Who's Responsible?

As a dabbler in philosophy, I have spent some time pondering a question that has plagued philosophers for millennia.  Namely, what is the nature of free will?  This is usually addressed in the context of a religious or counter-religious argument revolving around the compatibility of predestination, divine pre-knowledge, and our ability to make choices both simple and profound.  This is a fascinating conversation, but not one that I am interested in indulging at the moment.  I am more concerned with the role of free will in a social context.  This question can be tailored so as to apply to every aspect of society.  For example, let's look at socio-economic classes (I hope that's the "vogue" terminology right now).

It  seems to be an American tradition to believe in social (upward) mobility, that anyone with work ethic can "pull themselves up from their bootstraps" (I don't know what bootstraps are) and achieve a good life regardless of one's birth, or one's parents' station.  This is an optimistic and comforting notion, that many of the upper class citizens became such through personal achievement and hard work, and that the poor deserve our pity only to the extent that we pity their laziness and wasted opportunity.  Sounds harsh, I know, but I at least agree that, if true, this system is preferable to one in which the poor are such because of circumstances beyond their control.  That would be unjust.  In the interest of full disclosure, I am employed full time and make well below the national median income.

I will now steer the conversation toward the philosophically interesting part, but I would first like to acknowledge that there does seem to be a growing trend of rejecting this notion of unfettered social mobility in the media.  And that is another fascinating conversation that I would love to pursue with you, but not in this post.  So, if a person is born with a severe mental or physical handicap which prevents them from participating in the workforce, no reasonable person would fault them for not achieving.  If a person is born to a junkie mother in an abusive home, but seems to be more or less physically whole, maybe some of us decide that such a person does not get the same "pass" as the handicapped person does.  If a person is born into a "normal" family environment, but has emotionally distant parents or suffers mild psychological abuse, probably more of us are going to take the stance that such a person can be expected to thrive in our society if they so choose.  And finally, if a person is born without any identifiable disadvantages, probably most of us are going to expect them to succeed in society (provided they want to).

The point in all this is that we as a society have a very wide-ranging set of beliefs on where the threshold of environmental factors in social achievement ends, and therefore where personal responsibility begins.  And drawing that line arbitrarily somewhere between severe physical/mental handicap at birth and a "perfect" childhood seems, well, rather arbitrary.  Perhaps we are looking at the problem the wrong way.  Maybe "work ethic" and "laziness" are not characteristics that we can take personal credit for.  Maybe they are as much a part of our environmental circumstances as genetic disease and abusive, neglectful parents.  I know, I know, this sounds like some socialist drivel to some of you, but consider this:
If you view hard work as a personal achievement that you can take credit for, then likely you would consider yourself a hard worker, at least to some extent.  If so, then you and I have something in common.  I consider myself to be a hard worker.  If I were forced one day to label complete strangers as either "lazy" or "hardworking" based on the extremely incomplete information set yielded by my passing observation, I would certainly encounter folks that I would label as "lazy".  So I certainly don't deny the existence of lazy people, but rather I wonder if they choose to be lazy, or put differently, if they would prefer to be hardworking.

Here is my reasoning.  If I am correct in evaluating myself as being relatively hardworking, then I am certainly glad that I am not lazy.  In fact, I wouldn't mind being an even harder worker.  Now the limiting factor on my laziness is stress.  I don't want to spend most of my time working so that I can afford an apartment and a car that enable me to spend most of my time working.  But the stress of being homeless or without transportation or without food would be so taxing that it is simply easier for me to spend most of my time working in a dead-end job.  In fact I show up early every day in order to avoid the stress of constantly cutting it close.  That's just the way I am wired.  So if a person is free from those stresses, what precisely is their motive to work hard?  I don't endorse a lazy lifestyle, but I sure as hell don't endorse my lifestyle either.  Freeloading or being exploited? Seems like a "lesser of two evils" kinda thing to me.

Anyway, I'll wrap this up.  I wonder if our work ethic is outside our control, and if it is, doesn't that dramatically change the way we look at society, success, poverty, and fairness?  For an interesting tie-in, here's a podcast about a similar way of looking at criminal guilt.

