I know I read it somewhere, that 'the problem of evil' has been refuted, and it was in a work of academic philosophy....Peter Kreeft? Alvin Plantinga? I can't remember the author, it was a Christian author who was arguing that in the current state of the Philosophy of Religion, theists are winning all the battles and the atheists are retreating.

Oh, I think I know.....I bet I read it in 'The Twilight of Atheism' by Alistar McGrath.

I have a half-baked idea that the passage about the problem of evil that you're thinking of was in William Alston (a Christian). But I don't mean to try to track it down. There's another oft-cited passage from the atheist philosopher Quentin Smith to the effect that if you put any atheistic non-specialist in philosophy of religion into a debate with any theist specialist in philosophy of religion, and had them bash it out, any objective observer would have to grant that the theist got the better of all the arguments, or at the very least gave as good as he got. I think Smith is clearly right about that, too. Standard criticisms of theism from atheistic philosophers are just so completely half-assed that it's kind of embarrassing. I'm not talking about the kind of juvenile nonsense that rabble rousers like Sam Harris write. (That generally is wholly un-assed.) I'm talking about things said by philosophers who are, generally speaking, quite intellectually competent. It's just ugly.

Could have been that, too. I haven't read it.

I have read some William Alston so that could be it too....even if it was in McGrath he might have been quoting Alston..

I've read quite a bit of Christian philosophy, obviously not as much as you I'm sure, but enough that I know all the 'big names' and can recognize references to prominent authors...

There was a time, back in the mid to late 90's, when I was worried about the philosophical argument against the existence of God, I had the sense, from the popular media and whatnot, that atheists were the really smart people and theists were a bunch of ignorant buffoons who wouldn't admit to reality....I didn't read enough to become an expert by any means, but I did read enough to see that the best Christian philosophers are at least as good if not better than the best atheist philosophers and therefore Christianity is an intellectually defensible position and it by no means true that one has to 'check his brains at the door' to be a Christian, and that was good enough for me....

And Alvin Plantinga is the only guy who has ever been able to explain the ontological argument in a way that it no only made sense, but I became convinced that it was a valid argument.

Thank you for the welcome!

One thing. I would prefer if you stick with discussing the topics rather than pointing me to sources or challenging my knowledge. While I am interested in hearing your theodicy, I don't necessarily buy it. That is, I'm here for friendly discussion, including challenging your ideas, not just to accept your ideas immediately. I think you'll find that what you see as 'simple answers' that I should know or look up, I think are invalid or illogical claims. To see why your approach is mildly offensive, note that I do not tell you to "look up basic moral philosophy or philosophy of religion" when I see you as making mistakes either. I just share those various ideas from moral philosophy.





There is no contradiction.

Good and evil are categories. All standards of good and evil are subjective. They are literally ideas created by humans. And they differ. That doesn't mean that it is impossible to define injustice. Nor is it impossible to tell that suffering is bad.

You seem worried that moral subjectivism will reduce to moral relativism and nihilism. This is not the case. There is a healthy literature on many varieties of moral philosophies which are not relativist. Most atheists are not relativists. And the fact that values are based on human ideas and concepts doesn't render them meaningless, as you might suppose. The human reasons are precisely what makes them meaningful.


When do things matter? When does morality come into play?
Things can only matter to entities that can experience, sentient beings. Rocks don't care about morals. Only valuing creatures can have values. So values are absolutely subjective.

How do we know if something is bad?
We are literally the knowers of good and bad. We know suffering is awful. Why would we need someone beyond us, a super-objective figure, to determine that pain is bad?

So we don't need a lawgiver to tell us that suffering or murder are 'really' wrong, as if this adds something to the reasons that we give when we explain why suffering and murder are bad. Thus we don't need an objective lawgiver to make intelligible the condemnation of God's apathy about the suffering of innocents espoused in the problem of evil.

Doom and GKC: Thanks for the suggestion. And for defending me!

Plantinga endorses the free will theodicy, no?

I'll add the book to my reading list, but let's discuss the contents here as well.

Perhaps one of you should make the formal argument for Plantinga's free will theodicy before I make a counter-claim.

