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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
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    321,452
    Perspectives
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    42
    The world is providentially run — Carmelics
    Home/Divine Attributes
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    The world is providentially run

    Divine AttributesNatural Theology
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.The whole cosmos is organized like a city
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    • 2.Each part of the cosmos is organized to serve the good of the whole
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Natural evils such as earthquakes, plagues, and predation cause immense suffering that serves no discernible benefit to the organisms harmed.
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    • 2.A genuinely providential ordering would require that apparent evils either benefit the sufferer or serve a greater good accessible to reason, which systematic natural evil does not satisfy.
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    • 3.Epicurus's trilemma establishes that omnipotent benevolence and the existence of gratuitous evil are logically incompatible, undermining providential cosmology.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.The Stoic inference from cosmic order to providential design commits the fallacy of treating apparent teleological structure as evidence of intentional governance.
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    • 2.Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion demonstrates that order in a system is equally explicable by blind necessity, matter's inherent properties, or chance as by rational design.
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    • 3.Marcus Aurelius's own analogy of the cosmos as a city proves too much, since cities arise through contingent human convention rather than rational divine planning.
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    Topics

    Divine AttributesNatural Theology

    Related

    A genuinely providential ordering would require that apparent evils either benef...Each part of the cosmos is organized to serve the good of the wholeEpicurus's trilemma establishes that omnipotent benevolence and the existence of...Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion demonstrates that order in a system...
    +4 moreShow less
    Marcus Aurelius's own analogy of the cosmos as a city proves too much, since cit...Natural evils such as earthquakes, plagues, and predation cause immense sufferin...The Stoic inference from cosmic order to providential design commits the fallacy...The whole cosmos is organized like a city

    Similar

    A Stoic must believe the world is providentially run92%Grumbling at the way things are implies the world is not providentiall...81%Cosmic nature is providential and represents what is best for the whol...71%A world is a maximal state of affairs that includes everything morally...69%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: marcus-aurelius
    View source passageHide passage
    To understand what the thought, ‘providence or atoms’, is doing here we have to connect it with the discontent that is the topic of the passage. Marcus is admonishing himself for his discontent with things as they stand, saying to himself, ‘if you are finding fault with things as they are, then you must think that they are not due to providence. But if they’re not due to providence, then they’re the result of random causes.’ In this passage, ‘atoms’ functions as the implicit commitment of one wh
    Extraction notes

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

    Details

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