Gangadean and Calvinism

A friend of mine recently posted a good article on why Calvinism is a troublesome doctrine. Gangadeanians are 5-point Calvinists and believe in theological (soft) determinism. According to them, God is the "primary cause" of all things and humans exercise a kind of "secondary causation" in which their freedom (a genuine freedom, they insist) consists. Importantly, God has created humans to inevitably sin (that's the determinism part) and those that are predestined to hell, to never realize his grace. Here are some of my own thoughts.

For many, there's a real tension between a God that is supposed to be all-good (all-just) and all-powerful on the one hand and his determining persons to commit moral evil on the other. What's worse, is that on Calvinism, he also determines that some are saved and others will face spiritual death forevermore. I don't really know what to say to people that don't immediately see the incoherence here--to me it's akin to insisting in the existence of a circle-square. Still, Gangadeanians try to get around this tension by employing certain euphemisms. God isn't the "source" of sin/moral evil they say, but merely "permits it". That X is the source of sin requires that X is the secondary cause of sin rather than the primary cause, they insist. And humans are responsible for their sins because they are the "secondary causes" of such immorality. But I'm convinced that this is nothing but word play. When pressed on the matter, sometimes Gangadeanians will respond with something like the following.

Look, if we can't be held responsible for our actions because we are only secondary causes of them (and determinism is true), then the whole practice of holding each other morally responsible is senseless. But that's absurd. So it must be the case that we are morally responsible for our actions even if we are merely the secondary causes of them. It then follows that it must be compatible with God's perfect goodness that he hold us responsible for our sins too, despite our being merely secondary causes. 

This argument is no good.  In the first place it presupposes that determinism is true. I'm not convinced by the arguments they present against libertarian free will, but I'll grant it for the time being. Still, another more serious problem remains. The reasoning above also presupposes that whatever it is that makes sense of humans holding each other morally responsible also accounts for its being compatible for God to hold humans responsible. But that's dubious. After all, there are serious differences between human-to-human relationships and God-to-human. I'll explore two of them. (Keep in mind that much of this is closely linked to the problem of evil which we've explored in recent posts. But I want to deal more specifically with the Gangadeanian response above).

For one, no human has created another human to sin. We don't have that kind of creative power, only God does. He started the whole shebang. God is the ultimate source of everything, but no human is. So the question about whether the practice of one human holding another human morally responsible is different from the question of whether it makes sense for God to hold humans responsible. Humans are roughly on a level playing field because all of us are determined to sin and only ever exercise secondary causation.  Now I think there is a way to make sense of the rationality of holding one another morally responsible for good and bad actions in light of a deterministic world that does require some revision of our current practices. Instead of thinking about people deserving praise and blame for actions in the traditional sense (which requires that the actions are "up to" them in some robust sense), perhaps we should view things in a reformative light. We "punish" and "reward" people in an effort to condition one another to be better people not because persons "have it coming", but because we recognize that all of us are better off (including the agent in question) if people perform certain actions and abstain from others. Reformative justice here seeks the good of all. Determinism then doesn't threaten the rationality of our practice of holding one another morally responsible wholesale, even if it requires that we rethink and revise our current practices and attitudes. As long as there is some causal relationship between the "rewards" and "punishments" we dole out and the desired results, we can think of our holding one another morally responsible for certain actions as aimed at reformation of each individual. Insofar as seeking the good of all people and society as a whole is a desirable thing, it's perfectly rational to do so even in a deterministic world.

The trouble is, we can't apply these considerations when we consider the matter of God holding humans responsible. Again, on Gangadean's deterministic view, God created humans to inevitably not seek and so to sin and instantiate spiritual death. Some are chosen and regenerated (not because they deserve it in any sense) and others are not. The question to ask then is whether it makes sense for God to hold persons morally responsible for their actions when God played the ultimate role in the bringing about of these very actions. This should feel like an iteration of the problem of evil. More specifically, we're focusing on the matter of whether humans can rationally hold one another responsible in a deterministic world, and also how this bears on whether God can do so. I've just suggested how it could make sense for humans to hold one another culpable in a deterministic world. But the story I told was one where humans didn't play the ultimate role in determining one another to sin in the first place. Would it make sense for one human A to "reform" another human B, if A was the ultimate cause of B's sinning? Well, I'm inclined to think that in such a case, B isn't the only one in need of reforming A is, too. Remember for Gangadean to sin is to live contrary to one's very nature. So we're not talking about some minor hiccup in B's situation which A is ultimately the cause of. Presumably on Gangadean's view, B does considerable harm to himself and perhaps to others in living contrary to his very nature. And the trick is to square this with A's involvement in getting the ball rolling as it were. Now I see two options in explaining A's involvement in being the ultimate cause of B's sin.

1) It's equally compatible with A's nature that she ultimately cause B to sin and that she ultimately cause B not to sin.

2) It is only compatible with A's nature that she ultimately cause B to sin.

If 1), then A did something wrong in choosing to create the former and not the latter (again given the seriousness of sin on Gangadean's worldview). If 2), then there's something questionable about A's very nature. Either way, there's a real tension. That's sort of what we're dealing with when we consider God's system of holding persons morally responsible in a theologically deterministic world. At the very least, it's far from clear that it would make sense for B to need reforming, and not A. Moreover, since the Gangadeanians probably disagree with my reformative notion of justice and moral responsibility, we should also say that it's far from obvious that B could "deserve" anything that A doesn't also deserve. After all, A seems to be the mastermind behind B's sin. Indeed B wouldn't have even existed had A not created her, let alone committed any sin.

But it gets worse! Here's the second disanalogy between humans holding one another culpable on the one hand and God doing so for humans. What's at stake is not just whether a person like B does harm to himself or others. For Gangadean, God determines each of our ultimate destinies (everlasting spiritual live vs. everlasting spiritual death). And just as humans don't create one another to inevitably sin, no human determines the ultimate destiny of another. Again, we don't have that kind of power. But on Gangadean's view, that's just what God does. He regenerates some, and leaves others in the inevitable moral evil and spiritual death that they were, by God's own decree, created into (or at least created to realize).

So again trying to apply my reformative account of how the practice of holding one another morally responsible for sin in a deterministic world might make sense, won't work here. It would be one thing if God merely determined people would sin, but he was in the unrestricted redeeming business (as in universal salvation). As I suggested earlier, perhaps we can make sense of our moral practices in light of determinism if we thought about our purpose in giving out rewards and punishments as reformative. That is, in recognizing that we are not ultimately responsible, we wouldn't treat one another as if we "deserve" punishment for wrong doings, or "rewards" for good actions at least not in the traditional sense of 'deserve'. Instead we'd try to seek the good for all persons and figure out how best to promote it. That's what moral responsibility would consist of. I then noted that a real tension arises when we include the idea that the one doing the reforming of the sinner turns out to be the ultimate cause of the sin. But now I'm suggesting that if the person doing the reforming of the other, were also discriminatory, then that too would be unjust. To not only be the ultimate cause of the existence of all sinners (and a fortiori all sin), but further to seek the good of only some sinners and not others indicates that the reformer needs moral reforming.

When I've pointed this stuff out to Gangadeanians in the past some have resorted to suggesting that I've got a faulty notion of justice in mind. That I'm trying to apply my limited understanding of justice to God's doings and that just won't work. In effect, they are choosing to define 'justice' in one way and favoring their own account over mine which is a common practice as noted here. But it didn't occur to them that they are guilty of the very same thing. They too have a proposal of what divine justice should look like, but it isn't argued for, but rather presupposed to be the "right" one.  On other occasions some Gangadeanians have suggested that God's justice consists in "treating equals as equals". I guess this is their intuitive notion of justice and divine justice exemplifies this perfectly. But they overlook the fact that God's justice is nothing like that at least if we turn to the bible, which they affirm. Calvinism is the very opposite of "treating equals as equals". The unregenerate don't deserve salvation. According to Gangadean, all have sinned, no one seeks not one and so all persons were at one time reaping the consequences of not seeking--i.e., spiritual death. God's grace in the act of regeneration then is by definition an unmerited gift.  To apply this grace to some and not others is far from treating "equals as equals." The upshot: we can deny that God's goodness is compatible with God holding humans ultimately culpable for sin in light of the fact that he is the ultimate cause of their sin. But that need not undermine the rationality of humans holding one another morally responsible if we adopt a reformative approach. So you can deny that Gangadean's Calvinism is compatible with the thesis that a perfectly good God exists, that it to say you can deny that it would be consonant with God's perfect justice to hold persons responsible for merely being secondary causes while also affirm that it makes sense for humans to hold each other morally responsible. No nihilism follows.

In the article I've linked above, the author speaks about God's will (as well as his exercise of it in creation) as not only causally, but also logically prior to any and all human agency (including the performing of any and all moral evil/sin). All this noise about "primary vs. secondary causes" and "merely permitting vs. being the author of" doesn't get around the fact that God's will (and the exercise of his will in the act of creation) is both causally and logically prior to all moral evil in a deterministic universe according to Gangadean.

Words and Philosophy

Many of my posts get into questioning Gangadean's definitions. I've come to recently think that so much of our dispute comes to a fundamental difference in how we think about and use key words. I've sometimes referred to Gangadean as a "semantic chauvinist" or as merely asserting a definition without ever justifying it. Sometimes in ordinary discourse, you hear someone say, "that's just semantics" to which they mean to convey that some potential dispute is nominal because the two parties are using some terms in slightly different ways making for an appearance of disagreement only. Once definitions are clarified, there will be no genuine dispute. But that's not what I think is going on between Gangadean and me. Indeed the semantic differences are deep and philosophically important at least that's what I'll try to show.

To begin, here is a list of just a few of the words or expressions which Gangadean either explicitly defines or at least tacitly assumes a particular definition of.

