Hi JP, I’d love if you wrote something on the problem of suffering. Many theodicies are very present-focused, when we know conscious beings have existed for billions of years before us and humans hundreds of thousands of years before Abrahamic religion. I trust someone like yourself to take it seriously!
Good article. But, it leaves open many questions. Like, if agentic causation is real, how does God’s agentic nature cascade down into a physical world with agents in it? All the mind/body problems associated with agentic causation are still there. Also, is not a monism of reasons with brain processes still seem like a live possibility since the logical structure of reasons mirrors the logical nature of neuronal circuitry? And just to lay my cards on the table: I’m a libertarian in regards to free will. A property dualist/ immaterialist in regards to philosophy of mind. And a “complex” classical theist in regards to theology. (“Complex” for reasons like, for example: I wouldn’t necessarily describe God as an “agent” in the same ontological sense that we are. Nor would I say God has A mind, more like God IS mind. And this kind of conception, consistent I think with classical theism, somewhat complicates the thesis of your essay.)
I enjoy reading variations of fine tuning and complexity arguments. But I struggle to make the leap that they somehow make theism more likely. At no point in the centuries before modern science did any theist suggest that a consequence of their view of the world is that there would be billions of stars or that gravity would be finely tuned etc. I don’t know how we’d know that a theist creator would want a universe with rational creatures in it. All we know is we are in such a universe. Indeed if we took Genesis seriously we might think God didn’t want humans to have too much agential freedom (unless the fruit and the serpent are a double bluff). You don’t really make your case I think. You just suggest it’s unlikely that the universe would have agents in it. But we know everything in the universe is unlikely. There are many ways of organising the universe and in most of those I wouldn’t be called Alex.
In all of my essays I take theism to be the view that there’s a perfect mind, which is quite standard. If you feel totally in the dark about what a perfect mind would care about and see reason to do, then yeah you’ll generally be unconvinced by the sort of arguments I often write about.
But how do you (we) know what a perfect mind would do? Why would it want agential freedom as opposed to something else? You seem to be assuming that this kind of God implies that kind of agent. What’s the link?
Think about the idea of perfection. And if you read through past essays you’ll see that I offer many reasons for thinking that a perfect mind exists. I’m not merely assuming “one theism over others”. The IBE type arguments don’t generally favor perfect being theism over other models of God. I usually note this quite explicitly.
I had read your fine tuning article. It says this (which isn’t about perfection): “On theism, God is a rational, purposive mind. Such a mind would, plausibly, have reason to create conscious, embodied beings capable of having knowledge, exercising agency, and forming relationships. Life-permitting physical conditions are a necessary precondition for such beings (Collins 2009; Swinburne 2004).
This does not entail that God must create life, or that God would create only life-friendly universes. It entails only that the existence of at least one life-permitting universe is not at all surprising given theism.”
This seems to me to assume the kind of god for whom life-permitting is not surprising. But it doesn’t really explain why it isn’t surprising. A rational purposive mind could enjoy looking at random things in much the same way as humans like lava lamps or staring at a fire.
I appreciate you indulging me so good naturedly. And I’m not trying to win an argument as such, as understand yours by challenge. I hope that’s ok?
I followed your link. You define God as “by conception, the ultimate, or absolute, being — and, as such, the metaphysical source, or ground, of all things, who is worthy of worship.”
This doesn’t seem to imply any sort of agentic freedom. A God of this nature could choose not to create agents, and might have good reason for doing so. Certainly the Old Testament God (who I assume is similar to your concept) decided to drown almost everything as he didn’t like the way the agency was being used.
An observation counts as evidence for a theory in the theory makes the observation more likely. What people centuries ago thought is not relevant. As for why agency is expected on theism, see sec. 5.
I read section 5. You’re assuming a certain kind of theism. There might be other theisms which wouldn’t imply agency. What about a theism in which God didn’t want agents? Or a theism where God wanted them but couldn’t create them. You’re working back from the fact that there are agents to assume that’s theistic proof. It isn’t. Because if there were no agents you’d assume God wanted that to
yeah I think this is a pretty forceful argument
Thanks Brian! We should talk sometime if you’re up for it; I’d love to interview you for my YouTube channel.
sure, I'd be happy to come on your channel!
Amazing! I’ll DM you in a bit
Hi JP, I’d love if you wrote something on the problem of suffering. Many theodicies are very present-focused, when we know conscious beings have existed for billions of years before us and humans hundreds of thousands of years before Abrahamic religion. I trust someone like yourself to take it seriously!
