Return to David's theory of theodicy;Plantinga & Held (Evolution)

by dhw, Saturday, April 06, 2024, 08:43 (23 days ago) @ David Turell

Plantinga

DAVID: This discussion seems at two levels. I claim, with Plantinga, evil comes from God's morally sufficient reasoning. God's level!! You demand at your level I produce a human reasoning! The point is God's reasoning, not ours.

dhw: That is a misrepresentation of the article. Plantinga claims that God can still be morally perfect IF he has a morally sufficient reason for the evil he allows. Plantinga then provides what he considers to be a morally sufficient reason: that allowing evil is necessary if humans are to love him of their own free will. You have joined me in rejecting this reason (which makes God into a self-centred monster). If you and Plantinga cannot think of a morally sufficient reason, you are left with nothing but your faith (or wish) that God is perfect. […] It is YOUR reasoning, not your God’s that I am criticizing. Nobody knows God's reasoning (if he exists)

DAVID: Welcome to faith which does not need rationality. Faith is enough for us. I cannot follow Plantinga to using it as a proof of love. That is Catholicism's theology. My view does not misrepresent the article. I take what I like, and as usual you swallow all of it to criticize, as you do with Plantinga.

All you have accepted is Plantinga’s vacuous statement that IF his God has a morally sufficient reason for allowing evil to exist, that would justify permitting the evil. You reject the one reason he offers (which makes God a self-centred monster), but you cannot see that the same “if” could be applied to every evil-doer in history: IF you can find a morally sufficient reason, then well done Hitler, well done murderer, well done tyrant, well done rapist.

dhw: That is a perfect illustration of your basic principle: “I first choose a form of God I wish to believe in. The rest follows.” You seem to find this a rational and even laudable defence of your theories!

DAVID: Double standard. I must be wrong if I can't think of God's reasons as you unreasonably demand.

dhw: I have not said you are wrong! I am saying that you have no reason for your faith beyond your wish that God should be perfect! I apply the same “standard” to the atheistic faith in chance as the creator of life’s complexities. Your faith and theirs are equally irrational.

DAVID: What is irrational to you is not to me.

You have just said; “Welcome to faith which does not need rationality. Faith is enough for us.”

DAVID: Your defense of agnosticism is everyone else who picks a side must be using double standards. MOST OF US can take sides!

Firstly, my defence of my agnosticism is that I am too ignorant to be able to take sides. Secondly, taking sides has absolutely nothing to do with double standards. Once more: The term entails rejecting an argument for a particular reason (e.g. deism is not mainstream) and then defending an argument which can be rejected for the same reason (e.g. maybe God doesn’t love us, even if mainstream theology says he does.)

dhw: You have faith in God’s perfection without knowing whether he is perfect and without being able to think of a single argument to explain how a perfect God can create or allow evil. This puts you on an irrational par with the atheists (faith in chance) and the Holocaust supporters (faith in Hitler) mentioned above.

DAVID: Only you are rational according to your principals.

Do you or do you not accept the rationality of the above? It is you who have just stated that your faith is irrational.

THEODICY

DAVID: You won't accept proportionality as a reasonable view.

dhw: Of course I won’t. You admit that evil exists, and the question is why your perfect God has created or allowed it. The proportion of evil to good is totally irrelevant.

DAVID: No it isn't!!!

So if someone lives to be 100, did nothing but good for 99 years and only spent one year murdering and raping people, they can apply for sainthood.

wishful thinking

You have complained that my quest for rational thinking is at the “wrong level”.

dhw: I have no idea what level you expect to be on. You are happy to offer a logical reason for your belief in an intelligent designer, but since you cannot find any reason for some of your other beliefs, you are merely left with wishful thinking, which is not much of a basis. And it has nothing whatsoever to do with your double standards, as illustrated above.

DAVID: Calling faith 'wishful thinking' is a dirty poke.

It is what you have explicitly admitted! Listen to yourself: “I first choose a form of God I wish to believe in. The rest follows.” And:
dhw: You make your God what you wish to make him.

DAVID: Of course we do.

So your faith is based on the God you wish to believe in!!! That = wishful thinking.