So, life is a team building camping retreat, but instead of the inconvenience being sleeping in a tent, there's malaria?
In the limited case, I like it. It's like a parent taking their kid on a hike or making them study. The kid may grumble and gripe, but with the wisdom of hindsight we know it's a good thing.
But I struggle to accept it on a larger scale. We like Calvin's dad imposing minor hardships on Calvin claiming "it builds character," but wouldn't accept it if he, say, cut off Calvin's arm. But maybe that's my mortal-bias. If after I die my whole body returns to heaven, maybe the loss of an arm during life isn't that big a deal. But if we accept that, is it morally good to impose hardship, even drastic hardship, on others so that they may build relationships? I cut off everyone's left arm, sacrificing my connection with other people, but in exchange everyone else gets to bond over being attacked by that crazy arm guy.
My gut feeling is that this feels more like an explanation that we're living in a simulation, that the simulators enter "life on earth" the same way we would read a book or watch a movie. It feels too much like something a human would come up with, not a divine being. If God came up with this system, I'd still feel compelled to ask "couldn't you have come up with something that didn't result in kids with cancer?"
I'm a bit puzzled by the suggestion that all this trouble is necessary for (valuable) connection-building. Psychologically, connections are built from all sorts of morally arbitrary factors (looking into each other's eyes while adrenaline pumps around your respective bodies - after skydiving, say, or standing on a scarily high glass floor - will probably form much more of a connection than saving someone's life from afar via donations to effective charities, for example). Are connections borne from self-sacrifice so much more objectively valuable than those borne from pheromones (or "love at first sight")? Meh, doesn't seem clearly so to me.
I think people could form maximally-good connections while remaining in Heaven. (They could even disclose dispositions which show how they *would* suffer on Earth if it were necessary to help the other. But it isn't necessary! So they don't need to actually go through with it.)
The idea is that on a plausible version of objective list theory--indeed, what I'd have judged to be the default view--the value of a relationship depends on more than just the psychological states you have towards the other person. If you have two people who feel equally fond of each other in a relationship, it seems that in some sense the relationship is more valuable if they make significant sacrifices for the other (not merely if they're psychologically disposed such that they *would* make major sacrifices for the other). Like, it may be that young couples feel very fond of the other, but lots of people have the intuition that only when they've overcome problems together and so on does their relationship become of enhanced value. Here's a test case:
1) Mary and John feel very fond of the other.
2) Mary and John feel very fond of the other. John so loves Mary that he gives up an organ to save her, believing it will cause his death--but, by chance, he doesn't die.
I think even if the degree of fondness is the same between the two people, it would be quite natural to suppose that 2) involves a better relationship.
3) Mary and John feel very fond of the other. John so loves Mary that he's willing to give up an organ to save her, believing it will cause his death--but, by chance, she's cured before he needs to.
I don't think the relationship in #3 is missing anything as a result of the cancelled sacrifice, or that it would be better for them to go ahead with the surgery (so as to instead bring about #2).
I don't think it would be better all things considered to go through with the surgery. But if we imagine the surgery is an infinitely small part of an eternal existence, and Mary isn't involved in choosing for it to go through, then it doesn't seem so bad (just like a gift might be better if you actually went out, searched for it, and bought it, rather than if something made you unable to do that, but you were psychologically disposed to give the gift if you'd been able to).
We need to distinguish between:
A) an agent is psychologically disposed to help another.
B) the agent makes a plan to help out the other, but the plan doesn't end up happening because the other doesn't need the help.
C) the agent makes a plan to help out the other, and succeeds.
I agree it's not super obvious that there's a gulf between A) and B). But it's very obvious that there's a gulf between A and C and B and C. In other words, you can hold your judgment about the surgery, while also thinking that it's valuable in part because the plan was made.
You don't find it intuitive that 1) is in some respect worse than 2)? I mean, I think even if you don't, insofar as the main objection to the argument is just a brute intuitive disagreement, then it seems that it will at least serve to brunt the force of the PoE to a significant degree (of course, you might have other objections).
