- Mysterious Brony
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Re: Concept of God
Alright, fair enough
- DanielCC
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Re: Concept of God
Well to be fair on Mackie he can say he's offering a reducto ad absurdum to the theist's ethical position, or at least the ethical position he thinks the theist holds.
- Mysterious Brony
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Re: Concept of God
Also, I found a video where Dr. Craig and Parsons debate on "Why I am/not a Christian" . Eventhough in this video clip Parsons and Craig debate on the Resurrection of Jesus, they touch upon some questions related to this current thread. Parsons argues that he would end up believing in God if God revealed himself more obviously. However, even some atheists would argue against Parsons position such as Law's "evil god." Law would probably argue on what if the evil god generates an illusion, as another way to deceive and torment us. Additionally, Wes Morriston's Demonists would say something similar. As a side note, Parsons seems to have in mind God as an agent and what he should be or should not be doing.
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Thread Starter- Herodotus
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Re: Concept of God
My reference to explanation via essence is that in God essence and existence are one, whilst in creatures they are distinct. So if I am a horse then I am composed of horse essence and existence. Existence is given to me by God so I can realise my potential as a horse. God is not composed as to be so means the potential to decompose. So essence and existence are one. All act no potential. Whereas we are contingent and need not be, God's essence is to be. I am Who is, as Our Lord explained to Abraham.
- DanielCC
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Re: Concept of God
Mysterious Brony wrote:
Also, I found a video where Dr. Craig and Parsons debate on "Why I am/not a Christian" . Eventhough in this video clip Parsons and Craig debate on the Resurrection of Jesus, they touch upon some questions related to this current thread. Parsons argues that he would end up believing in God if God revealed himself more obviously. However, even some atheists would argue against Parsons position such as Law's "evil god." Law would probably argue on what if the evil god generates an illusion, as another way to deceive and torment us. Additionally, Wes Morriston's Demonists would say something similar. As a side note, Parsons seems to have in mind God as an agent and what he should be or should not be doing.
Yes, this Evil God thing has been doing the rounds rather a lot recently - both Millikan and Smith also endorse it. A possible response to such arguments would just be to shrug and say 'Well I guess we made a mistake about the Attributes - it turns out God is not 'Omnibenevolent'; I’m not suggesting theists should seriously entertain this possibility but if that’s the atheist’s only objection then they’ve still effectively admitted the falsity of Naturalism and the sucess of various theistic proofs.
(What EG proponents want to do is force an epistemic stalemate so as we don't have enough evidence either way. Fortunately it that case the theist can point out that we should just suspend judgement on God's moral character)
Incidentally (and I know this is a bit of a hobby-horse with me) it may well be possible to use the Ontological Argument to show that ‘Evil God’ or the ‘Devil’, understood to mean the same, is an impossible being. Evil God or Devil parodies of the OA are a step above most other parody examples which try to couple necessity with a being e.g. an island which is by nature contingent, but they still fail on the attempt to treat Evil as if it were a binary or palette-swap instance of Goodness. Yujin Nagasawa has a famous article on this topic which is probably applicable to most Evil God scenarios in general:
The Ontological Argument and the Devil
(If people want to see it but lack access PM me)
My reference to explanation via essence is that in God essence and existence are one, whilst in creatures they are distinct. So if I am a horse then I am composed of horse essence and existence. Existence is given to me by God so I can realise my potential as a horse. God is not composed as to be so means the potential to decompose. So essence and existence are one. All act no potential. Whereas we are contingent and need not be, God's essence is to be. I am Who is, as Our Lord explained to Abraham.
Ah I see. My worry about bringing that up in a conversation with an atheist is that they'll just parrot out Kant's 'Existence is not a Property' and then shut down the conversation. It's hard to convince even theists of the Thomistic Real Distinction these days.
Last edited by DanielCC (9/30/2015 8:20 am)
- Scott
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Re: Concept of God
A possible response to such arguments would just be to shrug and say 'Well I guess we made a mistake about the Attributes - it turns out God is not 'Omnibenevolent'; I’m not suggesting theists should seriously entertain this possibility[.]
It's not a bad suggestion, though. I made it some years ago to an email correspondent (now unfortunately deceased) who was considering the same sort of argument; I suggested dropping the premise that God was "good" and watching the problem evaporate. He'd never thought of that before and he really liked the idea.
Of course (as I also explained to him in subsequent emails) it's not the case that we thereby deny that God is good in any sense; the point is just to clear our minds of poisonous nonsense about God's being "good" in our sense, or for that matter in any sense that would require/oblige Him to prevent any and all "evil" wherever it threatened to appear. But my response to the sort of argument in question here is indeed to shrug and say, "Well, then I guess God isn't 'good' in the way you mean; so what?"
(That approach also plays very well as a reply to Mackie, who -- if memory serves -- noted very early in his chapter on the "problem of evil" that the "problem" doesn't arise for any theist who denies the link between God's goodness and His prevention of evil. Mackie briefly expressed skepticism that such a theist could give an account of such "goodness" that was consonant with our ordinary understanding, but he didn't pursue the question, and to my mind that failure vitiates his entire argument. Of course classical theism gives just such an account, but if someone who isn't a classical theist finds that account implausible, then the only consequence is that in his or her terms, God isn't "good." To that I say, most philosophically, "BFD.")
Last edited by Scott (9/30/2015 11:12 am)
- Mysterious Brony
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Re: Concept of God
Hmmm, that's a really interesting way of viewing the logical POE. I remember reading The Miracle of Theism and Mackie accepted Swinburne's definition of God. Perhaps the logical POE shows the absurdity of Swineburne's God.
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Thread Starter- DanielCC
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Hmmm, that's a really interesting way of viewing the logical POE. I remember reading The Miracle of Theism and Mackie accepted Swinburne's definition of God. Perhaps the logical POE shows the absurdity of Swineburne's God.
I suspect that as ‘the ultimate Brute Fact’ Swinburne’s God face bigger problems. Swinburne does respond to Mackie somewhere I think. Does not Swinburne also somewhere make the claim that God might not know future contingents? If so that alone might be enough to get him out of the problem.
The Logical POE may have a hit a rock of its own with Plantinga though. Most atheist philosophers switched from the Logical to the Probabilistic/Evidential POE after The Nature of Necessity (Plantinga's response to Tooley’s review of that book where the later basically admits this and rages at Plantinga for not focusing on the Probabilistic version is worth reading).