1) 'Knowledge'

2) 'Reason'

3) 'Cause'

4) 'Eternal'

5) 'Good'

6) 'Evil'

7) 'Human'

8) 'God'

9) 'Meaning'

10) 'Authoritative'

11) 'Clarity' (or 'clear')

12) 'Can' (or 'could')

13) 'Potential' (or 'capacity)

14) 'Justification'

15) 'Self-attesting'

16) 'Self-evident'

17) 'Basic'

18) 'Affirm'

19) 'Common Ground'

20) 'Inherent'

21) 'Free will' (or 'freedom')
22) 'Inexcusability'
23) 'Historic Christianity'
24) 'Best minds'
25) 'Much discussion'
26) 'Essence' (or 'nature')
27) 'Spiritual life/death'
28) 'Justice'
29) 'Mercy'
30) 'Art'

Some of these are going to be derivative of others so that what I have to say about them will indirectly apply. Now when it comes to assessing arguments, the definition that one attaches to the words featured in the premises or conclusion is of fundamental importance. It's a Gangadeanian dictum that "meaning is more basic than truth". You can't know whether a statement is true or false unless you know what it means. Arguments are sets of statements which purport to have a particular kind of relation to one another. When an argument is deductively valid, the premises entail the conclusion. When it's inductively strong, the premises make the conclusion probable. When abductively good, the conclusion provides the best explanation for the truth of the premises. Since we're dealing with statements (linguistic entities), we cannot escape the centrality of definitions in evaluating any and all arguments. Arguments are linguistic things. 

This is why I make such a big deal out of Gangadean's definitions. Heres' the thing: Whether an argument looks to you to be deductively valid and sound will in large part depend on your vocabulary. But there are ways that people nominally use the same vocabulary, while attaching slightly different definitions to the very same set of words. And I'm beginning to think that a large reason why I could never get through to Gangadeanians was that they had come to learn to use key words like those just enumerated in a particular way. That is to say, they learned to associate Gangadean's definitions or adopt his particular vocabulary. Of course, I too, once learned to do so. I'm not suggesting that he sat us all down and had us memorize a list of such words and his definitions. We learned it in much the same way that young children learn to speak a language. It was through hearing him use the words in particular ways and in certain contexts and memorizing large statements or arguments, and reciting them repeatedly (Gangadean refers to this part of learning as the "grammar stage"). It was largely through constantly hearing and saying larger chunks of language, through actual usage, that I had come to pick up, more or less, the Gangadeanian vocabulary. Interestingly, in my nearly 5 years at the church, around the people, I never once heard disputes about the definitions. Nobody ever questioned the vocabulary. 

It wasn't till I started graduate studies in philosophy and in particular worked on issues pertaining to the philosophy of language, that I realized just how tricky language is. Here's a descriptive observation: we depend on presumptive definitions, which we presume to have a common grasp of. If we didn't, we probably wouldn't bother talking to one another. In ordinary life, these presumptive definitions often serve our purposes sufficiently because ordinary life allows for comparatively wide margins of error, although of course even in ordinary life we hit bumps which get us talking about definitions. But within a philosophical context, where we want to get as precise as possible, there are more commonly key junctures at which disputes arise and such presumptions get called into question. Often enough two people looking at an argument will disagree about whether it's a good argument. In particular, they can look at a single argument and one will think it is deductively valid and the other will not. Or one will find a particular premise to be "obvious" while the other will not which then determines whether one views it as ultimately a sound argument or not. Again all of this is very germane to determining whether an inference is valid and whether an argument is a good one or not and ultimately which beliefs you take to be reasonable or rational to have. For instance, consider how Gangadeanians criticize someone like Lawrence Krauss for his claim that the universe came from "nothing". The main objection is that Krauss' definition of 'nothing' is all wrong. Or at the very least, he's using that word in a way that departs from the way that Gangadean uses it and perhaps large sections of other competent language users. That is to say, they are using different vocabulary. Of course noting the difference is not enough. There's a normative or evaluative claim here. Gangadean and other critics will want to say that Krauss' definition of 'nothing' is in some way less"correct" or less "appropriate" than his own. 

Sometimes Gangadeanians say things like, "it doesn't matter what we say about an argument, what matters is what Reason says". And maybe they'd say the same thing about which vocabulary is right or which vocab we should adopt at any rate. The problem is that this isn't in the least helpful. When I disagree with Gangadean on a substantive matter, including issues about which definition of 'knowledge' is the right one or best, I believe that reason is on my side and he believes reason is on his side. For either of us to respond to this by stating that we should just care what "Reason says" is useless. That's the very thing under dispute.  

I had a really good conversation yesterday with a friend that is sympathetic to Gangadean's worldview. But in the course of talking with him about my objections I found that my friend kept using some of the words I enumerated above in ways that I no longer adopted or at the very least in ways that I didn't take for granted as the de facto correct ways. And this led to substantively different evaluations of the arguments that we were discussing. Somethings struck me as "obviously" bad inferences while it struck my friend as "obviously" correct. And we had to spend a lot of time trying to hash out our respective vocabularies. This lead us to try and adopt a neutral vocabulary. For instance, my friend disagreed with how I was using the word 'intuition' and I disagreed with how he was using the word 'self-evident' or 'clear to reason' (in either case there was theoretical baggage with our respective uses of the terms). We were trying to describe one and the same phenomena (as far as we could tell) like the means by which you know things like, "every thought presupposes a is a". I noted that in order to know something like that, you had to think about thoughts and derive some property about the set of all thoughts. I said that ultimately that depended on intuition while my friend wanted to describe the process as deriving something that was 'self-evident' via the 'use of reason'. We tried using 'immediate' or 'non-inferential' as a kind of neutral expression. Sometimes my friend would use the word 'thought' in a way that made it definitionally true that all thoughts presuppose the law of identity. So it was, by his lights (but not mine), a trivial matter that without the law of identity, there would be no thinking. Then we got to talking about knowledge. And my friend had a really hard time separating 'knowledge' from (epistemic) certainty because for him, certainty is part and parcel of the very definition of 'knowledge' (the Gangadeanian definition). But for me, knowledge doesn't entail certainty and so it's not part of the definition (note I don't take it for granted, but think there are very good reasons to adopt my definition). These are just some of the concrete ways that definitions matter to philosophical discourse and ultimately to which arguments or inferences we accept as good ones and thus which beliefs we take to be acceptable. 

What this made me consider is the possibility that Gangadeanians and I (and their other disputants including perhaps the philosophical world at large and those they deem as "popular Christians") just have sufficiently dissimilar vocabularies. That's why their arguments look to them to be so obviously right and they look to me (and others) to be so obviously wrong. So much so that we may never see eye-to-eye. Maybe in this light it makes sense that our discussions would not be fruitful. Although this last result doesn't necessarily follow. As my friend and I attempted to do, we could recognize the subtle differences in our definitions, try to get clearer on our respective vocabularies and then try to adopt something that is sufficiently neutral. It's hard work for sure. Often times we use words which we've never defined to ourselves or seem beyond non-circular, definitions. We tacitly assume definitions because of the fallible and rather clumsy way that we learn a language, namely, via usage. (Things might be somewhat different when it comes to learning a second language, since we associate the meaning of the target language with words in our native tongue, but again the native tongue is in large part learned via usage rather than via explicit definition so ultimately the second language is going to be affected in the same way). So we could try as my friend and I did yesterday. What I hope was evident to my friend is that I wasn't trying to deny reason or anything of the sort (indeed even the ways we define 'reason' differ!). We were operating from subtly different vocabularies that are similar enough for us to cooperate and get by in ordinary contexts, but dissimilar enough to affect philosophical discourse in significant ways. So the discussion needed to shift to or at least centrally incorporate issues about how we might come to determine which vocabulary is correct or most appropriate or whatever--at least insofar as we're going to use language in giving and evaluating arguments. 

I don't see this ever happening between the Gangadeanian camp and me. While I'm at least willing to try and address the question of "which vocabulary is the best one to adopt?" I don't see Gangadean making such a concession. From what I can tell, his is a closed door policy. He's got the right definitions, he's got the last word on which vocabulary we should adopt (his own)---that's beyond dispute and his people will likely not call it into question because it's so deeply ingrained in their worldview. 

Moreover, this observation about the importance of semantic differences is likely not one that a Gangdeanian will appreciate because it threatens their worldview. If some of our important differences depend on our adopting different vocabularies, then we need a way of principally determining which vocabulary is the "correct one". And unless this is settled in favor of the Gangadeanian vocabulary, they will have to admit that it's at least possible that they've got it wrong. Hence it's at least possible that their argument for say God's existence, is unsound. That threatens the clarity of God's existence thesis without which the entire ministry is threatened. Furthermore, I think it will be hard to get to the bottom of this issue without employing further presumed definitions to words, and at root, immediate, non-inferential (what I call 'intuition') knowledge and empirical methods (seeing how people "out there" actually use words!). That itself undermines much of Gangadean's basic beliefs. 

Importantly, none of what I've said is self-undermining or self-referentially absurd (no doubt, we might even use those terms differently in subtle ways). So I hope not to see more comments from the Gangadeanian camp to the effect that I assume that I know the "right" meanings of words in order to call that very thing into question. Remember, Gangadeanians and I attach different definitions to 'know'. I'm not after certainty in the Gangadeanian sense with anything that I say. So I'm not claiming or presupposing that I am certain or even that it's clear to reason that my vocabulary is the correct one in order to raise the question about which vocabulary is correct. And again I think there are ways to make progress on this question and indeed Gangadean (perhaps without realizing he is doing so) employs some of them (whenever he thinks about the meaning of a word to form an analysis of something like knowledge or good, he's using his own intuitions). However, these methods are not going to sit well with Gangadean's fundamental views concerning reason and clarity. It's entirely compatible with my worldview that I adopt presumptive definitions to words, employ intuitions, while allowing the possibility that I'm in some way mistaken. And it's compatible with my understanding of the word 'know' that I'm even in a position to know that my vocabulary is favorable to Gangadean's even if I can't be certain, even if it rests on presumptions and a posteriori methods.

