD seems to suggest in his scenario?

    In other words anticipatory instead of explicit manifest faith is, or at least can be, the instrument of justification for rational adult persons?

    In Him,
    CD

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  13. That's the hypothetical we're exploring, although I do think it's subject to various constraints.

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  14. Do any Scriptural examples come to mind?

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  15. I think it's a cnjunction of Scriptural and extra-Scriptural beliefs. Given the definition of saving faith, and given the belief that infants don't have positive cognitive attitudes toward propositions, then infants don't have faith. However, if regenerate, they have that disposition (just like they have the disposition to be conscious once certain conditions obtain), and they will profess faith once in the proper circumstances. However, if they die in infancy they will never be in those circumstances (here on earth). However, they *would have* believed if they were in the right circumstances and were properly functioning.

    Others think that infants do have beliefs, and so they hold that elect infants dying in infancy do actually have faith in Christ. I think this is false. I also think the respective views are underdetermined by the Scriptural evidence. So it would be a matter of which extra-scriptural view of the cognitive faculties of infants you happened to take.

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  16. I'm going to post a series of comments I left over at an antinatalism blog.

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  17. If you're going to ask a hypothetical, then why can't someone respond with another hypothetical:

    A Christian couple bears a child. They love her, nurture her, and otherwise provide her with 'the good life'. This includes telling her the good news of great joy which is, if she turns away from her sinful rebellion against God, and trusts in Jesus Christ alone as her Lord and Redeemer, then she can be reconciled to God.

    When the child is 15 years old, she does just this. While reading through the Bible one day, she becomes aware that she has done a lot of wrong things in her life. She has broken most if not all of the ten commandments, for instance. She has lied to people. She has become unreasonably angry at her parents several times. She has hated her parents. She has used God's name blasphemously. She has stolen pretty things she wanted. She has coveted after things her friends had but she didn't have. In short, she has lived her life without acknowledging God in any way whatsoever, living her life entirely to herself and for herself. She has fallen far short of loving God with all her heart, mind, strength, and soul. She has failed to love her neighbor as herself. Thus she is persuaded that she has done wrong not only against her friends and family and even strangers, but also against God himself whose universe she lives in and who created her. She is cut to the heart.

    Then she lifts her heart to God and begs him using whatever feeble words she can manage to muster at the time: "Please forgive me for all the wrongs I've done! I know no one else can forgive me but you alone!"

    As she opens her tear-filled eyes, her eyes fall on Romans 6:23, "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." She understands that she has indeed "sinned" (done wrong) and thus deserves death. But the next phrase fills her with hope: "but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." In fact her heart sings for joy as the good news of Jesus Christ becomes clear to her. Although she rightly deserves death for all the wrongs she's done in life, God graciously offers her the free gift of eternal life, and this eternal life is to be found solely and wholly in Jesus Christ! She immediately cries out to God, "Yes, Lord! I want to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, whom you offer to me so freely and so graciously! Thank you for your free gift of eternal life in him!"

    She goes on her way rejoicing and thanking God for forgiving her, for reconciling her to him, and, what's best of all, for giving her himself such that she can even call him her Heavenly Father!

    She is amazed and humbled at the same time. And full of happiness and gratitude.

    For the rest of her days she shares this good news with others, including her own children, and some of them likewise turn to God and cry out to him for forgiveness and reconciliation.

    Thus many more people can know God and love God, and God them. As a result of this girl's life, many more people can not only have a loving relationship with God but also with one another. Her community and society are the better for good, moral, upstanding people who genuinely love God and love their neighbor and even their enemies. More and more children are born to more and more Christian parents, who likewise share the good news of Jesus Christ with their children, and their children with their children, and their children's children, and so on and so forth.

    Everyone lives happily ever after.

    Oh, except for one group. Since antinatalists don't believe in having children, they don't have any children. Thus they become less and less in numbers until they're finally extinct. Too bad for them.

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  18. "I'd encourage everyone to avoid the temptation of launching into tangential issues until the OP's question has been considered. To wit-

    Given the circumstances wouldn't it have been better FOR THE CHILD if she had never been born in the first place?"

    Or as stated in the original post:

    "Would it not have been better if the child had never been born as far as the child's welfare is concerned? I think this is a very pertinent question, since any Christian who has a child is taking the risk of something like the above hypothetical situation happening. Moreover, it seems to be a very GREAT risk, since 'narrow is the way, and few there be that find it', and with the stakes being so incredibly high and at someone else's expense, doesn't forbearance seem the wisest- and indeed, the kindest- course?"

