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."
...I think it is also to be said that the very gift of being a being, '...created in the image of God' and 'self-directional' is not only something that God wouldn't take back, but that it is something of perfectly good 'AND' surpassing? undiminished value (especially when one is being sensible enough to accept God's being God, but even if one is not).
In so stating, I'm tending to push my chips to the middle of the table to say that even pain and suffering and evil as we may choose to call all the consequences of our disobedient motivations are of God's goodness and how do you like them "apples?" (Scriptures inform us that God makes the blacksmith that forges idols, that Satan can bargain with Job in a place in Heaven, God is known to have sent a lying spirit into the nasty mouths of false prophets, to cause calamities, etc.) One might even say that all suffering is an initial part of rectification. BUT, God doesn't cause the disobedient motivations that sinners have. Those are totally of our own creation and of will which yet, is an inherently a good thing to have and never ceases to be.
And eventually, the corrupt strand in space/time will be "rolled up" and evil wills shall be removed from any causality I think, or what is the fire for? Picking up on what you just said about God's true perspective vs. ours, I think we who know him will then have enough of it to see, face to face, as much of the truth of it as we care to, including as much logic as we wish to play with.
I don't see how from our "human perspective" we would be caused by empiricism to see God as having the contradiction, though it could seem extremely apparent by our logic and uninformed bases. Of course I have based these views upon axioms, but so even are our "principles" of empiricism. Please inform if I'm stepping on epistemological daisies that I don't see here.
Another way of saying it all is that instead of diminishing God's goodness and power (to do what he chooses as he maintains integrity) we should make sure we don't diminish what perfect things he has given us, in both the conveyed power to make decisions and the ability to be seen by God as good and good how? -- by one's most apt decision.
And now I too, will humbly hope to have my meat and drink.
Very true, but the fact that we are not privy to everything does not obviate that which we do observe. We don't have to find a mountain high enough to observe all of creation in order to see that evil exists here, which it undeniably does. Mill would, I suspect, point out that the suggestion of some grander plan which we cannot see being operant is likely to be small comfort to the victims of the evils created by an omnipotent God. "We cannot see how it fits into the big picture" does not affect where the problem begins - with the undeniable fact that evil exists.