>the value of a relationship depends on more than just the psychological states you have towards the other person.
It doesn't make sense to predicate value without a valuer that appreciates it. If you think it does feel free to explain what value is that nobody appreciates.
>2) Mary and John feel very fond of the other. John so loves Mary that he gives up an organ to save her, believing it will cause his death--but, by chance, he doesn't die.
Mary and John don't know about each other, John gives up an organ to save Mary, they are both made to experience amnesia and are made incapable of thinking about the other. How is there still a relationship, let alone a relationship of value between them? Psychological states are the only relevant factors to valuable relationships, because to value something just is a psychological state.
Is there skydiving in heaven? I think the assumption is that it’s much more wirehead-y, and ‘stakes’, good or bad, can’t really exist there. Agreed that this world’s version of ‘sub-optimal utility’ is probably way too sub-optimal, but seems like maximally-good heaven wouldn’t allow for much connection-building. Lots and lots of people choose fentanyl over human relationships now, why shouldn’t they choose it in heaven too where there are really no health downsides?
Presumably Heaven will contain whatever it would be good for it contain. Your closing question is moot. The real question is why would anyone choose to go suffer on Earth in order to build connections when there are obviously less harmful possible means to the same end. (E.g., ask God to give them the spiritual equivalent of an adrenaline shot.)
I think there’s supposed to some echo of collective-action problems here. Having a connection isn’t worthwhile enough to quit wireheading, but the connection existing would still be good, even if it meant we should briefly stop. Could heaven be maximally good for the people in it, but not totally maximally good from God’s view until connections exist? Then they can’t be made in heaven, because then it wouldn’t be maximally good for the people in it while they’re forming, so we come down here for a bit to do it. (I might be butchering Bentham’s argument at this point, because this feels too close to a divine-command perspective for comfort.)
This is very close to the standard theodicy of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It's an important part of that metaphysic that we existed as spirits prior to being born on earth, and that we opted in to the experience, and possibly also to many of the particulars of the life we are born to.
He already said that metaphysics are more proportionally more plausible if they entail more people, or more people like him. The Mormon God says that he has created "worlds without number". It's only a matter of time. ;)
As you yourself have written before, the vast majority of consciousnesses in existence are r-strategists who live short and painful lives before being eaten or starving. How exactly are they being helped or helping anyone else out during their brief existences? It seems like a theodicy should be able to account for the beings that make up the vast majority of extant minds.
You misunderstand the theodicy. Not everyone ends up being helpful. Rather, on account of the R-strategists, to enter the world and help others, we must risk being a short lived R-strategist. In addition, while it's true most *present* agents are short-lived animals, that's not obviously true of future agents.
So do we not know what sort of mind we are going to be when we enter the world, and it is left up to chance? That seems to contradict us truly consenting to the subsequent suffering we would experience in the world.
The observable universe is very far from axiologically optimal, and your this argument boils down to something adjacent to pascal's mugging -- telling us that all this suffering is actually infinitely good because of unobservable effects on a supposed afterlife. I very much doubt that babies who die of worms burrowing through their eyeballs would retroactively consent to it. I very much doubt that people chilling in heaven can't form relationships that are just as meaningful. The idea that minds can exist or operate independently of their physical substrate contradicts everything we've learned about neuroscience since Phineas Gage.
I think love demands dire tests. Our relations in Heaven aren't loving unless we know they can pass dire tests. Your heavenly self may be able to perfectly introspect and determine, without incarnating, your disposition for altruistic self-sacrifice. But perhaps you would have to subject yourself to at least a rigorous internal Simulation of the test, to determine how you'd handle it. And perhaps a rigorous enough Simulation would feel pretty real.
Perhaps our world just *is* the Sim we run from Heaven to affirm our dispositions to sacrifice for each other! And that is the universal message of the Cross.