    Okay, fine, I'll bite - despite the fact that I don't necessarily see any warrant for entertaining a hypothetical except with more hypotheticals.

    Of course there are several objections to this line of thinking:

    1. Let's say for the sake of argument that it is better for this child never to have been born. Does this mean it'd be better for no children to ever be born? No, because even if it's true for this child, it's not necessarily true for all children. You can't necessarily extrapolate from one to all.

    2. Also, there are risks in having children that will end up lost. But there are likewise risks to the contrary. What if the child becomes a Christian?

    3. Not all risks are on equal footing. There are risks and then there are risks.

    a. You use "narrow is the way" to indicate that most of humanity will be lost. If this is true, it's not necessarily true of Christian parents. In fact, it's arguably less of a risk for Christian parents to have children than for other parents to have children since it's more likely that Christian parents will raise Christian children.

    b. Let's say the world is only 10% Christian while the other 90% is non-Christian. God could perfectly well save all the Christians in the world and their children while not saving any of the non-Christians and their children. This would be sufficient to fulfill the "narrow is the way" verse.

    c. Or it could be that the majority of people who are saved are from our day and age. Whereas the majority of the lost are from previous periods of history. Maybe in our day and age the vast majority of people will become Christian. So then it'd be a far lesser risk of having children. In fact, it'd be a possible incentive to have children.

    d. Or it could be that the vast majority of people who are saved are from a single nation (e.g. the US). So we should encourage Americans to have children.

    Anyway, we could multiply examples. But this should suffice to respond to this hypothetical. Maybe I'll say more later if I have more time.

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  19. filrabat said:

    "1.You can’t control whether your own children will accept salvation. Only THEY can choose to do so. This even applies in non-religious contexts (i.e., whether they have a good life or not)"

    How is this responsive to what I said?

    Here's the original argument: it's better for a child never to have been born because there's a greater risk that they could end up in hell than choose salvation.

    Here's my counterargument: even if for the sake of argument we agree it's better for one child to never to have been born because there's a greater risk that they could end up in hell than choose salvation, it doesn't necessarily apply to all children. You can't necessarily extrapolate from the one to the many or most or all.

    Now you say: a parent can't control whether their child or children accept salvation or not.

    Okay, let's say I agree a parent can't control their child's choice. So what? That doesn't change my point. I already granted that it's possible a child ends up in hell. But how does this necessarily affect other children? How does this even begin to deal with my counterargument against the original argument? Each family is different.

    However, since we're on the topic, while it's true that a parent can't explicitly control whether their child accepts Christ or not, they can nevertheless influence their childre and thus have implicit control over them. There are many other factors involved too such as the child's age (younger children might be more influenced than older ones), the parent's knowledge and education, etc.

    "2.Again, you can’t know if the child will end up a Christian."

    Again, this is unresponsive to what I actually said. I could simply reply, once again, you can't know if a child will not end up a Christian. In other words, you're just trading on assertions in lieu of argumentation, whereas I'm offering a counterargument given the original hypothetical. Your assertion isn't actually responsive to my counterargument.

    "In fact, if we go by the strict reading of Jesus’s words – many are called but few are chosen – it’s likely they will end up in hell. Would you put a child in a situation where there’s a greater than 50% chance of being burned in a fire?"

    I take issue with your interpretation of this passage. I don't necessarily think only a minority a humanity will be saved. See here for some reasons why. So this undercuts your point.

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  20. "a.Even if children of Christian parents do have better odds of choosing to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior, there’s still many such children who will NOT do so. Looking down the line even a few generations, odds are that plenty of the parent’s descendants will NOT choose to follow Christ."

    Why would you think that? Why would you think "odds are that plenty of the [Christian] parent's descendants will NOT choose to follow Christ"?

    Rather it'd make more sense to think that, so long as they genuinely kept the faith alive in their household, that it'd be more likely than not that their children and their children's children and so on would still be Christian. In fact, the Bible itself makes such a promise: "I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments" (Deut 5:9-10).

    If you want a real life example, Google Jonathan Edwards and his descendants, for example.

    BTW, this isn't the same as saying all their children will be Christian. Rather I'm saying that it's more likely that Christian parents will raise Christian children than non-Christian parents will raise Christian children. Hence it's a lesser risk for Christian parents to have children than non-Christian parents to have kids.

    "b.Ever heard of “false prophets” and “wolves in sheep’s clothing”? That tells me a lot of people who think they are saved are actually not. Surely the Pharisees (most of them) were like this."

