You see what the atheist has to say, he’s got to be able to prove that it is impossible or improbable for God to have a morally sufficient reason for permitting these facts of suffering, and that’s a burden of proof which is so
Heavy that no atheist has ever been able to sustain it. [Moderator] Explain that, because the question I was going to ask you is let’s talk about this subject of faith, which is where I was going, so you jumped right where I was headed. When they say
That, okay, explain that idea that you just entered into. [Craig] Take someone’s little daughter dying of leukemia, or getting run over by an automobile. We don’t see why that happened, and we wonder why wouldn’t a sovereign God intervene to stop it? And what the atheist has to say is that it’s either
Impossible or it’s highly improbable that God could have a morally justifying reason for allowing that to occur, but there’s no way given our finitude, our limits in space and time, for being able to make that kind of a claim with any justification. God’s morally sufficient reason for allowing your daughter’s
Death might not emerge until 300 years from now, maybe in another country. Every event that occurs sends a ripple effect through history so that the consequences of any event are simply incalculable and incomprehensible for finite, local persons. So the atheist is making a claim here which is just completely unsustainable;
There’s no way for him to show that it’s improbable or impossible that God has a morally sufficient reason for allowing this evil to occur, and therefore his argument really has no intellectual credibility. It’s a purely emotional argument. [Moderator] And it’s a compelling one, isn’t it?
[Craig] Emotionally compelling, but not intellectually compelling. [Moderator] Correct, and so when somebody says in that moment, in immense pain, I don’t care what good he can bring out of this, [yes] I reject him. And we hear that a lot, [sure] C.S. Lewis drifted towards saying that in his Grief Observed, and
God, when God hears us say those kind of things, okay, his response is one of understanding. Scripture says he too has been tempted in every way, even as we were. [yes] And so God doesn’t shut us off when we
Say that. [Craig] No no, no I think that’s absolutely right. Look at the Psalms, how the psalmist expresses anger toward God, and God where are you, why are you allowing this, why am I going through this? I think the lesson of
The Psalms is come to God with your hurt and your pain and your anger and don’t try to stifle it and suppress it. Let it out and he’ll listen to you. [Moderator] He’ll listen, and if you’ll let him, if you’ll listen to him, as Christopher Hitchens
Acknowledged he gives the only consistent logically constructed plausible answer that frankly even Hitchens acknowledged; you know what? Christianity alone solves this problem. [Craig] Yeah, I remember Bertrand Russell, the great atheist philosopher, once said that no one can sit at the bedside of a dying
Child and believe in God, but when Jan and I were in Paris we met a young minister who was trained and now worked in counseling dying children. And I thought to myself: counseling dying children, what would Russell have said to those children? What could he say? Too bad?
Tough luck? That’s all the naturalist has got to say. As you say it’s theism, it’s belief in God, that provides a hope and a reason for the suffering that its redeemed, whereas in atheism we’re locked in a world that is filled with gratuitous and unredeemed suffering, and there is no hope of escape.
[Anderson] Evil and suffering is a big one, and I’d be interested in your perspectives on  that. You hear people say that particularly the Abrahamic God, who’s all-powerful and all-knowing  and all good, and you’ve just made a reference to that yourself, the locus of all good things,
[yes] now there’s the atheistic argument from evil. And it basically runs that if there  is such a God, and look I don’t want to sound unsympathetic about this; it’s a big challenge  evil is a big problem, just as I described exists, then, there’d be no evil or or suffering. But Â
There is a lot of evil and suffering in the world, therefore there can’t be a God, or certainly not  a Christian God. So where do philosophers in general come out on that question of suffering, and where do you land? [Craig] Well historically for centuries atheistic philosophers have defended Â
The view that the existence of the suffering and evil in the world is logically incompatible with  the existence of God. And now on the contemporary scene, this has really changed; virtually no one  defends the logical version of the problem of evil anymore, and the reason is that it lays upon Â
The shoulders of the atheist a burden of proof that is so heavy that no one has been able to  sustain it. The atheist would have to prove that there is no logically possible  reason that God could have for permitting the evil and suffering in the world, Â
And no one can prove such a thing. So those who do defend the problem of evil today have retreated  from the logical version of the problem to the so-called probabilistic version of the problem,  where the claim is that given the evil and suffering in the world, it’s improbable that Â
God exists, if not impossible. And the difficulty with this version of the problem is that it makes  probability judgments that are simply beyond our ability. There is no basis for thinking  that if God has morally sufficient reasons for permitting the evil and suffering in the world Â
That these should be evident to me. For example, every event that occurs in human history sends a  ripple effect through history, such that God’s morally sufficient reasons for permitting it  might not emerge until centuries from now, perhaps in another country. An illustration of this would Â
