Amoranemix 43 said:
Just improbable ? Your objection to the argument has until now been based on the interpretation that the argument relied on the second premise being certain. Since that is not the case, the conclusion is not certain, which according to you was reasonable ground for dismissing the argument altogether.
Yes. Unlike the logical PoE, the evidential PoE is arguing for a weaker conclusion, i.e. that God's existence is improbable, as stated in the OP. Nonetheless, in order to reach that conclusion the second premise needs to be certain, not probable. The second premise is the evidence. In other words, there
must be instances of gratuitous evil for the conclusion to follow. If the second premise is put into question, then the conclusion is not granted. Or, no evidence, no argument.
I disagree. The existence of gratuitous evil needs only be probable. If the existence of gratuitous evil were certain, the the conclusion that an omnimax god does not exist would also be certain, not just probable. Weakening the second premise by making gratuitous evil merely probable, weakens the conclusion by de same degree. As a deductive argument it may not be sound, as the second premise might be false, but it is a good inductive argument, that can be rewritten as a sound deductive argment as follows :
1. If an omniscient, omnibenevolent and omnipotent god exists, no gratuitous evil exists.
2. Probably gratuitous evil exists.
3. Therefore, probably an omniscient, omnibenevolent and omnipotent god does not exist.
That appears to be a sound argument.
Going a step ahead... If we are to assume that anything God does is 'good', this must mean it is good for humans to do things, in direct opposition to God's will, because God does not stop such acts. Because, as premise one suggests, God has the power to intervene.
Defining good as function of god does not seem instructive, as it would only be telling us something about good, but not about God. Also, if you similarly define gratuituous evil as something God disapproves of, you would have no good reason to believe there is gratuitous evil.
public hermit 48 said:
I think you're right. The idea is there is some good reason for God's allowance of evil. Rowe wants to say there are evils for which there is no good reason that God could have. The skeptical theist is arguing that we are not in the position to know such a thing. God may have reasons that are beyond us. If that is a live possibility, then the second premise doesn't hold.
That doesn't follow.
First, what Rowe wants to say is irrelevant. Only what he says matters.
Second, again, the argument does not mention the reasons God
could have. It only makes a claim about the reasons God has.
cvnwey 51 said:
- Omnipotence means "the quality of having unlimited power, within the confines of logic"
- Omnibenevolence means "infinite 'goodness'. And by goodness, meaning whatever this agent deems 'good'."
-Omniscience means "knows everything"
It is uninformative to measure something with a measurement stick based on what you measure. When you measure a tower it won't help you to measure it to be one tower high. When morally evaluating the Nazis, you will not first ask them whether gassing Jews is good. Likewise, one should use a moral standard independent from God.
I think a better definition for omniscience would be to know everything true.
public hermit 52 said:
I think it's safe to say an omnipotent Being would have the power to communicate with humans. I think the question then becomes, is this tri-omni Being obligated to communicate all of the reasons for why things happen the way they do, even upon request?[36] I'm not sure why that would be so. For all we know, there might be very good reasons for why God has not communicated the answers to all our questions, or the reasons for all that God does or allows.
[36] I don't see why that would be an important question. A more important question is I think
whether such God would communicate with humans.
public hermit 54 said:
cvnwey 53 said:
I would assume this tri-omni agent deems itself 'good', right?
An omnibenevolent Being would be good, not consider itself good.
However, if that omnibenevolent being is also omniscient, it would know itself to be omnibenevolent.
public hermit 56 to cvanwey said:
The [Euthyprho] dilemma is false because it assumes God and Goodness are two different things.[37] The third option is that God and Goodness are synonymous. Ontologically identical. Once that is allowed, it is seen that both horns of the so-called dilemma become superfluous. Or, maybe better, tautologous? Whatever, there are more than two possibilities.
[37] I disagree. It makes not such assumption. It would be possible to define Goodness as being the same as God, but that would be a poor definition.
public hermit 62 said:
cvnwey 61 said:
If you reconcile there exists no solution to your own presented 'problem', why even bother?
Maybe you're overstating the problem with which I am concerned on this issue. I agree with the atheist that there are instances of evil that appear gratuitous. Where we disagree is over the possibility that a tri-omni God could have reasons not available to us.[38] In short, the appearance of gratuitous evil does not work as a defeater for my faith in God.[39]
[38] How do you know the atheist believes that a tri-omni god could have no reasons not avaiable to us ?
[39] In that case, the appearance of gratuitous good does not work as a defeater for anyone's faith in Evil God.
Persistence is your gift.