    Ever heard of responding to my actual point? Again, this is another one of your completely unresponsive statements, I'm afraid to say! I predicated my point on the original hypothetical which assumed that "narrow is the way" referred to the fact that most people will not be saved. But I responded that, if it's true that only a minority of humans will be saved, it's still possible that God only saves those that are currently Christian and all their children, while not saving anyone else. This would be sufficient to fulfill this verse. Yes, it's a hypothetical, but it's one which at least meets the original hypothetical on its own terms.

    "c. Majority of people saved in our day and age. I see little to warrant this assumption. A nominal Christian and a true follower of Christ are two radically different things. In fact, plenty of corrupt, nasty, unkind, and generally 'Un-Christian' people are professing Christians. That doesn’t bode well for this claim."

    At the risk of stating the obvious, it doesn't matter whether you think there's a little (or a lot) to "warrant this assumption." It's a hypothetical in response to the original hypothetical. However you're taking it as if it's meant to be a real world scenario. I'm not making that assumption. So, again, this is unresponsive to my actual point.

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  21. "d. The vast majority saved from a single nation. I’ll assume you did not mean that the US is 'the most Christian nation' rhetoric so often promoted in a propagandistic patriotic guise. So I’ll say I find NO evidence whatsoever that in their soul of souls Americans are substantially different from the other 96% of humanity."

    Even if I did mean "the US is 'the most Christian nation," it wouldn't affect my point. But, no, I did not mean the US is "the most Christian nation." You're obviously reading way too much into this.

    Instead you should substitute a nation like China or India or Indonesia or Brazil or whatever tickles your fancy. It wouldn't change my point.

    Again, this is a hypothetical in response to the original hypothetical. Yet again you're reapplying it to the real world. And I'm not sure why you can't differentiate between a hypothetical and the real world, particularly in light of the fact that the original author framed his criticism in light of a hypothetical scenario in the first place.

    In short, I'll just say that most of your reply wasn't responsive to what I actually brought up. Ho hum.

    "I'll post the verses and my commentary later..suffice to say I think there's plenty of words by noneother than Jesus himself that overrule the Genesis passages to 'be fruitful and multiply' (mainly because I think Jesus' debt, paid on the cross, frees us from the Old Testament, but that's a whole other branch of theology)."

    Well, again, it doesn't matter what you think about Christianity so much as it matters what Christianity as espoused by Triablogue is all about, given that that's the context in which the original hypothetical was framed.

    People here seem to forget the very point that Matt has already brought up: the original hypothetical is offering an internal critique of Christianity. So in order to critique us, you have to argue from our grounds. You're free to make external critiques in other posts, but that's not how the original hypothetical was framed.

    Besides, if you do think that "Jesus' debt, paid on the cross, frees us from the Old Testament," then I don't even think that qualifies as Christianity. It's more akin to something like Marcionism. But you'd have to spell out what you mean exactly for anyone to get an accurate picture of what you're trying to say.

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  22. With regard to hypotheticals:

    1. Sorry, I should be clearer and not paint with such a broad brush. What I mean to say is I'm not outright dismissing any and all hypotheticals simply because they're hypotheticals. Obviously that's not the case. In fact, if you check the archives over at Triablogue I have entertained hypotheticals in the past. Rather I should've been cleaerer and said I don't see much value in responding to this particular hypothetical.

    2. Despite my opinion about the value of the original hypothetical, I nevertheless still responded to the original hypothetical. So, practically speaking, it didn't actually keep me from responding or anything.

    3. Also, on a minor note, I'd say the original hypothetical contained several assumptions about Christianity that I wouldn't necessarily grant. For example, I don't necessarily grant that "rejection and non-belief are synonymous in this regard [i.e. leading to 'everlasting torment']." For example, I take it 2 Tim 2:12-13's "if we deny him, he also will deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful" is relevant to this in that outright "rejection" and "non-belief" could be two different things. I think it's possible to be a backslider and possibly even die as a backslider but nevertheless be genuinely regenerate.

    Nor do I necessarily grant that "religious concepts which, if cleaved to, will ultimately secure her place in God's everlasting Heaven." There's a lot to address here. But at a bare minimum, and without trying to sound like a well-worn cliche, I wouldn't frame salvation around "religious concepts" but rather around the person and work of Jesus Christ.

    Not to mention there's a couple instances of provocative language used (to put it mildly) such as "indoctrination."

