Philosophy: Problem of Evil Part 3



Hi, my name is Greg Ganssle and I’m a part-time lecturer[br]in the Department of Philosophy at Yale University, and a Senior Fellow at the Rivendell Institute. And today we’re talking about the philosophical problem of evil. In previous discussions,[br]we’ve seen the charge of contradiction or the deductive logical problem of evil discussed.

And this is the claim that[br]there is a contradiction in asserting that God[br]exists, God is wholly good, all-powerful, and all-knowing,[br]and that evil exists. The solution to this charge[br]of contradiction, we found, was in the idea that God might have[br]a good reason to allow evil.

A good God can allow evil if[br]He has a good reason to do so. It’s from this point that[br]the second major argument in the philosophical[br]problem of evil begins. This is the evidential argument. Rather than “the charge of contradiction,” I like to call this “the unicorn[br]objection.” Just like a unicorn might exist

But they’re awfully hard to find, this argument starts with[br]the idea that maybe God has a reason to allow the evil we witness, but it sure seems like there[br]is no reason out there. So let me see if I can make[br]this a little more rigorous. I’m following an important[br]paper that was published

By philosopher William Rowe in 1979. This argument goes something like this[br](and I’m going to simplify). Premise one: There are unjustified evils in the world. Premise two: If God exists, there will be no unjustified evils in the world. Conclusion: Therefore, God does not exist. Let me clarify a few things

Before I try to give a bit of an answer. So, what is an unjustified evil? An unjustified evil is an evil where there is no good reason to allow it. No good being would allow this evil if he could prevent it. The argument is that there are

Cases of evil like this in the world, and if there are, then God does not exist. Now, notice the way I set up the argument, it’s actually a valid deductive argument. So why would we call this[br]an evidential argument? The answer is the first premise, “There are unjustified[br]evils,” can only be supported

With an evidential case. We cannot argue that, beyond[br]the shadow of a doubt, there are unjustified evils. We have to weigh the[br]evidence, pro and con, for the claim that there[br]are unjustified evils. So let’s begin to do that. Well, William Rowe in his[br]article tells a story of a deer

Who’s caught in a forest[br]fire and suffers horribly for four or five days before she dies. And he points out that in the[br]case of suffering like this, we cannot see any reason that[br]God might have to allow it. It looks like an unjustified evil. And we can go through and look at some

Of the standard reasons God[br]might have to allow evils and show that they don’t[br]seem to apply in this case. For example, human free[br]will seems to be irrelevant especially if the fire[br]was caused by lightning. Secondly, the fact that it’s a good thing to have a regular cause and effect world

Doesn’t seem to apply,[br]because God could always end the deer’s misery without[br]really interfering with the regularities of the world. So here’s a case that looks[br]like an unjustified evil. How is a theist going to respond? Well, another philosopher named Steven Wykstra begin this way. He said, “We’re looking for a reason

That God could have to allow this evil,” or “We’re looking for what we could call a justifying reason.” And William Rowe’s argument[br]goes something like this. First: It doesn’t seem like[br]there’s a justifying reason. Secondly: Therefore, probably there is no justifying reason. And that’s the kind of reasoning that’s supporting premise one.

The evidence we bring[br]to bear to premise one is that, as much as we think[br]about it, we cannot discern a justifying reason, so it[br]seems like there is none. Then we conclude not[br]that there definitely is no justifying reason, but[br]that it’s likely, or probably there is no justifying reason.

And then our conclusion becomes[br]”Probably, there is no God.” Now what Steve Wykstra does with this is he thinks hard about this inference from “It seems like there[br]is no justifying reason” to “Probably, there is no justifying[br]reason.” I’m oversimplifying his case quite a bit, but it’s as if he’s making this claim.

Sometimes inferences of that kind are very strong and[br]sometimes they’re very weak. So here’s some examples. Look around the room. It seems like there are no[br]live elephants in the room. Therefore, probably there are[br]no live elephants in the room. That seems to be a[br]pretty strong inference. What about this one? Look around the room again.

It seems like there are no[br]carbon-14 atoms in the room. Therefore, probably there are[br]no carbon-14 atoms in the room. Well that doesn’t seem like[br]a very strong inference, even if you look around the room twice. What is the difference? The difference can be captured[br]in the sentences of the form “If there were a ____,

We would probably know it.” Now we’ll take the first case. “If there were a live elephant in the[br]room, we would probably know it.” That is true. You look around the room, and a live elephant is something[br]you’re going to notice. If the room is small[br]enough, there aren’t a lot

Of large objects a live[br]elephant could hide behind. So it’s a very strong inference. But think about the carbon-14 atom. “If there were a carbon-14 atom in the[br]room, we would probably know it.” That turns out to be false. You cannot detect tacarbon-14 atom simply by glancing around the room.

