Ian Ramsey & problem of evil

Introduction

In this post, I'm going to share an interpretation of religious language inspired by Ian Ramsey and DZ Phillips (“inspired” because I'm straying a bit from them). It will first clarify what a God is and what a religion is. It will also allow a different formulation of the problem of evil. I will then give some suggestions for “constructing” a God/religion that is unaffected by the problem of evil.

Religious language

Few people know it, but there is a debate in philosophy about what religious language means, just as there is a debate in ethics about what moral language means (meta-ethics). In philosophy of religious language, we find non-cognitivism, cognitivism, quasi-cognitivism, etc., just as in meta-ethics.

Personally, since I'm anti-placement-problems, I don't like views that depart from cognitivism. For me, these views emerge from a mistaken desire to unify different vocabularies and a mistaken rejection of different modes of existence (à la Latour).
However, I think that views that depart from cognitivism sometimes allow for a good “elucidation” of a language. Views that depart from cognitivism in meta-ethics, even if they should not be seen as “reductions” or “analyses” of moral language, can help to “elucidate” moral language. In the same way, views that depart from cognitivism in philosophy of religious language can help to elucidate religious language without offering reductions or analyses.

In that, I somewhat follow DZ; to elucidate religious language, you have to appeal to things like subjective effect, behavioral dispositions, etc., but it must be strongly emphasized that this is not a reductionist analysis, it's an elucidation; you have to keep in mind the idea of “different modes of existence” and “different language games/forms of life” and not fall into non-cognitivism.

It may be noted that I seem to assume that religious language is distinct from non-religious language, and that religious entities have a different mode of existence than non-religious entities. Personally, I don't know exactly whether a “different-language-and-mode-of-existence” interpretation is the best descriptive interpretation (I rather think it must depend from one religious community to another, from one religious person to another, from one era to another), but I do think that a “different-language-and-mode-of-existence” interpretation is the most fruitful, and that it's the one we should use personally/individually.

Elucidation

I think the best way to elucidate the religious is to make a comparison with the moral.

Imagine encountering someone beating up a cat. According to Ramsey, if you have a moral sensibility, you will perceive a “more” in this situation; you will perceive a moral dimension, and see this situation as morally wrong. This moral dimension has another mode of existence than the “physical description” dimension of the situation.

Now imagine that you encounter this situation, but do not perceive a moral dimension.
Ramsey uses the word “discernment” to refer to the moment when something clicks and you suddenly begin to perceive a “more” in something.
A friend might try to spark this discernment in you; he might perhaps hit you, or your own cat, whatever. Maybe when your friend hits your own cat, all of a sudden something will click; all of a sudden you'll perceive a moral dimension, you'll perceive a “more”, you'll have a “discernment”.

According to Ramsey, there are discernments in all kinds of areas (aesthetic discernments, mathematical discernments, personal discernments, etc.) And often, a discernment is accompanied by a “commitment”; that is, perceiving a “more” in something generally gives rise to a change in behavior or attitude. In the case of moral discernment, that is, when we begin to perceive a moral dimension, a moral “more”, we can see the commitment that comes with it; we feel moved to act against those who beat cats, they repulse us.

For Ramsey, the religious involves a particular discernment-commitment; a total and all-inclusive discernment-commitment. “All-inclusive” in the sense that it's a discernment vis-à-vis the whole cosmos rather than to particular bits of the cosmos, and “total” in the sense that the commitment is the most powerful. It's a “powerful cosmic discernment”.

What we call “God” is the “more” of the cosmos after a cosmic discernment. An atheist/naturalist doesn't see a “more” in the cosmos, in much the same way that a person without moral sensitivity doesn't perceive a “more” in a situation where someone beats a cat.

We can have several different cosmic discernments. For example, by “pressing” the idea of “father” on the cosmos, we can have a discernment where the cosmos appears to us with a paternal “more”. But we can also do this with the idea of “mother”, and we could have a discernment where the cosmos appears to us with a maternal “more”.
If God is the “more” of the cosmos, then we can say that a person who has had a paternal cosmic discernment doesn't have “the same God” or doesn't have “the same religion” as a person who has had a maternal cosmic discernment.

(To be a little more faithful to Ramsey, he doesn't talk about “pressing” an idea on the cosmos, and he insists a lot on the importance of qualifiers and total commitment.
According to Ramsey, to have a religious discernment-commitment, we take a “model”, like “loving father”, and add a “qualifier”, like “infinite”, “ultimate” “transcendent”; “ultimate loving father”. The function of the qualifier is to instruct the imagination how to develop the model, the qualifier tells us, as it were, to extend the model ever further, and in doing so, a religious discernment-commitment can occur.
The religious discernment-commitment that occurs in developing the model with the quantifier fundamentally transforms the nature of the model, so that the paternal apect of the more of the cosmos is different in nature from the paternal aspect of a human.)

Some here might be tempted to say that this view of what a God is is non-cognitivist, but that's wrong; we have to bear in mind that it's not a reduction but an elucidation of an entity with a different mode of existence due to its belonging to a different language game.
Some might call it religious subjectivism, but I reject the subjective-objective dichotomy.

Empirical fit

We've seen that we can have different cosmic discernments depending on the idea we're trying to “press” on the cosmos. An idea that we press on the cosmos to have a cosmic discernment is called a “model” (the father model, the mother model, etc.). Technically, almost any model can enable a cosmic discernment, and we can add up the models to have a “richer” God.

