The Best of All Possible Worlds
Let's assume for the here and now that the traditional God-of-the-Bible actually exists. Let's assume He has the ability to create Life, the Universe and Everything (LUE) and further that He wants to create the LUE. Now what?
Well God might be constrained as in there might be only one way to create the LUE because there can be only one kind of LUE that can be created. If all you've got is a can of red paint then that's going to be the colour of whatever it is you're going to paint. In that case, God can be absolved of all blame for creating the LUE mess that the LUE is in and be forgiven.
But let’s assume that God had a free will choice in what kind of LUE He wanted to create. He knew all possible LUE flowcharts before-the-fact. He might not absolutely know precisely the final ongoing outcomes of His various options (though many theists would dispute that since God is allegedly omniscient hence All-knowing where ALL includes ALL of the future) but He knows all possibilities. By analogy, you may not know for absolute sure that you will wake up tomorrow morning, but you do know all of the various possibilities that might arise.
Some would conclude that God would choose a creation process that would lead to the best of all possible versions of LUE. One however could hardly argue that this is the best of all possible versions of LUE. The daily headlines tell you that this is not the best of all possible worlds and that this LUE is not the best of all possible LUE’s. Note that free will doesn’t enter the picture since God knew in advance all possible LUE outcomes including all free willed choices in each and every one of those LUE options or outcomes by those entities He created or could create with free will.
Examining all possible LUE flowcharts, even trillions upon trillions of them, as well as the trillions upon trillions of pathways each and every potential flowchart could take – would seem to be a rather trivial exercise for God – and picking the best possible one (and then enact that one), would tell you the best set of initial conditions to set in train.
So I conclude that either God didn’t create the LUE or that God created the LUE that was way, way less than the ideal LUE knowing in advance that His LUE flowchart wasn’t the best of all possible LUE flowcharts hence the best of all possible LUE’s. The buck stops with God since it was all His doing!
Let’s look at a human analogy – preparing or creating dinner. If step one in the creation of dinner process starts with ingredients that are past their best by or use by date, and you use unwashed dirty dishes (pots and pans, etc.) and have dirty hands and lots of cockroaches crawling around your infested kitchen, then the resulting product (dinner) is going to be less than ideal. You’re not going to end up with the best of all possible dinners. So you need to start your dinner making flowchart – processing / creating dinner – with fresh ingredients, clean dishes and pots and pans, washed hands and a cockroach-free kitchen. The buck stops with the chef since dinner was all their doing.
So to conclude, you know this isn't the best of all possible LUE's or worlds because you could improve on it. So the question arises, why didn't God create the best of all possible LUE's? Why did God, in a manner of speaking, start out with ingredients that were past their best or use by dates; use dirty dishes and pots and pans; fail to wash His hands; and create in a cockroach infested kitchen? Maybe because there is no God?
2
Enjoy being online again!
Welcome to the community of good people who base their values on evidence and appreciate civil discourse - the social network you will enjoy.Create your free account
6 comments
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.It sounds as though you are arguing against an objective, human-like god, the god of the Bible, who resides out there somewhere and creates, controls and destroys the physical universe.
But you have no problem with Nature—a Nature that creates itself, imposes unbreakable laws, brings about life, and creates conscious awareness. Gloria in Excelsis Naturae! Maybe the problem is only one of semantics, and of perspective.
Assume the perspective of a worm about to be gobbled down by the early bird and reality is a hellish place, but the bird doesn’t see it that way. Assume the perspective of conscious awareness itself and nature appears as an absolute paradise.
Objectivity is an artificial category we humans create in our minds for convenience. Reality is subjective. The kingdom of heaven is within you, and we collectively are an extension of God. Oh hell, pardon me! I didn’t intend to use that forbidden word. Read that as “Nature”. I’ll try to do better.
WilliamFleming
Level 8
Nov 12, 2018
1
I agree with everything you said here, except three words: “Reality is subjective.” How do we know that? Isn’t there a difference between reality and perception of reality?
Perception is subjective of course, but isn’t the thing we’re perceiving real? Isn’t our definition of the word “real” those things that exist whether we perceive them or not? Don’t we need such a category whether it can be proven in absolute terms or not?
@skado If we are nothing but our bodies then you are correct—reality has objective existence and subjectivity is secondary. I’m not saying that we are more than our bodies, but that is what I think, with a confidence level of approximately 82.376%. 
I suspect that collectively we ARE reality, with “collectively” meaning all of consciousness.
Suppose we are studying a map of Alabama. If we’ve been looking at the map all our lives we might have forgotten that the map is nothing but a bunch of symbolic icons, and start thinking we are looking at Alabama itself. But then some philosopher might point out that there really is an objective Alabama out there.
