Alex O'Connor's Contradiction (On Suffering)

Introduction

Are you one of those crazy people who just love sitting down and watching a 3 hour debate on some theological discussion, or in the case of Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson (with his word salads) - a full 8 hours? Well, I am. From the philosophical debates about the existence of God and the problem of evil, I see that there has been a change of the guard since I was a teen and the level of public discussion has definitely increased in complexity and also sincerity. There have been many great debates - Sam Harris v Jordan Peterson, William Lane Craig v Sam Harris, Trent Horn v Alex O'Connor etc. Trent Horn is definitely a significant force on the theist side and Alex O'Connor on the atheist side. Both are improving on or at least articulating old arguments in new ways that I find intriguing. For example, Trent is improving on the Kalam Cosmological argument (an infinite materialistic past is impossible), and Alex is giving credit where due - that human suffering isn't so much of an issue due to its allowance of higher order values, but he instead focuses on animal suffering (more on this later). I am not so convinced Alex is the "non-resistant, non-believer" he claims to be. 

Alex

Alex has a fantastic accent, sharp wit, and depending on the interview, he has a charming and genuine feel about his discussions. He purports to be a "non-resistant, non-believer" which gives the impression he is very open to believing in God. He even stated in one interview that the main idea that is keeping him from believing in God is the problem of unnecessary animal suffering. While holding this in mind, I do find it suspicious that he finds himself debating frequently against the resurrection of Jesus, the divine command for the Canaanite "genocide", and whether Jesus even claimed to be God. For someone who is non-resistant and has only one mentioned reason for not believing in God, he certainly is very actively opposing Him. There might be more to his story than he lets on. Alex seems to rely on a rather literalistic approach to what I call "lemon picking" which throws a lot of Christians off in debate. Lemon picking is a way of deliberately missing a point and looking at the negative. For example, many Christians use Galatians 3:28 to end slavery - "There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus". Alex doesn't believe we can use this passage because it would mean denying the literal existence of male and female. Alex clearly misunderstands the significance of this passage - that slaves and non slaves are equal in the eyes of God. Many of the reasons for slavery throughout history is that slaves are seen as worth less than free people. Galatians alternatively claims otherwise.  

This leads me to the main topic of this blog post... Alex's contradiction. 

Unnecessary Animal Suffering

Alex's main gripe is that he can't understand how a good God could allow unnecessary animal suffering. This is a fair point and shows that Alex has some keen sense of morals. It is a significant Biblical idea that we as imago dei are meant to have dominion and tend God's creations from early times. This means caring for animals is a deep God-given moral compass He has given us. I am glad Alex is using it. Alex likes to weaponize it in his debates. The Knechtles unfortunately appeared to have a rough time chatting with Alex in this short half-hour discussion - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbtajMlNcnw&t=7s. In it at 1:25 Alex says to Cliff that if Alex pushed a button turning Cliff into a random wild animal, Cliff would kill himself immediately because of how miserable his life would be. Essentially, Alex is claiming that there is no value in living the life of an animal. 

Colonising Planets

Is Alex consistent with this proposition? Let's find out. In a debate with a rather worthy opponent - Catholic apologist Trent Horn, Horn pressed Alex on his rhetoric around this issue. He posited to Alex to imagine that all humanity left earth to colonise another planet. Alex has the opportunity to wipe out all nature on earth after we leave with the pressing of a button. Alex essentially gets his wish. He can end all unnecessary suffering. Alex responded basically that he didn't think he would push the button but would rather choose a button that reduced suffering. He provided no metric for deciding at what point is too much suffering - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PF1JgXOKDQ. Trent clearly drives this point home and moves onto why Alex cannot find that metric. Alex's utilitarianism gets in the way. 

Although Alex's concerns weren't really sufficient for determining how much suffering is too much, he did raise an interesting analogy about a deer being caught under a log and starving to death, even without knowledge by humans of this ever happening. This situation of suffering seems pointless to us. I do not pretend to have all the answers, but I think there are possible areas that could be explored further regarding where justified suffering could be found within the experience of animals.

