Boethius' "Consolations of Philosophy"

[Prince_James]

I thought I would put forth two interesting arguments found in the titled book for consideration:

First argument:

1. In order for God to be omnipotent, God must be capable of doing anything.
2. God is perfectly good.
3. God, then, is incapable of doing evil.
4. Therefore, evil is nothing.

Second argument:

1. Happiness = Goodness.
2. All men seek happiness.
3. Good men are good.
4. Wicked men are wicked.
5. Thus, good men are attain their goal (happiness/goodness) and wicked men do not (they are not happy/good)
6. Thus, evil is weakness, as it canot help one accomplish one's ends.

 

[baumgarten]

2. God is perfectly good.
3. God, then, is incapable of doing evil.

I'm not sure this works. More likely, perfect goodness does not imply the incapability of doing evil, rather the continuous choice to refrain from it despite the capacity for it.

 

[Prince_James]

Baumgarten:

Supposing the perfection of said goodness, even if it is possibly a "choice", it is a choice that could never be acted on, as the perfect goodness would not cease. That is to say, even if God did have a choice, he'd essentially not.

 

[baumgarten]

Baumgarten:

Supposing the perfection of said goodness, even if it is possibly a "choice", it is a choice that could never be acted on, as the perfect goodness would not cease. That is to say, even if God did have a choice, he'd essentially not.

Right, he wouldn't. This essentially boils down to the question of whether something can be possible and never happen. I would argue, in the face of experimental futility, that yes, that is the case. For example, I could possibly get a sex change operation, but I choose not to and always will choose not to. Assuming my free will is true, however, then it is still always possible for me to change my mind and undergo the procedure. That I am "perfectly male" would be an article of faith in my word.

Bringing this into the original context, if one is to assume that God has free will (which I imagine he would by most definitions), then he necessarily must have the capacity for evil, even if he never chooses it and never will (the latter being, from an evidentialist standpoint, an unprovable proposition).

 

[Godless]

1:the first argument does not make any sense at all.

Assuming there's such a being as a god, assuming that it posses omnipotent power and that it's supposedly benevolent, yet evil exists, does contradicts the assumption of this deity being benevolent.

2: The second argument looks ok on the surface, but further study suggest that it is predicting an outcome of human behavior. Goodness & Happiness are subjective, what may be good to you, what may make you happy, may be a drag to me, and also evil. I.E a gay person may be happy being gay and living a gay lifestile, however to conservative theists, they see this behavior as an abomination against god, an individual who is confused, evil, etc.


baumgarten:

Bringing this into the original context, if one is to assume that God has free will (which I imagine he would by most definitions), then he necessarily must have the capacity for evil, even if he never chooses it and never will (the latter being, from an evidentialist standpoint, an unprovable proposition).

Assuming that this (god) exists, it has no free will; Free will is the power of choice, since this god is said to be omniscient, then free will is imposible to this entity. I.E. (If you are all-knowing, you know your future actions, what choices you will make, and you cannot change them otherwise your knowledge would be wrong, and you wouldn't be all-knowing. An omniscient being has no free will to choose actions; all its actions are predetermined.)**Vexen click

Godless

 

[Prince_James]

baumgarten:

"Assuming my free will is true, however, then it is still always possible for me to change my mind and undergo the procedure. That I am "perfectly male" would be an article of faith in my word.

Bringing this into the original context, if one is to assume that God has free will (which I imagine he would by most definitions), then he necessarily must have the capacity for evil, even if he never chooses it and never will (the latter being, from an evidentialist standpoint, an unprovable proposition)."

This brought to mind an interesting question arising from specifically these lines of text of yours, hence why I quoted them alone:

Would it indeed be warranted to say something has a perfection of an attribute simply because one has never (and presumably would never) change one's mind about it? For if we assume that the end results would be the same if you had a choice or not and ended up never having a sex-change, then would we be able to distinguish you from a "perfectly male" being, and a perfectly choosing but choosing not to have a sex-change, male?

I'll have to go back to the Consolation to get a full grasp of the entire argument for why God cannot do evil, also.

Godless:

"Assuming there's such a being as a god, assuming that it posses omnipotent power and that it's supposedly benevolent, yet evil exists, does contradicts the assumption of this deity being benevolent. "

Yet let us take as a given that God exists, is omnipotent, et cetera (even if we don't believe in it): If God cannot do something from his other properties, is it then enough to say that such a thing is not really an act, or that the act disproves either his omnipotence or omnibenevolence?

"2: The second argument looks ok on the surface, but further study suggest that it is predicting an outcome of human behavior. Goodness & Happiness are subjective, what may be good to you, what may make you happy, may be a drag to me, and also evil. I.E a gay person may be happy being gay and living a gay lifestile, however to conservative theists, they see this behavior as an abomination against god, an individual who is confused, evil, etc. "

The argument is more than my simplistic representation of it. I'll try to see if I can summarize the certain principles behind the connection of goodness and happiness and what this entails.

 

[Godless]

If God cannot do something from his other properties, is it then enough to say that such a thing is not really an act, or that the act disproves either his omnipotence or omnibenevolence?

The point is that god can't contradict it's nature. i.e. If it is benevolent, and yet evil does exist, does it allow it to happen and does nothing about it? Does evil just happen or does god make it happen? If god can't comit evil, but yet it happens and it's omnipotent, controls all actions, then it comits evil at will, but then theist claim "master plan" Or god can't control evil, rendering it's omnipotence null & void.

 

[Prince_James]

Godless:

I am fully aware of the foundations for the Riddle of Epicurus. In fact, I find them remarkably sad. However, I find the means which Boethius diverted from the conclusions of the problem interesting: If God is defined as having the power to do anything, yet cannot do evil, and the only thing he cannot do is nothing, does that mean that evil, is in fact, a nothing?

 

[Godless]

If God is defined as having the power to do anything, yet cannot do evil, and the only thing he cannot do is nothing, does that mean that evil, is in fact, a nothing?

Well Prince, I do think that (evil) is afterall a subjective thing. So in fact evil is nothing. However it's our perception of harmful acts either by nature or human caused, i.e. murder, theft, war that destroys humanity in one way or another as an evil thing.

*If, when we looked at our world, we saw evil coming only from men, then "the" explanation that evil exists because men are evil might fly. However, most of the evil we see does not come from men, rather, it falls upon men! And much of what's left, the evil we see coming from men, would most likely not occur had the men in question not experienced and endured great amounts of evil that are circumstantial, that is, not caused by men but caused by circumstances beyond human control (and thus human responsibility). The highest crime rates are among the most poverty stricken neighborhoods and the ones in jail are the ones who grew up poor, such as the Blacks. Why, in Portland, Oregon, where in 1988 Blacks were but 12 percent of the population, they represented over 50 percent of the jail population? They were the ones who could not get jobs with the numerous "family operations" that thrived back then (but don't today).

These are our observations when we look at our world.

Thus, when we look at our world we see a world that resembles not a world that we'd expect to see had it been created and managed by a simultaneously omnipotent and benevolent being; rather, when we look at our world we see a world that resembles a world that came about through the natural workings of blind elements.* click

I changed "the" from "your" cause most theist see men as evil, most theist claim that we are sinners at birth, this made sense to me.