But let’s look at that state of Alabama. Just what is it? Is it only a political entity? Is it a roughly defined topographic surface marked off by certain arbitrary boundaries that are only defined approximately? Does it extend above and below the surface? If so, how far? Is Alabama just a bunch of dirt and rocks. Are the rivers included? What is a river but water, and that water moves away...hmm. Maybe Alabama is just the people who live here. In the final analysis IMO we are forced to agree that Alabama is idea stuff—it is subjective, and the same argument can be made for the whole earth, and the universe at large.
Turning to quantum physics, a particle of matter is claimed to be a “probability cloud” having no particular location or momentum until it is “observed”, and then the cloud “collapses” into a real thing. By some accounts an “observation” is an interaction between covariant quantum fields. Fields are mental models used for computing. It’s all way over my head, but I am led to think that ultimate reality is subjective, consisting of conscious awareness, and we are that awareness in an ultimate sense.
I agree that in order to survive and function as bodies the idea of an objective reality is necessary, but it is just an idea.
Is it raining up there? Stay dry.
@WilliamFleming
Lots of wetness here today (made out of real water ).
The difference between nature and god is that nature does not think, it therefore can not claim to have meaning purpose or morallity, and so the argument does not apply to it.
@Fernapple But if we, as part of nature, can think, then isn’t that nature thinking?
@WilliamFleming No that is only me thinking. Nature is just the word we give to a set of objects, (Usually the set of all objects which exist.) if some subset of a subset of that set should think, that does not mean that the whole thinks.
@Fernapple I don’t know how you can be so sure that Nature doesn’t have consciousness. I would think that an entity with the ability to create itself, to decree immutable laws, and to bring about life would have all the capabilities of ourselves.
Perhaps you believe that you are only your body. But that body is only an assemblage of cells, no one of which has consciousness. Yet your body as a whole appears to be conscious, or at least you experience consciousness and assume that it is your body having consciousness.
There is no reason that I can see to rule out a conscious reality.
@WilliamFleming You are quite correct; I can not be sure that nature is not in some deep hidden way conscious, and can keep an open mind to it should some real evidence turn up. But, the consciousness of nature only has relevance if it communicates with you. If you have not heard it speak or seen any signals, then its possible existence, is irrelevant, and can logically be treated the same as none-existence. The same thing applies to god. I know that some agnostics treat nature as an alternate god, in place of the fairy story one of the theists, but while there is perhaps little harm in that, it is still a mistake, and what is more it is needless, since any intelligence which is hidden must also have hidden and therefore irrelevant for us intentions, and those can, also therefore, be treated as logically the same as none existant.
@Fernapple perhaps that conscious awareness is not hidden. Perhaps we are an extension of that awareness. Perhaps we collectively are one with nature.
It seems plausible to me. Nature is not an objective “thing” out there—it is all that there is, including us. Ultimate reality is subjective.
@WilliamFleming Yes but not proveable. It is as I say a possibly harmless idea some agnostics hold to, and good luck with it. But I find it needless.
For what it’s worth, some years ago I wrote “Can Theism Survive Without the Devil?” in which I developed a proof that a perfect God created an imperfect world is not impossible given the further contention that a devil exists. To make this work I appealed to two common sense assumptions, viz., 1)that both moral and natural evil exist and 2)that the overall value of an event caused by free choice can be different from the value of that same event if it had not been freely chosen. For example, a murder is worse than accidental death otherwise just like it, and a heroic rescue is better than the same escape by means of a lucky break.
This was published in 1985 in:
Religious Studies (An International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion)
Cambridge University Press
21, pp.231-244
It has been cited several times that I know of but, so far as I know, no one ever attempted a rebuttal of it.
Wallace
Level 7
Nov 12, 2018
1
I would not in my wildest dreams, accept either of your first place assumptions. And thing that is enough rebuttal.
Ohferpetessake...you apparently have A LOT of free tgime........
AnneWimsey
Level 9
Nov 12, 2018
0
This is basically the "argument from evil" which is one of the better arguments against god, since it cuts to the quick and is easy to understand. Some people do not like it because it does have some weakness. First: in that, as you say at the start, you are assuming that humans do not have free will but god does, a bit of having it both ways. Second: in that apologists resort to the "gods will is beyond understanding", argument, or in other words that we can not see all ends as he can, and that our present suffering may only be a small price we pay for greater things to come, or if you like, that gods purposes may be bigger than our pains. Third: that it only addresses creationist religions. However if you accept those and are prepared to meet them when facing apologists, then I still think it is one of the best arguments we have and perhaps the most natural intuitive one.
Fernapple
Level 9
Nov 12, 2018
1
Enjoy being online again!
Welcome to the community of good people who base their values on evidence and appreciate civil discourse - the social network you will enjoy.Create your free account
Share this post
Categories
Agnostic does not evaluate or guarantee the accuracy of any content. Read full disclaimer.