Pain Is Good

First, at a silly level, we might consider us living life without pain receptors in order to minimise suffering (much like zombies or lepers). Clearly, this would be an unpleasant experience. The feeling of a hard day's work is a genuinely good feeling even if I had risked injuring myself doing so (or I had to plan my day so that I wasn't carelessly smashing into everything). This seems like a frightful dream to consider the feeling of having no pain receptors. 

Pain Is Necessary

Moving to another level, it is often said that suffering is necessary for higher order goods such as love, kindness, mercy, and compassion. I emphasise the "necessary". Jesus said that there is no greater love than one who lays down his life for his friends (John 15:13). If God wants to express Himself (as Creator) as the greatest expression of good, then this may be why God allowed/caused evil to enter the world in the first place - so that the greatest expressions of love could become a potential reality. God expressed this through His Son Jesus Christ on the cross. There is a certain beauty with higher order goods that you do not get without suffering. I am glad that Alex acknowledges this in multiple interviews. However, one could imagine that suffering might be reduced so much that all unnecessary suffering ceases to exist and therefore maximising the good ratio. Though, I am not sure that this is possible.

If we wanted to witness the "greatest love" of someone giving their life for a friend, I suppose we could minimise suffering so that only one person needed to experience this, almost like a single exemplar of suffering for us all to observe and feel pity for. Maybe, there is an exemplar "murder" story we all "know" about. Although this scenario allows us to maybe understand or empathise to a small degree with the exemplar/s of suffering for each scenario, there feels like a certain travesty and arbitrariness about it that is difficult to explain. I would argue that the exemplars alone are not enough to qualify as producing that "higher good" within us. Much like merely seeing someone garden and consequently getting a sore back and limbs is not enough for us to enjoy the relief of putting their feet up and resting after the fact. Having the ability to participate or the potential to participate in a higher good holds its own value. It must follow that if we have this potential to experience a higher good then we must also have the potential to experience suffering.

The very existence of suffering just being around the corner (as horrifying as it may be at times) provides within us a feeling of a need to band together and to help each other that in itself is valuable. We don't know when suffering will impact us, but through compassion, mercy, and love, we can experience pleasure of being in unity with others in the face of  real potential of suffering. This is infinitely more valuable than minimising suffering to a mere exemplar and addresses the real difficulty of deciding what unnecessary suffering actually is. Minimising suffering doesn't produce a ratio of more good.

Pain Is "Good/Necessary" For Animals Too

If this idea can work for people, then why could this not work for animals too? Alex frequently uses the deer being eaten by a lion as an example of unnecessary designed suffering in nature. I cannot speak as completely understanding (if at all) what the life of a deer may be. For a start, as many philosophers claim, there is a certain extra level of suffering a human can experience than an animal. An animal might experience suffering, but not the despairing self-awareness kind of suffering that true consciousness brings. They might feel pain, but not necessarily think, "I am in existential pain, and this is unfair". Animals don't have the ability to suffer as much as people, or at least they experience a different kind of pain to us. 

I wonder if a similar concept of the value of life and the real potential of suffering could be applied with deer as with people. Even though being hunted down and eaten by a lion is truly terrifying, could it be valuable for a deer to experience the safety of a herd instinct or comradery, even in the face of real dangers? A lion likewise, experiencing its own unique version of the herd instinct as they hunt together? These positive experiences of animal behaviour may be worth the suffering involved. This is the reason why when we step back, it would be difficult to push the button that exterminates all non-human life on a planet because there is something inherently valuable about nature and its own experiences. Many ultimate Sci fi movie villains attempt minimising suffering through extermination... we all know this is wrong and is actually destroying all that is good with it.