Additionally, and maybe I'm being foolish here, but a part of me reserves the slightest of hopes that some Gangadeanians might get what I'm saying here and realize that things are far more complicated than they had originally thought. That the rabbit hole is very deep and that persons that are equally committed to reason might reasonably disagree with them. That the language issues I raise are quite serious and fundamental and can explain how rational persons might disagree on basic issues. Which basic vocabularies we adopt largely influences our evaluations of arguments and what we take to be "true by definition" and it's no simple or straightforward matter when we get to talking about which vocabulary we ought to adopt. But I'm not holding my breath because this would require radical revision to their worldview.


{Footnote: I'm using 'definition' throughout to be a broad term to include things like 'analysis', 'theory', 'truth conditions' and the like. Philosophers sometimes shy away from using 'definition' in this sense, but I find it much more relatable for people outside of academic philosophy.}

Blog Update

As you can see, the page looks a little different. I decided to add "pages" to categorize all of my posts for your convenience. I have written a number of articles in the last two weeks (on the problem of evil) and now have a total of 66 published posts (and more in the making). As such it seems rather impractical for anybody to scroll through all of those to find a particular article. The main page is just what the blog solely consisted of before, which organizes posts entirely based on temporal order. But now there are additional pages which are essentially sets of articles and set membership is determined not merely by temporal order, but also by theme. It's not perfect since no categorization of this sort is, and on some occasions, certain articles are cross-listed, but I still think it makes finding a particular post significantly easier than before. Oh and the one category that might not be familiar to many is labeled 'metaphilosophy'. Roughly, this page contains articles pertaining to philosophical methodology (i.e., stuff like what is required for philosophical discourse or investigation?). Gangadean often speaks of things like "common ground" and the need for clarity at the basic level as the very pre-conditions for thought and talk, and the like. The Metaphilosophy page is where you'll find my critiques of his views of this sort.

At any rate, thanks for reading (stats indicate that visits to this blog are continually growing) and also thanks for comments and emails. It's encouraging to hear when a particular article is of some service to my readers. To that end, if you find the content helpful, and/or know of someone that might benefit from it, please spread the word. Note that at the bottom of each post there are small buttons which link to social media outlets for easy sharing.

Part 4: On Gangadean's "Real" Solution to the Problem of Evil.

Let's wrap up my analysis of Gangadean's "ironic solution" to the problem of evil. The more I think about it the worse it looks to me. In fact, I'll conclude with a very serious problem with his "solution" that I hadn't noticed until today. 

Gangadean writes,

Natural evil was not originally placed on the creation. This would be inconsistent with the infinite power and goodness of God the Creator. And natural evil (physical death, to be short) is not inherent in moral evil. Spiritual death, not physical death, is inherent in moral evil. Physical death therefore was imposed by God upon mankind after moral evil and because of moral evil. And it was imposed not as punishment, which is inherent, but as a call back from moral evil...Natural evil therefore is divine mercy calling man back from moral evil. Natural evil serves multiple purposes in regard to moral evil. It serves to restrain, to recall from, and to remove moral evil and accomplishes these purposes variously in different persons in different states and stages in their lives (114).

The general thing to note is how many mere assertions we have in the above passage. There's simply no justification given for any of these claims.

1) It is inconsistent with God's infinite power and goodness that natural evil would be original in creation. 

2) Natural evil is not inherent in moral evil. 

3) Natural evil is imposed because of moral evil. 

4) Natural evil is not imposed as punishment (because punishment would be inherent). 

5) Natural evil serves to restrain, to recall from, and to remove moral evil.

Now once again I think Gangadean has simply lost sight of the dialectic. He initially thinks that the problem of evil is a real problem facing Theism. The problem attempts to show that Theism is incoherent in light of the presence of evil. And as part of his response he gives us 1) through 5). But how does he know these are true? Well, there's no deductive argument anywhere in sight for them so it must not be from general revelation. My guess is that it's based on his reading of the bible. In fact, Gangadean in connection to 2), 3) and 5) will sometimes (in conversation) cite Adam and Eve being kicked out of the garden to toil as the institution of natural evil as a call back from moral evil. But as we've discussed before, insofar as the problem of evil is aimed at the coherence of Theism, it doesn't make sense to appeal to the bible which presupposes that Theism is true. That's going to be question begging at least insofar as you take the fact that it is the word of God as giving you justification for believing what it says. If that were legitimate, then the answer to the logical problem of evil would be far simpler than Gangadean has made it out to be. We could just say that the bible tells us that God exists, therefore, God exists and so there must be no logical problem of evil. If Gangadean is assuming the bible is a trustworthy source for metaphysics because it is the word of God, then his answer is really no better than this.

It's important to note that strictly speaking, any coherent (and merely possibly true) explanation for how God and evil are compatible, is going to suffice to undermine the logical problem of evil. So if the bible were to give us a coherent account of how evil and the existence of God are compatible, then that on my view would be enough to undermine the logical problem of evil. That doesn't require anybody to accept the bible as the word of God, or anything. The source is utterly irrelevant. What matters for giving a theodicy against the logical problem is just that it shows how the existence of God and evil are not logical contradictions like a circle-square. This is essentially what the free-will defense of Plantinga aims to do--he's not saying that significant free will must entail evil, he's just saying it's at least logically possible that this is so, and therefore there is no logical contradiction facing the Theist. But Gangadean rejects such approaches showing that they face problems. Of course, every theory faces problems, but remember Gangadean is after epistemic certainty and so a problem-less theodicy he himself must give. He can't just show how it's possible that God and evil coexist, but rather must give us the actual story. This is what gets him into trouble. So it's important to keep in mind that what I have to say doesn't necessarily generalize to other Theists that are attempting to answer the logical problem of evil, but who are not interested in showing that it's clear that God exists (which describes the vast majority of Theists).

So for Gangadean's project to work, what we need from him is some independent reason to accept 1) through 5) rather than presupposing that the this is what the bible says and more importantly that the bible is trustworthy as it concerns 1) through 5) in virtue of divine inspiration. But how is it that Gangadean manages to neglect giving any justification for these crucial theses in presenting his theodicy? I'm puzzled. I mentioned before that I worry that when Christians read or learn about Gangdean's theodicy, they might be inclined to miss this circular reasoning because they already accept the bible as containing divine truths. I suspect this is why his followers haven't thought to wonder about the scripture-independent justifications for 1) through 5). Maybe Gangadean has got them, but how strange for him to leave it out of a book that purports to show that God's existence is clear to reason.

Now maybe you're thinking that at least 1) is somewhat argued for independently. Gangadean thinks that there is something incompatible between God's perfect attributes and natural evil being inherent in creation. It seems intuitive enough, but I can't say we've got anything like clarity, here. He certainly hasn't done anything like provide a sound proof to this end. But what's lurking in the background is the idea that in comparison, natural evil being imposed by God for certain purposes, is compatible with God's perfect attributes. But I see no reason why we should think that natural evil which is inherent in creation is any more incompatible with God's divine perfection, than imposed natural evil. Or alternatively, I see no reason to think that imposed natural evil is any more compatible with God's attributes than natural evil that is inherent in creation.

Natural evil is natural evil. It's the countless instances of creature suffering that occur on a moment to moment basis. All the instances of physical pain, torment, and death in the world. It's just hard to see how whether or not such evil is imposed rather than inherent is in any way germane to the issue of its compatibility with God's attributes. I just don't see on what basis Gangadean makes such a substantive distinction. Much of it depends on precisely why he thinks that God's attributes are incompatible with inherent natural evil, but he says nothing about this in his book. Again I'm puzzled. Ganagdean might respond at this point that the difference lies in the fact that imposed natural evil is purposive--it brings about good which counterbalances the heinousness of all the evils. But neither will this do. Recall, that in my last post I pointed out that we also have no reason to think that natural evil is necessary (in the strongest sense) for the restraining, removal or recalling from moral evil. And insofar as it isn't necessary (i.e., God could achieve these ends some other way), the presence or imposition of natural evil seems to be in tension with God's perfect goodness and power. If God could achieve the good of restraining, removing, and recalling "the chosen ones" back from moral evil without imposing natural evil (or even less natural evil), then he must. But the world is overflowing with natural evil and so we've got the the problem of evil all over again. So Gangadean needs to show that its logically impossible (not merely nomologically so) for God to achieve his ends (of reforming, recalling from and removing moral evil) without imposing natural evil. That is, he needs to show that the only logically possible way for the regenerated humans to be called back from sin is for the world to have exactly the amount of natural evil that it does. How could anyone ever verify a thing like that? It's a tall order to be sure. So it seems to me that it simply doesn't matter that natural evil is imposed rather than inherent on his view. He's silent on all of this, but shouldn't be.

Another related worry is what we should say about the status of moral evil. Again we talked about this last time. Gangadean claims that natural evil is not inherent in creation. But what are we to say about moral evil? Is it inherent in the creation of persons? Well, it all depends on how we define 'inherent'. As we've discussed before, according Gangadean's worldview, God created the world in such a way that Adam and Eve, and the rest of humanity would inevitably sin. The Gangadeanians can play around with words in any number of ways so as to avoid this unpalatable consequence, but in the end, on their view (i.e., their commitment to determinism and the fall), it's in accordance with God's divine justice and mercy that some are saved and some perish and you're not gonna have any of that without having people sin. Indeed that's what Gangadeanians admit---that moral evil exists because it reveals God's divine justice. That is to say, they explain the presence of moral evil ultimately via God's very nature. When we connect the presence of moral evil to one of God's divine attributes, and we also accept that God's attributes are not contingent, then we've got an incredibly strong kind of necessity connected to the presence of moral evil. So for Gangadean, there are simply no possible worlds where God exists, in which moral evil does not exist also. I'm very tempted to say that this makes moral evil inherent, but I suspect Gangadean would just fudge around with the meaning of 'inherent' and at this point my intuitions about what counts as 'inherent' get fuzzy.

