Tag Archive for: Ateo

In this post I will address one last argument in this series of objections from Randy. You can find part 1 here, part 2 here and part 3 here.

Randy presents an atheological argument which he calls “the full version of the Argument from Evil” and says:

1. God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent.

2. Omnipotence and omnibenevolence imply the nonexistence of evil.

3. Evil exists (via internal criticism, taken from the moral framework of omnibenevolence, I do not believe it really exists).

4. Either God is not omnipotent or he is not omnibenevolent.

5. God, not having one of those two properties and both being necessary for his existence, God does not exist.

This argument does not include the possibility of defending free will (which I do not believe exists since it is completely irrelevant). Let me explain: the defense of free will is that God, by giving us free will, we choose to do good or evil. My answer would be that God can make us omnibenevolent and we would not do evil, just as he himself is omnibenevolent and only does good, and if “free will” prevents that from being true, then does God not have free will? And if not, why is it so important that we have it? In other words, God could have made us omnibenevolent, but he could not, in that case he would not be omnipotent, or he did not want to, and in that case he would not be omnibenevolent, because then we would choose to do evil. In any case, it is logically impossible to escape from this dichotomy.

Once again, greetings from Cuba.

Randy, I agree with (1) and (3) of your argument, so there is nothing to argue about here.

The main problem with your argument is (2), since there are countless responses to this premise, I will just direct you to those resources that show that this premise is false. You can read a complete response here . So, in short, I can say that (2) is false because there is no explicit contradiction between the propositions:

       a. God (who is omnibenevolent and omnipotent) exists

AND

       b. Evil exists.

If the atheist believes that both propositions are mutually exclusive, then he must show some hidden or implicit premises that make this contradiction appear, but he does not bother to present them. Therefore, the logical problem of evil does not prove that there is any inconsistency between God and evil. [1]

Since there is no reason to think that God and evil are logically incompatible, we can say that (4) is false, so (5) no longer follows from the premises.

Now let’s go to your objections to the defense of free will:

This argument does not allow for the defense of free will (which I do not believe exists since it is completely irrelevant).

I think it’s pretty clear that from the premise that something is irrelevant it doesn’t follow that it doesn’t exist.

My answer would be that God can make us omnibenevolent and we would do no wrong, just as he himself is omnibenevolent and only does good…

Oh, Randy, but the problem is that omnibenevolence (or perfect goodness) is an artifact unique to God. As Dr. Craig explains:

A morally perfect being would completely approach the divine nature. He would be worthy of worship. Therefore, he would be God. But God is, necessarily, uncreable. He necessarily exists  in and of himself . So God could not create another God, a replica, so to speak, of himself. [2]

Given this response, someone may be tempted to mention Adam, but in Christian theology, Adam is not morally perfect, but morally innocent before the Fall.

…and if “free will” prevents that from being true, then doesn’t God have free will? And if not, why is it so important for us to have it?

I think God does have free will, but there are different versions of free will. The kind of free will I subscribe to is libertarian, which says that to have free will is to be free from causal determinism outside of yourself, the choice is up to you, it is not determined by causal factors outside of you. In the case of God, he is free in that sense because there are no causal factors outside of him.

Conclusion

In the end, Randy, your argument against the existence of God based on the problem of evil is not strong enough to deal with the objections I have presented: there is no logical contradiction between omnibenevolence/omnipotence and the existence of evil, just as your objections to the defense of freedom are not so good. [3]

Grades

[1] For a case against these supposed hidden premises see: https://youtu.be/4Q5zQC2BEVY?t=976 (accessed November 10, 2019).

[2] https://reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-of-the-week/could-god-create-a-morally-perfect-being-with-free-will (accessed November 7, 2019).

[3] For an extensive defense of free will, see Alvin Plantinga’s God, Freedom, and Evil .

 


Jairo Izquierdo is a member of the Social Media team and an author for the Christian organization Cross Examined . He studies philosophy and theology, with his current focus being classical logic, epistemology, Christian doctrines, and philosophy of language. He is co-founder of Filósofo Cristiano . He is a member of the Christian Apologetics Alliance and a worship director at the Christian Baptist church Cristo es la Respuesta in Puebla, Mexico.