So sometimes these inferences are strong and sometimes they’re weak. Now let’s go back to Rowe’s argument. What is it with which[br]he fills in the blank? A justifying reason. A reason God could have[br]to allow this evil. So we look at a particular case of evil. And we asked the question “If there were

A justifying reason,[br]would we probably know it?” If the answer to that question is “Yes,” then Rowe’s argument is strong. If the answer is “No,” then it’s weak. Let me tell you why I think it’s weak. First of all, if God[br]exists, we would expect

That many of His reasons for[br]doing things are going to be stuff that we cannot figure out. Secondly, we can figure[br]out reasons God might have for lots of the evils in the world: things due to free will, due to cause-and-effect universe. There are lots of evils that we encounter

Where we can figure out what[br]a justifying reason might be. Third thing: every philosopher recognizes that we’re not going to[br]be able to figure out God’s reasons in every case. So we all accept the idea[br]that there are many cases we can figure out and there are many cases we shouldn’t be able to figure out.

The question is, are there[br]too many cases of that kind? And this is where the disagreement is. I think, if you have other[br]reasons to think God exists, then you’re in good grounds for saying that this argument is not strong, because the number of cases we cannot figure out is[br]not necessarily so great

To render existence of God unlikely. This is one of those cases where both the theist and the atheist can say that the other side can be perfectly rational[br]in their beliefs. It’s a matter of assessing[br]the evidence differently. In fact, in Rowe’s article[br]where he first put forward this argument, he makes this point.

He says he thinks it’s[br]perfectly reasonable for a theist to continue to believe in God even in spite of this argument. So we’ve looked at the[br]evidential argument from evil, simply one version of it by William Rowe. And I’ve explained how[br]a theist can respond, to see whether it’s still[br]reasonable to believe in God.

Of course, many philosophers have launched different versions of this argument which are more complicated and perhaps more difficult to answer. Subtitles by the Amara.org community

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Philosophy: Problem of Evil Part 2



Hi, my name is Greg Ganssle, and I’m a Senior Fellow[br]at the Rivendell Institute at Yale University. We’re discussing the[br]philosophical problem of evil. So in the last lecture, we looked at the philosophical problem of evil and we said that atheists[br]want to deny premise one, that is, “God exists and is omniscient

Omnipotent, and wholly good”, while theists want to investigate the additional premises more carefully. So let us check to see. Are these premises true? So let’s look at premise three first: “There are no limits to what an omnipotent, omniscient being can do.” Is this true? Well, let’s think about it.

You’ve probably heard this question: “Can God make a rock so big[br]that even He can’t move it?” What about this: “Can God make a class so boring[br]that even He falls asleep?” These are the kinds of questions some people think are[br]going to be unanswerable. But they boil down to,[br]especially the rock question

Boils down to, “Can God[br]make contradictions true?” You see, a rock so big[br]that an all-powerful being cannot move it is a contradiction. So the question is, can God[br]make a contradiction true? So let’s answer the question[br]”Yes” and let’s answer the question “No” and see what happens. “Yes”: If God can make contradictions true,

Then he can make a rock so[br]big that he cannot move it. But then, he can also move[br]it, because he can make the contradiction true that[br]he cannot move the rock and he also can move the rock. So this is not a problem. But what if God cannot do contradiction?

Then we will have to say that God cannot make this kind of a rock. It’s not something that,[br]as an all-powerful being, He can accomplish. Now traditionally, most[br]theologians and philosophers have understood God’s power such that He cannot do contradictions. And it’s very important for[br]the atheist to hold this view.

Because the atheist[br]wants to have an argument that God does not exist, such[br]as John Mackie’s argument. So suppose Mackie has[br]a successful argument: There’s a contradiction in believing that God exists and that evil exists. The theist can simply[br]say, “Well, if God can do contradictions, he can make[br]that contradiction true. There is no contradiction that challenges

The existence of God.” So in order to have any[br]argument against the existence of God at all, we have to[br]assume that God’s power does not extend to being able[br]to make contradictions true. So we are going to say that premise three as it stands is false.