Well, props to you for taking the skepticism objection seriously! This certainly pushes back on it. I’ll have to think this about this theodicy some more…
My only problem with this: feels so arbitrary! Why isn’t the world way more evil? Wouldn’t even higher costs make connection-building even more meaningful and good? I get that some evil has to exist to unlock the infinite utility of connection, fine. But are you arguing that the world we live in is the minimal-suffering version of this? Or does it not matter? I think that fails an intuition test: something like constant holocausts happening to everybody seems outrageously way too evil. (“Actually that is what’s happening, factory-farming-something-something!” Fine, then take that times a trillion billion million, it’s still plausible and seemingly reprehensible.) Seems like the same level of connection could be achieved with less… so I think you do have to give me a good reason for why exactly this world’s amount of evil is optimal, and why a world with one fewer cancer-kid wouldn’t be a bit better.
1) Maybe entering the world is very painful or something.
2) Perhaps that would strain our relationship with God.
3) Maybe then God wouldn't get enough volunteers.
4) It's still infinitely costly in relative terms.
A world with one fewer cancer-kid would be better, as I describe at the end! God just has a reason to not intervene to make this world better, cause if we know he is going to do that, there'd be less of a subjective cost.
1) Why wouldn’t he inflict costs that we can try to help each other with instead? Those are clearly better for connection-building than some strange util-toll—why would God inflict sub-optimal suffering?
2) We’d still be consenting, though, which leads to:
3) This is circular! Why does this world get enough volunteers? Why not a world with some slight positive change like “all kids under ten get free malaria immunity”?
4) So is any not-heaven. Why not put us into a heaven-where-you-sometimes-stub-your-toe instead?
Why can’t God intervene quietly/secretly? Most religions seem to assume that’s the case, and they famously form pretty strong connections between members. Why couldn’t God just intervene a little more in the healing-lepers division instead of the water-to-wine?
If there's an infinite number of worlds (multiverse theory), then surely God should have no problem finding volunteers, no? Even if some or even many of them will not be from our own world.
I hate being cold, cruel, and cynical when I'm writing this, but all of this frankly sounds a lot like half-assed speculation. Wouldn't pure agnosticism be better than this?
Here is the tension with your other views. You think souls are what constitute personal identity. But by having ensoulment precede existing in the multiverse, a crucial part of personal identity - psychological continuity - is apparently not explained by souls, since you are currently ensouled but you don't have any memories of your past self in Heaven. However, souls must play some part in explaining psychological continuity, since you believe you can have your memories wiped and restored in Heaven.
This points to a deeper issue - it seems like under your view psychological continuity is constituted by something like your beliefs. When you get your memories restored in Heaven, God could just arbitrarily decide to swap you and somebody else's accumulated memories in the multiverse - and you would be none the wiser about the supposed incongruency between your mismatched personal identities.
In other words, souls are mostly pointless as a theoretical posit in your theory, because the only times they are used to determine your personal identity (in Heaven), what explains your assent to the proposition "That past self was me" is just your beliefs, not knowledge about your soul (and as you admit, this knowledge can be wiped out and restored arbitrarily at God's will, so you are also in a skeptical scenario, lacking any ability to discern which memories and which souls "really" belong to you).
Imagine you're a perfect being living in Heaven who chooses to sacrifice that life for the chance to help other people and form infinitely great connections...and then you become Hitler. Tragic.
Bentham you are puzzle-solving. There's a puzzle to be solved so here's your solution. That's the wrong way to approach the Bible and theology. The proper way is to honestly understand God's revelation. What exactly did God say? You must start there.
So when it comes to the damned who will forever be punished for their unredeemed sins, we are told most people will end up in hell (however conceived). Given the potential of an eternity of suffering, no fully informed person would freely choose to come down to earth to help other people. They would say no to such an invite.
So basically Heaven’s Long-Distance Relationship Bootcamp ?
