THE INFINITE WALL THEODICY

ABSTRACT

The Infinite Wall Theodicy: God’s divine objectives for human life and reality include instilling true free will, unique identity, consciousness, and intellect and ‘painting reality’ with suitable manifolds for living environments.  In so doing a synthesis of divine objectives and universal laws and mechanisms is required to achieve those objectives including the removal of human life beyond God’s control to negate determinism. Therefore this synthetic a priori generation of compatible configurations of human circuitry and environments is mathematically constrained by the absence of an infinite repertoire of designs and manifolds rendering a perfect human circuit and perfect environment not reasonably possible.

INTRODUCTION

A similar question was asked by Albert Einstein. A vivid challenge was Stephen Fry’s question for God if he ever arrived at the ‘pearly gates of heaven’: - “Bone cancer in children, what’s that all about?”. This question formed the focus of a paper by Dr. Shane Clifton, Emeritus Professor of Theology, entitled “Challenging Stephen Fry’s diatribe against God”1 who said: “My examination of this topic stems from an accident I had in 2010 that left me a quadriplegic. So, I have some sympathy with Fry’s complaint, and since the accident I have struggled with faith and doubt. Even though I mostly come out on the side of belief, I may well air a complaint of two when and if I arrive at the pearly gates.”2

Importantly, Dr. Clifton observes: “…too often philosophical theodicy talks about evil and suffering in the abstract, setting aside the existential- the personal experience of suffering that defies the impassive logic that frames abstract talk of evil”. The answer to this type of question is generally called a Theodicy, namely, a set of reasons explaining why an all good, all-powerful and all-knowing God would create our world despite its evil and suffering.

To add to Dr Clifton’s observation of the seriousness of the question, a surprising connection to this discussion was highlighted in a 2013 medical sociology paper on palliative care in hospitals and nursing homes where theodicy was proposed as the core principle for clinicians counselling patients to provide comfort and understanding for those holding religious or spiritual beliefs. (See Dein, Et Al, Theodicy and End-of-Life Care 3)           

Many patients can have spiritual distress caused by guilt or regret over the view of their life against the background of their beliefs. The clinical experience indicated in that paper is that a compelling theodicy can remove the spiritual distress providing peace of mind to patients suffering from mental distress and anxiety.  Moreover, it is hoped that the distress highlighted by Dr Clifton can equally be addressed by a compelling theodicy or defence. Indeed, philosophy retains the power to transform the key ideas governing our lives, existence and reality for the better – hopefully not with mere impassive logic.

This paper proposes an answer through analysis of what world God could create for human beings including why God did not make a better world in the sense of creating ‘perfect’ human beings free of disease, disability, disaster, despair etc. The focus will be on whether or not it was reasonably possible to make such a better (coherent) world rather than whether the presence of suffering in the world was for the greater good or spiritual development of mankind (although that remains important).4 Whilst this might appear to be more impassive logic, it turns out to be a rich and hopefully inspiring topic when applied to the nature of reality. The importance of this focus includes the puzzling significance of what is termed, natural evil such as Alzheimer’s Disease or cancer in children which proponents of the ‘greater good’ or ‘spiritual development’ theodicies may find challenging to answer.

PHILOSOPHICAL CONTEXT

Notable philosophers in this field include Alvin Plantinga5, and Richard Swinburne who wrote Providence and the Problem of Evil 6. Alvin Plantinga’s free will defence was explained by him as follows: “A world containing creatures who are significantly free (and freely perform more good than evil actions) is more valuable, all else being equal than a world containing no free creatures at all. Now God can create free creatures, but He can’t cause or determine them to do only what is right.” 7 His paper is regarded as refuting an earlier challenge to God’s existence by Mackie.

In Evil and Omnipotence, 8 Mackie threw a challenge to the free will defence stating that “…why could he not have made men such that they always freely choose the good?” Mackie discussed the unresolved paradox of omnipotence – why or how God could create creatures which he then put beyond his power to control. Importantly, he stated, “…omnipotence has never meant the power to do what is logically impossible, and on the present view the existence of good without evil would be a logical impossibility”. His paper did challenge that ‘present view’ forcefully but it is beyond the scope of this paper to reproduce the expansive analysis of the semantics of ‘omnipotence’ in this regard except to restate later the important principle that it does not extend to doing the impossible. (my italics).

Mackie’s remaining challenge – many years later Mackie conceded Plantinga’s free will defence remained logically in force but raised the challenge that this paper seeks to address:

“Since this defense is formally [that is, logically] possible, and its principle involves no real abandonment of our ordinary view of the opposition between good and evil, we can concede that the problem of evil does not, after all, show that the central doctrines of theism are logically inconsistent with one another. But whether this offers a real solution to the problem is another question.” 9 (my italics). This paper is intended to provide a real solution.

Swinburne defines theodicy as follows: “I thus understand by a ‘theodicy’ not an account of God’s actual reasons for allowing a bad state to occur, but an account of his possible reasons (i.e. reasons which God has for allowing the bad state to occur...)”;10

Swinburne has also laid down a core principle for theodicies which he terms “The Logical Straightjacket which he explains as follows: “God will seek to provide all the good things and none of the bad things…. But he cannot- for reasons of logic. For, as simple non- religious examples will make evident, some good states are logically incompatible with each other.” He demonstrates that a coherent reality is necessary by citing examples such as both teams cannot win a game of football or two different people cannot be president at the same time etc. and makes an interesting point:

“…. People sometimes think that a really powerful God ought to do the logically impossible…But to say that some ‘action’ is logically impossible is just to say that what appears to be a description of an action does not make ultimate sense.”11

Many philosophers would agree with Mackie that the Problem of Evil is very much alive.12

This question reduces to a clash between competing schemes of thought - the grand scheme of reality that science has constructed against any grand scheme of ‘God’s Reality’ that can be constructed from philosophy and theology. Religion is not meant to be accessible to reason but faith should be based on reasonable foundations beyond ‘God’s mystery’.

CHOICE OF WORLD

Einstein’s famous question regarding whether God had any choice in the way he made the world exposes the crucial issue of theodicy i.e. why an all good, all-powerful and all-knowing God chose this world despite its evil and suffering.  This question, which strikes at the heart of the nature of reality, has been considered in depth technically by many philosophers but few have approached it with an analysis of the nature of reality. Similar sentiments to those held by Dr. Clifton were expressed by C.S. Lewis after he lost his wife to cancer despite earlier logical arguments about what world could be created: “We can, perhaps conceive of a world in which God corrected the results of this abuse of free will [i.e. moral evil] by His creatures at every moment: so that a wooden beam became soft as grass when it was used as a weapon…[however] the very conception of a common and therefore stable, world, demands that [miracles] be extremely rare.” 13

One of history’ s greatest thinkers, Gottfried Leibniz invented the word theodicy and wrote a treatise Theodicy in 1709 proposing: ‘God made the best of all possible worlds’ because if there were a better one there would have been no ‘sufficient reason’ for God to withhold it. So, if God did have a choice he chose wisely. A critic of Leibniz, Voltaire was so disturbed about the Lisbon earthquake that he wrote his famous novel, Candide making fun of Leibniz’s theodicy.