What's important is whether we should think that perfect, divine justice is compatible with the necessary presence of moral evil in the creation of humans. In particular when (on Gangadean's view) this moral evil or sin is by definition, that which is contrary to the very nature or essence of human creatures. Can God create beings that are destined to go contrary to their very essences? Not only that, but it should have been no surprise to an all-knowing God that creating the world in this way would necessitate the imposition of all the heinous suffering that is part and parcel of natural evil. And it gets worse. Recall that for Gangadean, moral evil leads to spiritual death that is unending for some persons. So on his worldview, you've got moral evil, the inherent consequences of it (i.e., spiritual death) and the imposition of natural evil all as a necessary consequence of creating the world. Is this all supposed to be compatible with the divine attributes of God? That's the question to ask.

Now in order to address it we've got to have a sufficient grasp of "divine justice" since Gangadean employs the notion in partially developing his theodicy. Just what does it mean for God to be perfectly just? Again, Gangadean can't appeal to the bible for any substantial help because this discussion should be taking place when the very existence of God is under question. We can all of course take suggestions from the bible, but they've got to stand on their own merits and their truth can't simply be presupposed because they come from the bible. I don't know how we go about settling the question about what 'perfect justice' consists in. It depends on a theory of 'justice' and again how we know when we've got the right theory of 'justice'. All of this is true at least if we're after absolute certainty like Gangadean purports to be. We can't just rest on intuitions or presumptive grasps of these important concepts. We need proof.

Once again I'm at a loss about what to say concerning the rest of the 5 claims enumerated above. I have no idea how one could know (with certainty) that for example, natural evil serves to remove, restrain and call people back from moral evil or even that punishment must be inherent or that spiritual death was inherent in moral evil. They seem to me like a posteriori claims not claims that can be known a priori. How does Gangadean know so much about very substantive metaphysical issues? At the very least he's got a lot of explaining to do. Oh and for good measure there's one more contentious and unproven claim that he makes. He writes, "After death there is no more natural evil and no more call back" (114). Again, how on earth does he know so much about the afterlife from reason alone? The only sense I can make of it is that again, he's slipped into presupposing the bible as special revelation even when he shouldn't have against the logical problem of evil.

Finally, Gangadean claims that the problem of evil dissolves, hence why he calls his "solution" the "ironic solution". Here it is.

i) Because of all the evil in the world, I cannot see how it can be said that God is all good and powerful.  

ii) Because of all the unbelief in the world, I cannot see how it can be said that God is all good and powerful.   

iii) Because of all the unbelief in me I cannot see how it can be said that God is all good and all powerful.  

iv) Because I have neglected and avoided the use of reason I cannot see what is clear about God. 

Of course, if we grant him his big 5 claims which precede this argument, then the argument may seem initially plausible. But we've noted how Gangadean is essentially presupposing that the bible is the word of God to argue that God exists in the face of the problem of evil (or else he must have sound deductive arguments for each which he neglected to include in his book). But as it stands, we've just got no reason to grant Gangadean the big 5. Further, we have to buy into Gangadean's claims about the clarity of God's existence, and that good and evil are to be thought of in terms of belief and unbelief of what is clear to reason. I've challenged these ideas often in this blog and in the earlier parts of this series. What I've argued is that Gangadean hasn't succeeded in showing these claims are true in accordance with his own standards for knowledge and rational belief. Since each subsequent premise is something like a substitution instance of key terms starting in the first premise, the legitimacy of each step is questionable if the terms Gangadean claims are essentially interchangeable or synonymous, are not proven to be. And that's what I did when I pointed out that Gangadean merely asserts that 'good' for a thing is according to its nature, and 'human nature' consists in using reason to the fullest. He needs to prove these very substantial and contentious claims rather than merely state them. So the argument is no good on this front either.

Apart from that what else should we say about it? It's not by coincidence that it employs the same questionable move that Anderson makes in his book in connection to inexcusability and "giving an excuse." The above argument is supposed to get you to see that accepting the first premise ultimately leads deductively to an absurd conclusion. It's kind of a reductio. But what is supposed to be absurd about the conclusion and what can we draw about the larger question if there is an absurdity? The idea seems to be that a person who complains about the problem of evil is not going to be able to say, coherently, and from her own perspective, "I have neglected to avoid the use of reason so I cannot see what is clear about God" since that person would have to believe that God exists in order to say such a thing, it seems incoherent. But as I said with Anderson's similar move, this incoherence is utterly irrelevant to the problem of evil. Gangadean has artificially given the problem of evil a particular gloss, involving statements presented from the vantage point of a through and through nonbeliever. But the problem of evil isn't about what a nonbeliever can or cannot coherently express from her own perspective. We don't want to make the problem of evil so subjective. If it's a logical problem, then the question is whether God's existence is compatible with the presence of evil not merely from some imagined non-believer's vantage point, but in terms of logical consistency. So here's how we should describe the logical problem of evil in an impersonal way.

i) If Theism is true, then God is all powerful and perfectly good.
ii) If i), then God is able to prevent all evil and desires that there is no evil in the world.
iii) If ii), then there should be no evil in the world.
iv) But there is evil in the world.
v) Hence, Theism is false. 

Why did Gangadean change the description of the problem of evil to such a restricted gloss? I'm not sure, but it certainly serves his purposes. In fact, at the start of his discussion (pg. 108) he articulated the problem in essentially the same way I have just done, because it's the standard approach. At any rate, the important point is that even if there is some absurdity with the conclusion of his second self-serving articulation, it simply doesn't apply to the standard description of the problem of evil which I have presented above. That means his "ironic solution" at best solves only his gloss of the problem of evil, and does nothing to answer the standard one. In other words, even if we grant Gangadean the absurdity in the conclusion of his second articulation, it doesn't give the Theist anything like a general solution to the problem of evil.

Now, I'll close with noting what I think is the most important problem with Gangadean's discussion. It is it blatantly question-begging. To be honest, I'm embarrassed at myself for not having caught this before. In his discussion, Gangadean says that his theodicy presupposes a number of things, one of them being the clarity of God's existence. Here it is in his own words.

The solution to the problem of evil has certain assumptions...that there is a clear general revelation that only some is eternal, that God the creator exists. It assumes clarity and inexcusability (113). 

If the logical problem of evil is supposed to call the existence of God into question (on pain of inconsistency between divine attributes and the presence of evil), then how can a "solution" to the problem presuppose the clarity of God's existence? Whether it is clear that God the creator exists, is the very thing that is being called into question by the problem of evil (because if there's something logically incoherent about God's existence, then it's clear that God does not exist). But if it's clear or, epistemically certain, that God exists, then there is no problem of evil to begin with. Remember a proposition like, 'God exists', is "clear" according to Gangadean just in case the opposite of 'God exists' is not even possible. So Gangadean actually begs the question in giving his theodicy. As I said, I'm surprised that I haven't caught this before. The theodicy was seriously doomed from the start.

This concludes my discussion of Gangadean's "real solution" to the problem of evil, at least for now. It's badly circular and in more than one way. It turns out that it's no solution at all and a serious problem for Gangadean and his followers.

Is the logical problem of evil a real problem for Theists outside of the Gangdeanian camp? I don't think so. As I've noted before theistic and non-theistic philosophers working on this area tend not to take it seriously and opt to discuss the weaker (yet still serious issue) called the evidential problem of evil. But Gangadean has painted himself in a corner. He demands clarity or epistemic certainty that God exists which requires proof that evil is not incompatible with God. And he's faulted other theodicies for failing to do so which is how he's carved himself a place at the table to introduce his "real" solution. But his theodicy is question-begging. This means he can't appeal to other theodicies nor can he appeal to his own. The logical problem of evil then remains a serious problem for Gangadean.

Anderson and the "need" for Clarity.

I have at least one more post pertaining to Gangadean's purported theodicy, but I wanted to say some relevant stuff regarding Anderson's book on clarity since Gangadean's "ironic solution" depends crucially on the idea that God's existence is clear to reason. And some of what I pressed in this post regarding Gangadean's theodicy might have left some questions to my readers, which I hope will be addressed here today. If you haven't done so, I'd encourage you to look at my last post as a frame of reference for some of the more technical stuff I'll get into here. I'll be relying on some talk about possible-worlds because I think the formalism helps make things a bit clearer.

Owen Anderson's book, The Clarity of God's Existence, is meant to be a precursor to Gangadean's work. The former doesn't aim to prove that God exists, it merely purports to show us why we need clarity in some sense or why it must/should be clear. Gangadean and I disagree vehemently on this very issue and I've yet to hear a cogent, non-question begging response from that camp.

Anderson explicitly states that for humans to be held responsible for unbelief in God, it must be clear that God exists. That is to say, inexcusability implies clarity i.e., the clarity of God's existence is a necessary condition for unbelief to be inexcusable. However, curiously he says nothing explicitly about whether he thinks clarity is also a sufficient condition for inexcusability. Gangadean certainly thinks that clarity is both necessary and sufficient for the inexcusability of unbelief. I'm not trying to be pedantic. What's at issue is this: if clarity is necessary but not sufficient for holding nonbelievers guilty, then that would mean that there are other conditions, in addition to clarity, needing to be satisfied for persons to be culpable for unbelief. In other words, even assuming it was clear that God exists, unbelief in God could still be excusable. So while Anderson explicitly states a more modest thesis (i.e., he's just trying to establish the necessity condition), Gangadean ultimately needs to show that the following biconditional to be true: unbelief in God is inexcusable if and only if, it is clear. In fact, Anderson waffles a lot between the two throughout his book. I think he loses sight of the fact that he's set out initially to show the necessity condition, and so for much of the book goes into trying to establish the sufficiency claim (see pg. 2 of his book for an explicit statement of his thesis). Indeed, he criticizes alternative views for failing to provide sufficient conditions and to my mind it doesn't make any sense to offer an alternative that fails to do the same! I'm flagging this now because my criticisms centrally attack the sufficiency claim (i.e., that clarity is sufficient for inexcusability)--but I assure you they aren't misplaced.

