The Problem of Heaven (part 1a)

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Welcome to this the second entry in the series on the problem of heaven. As you’ve no doubt noticed, this is not officially being called ‘part 2′ but rather ‘part 1a’. Allow me to explain. It all has to do with the discussion that arose in the comments section after part one was posted. That discussion forced me to think about the presentation of the problem of heaven that I had originally offered. That presentation had followed the one in Graham Oppy’s book Arguing about Gods . Oppy is a top-notch philosopher, but on reflection it seems like his presentation isn’t necessarily the best way to explain the persuasive force of the problem of heaven. Thus, with your permission, I’d like to use this post to present the problem in a new light.

I’m going to do this by following the discussion in Simon Cushing’s paper “Evil, Freedom and the Heaven Dilemma”. Cushing shows exactly how the problem of heaven joins up with the debate over the logical argument from evil (LAFE) and Plantinga’s free will defence (FWD). As a result, he gives a much clearer picture of the dialectical stakes that are raised by the problem of heaven. I hope that by reading this post you too will have a clearer sense of what’s going on than was the case after reading part one.

The Logical Argument from Evil

The first thing we must do in our quest to properly understand the dialectical context is to pay a visit to the classic LAFE. I don’t want to say too much about this since the internet is already teeming with excellent discussions of this argument (Luke has discussed it before); I just want to do enough to set us up for understanding Plantinga’s FWD.

The most commonly discussed version of the LAFE belongs, of course, to Mackie. As it happens, Mackie’s version is a good deal more sophisticated than you might think (you’ll see this if you read the lecture linked to above). Still, his basic idea was that the following group of propositions (premises) forms a mutually inconsistent set:

(1) God is omnipotent (all-powerful).

(2) God is omniscient (all-knowing).

(3) God is eternal.

(4) God is omnibenevolent (all-good).

(5) Evil exists.

More straightforwardly, we’d say that propositions (1)-(4) imply that evil does not exist (because God should have the power to prevent all evils), whereas proposition (5) states that it does exist, and hence there is a contradiction. Obviously, if this is correct, a theist can only respond by denying one of the propositions in the set. But, for various reasons we won’t get into here, this is not typically done. Instead, the typical response — and the one made famous by Plantinga — is to deny that (1) – (5) form a mutually inconsistent set.

[Just a quick note: You may be wondering why (3) is included since this doesn’t seem to say anything about God’s capacity to prevent evil — this is something that will be addressed in a future post. Roughly, the idea is that different conceptions of eternity imply different things about God’s ability to prevent evil and so a reference God’s eternality must be included in the discussion.]

The Free Will Defense

The goal of Plantinga’s FWD is to show that (1) – (5) form a mutually inconsistent set. How exactly is this done? Again, I don’t want to get into this in too much detail since Luke has discussed it before. Still, I must sketch the basic logic and strategy behind the defence. Here’s, roughly, how it goes.

To overcome the logical problem, Plantinga needs to add some “broadly logically possible” propositions to the original set which, when taken in conjunction with the existing members, imply that (1) – (4) are true and that (5) is also true. In other words, he needs to add some propositions that show how it is possible for all five of the original propositions to be true at the same time. This strategy rests on the principle that if two propositions (call them P and Q) are formally inconsistent, then it is not logically possible for them to be true at the same time. But if there is a third proposition (call it R) that is logically possible, and if that proposition when combined with P entails Q, then P and Q can be true at the same time. And so, it follows, that P and Q are not formally inconsistent.

In the case of the FWD, two propositions are added to the original set. These are:

(6) There cannot be a state of existence containing beings with morally significant free will wherein evil will not eventually occur (call this FWD1).

(7) A state of existence with both morally significant free will and evil is better than one without either (call this FWD2).

When combined with (1) – (4), these two propositions would entail (5) and so would show that the original set of propositions are not formally inconsistent.

Before going any further, a couple of words must be said about the phrasing of (6) and (7). The phrasing is Cushing’s, not Plantinga’s, and he notes a couple of unusual features of his preferred phrasing.

First, and unlike some of the more traditionally presentations — including the presentation that was discussed in the comments section to part one — (6) does not say that there “cannot” be no evil in a universe with morally significant free will. Instead it says that in such a universe there must, eventually, be evil. Cushing opted for this way of putting it because he felt it was logically possible for a universe consisting of one being to exist for such a short period of time that no evil could be done. This would suggest that the traditional way of putting it is false. This new way of putting it is better (even if not clearly true itself).

Second, the word “better”, which is included in (7), is deliberately vague. It is, as Cushing puts it, a “placeholder for later discussion”.

The (New?) Problem of Heaven

To recap on the dialectic to this point: we began with a fairly typical (but incompletely spelled-out) version of the logical argument from evil (LAFE). According to this argument, a being with the properties traditionally ascribed to God cannot coexist with evil (of any amount). This a because of an alleged formal inconsistency between the propositions describing God and the proposition affirming the existence of evil. The LAFE is then repudiated by the free will defence (FWD) which, by adding propositions to the original set, shows how it is possible for God and evil to coexist.

It is at this point that the problem of heaven enters the dialectical fray. It works in a straightforward two-step manner. It starts by adding yet more propositions to the already expanded set. And it follows this by showing how these additional propositions, when combined with the propositions making up the FWD, give rise to a significant dilemma. Let’s go through these two steps in more detail.

First, let’s add the extra propositions to the set. These propositions capture orthodox claims about the nature of heaven:

(8) At least some humans (or beings who were humans while on earth) have entered heaven (note: some claim that no one has yet entered heaven, but that they will in the future. If you are one of them, or if you encounter one of them, you can simply restate the dilemma we are about to formulate in the future tense).

(9) There cannot be evil heaven (or “necessarily, there is no evil in heaven”).

(10) Heaven is the best possible state of existence.

We will deal with the objections to these propositions later, for now we accept them as true and move on to consider how they create a the dilemma alluded to above. The idea is that (6), (8) and (9), taken together, imply the exact opposite to (7), (8) and (10), taken together. As follows:

(6) There cannot be a state of existence containing beings with morally significant free will wherein evil will not eventually occur.

(8) At least some humans (or beings who were humans while on earth) have entered heaven.

(9) There cannot be evil in heaven.

(11) Therefore, no humans who have entered heaven have free will.

Versus:

(7) A state of existence with both morally significant free will and evil is better than one without either.

(8) At least some humans (or beings who were humans while on earth) have entered heaven.

(10) Heaven is the best possible state of existence.

(11*) At least some of the humans who have entered heaven have free will.

Obviously, these two conclusions are formally inconsistent — so something has to give. Either: (a) we give up the orthodox conception of heaven and keep the FWD; or (b) we give up the FWD, keep the orthodox conception of heaven, and reopen the LAFE. This, then, is the dilemma posed by the problem of heaven.

Summing Up

With any luck, this restatement has achieved its intended goal: to clarify the dialectical stakes raised by the problem of heaven. Obviously clarifying the dialectical stakes of the problem is not the end of the story. It is now possible to move on to consider the objections to the problem. These will all come in the form of challenges to the conception of heaven presented by propositions (8) – (10). We’ll talk about those the next day.