August 2010 Archives

Occasionally one meets with the idea that, granted, bringing in eternal life really does help a lot with the problem of evil or with hiddenness, nonetheless bringing in eternal life is a cheat because it begs the question or something like that.

I can see how one can object to the eternal life move by saying that some things are so horrendous that God shouldn't allow them even if he compensates those to whom they happened. Or that an omnipotent God shouldn't need to compensate. Or that God has some kind of a duty never to be hidden (but: surely a lover is permitted to hide for a while, since otherwise it would be wrong to play peekaboo with infants who don't understand about object persistence). But the "it's a cheat to bring in eternal life" move is not this move. Rather, it grants, at least for the sake of argument, that if there is eternal life, then God can have a justification for allowing the evil or being hidden.

I am having a hard time seeing how this "it's a cheat" move is supposed to work. Let T = theism, L = eternal life and E = the atheological arguer's favorite evil/hiddenness evidence. Then: T is equivalent to T&L or T&~L. Now to grant that eternal life would solve the problem would be to grant that P(T&L|E) is not significantly less than P(T&L). Now let the theist grant, in a spirit of mutual accommodation and simplification, that E is conclusive evidence against T&~L: P(T&L|E)=0. But now:
P(T|E) = P(T&L|E) + P(T&~L|E) = P(T&L|E).
But P(T&L|E) is not significantly less than P(T&L), it was granted. So, basically, the atheological evidence E lowered the probability of T to around the probability of T&L before that evidence.

Now, if in our background there is the fact that there are person, then P(L|T) is quite high. If God made persons, it is very likely that they (or at least those who do not deserve to not have it--there might be room for tweaking of what exactly L says), it is very likely that he made them to have eternal life. But if P(L|T) is quite high, then P(T&L) is pretty close to P(T). Since P(T|E) is not much smaller than P(T&L), it follows that P(T|E) is not much smaller than P(T).

So I just don't see how the "it's a cheat" move is supposed to work. Once one grants that the probability of T&L does not go down very much given E, then given the very plausible claim that most of the probability of T is contributed by T&L portion, it simply follows that the probability of T does not go down very much given E.

As a friend of mine recently put it: "*What* problem of divine hiddenness? Almost everybody believes in God!"

Well, it does seem true that most people believe in the supernatural. If you sum the Abrahamic faiths, it's probably true that most people alive today believe in YHWH. The diachronic picture probably isn't much different, but it's hard to say when you should start the clock and our theological past is clouded by various issues. So it seems if there's a God, he's not *too* hidden. Also, more and more studies seem to show how instinctively religious we are as a species. (For a good study, see this book by my colleague C. Stephen Evans (http://amzn.to/9jCIA8).

One way to go is this:

DHE The existence of a single individual S--who's intellectually and morally fit--such that there is some time t at which S doesn't believe in God is incompatible with (or is overwhelming evidence against) the existence of God.

This seems to be the tree Schellenberg is barking up, and Ted and I have responded to that here. http://bit.ly/aCJ89Y

And I don't think a more moderate approach is going to do much better.

DHM The existence of a moderate sized group M--who are intellectually and morally fit--such that there is some moderately sized set of times T during which the M's don't believe in God is incompatible with (or is overwhelming evidence against) the existence of God.

I'd think this would be a common thought.

If problem in Problem of Evil is a problem for belief in God, then how could there be such a problem if God were sufficiently present. E&(God is present) is a hard way to argue against the existence of God. No Pr(God is present/E) might be low, that's fine. What I'm saying is, if it were clear to one that God were present, then there'd be no problem of evil as we usually think of it.

What we'd have would be a more traditional problem of evil like that Augustine struggled with, i.e. evil suggested a finite god or some kind of Manichean dualism.

It's no part of my thesis that the alleged fact of divine hiddenness wouldn't be a piece of token evidence for the evil-based atheologian. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't.

This suggests to me that the problem of divine hiddenness is more basic than the problem of evil, and that we ought to get clear on what the problem of divine hiddenness is.

I think the following yields a pretty good formulation of the argument for incompatibility of foreknowledge and free will. Start with the principles:

1. If x freely chooses A at t, and p is a truth solely about what happened prior to t, then p does not entail that x freely chose A at t.
2. <God believes at t* that x freely chooses A at t> entails <x freely chooses A at t>.
3. <God believes at t* that x freely chooses A at t> is solely about what happens at t*.

