The Problem of Evil - Common Sense Atheism

Philosophical Failure 53
conclusion had the power to covert an unbiased ideal audience to its
conclusion (given that it was presented to the audience under ideal
conditions), then, to a high probability, assent to the conclusion of that
argument would be more widespread among philosophers than assent
to any substantive philosophical thesis actually is. 5
Now if it is indeed true that no philosophical argument for any
substantive conclusion is successful in the sense that I have proposed,
it immediately follows that the argument from evil is not a success in
that sense—given, at any rate, two premises that I don’t think anyone
would deny: that the argument from evil is a philosophical argument
and that the non-existence of God is a substantive philosophical thesis.
If we think of what I have just said as an argument for the conclusion
that the argument from evil is (in my sense) a failure, I don’t think it’s
a bad argument. But even if it’s a good argument, it has an important
limitation: it doesn’t really tell us anything of philosophical interest
about the argument from evil; it doesn’t interact with the content of the
argument from evil. I might have offered essentially the same argument
for the conclusion that the private-language argument or the ontological
argument or the analogical argument for the existence of other minds
was a failure. It is my project in these lectures to try to convince you that
the argument from evil does not have the power to turn ideally rational
and serious and attentive and patient neutral agnostics into atheists.
And, of course, I mean to do this by actually coming to grips with
the argument. Even if it’s true (as I believe it is) that no philosophical
argument for a substantive conclusion has the power to convert every
member of an ideal and initially neutral audience to its conclusion, I
don’t mean to argue from that premise. I mean to show how Theist
can block Atheist’s every attempt to turn the audience of agnostics into
atheists like herself. I mention my general thesis about the inability of
philosophical argument to produce uniformity of belief even among
the ideally rational simply because I think it is a plausible thesis, and if
you agree with me on this point, your agreement will predispose you to
accept a conclusion that I will defend on other grounds.
Let me put the point this way. Lay to one side for a moment
the argument from evil and all other arguments for the existence or
the non-existence of God. Consider only philosophical arguments for
substantive conclusions that do not imply the existence or non-existence
of God—non-theological arguments, so to call them. And let us also
lay aside those arguments whose conclusions almost everyone would
have believed without argument—arguments for the existence of other