The following
sequence is from about minute 54 in the debate between Raymond Bradley
and William Lane Craig,
although the text is taken from the
transcript at Reasonably Fallacious - so be aware that this is the version sanctioned by WLC:
Dr. Bradley:
I'll return to this microphone, if I may, okay? Now let me try to get my
point across on this because this is crucial. And we both agree that Dr.
Craig's strategy has been to try to prove that propositions (1) and (2) are
compatible on the grounds that there is a third proposition which is consistent
with (1) and with together with (1) implies (3). I've said that (3) . . .
Dr. Craig:
Entails (2).
Dr. Bradley:
Entails (2). Sorry! I've said that his (3) is all by itself inconsistent
with (1).
Let's look at it like this [draws circle on the overhead]. Let that
circle represent the set of all possible persons that God could have created
with free will and of whom He knows in advance from the very beginning, in the
words of the Bible, what the outcome of their choices would be. Okay? Now that
set of possible persons, possibilia as you call them in one of your works, can
be subdivided more or less arbitrarily, we'll say, into those who would be
saved if He were to create them and those who would be damned as a consequence
of their free choices [divides the circle into two halves labeled
"sacred" and "damned" respectively]. All right?
Dr. Craig:
I don't want to be difficult, but I think that's too simplistic because
some people might be damned if created in some circumstances but saved if they
were created in other circumstances. So you can't just divide the line down the
middle and put people on either half. It depends on what world these possible
persons are put into.
Dr. Bradley:
So we can shift the line wherever you wish according to which actual world
God chooses to create. All right?
Dr. Craig:
All right.
Dr. Bradley:
Now He creates an actual world [designates a segment of the circle
overlapping both halves]. These are just possible individuals up here, the
whole domain of possible individuals with free will [designates individuals
outside the segment]. Here we've got the actual ones [designates individuals in
the segment]. And, as you can see, some of them on this have been assigned to
heaven because God knew in advance that if He were to create them in these
circumstances, they would be saved. And, here we have those He's consigned to
hell. In fact, I've been generous to God and you here because I've created
equal parts. And, of course, Jesus says it's going to be pretty rough on most
of them.
Now the point is this. Why did God have to create just this subset of
possible individuals with free will? [designates segment of actual individuals]
He could have sliced the pie a very different way. He could have sliced the pie
so that there weren't any in this segment at all, the segment of hell [shades
sub-segment of actual, damned individuals]. He could have chosen to create a
world in which no actual individuals like you or me were existent [draws
another segment outside the segment of actual individuals].
Dr. Craig:
Right.
Dr. Bradley:
After all, there's nothing all that great about us, is there?
Dr. Craig:
Right.
Dr. Bradley:
So He could have created all these possible individuals . . . [ticks new
segment]
Dr. Craig:
And my point is He wouldn't be able to guarantee--so long as those
people have free will--that they would FREELY RESPOND TO HIS OFFER OF SALVATION
AND BE SAVED.
Dr. Bradley:
But if He knows in advance that these will in those circumstances be
saved by virtue of freely accepting God's offer of salvation through the blood
of Jesus, then why not?
Dr. Craig:
Because there may not be a compossible set of individuals such that if
you put all of them together in a world, all of them freely receive God's
salvation and are saved. It may be that individual "S" would only be
saved in a world if in that world individual "S-prime" were lost …
So that it's impossible for God to … or infeasible for God to create a
world in which all are saved …
Dr. Bradley:
I understand quite well about them having to be compossible. And, let's
just say that out of the set of all possible inhabitants of this world that God
is going to choose to create, only some are compossible. So let's make it a
subset. We now have a subset of compossible individuals all of whom would be
saved.
Dr. Craig:
But, see, my point is that you don't know that such a set is not the
empty set. It could be the empty set.
Dr. Bradley:
Well, look, you play with possibilities. You talk about it's possible
that this, it's possible that that. . . I'm asking you to confront some actual
examples of possibilities. Heaven is allegedly a state of affairs in which God
exists and the only other persons to exist are people who either have been
saved because they believed in Jesus' name or would have believed in Jesus'
name and have been saved or you could throw in a few of those who get there by
general revelation.
Dr. Craig:
But that in itself presupposes there was an antecedent pre-mortem world
…
Dr. Bradley:
It doesn't logically presuppose it. Causally perhaps. But you understand
the distinction between causal ties and logical ones as well as I do. [long
pause]
Dr. Craig:
You've still got three minutes.
---
There's a lot of
evasion from Craig in this sequence, and many appeals to ignorance. The debate has been discussed previously by
others such as Jonathan
Pearce (who argues that
WLC's argument violates the ontological argument, because we can conceive of a
better god than WLC's god, one that is not obliged to create a world in which a
significant proportion of the inhabitants would be consigned to hell) and Luke Muehlhauser (who applauds Bradley for being prepared
for the debate, unlike many other atheists who meet WLC on the debating
podium), but I want to take a slightly different tack.
My ears pricked up
when WLC opened up this hole in his world view:
I don't want to be difficult, but I think that's too simplistic because
some people might be damned if created in some circumstances but saved if they
were created in other circumstances. So you can't just divide the line down the
middle and put people on either half. It depends on what world these possible
persons are put into.