Be the so-called butterfly effect in contemporary physics. It’s been shown that the fluttering of  a butterfly’s wings on a twig in West Africa can set in motion forces that will eventually produce  a hurricane over the Atlantic Ocean, and yet no one watching that little butterfly on the branch Â
Could possibly predict such an outcome. These kinds of probability judgments are just beyond  our capacity. And similarly, when we see some instance of suffering and evil in the world,  we are simply not in a position to say with any sort of confidence God probably doesn’t have Â
A morally sufficient reason for permitting that to occur. A second point that needs to be made here  is that when one’s talking about probabilities, then you’ve also got to consider on the other  side of the scale, what is the probability that God does exist? And here I would offer Â
A multiple considerations that I think make it quite probable that there is in fact a  transcendent creator and designer of the universe, despite any improbability that the suffering in  the world might throw upon the existence of God. [Anderson] Interestingly, I’ve never Â
Forgotten the story, a true story, about a young university student in Scotland not long after well  probably I suspect during the Depression years, things were grim, and he knocked on the door,  of a small cottage that was opened, there was a returned serviceman from the first World War, Â
And when he realized the young man wanted to talk to him about God he said go away, he said  I was in the trenches in France and I stopped believing in God when I saw  all that evil. And the young man said to him I respect that that must have been terrible, Â
And I certainly won’t pester you, but can I just make the observation that  I wonder if I’d been there I might not have stopped believing in man  rather than stop believing in God. And the old man looked at him, tears welled up near his eyes, Â
And he said you better come in; we need to talk about this. It’s an interesting take on evil. I  sometimes think that one of our problems is we’re not self-reflective enough. [Craig] Yes one of the  major developments in philosophy with respect to this problem is the so-called free will defense, Â
In which philosophers I think have been able to show that it’s neither improbable nor impossible  that every world that God would create that would involve this much good, this much moral  goodness, would also involve this much moral evil freely perpetrated by human free agents, Â
So that ultimately the blame lies at man’s threshold and not at God’s. oh
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
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
What is a gracious, effective response to someone  who pushes away from the idea of God because of the problem of evil? Well, my first question is, what exactly is the problem? Now, of course I’m— this is a question Â
I’m asking to get the other person to spell it out because it’s not that I am ignorant about  the kinds of ways people factor in the problem of evil into the existence of God. I want them to Â
Spell it out because i actually think there are serious problems with using evil as an argument  against God. So, I want them to spell it out. Now, I know the way it’s usually characterized.
Well, if you think God is good and he’s powerful, and that would be God, right? But if he’s good, he’d  want to get rid of all evil. If he’s powerful, he’d be able to get all rid of all evil, but Â
There’s evil, right? So there you go. God probably doesn’t exist. And it turns out, though that sounds  like an argument. Like a step-by-step syllogistic argument leading from premises to a conclusion, it turns out that when you press the issue, you can’t build a valid argument from those facts.
If God were good, for example, then he wouldn’t allow any evil. Really? Is that true? That’s a question, and we talk about this— I talk about this— I’m looking at you because I’m  saying “we” because you were such a help to me in editing The Story of Reality, but you recall Â
From The Story of Reality how I talk about my daughters don’t like shots, you know? They don’t  like that’s evil for them because it causes them pain, but Daddy makes them get shots, so  why does he do that? Because Daddy’s evil? No. Because I know that the short-term evil to them is Â
Going to result in a longer term good. And so there is a moral justification for the shorter term bad. All that does is point out that it certainly could be possible, and that’s a very simple illustration. There’s dozens and dozens we can think of. It certainly is possible how something bad Â
Could be justified. There could be a morally sufficient reason for allowing it  because it leads to something good, okay? Or maybe something bad that prevents  something even worse from happening. So, there’s different ways to construe this,
To demonstrate that it is not the case that if God were good he would never allow anything evil. Rather, he could have a morally sufficient reason for allowing it for a time. And  that, by the way, is all we need to parry the objection about the problem of evil.
Now, the possibility that he could have a reason, we don’t have to tell them what that reason is. Remember, the type of objection that this is is a strong defeater. It’s not possible that there Â
Is a God because there’s evil in the world, and my response is, well, wait a minute. Maybe so. And  this, by the way, I step out a little step by step in The Story of Reality. So, anybody wants to go Â
There, they can see the chapter where I deal with this. It’s not tricky, but it has some steps to it. This is why it makes a little bit more difficult when you’re having a conversation with somebody. Somebody’s even listening to this saying, “Well, I can’t remember all that stuff that he just said.”
