Disparate Impact and the Plenipotent God
I just realized the connection between two independent ideas, neither completely original, that have been bouncing around in my head for a while.
The first time I really thought about possible racial differences in intelligence was when I picked up my parents’ Newsweek and read the feature on “The Bell Curve,” which had just been released. My thoughts were 1) I wouldn’t really be too surprised if there were IQ differences between races, and 2) why rub it in? What could possibly be the benefit of pointing out such differences?
I would probably still feel that way, but for years of subsequent observation of the way demagogues use statistics showing racial disparities (or sexual disparities, you know the laundry list) wherever they exist. The concept of “disparate impact,” whether in the legal realm or not, is to find people guilty of discrimination without any proof whatsoever. The “proof,” such as it is, could be stated as follows:
- There are no natural differences in aptitude of any kind between any groups of people, and
- Your selection criteria, for jobs, education, housing, etc., though facially neutral and really common-sensical, select for people who do not belong to aggrieved group X, therefore
- You must prove you’re not racist/sexist/etc. No, we did not need any evidence of actual discrimination in order to slander you in this way.
Now, if racial discrimination claims required any actual proof of discrimination, such lawsuits would be about as common as “Alienation of Affections” suits are nowadays. No honest observer who has given the matter serious thought can believe that it is systematic discrimination that holds back official minority groups. While in this large country there are no doubt lots of racists, they are socially marginal. The largest and most prestigious institutions of this country fall over themselves to welcome minorities and women into their ranks. Note that when asked for specific examples of racial discrimination, our Harvard/Columbia/Princeton-educated First Couple could only come up with the most hilariously trivial nanoaggressions. Considering how much thought Obama has given to racial issues over the years, if that’s the best (er, worst) he can come up with, it’s safe to say he has faced absolutely no meaningful discrimination at all.
Likewise, young women who are capable of high level math can write their own ticket. This is not speculative. Women who get into MIT have noticeably lower SAT scores than the male admittees.
In the absence of any evidence of discrimination, the only way that the grievance industry can survive on a large scale is to presume guilt, by excluding the possibility that differences in success between groups could arise naturally. There is, of course, no logical or scientific reason why such differences are impossible. Instead, the lack of differences must be assumed; it is an article of faith.
The particularly astute members of the Clerisy will even try to smoke you out as an enemy by daring you to deny their dogma. “Unless someone wants to posit that intelligence is not evenly distributed across genders and race, there has to be some systemic explanation for what these numbers look like.” I have to give credit to the woman who said that. Unlike most members of the ruling class, she knows exactly what she’s doing.
Therein lies the moral imperative to publicly acknowledge the likelihood, or at least the possibility, of group differences in ability and aptitude. If you assume away the differences as a matter of first principles, every disparity justifies a witch hunt.*
So that’s the first idea. Here’s the second:
I haven’t had any serious challenges to my belief in God’s existence since before my mission. Trials of faith, yes, but no serious doubt that God exists, and that He is my Father. Nonetheless, I retained for a long time some unease over the matter of theodicy. If God is omnipotent, why does he permit such unspeakable suffering? Oh, sure, some suffering, maybe even most of it, serves a good purpose, but at some point we all witness or learn of some horrifying event that can’t bear any serious cost-benefit analysis for a loving Father. I’ll let my kids skin their knees and have their hearts broken. But there’s no lesson I could teach them that would justify letting them die in a terrifying and horrifically painful manner, as countless innocent children do.
So I decided some time ago that God is not really “omnipotent,” in the sense of being literally capable of altering any aspect of the universe and reality at whim. I’m not sure if I decided that before or after reading Eugene England’s “The Weeping God of Mormonism,” although that essay certainly aided my movement in that direction. It just makes sense to me that God does everything he can for us, but cannot stop literally every evil thing in existence.
How to get around those few scriptures specifically calling God “omnipotent”? Ever since I read Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language,” I can’t help but translate words of Latin and Greek derivation into plain old-fashioned English while I’m reading. So when the scriptures say that God is “omnipotent,” I simply read that as “all-powerful.” What does it mean to have “all power?” To be able to alter every particle of the universe at whim? Or simply to have each and every power that a being may possess under the laws of the universe?
