Argument from Evil to God - Does it Work? Part 1

In the book “Reason for God,” the author repeats an argument by Alvin Plantinga which amounts to a jiujitsu reversal of the standard argument from evil. This argument is worth exploring at some length.

The standard argument from evil is that the existence of evil, or pain, or suffering, or the existence of so much evil, pain, and suffering, is incompatible with the existence of an: (1) all-knowing; (2) all-loving; and (3) all-powerful God. If God exists, the argument goes, he lacks at least one of these three capacities. But if God lacks even one of these capacities, his existence is nothing to get excited about.

Plantinga responds, “fair enough, my atheist friend, but you’ve got a problem of your own.” If there is no God, and all events are simply natural events, unguided by any supernatural agency, then you have no basis for calling such events "evil." You may not like the phenomena you call evil, but in citing these phenomena as your basis for rejecting the traditional monotheistic deity, you are saying much more than ‘we don’t like these phenomena.’ You are saying that they are morally repugnant. But what is the basis for your MORAL judgment? How can you morally condemn purely natural phenomena? As Hume famously put it, no ought follows from an is. No moral obligations can be derived from a description of what is? “Ought” and “is” are entirely separate categories - the fact that the entire world should perish except I move my finger slightly produces no obligation that I act to save the world. If I have such an obligation, it has to be based on something other than the mere fact that the world is going to perish.

The truth, my atheist friend, is that, in making your argument from evil, you are relying on a moral foundation that is metaphysical, e.g., beyond nature. Your argument against God presupposes that the universe is subject to moral critique. But this can only be true if there is something beyond it - something supernatural that is capable of grounding moral judgments . . . something like . . . God.”

Go suck on that Atheists!

Now, if Plantinga is right, we have both a paradox and an argumentative “draw.” An argument that proves God can’t exist necessarily presupposes that he must exist. As we used to say in the seventies - which is the last time I smoked the wild weed - "WOW MAAAAAAAN!"

And I’m pretty sure Plantinga will settle for a draw on the argument from evil. A draw against theism's most dangerous threat . . . done!

Question is, does Plantings' argument work?

I don’t think so. I’ll explain why in a subsequent post.

Disclaimer - I did my best to reconstruct Plantinga’s argument. However, I did this from memory, which is faulty. I no longer have Plantinga’s book. Moreover, I am no longer teaching philosophy, so I’m not going to go to the university and retrieve it. I don’t remember Plantinga citing Hume, but Hume’s point is germane, so I included it.

My point is, I may have omitted something important, or something that would strengthen the argument. If so, feel free to point this out.

Joe H.

Fifth Column Of Insanity

A "Fifth Column of Insanity?" What an apt description!

Let me say up front that I am a Christian and nonetheless agree with every word of Mr. Schaeffer's criticism of American evangelicalism - except perhaps his belief that we're a lost cause "village idiot." We've become the village idiot - and we should be ridiculed for our stubborn refusal to embrace modern discovery and adjust our ancient faith accordingly. But I don't think things are as hopeless for us as Mr. Schaeffer argues - and neither does he, in his heart. Otherwise he wouldn't be risking his life trying to shake us up.

This is a prophet speaking. I hope he embarrasses some of us who regularly suppress our cognitive dissonance - and you guys know who you are!

Joe H.

Reason for God - Initial Thoughts

First, sorry about the dearth of posts. I've been moving and practicing law - a time consuming combination if there ever was one - with a lack of Internet access thrown in for good measure.

Yesterday I began reading a book titled Reason for God. This book attempts to engage atheists' and skeptics' arguments and provide a defense of the rationality of believing in God and Christianity.

Ordinarily, these kinds of books disappoint me. The arguments contained in them lack genuine philosophical rigor, but are still good enough to generate believer confidence that we are on solid philosophical grounds. This bothers me a great deal - perhaps because Jesus said "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." Maybe I'm a "Truth worshiper?" I don't know.

For an example of what I'm talking about, the author of Reason for God has a central premise: he argues that every reason that a person can give for rejecting a faith based acceptance of Christianity presupposes an equally faith based acceptance of some other unprovable premise. The author then cites examples of reasons that people give for rejecting Christianity that do in fact presuppose some other faith based assumption.

Philosophers encountering such arguments will immediately suspect that straw men are afoot. This is because all the examples in the world won't save this premise from a single counter-example. And there is an obvious counter-example. What if someone claims to reject Christianity because it seems implausible - or because the evidence, as they see it, is insufficient to justify belief in Christianity?

I don't see any faith based unprovable assumption in this response - so there goes the book's central premise.

Okay, Okay. As Alvin Plantinga will insist, the atheist is still relying on one unprovable premise: he's relying on the assumption that his analytical faculties are reliable indicators of what constitutes a sound argument and/or sufficient evidence. And Plantinga will argue - in fact, has argued - that only a belief in God can justify that belief, given the possibility that evolved faculties could merely be leading us to conclusions that cause us to act in ways that keep us alive, without actually revealing "the truth."

I don't buy this argument. For one thing, it is a recognizable variant of skepticism. It presupposes that the only way we can know for sure that our senses and mental faculties are reliable (albeit fallible) is to believe in God; otherwise we have to refrain from any assertion on the matter, given that an evolutionarily produced faculties might be "successful" - they might present us with images that cause us to act in ways that keep us alive and aid reproduction - without giving us "accurate" information - Recall the movie "Shallow Hal" for reference.

