The Problem of Evil - Common Sense Atheism

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The Global Argument Continued 93 Dunkirk during those fateful days in 1940 was not due to a specific and local divine action. Anyone who believes either that the coming-to-be of human rationality or the weather at Dunkirk had purely natural causes must believe this on philosophical, not scientific, grounds. In fact, the case for this is rather stronger in the matter of the genesis of rationality, for we know a lot about how the weather works, and we know that the rain clouds at Dunkirk are the sort of thing that could have had purely natural causes. We most assuredly do not know that rationality could have arisen through natural causes—or, at any rate, we do not know this unless we somehow know that everything in fact has purely natural causes. This is because everyone who believes that human rationality could have arisen from purely natural causes believes this solely on the basis of the following argument: Everything has purely natural causes; human beings are rational; hence, the rationality of human beings could have arisen from purely natural causes because it did so arise in fact. It could, I concede, be a discovery of evolutionary biology that the genesis of rationality was not a sudden, local event, and such a discovery would imply the falsity of the expanded free-will defense. But no such discovery has been made. If someone, for some reason, put forward the theory that extraterrestrial beings once visited the earth, and by some prodigy of genetic engineering, raised some population of our primate ancestors to rationality in a single generation—something like this happened in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey—this theory could not be refuted by any facts known to physical anthropology. I am not going to have Atheist raise any scientific objections to this story; I could have done that, of course. If I had, I should have had Theist reply to them by saying what I have just said. And I don’t see that an audience of really impartial agnostics would find any purely scientific barriers to agreeing that, for all they knew, given that there was a God, the rest of the story might be true. I want to reserve Atheist for the office of raising philosophical rather than scientific objections to the expanded free-will defense. (In the seventh lecture, the lecture devoted to the suffering of animals, I will say more about the question whether the expanded free-will defense faces scientific difficulties, and I will discuss some philosophical questions that are closely related to this question. These philosophical questions are ramifications of this question: Why does the expanded free-will defense represent the genesis of rationality as a sudden, miraculous event? My discussion of these questions will arise naturally from certain considerations concerning the suffering of animals.)
94 The Global Argument Continued The most important philosophical question that can be asked about the story is this: Suppose, for the sake of argument, that the expanded free-will defense is a true story. Does it justify the evils of the world? Or put the question this way: Suppose there were an omnipotent and omniscient being and that this being acted just as God has acted in the expanded free will defense. Could any moral case be made against the actions of this being? Is there any barrier to saying that this being is not only omnipotent and omniscient but morally perfect as well? In the next lecture, I will look at an argument that Atheist might offer for the conclusion that a morally perfect being would not do what the expanded free-will defense says that God has done.
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THE PROBLEM OF EVIL
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1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX
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Preface These lectures were deliver
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Outline Contents Detailed Contents
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xii Detailed Contents agnostics’
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xiv Detailed Contents he is ‘‘h
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2 The Problem and Argument from Evi
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10 The Problem and Argument from Ev
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Lecture 2 The Idea of God I said th
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20 The Idea of God unifying princip
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22 The Idea of God ‘‘God was in
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24 The Idea of God And Demiourgos i
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26 The Idea of God evil. When we fi
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28 The Idea of God —immutable. Th
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30 The Idea of God worlds: those in
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32 The Idea of God (it would certai
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34 The Idea of God Now why do I dra
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36 The Idea of God not a possible p
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38 Philosophical Failure Note the w
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40 Philosophical Failure proved by
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Page 131 and 132: 114 The Sufferings of Beasts the ac
Page 133 and 134: 116 The Sufferings of Beasts balls
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Page 137 and 138: 120 The Sufferings of Beasts Let us
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Page 153 and 154: 136 The Hiddenness of God hiddennes
Page 155 and 156: 138 The Hiddenness of God admiratio
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144 The Hiddenness of God If this w
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146 The Hiddenness of God (2) Patri
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148 The Hiddenness of God in genera
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150 The Hiddenness of God intellect
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Notes LECTURE 1 THE PROBLEM OF EVIL
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154 Notes 14. But here is a defense
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156 Notes to the metaphysical probl
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158 Notes greatest possible being m
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160 Notes matters was said only to
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162 Notes I believe as strongly as
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164 Notes 10. Note that I do not sa
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166 Notes Christianity.) Let us say
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168 Notes LECTURE 6 THE LOCAL ARGUM
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170 Notes of them: all of them but
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172 Notes 20. One might, however, w
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174 Notes 3. Those who think that t
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176 Notes that the first conjunct i
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178 Works Cited Providence and Evil
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180 Works Cited ‘‘What is the P
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182 Index free will (free choice) 2
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REVELATION
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