The Problem of Evil - Common Sense Atheism

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Philosophical Failure 51 to defend the following conclusion, although I shall not explicitly do so: if the considerations I shall present indeed show that the argument from evil is incapable of turning neutral agnostics into atheists, these considerations will also show that the argument from evil is incapable of turning neutral agnostics into weighted agnostics. To return to the main line of argument, Atheist and Theist are carrying on a debate before an audience of ideal agnostics. The debate is divided into two innings or halves. In one, Atheist attempts to turn the agnostics into atheists like herself. In the other, Theist attempts to turn the agnostics into theists like himself. (I am going to make Atheist a woman and Theist a man. I make my debaters of opposite sexes to make things easier for myself: it will automatically be clear which of them any third-person-singular pronoun refers to. As to the match of sex and doctrine I have chosen—well, I suppose I could get into trouble either way.) In these lectures, we shall be concerned only with one half of the debate, Atheist’s attempt to turn the agnostics into atheists. And, of course, I shall be concerned only with her attempt to do so by laying one particular argument, the argument from evil, before the agnostics. Here is a very general, abstract description of the course the debate will take. Atheist opens the debate by laying out the argument from evil. (We shall assume that the argument she presents is formally valid.) Theist then attempts to cast doubt on at least one premise of the argument. (Of course, one way to ‘‘cast doubt on’’ a proposition is to show it to be false,butTheistisnotrequired to do that.) And the doubts are to exist in the minds of the agnostics; it is not required of Theist that he in any way weaken Atheist’s allegiance to the premises he is attempting to cast doubt on. Atheist then presents a rejoinder to this reply; perhaps she finds some flaw in Theist’s counterargument (a flaw that the agnostics will be willing to accept as such; it will be a waste of time for her to point to something she sees as a flaw if they don’t see it as a flaw); perhaps she reformulates her argument in such a way that the reformulated argument escapes Theist’s criticism; that’s really up to her: she can say anything she likes. When she has done this, Theist replies to the rejoinder to his criticism of the argument. And so it goes—for as long as at least one of the participants still has something to say. In the end, we shall have to ask ourselves what the agnostics will make of all this. How will they respond? Will they become atheists, or will they remain agnostics? If the former, Atheist’s argument is a success. If the latter, it is a failure. (What if some of them are converted and some are not? Well, I’ll make an idealizing assumption: since the debaters and the audience are ideal
52 Philosophical Failure representatives of the categories ‘‘atheist’’, ‘‘theist’’, and ‘‘agnostic’’, and because the debate is carried on under ideal conditions, the response of the audience, whatever it may be, will be uniform. The consequences of rejecting this assumption would be an interesting topic for further investigation.) As I have said, I am going to try to convince you that the argument from evil is a failure by this standard. There are certainly successful arguments, both in everyday life and in the sciences. But are there any successful philosophical arguments? I know of none. (That is, I know of none for any substantive philosophical thesis.) I hate to admit this, if only because I should like to think that some of the arguments associated with my name are successes. But I have to admit that it’s at best highly improbable that they are. It’s true that none of them has been tested in an ideal debate like the one I have imagined, but, to expand on a point I made earlier, there are less-than-ideal debates that come close enough to being ideal that the performance of my arguments in these debates is strongly indicative of how they would fare in an ideal debate. I know something of how these debates have gone, and I regard myself as in a position to say that it seems very unlikely that my arguments would succeed in an ideal debate. Take, for example, my arguments for the incompatibility of free will and determinism. 4 These arguments have been tested by being presented to several successive generations of graduate students in various universities. And that test is a real-world approximation to the ideal debate I have imagined. The outcome of this test has been as predictable as it was disappointing: some of the graduate students were convinced by my arguments, and some of them weren’t. True, these graduate students were not all initially neutral as regards the question of the compatibility of free will and determinism. And most of the graduate seminars in which the arguments were presented were not ‘‘team taught’’ by a compatibilist and an incompatibilist. But the diverse response of the real-world graduate students to my arguments leads me to suppose that the response of an audience of ideal agnostics to an ideal presentation of these arguments would be uniform: they would remain, one and all, agnostics in the matter of the compatibility of free will and determinism. And all philosophical arguments, or at any rate all philosophical arguments that have attracted the attention of the philosophical community, have been tested under circumstances that approximate sufficiently to the circumstances of an ideal debate, that it is reasonable to conclude that they would fail the ‘‘ideal debate’’ test. If any reasonably well-known philosophical argument for a substantive
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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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Page 19 and 20: 2 The Problem and Argument from Evi
Page 27 and 28: 10 The Problem and Argument from Ev
Page 35 and 36: Lecture 2 The Idea of God I said th
Page 37 and 38: 20 The Idea of God unifying princip
Page 39 and 40: 22 The Idea of God ‘‘God was in
Page 41 and 42: 24 The Idea of God And Demiourgos i
Page 43 and 44: 26 The Idea of God evil. When we fi
Page 45 and 46: 28 The Idea of God —immutable. Th
Page 47 and 48: 30 The Idea of God worlds: those in
Page 49 and 50: 32 The Idea of God (it would certai
Page 51 and 52: 34 The Idea of God Now why do I dra
Page 53 and 54: 36 The Idea of God not a possible p
Page 55 and 56: 38 Philosophical Failure Note the w
Page 57 and 58: 40 Philosophical Failure proved by
Page 59 and 60: 42 Philosophical Failure which prem
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Page 65 and 66: 48 Philosophical Failure of our con
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Page 73 and 74: Lecture 4 The Global Argument from
Page 75 and 76: 58 The Global Argument from Evil I
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Page 113 and 114: 96 The Local Argument from Evil tha
Page 115 and 116: 98 The Local Argument from Evil (3)
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102 The Local Argument from Evil yo
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104 The Local Argument from Evil ha
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106 The Local Argument from Evil Bu
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108 The Local Argument from Evil In
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110 The Local Argument from Evil If
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112 The Local Argument from Evil ca
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114 The Sufferings of Beasts the ac
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116 The Sufferings of Beasts balls
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118 The Sufferings of Beasts state
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120 The Sufferings of Beasts Let us
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122 The Sufferings of Beasts gift f
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124 The Sufferings of Beasts What I
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126 The Sufferings of Beasts on the
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128 The Sufferings of Beasts a worl
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130 The Sufferings of Beasts told t
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132 The Sufferings of Beasts to ens
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134 The Sufferings of Beasts warned
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136 The Hiddenness of God hiddennes
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138 The Hiddenness of God admiratio
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140 The Hiddenness of God Theist. S
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142 The Hiddenness of God about the
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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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