Higher Goods Within People

If animals may garnish some form of good through the real risk of wide spread suffering as people do, people can also experience higher order goods from animal suffering. Many people such as the SPCA here in New Zealand exist so that they can exercise a higher order good of caring for at risk animals. They cannot reach and save every animal from every situation, but the very knowledge that suffering is happening outside of their perceived control motivates them to creatively act to minimise "unnecessary" suffering. In a way that makes the unnecessary suffering a necessary part of motivating the greater good of SPCA's mission. Without the sense of a natural world run by natural laws where real risks and the potential of suffering exists, we can never experience these higher order goods.

This argument can be placed into a polly syllogism:

1. If God embodies the highest form of goodness, then His nature necessitates self-expression through creation.
2. In creating the world, God actualised the potential for widespread animal suffering as a means to manifest essential goods.
3. The existence of widespread animal suffering is necessary for cultivating higher-order virtues in humanity, such as compassion, mercy, and concern.
4. Additionally, this suffering plays a role in fostering lower-order goods in animals, such as the herd instinct, which contributes to survival and social cohesion.
5. Therefore, the actualization of widespread animal suffering within creation is justified as a means of producing both higher and lower-order goods.

Conclusion

In the end, it is difficult to separate the necessity of suffering from higher and lower order goods. In Scripture, God went into a long monologue with Job challenging Job to understand his own limitations of insight. Job was humbled by this monologue. Ultimately, we cannot see all the necessities of any single event, but because God is good, we can trust that He has a greater plan for good that sometimes only He is aware of. This is infinitely more reassuring than the purposelessness of an atheistic view on suffering. We can speculate, but ultimately it is His prerogative to run this universe as He sees fit.   

The Risk of Patronization

This article is making the rounds on Facebook. There is a lot of lively debate, as you can imagine. One big discussion point is whether it is overly 'patronizing' and whether Christians should be 'patronizing'. What do you think?

Some of you fundamentally disagree with the premise of this article - that homosexuality is somehow inferior to God's preferred approach to sexuality. Please don't upset yourself by reading this article, and please be very cautious commenting (comments attempting to change such fundamental components of each other's worldviews will likely struggle to have any constructive effects whatsoever).

But ASSUMING the premise is correct, I would like to hear suggestions on how you would encourage people into God's best, WITHOUT seeming patronizing. I struggle to do this - I don't want to be patronizing, I want to be humble, loving, and dedicated to pursuing the truth alongside my fellow struggling humans. But I can't seem to avoid it.

Maybe we CAN'T avoid it, because 'encouraging people into God's preferred approach to sexuality' ALWAYS WILL equate to 'being patronizing' (at least to some people). In which case we have three possible approaches:

1. We could do our best to continue to encourage people in this direction, just accepting that we will appear to be patronizing to some people.
2. We could stop addressing the issue, favouring 'bigger' problems like modern day slavery. But try doing this without appearing patronizing to those who promote slavery! Is there something about slavery that makes us willing to take the risk of patronizing someone? Is it conceivable that there could be something about homosexuality, that means we should also be willing to risk patronizing someone?
3.  We could stop addressing the issue, favouring the 'ultimate' aim of 'just loving' everyone. In this case, how does this view of 'love' fit with God's (Biblical) concept of 'love'? Does 'love' automatically exclude all forms of apparent patronization? How does 'love' deal with the problem that homosexual people are not living in God's best? And how does the 'ultimate' aim of 'loving' people mix with the 'ultimate' aim of glorifying God?

I believe there are clear answers to all these questions, provided by God through Scripture, and supported by our natural sense of relationships, beauty, and logic.

• To me, loving God means loving people, which means encouraging them into God's best, which means making every effort to speak the truth in a way that matches is beauty and avoids unnecessary distractions. 
• This gets very complex, because it requires making every effort to avoid patronization AND speaking the truth whenever and however we think it will be constructive. And this requires accepting risks due to our fallibility - risk that we will be unnecessarily silent at times, and risk that we will be unnecessarily patronizing and so distract people from the truth at times.

