Stephen Law

Here's the penultimate draft of something in Free Inquiry, out now. Evil God and Mirror Theodicies Stephen Law The problem of evil is perhaps the best-known objection to standard monotheism, that's to say, to belief in God defined as omnipotent (all-powerful), omniscient (all-knowing), and omnibenevolent (all-good). In fact there are two problems of evil, the logical and the evidential. Here I focus on the 'evidential' problem, which is often presented as follows: If gratuitous evil exists, then God does not exist. Gratuitous evil exists. Therefore, God does not exist. 'Evil', in this context comes in two varieties: (i) moral evils such as the morally bad things we do as free moral agents (we start wars, murder, steal, etc.) and (ii) natural evils such as natural diseases and disasters that cause great suffering. So-called 'gratuitous' evils are evils for which there exists no God-justifying reason . Perhaps God has goo...

A while ago the well-known Christian apologist and blogger Randal Rauser posted a very long review of my book Believing Bullshit on his blog. You can find Rauser’s review here . While making a few nice comments about the book, Rauser was generally very negative. He posted the same review on the amazon page for my book and gave the book just two stars. A negative review is fine, of course. However, Rauser’s review is academically poor (it was written in haste, I suspect). Such is the length of Rauser’s review that I didn’t, at the time, have time to go through all of it, line by line, pointing out the numerous misrepresentations, muddles and errors that it contains. I told Rauser I would get round to responding. I still don’t have time to respond to Rauser’s entire review in detail. But, being on sabbatical, I have  devoted a couple of hours to dealing with points Rauser made regarding just the first chapter of the book. Were Rauser’s review more academically ro...

The Odds of an Evil God & The Truth of Moral Questions For podcast go here .  By Alan Litchfield Stephen Law Stephen Law Discusses His Interesting Thoughts on Morality, His “Evil God Hypothesis,” and His Views on Religion Philosopher Stephen Law challenges theists to explain , “. . . why the hypothesis that there exists an omnipotent, omniscient and all-good god should be considered significantly more reasonable than the hypothesis that there exists an omnipotent, omniscient and all-evil god. Theists typically dismiss the evil god hypothesis out of hand because of the problem of good – there is surely too much good in the world for it to be the creation of such a being. But then why doesn’t the problem of evil provide equally good grounds for dismissing belief in a good god?” Law is the editor of the Royal Institute of Philosophy journal THINK. He has published several books and is senior lecturer in philosophy at Heythrop College, University of Lond...

I have been having an exchange with Glenn Peoples on his blog about the Evil God Challenge . Glenn thinks the problem of evil (and reverse problem of good) is neutralized by the theodicies (and reverse theodicies). Hence there's no reason provided by the vast quantities of evil/good we observe to conclude that belief in a good or evil god is unreasonable. So all Glenn has to do to show that belief in a good god is quite reasonable is, he thinks, to come up with e.g. a fairly good moral argument for the existence of God. So here's my latest comment... Let me explain how things look from my end. I give you what appears to be overwhelming empirical evidence against the existence of your particular God - the evidential problem of evil (e.g. hundreds of millions of years of horror before humans show up, a million plus generations of children around half of which are killed through disease and/or starvation before they reach the age of 5 before Jesus shows up, etc. etc.) You appear ...

Edward Feser, Catholic philosopher and big fan of Aquinas, wrote a post a year ago explaining why he thinks the evil God challenge doesn't apply to his sort of non-personal, classical God-of-the-philosophers. This is because Aquinas et al demonstrated that anything that's God must be good, given the medieval background metaphysics. Hence an evil god is impossible. I pointed out that showing an evil God is impossible is irrelevant (I also pointed this out in the paper "The Evil God Challenge" which Feser has read). Even if there were a conceptual problem with the idea of an evil God (and there may also be similar problems with the notion of a good God, actually, but let's set that worry to one side), that does not prevent the evil God challenge from being run. Feser still can't understand why, but here's the reason. Assume an evil God is conceptually impossible. Nevertheless, there might also be powerful empirical evidence against an evil God. In fact the...

