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 ;)
Believe it or not, J. S. Mill ranks in my "top-four" philosophers. I was a little surprised to learn (via a self-evaluative survey published here at FR a year or so back) that he's "right up there" with Aquinas, Plato, and Aristotle when it comes to what passes for fundamental authoritative sources with me. But subsequently I checked out the finding, and it stands to reason.
Mill set great store by observation and experience -- so much so that he even managed a way credibly to inject an experiential component into the classical syllogism. He was firmly rooted in the common reality that can be described as dependent on observation and experience; yet was also keenly aware that human beings cannot be reduced to such terms.
And certainly God cannot be reduced to such terms.
Mill played by the rules he set for himself: People should only speak publicly in the language of empirical technique. The rest is private and thus probably untranslatable into language that would be meaningful to other people. It might be the sort of thing that would be fun in a bull session in a coffee house, but it wouldn't be "science."
Let's pick up the threads of a conversation, you go first. [You are in green, my relies are in magenta.] May we invoke the spirit of J. S. Mill to referee and umpire what follows!?
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. 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.
"Evil exists, ergo we must choose between perfect goodness and omnipotence." Well, from the purely empirical human point of view, that would seem to constitute the fundamental, final choice. And from the side of observation and experience, this statement of the problem would seem to make perfect sense.
But -- here's the problem when you take the criteria of observation and experience as your "touchstones" of the truth of reality: You relegate yourself to the position of a hypothetical observer. But we humans are NOT "hypothetical observers." We are parts and participants of the total reality, and thus cannot see the ALL of it, given our contingent position in it in space and time.
So, the question then becomes: Are we human beings to try to edit "reality" down to the way we "normally" experience it (i.e., through the criteria of observation and direct experience), and congratulate ourselves on this construction of "truth" as the final discovery of truth? Or can we say, if we are part and participant rather than mere observer, can we say that certain aspects of the truth of our own existence pass beyond what can be directly observed by us?
J. S. Mill didn't say. It was beyond the scope of the problem he set for himself.
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I meant to say more here, but hubbie just came home, and I have to go make dinner. Hope to pick up this thread again soon. Meanwhile, general_re, if you've got helpful suggestions about how to improve this dialog, please don't hesitate to write.
p.s.: One thing J. S. Mill didn't do, to my knowledge: He did not require God to justify Himself to man. He had the good sense to stop short of doing that. He may have been "progressive"; but he wasn't "suicidal."