Now, note that WLC
is not arguing for divine ignorance, by which I mean the idea that free will
might preclude a god from knowing whether a given person will be saved or not. Bradley gave him the opportunity (a few
times) to make such an argument and instead of doing so, WLC gave a
"compossibility" argument.
Dr. Bradley:
But if He knows in advance that these will in those circumstances be
saved by virtue of freely accepting God's offer of salvation through the blood
of Jesus, then why not?
Dr. Craig:
Because there may not be a compossible set of individuals such that if
you put all of them together in a world, all of them freely receive God's
salvation and are saved. It may be that individual "S" would only be
saved in a world if in that world individual "S-prime" were lost …
So that it's impossible for God to … or infeasible for God to create a
world in which all are saved …
I'm willing to
accept that WLC misspoke and that he was not suggesting that his god could find
certain acts impossible (as opposed to infeasible) and instead I'll focus on
what he is saying about the possible lack of compossible sets.
What is being
suggested here, by WLC himself, is that there is a possible world in which
S-prime is freely saved although in that world, S would be lost, as well as a
possible world in which S is freely saved while S-prime is lost. Conceivably there would be another world in
which both would be lost. Think about
that for a moment.
No matter how you
want to paint it or buff it, this is predestination. The claim entails a situation in which a god
chooses which world to implement, notionally allowing either S or S-prime to
freely choose to satisfy the requirements for salvation (although another
optimum solution could have both S and S-prime being lost so that T, U and V
together with their primes might be saved).
And this is despite there being possible worlds in which one or another
of S and S-prime might be saved.
Therefore, the salvation of S and damnation of S-prime is purely the
result of god's decision. From the very
moment of creation, S-prime is excluded, despite being able to act freely. And therefore, god consciously places S-prime
into the (future) eternal flames of hell.
Bradley's argument,
which I agree with completely, is that an omnibeneficient god would not and
could not consciously choose to create an intelligent being knowing (via
omniscience) that that being would be tormented forever. WLC also agrees (at least where
bunnies are concerned).
Remember that we
are talking about a maximally excellent being (MEB) here, which incorporates
omnipotence - unlimited in power, unlimited by time, unlimited by space,
although apparently limited by logic (the logically impossible is not required
of an omnipotent god, according to WLC and his ilk, which is strange, since
they could bypass such objections as the problem of evil in one fell swoop if
they only allowed their god to be immune to logic). An omnipotent MEB is not restricted to
creating a single world in which all its playthings interact in such a way as
to enable the salvation of one at the expense of another.
Remember that this
MEB knows the outcome of all your freely made decisions, and knew it before you
were created. It already knew all your
choices, all your interactions, all your innermost thoughts and the same
applies to every being around you. So,
as far as you are concerned, from the perspective of the MEB, it doesn’t matter
whether you interact with actual free acting lesser beings or theological
zombies (soulless automatons which merely act out the behaviour of those who
would otherwise be damned). The priority
of this MEB (according to WLC) is to ensure that the maximum number of humans
come to freely choose to know and love it.
It's not to minimise the number of worlds created, or to maximise the
actual interaction between lesser beings, or to not create theological zombies.
Therefore, an MEB
of the sort that WLC believes in would choose to create a possible world in
which S would be saved (largely inhabited by theological zombies, including a
theological zombie playing the role of S-prime), a possible world in which
S-prime would be saved (in which the damned S would be portrayed by a
theological zombie) and so on such that each and every created soul would be
saved.
That's a rather
terrifying idea. For each and every
believer, there is a possibility that this universe is created just for them
and people like them, because in any other configuration they would be
damned. While it might be comforting to
know that there might be a number of actual, predestined-to-be-saved people in
amongst all the theological zombies - you could never know which is which. Your mother, zombie or real person? Your child, zombie or real person? Your partner, zombie or real person?
But it gets
worse. This world would be the one,
presumably the best one in which these people would be
saved. Everything that goes on around
them would be contributing to that salvation and every bad thing that happens
would (due to the thorough goodness of the MEB) be necessary. Therefore, for these people to be saved, it
is necessary that three quarter million people die each year from
dysentery. It was necessary for
journalists to be beheaded in Syria. The
tsunamis in Japan and Indonesia were necessary.
Droughts and floods and fires and earthquakes and mudslides and mental
illness and drug addiction, the election of Trump and all sorts of social chaos - all are necessary to
save these people.
These are not
good people if they could not possibly have been saved in a better world. Apparently WLC is one of these people
(although I freely admit that, within this premise, it's much more likely that
he is a theological zombie).
What does the
theist have to do to escape this conclusion?
I see a few options:
Reject maximal excellence (although WLC argues that a less than
maximally excellent being is not god)
Reject the arguments of WLC and people like him (a very good start on
the road to reason and intellectual freedom)
Appeal to ignorance (the standard fall-back option)
Argue that the theological zombie is logically impossible (this would
have to be a valid argument, of course, otherwise it's just another appeal to
ignorance hidden behind a veil of rhetoric and hand-waving - of the sort that
I'd expect WLC to embark upon)
---
More zombies and the logic thereof.
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