Thanks for this long and thought out response. I've heard this evil as a privation of good argument, and it doesn't impress me for reasons stated above.

I see no reason to think that evil is anything more than a description.

God creates us such that we could choose to be evil, and we did? And we are all implicated because of Adam and Eve? What did a baby do to choose being evil? What did a murderer do to choose a malicious personality and painful childhood? God could prevent these evils but doesn't. He need not compel us, only guide us. And not minimally, with scripture.


Okay, so your view is that your God cannot create a world with free will and without evil. I'd say that's coherent, though it seems to me an omnipotent God could do much better. i.e. let murderers point the gun and then make the gun misfire. But God lets us have 100% free will, despite the innocents who suffer and the children who die. The value of free will under such a plan is lost to me.


I made this distinction earlier, but using the technical terminology of philosophy of religion. Moral evil vs. unnecessary suffering.

Note that I don't need humans at all to make this argument. Your God let tons of animals suffer in horrible ways before humans were around. That, to me, is not something a benevolent God allows. And they don't even have free will, by your account.


This is kind of coherent, but requires assuming a lot about metaphysics. God is everywhere, are we ever away from him? Does physical distance make one more sinful? And, of course, there is no evidence of souls or anything like that, in the atheist viewpoint, generally.

A nice metaphor. How to back up the metaphysical claims it makes though?


You use examples of people who cause *some* suffering or struggle to justify greater good. Letting millions of children die of starvation and malaria doesn't teach them a greater lesson. The analogy fails in this way. Parents let their children get a small cut, God lets his children suffer and die. You can't justify their choices to sit back in the same way.


How much evil would be too much for an omnibenevolent God? Since we can come up with any definition of omnibenevolent we want, let me just ask instead, how much evil would be too much for a God that is generally good, loving, should be respected and so on. I would say that the number of deaths and horrible suffering in a single day is incompatible with any sort of kind or loving God. 27,000 deaths of children under 5. Unfathomable suffering.


1) Your point is unclear, other than your simple assertion that my understandings are false. I've read the pentatuach many times with many scholars.
2) I'm talking about millions of toddlers and infants who haven't sinned at all. You think their suffering and death is justifiable. I claim it is not.
3) I do emphasize the natural world, as I disbelieve in supernatural realms. I don't think heaven justifies the suffering of the infants who died.

This assertion is just false. Coming from a top philosophy of religion area, working from and learning with mainstream philosophy professors who are at the top of their field, I can confidently say your statement is not accurate.

It seems to be just your opinion that Mackie is not compelling. Mackie's error theory, for example, is taught, again by top philosophers, every year in major undergraduate and graduate courses. It is taken seriously.

You are misinterpreting the state of discourse. It's as if I said "theism has been conclusively rejected since Spinoza." Well I may think that, but clearly mainstream consensus does not.

Just a few weeks ago, there was a debate between Princeton's Gideon Rosen and Oxford's John Lennox on the problem of evil. You should no longer maintain that this is seen as a former problem in philosophy.

The problem of evil is only a disproof of a certain God, not of all theism. However, it does end up rejecting the version of God held by many billions of theists. Particularly, one that intervenes, cares, is loving and is generally moral and just, in my opinion. I realize this is a harsh condemnation, but as God, I would do much more.

See my above post. The reading of the current state of philosophy of religion he shared with you is not accurate, and I can confirm that readily and easily.

Based on his false assertion, I might suggest a tempered respect for the soundness of his claims.

I'm sure you know theists who think theism is winning the debate. Would it surprise you to know that atheists think atheism is winning the debate?

You're not looking objectively, I'm afraid. You are viewing the state of discourse in a biased way. In addition, I urge you not to call atheist criticisms half-assed, at least if you want to engage in a respectful conversation with me. I have to take considerable effort to take your ideas seriously (pretend you were having a conversation with a Mormon). I think you should do the same for mine.

Also, I don't appreciate your less than polite criticism of Sam Harris. If you have specific criticisms to level against him, go ahead. I will be happy to address them.

Again, I can point to the top philosophy departments in the country, arguably the world, and show you many philosophers who think the problem of evil is absolutely standing and relevant. I have taken classes from, worked with and done my dissertation under some of these folks.