But here is a criticism of (1) that I don't remember seeing, though it's obvious enough that I expect it's there somewhere. Claim (1) is supposed to capture our intuition about alternate possibilities. But it fails to capture these intuitions. Consider this case. Suppose the laws of nature are necessary, and you simultaneously deterministically cause me to have an irresistible desire to do a Hitler salute and push me into a time machine so that it is nomically necessary that I perform the Hitler salute in the year 3000 BC. Next thing I see, it's the first moment of the year 3000 BC, and I am doing a Hitler salute. Intuitively, here is a violation of alternate possibilities. But (1) does not indicate this. Let p be a complete description of the universe at the time you push me into the time machine. Then p entails that I do a Hitler salute in the year 3000 BC. But p is not a proposition about what happened prior to the year 3000 BC. Hence, (1) does not rule out my freedom, even though it is surely meant to.

Here's a second, less weird case. Simultaneous causation is at least imaginable. Imagine the laws are necessary, and there is some state of the world that deterministically causes me to simultaneously raise my arm in a Hitler salute. Again, (1) does not tell me that the action is unfree, even though the alternate-possibilities intuitions that led to (1) surely do. So (1) does not capture these intuitions.

So my class on C.S. Lewis starts today, and one of the things I want to do is to think about which arguments are the most plausible and which are the least. For my part, I like the "Argument from Reason" the best (the precursor to Plantinga's EAAN), and the one with which I have the most trouble is the Moral Argument.

I wish I had time to treat the Argument from Desire more thoroughly, but I think that's going to get its own class.

The first half of the class focuses on the Problem of Evil, then we'll branch out.

I think most of the objections to the Argument from Reason have probably come out in treatments of the EAAN, so perhaps it's best to focus on the Moral Argument. I'll just toss out the general nature of my concern and maybe some folks can help me out.

I think that moral truths are necessary truths. Perhaps some necessary truths can be "grounded in God's being." Maybe even the truths of logic can be so grounded. If formalism could be worked out, maybe math too.

But other necessary truths don't suggest such a reduction. I just don't see the route to do it with moral truths. I suppose I'm inclined to reduce morality to practical rationality and a root notion of happiness, but I honestly can't tell whether that helps or hurts the reduction.

I'll be expressing these concerns in class, but maybe you can give me something to say on behalf of moral arguments.

Thomas Oord has a nice post about Clark Pinnock, who died Sunday afternoon, here.

The modal facts obtaining in a world can determine the moral value of a world in interesting and unexpected ways. Two morally perfect worlds that are intrinsically indiscernible might vary widely in moral value. A crucial implication is that the moral value of a world does not depend exclusively on the intrinsic facts obtaining in those worlds. The moral value of a world depends on what relations it stands in to other possible worlds. I will present the cases in order of obviousness.

Begin with an obvious case (1). Let morally perfect worlds W and W’ differ with respect to significantly free moral agent S. W includes S, S faces a morally significant action A and S goes right with respect to A. The modal facts in W include the fact that possibly, S goes wrong with respect to A. Since W and W’ are otherwise morally indiscernible, W is more valuable than W’.

(2): Let W and W’ be indiscernible except for the following modal facts: In W, S can go wrong with respect to A and in W’, S cannot go wrong with respect to A. Each of these morally perfect worlds is such that every moral agent always goes right in them. They include the same moral agents performing the same actions in the same situations. But W is more valuable than W’, since W contains the additional moral value of S freely performing A.

Some of you may have seen the announcement on Philosophy Updates, but in case you haven't (or as a reminder):

On December 11th, 2010, the University of California, Riverside and the University of California, Irvine will co-sponsor a conference in honor of Nelson Pike. It will be held at UCI, and the speakers will be:

• Robert Adams,


• Marilyn Adams,


• David Woodruff Smith, and


• John Fischer.

It should be good times, so please save the date! Stay tuned for more details as they develop, or feel free to contact John Fischer.

And, as an added bonus, only for Prosblogion readers,* to get you pumped for the conference, check out this re-reading of Pike's argument from the aforementioned John Fischer (along with his co-authors Patrick Todd and Neal Tognazzini).

* Not really—but it is difficult to find online.

Gary Gutting has another article in the NYT. This time, he's critiquing Dawkins' criticisms. It's nice to have some professional philosophy in mass media.