There are some limits to what[br]an all-powerful being can do. There are logical limits. God cannot draw a square circle. God cannot make a rock[br]so big He cannot move it. These are contradictions. So we need to rewrite premise three. We’ll call it “Three*”: There are no non-logical limits

To what an omnipotent,[br]omniscient being can do. This has a chance of being true. So we’ve revised premise three;[br]let’s look at premise four. Premise four: “A good being always eliminates evil as far as it can.” This too turns out to be false. Often, a good parent[br]allows evil and suffering

Into her child’s life even[br]if she could eliminate it. In our family, we had a very[br]strict rule that the children were not allowed to eat[br]candy before breakfast, and sometimes this caused distress. But we knew we had a good reason to allow this kind of suffering. It didn’t make us bad parents.

So we have to revise premise[br]four as well. Four*: A good being always eliminates[br]evil as far as it can unless it has a good reason to allow it. This has a chance of being true. So the theist says, “We need[br]to revise those two premises. Let’s plug them back into our argument

And see if we can still[br]get a contradiction.” Premise one remains the same. Premise two remains the same. Evil exists. Premise three*. “There are no non-logical limits to what an omnipotent being can do.” Premise four*. “A good being always eliminates[br]evil as far as it can, unless it has a good reason to allow it.”

>From these four, we can[br]go through the steps. Statement five is actually going to be statement five* now: God can eliminate all the evil that it’s logically possible to[br]eliminate. Statement six becomes statement six*: God will eliminate all[br]the evil He can eliminate because He is good, unless He[br]has a good reason to allow it.

>From statement five* and statement six*, we get statement seven*: God eliminates all the evil[br]He logically can eliminate, unless He has a good reason to allow it. Statement eight*: There[br]is evil and there is no evil, unless God has a good reason to allow it. And this is not a contradiction.

So what the theists have recognized is that if it’s possible that[br]God has a good reason to allow evil, there is no contradiction in claiming that God[br]exists, God is wholly good, all-powerful, all-knowing,[br]and yet evil exists. Could it be that God has a[br]good reason to allow evil,

But we don’t have to[br]know what His reasons are for any particular evil? There are some things that[br]have come up as suggestions for why God might allow some[br]of the evils we encounter. First, human freedom. Many philosophers believe[br]that if God allows us to be free in a significant[br]way, then He cannot determine

That we always choose what’s right. That would be a contradiction: a determined action that’s free. Secondly, many people[br]think that the regularities in the universe require the possibility of natural evils such as[br]drownings and burnings. It’s the very same properties[br]of water that make it biologically useful that make[br]it possible for us to drown.

If we’re going to have a regular[br]cause and effect universe, we need to have a stable world. These might be some of the reasons that God allows evil in the world. We don’t know His particular reasons. So the charge of[br]contradiction is the charge that there is a contradiction[br]between the existence of God

And the existence of evil. We’ve shown that there’s[br]probably no contradiction. If God can have a reason to allow evil, then the argument has been answered. Of course, this leads to[br]the next problem of evil called “the evidential problem.” But that’s for another day. Subtitles by the Amara.org community

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Philosophy: Problem of Evil Part 1



Hi, my name is Greg Ganssle, and I’m a part-time lecturer[br]in the Department of Philosophy at Yale University, and a senior fellow at the Rivendell Institute. Today we’re going to talk about part of the philosophical problem of evil. The philosophical problem[br]of evil is an argument beginning with facts about evil,

Leading to the conclusion either that God does not exist, or that[br]it’s most likely the case that God does not exist. So first we need to make a distinction. There’s what has been[br]called “a deductive,” or “the logical problem of evil,” and then there’s what has been called “the evidential problem of evil”.

Deductive or logical problem of evil, I like to call “the[br]square circle objection” or “the charge of contradiction.” It is an argument that to believe that God exists, and that evil exists, is like believing in square circles. There’s a contradiction. The evidential problem, on the other hand, I like to call “the unicorn objection.”

It is not that there’s a contradiction, but it’s pretty hard to believe in God in light of facts about evil. Today I’m going to talk about[br]the logical problem of evil, and how theists, or[br]philosophers who believe in God, begin to answer it. So, first we need to look at what is

The charge of contradiction. Where is the contradiction found? I’m following a famous paper by a British philosopher named John Mackie who began his argument[br]with a couple of premises. Premise one: God exists,[br]and is wholly good, omnipotent, and omniscient. The second premise is that evil exists. So we have God on the one hand,

And evil on the other hand. His aim is to show that these two together entail or lead to a contradiction. He recognizes that the contradiction is not obvious at first. We have to amplify “What does it mean for God to be wholly good,[br]omnipotent, and omniscient?” Once we amplify this, we can see

How these premises together[br]lead to a contradiction. In order to amplify this, he[br]adds two additional premises. Premise three: There are no[br]limits to what an omnipotent, omniscient being can do. Premise four: A good[br]being always eliminates or prevents evil as far as it can. That’s part of what it[br]means to be a good being.