Summary:
God runs a cosmic relationship-strengthening program where preexistent souls volunteer to leave Heaven, dive into a flaming pit of suffering called Earth, and endure horrors like cancer, natural disasters, and existential crises—all to form unbreakable bonds with others. The more painful and absurd the world, the better the connection-building, because nothing says "I care about you" like surviving a hellscape together. Don't worry if you didn't sign up—God knows you'll thank Him later, retroactively consenting to the infinite value of these eternal connections. Meanwhile, the deer burning in forest fires are just there to add emotional weight.
I used to believe something like that in my salad days, even treating Adam and Eve story as a metaphor for the choice between starting in heaven and learning about good and evil. I think it's as good as theodicies go, which is not particularly.
First, theodicies do not "predict" anything. They justify things that you already know about the world ad hoc, while making extra baseless claims, thus receiving extra complication penalty. The overall improbability of God conditionally on evil doesn't decrease. You just pass the buck of it to new elements of the conjunction.
Second, the idea of evil benefitting connection building is a standard example of pretending to be wise cope. And as there are a lot of people who do not buy this reasoning, I think you just accidentally made your hypothesis disprovable? Clearly such people wouldn't agree to be instantiated in a world with evil for connection building purposes. But they are instantiated in it. Therefore, this theodicy fails.
I agree. Also, I think you should rename the title to "connection building" or "loving relationship building" theodicy because the "pre-existence" is not really accurate given that you say it explicitly that retroactive consent or the view that - ultimately, all sentient beings would enjoy what gave them specifically and shall be happy forever - is fine. We can agree that perhaps a few human beings and animals are taking one for the team, but God made them such that they ultimately would have already consented given precisely their natures that God set and given that their wellbeing is not permanently reduced or they are not killed (as in real death or permanent death).
So, life is a team building camping retreat, but instead of the inconvenience being sleeping in a tent, there's malaria?
In the limited case, I like it. It's like a parent taking their kid on a hike or making them study. The kid may grumble and gripe, but with the wisdom of hindsight we know it's a good thing.
But I struggle to accept it on a larger scale. We like Calvin's dad imposing minor hardships on Calvin claiming "it builds character," but wouldn't accept it if he, say, cut off Calvin's arm. But maybe that's my mortal-bias. If after I die my whole body returns to heaven, maybe the loss of an arm during life isn't that big a deal. But if we accept that, is it morally good to impose hardship, even drastic hardship, on others so that they may build relationships? I cut off everyone's left arm, sacrificing my connection with other people, but in exchange everyone else gets to bond over being attacked by that crazy arm guy.
My gut feeling is that this feels more like an explanation that we're living in a simulation, that the simulators enter "life on earth" the same way we would read a book or watch a movie. It feels too much like something a human would come up with, not a divine being. If God came up with this system, I'd still feel compelled to ask "couldn't you have come up with something that didn't result in kids with cancer?"
I will need to think on this more.
I'm a bit puzzled by the suggestion that all this trouble is necessary for (valuable) connection-building. Psychologically, connections are built from all sorts of morally arbitrary factors (looking into each other's eyes while adrenaline pumps around your respective bodies - after skydiving, say, or standing on a scarily high glass floor - will probably form much more of a connection than saving someone's life from afar via donations to effective charities, for example). Are connections borne from self-sacrifice so much more objectively valuable than those borne from pheromones (or "love at first sight")? Meh, doesn't seem clearly so to me.
I think people could form maximally-good connections while remaining in Heaven. (They could even disclose dispositions which show how they *would* suffer on Earth if it were necessary to help the other. But it isn't necessary! So they don't need to actually go through with it.)
The idea is that on a plausible version of objective list theory--indeed, what I'd have judged to be the default view--the value of a relationship depends on more than just the psychological states you have towards the other person. If you have two people who feel equally fond of each other in a relationship, it seems that in some sense the relationship is more valuable if they make significant sacrifices for the other (not merely if they're psychologically disposed such that they *would* make major sacrifices for the other). Like, it may be that young couples feel very fond of the other, but lots of people have the intuition that only when they've overcome problems together and so on does their relationship become of enhanced value. Here's a test case:
1) Mary and John feel very fond of the other.
