Stephen Law and the Evil God Challenge: The Evidently Problematic Argument

                William Lane Craig recently completed his tour of the United Kingdom in which he participated in several debates and several lectures. The kick-off event of the tour was a debate with British philosopher Stephen Law, who is an atheist and is the editor of the journal Think, produced by the Royal Institute of Philosophy. In this post, I want to examine the main argument that Law offered during the debate, as well as to examine his subsequent defense of it in his radio debate with philosopher Glenn Peoples.

Objections to the Kālam Cosmological Argument

     One of my first posts in this blog was a post outlining and defending the Kālam Cosmological Argument. It is a very easy argument to understand, and it’s premises are generally accepted by the average person, which is one reason I regard the argument so highly. It is not, however, without its detractors, and I would be first in line to point this out. The KCA is a contentious argument. So I was not surprised to find a reader of this blog posting some objections to it in the comment section of that post. In brief, he rejects each premise as well as the conclusion. But in order to outline the objections he raises, I think it’s best to review the KCA a bit.

Richard Dawkins and Smoked Fish

     This is a slight deviation from my routine, but I can’t pass up an opportunity to comment on the epic controversial non-exchange of ideas set to not-happen at Oxford, England on the 25th of this month. There, philosopher, theologian, and world-famous Christian apologist William lane Craig has been invited to a public debate with former Oxford professor and world-famous atheist apologist Richard Dawkins. Dawkins has for years refused to debate Craig, and has offered numerous reasons for this refusal, the most recent of which seems to be that he finds Craig’s view of the genocide commanded by God in the Old Testament to be morally repugnant. He claims that Craig is an “apologist for genocide” and that he (Dawkins) would rather leave a theatrically poignant empty chair at the Oxford debate than to share a platform with Craig. The organizers of the Craig/Dawkins debate plan to leave an empty chair on the stage in order to give Dawkins a chance, ‘til the final minutes before the debate, to change his mind. Presumably if Dawkins continues to refuse, the chair will remain empty on the stage as a reminder of Dawkins’ absence, and Craig will present prepared criticisms of Dawkins’ book The God Delusion.

The Evidential (Probabilistic) Problem of Evil: Part 2

In the previous post, I outlined the typical trajectory of the evidential problem of evil (EPE), and explicated the nature of what the non-theist alleges that it can show. Further, I explained that as an argument against the existence of God, the person making the argument assumes a burden of proof concerning the assumptions made by the EPE. This burden of proof holds regardless of whether the defender of the EPE acknowledges it. If she declines to defend the assumptions made therein, then the theist might justifiably decline to accept the conclusion of the EPE as probably correct.

The Evidential (Probabilistic) Problem of Evil: Part 1

In the last post, I responded to a second defense of the logical problem of evil: that a benevolent being desires to eradicate all suffering and evil now. I noted that while this may seem true at first, there are a host of exceptions to this generalization, and it is therefore not necessarily the case. But since a benevolent being does not necessarily desire to eradicate all evil and suffering now, it follows that the evil and suffering now observed are not incompatible with the desires of a benevolent being. Thus the second major assumption of the logical problem of evil also fails. I further noted that some theistic philosophers have sought (successfully) to show positively that evil and suffering are consistent with the existence of God. Consequently, most philosophers, including atheistic ones, agree that the so-called logical problem of evil is in fact not problematic after all. It will no doubt take some time for the news of this to trickle down to lay-atheist apologists who have a tendency to neglect the study of views which differ from their own, so I should not be surprised to hear the claim, especially on the internet, that the existence of evil proves that God cannot exist. The continued insistence that this is so, it seems to me, is the result of ignorance (willing or not), and should not at all lessen the confidence of the theist.

The Logical Problem of Evil: Part 2

In the last post, I gave a brief overview of the logical problem of evil, and explained one possible way of defeating it. There is another way, however. You’ll remember that the logical problem of evil is the alleged logical contradiction between these two propositions:

1.       An omnipotent, omniscient, omni-benevolent being exists.

2.       Evil exists.

The Logical Problem of Evil: Part 1

In the last post I discussed the Kālam Cosmological Argument. I will likely discuss it further at a later date, especially concerning some additional objections to it, but for now I’ll move on to an objection to theism. It’s not my primary aim in this blog to show that God exists. Rather, what I’d like to do, at least what I’d be perfectly satisfied with having done, is to show that it is rational to believe that God exists. Such an endeavor will require not only some defense of the grounds for (rational) theism, but also an attack on some objections to theism. It will not be surprising to anyone familiar with the question of God’s existence that the first issue to be discussed is the so-called “problem of evil”. This problem comes essentially in two forms.

The Kalām Cosmological Argument

It’s been difficult deciding on an initial topic. Most lay-level topics have been more or less sufficiently dealt with at numerous points and by numerous internet authors. For instance, the point at which I’ve decided to begin is a family of arguments for the existence of God known as “cosmological arguments.” These are arguments essentially for a first cause of the universe, and they take many forms. It is important to remember that a defeater for one argument will not necessarily be a defeater for another, even if both are cosmological arguments.

Introductions

This is the maiden voyage for me. I have been encouraged many times and by many different people to begin a blog, but have hitherto failed to do so. The question may come up, "Why another blog about God? Has not everything which can be said already been said, and said better?" Perhaps. But as each new generation matures, it processes what has been said by others before it. It embeds old ideas in new contexts. There are as many ways to think about God as there are people to do the thinking, and I see no reason not to think about it myself, and to subsequently post those thoughts.