Pretty attached to it, general_re. For creation out of nothing would seem to demand it.
I am aware that J.S. Mill feels that the divine attributes of goodness and omnipotence are apparently irreconcilable. For how can a good God, if he is omnipotent, permit evil in the world? If a good God doesn't "stop it," then he must not be omnipotent.
Mill can only reason from the human side -- he is a committed empiricist. There is a way to answer the apparent conflict between divine goodness and omnipotence; but it is not one that can be directly viewed or "tested" by man. Yet the test of the truth about something is not necessarily that it can be directly observed by man.
God can be good and omnipotent -- yet freely choose to "limit" Himself -- by virtue of the logic of His having vested man with free will. If He were to intervene directly to elmininate the evil of this world, then that would be to violate His own grant of free will to men. To put it crudely, one might say that God made a "deal with man," and He keeps His promises.
Arguably, God did not put the evil in the world. Evil is always a possibility where man is free to choose. To "correct" man in this life for his choices -- which would be the effect of God intervening to overrule and eliminate evil -- would effectively make God an "indian-giver." (So to speak.)
Mill in these passages is only saying what man can know (and thus conclude) on the basis of observation. He does not say that observation is necessarily the ultimate test of what is the truth of reality, just that it's the best tool man has. Mill is aware of the limits of human knowledge. He does not say that man -- or more precisely, what man can know via empirical means -- is necessarily "the measure" of all things. But he does in effect say he chooses to remain "agnostic" about things that are not knowable on the basis of observation and experience.
He is not so agnostic, however, as to fail to note that the universe is "designed." Or to note that ideas of God can draw man to his own great benefit and to the benefit of society. He has noticed that human nature quite often resonates to ideas of God. This is something an empiricist can respect. Unlike his father, J.S. Mill was not an outright atheist.
Rather, I will try to give you all a different way of looking at God as "all of the omni's"...
First of all, try reading the Bible from Genesis thru the Gospels as a history of sorts of a people's journey of faith and relationship with their Creator. When reading Deuteronomy 6, and especially Deuteronomy 6:4-9, read it as not only a way of life but, in the shorter passage, a prescription for a method of what might be called generational learning. (Here, think of the stories about the Australian Aborigines and their ability to "remember" things that their ancestors did, observed, sensed before they were born.)
If you do this (and yes, it might take some time for those who have never read all this material before, or in this way), I think the picture that will begin to emerge is of a God who will not reveal Himself until his children are ready to understand what is next to be revealed.
Or, to put it a bit more succinctly, God is omnipotent but because we are finite, He is forced to wait for us to catch up.
And, as always, if this doesn't help, pitch it into the nearest circular file. :)
More or less - either he prevents it because he is perfectly good and omnipotent, or he fails to prevent it because he is less than perfectly good or less than omnipotent. Evil exists, ergo we must choose between perfect goodness and omnipotence. And that's what Mill objects to - the notion of compatibility between perfect goodness and omnipotence, for the reasons he lays out above. I'm not at all sure that he would object to omnipotence combined with some variety of goodness that was less than perfect, but I doubt that's acceptable to you either ;)
God can be good and omnipotent -- yet freely choose to "limit" Himself -- by virtue of the logic of His having vested man with free will. If He were to intervene directly to elmininate the evil of this world, then that would be to violate His own grant of free will to men. To put it crudely, one might say that God made a "deal with man," and He keeps His promises.
Of course. But again, some action being off-limits to God can only be a result of God making such an action off-limits to Himself. God, being omnipotent and omniscient, surely knew in advance what the result of free will would be, and thus in a very real sense has chosen to permit evil and misery to both exist and flourish by his grant of free will. IOW, if God is omnipotent, God chose a course of action that He must have known would have resulted in the existence of evil and misery. If so, how can we conclude anything but that evil and misery exist because God wanted it that way?
Arguably, God did not put the evil in the world. Evil is always a possibility where man is free to choose. To "correct" man in this life for his choices -- which would be the effect of God intervening to overrule and eliminate evil -- would effectively make God an "indian-giver."
Perhaps, but why is God limited to post hoc actions? Nevermind intervening after the fact to "correct" the existence of evil, an omnipotent God must have had the power to prevent it in the first place - and yet He chose not to. And not only did He decline to prevent it, He chose a course of action that He must have known would lead to the existence of evil.
And how does that fit with the notion of "perfect" goodness? It seems to me that if this is "perfect" goodness - choosing a course of action that one knows in advance will lead to evil consequences - then perfection is going to be much easier to attain than I thought...
He is not so agnostic, however, as to fail to note that the universe is "designed"...Unlike his father, J.S. Mill was not an outright atheist.
Or at least appears to be designed. No, Mill was not an atheist or an agnostic, much to the disappointment of some of his friends when his essays on religion were published posthumously ;)
I have enjoyed your fasscinating and superb dialogue here. Please forgive this interjection, but I wonder what made J.S. Mill think that taking away evil in the world has anything to do with God's power? Power can only do what power can do. I might as well ask our dear general to make a square circle, as to ask how a Good God if he is omnipotent, permit evil in the world.
Cordially,