However, Leibniz expert, Professor Antognazza comments that Voltaire might not have appreciated the intricacy of Leibniz’s argument, but recognizes a major flaw in Leibniz’s Theodicy:

“Assuming (as Leibniz does) that there are infinitely many possible worlds, and that the actual world, as many others, is also itself infinite, how can there be a ‘best’ one?  For there to be infinitely many possible worlds means that no matter how many we can think there are, there are more. …And …..no matter how great is the number of beings we think there are in each of these infinite worlds , there are more.”….Leibniz’s strategy for repelling this (for his purposes, quite devastating objection, is to appeal to the principle of sufficient reason.” 14 In effect, Leibniz acknowledges we lack the knowledge as to what that sufficient reason may be and indeed we are seeking to discover that reason in this paper. Clearly, his argument has not been seen as compelling. The question of whether God chose the best world is a crucial issue but we need more than the simple inference that it was a good choice. Indeed, Swinburne states that there cannot logically be a ‘best of all possible worlds’ because whatever world we imagine God could always add more good people to make it better (a similar objection to that of Professor Antognazza). 15 In response to Mackie’s challenge, Plantinga has also referred to God’s inability to make any possible world as ‘Leibniz’s Lapse’ because some worlds would involve logical inconsistencies.16

KNOWLEDGE AND CHANGE

Plato’s definition “that knowledge is …. justified true belief - has proved to be the most influential definition of knowledge in the history of philosophy”, according to Emeritus Professor of Philosophy William Prior. 17 Moreover, Plato developed a theory of Forms which involves the system of universal concepts of things. Things of the world that you can sense are called sensible things but no matter what a sensible thing is made of (or resembles) it can represent a universal. Thus, a hammer could be made of steel or wood or other materials and have a “T shape” or other shapes but the ‘universal’ hammer exists for Plato in the world of forms. However, whilst Plato saw all worldly objects as definable as forms this “did not apply to sensible things, because they were always changing…. In the Theaetus, [Plato] shows that, in a Hericlitean world of perpetual flux, there could be no knowledge. [Moreover] In the Phaedo...…he argues that the equal things we see…only imperfectly instantiate perfect Equality. Thus, perfect Equality, a Form, cannot exist in the sensible world.” 18 This scheme leads to the view that there are 2 worlds – first, the world of eternal immutable forms – the world of being and second, the sensible temporal ‘becoming’. In the Republic, Plato deals with ideal things.  Prior explains further:  “ As it would be no criticism of a painter who painted an ideally beautiful human being if it turned out that no actual human being ever perfectly resembled the painting so it is no criticism of the model …if it turns out that no state perfectly exemplifies that model. It would be enough if a state could come close to the perfection of the model.” 19 For the purposes of this paper, we need to test the likelihood that God could make a perfect human being or failing that an approximately perfect human being. Our intuition may be that both of these objects are achievable but our probabilistic world of universal laws and mechanisms is governed by those laws and mathematics. To take one example, mathematician Ian Stewart comments: “Human intuition for probability is hopeless.” 20 This paper strives to provide a framework for this intuition which can fail us badly. Scientists initially believed that Newton’s equations would allow precise predictions of the movements of 3 planets until the mathematics revealed that chaos intervened to create the insolubility associated with what is called the ‘3 body problem’. This issue will be revisited later. Plato’s theory of knowledge is based on the world of conceptversus the world of perceptions, flux and change. This is his ontology, namely, ‘an account of what exists’ and ‘an account of the ultimate principles of the universe’.

This seems to simplify reality between God’s realm – the metaphysical realm and the world – the sensible or empirical realm until something peculiar arises from more analysis.

According to philosopher Dan O’Brien, something is a priori if it can be known without the “course of natural events in the world”. 21 Kant refers to a priori truths as analytic – i.e. they are ‘true in virtue of the meanings of the terms used to express them and their truth can be discovered through philosophical analysis…Synthetic truths do not simply depend on what our terms mean, but also how the world happens to be.” 22 A peculiar anomaly is then raised by Dan O’Brien namely that of the ‘Synthetic A Priori’ which he explains: “I know that ‘if something is red all over, then it cannot be green all over’, and in order to know this I do not have to observe various coloured objects…I can know that this statement is true just by thinking about it.  This is therefore an a priori truth. It does not, though appear to be analytic: it is not part of the meaning of something being red all over that it is not green all over.” 23            Colours of things are not the only examples of the synthetic a priori.   Dan O’Brien refers to Kant’s law of morality as synthetic a priori and Descartes’ ontological argument for the existence of God - God exists because we have an idea of a perfect God existing already. 24 (Fortunately, there are now more compelling arguments for God’s existence footnoted here!)25 He cites Kant’s key objection to this argument, namely that ‘existence’ is not a predicate like something is yellow – i.e. existence is not a necessary property of something.26 In fact, if God exists, perfection, omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence and infinitude are all properties that must be tested for qualifying as ‘necessary’ qualities of ‘God’ (or the scope of reasonable meaning of such qualities) which this paper seeks to do.

Taking omniscience (the other qualities will be dealt with later in this paper), the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy defines Omniscience as “The property of knowing everything. The traditional philosophical problem is to reconcile the orthodox idea that God knows everything with the absence of predetermination….[t]o many thinkers it has seemed that if God knows already, what will happen tomorrow, then human free will and responsibility must be a mere sham.” 27 Plantinga in reference to the Mackie challenge puts a complication to his own free will defence to the effect that if God is omniscient, He has ‘Middle Knowledge’ i.e. He knows how people will act in the future and thus could have limited their ability to act badly.

Swinburne rejects that God can have such Middle Knowledge as such knowledge lacks truth value. This is because if J has a choice tomorrow of an action then, in essence, God really has a belief as to what J will do. Now as the past cannot affect the future – “causes cannot follow effects” – then God’s belief “today will be what it is before and independently of what J does tomorrow. …If J is indeed free, he is free to make “[God’s]” belief, whatever it is, false.”28

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy records a more formal definition of omniscience: “S is omniscient =df for every proposition p, if p is true then S knows p.” 29Without traversing the detailed discussion there, the Stanford entry refers to a long debate30 between Plantinga and Patrick Grim where Grim argued that it is not possible to know all truths because there is no set of all truths by virtue of Cantor’s Theorem applied to units of knowledge- truths.

Cantor’s Theorem “says that the set of real numbers is non denumerable” and is really explained by the second part of the theorem – “the power set of any set is always greater than the set itself.” 31 Being non denumerable means that there is no ‘one to one’ correspondence and relevant here is that applying his theorem means that the sub sets of the ‘power set’ is not in one to one correspondence with the elements of that set.32 If the ‘power set’ is considered to be the set of all truths then Cantor’s theorem shows this set cannot be the set of all truths-

thus, omniscience on the above definition is impossible. Despite Plantinga’s resistance Grim essentially ended with a more compelling argument: “Omniscience is standardly glossed as being ‘all knowing’ or ‘knowing everything’ …. [but]…” if there is no ‘everything’ of the relevant type to know, there can be no omniscience as standardly glossed.      you suggest that

we understand omniscience as a ‘maximal degree of knowledge’ or ‘maximal perfection’ ...” But should it turn out that for any degree of knowledge there must be a greater, it would appear that there can be no ‘maximal perfection’ with respect to knowledge – and thus no omniscience as you suggest we understand it.”33

Cantor was famous for the continuum hypothesis i.e. that “there is no set with a cardinal number between aleph null which is the cardinal number of the set of natural numbers and the cardinal number of the set of real numbers i.e. the continuum.” 34 Thus, if there were a continuum of truths which were matched ‘one to one’ to the real numbers then the set of truths would be infinite and as ‘infinite’ means without end I will argue below that this is unknowable. How could the set of all truths be ‘unknowable’? It really depends on what qualifies as truth. Swinburne has stated that there is no truth value in what God thinks can happen tomorrow. This would seem to also apply to what changes can occur tomorrow or whatever flux of events is happening in the world. Future data is not knowledge.