You are responding to things I didn't say. For example, I spoke of Mackie's confused work strictly in the context of philosophy of religion, not in general. (Of course, his work in ethics is as bad as his work in philosophy of religion. But that's another matter.) For another example, I spoke only of the 'logical problem of evil,' not of the problem of evil in general. Edit. Oops. I didn't give myself enough credit. I also spoke of the evidential problem, and explicitly noted that many philosophers still find it has, as I said, some real teeth. I wonder how you can read that post, and still respond as though I had said that nobody takes "THE" problem of evil seriously anymore.

So I can't call bad work "half-assed," but you can call me biased? Hm.

At any rate, in this case, the post in question was a reply to Doom, not to you, so I was making no attempt whatsoever to have a respectful conversation with you. I was talking to Doom. You're free to read the posts and even to reply if you like, but I'll thank you to keep your stylistic critiques to yourself.

If you continue to wish to claim some kind of authority based on your publishable articles, your finished dissertation, and your broad acquaintance with leading philosophers, I will feel obliged to ask you to provide some evidence that such claims are true. In fact, I already did once. We're interested in seeing your published articles. Would you post links to them for me? Thanks!

If he is able, but not willing, that does not mean he is malevolent (not necessarily). It just means he's indifferent.



I don't see how you could get to atheism from the evidence up, as opposed to agnosticism. What sort of evidence can you acquire that suggests God, an indifferent one or a deistic one, does not exist?

Can you justify that? From my experience, most atheists I have talked to agree with moral relativism.


Why would we need someone beyond us to determine that pain is bad? You're jumping too far ahead. Not all people do think that pain is bad. Some think that suffering can be good, in that it can be redemptive. I think Nietzsche wrote very well about how suffering is good.

Many people say that pain and suffering, though it is bad in some sense, does not constitute the standard for evil. Even if pain is bad, which I'm not convinced of, it may not be the Big Bad. What constitutes the Big Bad for religious people must be related to God.

And here Lewis' PROBLEM OF PAIN is pertinent.

GKC

I think pretty much everyone agrees that suffering can be a good if it is redemptive....Nietzsche's famous dictum that 'whatever doesn't kill me only makes me stronger' is really just the Christian doctrine of 'redemptive suffering' expressed by a narcissist.

Just because you weren't "impressed" by it hardly makes it untrue. 2+2=4 isn't really impressive to anyone, yet it is true regardless of how you feel about it.

How do you know?

Never mind, we have to properly define what good is before we can have any insight as to how evil is a privation of what is good. I'll treat with that in a little bit...

There are two objections here based on misunderstandings. The first has to do with the word you used when referring to the Fall: "implicated". You're still treating these principles such as "good" & "evil" or "law" and "justice" in the positive sense instead of the natural sense. It's like the question Plato posed to an objector, "Do the gods command a thing because it is pious, or is it pious because the gods command it?" The evil we choose to do has nothing to do with something placed upon us, it is a part of our nature-it was inherited. It is this fallen nature that we are born with. It is this nature that clouds our reason and darkens our intellect so that we see evil as something good and desireable. Instead of our reason directing our wills and subduing our passions we allow our passions to subdue our reason and dictate our wills. It is called concupiscience.

You assume the position that based on your experience people are generally good in their behavior. The fact is that people are not good in their behavior. People because of selfish longings and desires make bad decisions constantly; everything from adultry and murder to stealing office supplies from your work and lying to your wife on while on the cell phone about where you are at. We rationalize and justify our bad choices under various reasons yet these acts are evil. Even infants and toddlers selfishly desire their favorite toys even to the point of inflicting pain on their siblings. You have newborn babies screaming their heads off just so they can be given a bottle of formula. As parents we have love and pity for them and we endure it but the bottom line is that we are born as pure ids and superegos(to use Frued's terminology). The total domination of the self over others(be they things or even people) is the antithesis of love goodness.

