Haiti: God and scepticism (3)

God and disasters (3). Post from Talking Philosophy by Mike LaBossiere and a response from Kim Batteau.

When watching the news clips of people speaking about prayer and faith in the face of an earthquake, I was reminded of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake [9]. in philosophy [10], this event is best remembered in the context of Voltaire’s criticism of Leibniz [11]‘ claim that this is the best of all possible worlds [12]. After all, it is rather difficult to reconcile the idea of a benevolent and all powerful God [13] with such natural disasters. David Hume [14] also wrote on this problem and explicitly criticized Leibniz.

Response by Kim Batteau: It is one of the puzzling questions in the history of philosophy: why did no one at that time (as far as we know) respond to the naturalism of Hume by demonstrating naturalism’s destruction of moral discourse? Further, almost no one (as far as we know) responded to Marx’s naturalism, or Nietzsche’s naturalism, with this very simple yet totally devastating argument. That is, if all reality is either a natural state or a natural event, and if nature by definition is amoral, therefore any “objections” to reality, either social reality or religious beliefs, are themselves amoral statements masked as genuine moral discourse. If everything is nature, that includes all thoughts and words of the animals called human. If nature is amoral thus all the thoughts and words of the animals called human are themselves amoral. To then call one state or event “evil,” is itself neither good nor bad, but amoral. And words such as “evil” or “good,” or saying “suffering is bad,” are by definition amoral and thus totally self-contradictory. One cannot both be a part of nature, which is amoral, and try to function outside or above nature, with moral language.

Let’s use a visual example. One says “everything is water.” But then one says: “we arrived on dry land.” However, if you first say “everything is water,” there can be no dry land in your universe. If everything is amoral nature, there can be no moral discourse in your universe.

Continue Reading Add comment februari 4th, 2010

Haiti: God and scepticism (2)

God and disasters (2). Post from Talking Philosophy by Mike LaBossiere and a response from Kim Batteau.

Let’s look again at what Mike LaBossiere writes:
Rather than focus on the problem of evil, the point I am addressing is that it seems rather odd to pray to God in such a context. After all, if it is assumed that God exists and has the usual attributes (all good, all powerful and all knowing) then praying would make no sense. This is because the earthquake was allowed (or perhaps caused) by God. He knows about the event and hence prayer is not needed to let God know that a disaster has struck. Since He is all powerful, He could render aid. However, if He did not want the disaster to strike, then it would not have occurred. Praying to God would be like asking for help from the person who is punching you in the face-obviously that person is not going to render aid.

Response from Kim Batteau: This sounds logical, but it is a flawed piece of reasoning. If naturalism is an impossible basis for moral discourse, since a purely natural world is morally neutral, and all events and states of affairs are therefore morally neutral, then we are left with a world in which God has made us. God has apparently the power to rule over all things, without Himself being guilty for the evils which men do. He also has the ability to “subject creation to futility” as Paul writes in Romans 8:20, so that natural disasters are commonplace on earth. These natural disasters may be His punishment for specific human evil, but can also be an instance of His general “curse” of the earth due to Adam’s sin in the beginning (Gen. 3:17). It is not illogical for God to be continuing to subject the earth to futility (the curse), with natural disasters as the result, and His being able to listen to the prayers of His people for mercy in the midst of this judgment. Concretely this would mean that Haiti has been subject to the consequences of the Fall for creation–an earthquake, and that Christians in Haiti can pray for God’s help to alleviate their suffering and deliver them from death.

Continue Reading Add comment februari 4th, 2010