Blanket statements and blog posts will automatically exaggerate these risks, because by nature they can't be as contextually tailored. Is this acceptable? Should we use blog posts to do this? What about letters to all Christians, or entire cities (like the ones written in the NT by the Apostle Paul)?

I'd like to hear your thoughts below!

EMERGENT CHURCH

The 'emergent church' is essentially the postmodern church. It simply challenges modernistic assumptions found in today's global Church, and attempts to allow Christianity to function in a more 'organic' way - free from these assumptions (but they don't tend to define or limit what this might mean). It is not primarily about defining any new mind sets or ways of looking at things. It doesn't even necessarily condemn the modernism (or bondage-to-modernism) that it challenges. Many emergent churches begin to function and express themselves in a way which appears totally foreign to us modernistic Christians - it can seem jarring, bizarre, and divisive. But their insistence of questioning (rather than answering) makes it impossible to decide on a definition of what the emergent church thinks or does (such defining is, after all, a modernistic aim!)

I've read lots about the 'emergent church' and have wholeheartedly rejected it (for lots of 'good reasons') in the past. But I've never seriously listened to any of its proponents, which is all they want us to do. The other day I started doing just that, and I now have mixed feelings, having asked some novel questions about my belief system. This article will not attempt the impossible task of defining the 'emergent church' and what's right/wrong with it! Instead I'll just describe the conclusions I have arrived at about my own belief system. Most of it has been helpfully influenced by the emergent thinking, but the last two paragraphs in particular describe the conflict I have with their excess focus on their own novel questions.

I'm really interested in other people's experiences and opinions of the 'emergent church' or post-modern concepts. We have talked about it lots in previous posts but I think it would be worth summarising your views in the comments below, as well as any new insights :)

Christianity is primarily about a heart-resounding with God's glory.

The Holy Spirit gives rebirth which frees our hearts to experience its greatest enjoyment in the expression of God's glory. We begin to focus on Christ as a personal embodiment of all-important beauty. We submit the importance of our own identity (worldview, meaning, purpose, worth, validity, definition, etc), to the importance of God's glory being expressed and enjoyed. The mind of Christ is that He Himself did all this, emptied Himself for the sake of God's glory - and so this is what union with Christ means (death to self, rising to God). But the full implications of our new heart desires and union with Christ are only realised as the heart perceives the glory of God so that it CAN enjoy it - and this glory is not fully expressed in this life, and is certainly not accurately or fully perceived by us.

This heart-resounding God focus minimises the importance of modernistic 'pillars'.

First, we can be honest about the insecurities of our identity - admit doubts and failings, accept challenges that shake the foundation of what holds us together. We won't react with emotion or avoidance or aggression to the things (or the people) that expose our insecurities or the flaws in our worldview. Instead we will embrace all of this! At worst, these things do not threaten what is of ultimate importance to us (the expression and enjoyment of God's glory), and the deep cracks in our identity and worldview - our doubts and weakness and confusion - actually identify us with Christ more (who went through the same in His sufferings). Also such deep honesty about ourselves frees us to truly empathise with others, including how they see us (in all our flaws). And often it will enable us to work toward a better perception and enjoyment of God's glory together.

Second, we will be able to escape the 'death drive' of having distant goals that are meant to fulfil us, but which require sacrificing too much in order to have any chance of attaining it. The world is rife with the problems caused when people sacrifice holiness, relationship with others, or peace with God for these aims. And extra problems are created merely by the unattainment of these goals - unhappiness, inability to enjoy the present, and lying to ourselves and/or others (either keeping this goal secret, or keeping the ongoing failure secret). Even good goals - holiness, spirituality, good works, closeness to God - can be wrongly persued as a 'death drive', leading to these problems. We can avoid the sacrifice required, AND avoid the problems associated with wanting but never attaining to such goals, because what is of ultimate importance to us is the enjoyment of the expression of God's glory. This glory is both present AND future, and besides the death-drive's self-focussed fulfilment has been submitted to God's glory as part of our identity. We are free to admit our failings and confusion over our goals because these are not primary.