A better latinate word for my concept of God’s power is “plenipotent,” or “fully-powerful.” I’ve written a little about this before elsewhere (some good follow-up comments by others at that link).
What I like about this idea of “plenipotence” is that it’s an answer to the atheists’ great slander against God, that He is indifferent to our suffering. Oh sure, the atheists will say that you can’t slander someone who doesn’t exist. Salman Rushdie told Christopher Hitchens that the title of his book, “God is Not Great,” was exactly one word too long. Clever, but untrue. Hitchens never seriously tried to convince people that God doesn’t exist. His arguments were clearly intended to show that God is a tyrant with blood on his hands, and needs to be brought down a few pegs. An atheist argument that relies on the lack of evidence for God’s existence can always be answered by the witness of countless believers who have received a manifestation. Whereas the theodicy argument relies on mainstream Christian dogma itself: your church says God can do anything; why didn’t he save those little children in Sandy Hook?
That’s the second idea.
What these two ideas have in common is that, without a tragic sense that some problems are beyond anyone’s power to solve, people will find someone to blame. Pale Stale Males take the heat for all racial and sexual disparities, because it is axiomatic that those disparities cannot have come about naturally. God takes the blame for everything and anything bad, because dogma says that He could stop it if He wanted to. No amount of empirical observation can disprove these accusations, because they were not based on evidence in the first place, but rather on metaphysical assumptions.
It would be better to act on what we can observe rather than what we merely assume. If we observe that minorities are not widely discriminated against, but rather the opposite, then we need to look elsewhere to find the reasons for any disparities (certainly they are not all embedded in DNA).
If we receive a witness that God lives and loves us, then the logical thing is to build an eternal relationship with Him on that basis. With that knowledge in hand, we need not speculate about His culpability for crimes that a loving father would never, ever commit.
*After so many politically correct myths have fallen by the wayside, wouldn’t the most ironic and hilarious revelation be that colonial Salem, Mass. really was RIFE with witches?
Filed under: Deseret Review | Tags: atheism, gender, LDS, Mormonism, Obama, Plenipotence, The Bell Curve, the race card, theodicy, Tragedy
Vader
January 15, 2015
I think a few Hollywood productions have explored the idea that there really were witches in Salem. The problem is that they then pretty much took the side of the witches.
Bruce Charlton
January 15, 2015
Yes this is a good connection (don’t forget intelligence and social class – that was the issue over which I was subjected to an international media hate fest in May 2008! All social class differentials in admission rates at school and college were, and are, blamed on prejudice.)
“simply to have each and every power that a being may possess under the laws of the universe?” – Agreed. But the thing is, that key point ‘under the laws of the universe’ is possible only to Mormons – because mainstream Christians say that God Himself made all the laws of the universe (creation ex nihilo).
wrt Witches, Charles Williams view is that there probably were witches in some meaningful sense – but the main question is what it is then reasonable to do about it.
MC
January 15, 2015
“that was the issue over which I was subjected to an international media hate fest in May 2008!”
Yes, I think that was the first time I read your name. It struck me as a very British sort of controversy. You rarely hear about social class discrimination over here. This is perhaps because our social classes are less well-defined, or defined less by wealth than by certain certain markers of being the right kind of person:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/19/opinion/19douthat.html?_r=0
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-myth-of-american-meritocracy/
Bookslinger
January 15, 2015
BC had a recent post about theodicy, and how the purpose of this planet and mortal life is to _build gods_.
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-best-world-to-build-gods-proper.html
And as Michael Towns has written in the not-too-distant past (something like) God is a child-killing racist bigotted homphobe.
I like to connect the concept of the pre-mortal existence to theodicy. I postulate that many instances of suffering involve “deal making” between God and individuals in the pre-mortal existence.
This ties in to what several modern-day prophets, all the way back to Joseph Smith, have said regarding those who die before the age of accountability, or are born with a handicap that precludes agency… that some spirits were so advanced and pure that they did not need a mortal probation for testing and advancment.
There are many things yet to be revealed concerning logic that went into the decisions that God made concerning the where/when/to-whom and why a particular spirit was sent to earth to inhabit its mortal body.
When I ponder the why’s, I often think “You want the truth? … You can’t handle the truth.”
Bookslinger
January 15, 2015
*child-killing racist _sexist_ homophobe.
