Demolishing Triablogue: No, Steve Hays, ticking time-bombs aren't relevant to child-rape

This is my reply to an article by Steve Hays entitled

Causing evil

A stock objection to Calvinism goes something like this: it is evil to cause evil.

That's because the only exception anybody perceives to the rule, is when Calvinists need to get their ass out of a theological jam.

But the God of Calvinism causes evil (or determines evil, which amounts to the same thing). Indeed, the God of Calvinism causes human agents to commit evil. Yet making someone else do evil is at least as bad if not worse than doing it yourself.

And only religion would motivate a person to consider that causing evil might be good.

Let's examine that objection. Take the ticking timebomb scenario. Many people think torturing a terrorist to find out where the bomb is hidden, to save innocent lives, is immoral.

Not if the good of torturing him is likely to outweigh the bad of hundreds of people dying in an explosion. Your argument here might refute ridiculous liberals who think Constitutional rights are the inerrant word of God, but that's a far cry from arguing that your Calvinist god is "good" for causing men to rape children to death.

Why is that immoral? Presumably, they think torture is wrong because they think excruciating pain is evil. If so, then it's evil to cause excruciating pain.

You won't find anything in the NT to support the idea of Christians inflicting pain for the sake of a greater good, except in the irrelevant sense of excommunication or shunning.

If they don't think excruciating pain is evil, then it's unclear why they think torture is wrong. They might not think that's the only reason torture is wrong. They might think torture is wrong in part because coercion is wrong. But presumably they think the evil of excruciating pain is a necessary condition of what makes torture wrong, in cases where torture utilizes pain. Indeed, pain is coercive. The two are inseparable in that scenario.

You'd do a better job had you addressed the real problem:  Your god thinks it is "good" to cause men to rape little kids to death.  Deal with that.  What, your all-powerful God just couldn't achieve his purposes in any other way than to predestine a man to rape a child to death?  Either your god is a scumbag, or he isn't all-powerful.  Since you are a Calvinist, you likely won't be invoking W.L. Craig's "what if" scenarios whereby his evaporating illusions take the place of serious argumentation.

The justification for torturing the terrorist is to save innocent lives. But since they regard torture as intrinsically wrong, the goal, however noble, can't justify that expedient. So goes the argument.
 But let's vary the illustration. Take a field medic during the Civil War who operates without anesthetic, because none is available. If excruciating pain is evil, then it's evil for the medic to inflict excruciating pain on his patients. Yet most of us think his action is justified. He must amputate the arms and legs of gunshot victims to prevent the greater evil of death by gangrene. Yet in that event, there are situations in which causing evil isn't evil.
 In addition, suppose there's a patient he's loathe to save. It may be the enemy. But the field commander orders him to operate on that patient because the field commander wants to pump the enemy soldier for information. He may force the unwilling medic to operate at gunpoint if need be.
 That would mean he's causing an agent to commit evil, assuming that pain is evil. If, on the other hand, we grant that it's not inherently evil to cause the evil of inflicting pain, then it's not evil to cause an agent to cause evil, in that respect. At least, that seems to break the chain of inference.
 Although that's a hypothetical comparison, it has a real-world counterpart. We experience physical pain because God designed the human body to have that sensitivity. But if excruciating pain is evil, then that means God causes evil by designing and making bodies with sensitivity.
 Let's consider some objections to my argument:
 i) Pain isn't good or bad in itself. Rather, it's context-dependent. For instance, pain can be a warning sign to avert or avoid greater harm. The painful sensation of burning deters us from taking chances with fire. Temporary pain protects us from greater harm.
 One potential problem with that reply is that it makes it harder to oppose torture in the ticking timebomb scenario.

But it kills you in the context of a man raping a child to death, since the resulting pain there cannot be rationally said to be "required" to achieve any greater good (otherwise, you'd have to commit to the premise that the child who survives a rape is better off than had they been spared the experience).  The bible doesn't present God as causing men to do such things for the sake of a greater good, but that he causes men to do such things to punish nations in a corporate manner.  Isaiah 13, Hosea 13, Deut. 28.  Christians who feel a sense of unfairness when bad luck comes their way, simply don't know their bibles...god will cause a man to rape a woman solely because she belongs to a sinful nation.  The corporate guilt doctrine in the bible is utterly lost on mainstream Christianity.

In both cases, you have an ends-means justification. If the deterrent value of pain to avoid death or serious injury by fire justifies pain, then why not torturing a terrorist to save innocent lives? Both utilize temporary pain. Both justify harm for a greater good.
 ii) We absolve the field medic because he lacked access to anesthetics. But the analogy breaks down in application to God, who doesn't suffer from analogous limitations.
 Up to a point that's true, but I'm testing the principle. The objection makes blanket statement: it is evil to cause evil. Or it is evil to cause another agent to cause evil.
 If, however, there are exceptions, then that isn't wrong in principle. It depends on the situation. If something is intrinsically wrong, that precludes exceptions.

So do you think child-rape is intrinsically wrong, Steve?  Or do you call child-rape good because the doctrine of divine command theory requires to you automatically label as good anything God causes to happen?  Let's do this by syllogism;

Premise One - consistent Calvinism says God is always responsible for causing men to rape children
Premise Two - All of God's acts are righteous.
Conclusion - God is righteous in causing men to rape children

We have to wonder:  Does Steve think God ever punishes people for doing what God wanted them to to?

Notice how the Calvinist God must think:

"I'm going to make babysitter Bill rape that 4 year old girl to death.  Then I'm going to cause him to have a strong feeling of personal guilt over it, and to conclude in his mind that he is inexcusably culpable and guilty, and I will further cause him to think, contrary to the biblical truth of my infallible predestining decree for all human choices, that his refraining from doing that crime was always just as legitimate and real of a possibility as was his ultimate choice to commit it."

We have to wonder:  What would God do to a Calvinist who got just as happy at the news that his 7 year old daughter was raped, as he was upon discovering that his daughter graduated from second to third grade?

If God wanted the girl raped, why does God put in the hearts of most humans a feeling of revulsion and hatred toward those who carry out certain aspects of God's will?

What sense does it make to say we should only be happy when certain limited aspects of God's will are actualized on earth?  If God's righteousness is vindicated in his causing men to rape children no less than it is when he causes Calvinists to donate to charity, then logically there cannot be any moral difference between getting happy about God's will being done on earth, and getting happy about God's will being done on earth.

Did God, during the earthly ministry of Jesus, want the Jews to obey his revealed will?

Yes (Luke 13:34)
No (Calvinist doctrine of God's sovereignty; God infallibly ordains whatsoever comes to pass).

So under Calvinism, God both wants and doesn't want the Jews to obey his revealed will.  If God appears to you and says "I want you to give $10 to this person", you'd be presumptuous to conclude that God is being honest.  Just because God says he wants you to do something, doesn't necessarily mean that he actually wants you to do it (!?).

Now you know why Calvinists take more pleasure in sin than other Christians.  Not only is it God who is causing you to screw the neighbor's spouse, thus falsifying any notion that you could have chosen otherwise, but your adultery glorifies God no less than does your donating food to a local charity.

And only a fool says God doesn't wish to be glorified.

Calvinism is a good illustration of how bible inerrancy can sicken the human mind, as apparently the religion becomes more important than logical consistency.  And since most Christian scholars think Calvinism is bullshit, Steve Hays cannot relegate my critique of his Calvinism to my alleged spiritual deadness/blindness...lest he step even deeper into his cultic mindset and accuse all anti-Calvinist Christians of spiritual deadness/blindness.