Now making possible worlds involves selecting designs for the parts of such worlds from a repertoire of designs that God can possibly conceive of. However, recall here Plato’s original concept that knowledge cannot include change or flux ‘data’. Swinburne might say that there is no truth value in the changes or flux that will occur tomorrow or the potential changes or fluxes - Whitehead would call them the ‘potentia’ that congresce to become actual objects in all possible worlds. If so any design in that repertoire must be specified to fit, handle, manage and adapt to all such changes. If these ‘potentia’ of such changes of fluxes are infinite – even if the possible worlds to choose from that are prima facie suitable are finite -

then there is no truth value in those potentia nor any designs (until actualized) that might fit such changes. Moreover, if those potentia are infinite then the designs must be infinite. It would seem thus that omniscience cannot include all possible designs for change or flux in any possible world that God may choose from because an infinity of possible solutions for designs accompanies an infinity of possible changes or fluxes.

If so, the next question becomes whether God’s omnipotence includes the ability to gain such knowledge and this is the question that will be tested under “The Infinite Wall Principle below”.

THE NATURE OF REALITY

Despite ideas such as materialism or empiricism35, some philosophers see philosophy as ‘metaphysics’36 and in the twentieth century, no better demonstration of the great value of metaphysics probing ‘reality’ has been seen than in the number of instances when the ‘metaphysical’ has predicted the ‘physical’ e.g. Gellman and Sweig’s work on symmetry predicting the existence of quarks, the prediction of the Higgs boson many years before its discovery and Hoyle’s anthropic principle predicting carbon -12 by the very existence of human life. These are also instances of the ‘synthetic a priori’. Dan O’Brien also cites mathematics as another surprising synthetic a priori system of knowledge: “Mathematical truths are not analytic: it is not part of the meaning of 12 that it equals 7 plus 5.  If it were then 12 would also mean 6 plus 6 and 2.5 plus 9.5, and an infinite number of other combinations. It is not plausible that we must grasp such a set of mathematical truths in order to understand ‘12’.” 37 Indeed, mathematical discoveries continue to be made which seem to indicate that mathematical knowledge is growing and not merely a priori.

Now to illustrate manifolds, in Euclidean space, if we conceive of a line as straight then it cannot be a ring. Yet Einstein’s theory of relativity now shows that, in non-Euclidean space, if a line occurs in curved space that folds back on itself then a line could become a ring (or a helix!). Clearly, this is a synthesis of the a priori idea of both a line and a ring and the manifold of curved space. We deal with manifolds (or spaces) of reality below but it is interesting that Husserl in his phenomenology classified definite and indefinite manifolds. (Husserl saw pure consciousness as the fundamental reality dealing with a priori ideal objects including experiences of consciousness.) 38 Whilst a priori analysis can ascertain the domain of the definite manifold, Husserl, a mathematician and philosopher, saw difficulty with ascertaining the indefinite manifold.39 In my opinion, this is because an indefinite manifold may have infinite forms. This concept of the manifold comes from mathematics (topology) and is used in physics to describe systems of reality. We live in a 4 D manifold of x, y z coordinates and at time coordinate. Yet in string theory it seems that there are possibly up to 10500 dimensions with vast numbers of manifolds that may account for our full reality. In philosophy there are infinite possible worlds and so infinite possible manifolds. Thus, again omniscience cannot include all possible manifolds as they are infinite – whatever set of manifolds can be conceived of, there are always more.

Similar to this concept of infinite manifolds is what has been termed the ‘Infinite Background Problem’ (also allied to the ‘Frame Problem’) raised by philosopher Hubert Dreyfus in relation to Artificial Intelligence (AI) with reference to the philosophy of Heidegger.40 (AI in this context is suggested as analogous to considering what God possibly can know.)       Dreyfus outlined the problem facing an AI-based computer in analysing incoming environmental data: [Each receptor or element receiving such data must be interpreted] “…according to different rules and which rule to apply depends on the context…But if each context can be recognized only in terms of features selected as relevant and interpreted in a broader context, the AI worker is faced with an infinite regress of contexts”. 41 Philosopher Michael Wheeler, in commenting on Dreyfus’s description states: “An infinite regress would be bad enough, but may not be the worst of it. As Horgan and Tienson (1994) point out, the context-sensitivity of cognition cannot be achieved by a system first retrieving an inner structure” [i.e. retrieving the key knowledge] “and then deciding whether or not it is relevant, as that would take us back to square one. But then how can the system assign relevance until the structure has been retrieved? The result is a kind of cognitive paralysis.” 42 Taking the infinite background problem to its implications the set of contexts i.e. background data is infinite i.e. omniscience cannot fully extend to it.

Now to play devil’s advocate, what if God was perfect and infinite and so perhaps able to ‘read’ infinities? This seems to repeat the objection of one of Plantinga’s counter- arguments to Grim when he referred to: “…omniscience as a ‘maximal degree of knowledge’ or ‘maximal perfection’” which Grim rebutted.  If there were a way of bypassing the problem of infinity then despite how remote, uncompelling or unbelievable this may be, philosophers will demand that the possibility be flagged. Thus, the statement that God can not be omniscient in respect of the set of infinite truths, changes, fluxes, manifolds or backgrounds can be qualified for this purpose by adding “unless there are alternative means” (and will be done so below) .

Now in regard to the question of God being infinite yet perfect. Mathematician Ian Stewart, the author of Infinity, A Very Short Introduction, has considered the theological aspects of infinity:

“Early theologians seem not to have considered God to be literally infinite. Around 200 A.D. in De Principiis (on first principles), Origen, the first Christian theologian of repute,

maintained that God’s power is finite. The reason is that perfection can’t have blurred edges. Its limits must be sharp. Latin perfectus means ‘complete’. If God’s power were infinite, it would be incomplete, hence imperfect.”43

Today, the more standard usage of ‘infinite’ or ‘perfect’ by Christian theologians means a God as having attributes not limited in any way as this passage from the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia (online) demonstrates: “When we say that God is infinite, we mean that He is unlimited in every kind of perfection or that every conceivable perfection belongs to Him in the highest conceivable way. In a different sense we sometimes speak, for instance, of infinite time or space, meaning thereby time of such indefinite duration or space of such indefinite extension that we cannot assign any fixed limit to one or the other. Care should be taken not to confound these two essentially different meanings of the term.” (my italics)44

In effect, this encyclopedia warns that the term ‘infinite’ should not be conflated with the mathematical /scientific meaning of ‘infinite’. However, for philosophical rigour the meaning of ‘infinite’ in this paper shall be the same as is used in mathematics and science

, namely a quantity without end such that no limit can be assigned to it.

GOD’S OBJECTIVES TO CREATE LIFE

Any theory of God must involve the universe being created for a reason and that reason appears to be to create life because a barren universe of stars, planets etc. would not seem enough to fulfil God’s apparent purposes of ‘meaning’ or ‘value’ in creation such as creation of love, sentient beings, new knowledge, wonder etc. Let us focus on human beings who have reached the highest intellectual value through evolution of consciousness. What else can we surmise about the key features that God intend to instill into human beings and the universe?

That life would participate in an overall scheme of living life against the context of human beings and God being in an existentially causal relationship which by the provenance of human creation imports a dimension of meaning to life.

That we would not be ‘puppets of heaven’ or mere automatons. God would surely not want a race of ‘CD players’ replaying God’s pre planned thoughts and actions like some bizarre play or trivial intellectual exercise which achieves nothing.