MC
January 15, 2015
Bookslinger,
I think your “deal making” theory works in many instances. Christ’s suffering is the most obvious one. I really don’t have a problem with most theories of theodicy, such as the “too precious” idea you mention. Most of them have explanatory power in at least some cases.
I just think that there are some cases that defy any explanation that relies on God’s intent. When I use the word “unspeakable,” I don’t mean “really, really bad.” I mean that there are some forms of suffering so horrific that I would not even speak of them out loud unless absolutely necessary. The kind that I hear about at work (I’m part of the criminal justice world) and then don’t disclose to my wife because they would ruin her evening.
I mean, take the case of the beautiful Mormon family in Houston with five kids that was wiped out (save for one daughter) by a brother-in-law. Given the amount of good that that family and their descendants would have done had they been able to live out their lives, I find it almost impossible to believe that things will actually turn out better because God “allowed” it to happen.
Like I say, “almost” impossible. I acknowledge that it is possible that it was all for the best, and that much good will come out of the tragedy. But then you have to ask, if God is “omnipotent” in the sense that most Christians propose, couldn’t he accomplish the same amount of good in some less horrifying and unrighteous way? If God can only effectuate such good through a triple-bankshot method like mass murder of innocents, then he really must be constrained by reality in a way not contemplated by traditional Christian metaphysics.
Not saying you necessarily disagree with any of this, your comment just sparked these thoughts.
Bruce Charlton
January 15, 2015
@Books – I’m very pleased to see that spelled out more clearly than I had managed to formulate it to myself.
@MC wrt class. The British political system was dominated by class consciousness through most of the twentieth century (the Labour Party was explicitly a working class – in practice Trades Union – party). After all we invented communism/ socialism etc.
I always used to say that class was the British Achilles Heel in the same way that race was for the US – the single issue that did most to promote mutual hatred and lethal policies.
But with the rise of New Left/ political correctness – imported from the USA – class has receded a great deal and is mostly a matter of ‘lip service’; indeed, the working class has been in practice jettisoned/ thrown under the bus in favour of the usual ‘victim’ coalition. We are now very like the USA in ever more of the bad ways and not many of the good.
Zen
January 16, 2015
These are deep waters we are swimming in here. I wonder if much of deep doctrine is, like Bookslinger said “You want the truth? … You can’t handle the truth!”.
I really wonder if we are asking the right questions. Just how all-powerful is the Atonement, for all suffering? I came to the conclusion a long time ago, that Christ’s atonement could heal all suffering. And yes, that suffering includes pointlessness, futility and horror. At what point would God stop shielding us from the rough things in life? We are going to be exposed to these horrors sooner or later. Better now when the effects are much less permanent.
I once read a biography of a Baptist minister, who swore he remembered his Pre-Earth life. The detail he included was fascinating, if a bit sparse. The thing I remember best, was that he picked his own trials and there was the temptation to pick too much or many trials, looking at the strength and blessing gained. I have to say, I think that is true.
How much can God shield us from vice, temptation, suffering, and bad things in general without thwarting his own plan? How much suffering is inevitable? Does allowing terrible things now, help us grow up so we can understand and comprehend true eternal horrors?
I am reminded of a mother I knew who sheilded her children from all potential harm. She finally relented a bit, and allowed her son on our trampoline. He hurt himself within 5 minutes. Of course, the rest of my family was used to being raucous, doing flips and pushing each other (in fun) and quite used to it being done without supervision.
Likewise, it has been shown that our new safer playgrounds have made things worse for children, because they are less capable of assessing risk and danger.
I really don’t have answers here. But those are some data points to consider. We really have a difficult time of seeing things from God’s own perspective. But I suspect the answer is not in limiting his love or power.
Bruce – just a minor point, we also believe God ordained the laws of the Universe, even if it wasn’t all Ex Nihilo. At least, I have heard a Joseph Smith quote to that effect.
Bookslinger
January 16, 2015
Heavenly Father needed a planet, at least one out of his many, that would be wicked enough to kill the Savior.
MC
January 18, 2015
Zen,
The first point you mention is an important one. I do believe the Atonement can heal all suffering. I do not believe this means that we can disregard all evil occurrences as inconsequential, or even of minimal consequence, because the Atonement will fix it sooner or later.
