Tuesday, March 07, 2017

Why doesn't God do more?

An issue in theodicy is how often God should intervene. In principle, that ranges along a continuum from absolute nonintervention to constant intervention to prevent evil or make the situation better.

Here's the basic argument: if it's not good for God to intervene all the time, then the degree of divine intervention is bound to be arbitrary. Like the sorites paradox. Unless God ought to intervene constantly, he could step in one more time or one less time, and the cut off is arbitrary. Anything short of constant intervention will be arbitrary. Yes, he could have done it one more time, but where does that stop. If he could step in one more time, he could step in two more times, or one less time, or two less times. There is no logical tipping point where a little less is too little and a little more is just enough. 

Now, I think that's somewhat simplistic. Just about every intervention or nonintervention will cause a chain reaction. It makes a difference in terms of what future eventuates. It's not arbitrary in that respect. But it is arbitrary in the other respect. 

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