Eternity, Identity, and You Pt. 1

This post is the first of a planned three-part series.  Part one deals with the terminal view of hell, part two deals with some questions regarding the nature of heaven, and part three examines questions of identity.

I'm going to begin by listing some assumptions that I am making for this post.  This post is concerned with the Christian biblical explanation of Hell, and sin, etc. as it has been explained to me throughout my life.  The short version: 100% of humans are born destined for Hell as we are sinful by nature.  We will all commit sins in our lifetimes, any single one of which is sufficient to compromise our afterlife in heaven with God.  Any and all sins are forgiven if we ask God, due to the sacrifice of Jesus.  By accepting the gift of His grace, and repenting from our nature, we are granted eternity in Heaven.  No amount of action on our part (besides the above) can possibly be sufficient to earn this forgiveness. It is and must be given freely.  The lack of God's grace and forgiveness sentences a person to eternity in Hell, apart from God.  Okay, I think that fairly sums it up.

The argument that I intend to make here is this: Eternal damnation is inconsistent with the nature of God as He is described, and so if we don't wish to scrap the whole religion, we must find a different explanation for the nature of Hell.

Eternal Damnation is Inconsistent with the nature of God as He is described

This seems to me to be a relatively simple argument to follow.  Here 'goes.
Premises:
A) God created man
B) God knew every man's fate before creation (omniscience)
C) God is love (I admit that this one is a bit ambiguous but, hey, I didn't come up with it)
D) Hell is suffering
E) A soul condemned to hell spends eternity in hell (This I mean to disprove)

Now, if we take A and B together, then it follows that God created Adam and Eve with the foreknowledge that they would sin.  This means that He knew countless souls would be sentenced to Hell.
Call this A + B => F
F) God created man knowing that many would die and go to Hell
Then E + D => G
G) Hell is infinite and suffering, hence it is infinite suffering
F + G => H
H) God created humankind with the knowledge that He was creating infinite suffering

I propose that creating a system with the foreknowledge that it will cause infinite suffering is inconsistent with the idea that the creator is possessed of "perfect love".  in other words, C and H are incompatible.

Now in my experience, Christians get really defensive here.  I don't know why.  Their own behavior is in accordance with my assertion here: if a person fervently believes in premises E and G, that is a person lacking salvation is destined for infinite suffering, then it seems to me that such a person has a moral obligation to devote their life to helping others attain salvation.  The idea that another person, whether evil, a stranger, an acquaintance, or a loved one, is going to suffer infinitely would, in my mind, bother me so deeply that I wouldn't be able to ignore or accept it.  And yet a statistically insignificant percentage of Christians live a life devoted to "saving" others.  And most don't even make a halfhearted effort.

Consider this: Humanity is not likely to exist in its mortal form forever.  Even if we don't kill ourselves or fall prey to a hostile force or cosmic disaster, the last source of energy in the universe will one day decay, making life impossible.  So barring any divine intervention that would "rewind" the entropy of the universe, there will be an end to humanity.  Now however long our run may be, all of the suffering experienced by the human race for any finite amount of time is a finite amount.  So one single soul condemned to eternity in hell suffers more than the sum total of the human race.  Not only does this seem an odd tenet of a religion, but it also precludes the argument that, even after death, a person's evil influence will continue to propagate and cause more suffering, thereby warranting additional penance.

So in conclusion, unless I've missed something, it seems that we have to decide that one of the premises I've given is false.  Either Hell isn't suffering, or it isn't eternal, or God isn't love, or He didn't know that mankind would sin, or He isn't omnipotent.  Anybody object?

INSERT OBLIGATORY NEW YEAR REFERENCE HERE

I've been absent from the exchange again.  I apologize to my nonexistent readers.  Had some health issues recently, and some other issues, but I am still alive and I at least intend to be more diligent about posting here.  Note that I do not resolve to be more diligent.  Happy 2014.  May its splendor outshine its predecessor.