Clutch

Rick, the response will surely be something like this: omnipotence does not require the ability to do what is logically impossible; an overall greater good is served by allowing the freedom for humans to cause suffering; it is unproven that this greater good is logically possible without the possibility of suffering; so it is unproven that the suffering humans cause using their faculty of freedom happens on god's watch.

The problem is that the overall greater goods don't seem to reflect a healthy moral character: eg, the greater good is that we can choose to worship Yahweh. Who puts being worshipped above the suffering of innocents?

Dr Rick

Perhaps, but absent proof that some good, even if it is unknown, is not possible without suffering leaves no logical reason to assume it is not possible.

Rick

Steven Carr

I am not misrepresenting Plantinga. It is not possible that every possible created being (I see you are substituting person here for no good reason) to suffer from transworld depravity, if there are counterexamples.

It is like saying that it is possible the Buccs will never ever win the Superbowl while claiming that they have already won it.

But why are you substituting 'person' for 'created being'? Are you saying God can create beings with free will who never commit evil, but chose not to do so?

Clutch

Rick, sure. But that amounts to saying that it's merely possible for the PoE to be an argument against a 3-omni god. Not that it is such an argument.

Steven Carr

You still haven't refuted my destruction of your claim that it is impossible for people to only have one leg, because we can see that people have two legs.

Once Plantinga starts hopping, I will accept that he really thinks that all you have to do is create a *possible* world to show that the existence of God and evil are logically compatible.

Dr Rick

Clutch, afaik, the PoE is only an argument against o,o,o gods; It doesn't argue against the possibility of incompetent, omni-benevolent, omni-scient or mean, omnipotent, omnisicent, or dumb omnipotent, omnibenovolent gods.

Rick

SRB

It is an analytic falsehood that if there only exist people with only one leg then there exist two-legged people. On request I can supply a proof of that which uses only definitions and the rules of logic. There is no comparable proof that if God exists then there is no suffering (or less suffering than we observe). So there is no analogy.

Let me summarise what you say above and earlier: you agree that Plantinga has shown that there is a possible world where God and evil coexist, but deny that he has shown it is possible for God and evil to coexist. On any account of the semantics of possible worlds, you are contradicting yourself. To say that there is a (logically) possible world where X and Y coexist is to say that it is (logically) possible for X and Y to coexist.

SRB

SRB

I doubt it. There seems to be an obvious problem in the idea of letting people suffer for one's personal amusement, and that constituting a morally sufficient reason for the permission of that suffering. I see no reason to think that God's morally sufficient reason necessarily involves his own personal amusement, however. Why can't it involve some purpose which is not his own personal amusement - one that is logically impossible for him to fulfil apart from creating a world containing some suffering?

I am someone who is interested in sound arguments and correcting or exposing faulty ones. It is not my primary aim to deconvert people by hook or by crook. You seem to be suggesting that I should always keep quiet when I hear an argument that strikes me as unsound, just so long as the conclusion of the argument is true. I don't go along with that at all.

SRB

Steven Carr

It helps if you read what I said, which I took care to make analogous to Planting's argument.

I wrote
1) I can see that most people have two legs
2) people only have one leg.

This is analagous to
1) I can see that people suffer
2) There is an omnipotent being that wants people not to suffer.

I did not write
1) People have two legs
2) People only have one leg

so your refutation is of something I never wrote.

I can point out that there are people who can see that they have two legs, although they only have one. They are traumatised and mentally ill, and refuse to accept reality.

So it is logically possible that everybody in the world is similarly deluded (just as we are deluded about how many legs a millipede has). This is Plantinga's defense - create a logically possible world, no matter how ludicrous, then crow.

But Plantinga's defense is even sillier than mine.

Trans-world depravity is supposed to apply in every logically possible world. How can Plantinga know what can happen in every logically possible world? Is he omniscient? He can't even conceive of every logically possible world, yet he can tell us that people will be depraved in all of them.

Logically possible worlds include worlds where Jesus was not incarnated as a Jewish carpenter. It is logically possible that Jesus was incarnated as the very person that Plantinga claims is depraved. This refutes Plantinga's claim.

I never did anything of the sort. I pointed out that his defense is as stupid as claiming that people have one leg. I did not deny that his defense does not work (I doubt it does, but I, unlike Plantinga can not tell you about every possible world)

Vorkosigan

Only in that logically possible world. All that it says is that "if things were different, X and Y could co-exist." But If I understand Carr rightly, he is saying "Things ain't different, therefore X and Y cannot possibly co-exist."

Given what we know of the theology about Heaven, Christians assert that it is possible for god to create a place where there is both free will and no suffering. So Plantinga's argument, as Carr pointed out, not only violates common sense, but Christian doctrine as well.

Is Plantinga's paper on this on the Net somewhere? This summer I'd like to set up an anti-Plantinga website. Ever since we annihilated his ridiculous argument about false beliefs last year, I've been itching to go over the rest of his stuff. If it is as bad as that, it will be like shooting whales in a swimming pool.

Vorkosigan