God must then relinquish control over human beings by granting them autonomy of self-control and self-regulation. Again, Plato’s observation that the world is one of flux and change requires that human beings are enabled to systematically manage and adapt to change.

Thus human beings must possess teleology and be goal- directed beings - at its simplest level the goal to live and not die e.g. homeostasis – as philosopher Ernest Nagel has pointed out that whether an observer discerns ‘teleology or not’ is a matter of viewpoint and clearly if God exists human beings are teleological. A key point he makes is that the difference between a physical system (where the variables depend on each other) and a life system (where the variables are independent of each other) is that the life system adapts to those variable changes and is not created by them.45A reasonable conclusion is that this reflects loss of control by God because any possible chain of causation is broken once you have self-regulating autonomous organisms coupled with quantum uncertainty.

Note that beings can be collective or individual or a hybrid and so individuals may reflect the best autonomy with the highest degree of free will.

Human beings must then do something. They think, act and sustain themselves in a myriad of ways which involves functions to implement these activities. Activities will involve an activity tree of possible permutations and combinations which will resemble a‘logic circuit’ divided into possible routes for each such activity to be activated via each function implementing or regulating such activities. This requires systems of organization of units of matter and energy into the necessary circuitry of nodes and links to house such function – activity array. Units of matter have been called atoms, monads and more recently quantum particles. Units of energy have been called electrons, charges or other quanta.

Euler’s classic circuit problem involving the 7 bridges of Königsberg demonstrated that circuits cannot allow all configurations – akin to Swinburne’s Logical Straightjacket.

Moreover, biological circuits and systems display inherent insolubilities arising from clashes between competing functions.

This human circuitry must be governed by an intellect also made of the units of matter and energy i.e. the brain or the collection of energy flows, fields, or other entities constituting the intellect.

Then to provide what seems to be the ultimate purpose in God’s creation the intellect must be instilled with a number of features to constitute a ‘meaning of life’.

What is the substance to the meaning of life of human beings? One of Spain’s greatest philosophers José Ortega y Gasset (“Ortega”) described the fundamental reality of human life: “Reality, precisely because it is reality and is found outside our individual minds, can reach our minds only by multiplying itself into a thousand faces or facets.” Ortega saw that the scientific reason or Kant’s pure reason did not work so well in human affairs and introduced the concept of vital reason which involves a scheme for the comprehension of the temporal elements of human life as experienced. 46 Yet attempts to make the history of human affairs a science fall short according to Isaiah Berlin who says of the nebulous concept of scientific history: “What would the structure of such a science be like, supposing that one were able to formulate it? It would presumably consist of causal or functional correlations – a system of interrelated general propositions of the type “Whenever or wherever Φ then or there Ψ’” 47     Berlin’s scheme would suggest a type of ‘quantum mechanics’ of states of human elements of consciousness. thoughts, experiences, emotions, convictions, beliefs, conscience etc. Whilst Berlin rightly says we cannot yet proceed to define such a scheme of human phenomena, it would seem that such a scheme does exist. This would be a matrix of elements linked to a matrix of interactions of those elements to form a circuitry of human experiences upon its own manifold chosen from many. Mackie, in effect, thought either this manifold or the matrices could eliminate evil but Swinburne might justly claim that his ‘Logical Straightjacket’ constrains the configurations in that scheme are simply not workable under Mackie’s scheme.Husserl dealt with ideal objects which were a priori and the high water mark for this topic was ‘human experiences’. Yet any Berlin type scheme would be synthetic a priori because it would seem these human elements are phenomena combining ideal concepts within the manifold(s) of our universe i.e. a synthesis of heaven and earth. In Husserl’s language, the type of experiences manifested by each of these elements is dependent upon  both the infinite possible circuitry of each intellect and the infinite background manifolds.This Berlin type scheme involves an elaborate grid of circuitry which becomes the complex synthesis of these human elements – a seeming masterpiece of intellectual functionality which is not yet understood. . It is this masterpiece that we must assume as God’s objective to achieve this meaning of life goal but in light of the constraints, perfection may not be possible.           This circuitry is subject to quantum uncertainty and chaos – features facilitating true free will. The instilled human elements such as love, heroism in handling suffering, curiosity, conscience seem to be synthetic a priori concepts which could have developed in many more (infinite) manifolds.

Hopefully, these insights may transform the theodicy in this paper from impassive logic to more inspiring ‘vital reason’ to use Ortega’s terminology. The late Stephen Hawking is a hero in the eyes of many through his success despite his suffering and disability.

The necessary internal features to achieve this latter goal would seem to be an intellect, ability to experience, assume identity, consciousness, free will, capability for action or inaction, movement, and the ensemble of emotions that enrich and facilitate life and experience.

The necessary external features of a possible world to ‘paint reality’ to enable the existence and experience of the human being must also be chosen from the infinite manifolds of spaces, times, energies, fluxes, fields, change including the infinite manifolds of phase space or other possible manifolds of reality. For instance, the arrow of time would seem a necessary feature for experience – reality would become incoherent without the arrow of time e.g. a two-way time might see human beings experiencing a picnic and then undoing that picnic or building anything before it becomes undone. The arrow of time determines that effects follow causes and provide coherence of experience to human beings.Again each of these chosen manifolds must allow a coherent experience of human life. It may be that evil and suffering could be quarantined by a slicing of space into millions of compartments but interactions of matter and life might then become incoherent in any such scheme of reality.

True free will would also need to be a feature unfettered by any overwhelming iron cloak of God’s presence which is facilitated by the ‘Silence of God’. (A corollary of this could also cure Kant’s observation, in effect, that God’s imposed moral rules import no moral virtue if made under the duress of God’s presence.)   Recall also the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy’s definition of strict omniscience as having a potential paradoxical outcome in that it would mean free will is a sham. Mention has already been made of

Mackie discussing the unresolved paradox of omnipotence – why or how God could create creatures which he then put beyond his power to control. Clearly, providing true free will requires certain features to be instilled in the world. Perhaps Heisenberg’s Uncertainty could not only serve its function as part of the fabric of reality (perhaps a ‘solution seeker’ which ‘lubricates’ reality to unblock unsolvable physical reactions?) but also as the break-in causation in strict determinism lest the almost infinite chain of causal events since the Big Bang be considered a chain of determinism i.e. determining our thoughts. As our brains are governed by quantum processes Heisenberg’s uncertainty creates true uncertain outcomes of thought processes – leaving aside other processes of uncertainty such as chaos which is discussed later.

Finally, the question of why a world using laws of nature and mechanism and not miracles nor magic was created? The above objectives call for a coherent world, with consciousness, self-autonomy, free will, etc such is the phenomenon of human beings that special features of life experience are needed to allow human being to fulfil the meaning of life objectives for which they were created. Perhaps hardship and suffering are required and so the world is a ‘Vale of Soul- making’ (as the poet John Keats described it) – ‘No suffering, no heroes’ or there would be no pride in any achievement without overcoming the hardship and suffering of that achievement and so on. If God wishes to preserve true free will and removes control, then universal laws and mechanism are necessary - not miracles or magic which presumably would require direct control by God. And so to summarize, in any circuitry involving a Berlin style matrix of human elements Swinburne’s Logical Straightjacket constrains such circuitry so that only certain configurations are possible in terms of synthetic a priori trade-offs in possible mechanistic realities.