As Anderson sees it, according to "historic Christianity (i.e., what he deems as the right sect of Christianity)" unbelief in God leads to maximal consequences. That is to say, all humans are held responsible or guilty for failing to believe in God. And he wants to make sense of what this entails about how knowable God's existence is. To this, Anderson claims that God's existence must be clear to reason i.e., knowable to all persons at all times, in some sense.  But what does it mean for God's existence or anything for that matter to be clear or knowable? He contends that insofar as the proposition, "God exists" is clear in the pertinent sense, it must be demonstrated, that the opposite is not possible (165). Now I take it that for Anderson, a proposition can be clear in the relevant sense without actually having been demonstrated. So it's probably more precise to say that clarity implies demonstrability. We can imagine worlds pretty different from ours, where Gangadean and his people are very different so that no "proof" of God's existence is ever put forward or considered (I'm assuming for the sake of discussion that such a proof "exists" whatever that means). In such worlds, provided they are still inhabited by rational persons (or potential believers), I take it that Anderson will want to say that God's existence is still clear to reason. This would be so even if nobody in such a world actually believed that God exists on the basis of such a proof. This is the only way I can make sense of the principle of clarity as it concerns God's existence applying to all persons and at all times. The clarity is in some sense objective and the associated norm applies to every person--so that for all humans, unbelief is always to be inexcusable. Thus one can be held responsible for failing to believe despite never having heard or considered such a proof and indeed even if no one in the world has ever considered or heard such a proof. What matters is that God's existence is merely such that it can be known or can be proved in some suitable sense.

So when we say that a person has no excuse for unbelief, this is meant to cover even the nonbeliever that has never encountered such a proof of God's existence. Gangadean's favorite imagined example of this is the child in Ubangi. He could have known that God exists because he could have reasoned to a demonstration (even if he actually doesn't). But what exactly does it mean that he could have reasoned to such a proof? We're getting into modals again. Well, on standard ways of thinking about the matter, to assert, 'The child can/could know', one expresses something with the following truth conditions: had the world been different in certain ways, that very child would have reasoned to a proof (though as the world actually is, he doesn't). Or in possible-worlds-speak, there's at least one possible world where that child knows that God exists. That's at least the standard picture of the truth conditions of counterfactuals.

[Technical note, (meaning ignore this unless you're strangely curious about possible-worlds-semantics): in this case, it's may initially seem a bit tricky because the very scenario of the child in Ubangi is hypothetical rather than actual. Hence we're dealing with a counterfactual relative to another counterfactual i.e., we're asking what is possibly-possible. But rest assured, the semantics for counterfactuals are designed to deal with such things. To model it, we begin with the actual world, and then imagine altering it so that it includes our ignorant child in Ubangi; this gives us a possible world, call it w1. Next, we further change w1 some more (so that the child in Ubangi does actually come up with a proof of God's existence, to make the possibly-possible world, which we'll call w2. All of this gives us the truth conditions for the statement 'the possibly existent child in Ubangi could show that God exists'. If there is at least one such coherently constructed world like w2, then the statement is true and if not it's false].

My point is that when we assess what it means that God's existence is clear to reason or knowable, we don't mean anything like 'everybody believes that God exists.' Nor do we mean that everybody actually uses reason (to the fullest) and thus knows that God exists. We mean something like, if everyone were to use reason to the fullest (which is counterfactual), then everyone would believe that God exists on the basis of proof. This is a counterfactual conditional and its truth conditions can be represented using possible-worlds. To say something like, "if all people were to use reason to the fullest, then all would know that God exists" is to assert something with the following truth conditions: "in all the worlds within a particular domain, where people use reason to the fullest, everyone knows that God exists". Notice that what we're in effect doing is considering worlds where the antecedent of our original statement is true. But that doesn't restrict our domain very much because there are an infinite number of such worlds. As I noted in my primer on modals, a single change to any one of the countless facts that describe the actual world yields a unique possible world. Some of these will be very different from the actual world ("further away") and some of these will be relatively more similar (or "closer"). So how do we determine our domain (which worlds to keep in and which ones to ignore) when we assess the truth of the counterfactual? That's a question to keep in mind.

In his book the issue comes up about free will and compatibilism and this is where a lot of trouble enters in for Anderson. Though he doesn't speak about his commitment to the doctrine of total depravity in so many words, he does speak about his compatibilist notion of freedom, moral responsibility and the fall of man. In a few lines he says that even if people are born into sin so that it's impossible (in some sense) for them to seek to know what is clear, this doesn't threaten the connection between clarity and inexcusability because there's another sense in which it is possible for them to seek (more on that below). What he's admitting is that according to his worldview, a person will only know what is clear if they seek to know what is clear. But the reason humans don't seek to know what is clear is not ultimately due to their own choices, it's due to the fact that God has created them a certain way (else, they would be self-caused beings). It would appear then that there some tension between inexcusability and what the nonbeliver could do given determinism.

So why isn't this an excuse for unbelief? Anderson has two responses (note we're getting into the sufficiency claim as I flagged earlier).

First, he asserts that compatibilism about determinism and culpability is true. He notes that what causes a fallen person to not seek is not something "outside" of them, but something intrinsic to them or what he calls their "true character" (42). I'm not sure what he hopes to have achieved here. Does he think he's shown that it is clear to reason that compatibilism is true? I think there is a lot of room to press him for more on this point alone, but I'll save that for another post. More significantly, why should we think that the very fact that unbelief is the result of a persons "true character" entails that a person can be (justly) held responsible for unbelief? He doesn't justify that crucial point.

My own reaction to Anderson's approach here is to say that I can't imagine a better or stronger excuse that the non-believer might give than this: "it was impossible for me to believe in God, because God created me in such a way where I didn't have the true character to seek to know. And without seeking to know what is clear, it's metaphysically impossible for me to know what is clear." But that's basically what Anderson thinks would not be an excuse and so consonant with his theory that unbelief is inexcusable due to clarity. I think this just makes epistemic clarity utterly irrelevant to the culpability of unbelief.

Now the idea that basic things are clear was introduced so as to make sense of the way that unbelievers of all stripes and times could be (justly) held morally responsible for their lack of belief in God (and other basic things). Anderson's "answer" is that there is some sense in which such persons could have known. Tacit in all of this is also the ought-implies-can principle: a person ought to believe that God exists only if they can do so. In possible-worlds talk, what it means that an unbeliever can believe or know (even if they don't actually believe) is to say that there is at least one possible world where they do believe or know. But as I've already pointed out, there's always this question about which possibilities we should consider when evaluating a statement about what could be or is possibly the case. In other words, how restrictive or laxed should our domain be? The truth value of 'S could have known basic things even if he doesn't' will change depending on which possibilities we consider and which ones we don't or in other words, which possible worlds we "look at" when we consider the claim. The point I'm driving is the semantics of 'could' or 'can' or 'possibly' is not univocal. There are different kinds of possibility. And the problem is that we haven't got a principled a priori means of choosing which possible worlds (which sense of 'can' or 'could' or 'possibility) to include and which ones to ignore.

So take Bob, who is an atheist in our world and doesn't believe that God exists. The statement we want to evaluate for truth is the following. 'Bob can know that God exists.' To determine its truth we might consider every single possible world, at least in theory. Such a list will include countless worlds or variations of our reality. At first glance it seems reasonable to think that at least one of these worlds are different enough from our world so that Bob (or his counterpart) is not an atheist in such a world. This is one way to understand what is being expressed with 'Bob can know that God exists' namely, that there is at least one possible world among the set of all possible worlds, where Bob knows that God exists. But that won't help us with Anderson's claims about clarity. After all, if we consider every last possible world, we're going to get worlds that are radically different than ours. We're going to get worlds with much more empirical evidence of God's existence, or perhaps when miracles like God writing on the wall is much more common, and where Gangadeanian philosophy reigns the day, or whatever. But so what if in one of these radically different worlds, Bob (or his counterpart) believes that God exists? It just wouldn't matter to the claim about clarity (in our world), that Bob believes or knows basic things in those radically different (or "distant") worlds. So right off the bat we're going to need to restrict our domain to consider only those worlds with the exact same amount of evidence, arguments, and the like as our world rather than all possible worlds. Indeed the only changes to our reality we should consider are those concerning Bob, so we need to restrict our domain even further. Remember the responsibility for unbelief is supposed to reside on the unbeliever's shoulders, so it wouldn't matter a lick for our purposes, if Bob believes or knows basic things in worlds that are very different from ours in terms of facts external to Bob.

Furthermore, as we noted earlier, for Gangadean and Anderson, a necessary condition for S knowing what is clear, is that S seeks to know what is clear. But then whether or not a person seeks to know or not, is ultimately beyond their control. Sure it's part of their "true character" but their true-character is designed by God. So if we imagine all the possible worlds where God has designed Bob's true character to not seek (to be fallen and unregenerate as in the actual world), then not one of these worlds is going to be a world where Bob knows what's clear. That's just what it means that seeking to know is (metaphysically?) necessary for knowing what is clear. There is no possible world where a person knows what is clear without seeking.

Things get worse when you consider whether God's designing of persons like Bob is itself contingent or necessary. Is there any contingency in God or his will? If God designs Bob with the "true character" of not seeking, and God does so out of a necessarily immutable will, then there is no other way Bob could have been. That means in whatever possible world we can imagine wherein Bob exists he's going to exist with the exact same "true-character" that he's got in the actual world. Since according to Anderson, seeking is necessary for knowing basic things, in every single possible world that Bob exists, he doesn't know that God exists. On the current analysis, our statement of interest, 'Bob can know what is clear', is simply false in which case Bob has a very good excuse for unbelief---namely, that he can't know.

