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Книги по философии
Рэймонд Смаллиан
Две философские сценки
(страница 2)
MORTAL: That is a bad joke! One of your premises is simply false. I have not been taught that it is wrong for any sentient being to doubt your omniscience, but only for a mortal to doubt it. But since you are not mortal, then you are obviously free from this injunction.
GOD: Good, so you realize this on a rational level. Nevertheless, you did appear shocked when I said, "I am always glad to learn from my mistakes."
MORTAL: Of course I was shocked. I was shocked not by your self-blasphemy (as you jokingly called it), not by the fact that you had no right to say it, but just by the fact that you did say it, since I have been taught that as a matter of fact you don't make mistakes. So I was amazed that you claimed that it is possible for you to make mistakes.
GOD: I have not claimed that it is possible. All I am saying is that if I make mistakes, I will be happy to learn from them. But this says nothing about whether the if has or ever can be realized.
MORTAL: Let's please stop quibbling about this point. Do you or do you not admit it was a mistake to have given me free will?
GOD: Well now, this is precisely what I propose we should investigate. Let me review your present predicament. You don't want to have free will because with free will you can sin, and you don't want to sin. (Though I still find this puzzling; in a way you must want to sin, or else you wouldn't. But let this pass for now.) On the other hand, if you agreed to give up free will, then you would now be responsible for the acts of the future. Ergo, I should never have given you free will in the first place.
MORTAL: Exactly!
GOD: I understand exactly how you feel. Many mortals--even some theologians--have complained that I have been unfair in that it was I, not they, who decided that they should have free will, and then I hold them responsible for their actions. In other words, they feel that they are expected to live up to a contract with me which they never agreed to in the first place.
MORTAL: Exactly!
GOD: As I said, I understand the feeling perfectly. And I can appreciate the justice of the complaint. But the complaint arises only from an unrealistic understanding of the true issues involved. I am about to enlighten you as to what these are, and I think the results will surprise you! But instead of telling you outright, I shall continue to use the Socratic method.
To repeat, you regret that I ever gave you free will. I claim that when you see the true ramifications you will no longer have this regret. To prove my point, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I am about to create a new universe--a new space-time continuum. In this new universe will be born a mortal just like you--for all practical purposes, we might say that you will be reborn. Now, I can give this new mortal--this new you--free will or not. What would you like me to do?
MORTAL (in great relief): Oh, please! Spare him from having to have free will!
GOD: All right, I'll do as you say. But you do realize that this new you without free will, will commit all sorts of horrible acts.
MORTAL: But they will not be sins since he will have no free will.
GOD: Whether you call them sins or not, the fact remains that they will be horrible acts in the sense that they will cause great pain to many sentient beings.
MORTAL (after a pause): Good God, you have trapped me again! Always the same game! If I now give you the go-ahead to create this new creature with no free will who will nevertheless commit atrocious acts, then true enough he will not be sinning, but I again will be the sinner to sanction this.
GOD: In that case, I'll go you one better! Here, I have already decided whether to create this new you with free will or not. Now, I am writing my decision on this piece of paper and I won't show it to you until later. But my decision is now made and is absolutely irrevocable. There is nothing you can possibly do to alter it; you have no responsibility in the matter. Now, what I wish to know is this: Which way do you hope I have decided? Remember now, the responsibility for the decision falls entirely on my shoulders, not yours. So you can tell me perfectly honestly and without any fear, which way do you hope I have decided?
MORTAL (after a very long pause): I hope you have decided to give him free will.
GOD: Most interesting! I have removed your last obstacle! If I do not give him free will, then no sin is to be imputed to anybody. So why do you hope I will give him free will?
MORTAL: Because sin or no sin, the important point is that if you do not give him free will, then (at least according to what you have said) he will go around hurting people, and I don't want to see people hurt.
GOD (with an infinite sigh of relief): At last! At last you see the real point!
MORTAL: What point is that?
GOD: That sinning is not the real issue! The important thing is that people as well as other sentient beings don't get hurt!
MORTAL: You sound like a utilitarian!
GOD: I am a utilitarian!
MORTAL: What!
GOD: Whats or no whats, I am a utilitarian. Not a unitarian, mind you, but a utilitarian.
MORTAL: I just can't believe it!
GOD: Yes, I know, your religious training has taught you otherwise. You have probably thought of me more like a Kantian than a utilitarian, but your training was simply wrong.
MORTAL: You leave me speechless!
GOD: I leave you speechless, do I! Well, that is perhaps not too bad a thing--you have a tendency to speak too much as it is. Seriously, though, why do you think I ever did give you free will in the first place?
MORTAL: Why did you? I never have thought much about why you did; all I have been arguing for is that you shouldn't have! But why did you? I guess all I can think of is the standard religious explanation: Without free will, one is not capable of meriting either salvation or damnation. So without free will, we could not earn the right to eternal life.
GOD: Most interesting! I have eternal life; do you think I have ever done anything to merit it?
MORTAL: Of course not! With you it is different. You are already so good and perfect (at least allegedly) that it is not necessary for you to merit eternal life.
GOD: Really now? That puts me in a rather enviable position, doesn't it?
MORTAL: I don't think I understand you.
GOD: Here I am eternally blissful without ever having to suffer or make sacrifices or struggle against evil temptations or anything like that. Without any of that type of "merit", I enjoy blissful eternal existence. By contrast, you poor mortals have to sweat and suffer and have all sorts of horrible conflicts about morality, and all for what? You don't even know whether I really exist or not, or if there really is any afterlife, or if there is, where you come into the picture. No matter how much you try to placate me by being "good," you never have any real assurance that your "best" is good enough for me, and hence you have no real security in obtaining salvation. Just think of it! I already have the equivalent of "salvation"--and have never had to go through this infinitely lugubrious process of earning it. Don't you ever envy me for this?
MORTAL: But it is blasphemous to envy you!
GOD: Oh come off it! You're not now talking to your Sunday school teacher, you are talking to me. Blasphemous or not, the important question is not whether you have the right to be envious of me but whether you are. Are you?
MORTAL: Of course I am!
GOD: Good! Under your present world view, you sure should be most envious of me. But I think with a more realistic world view, you no longer will be. So you really have swallowed the idea which has been taught you that your life on earth is like an examination period and that the purpose of providing you with free will is to test you, to see if you merit blissful eternal life. But what puzzles me is this: If you really believe I am as good and benevolent as I am cracked up to be, why should I require people to merit things like happiness and eternal life? Why should I not grant such things to everyone regardless of whether or not he deserves them?
MORTAL: But I have been taught that your sense of morality--your sense of justice--demands that goodness be rewarded with happiness and evil be punished with pain.
GOD: Then you have been taught wrong.
MORTAL: But the religious literature is so full of this idea! Take for example Jonathan Edwards's "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." How he describes you as holding your enemies like loathsome scorpions over the flaming pit of hell, preventing them from falling into the fate that they deserve only by dint of your mercy.
GOD: Fortunately, I have not been exposed to the tirades of Mr. Jonathan Edwards. Few sermons have ever been preached which are more misleading. The very title "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" tells its own tale. In the first place, I am never angry. In the second place, I do not think at all in terms of "sin." In the third place, I have no enemies.
MORTAL: By that do you mean that there are no people whom you hate, or that there are no people who hate you?
GOD: I meant the former although the latter also happens to be true.
MORTAL: Oh come now, I know people who have openly claimed to have hated you. At times I have hated you!