THE INFINITE WALL PRINCIPLE

We saw that omniscience cannot extend to the infinite possible worlds, manifolds or realities and many other things especially the infinities of change and flux – call them infinite walls. Indeed Plato had not seen the information content of change and flux as ‘knowledge’. In modern terms, we might see this information content as ‘bits’ but they do not form the meaningful knowledge that would form part of a reasonable definition of omniscience nor would any infinite repertoire of designs (call this ‘ultra- theoretical knowledge’) that could fit or handle such non-meaningful information. Thus, a more reasonable definition of omniscience might be to know all existing knowledge that it is possible to know and not unknowable, ultra -theoretical or future knowledge. The question remains therefore whether a reasonable definition of omnipotence could include the ability to gain any knowledge that would normally be outside this more reasonable definition of omniscience.

The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy describes Zeno’s Paradox as follows: “Achilles runs a race with a tortoise, who has a start of n metres. Suppose the tortoise runs one –tenth as fast as Achilles. Then by the time Achilles has reached the tortoise’s starting- point, the tortoise is n/10 metres ahead. By the time Achilles has reached that point, the tortoise is n/100 metres ahead and so on ad infinitum. So, Achilles cannot catch the tortoise.”48 The paradox raises the issue of whether it is possible by an infinite number of identifying tasks to identify the infinite points in the continuum between Achilles and the finishing line. A similar problem could be whether an infinite survey of an infinite repertoire of designs could take place to create objects in possible worlds. Even during a finite time, if an exercise of power needed completion of infinite tasks to actualize an object by choosing the best design then the object could not be actualized because the last task will never be completed. If one objected that the Zeno’s paradox situation could involve infinite steps over a finite distance (the infinite fractions contained in the continuum of that distance) and lead to ‘completion’ this does not refute the assertion because unlike Zeno’s runner reaching his destination (which we know) we do not know whether the object can be actualized. Furthermore, this knowledge that Zeno did complete the journey and all the ways that philosophers have postulated to overcome Zeno’s paradox merely create a possibility that God could complete an infinite set of tasks somehow. This still leaves the original reasonable possibility that God cannot complete an infinite set of tasks. If so, that is a potential basis for a credible theodicy. What is the significance of this ‘somehow’.

Philosophers have studied infinite tasks and have called them ‘super tasks’ and in this paper, we consider what objects can or cannot be created with regard to whether an object’s creation requires a super task or not. It is convenient to call an object requiring a super task ( ie infinite tasks ) a super object and knowledge having a prerequisite of completion of super tasks super knowledge (for example, it might require infinite iterative investigative checks to ascertain the super knowledge). Some super knowledge could be acquired by means other than infinite iterative investigative checks. For example, assume that to create a super object that its precise volume is required (- to create an object its features would be required and volume is one of such features). The precise volume of an object could be argued to be super knowledge as calculation of volume would have required an infinite iterative series of steps (i.e. adding the infinite slices of the object) and then the summation of the infinite slices but there could be no final ‘step’ to add the last slice. However, calculus provides an alternative means to acquire that super knowledge but our framework of intuition as outlined in this paper informs us that there are possibly infinite super objects where there are no alternative means to by pass the super tasks. In fact, this intuition is aided by such work as mathematician, Marcus du Sautoy whose book “What we cannot know” describes the types of knowledge that we have postulated as beyond omniscience. 49

Crucially, this must reflect on God’s creative knowledge of what objects can be created – what we termed “ultra-theoretical knowledge” which does not form part of any reasonable definition of omniscience. Knowledge of what can and cannot be actualized must, therefore, depend on whether for any proposed objects of creation an infinite number of tasks may be required to actualize an object because, if an infinite number of tasks is required to actualize a theoretical super object, then it cannot be actualized.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of philosophy’s entry for Zeno’s paradox explains further:

“…a number of philosophers – most notably Grunbaum (1967) – took up the task of showing how modern mathematics could solve all of Zeno’s paradoxes; …..What they realized was that a purely mathematical solution was not sufficient: the paradoxes not only question abstract mathematics, but the nature of physical reality”.50 (my italics)

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy lists some possible ways a super task could be accomplished. However, in our context, these ways do not resolve the problem. 51 There seems no way that an algorithm could be created to iterate through the infinite shapes, functions and forms for a biological entity because the algorithm would need to first contain all the shapes, functions and forms – a ‘chicken or egg’ problem of self-reference akin to the Frame problem or infinite background problem referred to earlier.

Thus, we have seen that God’s creative knowledge does not include super knowledge of how to create super objects except a subset of those super objects whose method of creation could be only be obtained by alternative means.Thus, if it were possible to create a perfect human being from an infinite repertoire of designs then creating perfect human beings that are pre-programmed to only behave in Mackie like perfect ways without evil and who would not be prone to disease, disability, despair, etc. would not be based on our framework for ‘improved intuition’, seem reasonably possible (it may be logically possible but that would seem an extreme uncompelling explanation of God’s creative power in light of the analysis thus far). Rather creation probably faced an ‘infinite wall’ of infinite possible designs and insoluble equations.        The question remains as to whether or not this limitation has any empirical credibility (in the doxastic sense) as to what can or cannot be created?

THE INFINITE WALL PRINCIPLE APPLIED TO OUR WORLD

At first sight the sceptic might ask why couldn’t ‘God approximate perfection?’ despite being unable to access an infinite repertoire of designs for the universe or designs for a ‘perfect’ human being (if those designs were possible). However, this idea faces a difficulty that has been discovered which was really unknown until the late twentieth century - the discovery of chaos. A whole mathematics and science has now developed around chaos.

In the age of Newton, the world was considered mechanical running like a ‘Clockwork Universe’. However, chaos, quantum mechanics and Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle have changed that. The seventeenth century mathematician Simon Laplace had postulated scientific determinism such that a ‘vast intellect’ could know everything about the universe given enough data to submit to analysis. As Laplace said “…for such an intellect nothing could be uncertain.” 52 Assuming this ‘vast intellect’ to be God , we have already seen that God’s omniscience does not extend to such data and as such data is infinite God’s omnipotence does not extend to acquiring such data. A God with infinite sets of eyes or intellects is neither coherent nor credible. Chaos is explained by mathematician Ian Stewart: “Chaos is apparent randomness with a purely deterministic cause…Chaos inhabits

the twilight zone between regularity and randomness…The discussion is made more difficult by a philosophical problem: does true randomness really exist?”53 Heisenberg Uncertainty is a feature that produces randomness yet may have been an introduced feature in God’s creation as it does not appear logically necessary to create reality (although, as mentioned, it could be a ‘solution seeker’ to ‘lubricate’ reality). Chaos, on the other hand despite not being truly random, may have a de facto randomness quality because of mathematical insolubilities associated with it such as infinite decimals. For example, a common form of chaos, turbulence, although modelled by the Navier Stokes equations does not provide exact solutions according to one expert on turbulence. 54 In summary, in the light of chaos and Heisenberg Uncertainty, the reality is now seen as probabilistic, stochastic and chaotic perhaps as ‘lubricating’ features to evolve the universe. Biological systems are a fortiori stochastic and with the absence of an infinite repertoire of designs, it can be seen that the stochastic nature of evolution as a ‘design seeker’ can overcome the ‘the problem of fantastic probability’ associated with the origin of life highlighted by leading biologist Eugene Koonin.55 Perhaps this is the reason for the vastness of the universe, namely, to provide ‘stochastic soil’ for originating life. Many previous theodicies were founded upon a deterministic Clockwork Universe rather than the more realistic, indeterministic, probabilistic, stochastic and random/chaotic universe.