Well, this is really a challenge for skeptics of a Necessary Being (a necessarily existing causally powerful entity), but I wanted a catchy title, and as a matter of sociological observation, atheists are typically (though not always) skeptics of a Necessary Being.

The challenge is this: come up with a general, non-ad hoc causal (or explanatory) principle that's evidently more plausible than any of the ones that imply that there is a Necessary Being.

It is widely agreed (by the experts) that each of these principles implies the existence of a Necessary Being:

1. Contingency implies explicability.
2. The existence of any contingent xs has a cause.
3. Every contingent fact has an explanation.

Some lesser known routes to a Necessary Being make use of any of these:
4. Every explicable contingent fact has an explanation.
5. Any possible beginning is explicable.
6. Every wholly contingent fact has a cause.
7. Any possible contingent arrangement is causable.

Each principle above seems to be supported by a vast array of instances, and we've never observed any counter-examples (though it is controversial whether or not q.m. and/or the "taxicab objection" might imply counter-examples to (3)). The principles are also relatively simple and so don't seem to have low prior probabilities. The challenge for a skeptic of a Necessary Being is to present a causal principle that accounts for all known (or apparant) cases of causation (explanation, causability, or explicability) and that is at least as simple or non-ad hoc as any causal or explanatory principle that implies a Necessary Being. Good luck.

The challenge is also open to believers in a Necessary Being.

Many readers of this blog may be interested in checking out what looks like a great on-line resource: The Library of Historical Apologetics. Here is the site's own description of itself, from its "About Us" page:

At the Library of Historical Apologetics, our mission is to be the world's leading resource for lay apologists, pastors, students, and scholars seeking historical apologetics materials for self-study, church classes, sermon preparation, and research. Our digital collection currently contains references to about 3,000 items with a focus on works in English from the 17th through the early 20th centuries. . Beyond simply providing access to these materials, our long-term vision is to create a digital learning environment that incorporates personal and collaborative reading, note taking, and study tools. We want to support a community in which more experienced scholars help newcomers find the material they need and construct secondary resources such as curricula, study guides, and course syllabi that can be shared by all users. . This project is directed by Dr. Timothy McGrew, who is Professor of Philosophy at Western Michigan University, where he has taught since 1995, serving as department chairman from 2005-2009. The Institute for Digital Christian Heritage is providing technical and administrative assistance in the form of project planning, implementation and evaluation.

Garry Gutting has a nice piece on faith and philosophy in a recent New York Times article. An excerpt:

The standard view is that philosophers' disagreements over arguments about God make their views irrelevant to the faith of ordinary believers and non-believers. The claim seems obvious: if we professionals can't agree among ourselves, what can we have to offer to non-professionals? An appeal to experts requires consensus among those experts, which philosophers don't have.

This line of thought ignores the fact that when philosophers disagree it is only about specific aspects of the most subtle and sophisticated versions of arguments for and against God's existence (for example, my colleague Alvin Plantinga's modal-logic formulation of St. Anselm's ontological argument or William Rowe's complex version of a probabilistic argument from evil). There is no disagreement among philosophers about the more popular arguments to which theists and atheists typically appeal: as formulated, they do not prove (that is, logically derive from uncontroversial premises) what they claim to prove. They are clearly inadequate in the judgment of qualified professionals. Further, there are no more sophisticated formulations that theists or atheists can accept -- the way we do scientific claims -- on the authority of expert consensus.

In these popular debates about God's existence, the winners are neither theists nor atheists, but agnostics -- the neglected step-children of religious controversy, who rightly point out that neither side in the debate has made its case. This is the position supported by the consensus of expert philosophical opinion.

Those with an interest in social epistemology might find some of Gutting's comments of particular interest. Thanks to Stephen Grimm for passing this along.

Registration is now open for Leibniz'sTheodicy: Context and Content, a conference held at the University of Notre Dame, Sept. 16 - 18, in honor of the 300th Anniversary of the publication of Leibniz's Theodicy. Speakers include Robert Merrihew Adams, Jonathan Israel, Maria Rosa Antognazza, Augustin Echavarría, Daniel Garber, Nicholas Jolley, Christia Mercer, Michael Murray, Paul Rateau, Donald Rutherford, and Tad Schmaltz. There is also a pre-conference workshop on Bayle on the problem of evil starting at 6:30 on Sept. 15. For details and registration info, please visit the conference website.

I am pleased to announce that Professor Robin Le Poidevin (Leeds) has been appointed as new editor of Religious Studies. Congratulations Robin!