So, Mackie has four premises, and he tries to derive a[br]contradiction from them. We can see pretty clearly[br]that he can succeed. We can take step number five: God can eliminate or prevent[br]all of the evil there is. If premise one is true and God[br]is all-powerful, omnipotent, then he’s powerful enough[br]to eliminate all evil.

Premise six: God will eliminate or prevent all of the evil that there[br]is, because he is good. If premise one is true[br]and God is wholly good, and premise four is true “a good being always[br]eliminates or prevents evil as far as it can,” then step six is true. God will eliminate or prevent

All of the evil that he can[br]eliminate because he is good. So from these six steps, we can see that a contradiction follows. If step five and step six are true, then we get the conclusion that God does eliminate[br]or prevent all evil. Well, if God eliminates[br]and prevents all evil,

Then step eight is true: there is no evil. But the final step, step nine, builds on premise two, the[br]premise that evil exists. And we get a statement “There is evil and there is no evil.” And that is the explicit contradiction. Something is wrong with a valid argument that leads to a contradiction.

Some premise has to be rejected. John Mackie and other atheists think premise one needs to be rejected. It’s not true that God[br]exists and is wholly good, omnipotent, and omniscient. Theists, or philosophers who[br]believe that God does exist, they think the problem is[br]not with the first premise, nor is it with the second premise,

Because it’s pretty[br]obvious that evil exists. Rather, they look carefully[br]at the additional premises, premise three and premise four. Subtitles by the Amara.org community

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PHILOSOPHY – Religion: The Problem of Evil [HD]



My name is Sally Haslanger, and I’m a professor of philosophy at MIT. Today, we’re going to discuss an argument in favor of atheism, in favor of the belief that God doesn’t exist. Let’s start with some definitions. “Theism” – that’s “the belief that God exists.” So, “atheism”: “the belief that God doesn’t exist.”

Rational theism is one form of theism. It’s the belief that there are evidential reasons to believe that God exists. Now, arational theism is the belief in God without evidence. There are plenty of people who are arational theists, because they believe in God based on faith. Faith is often thought to be believing something

In spite of the fact that you don’t have evidence for it, and it’s completely common for people to believe things without evidence, right? We believe things all the time based on wishful thinking. We believe it because it’s just in the air, or it’s convenient for us to believe it.

It makes us happy for us to believe it. All those sorts of things. But we’re talking here about evidence, where “evidence” is “some information “that lends credibility to the claim, “in the sense that it’s more likely to be true “if you have the evidence.” Okay, so arational theism, as I said,

Is a common position, but we’re not really gonna talk very much about it today. Irrational theism is the belief in God in spite of evidential reasons supporting atheism. Notice that this is quite different from arational theism. The belief in God without evidence, as mentioned,

Could be just on the basis of a lack of evidence. But irrational theism is when you hold belief in God, that is, when you hold theism, but there are clear supporting reasons for the opposing view, that is, for atheism. Now, that’s problematic, and we’re gonna look

A little bit further into why it’s problematic. Let’s move on to a few more definitions so that we’re clear what we’re talking about. “Contradiction” – what is a contradiction? A contradiction is when you have a set of beliefs that are not possibly true together.

So a set of beliefs is contradictory if and only if it’s not possible for all of them to be true. Here’s a simple example: “Today is Monday. It’s not the case that today is Monday.” Those can’t both be true together. Now, we’re making an assumption: mainly,

That we’re talking about right here right now. We’re not talking about something on the other side of the dateline. Considering “today is Monday,” and “it’s not today is Monday,” that’s a contradiction. Both of them can’t be true. So if you believe both of them, then you’re believing a contradiction.

Now, it’s not necessarily the case that a contradiction needs to involve only two statements. It can involve three statements. So “all birds can fly,” “penguins are birds,” “penguins can’t fly.” Not all of them can be true together, right? If you hold what it is to fly stable,

If you hold what it is to be a bird stable, then you can’t hold all these together and have just true beliefs. One of them has got to be false. Now you could say, “Well, maybe it’s not the case that all birds can fly,”

Or, “Maybe it’s not the case that all penguins are birds,” or maybe you could come up with a modification of what it is to fly so that penguins can fly. They’re really good underwater, for example. You watch them under water, they look like they’re flying. But that’s not really flying.

So you can’t hold all of these beliefs. You have to figure out which one you’re going to give up. Likewise, “today is Monday” and “it’s not the case that today is Monday” – you need to give one up. Okay, now why do you have to give one up? Some people say,

“Wait, we believe in contradictions all the time. “It’s just not obvious that we believe in contradictions.” Well, that’s true. We probably do have contradictory beliefs, but it’s not good to have contradictory beliefs. We want to get rid of our contradictory beliefs. Now there are a couple of reasons why.

