"Why do bad things happen to good people?"

[doctor_aquinas]

Imagine a world where they didn't. Good behavior would always be requited with rewards, instantaneously, and bad behavior, conversely, would receive instant punishment. The universe would be like a giant Skinner box, with results constantly conditioning behavior towards the ideal and normative

Comments

[benjaminmann]

it was a tremendous shock when i finally realized (back in 2005) that pain and evil were a better argument *for* the existence of a personal God than *against* that idea.

[doctor_aquinas]

Do elaborate.

this gets awfully close to presuppositional apologetics ala the reformed (bahnsen et al)...

[benjaminmann]

if there is no God and no afterlife, man's most evil deeds are both totally permissible and ultimately meaningless. evil and good would then both amount to nothing at all. so you see, evil is a much, much bigger problem for the atheist than the theist.

the atheist looks around at evil, and in his outrage cries out: "why?!? to what end?!?"-- but his worldview does not admit formal and final causes or the reality of universals.

i flatly refuse to be put on the defensive by anyone who thinks the "problem of evil" is primarily a question of theodicy. the fact is that anyone who reads about rwanda --theist or atheist-- has a "problem of evil" to think through. which of them will actually be able to do it?

the theist knows there is a Judge and Lawgiver beyond death; he has put forth a plausible, if not always immediately satisfying, solution to the greatest human problem. the atheist, whatever else he may have, has no solution whatsoever-- nor even sufficient recourse of the categories in which one might emerge.

atheist: "if your god

Re: this gets awfully close to presuppositional apologetics ala the reformed (bahnsen et al)...

[doctor_aquinas]

Well said! I think much the same way.

[gritty_whitty]

A few considerations:

Do you then posit any type of universal moral causality? Are good deeds rewarded and bad deeds punished, just not consistently? Or do you only posit a mechanical or amoral causality?

How do you explain scriptural accounts where biblical figures are clearly rewarded based on a certain action?

Do you posit that the purpose of life is the development of virtue? This seems implicit in your argument, but I think it is a point to be made clear.

[doctor_aquinas]

I don't think it affects the substance of the argument, but I do think all deeds are ultimately requited with their deserts. My goal, however, is to answer those who would claim that it is a demand of justice that all deeds must be immediately requited by the Ultimate Being. Though you describe this as universal moral causality, in fact I would describe it as amoral, because it would render "morality" a non-concept. When doing good becomes identical with receiving immediate good, the choice is conditioned and not free, and thus not moral

[doctor_aquinas]

There does appear to be a problem, though: in any universe where morality is possible, it seems that the nature of evil is in some sense obscured. As Aristotle said, there is a distinction between apparent goods and real goods; everyone seeks the good, and those who choose evil are choosing an apparent good about whose nature they are ultimately mistaken

[gritty_whitty]

A few more considerations:

Looking over your original posts and your subsequent answers, I do see that you argue more for a delay in reward/punishment rather than an inconsistent pattern of reward/punishment or no reward/punishment.

Would not a delay in the reward/punishment simply result in a more ineffective conditioning? Would not a delay simply prolong the process of a universal Skinner's box? Does your argument confuse ineffective conditioning with moral freedom? How would we tell the difference between ineffective conditioning and moral freedom?

Let me define what I meant by a universal moral causality. There exists an apparent physical causality which is best described in scientific and physical terms. However, many religions posit another layer of causality which, instead of operating in physical terms, operates in moral terms. I.e., that certain events occur because of the moral nature of an earlier event. It is such a system that we have been discussing in general terms.