    Also, it's possible to take issue with a term like "everlasting torment." Using "torment" sounds more like something torn from the pages of Hieronymus Bosch than the Bible.

    4. In any case, in order to respond to the original hypothetical, I have to play along with it on its own terms. Which is what I've done.

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  23. With regard to my comments not going through:

    1. Thanks, metamorphhh, for posting my comments. But I still don't see my very first one, which would put the other comments in context? It's cool though. I posted my comments in full over at Triablogue.

    2. A practical problem for me right now is that I'm pretty busy with school. I gotta go to lectures and labs, hit the books, etc. So I don't have a lot of time in the day to respond. Unfortunately I'm not in a major which offers a flexible schedule. I'm studying something which is pretty regimented and which I believe has either the most or at least the second most hours in class/labs/etc. required per week of any major at the university. The more time I spend responding to stuff online, the less I have for my studies, which is, understandably, the higher duty. I'll respond if I can find the time. Maybe in between classes or whatever. But at the same time this is my not-so-subtle way of say I might have to bow out of the debate sooner than I'd like.

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  24. "the never-existent cannot be harmed or benefited in any way while the potentially existent can be harmed if brought into this world"

    I'm sorry to say that, once again, this isn't responsive to my point, I don't think.

    I wouldn't deny your statement. In fact I'd agree that someone who never exists doesn't suffer or benefit. That's obvious. I'd also agree that someone who could exist could very well suffer in life.

    But even though I agree with your statement, I don't think your statement is sufficient to address my counterargument to the original hypothetical which was predicated on Christian grounds. For one thing, on Christian grounds, I could easily respond that even a lifetime of suffering is worth it if the person ends up in heaven. For the Christian, this life isn't the end. In fact this life is far shorter than eternal life, given that this life is finite or temporary while eternal life is infinite or, well, eternal. And on Christian grounds God is absolutely just and fair. Not only can he make up for any sufferings in this life with joys which we cannot even imagine in the world to come, but even in this life he can use sufferings and evils for good. He can bring good out of evil. Humans are good at twisting good things and making them evil. But God can straigthen that which is twisted and make it good. Take the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. On Christian grounds, this is a horrible evil. The greatest of all evils. Yet God brought good out of this. He used the death of Jesus Christ as the means to save sinners. One who was innocent was punished and put to death for the wrongs of the guilty (which is a horrible evil) so that the guilty could be forgiven (which is a glorious good).

    Thus the question at issue is not whether or not your statement is true or I agree with it or whatever. I do agree with it. Rather the question at issue is whether it's worth the risk for a Christian to have children given the possibility that the child could end up in hell. I responded with several responses above which I don't feel like reiterating yet again.

    But you respond by no longer making an internal critique on Christian grounds. After all, on Christian grounds, yes, "the potentially existent" can be harmed, but they can also be benefited ("blessed") if brought into this world. That's not saying anything new. That's not advancing any ground or progressing the argument. Instead of focusing on an internal critique, you're broadening your argument for antinatalism. That's fine if that's what you want to do. But again that wasn't the point of the original hypothetical. The original hypothetical was to challenge natalism on Christian grounds. But I (and Matt) responded to the hypothetical's internal critique. And I still don't see how you've overturned the points I (or Matt) raised? However, now you're attempting to subtly shift the argument away from the original hypothetical. In short, you're moving the goalpost. However to make this move would then imply that you haven't been able to provide a defeater for natalism on Christian grounds as given in the original hypothetical by metamorphhh, I'm afraid.

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  25. Hi there. Just wanted to let you know my follow-up post is up at antinatalism.net. Thanks for the responses.

    Patrick (anonymous?), sorry about the delayed postings. The spam filter seems to catch a lot of false positives, especially if they include hyper-links. Also, I'm sorry a post of yours went missing. It never showed up at my place, it seems, so maybe the problem's with the anonymity software you mentioned? Good a guess as any.

    In order to provide full disclosure, I probably should mention that I was a Christian evangelist once upon a midnight dreary, so I understand where you guys are coming from perhaps more than you might have suspected. Amongst my many blogs, I actually have one based on Christian apologetics and other goings on, though I lost my taste for the whole subject a while back, and am now concentrating on the antinatalism thang.

    You guys have fun...jim

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  26. Thanks, Jim.

    It's cool about the post! No worries, I posted it above in this thread anyway.

    Sorry I don't have too much time to respond (per the reasons I mentioned above). But I see Steve has offered what I think is another great response here.

    This thread is about to expire in a day or two anyway so it'd probably be best to head over there.

    Thanks again!

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