But the question arises: are there no models better than others? are there no cosmic discernments better than others? are there no Gods better than others?

We can't “empirically evaluate” a model or a God, but Ramsey introduces the notion of “empirical fit”

“[A model] is rather judged by its stability over the widest possible range of phenomena, by its ability to incorporate the most diverse phenomena not inconsistently”. For the “loving father” model to have a good empirical fit, “there must be something about the universe and man's experience in it which, for example, matches the behavior of a loving father”.

We can therefore “evaluate” a model by its empirical fit (but obviously also by the personal or collective benefit we derive from it).

Problem of evil

We can see that the problem of evil takes on a completely different formulation in this framework. “God” is not an "empirical object" possessing the property of omnipotence, omnibenevolence, etc. and having "created" the world, God is the "more" of the cosmos that we perceive after a cosmic discernment, and "our" God depends on the models we have used for our cosmic discernments.

But the problem of evil arises in a different way. The problem of evil here is the problem of how can, or should we have a “positive” cosmic discernment, how can we have a “positive” model with a good empirical fit?

For example, we could try to have a cosmic discernment with the “loving father” model (a “positive” model), but is this possible and is it morally acceptable knowing that there are so many sentient beings suffering needlessly in the cosmos? Can the “loving father” model have a good empirical fit in a cosmos like ours?
Seeing how much suffering there is in the cosmos, we could perhaps consider that we can't or shouldn't morally seek a cosmic discernment, or that a cosmic discernment should only be made with “negative” models, like the “abusive father” model.

In fact, there are models that allow for a “compromise” between the positive and the negative, and it's these models that should be used for cosmic discernment. Here are a few examples:
- The “Jesus” model: Jesus embodies unlimited love, but he also exemplifies that love is fragile, vulnerable, and can be crushed. As DZ would say, God's only omnipotence is the omnipotence of love (and love is vulnerable).
- The “luminous potential” model: Everything in the cosmos has a “more” that is something magnificent or has the potential to become so, but potential is fragile, vulnerable and can be crushed.
- The “compassionate witness” model: The cosmos' “more” is a “gaze” or “presence” that witnesses suffering with infinite attention; every life, even the most crushed, is seen and counted. A silent love that does not save, but “supports”.
- The “burden-bearing” model: The cosmos is seen as carrying the burden of suffering with us. There is a form of solidarity, of co-presence in distress.
- The “damaged garden” model: The cosmos is a magnificent garden, but damaged. But it offers the possibility of enlivening and brightening it up.
- The “progressive awakening” model: The cosmos is seen as ugly, but it's improving and approaching a paradise.
Etc.

In models like these, there's a positive aspect, without being blind to the evil in the world and falling into exaggerated/misplaced gratitude.
Models like these are usually in a state of mind of “consolation”, “comfort” or “hope”. I think these are the best models for cosmic discernment.

Surprisingly, it seems that Christianity, or at least certain interpretations of Christianity, uses a lot of such models. Christian apologists generally see God as an all-powerful but good king, and try to justify the Shoah with a disgusting masterplan.
But it must be remembered that the central symbol of Christianity is a God who revealed himself not in glory and power, but as a beggar. A vulnerable, fragile God who was crushed by evil and died as a criminal, feeling abandoned.

(Another way some people respond to the problem of evil is to simply drop the models and keep only the qualifiers, so that the more of the cosmos is a naked God; it's simply “the ultimate”, “the transcendent”, etc.
It's as if, having had a religious discernment-commitment, they shift their attention from the object of their religious attitude to their religious attitude, only to retain an objectless religious attitude. Or they keep the object (God) but strip it completely, ending up with a “naked God”.
A number of thinkers have sought to identify the “common core” of the religious attitude: Tillich's ultimate concern, Otto's numinous, Schleiermacher's feeling of absolute dependence, Ramsey's total commitment, Buber's I-Thou, and so on.
One might consider that these religious people who strip God of his models retain this kind of “core” religious attitude, but without models: this attitude of ultimate concern, numinous, absolute dependence, total commitment, I-Thou, etc., is directed towards “the infinite”, “the ultimate”, “the transcendent”, towards a naked God without identifiable attributes, giving a kind of “faith without details” that resembles Schellenberg's ultimism.
Personally, I'm skeptical of this trend.)

Bonus

Ramsey's interpretation allows us to account for certain attributes of God.

Take the idea of God's “necessary existence”. If God is seen not as just another scientifico-metaphysical object, but as a “more” of the cosmos, his necessary existence can make sense in a certain way; no matter what the cosmos would have been like, we could have had a cosmic discernment.
Or take the idea that God transcends space-time. Again, this idea can make sense if God is a “more” of the cosmos: for one thing, it's hard to talk about the “position” of the cosmos, and if God is the “more” of the cosmos, it makes even less sense.
Or take the difficulty of reconciling God's immanence and transcendence. If God is the “more” of the cosmos, he is both transcendent and immanent. A comparison can be made with the “evil” in someone hitting a cat; the evil is “transcendent” because it's a “more”, but it's also “in” the situation.
This interpretation also explains typical religious phrases such as “there is something behind the scenes” or “certain situations are not exhausted by what is perceived”.