Barry O'Grady wrote in message <>...
>"Rowland C. Croucher" <> wrote:

[snip]

>:However: here we must ask C.S.Lewis' question: what are we asking God to
>:do? Fix the stress fracture or whatever in a train wheel when the
>:manufacturer / quality controller may not have done their job well?
>
>Given the claim that God has much higher moral standards than any
>human we should ask what a moral human would do given Gods power.
>
>Any decent human with Gods power would act to prevent any disasters
>and suffering.

This statement certainly sounds reasonable at first glance.
I submit, however, that it conceals a logical inconsistency.
If I can show this, then it removes this argument as an
objection to God's existence.

(I note in passing, that God's omnipotence is quite often
invoked as a _reductio ad absurdum_ for a theistic position
-- but clearly no entity can make 2+2=5, or the like, so we
have to be very careful that what we're suggesting God "could"
do, isn't in this category.  As somebody said on this ng a few
months ago, a self-contradictory statement doesn't stop
being self-contradictory just because I put "God can" in front
of it.)

OK, let's say I have a lot of power, and a goodly amount of
foreknowledge, so I can see that a disaster is going to happen
unless I stop it.  So I stop it.  I see that a whole lot of people
are going to be injured or killed by an unplanned altercation
with the laws of physics, so I simply stop it happening.

But where do I draw the line?  If I stop one disaster, I have to stop
them all, or the same objection remains.  And not only that, but
I mustn't only stop the big disasters, I have to stop all the little
ones
as well.  After all, where can you draw the line?

So what this proposal boils down to, is a different reality -- one
that doesn't bite.  Our present reality sometimes bites when we
abuse it.  But this proposal is for a reality which doesn't bite.
One where the laws of physics always go along with us
in the nicest possible way.

OK, but now there are two major problems:

1. What I want reality to do mightn't be what my next-door
neighbour wants.

2. What if my next-door neighbour is himself part of the
 problem (he shouts at my cat, or whatever).  (Sorry
for sexist language here).

I now submit that the problem, as I've now formulated it,
has no solutions (in a mathematical sense).  There is
no self-contradictory result that satisfies the requirements
we've put on it, unless we "draw the line" at some pretty
arbitrary point, which lots of people will disagree with.

OK, if this argument is up the creek, where does it
fall down?

Cheers,  Mike Hore