Spectre Argument about Trinity

From guest blogger, Shao.

The puzzle of Trinity is that God, Holy Ghost and Jesus are three different entities but are also considered one thing. How do we explain that three is one and one is three? I am thinking about a video game that I play regularly and it might help explain the problem. 

So in the game of DOTA (acronym for "Defense of the Ancient", a very popular esports), there is a character called Spectre, which is a ghost-like hero in the game. This hero's ultimate skill is called haunt, which she is able to create doppelgangers omnipresently on the whole battle field behind each enemy hero. All the doppelgangers share certain percentage of Spectre's primary attributes: like 30% of her strength, agility and intelligence. Plus, all the doppelgangers have certain percentage of the powers of from Specter's gears. So for instance, if Spectre has a gear called Radiance, which will dole holy damage every second to her nearby enemies, once she popped her ultimate skill, all her doppelgangers can also do that but just less powerful. Besides shared attributes and power, Spectre can instantly teleport to, or maybe in other words, reincarnates, one of her doppelgangers and thus the doppelganger that she reincarnated suddenly became her. This hero is very powerful due to her ultimate skill that she can be omnipresent during the battle and all her doppelgangers can also be herself. 

I think this is a good analogy to the Trinity problem. First, God and Jesus are distinct entities just like Spectre and her doppelgangers. Additionally, although Jesus is capable of certain divine power, like cure a blind woman or heal the wounds, Jesus seems to be less powerful than God due to the fact that he was crucified by the Romans and if he is indeed God he should be invincible.  Similarily, Spectre's doppelgangers are weaker than her and do less damage, and they are not able to actively use any skills of Spectre, although passive skills and passive power (by saying passive I mean the player does not actively click any keys on the keyboard and the skill and power just have the effects automatically) of the gears still apply to doppelgangers. So, since Jesus resurrected after his crucifixion, it feels a lot like Spectre is able to instantly reincarnate to her doppelgangers and makes one of them her. 

So basically, I think my analogy suggests that it might be the case that Jesus is like a doppelganger of God that he shares certain attributes and power of God but at the same time less powerful than God. However, he is still God due to the fact that God can just become Jesus anytime he wants to and makes Jesus God himself. I think this analogy solves Christina's argument that Clark Kent and Superman is just one person but Jesus and God seems to be different entities that they can talk to each other. 

The Problem of Evil and the Free Will Defense

From guest blogger, Ezekial. 

When considering the problem of evil, a common answer is that the granting humans the free will and moral agency to make moral choices is necessary to bringing about the greatest good or perfection, and that makes evil a logical necessity of granting humans this freedom. In this view, it must be the case that it is at least possible that the amount of freedom god gives us is just the right amount.

Being in the “sweet spot” might mean that we lack the freedom (of will or action) for gratuitous evil or capacity to cause suffering, but we have enough freedom to do enough damage to make our morally good actions significant.

Consider a world in which god gave us more freedom and power, such that we can cause more pain and suffering than we do now. Perhaps we have the abilities of super-rape, murder, or the power to harm people more so than we do now. It could just be that people are more apt or willing to use the powers to do moral evils than they do in the current world. Certainly we can imagine a world in which there is more suffering as a result of human conduct, and that should be reason enough to believe that god did not give us too much freedom.

Now consider a world in which we have less freedom, such that we either don’t have the capacity for raping, murdering, and other tier 1 moral sins, or we are just predisposed against those actions so much so that it is very unlikely for a person to be moved to such actions. In this world there would be less or little suffering compared to reality, but the argument could be made that lacking the freedom to commit these evils makes the good less meaningful. God allows people into heaven because they are good, more or less. So if people don’t really have to make choices between good and evil because they are always good and have to very much against their nature to commit evil, it doesn’t make sense for god to arbitrate people to heaven or hell, because people lack the sufficient moral agency to be worthy of such a judgement. It would be like God making everyone without the capacity for evil and then rewarding them for not being evil.

There are many other arguments regarding the evil in the world that can be leveled against god, but it should at least seem plausible that god gave humans the right amount of freedom because we can think of possible worlds that are worse as a result of having more or less freedom than our world. 

Verifiability and Arguments for God's Existence

From guest blogger, Casey.

Many of the arguments we have gone over for the existence of god, whether a priori or a posteriori do not seem verifiable. For instance, Anselm’s argument that god is the greatest being thought of, to exist is greater than to not exist, and therefore god must exist, doesn’t seem falsifiable. It could be the case it would for some reason be greater not to exist, or it just might be a false string of logic. The cosmological arguments also seem improvable. We have not yet observed an unmoved mover, a completely necessary being, or anything that can be considered perfect, in the universe (we have observed remnants of a first cause [i.e., the Big Bang] but what caused that?). The teleological argument stems from observing nature, but it is still inductive and cannot be observed directly. No one has ever seen god constructing things out in nature (one might argue Adam and Eve had, but I am not going to go into biblical arguments). So what is the big deal? Plenty of folks are strict rationalists?

I am not really sure if this necessarily will lead to a serious problem, but the fact is that we will never be able to test these theories, or at least not without some sort of miracle in science. I am questioning if some sort of justification that will never lead to knowledge can be used to fully justify a belief. Since there is always a slim chance things might be different, one cannot be 100% sure of his/her belief. This does not mean one is not justified in believing a certain proposition based on unverifiable justification. I just question if one can be fully certain. Maybe this is why so many religions put so much emphasis on faith.