A while ago Jorge Gil received a message on one of his social networks from an atheist, it was a series of objections against theism. Of course, my friend Jorge does not have the time to respond to each of the messages or emails he receives, so he asked me to be the one to respond to the objections; and well, here I am. Since the text sent is extensive, I have decided to address his argument in four parts: three are objections to the general case in favor of theism and one is an atheological argument.

This is the first objection that Randy Riverol Arevalo, from Cuba, presents to us:

Hello, greetings from Cuba. I see that you are one of the few Spanish speakers who has a good command of the philosophy of religion. I wanted to explain my position and hear your thoughts on it.

I am an atheist, by this I mean that I believe that there are no arguments that indicate the existence of God. This is only valid if God is meant to be omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and necessary. God’s properties are metaphysical (that is, they refer to the ontology and basis of reality), for these properties to be justified, they require metaphysical evidence, since, of the three categories: conceptual, empirical, and metaphysical, [these] require evidence of their respective category, and, therefore, you cannot prove a metaphysical property with empirical evidence. For example, philosophical naturalism is the claim that only the natural exists, even with all or much knowledge of the natural world we are not justified in concluding that everything that exists is natural, since there could be something that we do not know or have not discovered. To prove philosophical naturalism, you would need metaphysical evidence, which we do not currently have a methodology to obtain. Therefore, if you try to justify a metaphysical property with empirical evidence, it is not justified, and if you try to justify it with the fact that induction is not perfect and that it always has this margin of error, [well] that is my point, you are trying to obtain a “metaphysical” deductive conclusion using “empirical” induction, committing a category error.

Ok. Let’s go step by step:

  • The properties of God are metaphysical (that is, they refer to the ontology and basis of reality).

If by (a) you mean that properties tell us something about the essence of the object being predicated, then I see no problem.

  • …for these properties to be justified requires metaphysical evidence, since, of the three categories: conceptual, empirical and metaphysical, [these] require evidence from their respective category, and therefore, you cannot prove a metaphysical property with empirical evidence.

Talking about the nature of properties is one of the broadest topics in metaphysics, so much so that I find your classification insufficient and problematic. [1] For example, what do you mean by empirical properties? You offer no definition, not a single example. If I were to take your classification literally, an empirical property would be one that is subject to sensory experience, but how is this even possible? For example, from the statement Peter is good you seem to mean that since Peter is an object of our senses, so is the property of being good. Is this what you mean by an empirical property? This seems to me to make no sense at all; not even a Platonist would claim that the property of being good is some kind of empirical object.

Since you don’t set out any clear concepts for your classifications of properties, I find it very difficult to understand why an empirical property requires empirical evidence. What kind of empirical evidence do you have to justify Peter’s property of being good? Why believe that the property of being good is empirical in Peter, but metaphysical in, say, the angel Gabriel? It’s like saying that the property of being good has the property of being empirical in a physical object, but has the property of being metaphysical in a metaphysical object. This certainly seems to me to be a rather complicated, if not absurd, ontology of properties. I think it’s a language for talking about properties that no philosopher holds.

So, for the sake of argument, let’s say that I accept your classification of properties. So, in what sense should I take your statements about properties? It seems to me that conventional language without metaphysical baggage is the best option. Instead of asking: What empirical evidence do you have to justify the empirical property of being good in Peter? I would ask: How do you prove that Peter is good? In response to this question, one could simply tell you to observe Peter’s actions to know that he is good; testimonies from people who know Peter would also help. In this way, I would understand that this methodology cannot be applied in the case of immaterial beings like God because he cannot be observed as in the case of Peter, but it does not follow from that that it is therefore impossible to know the properties of God, the only thing that follows is that at least another type of methodology is required to know the properties of God.

  • To prove philosophical naturalism, you would need metaphysical evidence, which we currently have no methodology to obtain.

