Critiquing: Should God Be Held Morally Accountable for Knowingly Creating a World Where People Would Sin?

October 23, 2023 | #STRask – Stand to Reason Moral Accountability — Responsibility for Sin — Theodicy and Freedom — Good vs. Evil — Divine Plan

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Introduction

The content discusses whether God should be held morally accountable for creating a world where people sin. Various arguments and analogies are presented to justify why God is not morally responsible. Below is an outline and explanation critiquing the logical coherence of the content.

1. Analogies and Parallels

Parental Analogy The content uses a parental analogy to argue that knowing a child will do bad things does not make parents morally responsible for the child’s actions.

“Parents know that when they have children, their children are going to do bad things… Does that mean that the parents themselves are responsible for the evil that’s done by free will agents?”

Critique: This analogy is flawed as parents do not possess omniscience or omnipotence. Unlike God, parents do not create their children with predetermined knowledge of every action they will take. The analogy fails to address the asymmetry in knowledge and power between human parents and a divine creator.

Loaded Gun Analogy The analogy compares God creating humans with moral freedom to giving a suicidal person access to a loaded gun, arguing that God is not purposefully aiding and abetting evil.

“What you are doing is aiding and abetting, purposefully aiding and abetting, the evil that you know somebody is planning to do in advance.”

Critique: The analogy is misapplied. Giving someone a loaded gun with the knowledge they will use it to harm themselves is direct facilitation of harm, whereas creating beings with free will is indirect. However, if God is omniscient and omnipotent, creating a world where sin is inevitable aligns more closely with direct facilitation than the analogy admits.

2. Moral Freedom and Responsibility

Nature of Moral Freedom The argument hinges on the necessity of moral freedom to achieve genuine goodness and happiness.

“The only kind of creature that is capable of doing that is a being that is made in his image that is a moral creature that has the opportunity to choose between good and bad.”

Critique: The notion that moral freedom must include the potential for significant evil is debatable. The content fails to substantiate why a world with free will cannot be structured to minimize or eliminate severe harm while still allowing meaningful moral choices.

Theodicy and Good vs. Evil The content asserts that the potential for evil is outweighed by the greater good of moral freedom and the ultimate good plan.

“If the amount of good is greater than the evil that results from this plan, then God has a morally sufficient reason for allowing the possibility of evil.”

Critique: This assertion lacks empirical support and fails to consider alternative world designs. The argument is circular, presupposing that moral freedom, as defined, justifies all resultant evils without exploring less harmful configurations.

3. Claims and Substantiation

Unsubstantiated Claims The content makes several claims without sufficient evidence, such as the assertion that all things work together for good and that evil contributes to a greater plan.

“The bad things we are doing are actually contributing to his good plan, like when he says all things are working together for good.”

Critique: These claims are theological assertions rather than empirically verifiable statements. The obligation to substantiate claims is particularly strong when discussing profound moral and existential questions.

4. Logical Fallacies and Cognitive Biases

False Dichotomy The argument often presents a false dichotomy between complete moral freedom (with potential for great evil) and no moral freedom (with no meaningful moral choices).

“You can’t say you have the moral freedom to do good, but you don’t have the moral freedom to do bad.”

Critique: This ignores the possibility of intermediate solutions where free will exists without the potential for extreme harm. The binary framing is a cognitive bias that oversimplifies complex moral scenarios.

Appeal to Mystery The content frequently appeals to mystery to justify unresolved logical inconsistencies, particularly regarding the nature of heaven and moral freedom.

“How does that all calculate out in, I don’t, I don’t actually know… There’s sure is a lot of mystery to it.”

Critique: While some degree of mystery is inevitable in theological discussions, over-reliance on this tactic can obscure critical examination and logical coherence.

5. Testing Alleged Promises

Empirical Methods Potential methods to test alleged divine promises include longitudinal studies on the outcomes of faith-based actions versus secular actions, examining correlations between belief systems and moral behavior.

Critique: The content does not propose any empirical method to substantiate its theological claims, relying instead on scriptural interpretation and theological assertions.

Conclusion

The content presents arguments defending the moral innocence of God despite creating a world with inevitable sin. However, it suffers from logical inconsistencies, unsubstantiated claims, and reliance on flawed analogies. Mapping one’s degree of belief to the available evidence requires rigorous examination and empirical support, which the content fails to provide. These deficiencies undermine the arguments’ persuasive power.

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Thank you for reading. Feel free to discuss these arguments further in the comments section.