On Being a Theological Zombie

I have written about Theological Zombies a few times now, including the original eponymous article, The Logic of Theological Zombies, The How Many Problem and most recently Theological Zombies to the Rescue!  I also mentioned them in God as Utility Monster.  And that’s in addition to discussing them at the Reasonably Fallacious Forums.

I note that in The Logic of Theological Zombies, I cut straight to the chase and showed that consideration of such zombies can be used to argue that christianity is false.  I much assumed that people understand what I mean by the term “Theological Zombie”, possibly relying too much on the assumption that people will understand the concept as being akin to the concept of the “Philosophical Zombie” (without even mentioning the term “Philosophical Zombie”).  Finally, I’ve come to realise that there might be another possible form of “Theological Zombie” to that which I was originally considering.

Let’s quickly look at the reasoning behind Theological Zombies.  If god is all-powerful, all-knowing and all-good and wants to save souls, then saving souls is a good thing.  It’s a sufficiently good thing to justify creating souls in the first place.  There are plenty of indications in theism that not having your soul saved is a bad thing.

Consider for a moment a soul that is apparently not going to be saved in this universe.  Given its omniscience, the god would have known, right from the moment of creation that this soul was not going to be saved.  The soul was going to go through the pain and suffering of existence, which according to various arguments is supposed to be a formative experience, without getting the payoff of salvation.  But the god set up the universe that way anyway, despite having options such as not creating any souls at all or creating the universe in a slightly different way – either so that that soul does not come into existence, or so that when that soul comes into existence the conditions are right for it to be saved.

It’s latter option, combined with the god’s omnipotence and omniscience that leads to Theological Zombies.  Omnipotence means that the god is not limited to the creation of a single universe, or the creation of each universe in a particular way, while omniscience allows it to know what conditions are right for each soul to be saved.  Then all that is required is creation of the conditions that are conducive for salvation of each possible soul.  If that means a multitude of universes tailored to small groups of souls, or even a single soul, then so be it – that’s not a big deal for an omnipotent god.

The only real beings in such a universe are those who are hosting souls that are going to be saved by such a universe, making all the same decisions, taking all the same actions as they would if the god established the universe and populated entirely with souled beings.  However, some of those souls would not be saved and others could be saved in a better universe.  The idea here is that the universe that a soul finds itself in is the best of all possible universes consistent with being saved.  A saved soul, however, will therefore find itself surrounded by Theological Zombies – beings that are indistinguishable from souled beings, but are empty.  They don’t carry out a script per se but rather do what the god can see would happen if it created a universe full of souled beings and the target soul was saved.

When I first considered this, I thought of the Theological Zombies as being akin to Philosophical Zombies, as per Wikipedia:

A philosophical zombie or p-zombie in the philosophy of mind and perception is a hypothetical being that from the outside is indistinguishable from a normal human being but lacks conscious experience, qualia, or sentience. For example, if a philosophical zombie was poked with a sharp object it would not feel any pain sensation, yet could behave exactly as if it does feel pain (it may say "ouch", recoil from the stimulus, and say that it is feeling pain).

I called them Theological Zombies to distinguish them only in intent, in that a god was creating what are effectively p-zombies to minimise suffering while allowing a difficult soul to be saved – because that soul could not be saved without an otherwise unacceptable level of pain and suffering.  Note that with a p-zombie there is nothing that it is like to be a p-zombie – because there is no there there, a p-zombie is not consciously aware of being.  This would not necessarily be the case for Theological Zombies.  A Theological Zombie could be precisely what a materialist atheist thinks herself to be, an emergent property of matter without a soul (whatever that actually is).

