Existential fallacies

The other night I was watching basketball and drinking beer with a smart theist friend of mine. He knows I'm an atheist and we enjoy banter on philosophy and religion. When the topic moved to existentialism, and we discussed the meaning and value of human life, I pointed out that what people believed about the value of their life became, it seemed, the actual value of their life. If theists believe that God has a plan for their life, it doesn't matter that they have no idea what it is, or whether or not God values them more highly than anyone around them, that is enough to suffice to convince them their lives are valuable. I also mentioned the postmodern view that man is free to create his own meaning and value in life.

His response was something along the lines of, "But this isn't ultimately meaningful." I asked him if his love for his wife was ultimately meaningful. He replied, "Perhaps not, but love itself is ultimate." The other night when I was discussing the problem of evil with a room full of Christians, another fellow made this same fact-value error (and, maybe, a fallacy of composition) in stating, "Your emotions are just atoms!" I pointed out to him that it would grieve him very much if I slung some atoms of lead into his body, although they were "just atoms"...

It seems that the terms "ultimate" and "absolute" are often misused in religious apologetics, in particular, as well as complaints that materialism logically necessitates a lack of value. The informal fallacy that is often committed is equivocating on the fact-value distinction between something being meaningful or valuable versus its being everlasting or infinite in terms of duration. Mysteriously, there is also some value assumed to be intrinsic to things that are immaterial, or at least are not composed only of material substances. I have two good quotes:

1) Chris Hallquist, reviewing Craig's Reasonable Faith, writes:

The first subheading reads "No Ultimate Meaning Without Immortality and God." The immortality part has something like an argument:

If each individual person passes out of existence when he dies, then what ultimate meaning can be given to his life? Does it really matter whether he existed at all? It might be said that his life was important because it influenced others or affected the course of history. But this only shows a relative significance to his life, not an ultimate significance. His life may be important relative to certain other events, but what is the ultimate significance of any of those events? If all the events are meaningless, then what can be the ultimate meaning of influencing any of them. Ultimately it makes no difference.[11]

Craig seems to be doing one of two possible things here. On the one hand, he seems to be equivocating between two different senses of the word "ultimate"--namely between "what eventually happens to a thing" and "what really matters." Alternatively, he seems to be making an argument containing the hidden premise that the value of a thing depends entirely upon what eventually happens to that thing. If the former, Craig is committing a classic informal fallacy; if the latter, he is making an unsupported and dubious assumption. The latter implies an infinite regress: If each moment is given meaning only by the next, then the next moment must be given meaning by the moment after it, and so on ad infinitum.

2) Gene Witmer, talking about presuppositionalism as an apologetic method, writes (p.10):

Note, incidentally, the constant use of "absolute." This is one of those terms philosophically naive people love to throw around. It's very, very unclear what it means. Sometimes it is used just for emphasis "Is this a table? Yes. Yes, absolutely!" Sometimes it is used to mean "unqualified", as in "absolutely no exceptions!" But neither of these fit the way it's used here, and I venture to say that it really doesn't mean anything clear at all. [more on PS here and here]

I recognize how long it has taken me to see the non sequitur between saying that something lasts forever versus saying that this property automatically renders a thing with value, or the lack of this property nullifies the value of a thing. As I read more about meaning and value in life I hope to see more things like this more clearly.

Presuppositionalism summarized

I said a long time ago, in a debate with a presuppositionalist (PS) named CalvinDude, that the PS request for an atheist to give an "account" of logic (in the sense of justifying the use of, or explaining the metaphysical concept of, with the possibility that it was unjustified) was retarded, for the very reason that in doing so, one must assume that logic was valid. See here for a more articulate dismissal of PS based on that issue. And see here for the point that there is a fundamental misunderstanding on the part of PS proponents in trying to ask us to "justify" logic at all.

I also said a long time ago that the entire apologetic method of PS was simply not an argument at all, but a ridiculous burden that naive people place on other naive people. See here for that issue revisited. What people "arguing" for PS are actually doing is asking you to write a textbook on metaphysics and epistemology in order to thoroughly explain logic. But if you fail to do this, how does this prove anything about their positive claim for God's existence? It doesn't. Not even in the slightest.

Instead, all it does is give them the opportunity to try to find some mistake in your textbook(s), which is usually not hard to do, unless you're a genius philosopher, and thus you spend hours and hours carefully constructing arguments for no reason at all except to prove that logic is valid.

Wow.

On the other hand, they just sit back and basically do nothing to advance the idea that logic presupposes God's existence. Instead, all they have "on their side" is that a crude material reductionism, if attempted by an atheist, will fail to properly explain abstracta like concepts and mathematical entities and logical relations and properties. So basically just don't try to reduce those things to matter, and the PS literally has nothing to argue about!

Presuppositionalism

Taking on presuppositionalism (PS) gained Gene Witmer fame and fortune! Well, at least the former, but the latter is surely on the way.

BTW, I'm the guy at the PhilSoc meeting who brought up the question that led him to write the paper and do the talk. He also did a radio spot as a result of those.

If you aren't familiar with PS, see this comparative anatomy of apologetic methods by a PS proponent.

