Main Thesis
People often demand from the world a guarantee of a good outcome, but have already received a more fundamental guarantee: the stability of structure (laws), which makes action, learning, and survival possible.
1) Predictability as a Condition of Civilization
- Stable laws of nature make it possible to plan, build, heal, cultivate crops, and fly.
- Without the repeatability of rules, long-term coordination and the accumulation of knowledge would be impossible.
- Conclusion: repeatability = the possibility of acting.
2) Where the Idea of God Enters
A fork between interpretations:
– Materialist: laws “simply exist,” without being sustained from outside.
– Theistic/metaphysical: laws not only exist, but are maintained in a stable state.
In this framework: God = the principle that maintains the invariance of the world’s structure, rather than an anthropomorphic image.
3) Why a Grievance Against God Arises
People conflate two different demands:
1. Stability of laws (fire burns, hurricanes destroy, illness has consequences).
2. Stability of outcomes (“let misfortune not happen to me,” “let everything always be good”).
The conflict arises from substituting (2) for (1).
4) Formula of the World’s Conflict
If the world is structured as stable laws + freedom of events, then:
– suffering, risk, collisions, and death are inevitable;
– but what happens is not chaotic, but unfolds within comprehensible rules.
5) Strong Version of the Thesis
Supreme care does not consist in eliminating all evil, but in making the world predictable.
Why this matters:
– predictability makes learning possible;
– learning makes adaptation possible;
– adaptation increases the chances of survival.
6) The Error of “Collapsing a Distinction”
Incorrect connection:
– “there is suffering → there is no care.”
Correct connection:
– “there is suffering, but there are stable rules by which one can act.”
7) A Hard Limit
A world entirely without suffering would require:
– the absence of freedom;
– the absence of chance;
– the absence of change.
It would be more of a “frozen system” than a living world.
8) Translation into the Ontology of Distinctions (SENSMAP)
- Law of nature = a fixed distinction.
- Predictability = stability of routes.
- Event (for example, a hurricane) = realization of a route.
- God in this model = that which holds the structure of distinctions as such.
9) Why Predictability Is Undervalued
- It becomes the background and is taken for granted.
- Attention shifts toward a disruption of comfort rather than the presence of a stable structure.
10) Short Formula
A person demands a guarantee of an outcome while ignoring the already given guarantee of structure.