If you think about it deeply enough, we as materialist atheists consider ourselves to be bits of stuff reacting to other bits of stuff, not only in regard to things that are not our bodies, but also within our bodies.  Pain and suffering are reactions in the stuff that make up our brains to stuff in other parts of our bodies (or other parts of our brains, in the case of a headache).  From this perspective, it could be said that there is no “I” that is experiencing pain and suffering.  It’s possible therefore, to thread the needle and have a universe in which pain and suffering is some sense real, since there could entirely material beings like myself with no “soul” who can be under the impression that they are experiencing pain and suffering but who, without an “I” to actually have that experience, don’t really suffer.  The small number of souled beings in this universe would not therefore find themselves in the situation of being surrounded by automatons, but rather by effective atheists (even if some of them are working under the misapprehension that they are believers and are going to be saved, which maybe they sort of are, but not by virtue of their experiences in this universe).

There remains the issue of this universe being rather awful.  A maximally excellent being type of god could do better.  The argument here is that such a god does do better and has done better with as perfect a universe that can exist with humans in it and perhaps the vast majority of us qualified for salvation in it (and there were only a relatively small number of Theological Zombies, being those who could not be saved under the circumstances of near perfection).  Then god created increasingly worse universes with small numbers of souled beings and the vast majority being Theological zombies.  This universe, with its natural disasters, predators and parasites, with an almost constant state of war, poverty and widespread crime, this is still the sort of universe that is best, with the least pain and suffering commensurate with whoever the souled beings are in it.

This is actually quite consistent with my observations of some believers, they do appear to be among the worst of people and some of them surely would be, having a nature that would make it impossible for them to be saved in a better universe.  You hear some apologists on the topic of morality, claiming that if their god did not exist, they’d have no compunction about being immoral (or words to that effect) and you realise that these are truly scary people.  A gentler world is not for them.

Note that I am not saying that the Theological Zombie argument needs to have materialist zombies, rather than p-zombies.  I’m just addressing the possibility.  Either way, the people who need this universe to be saved remain true scumbags.

Theological Zombies to the Rescue!

I was listening to Skydive Phil’s debate with Randal Rauser recently and it occurred to me that I have a solution to the Problem of Evil.

I went part of the way in Theological Zombies already, but in that I was mostly aiming at the problem associated with the absence of compossibility, or to put it less abstrusely, the problem of a supposedly good, all-knowing, all-powerful god creating this universe in which many of the sentient beings with whom god apparently wants to have a loving relationship (being saved) will end up being damned (being sent to hell, being extinguished or merely being set apart depending on the type of god).

Phil and Randal were talking specifically about the suffering of animals and how that is inconsistent with the existence of a tri-omni god.  They danced around some of the standard defences, that animals are simply fleshy automatons (Descartes’ solution) or that animals don’t feel pain as we do (WLC’s solution) or that demons might be to blame (Plantinga’s silly argument, but only as a possible defeater raised in order to avoid a logical problem) or that the suffering of animals is somehow necessary to achieve a greater good (as I recall Randal tended to lean this way).

Now, in the Theological Zombies argument I present a way in which everyone can be saved.  The fact that there are worlds in which you may be saved but others are cannot is resolved by observing that god is not limited to creating one single universe.  As many universes as are needed can be created and largely populated with zombies that act precisely like other people would in the same circumstances, people who would either be saved in a universe with less suffering or who need a universe with even more suffering in it to be saved.  Therefore, the only beings in this universe who are not zombies are those for whom salvation is compossible with all the other real, non-zombie inhabitants.

If that means that god needs to create billions and billions of universes, that’s ok, because god is not limited in power, or by time, or anything (except perhaps logic).  But it does mean that anyone in this particular universe who is real and is being saved in it is a bit of a scumbag by virtue of it not being possible to be saved in any universe with less pain and suffering in it.

While I was specifically focusing on how Theological Zombies could avoid the problem with consigning so many people to hell or whatever, I can see now that the same argument applies to animals.  For those humans being saved in this universe, it is not necessary that real animals need to suffer.  All that is needed is for there to be theological zombie animals which act precisely as a real animal would if it were to suffer.  Which makes the people who are being saved in this universe even worse scumbags since they need those animals to suffer in order to be saved.