2) Mary and John feel very fond of the other. John so loves Mary that he gives up an organ to save her, believing it will cause his death--but, by chance, he doesn't die.
I think even if the degree of fondness is the same between the two people, it would be quite natural to suppose that 2) involves a better relationship.
3) Mary and John feel very fond of the other. John so loves Mary that he's willing to give up an organ to save her, believing it will cause his death--but, by chance, she's cured before he needs to.
I don't think the relationship in #3 is missing anything as a result of the cancelled sacrifice, or that it would be better for them to go ahead with the surgery (so as to instead bring about #2).
I don't think it would be better all things considered to go through with the surgery. But if we imagine the surgery is an infinitely small part of an eternal existence, and Mary isn't involved in choosing for it to go through, then it doesn't seem so bad (just like a gift might be better if you actually went out, searched for it, and bought it, rather than if something made you unable to do that, but you were psychologically disposed to give the gift if you'd been able to).
We need to distinguish between:
A) an agent is psychologically disposed to help another.
B) the agent makes a plan to help out the other, but the plan doesn't end up happening because the other doesn't need the help.
C) the agent makes a plan to help out the other, and succeeds.
I agree it's not super obvious that there's a gulf between A) and B). But it's very obvious that there's a gulf between A and C and B and C. In other words, you can hold your judgment about the surgery, while also thinking that it's valuable in part because the plan was made.
I guess I just don't share your intuitions here.
You don't find it intuitive that 1) is in some respect worse than 2)? I mean, I think even if you don't, insofar as the main objection to the argument is just a brute intuitive disagreement, then it seems that it will at least serve to brunt the force of the PoE to a significant degree (of course, you might have other objections).
>the value of a relationship depends on more than just the psychological states you have towards the other person.
It doesn't make sense to predicate value without a valuer that appreciates it. If you think it does feel free to explain what value is that nobody appreciates.
>2) Mary and John feel very fond of the other. John so loves Mary that he gives up an organ to save her, believing it will cause his death--but, by chance, he doesn't die.
Mary and John don't know about each other, John gives up an organ to save Mary, they are both made to experience amnesia and are made incapable of thinking about the other. How is there still a relationship, let alone a relationship of value between them? Psychological states are the only relevant factors to valuable relationships, because to value something just is a psychological state.
Is there skydiving in heaven? I think the assumption is that it’s much more wirehead-y, and ‘stakes’, good or bad, can’t really exist there. Agreed that this world’s version of ‘sub-optimal utility’ is probably way too sub-optimal, but seems like maximally-good heaven wouldn’t allow for much connection-building. Lots and lots of people choose fentanyl over human relationships now, why shouldn’t they choose it in heaven too where there are really no health downsides?
Presumably Heaven will contain whatever it would be good for it contain. Your closing question is moot. The real question is why would anyone choose to go suffer on Earth in order to build connections when there are obviously less harmful possible means to the same end. (E.g., ask God to give them the spiritual equivalent of an adrenaline shot.)
It's good because it contains good. It contains good because it is good. Good is what heaven contains.
I think there’s supposed to some echo of collective-action problems here. Having a connection isn’t worthwhile enough to quit wireheading, but the connection existing would still be good, even if it meant we should briefly stop. Could heaven be maximally good for the people in it, but not totally maximally good from God’s view until connections exist? Then they can’t be made in heaven, because then it wouldn’t be maximally good for the people in it while they’re forming, so we come down here for a bit to do it. (I might be butchering Bentham’s argument at this point, because this feels too close to a divine-command perspective for comfort.)
This is very close to the standard theodicy of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It's an important part of that metaphysic that we existed as spirits prior to being born on earth, and that we opted in to the experience, and possibly also to many of the particulars of the life we are born to.
I, for one, look forward to the "Bentham's Bulldog converts to Mormonism" arc.