The suggestion that the evidential problem of evil is pretty useless as an argument against the existence of God because it is based on claims about suffering, etc. that are hopelessly "impressionistic" has come up several times recently. David Hart made the move in response to my contribution to 50 Voices of Disbelief (see this post ). And now "Fun with Formal Ideas" runs the same move in a comment on the preceding post . So it's worth dealing with. Here's the comment on the preceding post (nb by "Eth" commentator means the God of Eth ): "Eth is impressionistic, Stephen, it is not founded in any facts, data or evidence where these may be considered synonymous or statistically significant and relies finally upon a appeal to common sense." David Hart said: "Nicholas Everitt and Stephen Law recycle the old (and incorrigibly impressionistic) argument that claims of God’s omnipotence seem incompatible with claims of his goodness." ...

My Paper "The Evil God Challenge" is now available online at the CUP journals page http://journals.cambridge.org/repo_A72V8TEm This is the final, published version, appearing in Religious Studies shortly.

Great writing on Haiti and the problem of evil at the Washington Post. Including a very sharp Dawkins. Go here . My thanks to Erroll Treslan.

Some more on Haiti and the problem of evil, this time from The Rev. Dr Giles Fraser: The word "theodicy" describes the intellectual attempt to justify the existence of God in the face of human suffering. Coined by Leibniz at the beginning of the eighteenth century, he argued that out of the various possible worlds that God could have created, he might have created the best of these, a world containing less suffering than all the other options available. With this suggestion, Leibniz sought to explain how it's at least logically possible that a merciful God could create a world with the suffering that it has. And then, in 1755, some years after Leibniz published his famous argument, a massive earthquake hit Lisbon on the morning of the first of November, the popular feast day of All Saints. A 15ft crack opened down the middle of the street. Locals watched the tide disappear only to return as a huge wave that drowned most of the city. 30-40 thousand people were killed. It w...

Another theistic explanation for natural disasters...

Letter on NSS Newsline here . I awoke this morning (Thursday 14 January) to the struggled musings of John Sentamu, Archbishop of York, on the Today programme. He was attempting to reconcile the supposed existence of a loving, omnipotent God with the tragic events in Haiti. The only appropriate response he was able to muster was that he could offer "nothing which makes sense of the horrors". Had he paused at that point, then he would, at least, have been intellectually honest. But, no, he meandered onwards to utter several irrelevant, rambling, and borderline absurd opinions... read on. Programme available for a short time here . I share the frustration of the author of the letter - what on Earth is Archbishop Sentamu on about (process theodicy?)? Pat Roberston has a different view on Haiti: "True story...". At least Robertson's explanation is clear.

Just a reminder that you can still hear my Philosophy Bites interview on the problem of evil here .

Eric said in a comment on God Delusion chpt 3 below: It's obvious and observable that people suffer, but it's neither obvious nor observable that the suffering in the world is 'pointless.' Alvin Plantinga has pointed out a flaw in this reasoning with a fun thought experiment: suppose I ask you too look in a tent and tell me if there's a saint bernard inside. In this case, I have every reason to trust what you say, since a saint bernard is just the sort of thing I would expect you to be able to observe inside a tent. But suppose I ask you to look inside and tell me if there are any 'no-see-ums' inside the tent (apparently, a no-see-um is gnat with a big bite that is small enough to pass through the netting of a tent, and so is too small to see). Now, I have no reason to trust your answer in this case, since you can't see no-see-ums. Here's the problem: you're assuming that if there's a reason for our suffering, it's more like a saint berna...

Jamie writes: [quoting Stephen] Many religions, cults, etc. are designed - or, more accurately, have evolved - to be intellectual black holes. They encourage self-sealing patterns of thought which effectively lock you inside. Get sucked in, it's almost impossible to reason your way out again. If what I'm saying is true -- that the worldview (intellectual humanism or whatever) in which you are operating is a religion/cult/philosophical-system -- then you, by your own definition, are in an intellectual black hole. You have a self-sealing pattern of thought which locks you in. You can't see that what I'm saying is true, just like I can't see that what you are saying is true. You are a true believer. To answer your question, religion can be defined as "a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance", which doesn't necessarily mean "worship" in the liturgical sense. And it seems to me that you ascribe supreme importance to logi...