So when we consider a statement like, "Bob can know what is clear" we consider possible worlds, we've got to make some decisions about which set of possible worlds we should care about in determining the truth-value of our original statement (i.e., what sense of 'can' is of interest). We can consider all of those possible worlds which are identical to ours with respect to Bob's desires in the actual world. That's one way of restricting our domain in evaluating the truth of the statement. In all of those worlds, Bob doesn't know what's clear because according to Gangadean, seeking is necessary to know what is clear. So then the statement, 'Bob can know what is clear' is false relative to this semantics of 'can'.

Anderson is aware that there are different senses of 'can' and he must be aware of the fact that on certain readings of 'can' the nonbeliever simply can't know that God exists which threatens the sufficiency of clarity for inexcusability. Hence on pg. 39. Anderson introduces what he calls different "levels" of freedom e.g., the practical level, the political level, psychological level, worldview level, presuppositional level, and rational level. But his discussion to me is not that helpful because he doesn't really tell us what it means for a person to be psychologically able or free to perform some action while unable to in a practical sense. We can model these more precisely though in terms of possible-worlds. Each "level" corresponds to a different set of worlds so that for instance when we ask whether Bob is psychologically able to perform some action A, we are asking only about worlds where Bob's psychology (and everything else that it entails) is the same as it is in the actual world, while varying other relevant details. If at least one of these worlds is a world where Bob performs A, then it's true that Bob is psychologically-able to perform A (in the actual world) even if he doesn't. Importantly, Anderson would like to say that these "levels" are to be arranged in some hierarchy so that certain freedoms (like what one is psychologically free to do) amounts to a less significant freedom than the "presuppositional level." Unfortunately, he merely asserts this and gives us nothing resembling justification for the claim. At this point we should treat it as nothing but mere speculation. And the same can be said about a number of other claims, not the least of which is that humans have voluntary control over whether or not they use reason (I have no idea how he knows a thing like that because again he doesn't give us any justification for the claim), but I digress. Ultimately, what Anderson is trying to accomplish is that there is a substantial sense in which the unregenerate nonbeliever like Bob can (or is free to) know what is clear despite the fact that God has created him in such a way that it's impossible for him to (in another sense). Anderson thus exploits the ambiguity of 'can' though he refers to it as 'freedom'.

So according to Anderson, Bob, can know what is clear in the following sense: If Bob seeks, then he can know what is clear.' To evaluate the truth of such a claim we restrict the worlds we're interested in to include only and all those worlds where the antecedent is true. That is, we narrow our conceptual search of imagined variants of our world to not all possible worlds, but just those worlds where Bob seeks. Again we're going to ignore worlds with radically different evidence, or evidential standards than ours, and worlds that involve changes extrinsic to Bob otherwise it won't make much sense for our purposes. Now if in at least one of those worlds, Bob does know what is clear to reason, then the statement, 'If Bob seeks, then he knows what is clear' is true. This is what Anderson thinks is the relevant understanding of 'can' in the original statement, 'Bob can know what is clear'.

[In fact, he and Gangdean would go further because they think that seeking is also sufficient for knowing what is clear, so it turns out that every one of the worlds where the antecedent is true, are worlds where Bob knows what's clear. So the counterfactual should really be stated as, "If Bob seeks, then he must know'.]

So we've just seen two ways of understanding the modal 'can' in 'Bob can know what is clear' which actually yields two different truth values. Since 'Bob' is just a stand in for any arbitrary nonbeliever, the point generalizes to claims like, 'any and all nonbelievers can know that God exists'. When we consider only those possible worlds where Bob is created by God in the same exact way as he is in the actual world, the statement is false because in all of those worlds, Bob fails to know. On the other hand, if we think of the statement in the way that Anderson would like us to, so that there's a hidden antecedent condition, then our original statement turns out true. There are of course far more than the two senses of 'can' or 'able' that we've just considered, but this suffices to make my point that the notion is ambiguous in significant ways. So let me state two problems with Anderson's approach which I think is essentially to suggest an entirely unmotivated reading of 'Bob can know what is clear, even if he doesn't'.

1) If we think that God creates the world out of the necessity of his being and that his being (including his will) couldn't have been different, we think that such worlds are not even possible worlds. They are logically impossible because they would require God to design different people than he actually has created, which depends on God being different in some way. So on this line, the worlds that Anderson wants us to consider in evaluating the truth of his claim that 'if the unbeliever seeks to know, they can know' aren't possible and so are utterly irrelevant rendering the statement simply false. [Actually as a matter of the logic of material implications, one might point out that statement turns out vacuously true because the antecedent is necessarily false and any material conditional with a false antecedent is true. But I can't see how vacuous truths would help in the current context.]

2) Supposing that he can overcome 1) another problem persists. We have no principled reason to think that all that matters to the culpability of unbelief (inexcusability) is the sense of 'can' that Anderson has in mind. As it's presented in his book, it's entirely arbitrary. Anderson wants to say that what it means that a nonbeliever can know that God exists is just that were they created by God to have a fundamentally different character, then they would seek and thus know that God exists. But that's is not only incredibly unnatural, one wonders why we should care what happens in possible worlds where a non believer like Bob is so fundamentally different. Why should that bear on Bob's culpability in the actual world? It certainly serves to patch a serious problem in Anderson's book, but it's not a reason to think it's true or the correct way to think of things.

I said that Anderson has got two responses in his book as it concerns total depravity/the fall + determinism in relation to clarity and inexcusability. One was to simply affirm compatibilism about responsibility and to privilege a strange sense in which even a non-believer can know what is clear. Here's his second response:

To use the Fall, or predestination, as an excuse becomes absurd: "I want to believe in God but cannot because my fallen nature keeps me from doing so," or "I want to believe in God but I cannot because God predestined me to unbelief." Both assume the truth of what they claim not to be able to believe in: "I believe that unbelief is a sin, and it is therefore false that God does not exist, and I believe that it is true that God does not exist," or "I believe that God exists and he is keeping me from believing that God exists" (43). 

He finds it logically inconsistent to imagine a non believer using the fact that they were created without the necessary (and sufficient) conditions for knowing what is clear, as an excuse for not believing or knowing what is clear. They would have to believe or know what is clear in order to do so, but by stipulation they don't so we've got a contradiction. Sometimes Gangdeans puts it in these terms, "you're never gonna find a nonbeliever saying to God that if only I was made differently I would believe in you." But this is no good. In fact, it boggles my mind that Gangdeanians accept this as a sufficient answer.

Importantly, the issue at hand is how we should understand what it means for someone to "have an excuse" and hence what it means that some state or action is "inexcusable for an agent". But we must not lose sight of the context within which we are addressing these. To me, Anderson takes "giving an excuse" in a very narrow and unmotivated way. For him, for Bob to have an excuse  = Bob must, by his own lights, be able to coherently articulate an excuse. That works fine to patch up a problem in his book, but it simply misses the larger point. Remember, the inexcusability of unbelief in relation to clarity was proposed by Anderson to make the maximal consequences of unbelief and the need for redemption (per Christianity) accord well with God's divine attributes like his goodness or justice. This is why I suspect that he's got the intuition that maximal consequences imply maximal clarity. And I say this because otherwise, there's simply no project for Gangadean and his camp to start. If they thought that it was entirely consistent with God's attributes for God to hold people responsible for unbelief, even if His existence isn't epistemically clear, then there would be no need for anything the like the clarity thesis to begin with. There just wouldn't be a problem to solve or a tension to resolve.

So what we really want to know when we ask, "is unbelief excusable?" is not whether a non believer can, herself, from her own perspective, intelligibly articulate an excuse to God for unbelief. Again there's just no reason to accept such a restricted reading of "having an excuse" and this misses the forest for the trees. Instead what we want to know is whether it is ultimately fair or just of God to hold persons morally responsible or guilty for unbelief when their unbelief is ultimately a result of His design or up to Him. We should, as third parties, evaluate whether God's divine attributes, His justice and perfect goodness are ultimately compatible with His creation of non-believers who He has "fearfully and wonderfully made" to never seek, and live in spiritual death forevermore. Note that appealing to our current practices of holding people responsible for actions won't do. Assuming that our world is a deterministic one like Gangdean and Anderson do, they might be tempted to point out that we in fact hold people morally responsible for actions even though we recognize that ultimately people act out of their "true characters" which in turn is beyond their doing (again because non of us are self-determined creatures). Now stated in this way we've got a descriptive fact about how we as humans, living in a societies act. But it could be that we're thinking about moral responsibility all wrong, if determinism is true (i.e., the normative question remains open). Furthermore, none of us had anything to do with determining the "true characters" of one another. But God has played this role as the author of life according to Anderson. So perhaps people have excuses before God, for what they do because God is the ultimate determiner, it is His will which is realized by even the nonbeliever, which is crucially why I think the nonbeliever has got about as strong an excuse for unbelief as is possible. But the same cannot be said as it concerns two or more determined beings who aren't responsible for determining the "truth characters" of one another.