How significant a threat is a chaos to testing whether ‘God can approximate perfection’? To answer this synthetic a priori question, an example is provided by considering DNA. The right-handed chirality in DNA and the asymmetry of the weak nuclear forces could even affect the evolutionary behaviour of DNA based on work by Physicist Dilip Kondepudi. Ian Stewart explains the asymmetry of DNA: “One consequence of this asymmetry is that the energy of a molecule and that of its mirror image are not quite the same. Until recently this was thought to be unimportant because the difference is vanishingly small – to be precise one part in a hundred quintillion…. physicist Dilip Kondepudi showed that if nature is biased in favour of the lower energy version of some biologically significant molecule (even by this tiny amount), then within a mere hundred thousand years a massive 98 percent of those molecules will be of the lower energy variety. The difference is amplified by the reproductive processes of life.” Stewart The Beauty of Numbers in Nature. 56 Clearly, the slightest change in DNA can cause genetic defects.

So, if the atheist were relying on intuition to claim that ‘surely God can approximate perfection’ then chaos corrects such intuition.

Prominent physicist Carlo Rovelli sees reality as a network of granular events with the inputs and outputs of each event connecting each other in a cloud of probability. Early in the twentieth century, scientists discovered the world is quantum and probabilistic meaning that precision in measuring these inputs and outputs is impossible – only approximation is possible and this causes serious problems. The immediate answer could be “Well, then why did not God make a world where precision of inputs and outputs was possible?’ If we apply mathematics to all possible worlds that we can imagine we can ask ‘is there any world where mathematics would be precise?’ Rovelli also refers to the mathematics of physics and observes that in the ‘standard model’ of physics quantities of inputs and outputs from its equations can be infinitely large. Stephen Hawking famously said that maths really can’t handle infinities and Rovelli also observes that physics handles these infinities by ‘renormalization’ – the result will be an approximation of reality.

So, what about bone cancer? Here is where we switch to biology. Instead of Rovelli’s network of inputs and outputs of granular events, we have the body’s network of systems synchronizing inputs and outputs of biological events – our working metabolism including the human circuitry of a Berlin type scheme. This can become complex so it is good to use an analogy. Instead of the body’s network of hundreds of systems, think of hundreds of countries around the world each having inputs and outputs of currencies. We never see a precise exchange rate because it must be approximated into a decimal. The health of each currency cannot be precisely measured – only approximated. The approximation does not matter too much to currency traders who make profits from the discrepancies in approximation.  However, instead of currencies let us now consider the health of each system of the body and the inputs and outputs from each system. In fact, a whole science governs this called metabolomics.  The book, Principles of Bone and Joint Research by Peter Pietschmann refers to a study:  Combining Targeted Metabolomic Data with a Model of Glucose Mechanism… by Salinas Et Al. Plos One 2017 12(1) e0168326 where the systems governing the cells in cartilage are modelled using a vast (40x40) spreadsheet reflecting inputs and outputs of the body’s systems. The paper states that most biological models have infinite numbers of solutions. This is similar to the same problem that Rovelli referred to which physicists fix by ‘renormalization’. In engineering, certain equations, known as indeterminate equations, have infinite solutions – no help in finalizing a design unless external assumptions can limit the infinities. In biology the ‘fix’ occurs by using new assumptions- i.e. approximate predicted values not infinite values - infinite decimals would be common but unworkable mathematically without a ‘fix’.

In both physics and biology these infinite decimals crop up requiring scientists to ‘renormalize’ or ‘re- model’ by approximation of values. We are not talking about some backwater of reality. The greatest mathematical values governing the core of reality result in infinite decimals such as π, e, ‘sins, cos’s, tans ‘and ‘radicals’ e.g. square roots that produce infinite decimals.  How important are these to human beings?   Well, anything round involves π, anything growing can involve e, radicals are often found in biology and ‘sins cos’s’ etc. involve anything angular i.e. are ubiquitous to our 3D reality. Thus, if we wish to avoid bone cancer an organism must metabolize perfect settings to achieve perfect synchronisation of the body’s systems but these settings could not be knowable theoretically – they could only evolve. Why?   Once you have any of π, e or these ‘radicals’ etc., infinite decimals become ‘spanners in the works’ in these inputs and outputs throwing up a roadblock to calculated ‘perfect settings’ unless God had alternative means which did not violate the severing of divine control. Without perfect settings, the potential for the body to malfunction, to overheat, to exhaust itself or for cells to grow at the wrong rates (i.e. cancer) becomes inevitable risks of mechanistic (not magical) systems. Furthermore, DNA can be of no help because it merely replicates the organism, it does not regulate it and the body’s systems need to be adaptable to optimize its metabolism for living in a variable environment. DNA itself must be variable to improve the networks of systems as evolution proceeds – indeed this is why evolution is an essential process to creation. If DNA is variable, it is also subject to environmental factors and degradations producing the risk of defects in DNA and, if affected by chaos, tiny defects can amplify their effects as seen in the example above involving the evolutionary behaviour of DNA.

The crucial point is that it may be mathematically impossible to know the perfect settings that the body needs to be in perfect synchronization. Instead, mechanisms to regulate the settings must evolve empirically not theoretically to produce optimum settings.          This means the design of a regulating mechanism for perfect settings may be incalculable leaving only optimal mechanisms evolving. Optimal mechanisms retain the risk that cells can grow at dysfunctional rates ie become cancerous.

In summary, God’s divine objectives for human life and reality include instilling true free will, separate unique identity, consciousness and intellect and ‘painting reality’ with suitable manifolds for living environments. In so doing a synthesis of divine objectives and universal laws and mechanisms is required to achieve those objectives including the removal of human life beyond God’s control to negate determinism. Therefore, this synthetic a priori generation of compatible configurations of human circuitry and environments is constrained by the absence of an infinite repertoire of designs and manifolds rendering a perfect human circuit and perfect environment not reasonably possible. This is sufficient for a credible theodicy.

St Thomas Aquinas’s also saw limitations of divine power - such as God cannot make ‘Socrates running and not running’ or that ‘God cannot change the formula for a triangle’. Perhaps we can add ‘God cannot change the logic governing human circuitry’ It is also interesting to note that the bible records one of the earliest theodicies in the narrative of Job when he rebukes God for his misfortune. God answers: “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Who determined its measurements …. or who stretched the line

upon it…? Job 38.4, 38.5. and in another place “Do you know the balancing of the clouds…? Job 37.16 This suggests constraints in creation. In essence, Job was not a ‘professional creator’ and so his challenge was misconceived.

GLOSSARY

Chaos: Behaviour of a system(s), particle(s), wave(s), light or energy or other matter which is incapable of complete mathematical analysis without knowledge of the initial conditions. “Chaos is apparent randomness with a purely deterministic cause.” (quoted from Ian Stewart) (p24) Even knowledge of the initial conditions may be impossible by virtue of mathematical restrictions resulting from infinite decimals.

Heisenberg Uncertainty: The position and momentum of a particle cannot be known completely. This is a feature of the universe that produces necessary randomness by virtue that any state of matter (i.e. of particles) cannot be known completely –it removes an essential foundation for determinism. (p25)

Infinite Background Problem: A problem involving Artificial Intelligence (AI) used by a theoretical computer in analysing incoming environmental data: “ [Each receptor or element receiving such data must be interpreted] “…according to different rules and which rule to apply depends on the context…But if each context can be recognized only in terms of features selected as relevant and interpreted in a broader context, the AI worker is faced with an infinite regress of contexts” (after Dreyfus) (p13).

