Non-Identity Theodicy (UNDERRATED Theodicy?)

[dhrevrogers]

A most excellent theodicy. My wife who suffers with a chronic pain situation found some encouragement from this.

[MadebyKourmoulis]

"Evil exists so you can exist" that statement is true in many ways. If God decided to get rid of every evil person there would be no more people.

[MatthewDickau]

Some similar considerations in Alexander Pruss' paper "Divine Creative Freedom" (available on his website). I find myself frequently recommending that paper, and here I'm doing it again!

[DanielApologetics]

Nice one! Yes, Vince Vitale's work is underrated.

[avivastudios]

This video is a masterpiece. I'm not being hyperbolic. Great work, man.

[mattbilyeu]

I liked it! I liked your point about it not requiring free will to still work as a theodicy. I believe in free will, but the fewer commitments our positions require the better off we'll be.

The part at the beginning reminded me of an argument against the B-theory of time. On the A-theory, you endure through time from infancy to adulthood. This endurance through time seems to be enough to explain the continuity of identity. On the B-theory, there is no sense in which the younger person endures through time to become the older person. In fact, both the younger and the older versions are equally real (albeit at different coordinates in the spacetime block).

[ytcollin]

My intuition is that this theory of identity may pose some problems for some views of how the Trinity works, but I don't know that for sure.

[kennylee]

This is a fascinating theodicy. Thanks for the treat!

[ajhieb]

So at the end of the day we're still stuck with a God that preferred to make a world with evil, than a world without evil. A god that preferred to condemn billions of people to an eternity of suffering and torture, while he hangs out with his clique, rather than a God who opted not to torture anybody and and hang out with a different clique for eternity. (A group that _by definition_ is a better group according to God's standards)

[AzukaTheGoat]

Your videos have been really helpful to me. Understanding and seeing my existence not as some number in a cold calculus by God but as a deliberate act to bring me about as me.

[Sugarycaaaaaandygoodness]

Interesting argument! Learning more each day, thanks to channels like this.

I have to say, I'm not sure it would work as well with animals though, since I don't think creating specific individual animals would have the value to God as specific humans

[probaskinnyman]

Interesting theodicy! Also was wondering, will you make another video talking about potential objections, or things of that nature?

[juance]

Hi apologetics squared, I got a question, How would you respond to people that say reality didn’t began to exist? Also nice video.

[johns]

I have to say, this is the best theodicy I've heard. It gets around my main objection to all the other theodicies, which is that it places a lower moral standard on God than on humans. (What I mean is that the other theodicies give reasons that we would never accept for regular humans, like with free will, we would never accept that it is OK for a regular human not to intervene and stop someone's suffering because it interferes with free will, that would just be absurd.) But for humans in this scenario, there is no way for humans to "know" ahead of time what individuals they want to come into existence ahead of time. And if they could, well that would go against our intuitions in such a big way there is no seeing to how most people would react to it. In the end though, I still disagree with it, because I think allowing suffering just to create an individual like me is not justified. But I acknowledge that this is not completely intuitive and reasonable people can disagree.

[jgone]

But why would he choose to create person A whose creation necessitates evil, over person B whose creation does not necessitate evil. Would you say that the creation of any individual requires evil?

[sunblaze]

162 milliseconds to like the video after clicking…I think that’s a record!

[j.victor]

Hey, man talking about theodicy...
Can you make a video about Felix's Culpa! ? I think that is also a great theodicy that is very underrated...

[grosty]

I think another way to add to this would be to introduce universalism or annihilationism and thus removing the problem that arises with the idea that God “wastes” humans merely to get beings of certain traits.

[theunnoticable]

Good video! This certainly seems like an underrated theodicy!

Thoughts:

I think that there can be a world with maximal pleasure, though, and that would be the best possible world. In that world, all people would be experiencing maximal pleasure.

However, how many people should there then be? Would “the more the merrier” work here? In that case, maybe an infinite amount of people would exist in the best possible world. Is there some reason I’m missing here for why there can’t be a world with maximal pleasure?

Of course, this is not an issue if you agree that God’s priority is the creation of certain individuals.

But, then the issue seems to me to be that there doesn’t seem to be a reason to suppose God would prioritize the creation of an individual person over maximal pleasure. Must there be a reason, or am I missing something?

[vynne]

Problem is : if you want to be really precise, identit doesn’t make sense
There is no one trait or set of traits that make you you.

The closest thing to identity that seems acceptable to me is « cohérence through time ». Or to put it in other terms : in a world where everything changes all the time, you are still perceived as « you » when this change is gradual and smooth. Or in other words again : when people say « you’ve changed » or « this isn’t you », they don’t refer to any specific traits of your identity, they refer to the general ensemble of traits that consist in « you ». And if one trait is perceived to have change too quickly or without reason, the person is thought to have changed, even though the changes may have been smooth and spread over time, but just hidden to the person.

So no, no essential propriety for identity. I’d argue even against origin.
Because if one day you get gradually and smoothly replaced organ by organ by a mechanical equivalent, including your brain (imagine it being replaced neuron by neuron, to keep the global cohérence of your brain) (this wouldn’t therefore be a mere copy of your brain, but your actual brain), I’d argue this mechanical aggregate is still you.
Because it has changed (obviously), but smoothly, gradually, over time.