The whole defensive operation against the argument from evil is an attempt to who the limits of a philosophical argument and the difficulty it faces in proving the nonexistence of God. Whenever the people you don't like are making arguments, you love to point out our cognitive limitations. When we try to do it to the argument from evil, you object.
Atheists are attempting to prove that God does not exist using the argument from evil. So which is it Ed? Can atheists prove that the tri-omni God does not exist, or not? Does the argument from evil, a philosophical argument if there ever was one, really prove that God does not exist? If it does, then you must maintain that philosophy is not just one big IF, and that it really can prove a significant philosophical result. If, on the other hand, you maintain that the argument doesn't prove the non-existence of God, then you agree with me about the argument from evil. There's no middle ground Ed. It's yes or no. Please resist the temptation to elaborate.
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His link actually worked? (When I bothered to look it up, it couldn't be found at DebunX. Weirdly, the local search engine had it listed as an abstract, but even _its_ link didn't work. I guess it's back now?)
And yeah, that was the main criticism I guessed I would have with it, too. {g}
No. His link, which he has posted on about 6 or 7 of my posts, does not work. But this one does.
Ah! He moved it to his own blog. That explains it.
His total evasion of your question was classic, btw. All he had to do was answer whether he thought the AfE was capable of proving something in atheism's favor, or not.
(I guess actually agreeing with you on something would have been too much of a strain. {g} Interested parties can, in fact, read Ed's answer by following the link Victor gave above. He didn't resist the temptation to elaborate, fwiw.)
I've responded on his blog. If you agree with me, maybe you should say so over there.
I think you're doing pretty well already. {s!} (And I don't much like going to purely contentious sites to engage in fights. It would be different if I thought Ed was anything more than a provocateur making waves for the sake of making waves.)
OK Let's go back to kindergarten. The argument from evil is proffered as a proof of the nonexistence of an omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good being. The defender is trying to prove nothing except that the atheist has not proven atheism. A person can accept the argument from evil who does not accept the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good being, even if they believe in som other being that might be in some sense a deity.
You can believe that the existence of the world's evil is logically incompatible with theism, you can believe that it provides substantial and virtually overwhelming evidence against theism. You can believe that it provides some, but not overwhelming evidence against theism. or that it provides no evidence against theism. Which is it Ed? These options exhaust the alternatives, unless you actually think that evil provides evidence for theism. Where do you stand?
In the issue of the problem of evil, it's atheists like Loftus and Carr, and Flew and Mackie, and Rowe and Draper, who put the argument forward as a good or perhaps decisive reason to reject theism. Some of them go as far as to say that the argument from evil proves that all theists hold their beliefs irrationally. If they are right then a philosophical argument in a major topic in the philosophy of religion works, and works well. If you don't, then you accept the outcome of my project, which has always been to show that there is nothing overwhelming about the argument from evil.
You lose credibility every time you dodge this question and pour out pages and pages of anti-Christian diatribe while at the same time refusing to accept the idea that any argument in philosophy really works. Unless you make clear what conclusion you are driving at, I must conclude that your aminadversions on these matters are "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Or, to put it another way, BS.
'In the issue of the problem of evil, it's atheists like Loftus and Carr, and Flew and Mackie, and Rowe and Draper, who put the argument forward as a good or perhaps decisive reason to reject theism.'
CARR
No I don't.
If God is not omnibenevolent, or weaker than Satan, then the problem of evil goes away.
Theism in this context means a God who is omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good. I think I indicated that belief in other supernatural beings is not affected by the AFE.
Vic,
My reply is located here. I hope you will find after you've read my reply (along with considering what I wrote in previous ones, since I use different examples in each of them) that I have evaded none of your questions, and sought to express my views and opinions as clearly as possible. Though I will add that one reason I have sought to critique your views in particular and add my contents to your blog is that we have a long history together from before you began blogging and before I ever had a website, and we both have loved C. S. Lewis and the Inklings and Chesterton and chess as well. We are fellow gamesmen and debaters in that respect. Years ago you even sent me copies of your classroom lesson plans in which you examined various theistic arguments and asked my opinions, as well as chapters of your book before it was published. I still have those emails. And you are a kind person (though the strain of running an open blog consisting of philosophical arguments is bound to get to anyone), and also someone who recognizes a fair degree of inconclusiveness in philosophical and theological arguments, though not as often or as broadly as I myself do. I sense that perhaps you'd appreciate what I had to say more if I visited atheistic blogs rather than yours, and questioned their ability to prove things equally as much as I have yours. However, I don't feel compelled to deal with atheists as much as theists, especially those theists who believe in special written revelations from God, and promises of salvation for believers in those revelations and damnation for non-believers in those revelations. The questions that theism of a special revelatory type raises, along with philosophical questions in general, make the debate more interesting in my opinion.
Passing through on my way to business elsewhere, but...
{{I sense that perhaps you'd appreciate what I had to say more if I visited atheistic blogs rather than yours, and questioned their ability to prove things equally as much as I have yours.}}
Ed, you don’t even do that when you _do_ have opportunities. I’ve been privy to a significant amount of that email correspondence since-before-there-were-blogs, which correspondences included large amounts of writing by definite atheists, just as there are here on Victor’s journal--and never _once_ have I _ever_ seen you try to apply your standards against them when _they_ make claims. (On the contrary, you borrow their arguments and positively apply them whenever you think you can take a shot at Christian belief by doing so.)
I doubt Victor is any more impressed by your statement here, therefore, than I am. If you don’t “feel compelled” to deal with (i.e. stand against) atheists as much as theists, it isn’t from a lack of opportunity where we could see you doing it.
{{However, I don't feel compelled to deal with atheists as much as theists, especially those theists who believe in special written revelations from God, and promises of salvation for believers in those revelations and damnation for non-believers in those revelations.}}
This would look more impressive if you hadn’t begun your journal entry by recognizing Victor to be among non-exclusivists (thus _not_ the people you’re talking about here), and then deriding non-exclusivists for doing what they do in order to “justify the devilish amount of ignorance in the world.” (Right before you began yet another familiar attempt at, in essence, _justifying_ the devilish amount of ignorance in the world by trying to claim that philosophical inquiry cannot legitimately reach final answers about anything.)
So, you’re going to hang Victor as a goat or as a sheep, either way: if you can do it by implying (as you constantly do in regard to me as well, despite even more positive evidence that I am neither an exclusivist nor a gnostic) that he’s a gnostic exclusivist, then that’s what you’re going to do. If you’re ever grudgingly forced to admit that he’s a non-exclusivist, then you’ll paint him as going that route, not out of any charity on his part, much less because he thinks it actually makes better sense, but so that he can justify devilish amounts of ignorance.
That isn’t gamesmanship. That’s an agenda--and you’re willing to contradict yourself from moment to moment, if that’s what it takes, in order to prosecute it.
If a ‘gamesman’ camps in a tower where he constantly uses green team weapons and tactical support to snipe only at blue team members, no matter what it is the particular blue team members are doing, then frankly he has only himself to blame if blue team members snort at his claims, no matter how strenuous, to only be grey. People who cheer for anyone playing against the Tennessee Volunteers (but especially if the teams come from the Pac-10 conference), _have_ chosen a side.
And no one in their right mind is ever going to believe them if they protest otherwise.
Jason Pratt
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