The positive thing though is that for the relatively low cost of accepting that pretty much nothing in this universe is actually real, and that you are a total scumbag who needs innocent animals to suffer, you can believe in whatever god you like and avoid the Problem of Evil altogether.

Plantinga, if he wants, is welcome to use this as one of his defeaters – at least it’s a lot less silly than pain and suffering demons.

The How Many Problem

The How Many Problem can be expressed like this:

How many individuals does god need (or want) to save?  How many sentient beings are justifiably cast into hell in order to achieve this goal?

I'll just clarify a few things:

It is standard christian theology that the god wants to save individuals, without this the sacrifice of Jesus would be meaningless.  Even in judaism  and islam you have the concept of prophets who are instructed by their god to pass on a message of salvation to the faithful.

The actual method of salvation is immaterial.  It could be via simple belief, rebirth baptism, grace or "coming to know and love god".  Whatever the mechanism, which could be far more subtle and complex than the examples given, this doesn't change the requirement to save individuals.

The nature of salvation is immaterial.  It could be floating around on clouds with a harp, it could be bodily resurrection, it could be something more ethereal, just not being in hell or, again, something more subtle and complex than these.  What matters is that this salvation is apparently important - to the god.

We know that one individual saved does not appear to be sufficient - Adam and Eve could have sufficed, Jesus could have sufficed, Jesus' acolytes could have sufficed, thousands of early christians could have sufficed.  Even today, with billions of christians, there is still an apparent need to seek more converts (and presumably more saved).

The god in question is apparently omniscient and omnipotent and, in some readings, unchanging in its nature.  Therefore, the idea that anything is served by having billions upon billions of imperfect humans interacting with it is problematic.  Nevertheless, this is an aspect of the christian creed.  The question remains - how many is enough, what figure does the thinking theist settle on and why is this large number (at least in the billions) better than the number that immediately follows it?

The nature of hell is immaterial (as in it doesn’t matter what the nature is, I am not claiming here that hell has a particular nature).  Perhaps it is all fire and brimstone, perhaps it is a long cold dark time spent away from god, perhaps it's just like this earth with all the joy and happiness sucked out of it - forever - or perhaps it is something more subtle and complex than that.  The point I am alluding to here is that those sentient beings who are not saved are apparently destined for some sort of hell (and not simple oblivion) and they will suffer there, at least for some longish period of time if not literally for a future eternity.  This is an ultimate problem of evil that is not solved by appealing to the greater good of saving some maximal number of souls, because the souls in hell are already damned.

The theist, to respond to this problem must identify a number, or a possible mechanism for setting a number, of individuals to be saved.

If this cannot be done, then the conclusion is that the god would need (or want) an infinite number of saved individuals.  It would further follow that, with any percentage failure rate higher than zero as the god churns through the souls in attempt to save them, there would be an infinite number of damned individuals.

To avoid that, we arrive at theological zombies.  But theological zombies bring their own problems (deception on the part of god, an emptiness on the part of the soul in the process of being saved in a universe otherwise inhabited by theological zombies, the level of imperfection of the soul in the process of being saved if this world is the best possible world in which it would be saved).

So, again, I ask the question: how many?

The Logic of Theological Zombies

Sometimes, rather than accepting an argument in words, an apologist will demand that an argument be presented as a series of premises and conclusions.  So here is the formal argument for theological zombies (and a little beyond):

P1 – Everything a maximally excellent being (MEB) wants is a thoroughly good thing (TGT)

P2 – The saving of a soul is a TGT

P3 – The MEB wants to save more than a single soul

P4 – That which is thoroughly good cannot saturate

C1 – Therefore, the MEB must want an infinite (or maximal) number of saved souls (from P1, P2, P3 and P4)

P5 – If the MEB wants an infinite (or maximal) number of saved souls it can achieve that by means of theological zombies

P6 – With the option of theological zombies, it not necessary that the MEB send any soul to hell