As far as God, He is NOT a tyrant. He could not make us do anything, not without violating our nature. God is absolute Truth so what you're suggesting-that God would contradict himself-is absurd. He does guide us; its called the human conscience which is the law of God(the law of Love) written on our hearts or that little "voice" we hear in ourselves that supports us when we do good or rebukes us when we do evil. This is also part of our nature. But sadly people, who continually make one evil decision after another, make it a constant habit to suppress and ignore that voice until it is no longer heard in themselves. Our consciences, like our intellects, must be informed to work properly. When you ignore your conscience and fail to inform it, you make it subject to your passions instead.


Not without violating our nature. God is absolute Love as well as absolute Truth. These are one in Him because He is pure absolute Being("I Am He Who Is"). To put it simply if the gun misfired the will behind it simply would have looked for another gun. The misfire wouldn't change the will.

The value of free will has to do with Love. For love to be truly love it has to be totally free. But this love is not the generally mistaken modern notion of passionate love. The love that God wants is the highest form of love: the classic "agape"-free and total self-giving love. We could not enjoy perfect love and blessedness unless were were fully free to choose it. We must be fully free to choose God and self-giving love or total selfishness and therefore not-God.

Remember, our faith places the eternal as obviously more important as the temporal-our souls are more important than our bodies. We don't believe that physical death is the end of the person, so neither is the death of innocents(although we can only assume their innocence-we have no real way of knowing who would choose God and who would not-only He can know) is the end of their existence. As far as any such people we pray for them and place them in His care and mercy with the confidence that He will judge them justly and mercifully.

If you think a world of mindless robots is more valuable than a world of people with free will then that is totally lost on me. I see such a mindset as the sad consequence of complacency living is a free country such as we have. There's no way I would trade the supposed total emination of evil(I say "supposed" because there is no way that you could presume that such a world you suppose would be free of evil) and remove from the world the millions of opportunities and experiences of total self-giving love

You're referring to pre-history and the comment begs the question. "Suffering" is a subjective emotion that can't you are applying to creatures which you assume had emotions.

I find the objection a little vague and very presumptuous. It also follows from a false definition of God's goodness. I'll get to that later...

Physical distance from God is irrelevent. Physical distance from those things that cause us to do evil can make all the difference.

And yes it does presume metaphysics and life after death. That could be the topic of another thread but I would quickly ask you here if there is not human soul how do you explain the ability of the human person(the subject) to objectify the body?


In your response you're assuming materialism and demanding proof while you have yet to prove that materialism is the only truth. IOW what you're really saying that in matters of thought and intellect there really is nothing for your science to abstract from. That is a philosophical claim, not a scientific one. And it is a false claim at that.

But your neglecting to ask the right questions and instead you place the blame on God because its an easy out for your atheism. Why are those children dying of starvation? Is it because of God, or because of a greedy warlord or tribal leader wanting to starve out another tribe who they have been at war with for centuries?

You ask, "why didn't God do anything"? I ask you, and God will ask all of us if we dare ask Him the same question you do, "why didn't [b]YOU (or me, or anyone else) do anything?"[/b] Why weren't WE his presence to the world? Why did we decide to sit on the sidelines and allow our cowardess and laziness to rule us even though we saw the evil, knew it was evil, and yet did nothing to stop it!?

All I can say is that God only permits the evil and suffering He does to bring about greater good. Its not an easy answer, it takes a lot of faith, but its the only answer we, or Job, or anyone else, will get.


You cannot come up with any definition of omnibenevolent that you want.

Here's the common sense definition of God as "all-good". God is the source of all that we recognoze as good. In fact we say that God is the source of all Being. Therefore God cannot be evil in any way, for whether an evil is moral or physical, it is properly understood in terms of what should be there but is not. A thing is good of its kind(and the qualification is important) if it succeeds in being that kind to the fullest. It is bad if it fails.

Now there can be no question of failure on the part of the Creator; God is to the fullest. And insofar as goodness is oone with perfect being, God is therefore perfect good.

God is perfectly good in Himself. We are good only so far as we perfectly cooperate with that goodness that is in Him. God, because of His love for us and free will cannot force us to act contrary to our wills despite His desire for us to act in cooperation with His goodness. By doing so he would destroy our wills and in effect destroy how He created us, and act contrary to Love.

