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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Cleanthes' concession that happiness must exceed misery i... — Carmelics
    Home/Problem of Evil
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    Cleanthes' concession that happiness must exceed misery is fatal to the religious position

    Against an attribute of GodProblem of Evil
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    2 reasons for
    1 reason against

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Cleanthes' concession operates within an analogical framework where God's attributes are inferred from observed effects, not stipulated a priori.
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    • 2.Within analogical theism, a God inferred from imperfect effects cannot coherently possess attributes exceeding what those effects warrant.
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    • 3.Therefore, conceding happiness merely exceeds misery caps the inferred God at finite, imperfect goodness, collapsing traditional theism on its own empirical terms.
      ?

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    Reason for 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Rowe's internalist standard holds that a perfectly good being permits suffering only when no alternative would produce a better or equal outcome.
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    • 2.A world where happiness only marginally exceeds misery entails preventable suffering that an omnipotent being could have eliminated without net loss.
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    • 3.Cleanthes' concession thus implicitly acknowledges the existence of gratuitous evil, which is logically incompatible with classical perfect-being theology as articulated by Anselm and Aquinas.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.It will be difficult to prove that happiness exceeds misery in the world
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    • 2.Proving happiness exceeds misery is insufficient to vindicate God's moral attributes
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    • 3.Any degree of unnecessary evil, however small, is incompatible with the existence of an infinitely powerful and perfectly good God
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    Problem of EvilAgainst an attribute of God

    Related

    A world where happiness only marginally exceeds misery entails preventable suffe...Any degree of unnecessary evil, however small, is incompatible with the existenc...Cleanthes' concession operates within an analogical framework where God's attrib...Cleanthes' concession thus implicitly acknowledges the existence of gratuitous e...
    +5 moreShow less
    It will be difficult to prove that happiness exceeds misery in the worldProving happiness exceeds misery is insufficient to vindicate God's moral attrib...Rowe's internalist standard holds that a perfectly good being permits suffering ...Therefore, conceding happiness merely exceeds misery caps the inferred God at fi...Within analogical theism, a God inferred from imperfect effects cannot coherentl...

    Similar

    Denying that happiness exceeds misery would eliminate the basis for al...89%Proving happiness exceeds misery is insufficient to vindicate God's mo...83%It will be difficult to prove that happiness exceeds misery in the wor...80%There is more happiness than misery in the world75%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: hume-religion
    View source passageHide passage
    Faced with this difficulty, Cleanthes insists that contrary to all that Philo and Demea have claimed, we must allow that there is more happiness than misery, more pleasure than pain, in this world. Failing this, “there is an end at once of all religion” (D, 10.28/199). Philo’s response is that this is a fatal concession. Not only will it be hard to prove that there is more happiness than misery in the world, much more than this is needed to vindicate God’s moral attributes. Unless all evil is es
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (2 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit