This is something I wrote over a year ago. It has been a slow week for me, philosophically speaking, so I'm tapping into my previous works. Hope you all enjoy it, regardless!
Let us imagine a man owns a pit bull. This man takes the pit bull to a park where small children are playing. The man procedes to release the pit bull from his leash and leave the dog to his own devices. This dog does not have to harm anyone, but it definately has the power within itself to do so. If the dog harms no one, we would still say that the man was acting irresponsibly. If the dog does attack a child, possibly killing it, we would hold the man responsible, and charge him with criminal negligance, for he knew the dog had the capacity to commit evil and allowed for the possibility to play out. So it is with God. God created man, placed him within the world, and released him from the leash (gave him free-will). Man then prcoeded to harm and commit evil, which God knew could potentially happen (and, depending on our interpretation of omniscience, God knew it would happen). If we believe that the man with the pit bull was wrong and his actions criminal, we must then think the same about God's actions.
Possible objections:
1) God did not know that man would commit evil.
2) The dog's life (and man's) is better without the leash, and we must accept the evil to enjoy the freedom of choice.
3) A dog's sense of morality differs from that of a human. A dog does not act with relation to morality, it only acts on instinct, and is therefore not responsible for its own actions. A human, however, is capable of moral decisions, and is therefore responsible for its own actions, not God. The human has free choice and is therefore responsible for its actions.
Replies to possible objections:
1) This would deny God's omniscience. For even if he did not have explicit knowledge of the future, God's intellect is definately vast enough to appreciate the likelyhood of evil.
2) Dostoevsky's arguments in The Rebellion. The greater good, the divine order, is not worth the suffering of others. To say that others must suffer so that I can enjoy good is selfish and wrong.
3) Man's ability to commit evil through moral choice makes him far more cruel than a beast, as Dostoevsky says in Rebellion. Because of this, God is even more responsible, knowing full well what man would do with this will, knowing full well what would happen when he released the dog that is man into the world.
Even if we say that there is no causal connection between God's creating of the agent and the agent's actions (possibly like Chisholm), we still can blame God. Let us assume that the man did not train the dog to behave in any way whatsoever, nor did the man breed the dog or any such thing, but the man still brought the dog to the park. We don't care if the man trained the dog to kill or not to kill, bringing the animal there created that negligent risk for which we would still blame him. It is this way with God; even if God does not influence our actions in any way at all, it was still God's actions that brought us into existence and allowed us to commit the evil that he surely would have known about.
I actually read one this one peter! I enjoyed it. You make a good point.
ReplyDeleteWhat are your views on the responsibility of parents? Do you hold the parents of Hitler responsible for the genocide he committed? Every time humans procreate they face the potential of bringing to life the next Stalin, Hitler, etc.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting point you have brought up, mystery individual! This is a complex issue, so I will try not to get too off track with my response.
ReplyDeleteCreating another human is one of the most impactful and significant acts a person can undertake. The ramifications of such an act are so far reaching that I would argue that it is the most impactful action of a human. Taking a life stops possibility. Creating a life creates possibility. When you create another human, you will make things happen. When you take a life, you prevent some things from possibly happening. However, we do not live by possibility. Possibilities do not actually affect us. What matters is what does occur, not what could.
Having said that, you can see why I place a high level of responsibility upon the parents and/or guardians of a child. Admittedly, I am no psychologist. I am not familiar with the particulars of child development. I will say this, however: we always have a choice, as individuals. No matter what our upbringing, we can persevere. History is full of evidence of this fact. Great men and women have risen out of the most atrocious childhoods. To quote Anthony Hopkins in the film The Edge: “What one man can do another can do.” In this manner, I generally divorce the actions of an individual from their upbringing. Severe mental damage aside, there is no compulsion in our actions. All our Nature and Nurture can do is make certain options or actions easier or harder. Will abusive parents make it harder to succeed in life? Certainly. Will abusive parents make it impossible to succeed at life? Certainly not.
I am dancing around the point, I suppose. I do not believe I am committing any hypocrisy or contradiction in asserting that humans are responsible for their actions, but also asserting that an omni-benevolent/potent/scient deity can not exist if we humans are its perfect creation.
When a human creates a child, the child’s possibilities are infinite and unknown to the parent. The child could grow up to commit great evil and great good. A parent can help shape the development of a child, and though they cannot control how the child turns out, they can attempt to push said child toward good. This is an interesting train of thought: If we assume the God of Abraham’s “parenting” is the Bible, how good of a parent is he being? If you read my previous essays on the Bible, you’ll see that I don’t think so.
A final aside, before I stop my yammering: The Man and the Dog was written quite some time ago, when I was concerned very much with the Problem of Evil and Proofs Against God’s Existence. Since that time, I have mostly abandoned such endeavors, as I feel they aren’t especially productive. I will not attempt, nor should I attempt, to disprove the existence of the God of Abraham. I cannot ever hope to succeed at such an endeavor. I can, however, examine if it is good to believe in such a deity.