For a long time now there seems to have been a deadlock in Christian theology regarding the problem of evil. Either beings must be free in some libertarian sense, making it impossible for God to otherwise influence them or persuade them to do certain actions except by getting them to experience pain, or pain is an unnecessary injection into God’s universe, because if God created the very constitution of the creature itself - its desires, wants, needs, etc - he could have created beings who never had to experience said pain in order to do what he wanted them to or what was best for them.

I think I have an idea that sheds some light on this issue and combines the best of both.

The positive of the libertarian side is that it safeguards God’s desire to prevent pain whereever possible, i.e. it eliminates God from causing gratuitous or unnecessary pain.
The positive of the compatibilist side is that it removes the apparent absurdity of a motiveless choice, or a will making decisions or causing actions not directed by a mind.

We must first beat into our head the idea that God’s will follows his reason. His will is not, as the libertarian idea logically seems to lead to, “completely free” or “arbitrarily free.” If that were true it would be free even of rationality - an absurd concept.

This leads to the second part - namely, that certain ideas exist eternally in God’s mind. This may seem intuitive, but if it is understood correctly with regard to the first principle lain down above, it means that, the ideas in God’s mind are not necessarily dependent on his will. This is a critical point to understand. God has the idea of “triangle” or “green” or “book.” He cannot unthink those ideas. They are eternal. He can, so to speak, “think of other things” but those ideas themselves cannot somehow be un-thought in such a way that they cease to have existence in his mind. In that case he would merely be thinking other thoughts, not un-thinking or un-knowing the initial ones.

Now, imagine that God has such an idea in his mind of “human nature.” Let’s leave aside for the moment what all that means with regard to spirit and matter, and let us just suppose that it means “a being which must undergo pain in order to fully appreciate goodness.” Or, as a friend of mine on this board Aaron would say, “a being which must undergo pain/be saved from its own fallibility/delivered from evil in order to be maximally happy.”

If we remember the first two principles explained above, I think we can see that God, given the nature of who we are - the nature of which is not in his control - must necessarily cause on our race pain and suffering. “Why didn’t God make our nature different,” one may ask, “so that we don’t need to experience such things? Why can’t he change our nature so that we aren’t such contrastive beings that we need to experience pain in order to fully appreciate good or be maximally happy?”

The answer, I think, is that he is not able, because it is not logically possible, to create a nature different from itself. The question, indeed when thought hard about, would imply a contradiction. In the same way that God cannot make triangles that are not triangles, or cannot make bachelors that are married, he cannot make being with such natures – again, which are eternal thoughts in his mind, regardless of his will – that are different than those very beings. In short, he cannot make “beings with contrastive natures who know good better by experiencing pain” different from “beings with constrastive natures who know good better by experiencing pain.”

Now, he could have, as far as I can see, made all sorts of other beings who do not have to experience pain in order to be maximally happy. I assume Cherubim and certain angels don’t have to. The theory above doesn’t say such beings aren’t possible. It only says that we aren’t such beings. It only supposes that such beings as us, that need pain to be maximally happy, are logically possible thoughts in God’s mind, and that he decided to bring us into existence.

I invite all criticism and feedback here. Thoughts?

I think that’s called the “soul making theodicy,” and I think it makes a lot of sense.

Something that might weigh in favor of God’s will proceeding His reason, and being completely free (even of reason, as you put it), is that reasoning seems to be a process, and a process seems to involve time, while God (at least at some level, some pole of His being, sans creation) seems to be timeless.

It’s possible to conceive of willing, wanting, and knowing without time, but is it possible to conceive of reasoning (from major premise, to minor premise, to conclusion) without time?

I’ve got to think about the rest of this.

I think C.S. Lewis would agree with much of what you’ve say here, but he was a libertarian, and not a universalist.

Then again, I think Prof. Talbott would also agree with much of what you say here, and he is a universalist (and, I suspect, a compatibilist), so maybe that means you have to be on to something (regardless of which one is right or wrong.)

Unfortunately the response I wrote to this got deleted. I’ll try again though.