But Randy, why would you require metaphysical evidence to prove naturalism? If the claim of naturalism is that only the natural exists and under your own criteria of justification of properties, doesn’t this imply that you require physical evidence to prove naturalism and metaphysical evidence to prove supernaturalism? Now I don’t understand you.

  • …if you try to justify [a metaphysical property] with the fact that induction is not perfect and that it always has that margin of error, [well] that is my point, you are trying to obtain a “metaphysical” deductive conclusion using “empirical” induction, committing a category error.

The problem is that you never bother to define an empirical property. Furthermore, if we apply your criterion of justification that only the metaphysical can prove the metaphysical and only the empirical can prove the empirical, then how do you claim that metaphysical properties, which are non-physical entities, refer to the ontology of reality, which in your worldview is physical? In the end, your own criterion of justification makes your classification of properties impossible.

To summarize, there are two problems with your objection:

  1. An insufficient and problematic classification of properties.
  2. A criterion of justification for properties that conflicts with the very definition of metaphysical properties.

Note:

[1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/properties/#KinPro

 


Jairo Izquierdo is a member of the Social Media team and an author for the Christian organization Cross Examined . He studies philosophy and theology, with his current focus being classical logic, epistemology, Christian doctrines, and philosophy of language. He is co-founder of Filósofo Cristiano . He is a member of the Christian Apologetics Alliance and a worship director at the Christian Baptist church Cristo es la Respuesta in Puebla, Mexico.

By Terrell Clemmons

The man to whom science proved religion

Dennis Garvin grew up the second of three sons born into a Norman Rockwell-infused environment in the Berkshire Mountains of upstate New York. After graduating as valedictorian of his class from the Citadel Military College in South Carolina, he went on to graduate with honors from the VCU School of Medicine in Virginia and served thirteen years in the U.S. Air Force. By the time he reached his mid-30s, he had achieved every one of his life goals. He had raised a family with children he loved. He was a successful doctor doing well in Roanoke, Virginia. And, to his delight, he had earned a good four-year degree that certified him as a smart kid. So why, after having accomplished so much, did he feel so empty?

It was not depression; his life was full and active. No, his existential weariness was like that of Alexander the Great, who looked over the vastness of his domain and wept because there were no more worlds to conquer. And when he looked inside himself, he saw a life in black and white. On the other hand, his then wife seemed to have access to a joy that he did not possess. He thought she had colour in her life. What was behind this?

Having been raised in a Unitarian Universalist home, Dennis was a staunch atheist. But, having adopted his mother’s liberal feminist ethic, which held tolerance to be a supreme virtue, he had no particular hostility toward Christianity. So, with an appearance of open-mindedness, the rational scientist in him became curious.

This was, philosophically speaking, new territory for him. But the time had come. As a lifelong devotee of Darwin, he had begun to realize that there were many cracks in Darwin’s theories, chiefly that of altruism, as he saw it. He could explain any human behavior except that, and he could not shake that uneasiness. Worse still, he had begun to realize that he had long parroted the phrase “science denies religion,” but had never questioned it. This was utterly and utterly embarrassing for a man who considered himself a scientist.

So he began to honestly re-examine his hypotheses. The main one he had accepted a priori  was atheism. Okay, he said, let’s say there is a God. How could he have done all that he did? Since the Bible, the book of Christianity, was the first thing he had discarded, that was where he turned in his search for answers.

A dangerous book

As he read on, he became increasingly astonished to discover that the Bible – the book he had dismissed as a stupid fairy tale – was probably one of the most accurate books on quantum physics he had ever come across. This was not quite what he had expected, and as a knowledgeable expert in modern physics, it began to turn his entire epistemological orientation on its head. Dennis had long been fascinated with the study of light, and he believed that the quantum physics of light accurately explained the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. This brought him to his knees.