P7 – To be a maximally excellent being it must be impossible for there to be a superior being

P8 – If the notional MEB were to send any soul to hell, when it is possible to not send any souls to hell, then there would be a possible superior being to the notional MEB (meaning that the notional MEB is not an actual MEB)

C2 – No souls are sent to hell by the MEB (from C1, P5, P6, P7 and P8)

P9 – If the MEB will not, and cannot, send any souls to hell, then Jesus (as, or as a representative of, the MEB) was lying about hell (from C3)

P10 – A being that lies and lets its representatives lie is a lesser being than one that is always truthful and does not let its representatives lie

C3 – Therefore, there is no MEB associated with Jesus (from C2, P10, P11 and P7) and therefore christianity is false.

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Support and clarification for various premises and explanations for conclusions are as follows:

P1 – if the MEB wants anything that is less than a TGT then it is not omnibeneficient and not thoroughly good in itself (which would defeat the moral argument)

P2 – this could be argued from at least two perspectives.  Firstly, unnecessary damnation for anyone is not a thoroughly good thing.  Secondly, there are claims that the MEB wants humans to enter into a personal relationship with it, which saves the soul and must be a thoroughly good thing (along with the consequential saving of the soul).  Note that “soul” here could just mean “individual”, the precise mechanism of individuation post death is immaterial to the argument

P3 – the MEB apparently wants not only more than one saved soul but also more than one of each type, since that limited requirement could have been satisfied by just saving Adam and Eve.  The need to procreate and fill the planet with billions of people would indicate that the MEB wants many saved souls

P4 – that is to say that there is no value of N such that N is the optimum number of TGTs, because if N+1 TGTs is less good than N TGTs, then the TGT is not thoroughly good, because it can be bad under certain circumstances.  In other words, if you can say there is too much of a good thing, then that good thing is not a thoroughly good thing

C1 – infinite seems better when it comes to thoroughly good things since, as per P4, they cannot saturate, so for every value N, N+1 TGTs is better than N TGTs.  Perhaps there could be a "maximal number" of saved souls that is finite, but this eats away at both the omnipotence of the MEB and the thorough goodness of saving souls

P5 – see Theological Zombies

P6 – see Theological Zombies

P7 – seems quite self-evident to me

P8 – that is to say that given that theological zombies are not impossible, there is a way to avoid sending any soul to hell (noting that there is no commitment from the MEB that all experiences of humans must be both authentic and veridical – the non-veridical experiences of someone in a universe which is otherwise inhabited by theological zombies are still authentic experiences in that they are identical to the experiences they would have had in interactions with real others, they just have the benefit of being authentic without necessitating the condemning of any of those others to hell)

C2 – otherwise it would not be maximally excellent

P9 – the Jesus character mentions hell a few times, admittedly mostly in relation to parables, for example the Parable of the Net (Matt 13:49-50): “This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”  One might argue that this is just a parable, but earlier in the chapter, another parable, the Parable of the Weeds, was explained (Matt 13:41-42): “The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil.  They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”  There’s little space for misinterpretation there.

P10 – if there are two paths to the same objective and the only consequential difference is that one involves a lie and the other doesn’t, then the honest path is the better of the two

C3 – an MEB would not lie or permit lies on its behalf and it would not send souls to hell.  Therefore, there is a dilemma with respect to the Jesus character’s pronouncements on hell.  Either these pronouncements are factual and the supposed MEB sends souls to hell (and therefore it cannot be an MEB and therefore christianity is false) or these pronouncements are false and the Jesus character is lying about it (and therefore Jesus cannot be representing an MEB and therefore christianity is false).

