Sceptical Theism, the Butterfly Effect and Bracketing the Unknown

2017 ◽  
Vol 81 ◽  
pp. 71-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander R. Pruss

AbstractSceptical theism claims that we have vast ignorance about the realm of value and the connections, causal and modal, between goods and bads. This ignorance makes it reasonable for a theist to say that God has reasons beyond our ken for allowing the horrendous evils we observe. But if so, then does this not lead to moral paralysis when we need to prevent evils ourselves? For, for aught that we know, there are reasons beyond our ken for us to allow the evils, and so we should not prevent them. This paralysis argument, however, shall be argued to rest on a confusion between probabilities and expected utilities. A connection between this paralysis argument and Lenman's1 discussion of the butterfly effect and chaos will be drawn, and the solution offered will apply in both cases.

2021 ◽  
Vol 103 (9) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shu-Wei Liu ◽  
J. Willsher ◽  
T. Bilitewski ◽  
Jin-Jie Li ◽  
A. Smith ◽  
...  

Nature ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 591 (7849) ◽  
pp. E14-E15
Author(s):  
Wenju Cai ◽  
Benjamin Ng ◽  
Tao Geng ◽  
Lixin Wu ◽  
Agus Santoso ◽  
...  

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shenglong Xu ◽  
Xiao Li ◽  
Yi-Ting Hsu ◽  
Brian Swingle ◽  
S. Das Sarma
Keyword(s):  

2021 ◽  
pp. 2002171
Author(s):  
Yanjiang Shao ◽  
Zeying Wang ◽  
Yutong Hao ◽  
Xueli Zhang ◽  
Ning Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 64
Author(s):  
Bruce R. Reichenbach

In his recent book Is a Good God Logically Possible? and article by the same name, James Sterba argued that the existence of significant and horrendous evils, both moral and natural, is incompatible with the existence of God. He advances the discussion by invoking three moral requirements and by creating an analogy with how the just state would address such evils, while protecting significant freedoms and rights to which all are entitled. I respond that his argument has important ambiguities and that consistent application of his moral principles will require that God remove all moral and natural evils. This would deleteriously restrict not only human moral decision making, but also the knowledge necessary to make moral judgments. He replies to this critique by appealing to the possibility of limited divine intervention, to which I rejoin with reasons why his middle ground is not viable.


2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rongli Li ◽  
Xia Meng ◽  
Beidi Chen ◽  
Lidan Zhao ◽  
Xuan Zhang

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (19) ◽  
pp. 17236-17244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoting Zhang ◽  
Jisheng Zhou ◽  
Huaihe Song ◽  
Xiaohong Chen ◽  
Yu. V. Fedoseeva ◽  
...  

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