Michael,
In the section where you wrote:
"the theist can and ought to argue that the atheist has no moral legs to stand on. If a given atheist is ...he has no reason to believe that there are objectively binding moral norms which God fails to satisfy..."
I think you make a mistake here. If I were an atheist I would not make the argument from evil from my (the athiest's) understanding of evil but from the theist's understanding of evil. Even if the atheist is completely relativistic or nihilistic about moral norms, I don't see why he can't argue that it is the theist's moral norms and the theist's criteria for making moral evaluations by which he shows the theist's set of beliefs to be incompatible.
Isn't the point of the argument, after all, to show that the theist's set of beliefs are incompatible?
Now, this is part of what makes the atheist's job a little easier. He doesn't need to establish any moral theory, he merely needs to stipulate a particular theist's moral theory for the sake of showing the contradiction.
Or am I missing the point?
God bless,
Rob
Wow. 2,330 words to say that theology is completely useless as an explanation, but even so, rationality (evidentiary reasoning) is a normative standard, it is not proven that rationality ought to be a normative standard, therefore, what, God exists?
Burden of Proof: "The theologian... can't tell you what he's talking about, and if he happens to say something meaningful (usually by accident), he can't or won't tell you why he believes it. Theologians will usually try to bury you in doubletalk and ambiguity, hoping you'll think it's all too complicated for your tiny little mind and just accept their authority."
I've written a more detailed refutation (to the extent there's some actual content buried in your oh-so-profound verbiage).
re BB's comment: It doesn't take any serious reading or reasoning ability to be able to tell that the post is not an argument for the existence of God or the correctness of theism but an analysis of a particular set of arguments; and that, moreover, the post does not say that "theology is completely useless as an explanation" but that there are two views of explanation and that theists must recognize that. Reasonable people would figure out that if they have to ignore most of a discussion as not relevant to the point that this might mean that they have missed the point, and would therefore take steps to eliminate this possibility; but apparently some people think we can now replace rational competence with making things up. It must be easy making oneself right by fiat; but I think it's probably best for all concerned to stick to actual reasoning.
Brandon: I read your comment (a little uncharitably) as essentially stating that because Liccione does not make any actual points, he escapes any actual criticism.
More specifically:
the post is ... an analysis of a particular set of arguments
It's not even that. An analysis generally makes some logical connection its statements; Liccione merely makes unconnected assertions.
the post [says] there are two views of explanation and that theists must recognize that.
The post does not even describe a second view of explanation; Liccione merely observes that theology simply fails according to the naturalistic standard of explanation. He simply abandons the need for explanation and justifies theology as a search for "answers", without mentioning any sort of constraint on what sorts of answers are acceptable.
Reasonable people would figure out that if they have to ignore most of a discussion as not relevant to the point that this might mean that they have missed the point...
It might mean anything. It might mean the moon is made of green cheese. It might mean there's no actual point to be missed. I read the post three times, and I wasn't able to discover much of a point, and the points I did discover were trivial.
Instead of telling me what it might mean, perhaps you can tell me what it actual does mean, hm?
but apparently some people think we can now replace rational competence with making things up
Whoops. There goes another irony meter.
It must be easy making oneself right by fiat; but I think it's probably best for all concerned to stick to actual reasoning.
There goes another one. Please: these things are expensive.
And Brandon, did you actually read the refutation I linked to?
"Although an omnipotent God could well have created a world in which suffering does not far outstrip deserts, God has not done so"
Right. But why not? God must not be good.
For example, a bunch of newborn babies recently died in India. They burned alive in their incubators.
If the word "good" has any meaning, then a good agent capable of preventing that would have. If the word "omnipotent" has any meaning, then an omnipotent agent could have prevented that.
So was God unwilling or unable? Either way, then why call him God?
It is no help for the theist to claim that God has a higher "good". In that case, the theist has admitted he does not know the meaning of the word "good", and therefor is in no position to claim that God, or anything, is good.
Ultimately, I think the methodological strictures of naturalism render the idea of the origin of the cosmos a meaningless topic.