First of all, it’s really good to have true beliefs. You don’t want to go around the world having false beliefs, cause it gets you into trouble. So if I believe that there’s no wall here, and I go walking into the wall, then that’s not so good.

False beliefs can get you into trouble in that way. They can lead you into problematic circumstances that you’d probably best not be in. So holding beliefs that are false is problematic, and if you hold contradictory beliefs, you know one of them has got to be false, and that’s bad.

Another thing is coherent action. Having contradictory beliefs makes it difficult to act coherently. Look at this one: “Today is Monday, and it’s not the case that today is Monday.” Suppose you have a dentist appointment on Monday. What do you do? Do you go or not?

You both believe that it is and it isn’t Monday, so what are you gonna do? It’s hard to act coherently and act in a sensible way to fulfill your obligations, etcetera. Since one of the beliefs you hold has got to be false, and you can’t act on two contradictory beliefs,

You can’t really act coherently. So we’re talking about whether God exists, and evidence for and against the existence of God. Now, there are many different conceptions of God or gods. I’m not trying to adjudicate what’s the right or best conception of God. But there’s a particular standard definition in the West,

That God is an all-perfect being, a being at least who has these three features: a god is all-knowing (which is to be omniscient), all-powerful (which is to be omnipotent), and to be wholly good (or omnibenevolent). So this being is perfect, is omniscient, omnipotent, and wholly good, (or omnibenevolent).

We’re gonna call the combination of these features “OOO” (“O-O-O”) because they’re pretty good ooo features. Let’s go ahead and now look at the argument that suggests that atheism is the rational view to hold, the one that there’s the greatest evidence to believe. Here’s the first premise:

If God exists, he, she, or it would be OOO. Now I use “he, she, or it” because, of course, I don’t know whether there’s a God, and if there is, whether it’s a he, she, or it, or at least for the purposes of the discussion, we’re not gonna assume anything like that.

Okay, so that’s the first premise. Second: if an OOO god exits, there would be no evil. Well, why’s that? Well, if a god were all-knowing, then that god would know when evil was going to occur (or that it occurred), would have the power to make it not occur,

And is wholly good, so would also have the motivation to make it not occur. So this combination of omniscience, omnipotence, and omnibenevolence suggests that if a god were truly OOO, there would be no evil. We assume for the purposes of argument that God exists. And we conclude, then, there is no evil.

So if God exists, he, she, or it would be OOO. If an OOO god exists, there would be no evil. God exists, so there is no evil. The problem is, there is evil. Well, at least, it seems there’s evil. That might be one of the questions that comes up

When we consider objections to the argument. It appears, certainly appears, that there’s evil: lynching, terrorism, the death of innocent babies. So for the moment, we’re gonna say there is evil. But look: “there is no evil,” “there is evil” – this is a contradiction. And so we have to reject one of these premises.

Well, this one, that God is OOO, that one is hard to reject because that’s just how we’ve defined what God is. This one – it seems straightforward. And so once we assume God exists, and we assume that there is evil in the world, which is hard to deny, we get a contradiction.

So we have to reject something. And so the thing that’s most likely to be false, according to the argument, is number (3), that God exists. So we conclude that God does not exist. Now this argument is a little bit truncated, as any argument is. It relies on two further assumptions.

First, a wholly good thing always eliminates evil as far as it can. And second, that there are no limits to what an omnipotent thing can do. But these just seem to be part of the definition of all-knowing, all-powerful, and wholly good. It’s just true by definition.

So here’s a way to think about it. If we assume a certain kind of God, an OOO God, and we really take seriously the perfection of that God Then once we assume that kind of God, and that there exists some evil in the world, then we’ve got a contradiction. So the theist is left with this position: either the theist has to say there is no evil in the world, or the theist has to give up

One of these features of their God. Those are your two options. Neither of them look very appealing. And so now we’re in a position to say, “If you don’t want to do that, “you are an irrational theist,” that there is compelling evidence that God does not exist,

God of this OOO kind does not exist, and yet, you believe anyway. That is to say, you believe a contradiction. You believe that there is evil, and there is no evil. You believe that there is this kind of god, there isn’t this kind of god.

We saw before that belief in contradictions is a bad thing, and you ought to avoid it wherever you can. And so this is the argument that you should not be a theist, because irrational theism is not an acceptable form of theism. Subtitles by the Amara.org community

#PHILOSOPHY #Religion #Problem #Evil