I cannot seem to locate on Google an excellent article that G. wrote at Times and Seasons* about how hard it was to keep motivation on his mission after his mission president said at a zone conference that if they didn’t share the gospel with their future converts, the Lord would make sure someone else would. He thought that this view took too much of the consequence out of agency, and I agree.** The scriptures read to me as a long struggle between God, man, sin, and death, and I think that struggle makes more sense in a universe where God works with immense power, but without minute control over every quark and anti-quark.
In fact, I think the very nature of the Atonement is a recognition that God must choose from a discrete set of means to overcome death and sin. This limitation on God’s means suggests that the strong view of omnipotence has some kinks in it.
I certainly think that the strong omniscience view has some worthy defenders, and it is a plausible reading of the scriptures. I am just not persuaded that the revealed Gospel requires the strong omniscience view, and that clears up some theological thorns for me. I think most of the strong omniscience view does stem from the theory of creation ex nihilo, and since we don’t believe in that, there’s room for freer speculation on the nature of God’s power.
*By the way, whatever happened to that guy? He was posting regularly at T&S, and the POOF, gone. Are there any blog posts out there explaining why he left Times and Seasons?
**Not trying to bring you in on my side, G., I won’t be angry or even surprised if you disagree with my reading.
Bruce Charlton
January 18, 2015
@MC “if they didn’t share the gospel with their future converts, the Lord would make sure someone else would.”
It is a very striking aspect of Mormonism – how close it gets to universalism of salvation (at least among some Mormons); and I think many other Christians through history would be surprised how motivated and devout Mormons often are considering that they lack the terror of Hell – and are ‘only’ working for a higher type of Heaven.
LDS Missionary activity is mostly said to be about ‘hastening’ the Lord’s work – and I suppose this is what AGs mission President was emphasizing.
From my perspective, this debate shows-up a deficit, or simplay a fact, about human reasoning – that when doing abstract reasoning (such as theology), we tend almost irresistibly towards a bipolar, dichotomous model – e.g. either salvation is universal, or (nearly) impossible – either there is no spiritual progression or it is infinite and so on…
And perhaps part of this is that we tend to assume that duration is irrelevant in the afterlife, in eternity. So we tend to assume that having spiritual progression delayed makes no significant difference – despite that here on earth we *hate* delays!
We assume, that is, that waiting another (?) 100, 1000, million years to progress to highest Heaven (because we didn’t get to meet Adam when he was a missionary) is not a significant matter, is indeed a trivial matter. Well in one sense it is a trivial matter, but in another sense – a million years is a million years, which will never be gotten back – that must be lived through…
I think that is another reason why the understanding of Heavenly happiness must not/cannot be one of instant, perfect bliss, wanting nothing of any kind – the drive to further perfections requires there must be some dissatisfaction or yearning for more, and wanting to make things better for others (ie some dysphoria about the suboptimal or wretched condition of other beings) – this seems to be the usual understanding of Heaven among Mormons; but mainstream Christians find it very difficult to imagine or acknowledge any kind of imperfection, yearning, or motivation in Heaven – because there is no need for it and no function for it.
In a nutshell, Mormon Christianity envisages the Plan of Salvation and Happiness *mostly* in terms of the speed with which it progresses – and this does render it vulnerable to the kind of demotivating feeling that Adam experienced on hearing that his personal contribution may not do more than accelerate the Plan;and his failure do no more than delay the plan.
I think this circle can be squared – perhaps – by considering that the effect of delay is like the effect of sin – it can be healed (by repentance and the Atonement) but never abolished to be made as if it never had been.
We are washed as white as snow (in the words of the Psalm) but a garment that has been washed is not identical with a raiment that never needed washing.
Jeeves
January 18, 2015
If I may, sir. I have found the desired object:
http://timesandseasons.org/index.php/2004/07/do-we-matter-at-all-are-we-stones-that-leave-no-ripples/
I trust this gives satisfaction. Thank you, sir.
MC
January 19, 2015
Yes, thank you Jeeves, that’s the one. Although I admit as an American bumpkin I’m not sure whether to tip a butler.
G.
January 19, 2015
There are two lines of posts here where I’ve been working out an answer to the stones problem:
http://www.jrganymede.com/tag/responsibility-and-meaning/
http://www.jrganymede.com/tag/all-things-before-my-face/