Infinite Decimals: Any mathematical value that when represented in base 10 results in an infinite representation of natural numbers in base 10 and includes transcendental numbers such as π, e, trigonometric values e.g.  ‘sins, cos’s, tans ‘and ‘radicals’ (e.g. square roots, cube roots etc.). These numbers have no exact value and may be ultimately unknowable without alternative means of evaluation or derivation e.g. using calculus, different number systems or representations. The problem then becomes can the natural numbers to base 10 be precisely related to new representations of natural numbers without infinite decimals – in many cases this will be impossible.

Knowledge: “that knowledge is …. justified true belief” (after Plato) (p7)

Manifold: - a space or system of reality which typically may involve coordinates or can merely be used a term to describe different realities or aspects of a reality. (p13)

Middle Knowledge: includes knowledge of how people will act in the future (p10)

Omniscience: “The property of knowing everything. The traditional philosophical problem is to reconcile the orthodox idea that God knows everything with the absence of predetermination….[t]o many thinkers it has seemed that if God knows already, what will happen tomorrow, then human free will and responsibility must be a mere sham.” per: the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. (P10)

Perfect settings : the human body requires synchronization to function and does so through its settings – its gene circuits, protein circuits and neuronal circuits which are effectively logical circuits governed by logic in the sense used by Leibniz – like super tasks perfect settings would be settings where no malfunction will ever occur by interaction and synchronization of all these circuits (p28) – this term is used in concluding ‘God cannot change the logic governing human circuitry’ (p29)

Potentia: - in the sense used by Whitehead (in Process and Reality) that are really states of reality which represent a thing in the making (other than that change itself!) and indeed if for example the potential of all possible infinite designs are considered there is no truth value in that and furthermore, being infinite, is unknowable. (again, it may be possible to know part of these potentia but that is also a complex question). (p11-12)

Reality: (relevant to human life): the phenomena perceived by human minds that “reach our minds only by multiplying itself into a thousand faces or facets” (after Ortega) (p17)

Synthetic A Priori: refers to a non- analytic a priori truth which prima facie appears anomalous but as explained in the paper is not and leads to interesting insights into the nature of reality (p9)

Super Tasks: Tasks that require an infinite number of steps before they can be completed (p22)

Super Objects; Objects created by super tasks (if they exist) (p22)

Super Knowledge: Knowledge gained through completing super tasks e.g. completing an infinite numerical process such as completing iterative investigative checks of designs to arrive at a ‘perfect design’ (p22)

The Infinite Wall Principle: Creation of the universe and life faced an ‘infinite wall’ of infinite possible designs and insoluble design equations by virtue that many objects in a meaningful or purposeful world are super objects requiring super tasks to be performed with super knowledge. For example, the objects of life such as humans with the necessary human circuitry in DNA gene circuits, protein circuits and neuronal circuits do not seem to allow perfect synchronisation and interaction due to the mathematical impossibilities and limitations in logic circuits leaving the making of a perfect human being impossible. (pp21- 24)

Theodicy: “a set of reasons explaining why an all good, all powerful and all-knowing God would create our world despite its evil and suffering” (p3)

Truth Value: value in a statement as to whether something can constitute knowledge – for example I argue that future data – predictions of data sets that may be produced by future events (or future designs) cannot constitute knowledge – thus middle knowledge of all possible future infinite designs has no truth value and furthermore is unknowable (although it may be possible to know part of that middle knowledge but that is a complex question). (p11)

Ultra-theoretical knowledge: knowledge of possible super tasks or super objects including super knowledge (p23)

Vital reason: a scheme for the comprehension of the temporal elements of human life as experienced. (per José Ortega y Gasset).

REFERENCES

Books:

M.R. Antognazza, Leibniz, A Very Short Introduction Oxford University Press (2016)

D. Axe Undeniable, Harper Collins, 2016

I. Berlin, The Proper Study of Mankind, Vintage, Random House, 2013 ed.,

S. Blackburn, Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, 3rd, Oxford University Press, 2016, C.Clapham & J. Nicholson, Oxford Dictionary of Mathematics,5th Ed. 2014,

P. Davies The Goldilocks Enigma – Why is the Universe just right for life, First Mariner Books 2006,

F. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov- Vintage Books 2004 edition

M. du Sautoy , What we cannot know, 4th Estate, Harper Collins, 2016

A. Flew There is a God, How the world’s most famous atheist changed his mind Harper One (2007)

C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, (1940) Samizdat, 2016

G.F. Lewis & L.A. Barnes, A Fortunate Universe- Life in a finely tuned cosmos, Cambridge University Press 2016

J.L. Mackie The Miracle of Theism Oxford: Oxford University Press, ,

J. Marías, History of Philosophy, Dover Publications 1967 (English Translation)

T. Nagel, Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo- Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False , Oxford University Press 2012.

D. O’Brien, Theory of Knowledge, Polity Press, 2017.

A. Plantinga, God Freedom, and Evil, (1989) Grand Rapids Michigan, MI, Eerdmans, p30

W. Prior, Ancient Philosophy, Oneworld Publications (2016).

I. Stewart, Do Dice Play God, Profile Books, 2019.

I. Stewart, Infinity, A Very Short Introduction – Oxford University Press (2017)

I. Stewart The Beauty of Numbers in Nature – Ivy Press (2017)

R. Swinburne, Providence and The Problem of Evil Oxford University Press (1998)

P. Van Lommel’s Consciousness Beyond Life – the Science of the Near Death Experience,

Harper One 2010.

Articles:

S. Clifton, from Challenging Stephen Fry’s Diatribe against God, page 75 of collection of papers contained in A Reckless God, Currents and Challenges in the Christian Conversation with Science, edited by R. Ashby, C. Mulherin, J. Pilbrow and S. Ames, Iscast Nexus Books , published by Morning Star Publishing, 2018 , p75 S. Clifton, page 75 (ibid).

Dein, Et Al, Theodicy and End-of-Life Care - J Soc Work End Life Palliat Care. 2013 Apr; 9(2-3): 191–208

Dreyfus, 1992: pp288-9 quoted from M. Wheeler, Cognition in Context: Phenomenology, Situated Robotics and the Frame Problem – International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 16(3), 323-49,2008

N. Huggett, "Zeno's Paradoxes", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2010 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =

<https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2010/entries/paradox-zeno/&gt;.

J.L. Mackie, Evil and Omnipotence – Mind, New Series, Vol. 64, No 254 (Apr 1955) . p200 to 212

J. Manchak,and B.W. Roberts, "Supertasks", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (ibid) Section 2.1 to 2.3

J.M.McDonough, “Introductory Lectures on Turbulence” Dept of Mech.Eng & Math. - University of Kentucky

E. Nagel, The Structure of Teleological Explanations –paper includined in The Philosophy of Science- edited by P.H. Nidditch (1968) Oxford University Press

Alvin Platinga’s free will defense – Wikipedia – reference to Arguing about Gods, Graham Oppy

A. Plantinga and P. Grim, Truth Omniscience and Cantorian Arguments – An Exchange – from Philosophical Studies 71 (1993) 267-306

P. Van Lommel ‘Near Death Experiences in Survivors of Cardiac Arrest’ Lancet 358 (2001) , 2039 -045.).

The Nature and Attributes of God - www.newadvent.org

Wierenga, Edward, "Omniscience", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =

<https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2018/entries/omniscience/&gt;.