Secondly, Anderson and Gangadean have this view that the unregenerated nonbeliever in "this life", will never recognize basic things such as God's existence, not during the judgment nor in the "afterlife". I take it that perhaps this has something to do with their view that spiritual death is not something that is future and imposed, but that it is current and inherent in not seeking or using reason to the fullest. However, I have no idea how the two are related--there doesn't seem any sort of necessary connection. Importantly, it's only when we buy into such a picture that it seems absurd for a nonbeliever (who always remains a nonbeliever) to say anything to God whatsoever. Again I think this is ultimately a red herring, but still for good measure here's my response. Notice we can put pressure on the very presupposition which generates the contradiction. Anderson and Gangadean must demonstrate that the unregenerated nonbeliver must always and forever be a nonbeliever, even at the judgment or the afterlife or whatever. But this is a contentious claim. I don't know how they would come to prove a thing like that (recall, that according to the bible the demons in hell know that God exists and shudder at his name). If they appeal to scripture, then they've got to prove their interpretation of it against more standard interpretations (and of course, I don't think anything like this can be proven even in principle). I think that scripture isn't going to give us anything like a deductive proof for such details. Now many Christians think that all humans, both believing and non-believing in this life will one day come before the judgment seat of God and all will recognize that He is. And on such a picture there simply is no contradiction or absurdity in thinking that a person who lived through and through as a non-believer now sees that God is. Thus there's nothing logically incoherent about such a person making an excuse for their life as a non-believer in the past (or pre-judgment). Here, the fact that God has determined them to not seek, and then chosen not to give them Grace and regenerate them so that it's impossible for them to seek, seems like a pretty good excuse to me. My point is, Anderson seems to have slipped in his own disputable presupposition in order to generate the contradiction of the nonbeliever giving an excuse. But he hasn't given us anything like a proof to accept it and he ought to.

Finally, I suspect Anderson and company will want to challenge possible-worlds semantics or at least my articulation of it. But then they owe us specifics. Where does my fairly minimal reliance on such semantics go wrong? And if they want to throw out the entire system, then they had better offer a replacement. At least insofar as we think statements, even counterfactuals and expressions with modals, have truth-conditions, we want a coherent theory.

The notion that basic things must be clear is pervasive in Gangadeanian philosophy. It is one of the core disagreements between Gangadean and me. I've challenged the notion that clarity is necessary since he's never given any demonstrative (non question begging) reason to believe his claim that thought, talk, knowledge, meaning, etc are impossible without clarity.  I've also challenged the idea that such clarity is possible or actual.  In this post I hope to have shown that clarity in the sense that Gangadean (and Anderson) presents is not even sufficient for the inexcusability of unbelief. It can be clear and yet the unbeliever can have a legitimate excuse (even if he himself isn't in a position to articulate it) for failing to believe.

Part 3: On Gangadean's "Real" Solution to the Problem of Evil.

Last time, I applied some pressure on Gangadean's notion of 'good' and 'evil'. Gangadean claims that good for a thing is in accordance with the nature of that thing and evil is what is contrary to the thing's nature. He further claims that human nature consists in using reason to the fullest and I discussed how there are problems facing this view as well. In neither case has Gangadean done anything like provide a proof or shown that these claims are clear to reason.

Starting on pg 112 of Philosophical Foundation, Gangadean says his definition of 'good' and 'evil' as it relates to the problem of evil can be illustrated in the parable of the prodigal son. I won't include it here and assume my readers are familiar with it, or at least are able to find it easily (see Luke 15:11). Now it's very important to note what it is he is up to and what he isn't doing. What does it mean to "illustrate a definition" and its relation to the problem of evil? Well, at most what Gangadean is doing is assuming his framing of the problem of evil and his definitions, and seeing how it accords with the parable. Importantly, this isn't anything like giving a proof of concept. And remember he hasn't actually defended his definitions or his framing of the problem of evil. Earlier he claimed that his definition of 'good' was known a priori, but curiously failed to give any rational justification for that claim. And I raised issues at this very juncture last time. So the parable is an illustration of the definitions and his way of thinking about the problem of evil, but not anything like proof or independent support that Gangadean's analysis is correct.

Now my fear at this point is, at least for Christians, who already have a commitment to the bible as divinely inspired (and thus consisting of only truths) that they will not be careful in properly restricting the extent of Gangadean's move here. If you already think the parable of the prodigal son is special revelation, or God's word, then you may be inclined to think that any theory of 'good' and 'evil' and way of framing the problem of evil that accords well with parts of scripture, like the parable of the prodigal son, is going to be correct. But that's no good for Gangadean's worldview. Remember, he thinks the problem of evil is a problem against the very coherence of Theism. Thus, to presuppose the bible is divinely inspired  in the current context is question-begging, because to presuppose that there is a divinely inspired text is to presuppose that God exists in the first place. You can't respond to the problem of evil, by helping yourself to any claim that assumes that God exists.

So the illustration given by the prodigal son parable shouldn't be taken as anything like proof of concept for his way of thinking of the problem of evil nor his definitions of 'good' and 'evil'. Nothing we draw from the parable can be taken as a premise in giving an answer to the problem of evil (i.e., a theodicy). All you we should do is conclude is that there's a passage in this book, which purports to be the word of God, which on a particular reading, accords with Gangadean's theory. But Gangadean isn't very careful here. It seems to me that he actually does exactly what I suggested he shouldn't (in terms of rationality) do. He follows his quote of the parable with the following.

How does this illustrate the problem of evil? Why is there evil? The younger son was in a state of unbelief with regard to his father's teaching. Day and night, for all his life, his father, by word and deed, lived out the way of life before his sons. Yet the younger son did not see or hear or understand what was clearly laid out before him...His unbelief was inexcusable and therefore evil. Evil as unbelief serves to obscure the clear revelation to the person in unbelief. The condition of unbelief is allowed to work itself out in the prodigal's life. As a result, the revelation of justice (his way came to naught in the pig-sty) and of love (his father forgives and receives him back) are deepened. If he had second thoughts about possible dangers and hardships of his way the first night away from home he could have reconsidered and returned with his fortune intact. He could have returned all to his father, simply acknowledging gratefulness to know that he had the freedom to leave if he wanted. In that case there would be no deepened revelation of justice and mercy. Evil as unbelief serves therefore to deepen the revelation of justice and mercy (112).  

For the time being, let's ignore that Gangadean is taking for granted his own interpretation of scripture as if it's the only proper one. But that's a weighty assumption and something he needs to independently support (at least insofar as he's after certainty/clarity). Now Gangadean presents the problem of evil as a question about why there is evil and seems to think that the parable (i.e., the bible) has got the answer. Recall, Gangadean is intent on answering the logical problem of evil and faults other theodicies (and thus carves a place for himself at the table) for failing to answer it. The logical problem of evil is a demand for an account of how God's perfect goodness and omnipotence can be logically compatible with the presence of evil in the world. Gangadean's strategy at this point is to try and give an account of a rationally justifiable reason that God would permit evil despite his great power and perfect goodness. In this regard, it's similar to theodicies which he has just criticized. The soul-making theodicy (that God permits evils to build in us virtues) and the free-will defense (God permits evil so that we can be free to perform morally significant actions) both try to give different reasons why God might permit evil. On Ganagdean's theory, in very general terms, God permits moral evil to deepen revelation about himself (his justice and mercy) to his human creatures. Importantly moral evil for Gangadean is fundamentally intellectual--not using reason to the fullest and thus not knowing basic things (i.e., unbelief). But we also have to keep in the background of our minds Gangadean's commitment to clarity. He thinks you must have certainty in order to know basic things. And so while other theodicies aimed at addressing the logical problem of evil merely try to show a possible answer to "why does God permit evil?" it's far from clear that this would be sufficient for Gangadean. At least insofar as Gangadean claims to know that God exists, he's got to know with certainty that his theodicy is correct. A tall order which he fails to achieve.

Importantly, all of the mentioned theodicies face of two significant and interrelated questions which we might use as a way of testing the strength of the theodicies. First, the legitimacy of the theodicies will depend on whether the reason that God permits evils is sufficient to justify him doing so. This gets to the question of whether it's worth it. Is it worth all the evil and suffering, that humans build virtues (i.e., the soul-making theodicy)? Is it worth all the suffering and depravity in the world, that some people get to exercise significant freedoms (i.e,. the free-will theodicy)? Secondly, is the necessity condition or as I'll call it, the "is it necessary?" question. Whether these theodicies are any good will depend on whether it's necessary (and in what sense) for God to permit evil and suffering to achieve whatever end is suggested by the theodicies as being worth all the evil. Is all the suffering and evil necessary for the exercise of free will? Is it necessary for building in us virtues? Or could God have achieved it some other way?

Gangadean seems somewhat aware of these two conditions. He addresses the "is it worth it?" question with respect to his own theodicy. Is revelation of God ultimately worth it when you consider all of the evil and suffering in the world? And he faults the free-will theodicies on failing to sufficiently address the "is it necessary?" question. For instance, he suggests that actual evil is not  necessary for humans to exercise their free-will and thus it's possible that humans with freedom only do what is good. He further considers whether moral evil is necessary for revelation of God? Could God have achieved it some other way?

And in fact, Gangadean's theodicy fails on both of these fronts. I've already spoken some about these in my early posts concerning the problem of evil, but I'll try to further develop those ideas.


IS IT WORTH IT? 

The "is it worth it?" question is a tricky one in a way that Gangadean doesn't seem to appreciate. The worth of some state of affairs seems to depend on values and also the relative subjects to whom the states are worth it. If I ask you whether an expensive meal was worth it, you will (roughly) consider what amount of good the meal brought to you (maybe pleasure + nutritional benefits) and consider the amount of bad that was brought about by the hit your wallet or purse. We're assuming here then that you've got some notion of good or bad in mind in virtue of which you calculate the worth of something else. Roughly, if enough good results from some state of affairs Y and there isn't an overriding amount of bad that results, then we might say that Y is worth it.