He already said that metaphysics are more proportionally more plausible if they entail more people, or more people like him. The Mormon God says that he has created "worlds without number". It's only a matter of time. ;)
As you yourself have written before, the vast majority of consciousnesses in existence are r-strategists who live short and painful lives before being eaten or starving. How exactly are they being helped or helping anyone else out during their brief existences? It seems like a theodicy should be able to account for the beings that make up the vast majority of extant minds.
You misunderstand the theodicy. Not everyone ends up being helpful. Rather, on account of the R-strategists, to enter the world and help others, we must risk being a short lived R-strategist. In addition, while it's true most *present* agents are short-lived animals, that's not obviously true of future agents.
So do we not know what sort of mind we are going to be when we enter the world, and it is left up to chance? That seems to contradict us truly consenting to the subsequent suffering we would experience in the world.
If we knew the range of incarnational options and the odds of ending up each, wouldn't that render our consent informed?
The observable universe is very far from axiologically optimal, and your this argument boils down to something adjacent to pascal's mugging -- telling us that all this suffering is actually infinitely good because of unobservable effects on a supposed afterlife. I very much doubt that babies who die of worms burrowing through their eyeballs would retroactively consent to it. I very much doubt that people chilling in heaven can't form relationships that are just as meaningful. The idea that minds can exist or operate independently of their physical substrate contradicts everything we've learned about neuroscience since Phineas Gage.
I think love demands dire tests. Our relations in Heaven aren't loving unless we know they can pass dire tests. Your heavenly self may be able to perfectly introspect and determine, without incarnating, your disposition for altruistic self-sacrifice. But perhaps you would have to subject yourself to at least a rigorous internal Simulation of the test, to determine how you'd handle it. And perhaps a rigorous enough Simulation would feel pretty real.
Perhaps our world just *is* the Sim we run from Heaven to affirm our dispositions to sacrifice for each other! And that is the universal message of the Cross.
Well, props to you for taking the skepticism objection seriously! This certainly pushes back on it. I’ll have to think this about this theodicy some more…
My only problem with this: feels so arbitrary! Why isn’t the world way more evil? Wouldn’t even higher costs make connection-building even more meaningful and good? I get that some evil has to exist to unlock the infinite utility of connection, fine. But are you arguing that the world we live in is the minimal-suffering version of this? Or does it not matter? I think that fails an intuition test: something like constant holocausts happening to everybody seems outrageously way too evil. (“Actually that is what’s happening, factory-farming-something-something!” Fine, then take that times a trillion billion million, it’s still plausible and seemingly reprehensible.) Seems like the same level of connection could be achieved with less… so I think you do have to give me a good reason for why exactly this world’s amount of evil is optimal, and why a world with one fewer cancer-kid wouldn’t be a bit better.
1) Maybe entering the world is very painful or something.
2) Perhaps that would strain our relationship with God.
3) Maybe then God wouldn't get enough volunteers.
4) It's still infinitely costly in relative terms.
A world with one fewer cancer-kid would be better, as I describe at the end! God just has a reason to not intervene to make this world better, cause if we know he is going to do that, there'd be less of a subjective cost.
1) Why wouldn’t he inflict costs that we can try to help each other with instead? Those are clearly better for connection-building than some strange util-toll—why would God inflict sub-optimal suffering?
2) We’d still be consenting, though, which leads to:
3) This is circular! Why does this world get enough volunteers? Why not a world with some slight positive change like “all kids under ten get free malaria immunity”?
4) So is any not-heaven. Why not put us into a heaven-where-you-sometimes-stub-your-toe instead?
Why can’t God intervene quietly/secretly? Most religions seem to assume that’s the case, and they famously form pretty strong connections between members. Why couldn’t God just intervene a little more in the healing-lepers division instead of the water-to-wine?
If there's an infinite number of worlds (multiverse theory), then surely God should have no problem finding volunteers, no? Even if some or even many of them will not be from our own world.