If the universe had a beginning, naturalists are inclined to say, its origin is inscrutable to natural science, and therefore is simply inscrutable. On the other hand, if the universe had no beginning, well, then, so much the better for naturalism: no need to even consider a Creator.
The problem of course, is that the first option is an effective cop out which admits natural science cannot answer all questions. The second option is more contradictory for the naturalist, since an eternal entity of necessity lies outside the scope of natural science.
So, again, I think the result is for the concept of origins to be poo-pooed as simply too much trouble. In which case, denying a Creator, or anything meaningfully eternal, is a kind of moral admonition in order for ground-level science to "get on with" more practical, less seemingly intractable matters.
Rob:
You are missing my point. As you pose it, the atheist arguing from the problem of evil assumes that the theist holds certain moral beliefs, and then tries to show that theism is incompatible with those beliefs. But of course, if theism is true, then the theist should not hold the moral beliefs in question; if he did, he would be self-inconsistent. That's why most theistic natural theologians reject the moral beliefs that the atheist ex hypothesi attributes to them and that would, if the theist held them, render theism self-inconsistent. The only reply for the atheist is to argue that the theist ought to hold them all the same, because failure to do so would be immoral.
Best,
Mike
BB:
You have completely misconstrued the purpose of my post. My purpose was not to argue for theism, even though I alluded to such arguments; my purpose was to characterize what kind of argument the arguments for atheism actually are. That is one reason why I will not reply to your post. The other reason is that it is foul-mouthed, which does not speak well either for you or for the usefulness of debating with you.
Best,
Mike
unBeguiled:
Whether intentionally or not, your comment nicely confirms the main point of my post. In effect, you're arguing that if the theist doesn't agree with you about what 'good' means as used for God, then the theist doesn't know what he's talking about. You're assuming that only certain understanding of moral goodness is the correct one, and that, if there were a God, it would apply in exactly the same way to God as to us. It should go without saying that classical theists deny that 'good' applies to God in the exactly the same way as it does to us, and that they give other accounts of what 'good' does mean as applied to God. Say what you want about those accounts; they are at least self-consistent.
If my experience with these things is any guide, you'd probably want to reply that classical theists are thereby committed to holding moral beliefs that are themselves morally perverted. That's my point about how atheists must argue.
Best,
Mike
Eliot:
With one exception, I agree with you. I don't believe that atheists as such are committed to scientism. Naturalists generally are; but even if scientism is false, that leaves the field open for other arguments against theism. You seem to agree with me that those are moral arguments.
Best,
Mike
BTW Eliot:
I've also posted this essay over at PP. Expect to hear from David Hirst there.
Best,
Mike
"they give other accounts of what 'good' does mean as applied to God."
So from a theistic point of view, God allowing those newborns to be burned alive was good.
So that can only mean that when a theist uses the word "good", it means the same thing as when I use the word "evil".
But that can't be right. Certainly a theist does not think babies burning in their incubators is good!
No, a classical theist does not believe that babies being burned alive in incubators is good. Rather, such a theist believes that God somehow brings a greater good out of such evil. That's what Aquinas believed, and as a theist I agree with him.
Reason alone cannot tell us how God does that. But that doesn't tell us that it's unreasonable to believe God does it. For there might well be other, good reasons to believe things from which it follows that God is perfectly good; so that if he allows presumptively disproportionate evil, that must be for the sake of a good which outweighs it.
Of course, some atheists hold that no good could outweigh it. But that doesn't pose a problem of conceptual consistency for the classical theist. Rather, it indicates that the atheist in question has a moral philosophy from which the falsity of classical theism logically follows. That's a moral argument against classical theism. But it doesn't tell us that the moral philosophy of the atheist in question is actually true.
Best,
Mike
Michael,
Thanks for your response. I think that, and your exchange with unBeguiled have helped to clear up your point for me.
God bless,
Rob
Barefoot Bum:
Yes, I read it; it was juvenile and amateurish, the sort of thing written by someone who doesn't take the trouble to analyze arguments as they actually stand, or else lacks the ability and tries to cover it up with insults. Both it and your first comment to me pretty much straightforwardly show that you will dishonestly reinterpret anything that is said, so there's hardly any reason to keep pretending that you are dealing with any sort of 'refutation' rather than just building strawmen.