Well, that’s true, I can understand that. But if you don’t know why the problem of evil is not a good  argument against God, but a good argument for God, then it’s going to be hard for you to make Â
That point. And that, I think, is the most powerful point that can be made from the problem of evil. This helps us. Evil is on our side, in that sense, because if there were no God, there would be no  evil at all…Because there’d be no lawmaker. It’s just molecules clashing in the Â
Universe. Okay, so then, what is wrong? Says who? Your grandma? Kind of thing. So sometimes  I get to the point in a little different way. What’s the alternative? So, somebody says, “Well, there can’t be any God, there’s evil in the world.” Really? There’s real evil? What do Â
You mean by evil? So, I would just want them to emphasize that, okay? So, if there is no God, how can there be evil? What do you mean? Well, there’s no lawmaker. There would be no law, alright?
Notice, those are questions, and I’m trying to lead to make this point, or what’s the alternative? Well, the alternative is there is no God, okay? Let’s say there is no God then, right? So, what makes Â
Anything evil? You just complained about the problem of evil. There must be evil in the world, right? So  what do you make of evil now that God doesn’t exist? How do you get traction to even complain Â
About evil in the world? You can’t. And I make this point again in The Story of Reality because  people think that they somehow solve the problem of evil by getting God out of the Â
Equation. And what I point out is, okay, now you got God out of the equation, okay? Now you’re an atheist. Yeah. Okay, that’s our view now. Right. How do you solve the problem of evil? What do you mean? Well, Â
You got God out of the picture. You didn’t get rid of evil. You still got all the things that you used to call evil. They still are existing, and you still probably consider them evil, okay? Now, solve Â
The problem. The point I’m making is, atheism can give you no traction to even make sense out of  evil to begin with. And if somebody wants to say, well, okay, then evil is just an illusion of  evolution or something. Really? Wait, just a few moments ago, you’re saying it’s so real Â
That it disqualifies the existence of God, and now you want to say it’s an illusion? See, our answer makes sense of all the facts. We don’t have to play games like that. The world is broken. That’s why there’s evil in the world. Broken means it ain’t the way it’s supposed Â
To be. It started out one way, and now it’s a different way. So these are all— and we broke  it. And so, we’re responsible. Some people haven’t thought about it this way, Amy, but our whole story Â
Is about the problem of evil. It starts in the third chapter, it doesn’t get solved till 66  books later. If there was no problem of evil, we’d have no story. We’d have no Christianity. So in a certain sense, we could say that evil is quite at home in our view.
It’s central to our story, and our story is not over yet. But it has no place in an atheistic worldview. It does not make any sense whatsoever in an atheistic  worldview. Now, people can get that notion in their mind, and I do walk through fairly carefully Â
Not only The Story of Reality, but in the last couple chapters of the book on Relativism that  Dr. Beckwith and I wrote called, “Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air” and lots of things we’ve Â
Done on the air here, and lots of things we have on the internet makes the same point. If there is no  God, there is no morality. But there is a morality, since the problem of evil, therefore, there is a Â
God. That’s your basic modus tollens argument for God. Moral argument for the existence of God.
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
Alright, today we’re going to be looking at something called: Now, before we get started, I want to make it clear that I’m not here to push my own position or agenda. I’m here to put to the test some of our most closely held beliefs,
And see if they hold up to the high standards of what we’re all really searching for… Before we get started, one more quick caveat: This is a basic introduction to The Problem of Evil. If you want something more philosophically rigorous, I suggest you do some reading, read: and a response to that:
They do a good job of providing a rigorous, yet – for the most part – accessible debate on this problem. With that out of the way… Now, what we’re doing here is we’re testing beliefs. We’re testing closely held beliefs, and today we’re testing one of the biggest ones of them all:
The belief that God exists! The Problem of Evil is going to help us see if this belief can hold up to the high bar of knowledge that we sent. Not do we want to believe God exists? But can we know that God exists?
Before we go, we need to know who this is a problem for. This is a problem for people who believe in God. This is a problem for people who believe in a specific kind of God. It’s a God that is: If this God, isn’t your God, this isn’t your problem 😉
Now there are 2 versions of The Problem of Evil that we’re going to be looking at: The Logical Problem of Evil and the Evidential Problem of Evil. The Logical Problem of Evil is generally considered more…philosophical, but it packs a bigger punch!
It’s a little harder to grasp for the everyday person. But, it’s more powerful to the rational mind! The Evidential Problem of Evil – on the other hand – is more…convincing (usually to people). In fact, it’s convinced a lot more people than the logical one has.