I hate being cold, cruel, and cynical when I'm writing this, but all of this frankly sounds a lot like half-assed speculation. Wouldn't pure agnosticism be better than this?
Here is the tension with your other views. You think souls are what constitute personal identity. But by having ensoulment precede existing in the multiverse, a crucial part of personal identity - psychological continuity - is apparently not explained by souls, since you are currently ensouled but you don't have any memories of your past self in Heaven. However, souls must play some part in explaining psychological continuity, since you believe you can have your memories wiped and restored in Heaven.
This points to a deeper issue - it seems like under your view psychological continuity is constituted by something like your beliefs. When you get your memories restored in Heaven, God could just arbitrarily decide to swap you and somebody else's accumulated memories in the multiverse - and you would be none the wiser about the supposed incongruency between your mismatched personal identities.
In other words, souls are mostly pointless as a theoretical posit in your theory, because the only times they are used to determine your personal identity (in Heaven), what explains your assent to the proposition "That past self was me" is just your beliefs, not knowledge about your soul (and as you admit, this knowledge can be wiped out and restored arbitrarily at God's will, so you are also in a skeptical scenario, lacking any ability to discern which memories and which souls "really" belong to you).
Imagine you're a perfect being living in Heaven who chooses to sacrifice that life for the chance to help other people and form infinitely great connections...and then you become Hitler. Tragic.
Bentham you are puzzle-solving. There's a puzzle to be solved so here's your solution. That's the wrong way to approach the Bible and theology. The proper way is to honestly understand God's revelation. What exactly did God say? You must start there.
So when it comes to the damned who will forever be punished for their unredeemed sins, we are told most people will end up in hell (however conceived). Given the potential of an eternity of suffering, no fully informed person would freely choose to come down to earth to help other people. They would say no to such an invite.
So basically Heaven’s Long-Distance Relationship Bootcamp ?
Summary:
God runs a cosmic relationship-strengthening program where preexistent souls volunteer to leave Heaven, dive into a flaming pit of suffering called Earth, and endure horrors like cancer, natural disasters, and existential crises—all to form unbreakable bonds with others. The more painful and absurd the world, the better the connection-building, because nothing says "I care about you" like surviving a hellscape together. Don't worry if you didn't sign up—God knows you'll thank Him later, retroactively consenting to the infinite value of these eternal connections. Meanwhile, the deer burning in forest fires are just there to add emotional weight.
Def more plausible than the non-God hypothesis
How does this affect the abortion debate? Don’t we need to figure out at what point in foetal development God moves our soul to our body?
I used to believe something like that in my salad days, even treating Adam and Eve story as a metaphor for the choice between starting in heaven and learning about good and evil. I think it's as good as theodicies go, which is not particularly.
First, theodicies do not "predict" anything. They justify things that you already know about the world ad hoc, while making extra baseless claims, thus receiving extra complication penalty. The overall improbability of God conditionally on evil doesn't decrease. You just pass the buck of it to new elements of the conjunction.
Second, the idea of evil benefitting connection building is a standard example of pretending to be wise cope. And as there are a lot of people who do not buy this reasoning, I think you just accidentally made your hypothesis disprovable? Clearly such people wouldn't agree to be instantiated in a world with evil for connection building purposes. But they are instantiated in it. Therefore, this theodicy fails.
I want to clarify something--are you suggesting that our souls simply move around different worlds for all of eternity?
I agree. Also, I think you should rename the title to "connection building" or "loving relationship building" theodicy because the "pre-existence" is not really accurate given that you say it explicitly that retroactive consent or the view that - ultimately, all sentient beings would enjoy what gave them specifically and shall be happy forever - is fine. We can agree that perhaps a few human beings and animals are taking one for the team, but God made them such that they ultimately would have already consented given precisely their natures that God set and given that their wellbeing is not permanently reduced or they are not killed (as in real death or permanent death).
It combines connection-building and preexistence. Maybe the loving preexistence theodicy.
God gets with the logic or gets the pink slip.