Soul making does make a lot of sense, because it jives with our experience. However, the point I’m trying to really establish goes beyond that. A critic may say (and I would agree) that it was possible to create beings who did not need to undergo soul-making to be maximally happy. Cherubim, I can imagine, are an in eternal state of ecstatic bliss. Or one could respond that it’s not logically necessary – or that they cannot see how it is – for pain to be associated with “soul making” or growth. A seed, I can very well imagine, doesn’t need to undergo pain in order to grow up into a tree.

My point is that, if God has these certain thoughts in his mind – “human soul making” – they exist eternally as ideas. He can choose not to ever make them, but they would always be there, sitting in his thought. You could say he could make human nature in such a way that it DIDNT require pain to make better, but in that case, he’d simply be thinking of another thought, not “un-thinking” his original one. Like I said, that initial thought of “being that needs pain to be maximally happy” would still be a possible creative existence he could make.

I’m not saying God’s reason is discursive. If you can imagine him eternally knowing, I see no difficulty in imagining him eternally reasoning – or as him having eternally reasoned.

Lewis, for all his brilliance, was shortsighted in my opinion on two issues: free will and Hell. He also did MacDonald a tremendous disservice by dismissing him so quickly at the beginning of Problem of Pain (in just a couple sentences, if I remember right.) He didn’t address any of MacDonald’s deeper metaphysical thoughts on the subjects. And secondly, Lewis failed to ever address the true problem with LFW - an unmotivated action; i.e. an action that is not determined by some motive that is “seen” as good instead of “chosen to be seen” as good.

As far as Dr. Talbott goes, I’d love to hear his thoughts on this. I’ve read some of his writing on the subject and really hope he reads this and gives some feedback.

I tend to agree.

But couldn’t your theory of these ideas in God’s mind (that aren’t dependent on His will) be used to support his opinions on these two issues?

What if the idea of a free being who doesn’t return His love, and of a hell that’s bared from the inside are two of these unwilled (and unwanted) ideas in God’s mind?

That’s why I pointed out that Lewis would probably agree with much of what you say, and that he wasn’t a universalist.

That’s interesting.

Thank you.

But you are saying that there are timeless ideas in His mind that are independent of reason?

So would I.

And I’d give all I could to a charity of his choice if I could get some of his feedback on some of the questions I’ve asked.

Thank you.

Good question. Granting that such ideas contain no logical contradiction (beings forever failing to achieve happiness), I see no reason God would choose to make them. It would go against his nature to bring into beings who would go to Hell for all eternity, even if they were able to.

That’s the distinction - if the idea was truly “unwanted” it would never be actualized. If it was wanted, and therefore seen to be good to be expressed, it would be. I think the idea of free beings not returning his love, etc. is such a totally unwanted idea, and therefore would never find expression in God’s universe.

No. The view I hold of God is, ironically, classicist – Aquinas I think sets it forth best. His views on the nature of God – the divine essence – and how he is known by us are I think the most helpful.

I think God is entirely simple, and yet can be known, analogously, by modes of expression of his we experience through the creation. Will and Reason are two such analogical distinctions I’m drawing in God’s essence, though really there is no such distinction in him as he is in himself.

You could say, “well how then does God’s reason precede his will if they are the same?” I would say that it actually doesn’t. It is only helpful to imagine their relationship in ways that we relate to and understand. God is simply what he wills to will, and what he wills is what he knows, which is, again, what he wills. Thus the Euthypro dilemma is really a non-sequitur if the nature of God is properly understood. The problem is that we can imagine God willing things which are contrary to what he wills – like commanding rape and child molestation. But in reality, God can’t imagine willing other than he does, so it is not possible for him to will otherwise or ever to have willed otherwise. In a deep way that is hard to think about, I don’t think there is a distinction between what God wants and what he can actually do. His want to and can are actually one and the same thing.

That’s the simplicity view of Aquinas, anyway. It’s the one I hold.

Your desire to know truth is tremendously refreshing Michael. I hope one day you and I will our thirsts quenched to overflowing.

Thank you.

So do I.

And I hope we can get some of that thirst quenched on this side of the grave.

It would make hanging in here with worsening emphysema, and taking care of a partially paralyzed father who probably has Alzheimer’s (after having failed, and lost, the one person who loved both of us more than I think either of us have ever loved anyone) so much easier.