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I listed the ways that theists might try to avoid the difficulties that follow consideration of theological zombies in WLC – A Hole:

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)

I think here there is another issue that one might need to keep in mind given the argument above.  If the MEB did use theological zombies to ensure that no created soul would be unsaved, then it would not necessarily need to send an actual avatar to Earth to speak on its behalf.  A madman who thinks that he is the earthly representative of the MEB would do, or a group of people with runaway imagination who create a fictional character who thinks he is the earthly representative of the MEB (or even knows it, given that he is fictional).  That is to say, the apparent lies of Jesus would only be lies if Jesus were divine or divinely inspired.  If they are the ravings of a madman or the words put into the mouth of a fictional character, then the MEB is neither lying nor allowing its representatives to lie.

WLC - A Hole (Through which Theological Zombies Emerge)

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.

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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)

Finally, I would ask any theist who is accidentally convinced by my argument to treat any and all theological zombies with the utmost care and respect.  It seems that we're here - dying and suffering, putting up with you, or at least simulating it - just to help you get into heaven because you failed to manage it in any better world.

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More zombies and the logic thereof.

God As Utility Monster

In Theological Zombies, I suggested that in order to maximise the number of people who freely choose to know and love it, a god needs only to create a world for each individual that is specially tailored such that the conditions necessary for that individual to freely choose to know and love god are satisfied.  Assuming anything other than an evil god, it is reasonable to conclude that the god would not create an individual that it knows would never choose to know and love it - because this is knowingly creating something that would suffer for eternity (the bunny problem).  So all individuals created, if the circumstances were right, could freely choose to know and love the creator god.  Being unlimited in power, time and materials, the god would therefore not put individuals into universes in which the conditions are not conducive to salvation.  This implies that anyone in our universe who is not going to be saved can't be real and must therefore be a theological zombie.  (I took a lot longer to get to the point in the linked article.)

At the end I listed some possible routes for a theist or apologist to take with respect to the argument, one of which was to reject the notion of maximal excellence (or maximal greatness, as it is sometimes termed).  Another option, that I didn't list was along the lines of Kevin Scharp's divine psychology objection.  The theist could state with some confidence that we have no idea as to what a god might want and what a god might choose to do when given the option to save one individual at the expense of another.

This is true enough.  However, once this floodgate is opened, the theist has lost the right to claim anything about what god thinks, or wants, or will do.  The power of many "logical" arguments for the existence of god are founded on assumptions regarding what god might do, might have done and how it might have preferred to do it.

Another problem is linked to the utility monster idea.  This is originally an objection to utilitarian ethics, the squishy idea of maximising happiness or well-being.  At an extreme, if Trevor got 100 units of pleasure from killing Maude, at the expense of 50 units of pleasure lost from Maude and her family, then Maude should let Trevor kill her and thus maximise happiness.  It doesn't have to be that extreme though.  If we both like chocolate, but I like chocolate twice as much as you, then I should get more of it than you, at least until your unhappiness outweighs my extra happiness (or I have eaten all the chocolate).

In a sense, the god of the bible could be thought of as the ultimate utility monster.  If that god wants anything, to even the slightest extent, then by its nature, that want becomes a command.  If something would be even in the slightest bit pleasing to that god, that something would be mandatory.

Consider, a being like this cannot forget and is eternal.  So anything that is even vaguely pleasurable will, in the mind of that being, exist positively, forever.  For us, however, anything that is even ecstatically pleasurable that we might experience will fade in our memories and eventually die with us.

In effect, that would make us ethical slaves to merest wishes of such a god.

At least it would if we were utilitarians.

And if the god in question existed.

Theological Zombies

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 said this:

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, with which I agree 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 comes 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 other configurations they would be damned.  While it might be comforting to imagine 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 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 the doctrine of 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 very sort that I'd expect WLC to embark upon)

Finally, I would like to make an appeal to any theist who is accidentally persuaded, by my argument, that they are one of a few real beings on this zombie infested planet.  Please treat any and all theological zombies that you interact with on a daily basis with the utmost of care and respect.  After all, we are here - dying and suffering, putting up with you, or at least simulating it - just to help you get into heaven because you failed to manage it in a better, more pleasant world.

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More zombies and the logic thereof.