Here is Jamie's response to my reply to him here . Believing in Jesus as God does not answer these questions. Believing puts the priority of life on a relationship with Jesus (which gets into spiritual/mystical issues, I realize) and that makes all other issues secondary. For instance, I believe that a primary man existed who caused the Fall even if I can't prove reasonably when he existed. (Perhaps that will be discovered or proven at some future point.) The reason I believe in that primary man is because that is what the Bible (Romans 5:12 & others) teaches in the plan of redemption (from a Reformed theological perspective). One might say that this is an insular or circular argument (the Bible is true because it says it's true and therefore I believe it). My point, though, is that because I accept that Jesus is God (not the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus) then the things the Bible teaches about him are True, and that includes things I don't fully understand. L. Ron Hu...

A nice Christian guy called Jamie has got in touch after he heard my podcast on the problem of evil. Here's the latest exchange (done with his permission). Jamie writes: I won't call it "the problem of evil" anymore since that's a misnomer. I was going off the title of the podcast. So as I understand it then, you were answering that problem (during the podcast) by basically refuting the idea of god (including an all-powerful, all-good god) on the grounds of reasonableness. If I've got that right, let me address the god/evil idea from a whole other angle. Instead of starting with God, start with Jesus. (And I'll assume that there is enough documentation of his life to agree that he existed.) C.S. Lewis said something like "Jesus was either a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord." If one believes him a liar or lunatic then any other Philosophy will do. Anything. But if he was Lord then that changes everything. A believer is bound to accept the whole of th...

The Rev Sam continues his discussions with me on the problem of evil on his own blog. Go here . I'll comment shortly....

Sam has been trying to get himself off the hook re. Celtic Chimps's perceptive comment on this blog, produced below: "I eventually had to give up arguing with Sam. His beliefs are so vague and insubstantial that I have come to doubt that Sam himself knows what he believes. I think 'God cannot be the member of any set' was the straw that broke the camels back. I offer fair and honest warning to anyone with a healthy respect for actually taking a definable position. Debating with Sam is like going to the movies to see a film. There are tons of adverts for forthcoming movies and then the credits roll." Sam's response to Celtic Chimp is to invoke Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein said it is a mistake always to look for philosophical definitions of terms, i.e. in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions . Sure, we can define "triangle" and bachelor" like that ("A bachelor is an unmarried male" - gives singly necessary and jointly sufficien...

Let’s return to Rev Sam’s response to the problem of evil. To most of us, many theists included, the problem of evil looks like a very serious problem indeed for theism. Indeed, to me, it looks fatal to belief in a good, or worship-worthy, god. Now Rev Sam’s response is to suggest that it isn’t such an insurmountable problem after all. The problem is figuring out exactly what Sam’s response to the problem amounts to. So far, my impression is that he’s got two key responses. The first is to say that “God exists” etc. is not used propositionally: “I think the biggest difference is that you see religious beliefs as abstract and propositional, whereas I see them as gaining sense from what they do in the context of a life.” The other is to say (about my point that a God who, say, buries thousands of children alive, and unleashes literally unimaginable horror on sentient creatures over hundreds of millions of years, is surely not worthy of worship): “I suspect the logic of worship works the ...

Following on from previous post - we are trying to get to grips with the Rev Sam's contention that the problem of evil is not really such a serious problem for believers. He's made two suggestions, I think. The first is that "good" when applied to God, means something other than what it means when applied to humans. God is "beyond good and evil", yet God is still something the Rev Sam wishes to worship. "what's at stake is what is meant or understood by 'God' in that sentence. I'm not persuaded that we can put much flesh on the bones of 'good' when that term is ascribed to God; the God I worship is beyond good and evil, he doesn't fit within those categories. Though I'd still want to call him 'good'..." Quick comment from me: But, notwithstanding your reluctance to put much flesh on the bones of "good" when applied to God, you do think God worthy of worship , right? But then there's the problem ...