But what if we don't equate knowing with certainty - which we don't? In that case the many successes of our senses and/or mental faculties are transformed into adequate evidentiary justifications for our conviction that they give us reliably accurate information about the world and/or the soundness of arguments (at least most of the time). If we don't need to "know for certain" in order to "know," Plantinga's argument falls apart.

But I digress. The point is that the central premise of the book is demolished by a single counter-example - and a counter-example which occurred to me less than one minute after reading the sentence. And why did it occur to me? Not because I am smarter than everyone else. It occurred to me because I have philosophical training. I was trained to read sentences like "every reason that a person can give for rejecting a faith based acceptance of Christianity presupposes an equally faith based acceptance of some other unprovable premise," and to then ask, "is that right?" I was also trained to recognize that, in my hope that it might be right, I will be inclined to accept its truth uncritically, and I should, therefore, increase my vigilance in such circumstances in order to avoid being taken in by bad arguments.

Another example is the author's take on the problem of evil. He initially derides those who argue that God's allowance of "pointless suffering" indicts the very idea of an all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful God. He points out, correctly, that what appears to be pointless to a particular observer may not be pointless at all. But he then accuses those of us who conclude that particular instances of suffering are pointless, of arrogance. He accuses us of being unjustifiably confident in our own judgment.

But that is utter nonsense. The fact that what appears to be pointless, based on all the available evidence, may not actually be pointless, is no reason for us not to conclude that certain cases of suffering are pointless unless proved otherwise. The underlying premise to the author's argument is that I'm not justified in concluding that X is Y, or using X is Y in an argument, until I'm absolutely certain that X is Y. But there is very little in the world that we can be absolutely certain about, so this premise would preclude belief, assertion and argument altogether.

What the author attempted to do was to shift the burden of proof. He argued that you can't assert the premise "God allows pointless suffering" unless you rule out every possible way in which each instance of suffering might be meaningful. But if there are instances of suffering that appear to be obviously gratuitous and/or pointless, shouldn't the presumption be that they are pointless and gratuitous unless shown to be otherwise?

Anyway, I did think the author's discussion of Plantinga's argument from "Evil to the existence of God" was interesting. I'll take that up in my next post.

Joe H

The Public Option in 70 Seconds

Click here for a short clear explanation of the proposed "public option" insurance plan.

Nothing to be scared of.

Joe H.

Dear President Bush

Dear President Bush . . .

To be an American

The other day I was interacting with someone and said, "President Obama is violating U.S. and international law by refusing to investigate and/or prosecute Bush administration officials for torture." The person with whom I was interacting responded, "that statement places you on the far edge of the looniest, most rabidly anti-American fringe in our history."

The fact that President Obama, or at least Attorney General Eric Holder, is violating U.S. and International law by refusing to investigate and/or prosecute Bush administration officials for torture, is easy to verify. The Convention on Torture ("Cot") is, by virtue of that treaty's ratification by the U.S. Senate, binding U.S. law pursuant to our Federal constitution. The COT makes investigation of credible allegations, and prosecution of provable cases, of torture, mandatory. And both President Bush and Vice President Cheney have admitted authorizing acts that constitute torture under the definition of torture provided by the COT and federal law.

That's all old news. What's interesting is that pointing any of this out now renders one a member of "the far edge of the looniest, most rabidly anti-American fringe in our history" in the minds of millions of Americans who consider themselves to be hyper patriotic.

When I hear things like that, I wonder what do these people think "America" is? How do they think about America? What does "being an American" mean to them? Don't they see the irony of calling a citizen who openly criticises a sitting American President for refusing to "faithfully execute the laws of the land" a member of "the far edge of the looniest, most rabidly anti-American fringe in our history."

I was thinking, how much more American could I be? What different planets we occupy.

Within a very short period of time, our understanding of "America" has dramatically deteriorated. "America" used to mean a North American political entity within which the citizens were united by their loyalty to very basic political ideals - the rule of law, separation of powers, a limitation on Government power against individuals (particularly those with unpopular views or practices or ethinic origins), pluralism, civil liberties, due process, equality before the law, representative government, a rebuttable presumption in favor of liberty, and so forth. No American in that sense would ever call someone acting the way I did "Anti-American."

I have no idea how to describe the "America" envisioned by these other Americans.

Joe H.

Why Euphemisms?

Enhanced Interrogations? Aggressive Interrogations? Brutal Interrogations?

It appears that few if any members of the American print media can bring themeselves to use the word "torture" to describe the conduct of Americans towards our Muslum detainees. Certainly not the New York Times. Certainly not the Washington Post.

And why? Andrew Sullivan explained this as well as anyone when he said:

"The minute you use the English language in defense of torture, you disgust yourself. Language matters, as Orwell understood. It is the first thing to be dispensed with in the defense of the indefensible."

So, no matter how much pain and suffering we inflict on the Muslim detainees that we suspect - notice the key qualifier "suspect" - might - notice the key qualifier "might" - be involved in terrorism, it cannot rise to the level of "torture." This holds, even when a terrorism suspect dies as a result of our "enhanced interrogations," as over 100 men have.

We can tolerate the behavior - but not if we utter the appropriate description of it.

That's a fascinating feature of our moral psychology, don't you think?

Joe