Third, we will not insist on any particular cognitive knowledge of God as necessary or important in a blanket sense (such as a creed). What is important is the heart change that God brings, and the subsequent heart-resounding and enjoyment of the holistic expression of the glory of God. We will direct our attention to whatever that is required to woo the heart, and to satisfy the heart with the expression of God's glory - trusting God to use our efforts as He sees fit, and to cover our flawed perception and expression of Him. We will find unity in this common heart-resounding faith (which is often expressed in different doctrine, because no one has found the perfect full cognitive expression of it), rather than demanding exact doctrinal sameness. And we will accept that disagreement is part of the process of working together to improve our perception of the expression of God's glory.

There is danger in focussing on this minimisation, instead of God's glory.

Identity, goals, and cognitive knowledge are all still very important to God! While they do not define our ultimate aim or enjoyment, they are very helpful, and God mandates their use in the service of His glory and our enjoyment of it. Heart change is not defined by perception of God's glory, but by enjoyment of His glory - nevertheless, such enjoyment IS revealed as perception occurs. Likewise, perception is not defined as cognitive knowledge, but cognitive knowledge is one way to perceive - and it is required in some measure to talk about God, which is one of the main ways God intends us to woo hearts and help OTHERS to perceive! So, we will continue with cognitive beliefs and expressions, and attempt to improve them together, and use them as accurately as possible for the goal of enjoying God's glory, trusting God's grace to cover our flaws and fill the message with spiritual life. We will submit it all to God through union with Christ, and seek deep honesty about our flaws and doubts and insecurities, focussing on corporate love and enjoyment of God's glory together even when cognitive experience of this isn't the same, and encourage true empathy with others (which includes seeing ourselves as they see us, with all our flaws).

We also need to be careful to continue to aim for the right things - union and love of Christ, NOT merely being shocked out of our faulty modernistic thought system. If this is all that happens, we have failed drastically. We need to remember that everything needs tailoring to context - we do whatever is required to help each other progress in our perception and enjoyment of God's glory. Sometimes our faulty cognitive expression is NOT helpful to that person at that time. Often, in the process of communication, our perception of God's glory is lost on the person, and their disagreement is actually an unwitting affirmation that they have the same faith as us and are looking for true perception of God's glory. Sometimes non-cognitive perception is most helpful, which may require being shocked out of a modernistic approach to God. One cannot mandate a particular approach, and I believe often the division caused by the drastic and new questions of the 'emergent church' are simply not worth the benefit (just like modernistic arguments about correct doctrine are often not worth the benefit).

Finally, we need to be vigilant and not let the current OR emerging pagan culture corrupt the Church's pure and contrasting message. This contrast is just as much against secular modernism as it is against secular post-modernism. We need to maintain a delight in old and fixed things (such as God), rather than undue fascination with what is new and novel and 'relevant'. And we need to be careful not to paint another false veneer of 'happy relevant honest challenge-resistant post-modernism' instead of 'happy secure cognitively-sound modernism'. Both are hypocrisy.

May God help us keep the ultimate aim of enjoying His glory in sight, and may He help us communicate clearly with others!

Is Islam a religion of peace? - Debate

Off topic a bit from what we have been discussing lately, but here is a very interesting debate about whether Islam is a religion of peace or not. I found it quite insightful around several issues including:

- How Muslims interpret the Quran
- How should paradigms be judged
- The effects of social contexts on beliefs
- Contextualising versus plain reading
- Social change

It is long, but a good watch. I started out as unsure, but for me the opposition to the motion won this debate. It sounds like (though I have never read it) the Quran can easily be misinterpreted. The ones putting forward the motion seemed to suggest that you need to be a scholar to interpret the Quran correctly and that plain reading could lead to violence. However, an important point made by both sides is that it is possible to be a peaceful Muslim, but as pointed out evidence suggests that the Quran is not easily interpreted in a peaceful manner.