He can compell us no more than a parent can compell their drug-addicted son or daughter to go into rehab-through Love and understanding and by informing them of their self-destructive ways. It STILL boils down to free-will; the addict still has to make the choice to change(to repent and do the good they know they ought to do. God, as a loving Father, informs us the Bible. He informs us by showing us the mistakes our forerunners made and gives us the perfect example of self-giving love through the example of His perfect divine Son.

So we have demonstrated that "omnibenevolence" when referring to God means the perfect goodness of God in Himself.

So when you reflect upon the proper definition then it seems my original question still stands.

Which really means nothing. Protestant scholars even misunderstand because they read their theology into the text. How do you know that you aren't making the same mistake?

The most obvious mistake is that you keep referring to the "innocents" of the ancient times yet you seem to ignore the clear fact that the Bible describes that every generation from Adam on persisted and even grew in sin from one generation to the next. From fratracide and patricide, to incest, polygamy, and homosexuality, even human sacrifice(adults and infants), & ritual prostitution.

It makes me wonder, that is if you know the pentateuch so well, how you can expect any generation following would have some miraculous change of heart and the whole society-or even the world- all of a sudden repent of the lives and acts and even worship of their fathers before them and turn back to the God they spurned. I can understand that it may take a great faith than you may be used to to see that a temporary death is a mercy when compaired to an eternal death.

Maybe as much as I see now that it, at least to me, takes a greater faith to see this world as it is, and know that it ought to be better(which itself presumes a knowledge of Something that is supremely perfect), and yet remain an atheist. Because to see this world as its is and call it "proof" and say "there is no God" seems also to accept a notion that the world is destined to remain as evil as it is now or worse, and then to live and die without any hope of anything changing.




As long as you disbelieve in "supernatural realms" while presupposing materialism you're begging the question. At best you can only assert a certitude for the non-existence of heaven, you cannot demonstrate or prove it.

I have no right to claim anything as "justifiable", I can only read that it happened, accept it as history, and presume in faith that the God of justice, love and mercy knew what He was doing. The same as you have no right to say that it was unjustifiable because there is no possible way you can know that with certainty.

You can no more make the assumption about an infants guilt or innocence than you or I can presume any adult's guilt or innocence. You cannot possibly know that with any certainty either. Because such a judgement would necessarily require that you have the ability to see every end to every choice made by every person from the beginning to the end of time.-IOW, you would have to be God.

You have no way of claiming anyone "innocent" mo matter how much you presume it. You're simply begging the question. Even if allowed to live you have no way of knowing what their life would become, at best you can only presume.

Tens-of-thousands of people suffered and went to their deaths with the belief and confidence that heavens's existence and blessedness fully justified their present pain and deaths. These were the Christian martyrs. They wents to their deaths with songs of joy on their lips because they knew their volutary suffering and deaths would bring about greater good.

If you don't think heaven is better then life on earth then I pity you, seriously. But I understand, because while everyone presumes to know what hell will be like not many people have considered what heaven will be like. I've aske many protestants the question, "what do you thnk you will do in heaven?" and I get various subjective answers from the pious(I'll get to be with Jesus all I want) to the funny(a never-ending Longhorn vs Sooner football game).

If you think that eternal life full of happiness, peace, joy, and love is in no way preferrable to this life full of pain, frustration, and empty pursuits then I really feel sorry for you.

Yes, the thesis Plantinga defends is called 'the free will defense', what he shows, and I thinks shows quite convincingly, is that there is no inherent contradiction between the existence of God and the existence of evil....indeed, I think his argument is so 'convincing' that, as I said, I think he basically takes 'the problem of evil' off the table altogether....

You did indeed make a distinction between 'the logical problem of evil' and 'the evidential problem of evil', but the thing that I think is important is that the logical problem of evil is really the only argument in the atheist arsenal which attempts to show that God CANNOT exist. Every other argument attempts to show merely that belief in God is improbable, or unnecessary, or or confusing, or that it has dangerous implications, the only argument that claims God cannot exist is the logical problem of evil. Without that argument, the case for actual atheism, i.e. the actual non-existence of God, completely collapses.