But…it’s less powerful when it comes to actual philosophical power. Someone who really believes in God can get out of the Evidential Problem fairly easily, alright? Okay, we’ll start with The Logical Problem. The Logical Problem states that there are 4 Inconsistent Propositions that we hold to be true.
Inconsistent Propositions means that they can’t all be true, so we’re gonna have to get rid of one of them. So, what are those 4 propositions? They are: We read about that earlier. If you believe in a 3-O God – omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent –
Then you believe that God is all-knowing, so you’re on board so far. Omnibenevolence, we’re already there. Guess what number 3 is? So, what is the mysterious number 4? It’s the place the problem gets its name, it is: The idea being – that if there were an all-good, all-knowing, all-powerful God –
That God would stop Evil from existing. Let’s look at an example, to see how this works: So you have a murderer, for example, – and let’s give our murder a knife – and this murder is going to… …do something to this victim. I think we all know what’s going to happen… …but…
This Evil, I’m sure we would all consider this evil, if you wouldn’t, put something you would consider evil in there… …would be, by an all-knowing, all-good, all-powerful God, stopped, right? God would come in – unleash the Hand of God – …and Evil wouldn’t happen… But that doesn’t happen… …evil exists… So
Supposedly, to get out of this argument, there are some escape routes, 5 to be specific: You can say that: Maybe God’s all-good and all-powerful, but he just doesn’t know about the evil going on in the world. Maybe he’s very far away. Maybe he’s only in certain places at certain times.
He does the best he can, but he just doesn’t know about all the evil… Possibility, but it doesn’t give us the God we’re looking for. God is mean, or maybe God just doesn’t care? He can stop the evil, he knows about the evil, but he doesn’t want to, or he chooses not to.
Maybe he’s vengeful? A lot of possibilities here, but once again, it doesn’t give us the God we’re looking for. Or finally, maybe God is weak? God can’t stop evil. He knows about it. He wants to stop it, but he can’t stop it.
Once again, it doesn’t give us an all-powerful God, and that’s exactly what we’re looking for. Another way out of this, is to claim that evil doesn’t exist. This is a little sketchy as far as things go, because if you think that, Evil as a concept doesn’t exist,
Then you probably don’t think that God can be all-good, because you don’t really believe in good and evil. And if you’re gonna claim that evil doesn’t happen in the world, well…I want to see your definition of “evil.” That’s a little sketchy as far as escape routes go…but there is a 5th escape route,
Which is probably going to be what a lot of our defenders of God take, and that’s: In fact, that we can hold all 4 of our premises – God is all-knowing, God is all-good, evil exists, and God is all-powerful – together, without committing any inconsistencies.
Now, we’re going to talk about the Evidential Problem of Evil. This problem, is a little less philosophical than a Logical problem. It doesn’t go to premise, premise, conclusion. It more says, “Well, let’s look at the evidence out in the world.” Hence the name Evidential Problem.
Look at the evidence out in the world, and see – from this evidence – what’s more likely a conclusion to draw: That God exists, or that God doesn’t exist. Let’s see I’ll present you with some evidence… …you make up your own mind…
The idea here, of course, is that, if you have seen the horrors that go on in this world… Or if you suffered great trauma… You might come to conclude that: No God could allow such a thing to exist.
The only conclusion you can draw based on the evidence, is that God does not exist? On my count, there are three places you could have ended up after all of that argument: You could say, “Despite The Problem of Evil, God still exists.”
You could say that, “The Problem of Evil has convinced me. I believe God is dead. God does not exist.” Either of these positions, however, I think it’s unsubstantiated in some ways. God exists? We haven’t really had an argument for God’s existence.
And, if The Problem of Evil has done anything, it’s called into doubt God’s existence. On the other hand, God is dead? I’m not so sure? Because, while The Problem of Evil has given us a pretty strong argument for a specific kind of God,
It hasn’t given us an argument against all gods, nor has it resolved the little concern we mentioned earlier… About what if we can find a way to show that those 4 propositions aren’t inconsistent. In fact, planning it is a good job of attempting to, in our next video.
So, what I would say, our only option here: To stay rational, is to suspend judgment. In other words, to say, “God might exist, God might not exist.” One way or another, I don’t have enough information for either of those beliefs to rise to the level of knowledge.
I’ll leave you with a quote from David Hume, that fairly succinctly sums up… The Problem of Evil If you enjoyed this video you’d like to see more or you’d like to put some of your own beliefs to the test, please Watch some more videos and visit Carneades.org…and stay sceptical everybody! 😉
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