There was also an evangelistic element at work during this time. His wife had introduced him to some people who were part of the Campus Crusade for Christ. Now Dennis had an arsenal of sharp verbal missiles designed to destroy belief in God or revealed religion in any form. He was not your run-of-the-mill, friendly atheist, but a predator, the kind of atheist no Christian parent wants their children to be friends with when they go off to college. He delighted in destroying the faith of poor, miserable souls, and with his scientific credentials and the academic degree to back them up, he was pretty good at it.

But the good people at Campus Crusade for Christ met his childish attacks like brave soldiers. He raised one objection.  “But what about Christ?” someone would say. He raised another.  “But what about Christ?”  He ranted and raved about Isis and Osiris and the mythological figure of Christ who is reborn every winter and how Christianity was just mythology writ large. They listened patiently. And then they came back with, “  Okay, but what about the God who loves you?”  Finally, he ran out of arguments. Science brought him to his knees. Through Campus Crusade, he became a new creature in Christ.

A violent man conquered by God

In the United States, it is extremely rare for someone to come to the Christian faith after the age of 35. And for someone to do so carrying the burden of science on their shoulders is almost impossible. But that is what happened to Dennis Garvin. All this happened almost thirty years ago, and since then, some things in his life have not changed all that much. He is still a family man, although two grandchildren have been added to the mix. He is still a doctor, although medicine on the mission field has been added to the schedule. And he is still a thoroughbred scientist who applies the concordant aspects of scientific knowledge to biblical concepts, and has begun writing and teaching to disseminate the findings.

There is one other thing that has not changed. The good doctor still loves a good argument. Never one to do anything halfway, the “smart boy” who has now fully graduated as a healthy intellectual Christian humbly compares himself to the apostle Paul, who had a confrontational style when he was Saul of Tarsus, and who then went on to preach the gospel in an equally confrontational tone. But, just as Paul went on to preach the faith he once sought to destroy, Dennis delights in destroying the faith he once preached, and aspires to be the kind of Christian that atheist professors and materialistic scientists do not want their students to know.

“I have a wipe-out mentality,” he says of them – not the run-of-the-mill atheists, for whom he feels a brotherly sympathy, but the wise guys who are profiteers and predators who consider themselves intellectually superior in order to destroy them. He certainly recognizes the command to love our enemies, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into playing nice with people who aren’t.

“I know these SOBs because I was one of them. And I know what makes them think. I have street credibility. And I can tell you, based on my credentials and my study, that anyone who retains a belief in atheism is an idiot . And they have the right to be idiots, but they should not dress themselves in intellectual property.”

“The great secret of atheists, the great fear of all atheists, is that they will be seen as intellectually stupid in front of their contemporaries. They don’t care if you pull down their pants in front of a bunch of religious Neanderthals or people they can label as such. But if you can go into their caves and, in front of their contemporaries, pull down their pants, you’ve done something. That’s what I want to do.”

It’s not about winning a fight. It’s about exposing and smothering a predator that’s coming to kill.

A violent man conquered by God

André Trocmé was a Huguenot pastor in the French mountain village of Le Chambon when Germany invaded France in 1940. When it came to war, Trocmé was a noncombatant pacifist. But when the Nazis demanded oaths of loyalty and complicity in the deportation of Jews, he openly defied them. “We have Jews and we will not hand them over,” he declared in an open letter to the Vichy minister sent to Le Chambon in 1942. A man who knew which war was worth dying for, he was often described as a violent vaincu par Dieu  – a violent conquered by God. “The curse on him who began with gentleness,” the pastor wrote in his diary, “will end in dismay and cowardice, and he will never set foot in the great liberating current of Christianity.”

Like Pastor Trocmé, Dr. Garvin is by profession a servant of healing. And like him, he knows which battle is worth firing a bullet into. That is why, for the sake of a generation subjugated by arrogant SOBs with big egos and pompous academic degrees, he stands ready and eager to enter the ring and do violence for the sake of truth.

 


Terrell Clemmons is a freelance writer and blogger who writes about apologetics and matters of faith.

Original Blog: http://bit.ly/2JPbdQz

Translated by Natalia Armando

Edited by Maria Andreina Cerrada