 

 

END NOTES

 

 

 

 

1 S. Clifton, from Challenging Stephen Fry’s Diatribe against God, page 75 of collection of papers contained in A Reckless God, Currents and Challenges in the Christian Conversation with Science, edited by R. Ashby, C. Mulherin, J. Pilbrow and S. Ames, Iscast Nexus Books , published by Morning Star Publishing, 2018 , p75

2 S. Clifton, page 75 (ibid).

3 Dein, Et Al, Theodicy and End-of-Life Care - J Soc Work End Life Palliat Care. 2013 Apr; 9(2-3): 191–208  4 The question of whether the world should have been created with suffering was raised by Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamozov: “if everyone must suffer, in order to buy eternal harmony with their suffering...why should [children] have to suffer [?]...”. The question in this paper is whether the suffering was a logical necessity or not regardless of the greater good or spiritual development justifications.

5 God Freedom, and Evil, Grand Rapids Michigan, MI, Eerdmans (1989), p30

6 Swinburne Providence and The Problem of Evil Oxford University Press (1998)

7 Plantinga, Alvin (1989), God Freedom, and Evil, Grand Rapids Michigan, MI, Eerdmans, p30

8 J.L. Mackie, Evil and Omnipotence – Mind, New Series, Vol. 64, No 254 (Apr 1955). p200 to 212

9 Mackie J.L. The Miracle of Theism Oxford: Oxford University Press, p154

10 Swinburne Providence and The Problem of Evil (ibid)-p15

11 Swinburne Providence and The Problem of Evil (ibid)-pp125-126

12 .In Arguing about Gods, Graham Oppy states that "[m]any philosophers seem to suppose that [Plantinga's free will defense] utterly demolishes the kinds of 'logical' arguments from evil developed by Mackie" but continuing "I am not sure this is a correct assessment of the current state of play".

Concurring with Oppy, A.M. Weisberger writes “contrary to popular theistic opinion, the logical form of the argument is still alive and beating.” Among contemporary philosophers, most discussion on the problem of evil presently revolves around the evidential problem of evil, namely that the existence of God is unlikely, rather than illogical.” (my italics). Alvin Platinga’s free will defense – Wikipedia

13 C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, (1940) Samizdat, 2016 (public domain) p16

14 MR Antognazza, Leibniz, A Very Short Introduction Oxford University Press (2016) p67

15 Swinburne Providence and The Problem of Evil (ibid)-p8

16 Plantinga. God Freedom and Evil (ibid), p44

17 W. Prior, Ancient Philosophy, Oneworld Publications (2016), p57

18 W. Prior, Ancient Philosophy (ibid), pp64-65

19 W. Prior, Ancient Philosophy (ibid), pp65-66

20 I. Stewart, Do Dice Play God, Profile Books, 2019, p65

21 S. Blackburn, Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, 3rd, Oxford University Press, 2016, entry for ‘a priori / a posteriori, p26

22 D. O’Brien, Theory of Knowledge, Polity Press, 2017, ppp26-27

23 D. O’Brien, Theory of Knowledge (ibid), p27

24 D. O’Brien, Theory of Knowledge (ibid), p27

25 The Big Bang – the creation of not only the universe but the space and time within which it resides suggests a first cause – God.

Origin of Life - See – There is a God by former atheist and Oxford philosopher, Antony Flew.

Fine tuning - the anthropomorphic universal laws and constants indicates supernatural design of the universe. See A Fortunate Universe- Life in a Finely Tuned Cosmos by Professor by G.F. Lewis and Dr L.A. Barnes and The Goldilocks Enigma by Professor Paul Davies.

Intelligent Design –despite some legal controversies and scientific acceptance of the modern synthesis of evolution, the most complex forms of life appears to have been designed within evolution. eg natural biomolecular machines such as ATP synthase or kinase. See Undeniable, by Cambridge biologist, Dr Douglas Axe. For a ‘secular’ viewpoint see leading philosopher and atheist Thomas Nagel’s book entitled: Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo- Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False (Oxford University Press 2012).

NDE Medical Science: The medical science of the near death experience – see paper by

cardiologist Dr Van Lommel, in the prestigious medical journal, The Lancet reporting on 344 patients (‘Near Death Experiences in Survivors of Cardiac Arrest’ Lancet 358 (2001), 2039 -045.). It was later the subject of Dr Van Lommel’s book Consciousness Beyond Life – the Science of the Near Death Experience” (Harper One 2010).

26 D. O’Brien, Theory of Knowledge (ibid), pp192-193

27 S. Blackburn, Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, (ibid) entry for ‘omniscience’, p338 to p339

28 Swinburne Providence and The Problem of Evil (ibid)-p132-134

29 Wierenga, Edward, "Omniscience", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2018/entries/omniscience/&gt;.

30 Truth Omniscience and Cantorian Arguments – An Exchange – Alvin Plantinga and Patrick Grim from Philosophical Studies 71 (1993) 267-306

31 S. Blackburn, Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, (ibid) entry for ‘Cantor’s Theorem’, p70

32 C.Clapham & J. Nicholson, Oxford Dictionary of Mathematics,5th Ed. 2014, p59

33 Truth Omniscience and Cantorian Arguments – An Exchange (ibid), para 10. (1.)

34 C.Clapham & J. Nicholson, Oxford Dictionary of Mathematics (ibid) entry for ‘continuum hypothesis’, p102

35 Comte’s scientism or Quine’s assertion that there is nothing ‘a priori’ are notable.

36 J. Marías, History of Philosophy, Dover Publications 1967 (English Translation) p411 – He made the comment in regard to Husserl’s apparent approach to avoid metaphysics

37 D. O’Brien, Theory of Knowledge (ibid), p27 38 J. Marías, History of Philosophy, (Ibid) p411 39 J. Marías, History of Philosophy, (ibid) p410

 

 

 

40 Dreyfus draws from Heidegger’s concept that to understand a being we must understand the ‘world’ that the being is in – the context – see ‘The Problem of Being’ – Chapter -Heidegger’s Existential Philosophy J. Marías, History of Philosophy op.cit. pp427-428. .

41 Dreyfus , 1992: pp288-9 quoted from M. Wheeler, Cognition in Context: Phenomenology, Situated Robotics and the Frame Problem – International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 16(3), 323-49,2008 42 M. Wheeler, Cognition in Context: Phenomenology, Situated Robotics and the Frame Problem – International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 16(3), 323-49,2008 (quote from section 2. Stalking the Frame Problem)

43 Ian Stewart, Infinity, A Very Short Introduction – Oxford University Press (2017) p47

44 “The Nature and Attributes of God (www.newadvent.org).

45 The Philosophy of Science- edited by P.H. Nidditch (1968) Oxford University Press - paper included by Ernest Nagel The Structure of Teleological Explanations,

46 J. Marías, History of Philosophy, (Ibid) pp452-453

47 I. Berlin, The Proper Study of Mankind, Vintage , Random House, 2013 ed., p25

48 S. Blackburn, Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, (ibid) entry for ‘Zeno’s Paradoxes’ , p512

49 M. du Sautoy , What we cannot know, 4th Estate, Harper Collins, 2016

50 Huggett, Nick, "Zeno's Paradoxes", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2010 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2010/entries/paradox-zeno/&gt;.

51 See Manchak, John and Roberts, Bryan W., "Supertasks", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (ibid) Section 2.1 to 2.3

52 Ian Stewart The Beauty of Numbers in Nature – (ibid) p173

53 Ian Stewart The Beauty of Numbers in Nature – (ibid) p176

54 54 Professor J.M.McDonough, “Introductory Lectures on Turbulence” [Dept of Mech.Eng & Math.

- University of Kentucky]

55 Quote from D. Axe, Undeniable, Harper Collins, 2016, pp227-228

56 Ian Stewart The Beauty of Numbers in Nature – Ivy Press (2017) p59.