Secondly, we standardly ask whether something is worth it relative to a subject i.e., the person or being that is incurring at least some cost and at least some of the benefit. Just as I can ask whether it was worth it to you, that you paid a lot of money for a meal you enjoyed, I can ask whether it was worth it to me that you paid a lot for that meal which you enjoyed. In many cases the question won't make sense depending on the subject of interest. As my example shows, insofar as I didn't incur any costs or any benefits, it's strange to ask of me whether it was worth it that you paid a lot of money for a meal you alone enjoyed. And I'm not sure if there's a question that isn't relative to any subject whatsoever like "is it worth is simpliciter?" We've got to get clearer on all of this if we are going to make much headway in answering the question about whether all of the suffering and evil in the world is worth the revelation of God. The trouble is, the revelation of God's justice and mercy is relative to some subjects while the cost of such revelation is shared by all of creation. Both moral and natural evil are ubiquitous and according to Gangadean while moral evil is "permitted" to give some people a deeper revelation of God, it also leads to God instituting natural evil (suffering) as a "call-back" to repentance from sin. As a result, all people sin and every creature under the sun suffers and dies, but only a select few reap the benefits, if you will. Only Christians will enjoy the revelation. To add insult to injury, the evil that nonbelievers experience isn't limited to this plane. According to Gangadean, they will continue in spiritual death/moral evil, in ever increasing degrees, forevermore.

So when we ask whether "deepening revelation" is worth all of the evil in the world we've got to get clearer on who the relevant subject is. Worth it to whom? Is it worth it to Christians who by God's grace make it out, that all of creation is steeped in evils? I don't know how to begin addressing that question. That involves at least addressing the first question about values. How do we weigh the evils against the goods? By what system or calculus? I haven't a clue, but Gangadean had better have an impeccable answer here. The very peculiar part about Gangadean's theodicy, is that he merely glosses over these complications. He admits that his theodicy assumes that the revelation is worth it, but he doesn't address the "worth it to whom?" question. Instead he seems to presuppose that the only subjects we should be interested in when we address the "is it worth it?" question are Christians who reap the benefits of the revelation at the cost of grave evil experienced by all. This is not only entirely arbitrary, but also very hard to swallow. In a sense, the unbelievers who will suffer not only in this life but forevermore are casualties of God revealing himself. Combine this view with Gangadean's strong commitment to calvinism/predestination, and you've got a devil of a doctrine.

Why does God permit moral evil? Answer: well, because he desires to make himself known but only to some of the people he created i.e., his people which he determined before the creation of the world. But what about unbelievers? Weren't they chosen to fail to believe from the beginning? What of their suffering on earth and of the moral evil to come forevermore? Answer: well, it's worth it to the believers that they themselves experience limited suffering and evil and further that non-believers experience suffering in this life and evil forevermore. I find it incredible that anybody should be able to stomach this kind of teaching. I don't think Gangadeanians are sociopaths and so I think there are some biases which are keeping them from seeing such views clearly. For instance, in my encounters with Gangadeanians, I got the sense that they viewed me as an enemy and that I sort of have whatever evil results from my "unbelief" (as they would call it) is something I deserve. They speak of people like me and people that the consider "unbelievers" as "filling up their cup of wrath". And I think they fail to draw out the implications of their views about predestination, soft determinism, and the problem of evil. And I suspect that if more of them saw things a bit more clearly, they would find such teachings appalling. The trouble is, Gangadean has a way of using his "a priori definitions" to confuse his people out of appreciating such problems.

On his view, God creates humans and determines that people will sin and sin a lot. That the world would be filled with moral evil--indeed God determines this so that it can be no other way. The result is that people sin and reap the benefits of such sin; the world is steeped in unbelief, and evil. Sure natural evil serves as a call to repentance, but one must be regenerated in order to heed the call and it's only those that God chooses to grant with grace that do so. For only these people does natural evil serves as a "call-back" from moral evil. In turn, they get to enjoy the great revelation of God's justice and mercy. Not because they did anything deserving. No, God chose them. He chose to have mercy on a (relatively) select group. As for the rest, they will live in just the ways that God has determined them to live. If only they would seek or want to know God, they could. But God has determined that they never seek nor want to know God, so in effect, they never will in fact, unless there is contingency in God's will, it's impossible for them to do so.  In a sense, they no more deserve their sad state than the regenerated deserve the grace bestowed upon them. These nonbelievers suffer (along with all of creation) and will live in spiritual death forevermore so that only the believers enjoy the benefits of a deepened revelation. It's hard to see how this is anything of a solution to the problem of evil. How is this exemplary of a perfectly-good, (and I would add, perfectly just and merciful) God? I just don't see it. I can't make sense of how this is the "greatest conceivable being." It seems to me that in presenting his "answer" to the problem of evil, Gangadean has inadvertently presented himself with another iteration of the problem.

Interestingly, Gangadean merely provides us with anecdotes from the bible (Job and Paul), to say that suffering is worth the revelation. But the important point is that he can't appeal to these as authoritative accounts because again that would be to presuppose that the bible is divine revelation and thus to presuppose God exists in a context where that is the very thing in question. Furthermore, I think these examples encourage one to ignore the point I am bringing up about evil and suffering in the lives of the nonbelievers. The way that Gangadean presents it, the question is something like, "is the suffering and evil in Job's life, worth the revelation that Job gets?" What I'm suggesting is that this is far too narrow. We ought to include the following unless Ganagdean can give us some principled reason to exclude it.  Is the revelation that Job and other Christians get or will have received, worth all the suffering that not only they have and will experience, but also all of the suffering that nonbelievers experience and the everlasting and ever-increasing evil that they will experience? Would Gangadean give another "a presumptive unqualified 'yes' " to this? More importantly, can he give an actual reason that we should agree with him or even what he thinks Paul or Job would say?

IS IT NECESSARY?

As I said, there's the "is it worth it?" question as well as the "is it necessary?" question in evaluating theodicies. So is it necessary for God (according to Gangadean) that there be so much evil in the world in order to deepen his revelation to the believers? After all, if God could achieve his ends another way, a way that involves less moral evil or even natural evil, then he would have. Gangadean confidently answers in the affirmative. But he's got no business doing so. He claims, but fails to argue for the idea that moral evil must be removed gradually rather than abruptly (113). And he claims that unbelief (moral evil) must be permitted to come about in every combination. He further asserts, "Some things cannot be known except by experience-- such as hunger or pain, both physical and spiritual. A book version of human history, or a movie version, cannot supply this experience and is incomprehensible without it" (ibid). I've italicized each of the modals because they are very important.

I can't begin to tell you why Gangadean feels qualified and in a good enough epistemic position to claim these without some serious hedging. They are merely speculative, but you get no indication of that from his book. How does one know that moral evil must be removed gradually rather than abruptly in order for the revelation to be deepened. Note 'must' is a modal akin to 'necessarily' just as 'can/cannot' is akin to 'possible/impossible'. The question then is whether it's logically or metaphysically impossible for God to deepen the revelation while removing it abruptly? And he must be saying that it is logically/metaphysically impossible, but how does he know so much about evil and its removal as well as its relation to the revelation of God? And how could he possibly know that physical and spiritual pain can't (i.e., that it's impossible) be known sans first-hand experience (the sharp reader will wonder if this commits Gangadean to the claim that there are some things God can't know)? Remember, we're talking within the context of trying to answer the problem of evil and so he can't appeal to scripture as any authority in supporting these claims on pain of begging the question. So it's utterly a mystery how he could know with anything resembling certainty that these very strong modal claims of his are true. He certainly owes us an explanation.

Now for the most part I've been conflating moral and natural evil because when it comes to calculating the worth of revelation in relation to the cost of moral evil, we really should include the costs of natural evil as well. This is because without moral evil, there would be no natural evil according to Gangadean. So God creates the world in a way such that people will only know about his justice and mercy if there is much moral evil in the world and this leads him to institute natural evil. He must have known this "ahead of time" of course. So it's natural to conflate them in calculating for the worth of God's revelation. But prying them apart we can also ask about the necessity of natural evil in relation to calling people back to repentance from moral evil. This is something I don't see Gangadean addressing. But it's weird that he doesn't. If it's possible for God to achieve repentance from the subset of humans that he regenerates, without making animals suffer or without the prevalence of the millions of diseases that afflict us, or without small children literally starving to death, then arguably he must as a result of his perfect-benevolence. Now recall, from last time that there are different kinds of necessity just as there are different kinds of possibility. Importantly, when we ask whether natural evil is necessary to make humans repent, we should care about logical or broadly metaphysical necessity rather than merely nomological or causal necessity. This is because God is not bound by the laws of nature or any causal regularities. He's only limited with respect to making logical or metaphysical truths false (he can't make it so that 1+1=3). And it's far from clear that it is logically or metaphysically necessary that God must use natural evil to call those he has regenerated from their sin. Gangadean had better give an argument to the contrary, or else his theodicy fails in just the ways he claims that other theodicies fail i.e., there's no obvious metaphysically necessary connection between natural evil (and to the extent we have it in this world) and people repenting from moral evil.

So I contend that Gangdean's theodicy fails on two fronts. It fails in ways that he thinks other theodicies fail. Gangadean's God is anything but perfectly-good and all-powerful insofar as he must or chooses to deepen his revelation to some of his creation at the cost of determining that the rest of his creation will suffer both in this life and forevermore. Presented in these terms, it's far from clear that evil is worth the revelation. It's certainly not worth if we consider the well-being or good of those that are perishing. That's really uncomfortable to say the least. Secondly, it simply isn't clear that moral evil is necessary for the revelation, nor is natural evil necessary for repentance.

I'll close with one more related thought concerning the "is it worth it?" question. Gangadeanians say that humans have intrinsic dignity in virtue of their rationality. This is what makes murder (even murder of the unborn) wrong and I take it is also partially why they think utilitarianism gets it wrong. But it turns out that on their view, God treats such persons (the unregenerate) as mere means to achieve his ends (his revelation). Moreover, it's weird to think that such persons are being dealt with by God as essentially rational beings. He has darkened their minds so that apart from his act of regeneration, they can't see what is clear.  How does this amount to treating them as rational beings? Or as beings with inherent dignity? The unbelievers will live, suffer both physically and spiritually, and die before being raised again for everlasting spiritual death. What makes it worth it? Well, that others will enjoy God's revelation. That sounds a lot like utility maximization gone wrong. The big moral here is that as Gangadean sees things, God calls us to act towards humans in ways that He himself is not willing.