Thanks! I do have this essay on it https://jpandrew.substack.com/p/pondering-the-problem-of-evil?r=7wya1&utm_medium=ios. Planning to write more in the future. I agree that the problem of pre-human evil is particularly difficult.
Thanks, I’ll give it a read
Good article. But, it leaves open many questions. Like, if agentic causation is real, how does God’s agentic nature cascade down into a physical world with agents in it? All the mind/body problems associated with agentic causation are still there. Also, is not a monism of reasons with brain processes still seem like a live possibility since the logical structure of reasons mirrors the logical nature of neuronal circuitry? And just to lay my cards on the table: I’m a libertarian in regards to free will. A property dualist/ immaterialist in regards to philosophy of mind. And a “complex” classical theist in regards to theology. (“Complex” for reasons like, for example: I wouldn’t necessarily describe God as an “agent” in the same ontological sense that we are. Nor would I say God has A mind, more like God IS mind. And this kind of conception, consistent I think with classical theism, somewhat complicates the thesis of your essay.)
I enjoy reading variations of fine tuning and complexity arguments. But I struggle to make the leap that they somehow make theism more likely. At no point in the centuries before modern science did any theist suggest that a consequence of their view of the world is that there would be billions of stars or that gravity would be finely tuned etc. I don’t know how we’d know that a theist creator would want a universe with rational creatures in it. All we know is we are in such a universe. Indeed if we took Genesis seriously we might think God didn’t want humans to have too much agential freedom (unless the fruit and the serpent are a double bluff). You don’t really make your case I think. You just suggest it’s unlikely that the universe would have agents in it. But we know everything in the universe is unlikely. There are many ways of organising the universe and in most of those I wouldn’t be called Alex.
In all of my essays I take theism to be the view that there’s a perfect mind, which is quite standard. If you feel totally in the dark about what a perfect mind would care about and see reason to do, then yeah you’ll generally be unconvinced by the sort of arguments I often write about.
But how do you (we) know what a perfect mind would do? Why would it want agential freedom as opposed to something else? You seem to be assuming that this kind of God implies that kind of agent. What’s the link?
Think about the idea of perfection. And if you read through past essays you’ll see that I offer many reasons for thinking that a perfect mind exists. I’m not merely assuming “one theism over others”. The IBE type arguments don’t generally favor perfect being theism over other models of God. I usually note this quite explicitly.
I had read your fine tuning article. It says this (which isn’t about perfection): “On theism, God is a rational, purposive mind. Such a mind would, plausibly, have reason to create conscious, embodied beings capable of having knowledge, exercising agency, and forming relationships. Life-permitting physical conditions are a necessary precondition for such beings (Collins 2009; Swinburne 2004).
This does not entail that God must create life, or that God would create only life-friendly universes. It entails only that the existence of at least one life-permitting universe is not at all surprising given theism.”
This seems to me to assume the kind of god for whom life-permitting is not surprising. But it doesn’t really explain why it isn’t surprising. A rational purposive mind could enjoy looking at random things in much the same way as humans like lava lamps or staring at a fire.
I define a bunch of key terms here https://jpandrew.substack.com/p/thinking-about-theism-some-worldview?r=7wya1&utm_medium=ios. For arguments that get us more straightforwardly to a perfect being see the entries on the contingency and ontological arguments.
I appreciate you indulging me so good naturedly. And I’m not trying to win an argument as such, as understand yours by challenge. I hope that’s ok?
I followed your link. You define God as “by conception, the ultimate, or absolute, being — and, as such, the metaphysical source, or ground, of all things, who is worthy of worship.”
This doesn’t seem to imply any sort of agentic freedom. A God of this nature could choose not to create agents, and might have good reason for doing so. Certainly the Old Testament God (who I assume is similar to your concept) decided to drown almost everything as he didn’t like the way the agency was being used.
An observation counts as evidence for a theory in the theory makes the observation more likely. What people centuries ago thought is not relevant. As for why agency is expected on theism, see sec. 5.
I read section 5. You’re assuming a certain kind of theism. There might be other theisms which wouldn’t imply agency. What about a theism in which God didn’t want agents? Or a theism where God wanted them but couldn’t create them. You’re working back from the fact that there are agents to assume that’s theistic proof. It isn’t. Because if there were no agents you’d assume God wanted that to