The fiasco of your 'refutation' is interesting, however, since history of philosophy, as a discipline, does require analyzing arguments in broadly the way that Mike does in the post, even if one disagrees with the particulars; otherwise one can't evaluate the arguments at hand properly, or determine whether there is any actual refutation. Refutation can't be declared by fiat but can only be recognized by proper classification of arguments and discussion of how they relate to each other.
Mike,
It occurs to me that another way to consider these sets of arguments might be in terms of teleology. The argument from evil is based on dysteleology in the world, i.e., the failure of the world to be guided by some final cause that (it is argued) it should follow if God existed. The argument from superfluity, on the other hand, is based on a substantive account of the teleology of reason (which is one way to think of a theory of explanation), i.e., the alleged failure of theism to fulfill the ends of human reason. This would mean that the arguments aren't necessarily moral, but, of course, in common practice they would tend to take on a moral tone, since moral reasoning is perhaps the form of reasoning where we find it easiest to reject something on a teleological basis.
BB:
I don't know if you're familiar with online video games, but I see more civility in gaming forums full of 13 year old immature brats than in your post. And at least those kids are only 13 and are, well, ignorant. I'd expect more from someone who appears to admire Socrates.
"so that if he allows presumptively disproportionate evil, that must be for the sake of a good which outweighs it."
But the theist believes God is omnipotent. God could achieve "the good which outweighs it" without burning the babies. So that makes the burning of the babies gratuitous.
Realize I do not think that the argument from evil can demonstrate that no gods exist, but simply that if one does, he is either not all good or not omnipotent.
The move you have made here reduces to the admission on your part that you don't know what "good" means. Only God knows, according to you. You have excused yourself from the moral community. Hence, whenever you use the word "good" you are making no sense. So for you to claim that the God you worship is "good" is to say nothing at all about God.
Cheers.
Do you hold a moral philosophy according to which no superior good could come from allowing evil when one could prevent it?
There are obviously goods the existence of which would be impossible without evil; to take the obvious instance, the good of overcoming or remedying evil; the existence of such good without any evil to overcome or remedy is a straightforward contradiction. Since omnipotence is not generally understood to extend to things that are really contradictory, appeal to omnipotence actually doesn't move the discussion forward without proof either that omnipotence cannot create a scenario where all these evils are in some way overcome or remedied or that even omnipotence could not make this good (of overcoming or remedying evil) good enough.
Brandon:
If possible, please re-post your comments addressed to me under the cross-post at Philosophia Perennis. I will reply substantively there. It would be fine to edit them first if you care to.
Best,
Mike
Blasphemy is evil. It is intrinsically sinful for God's goodness to be disparaged, but this evil can be allowed––is allowed all the time––so that nonbelievers can gain that much more light in dialogue in the quest for or against faith.
There is a verse on the last judgment in the Koran that states:
"when the buried infant shall be asked for what sin she was slain...then shall a soul know what it has produced." (Surah 81)
Not a very pleasant text to be sure, but it was echoed in the Dies Irae of old. The virile part of ancient Epicureanism, Stoicism, etc., is that they could take a firm, hard look at the universe and take the brutality and cruelty of the horrible forces around us like men. I'll take Seneca any day of the week over Richard Dawkins. At least they could give Christianity a run for its money. The only reason that the "new atheism" gets a hearing now is precisely because of what you say: intellectual laziness and general hedonism. (I don't think even Nietzsche would even sneeze in this stuff's direction.)
As for theism, especially the Western, monotheistic type, sin, as the rather blunt Koranic verse shows, changes the equation completely. There was a time in even the Catholic consciousness when we were fully aware that our actions have consequences, even cosmic ones. This is very Biblical as well, and I don't think I have to give examples. It's not a popular thing to say even in the Church these days, but no one is innocent except Christ, and through His grace, His Blessed Mother, and even they suffered because of our sins, which is the only way that they were redeemed.
I agree with most of what you say. But I do not agree that original sin is a personal fault (cf CCC §405), which is what, in this context, saying "nobody is innocent" would entail.
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