Dialog with Andy

Two of the guys at work are very thoughtful theists who I enjoy bantering with about theological issues. I've posted my recent dialog with Andy below, his responses are indented further and mine are between carets (>>, <<). The hyperlinks have been added to this to refer to things I've already written on the topics:

Andy wrote:

God is recorded in the sacred writ as being omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. I've been pondering lately the implications of the third quality, given what we've learned about relativity.

>>I actually don't know if I agree with this premise or not. I think that early Christian thought didn't have this concept, but that later Christian thinkers, re-discovering philosophy from the Greeks and Romans, adopted it. For the sake of argument, let's say you're right. What I would bring up, though, are certain aspects of the OT, in particular, where God asks questions and other things in the Bible that don't comport well in a literal reading with these properties.<<

Someone ostensibly traveling at the speed of light need not age. (Is this correct?) The closer one travels to the speed of light, the slower time "moves." (I guess in actuality, there may somehow be a continuum and time moves more slowly as speeds are gradually increased, so that even at 60 miles an hour, you might age a fraction slower than someone standing still?) But this is not central to my thoughts.

>>You are right, but an important distinction: Remember that in physics, you must always clarify your frame of reference. More time passes for an observer to your frame of reference than for you within the frame of reference. It isn't that there is such a universal thing as "time" -- in the same way that there isn't such a universal thing as "space" -- space-time is experienced locally for each person, thus the need for different frames of reference. In other words, if God has on a watch, and goes near the speed of light from X to Y and back to X, the amount of time that has passed for God will be very very little compared to what we experienced in watching the space ship leave and return (observers).

But...yes, this is the basis for the Lorentz factor.<<

I cannot be in two places (let's call them points X and Y in three dimensions) "at the same time." However, as my speed increases, I can move from point X to point Y, closer and closer to "the same time" Time becomes a sort of fourth dimension, so that as I move faster, the interrelatedness and interdependence of time and space become apparent. Indeed, exceeding the speed of light even allows me to move backward on the timeline?

>>Indeed, the four-dimensional nature of space-time makes it such that if you sort of have to pick three to move through rapidly, so that you are not moving through the fourth rapidly. A really good overview of both special and general relativity is given in both of Brian Greene's layman-oriented books: The Elegant Universe and Fabric of the Cosmos.<<

The Christian theistic concept of a God that exists outside of physical time (Ravi Zacharias maintains that the Judeo-Christian God is the only God of the major world religions that attempts to speak of a God existing outside of time) then allows for a quite elementary explanation of an omnipresent God, in the sense that God is able to be in multiple places at the same time. I don't know whether it's better to explain it as God moving at an extremely fast speed, so that time slows or even reverses, allowing God to move back and forth on the space-time continuum, or whether you simply view God as existing outside of the fourth dimension of time, able to move through space without the constraints of time. In either case, this would make issues like prophecy, omnipresence, etc, all much more palatable to our limited human reason. God can simultaneously be at points X and Y, given his ability to "move quckly" and be free from the constraints of time. And so on for points, Z, W, V, etc. :) Any thoughts?

>>There is an a priori issue that must be addressed about the idea of omnipresence: what does it mean to say that God "is" somewhere? Is God even composed of a substance? If so, then we could speak of how His matter is located within space-time at those coordinates (think: Columbia, SC are the 3 space dimensions and Sun, 8/24/08 @ 1 PM is the 1 time dimension), but then we start to wonder -- is God's matter/substance interspersed between physical matter/substances? Is it like God exists between the atoms in my body (and everywhere else), and if so, then can we say that God exists "within" space-time? Can we say that God is actually omnipresent, since to be between two things is not to be at those actual things?

I think that a lot of the properties ascribed to God don't withstand serious logical scrutiny. If God "is" somewhere, does that mean being a part of that space/matter, or distinct from it? If God is "at" distinct coordinates within space-time, then is God is just as much a part of the universe as you and I? Then does that make God just as bound to the laws of physics as we are? And if so, how could God create that which God is a part of?

I don't think that special (or general) relativity really serves to provide a basis for omnipresence, because omnipresence itself is antithetical to the concepts of physics.

There is also a fundamental physical issue that makes it problematic to say that relativity "allows for a quite elementary explanation" of omnipresence. One of the things relativity does is prevent anything with mass from actually moving at the speed of light, and definitely not faster than it. [note: a differentiation must be made between c (3.0 x 10^8 m/s) and the speed of light outside of a vacuum (c/n), thus things like the faster-than-light Cherenkov radiation observed in nuclear cores]. This is a first principle issue that would diminish the ability to use the physics to justify omnipresence. Nothing is actually allowed to travel at light speed with mass, and it must travel in only one distinct direction at a time. This would also prevent traveling backwards through time as nothing could travel faster-than-light.

If God is massless, then in that sense God is not composed of anything. If God is not composed of anything, then God isn't "located" anywhere. And that gets back to the a priori issue of whether omnipresence even makes sense. You can't say, "God is at coordinates: A, B, C, D within space-time," because there isn't any "stuff" (matter/substance) which actually occupies space or time there.

In addition, as I said above, special relativity allows for objects moving rapidly in three dimensions to move very slowly in the fourth. This would put a lot of limits on your idea of being "able to be in multiple places at the same time" -- for although God could (theoretically) travel from X to Y with no apparent time loss to the observer (us), this framework still puts God thoroughly "inside" space-time. God's frame of reference is still very much bound by space-time in the sense that time still passes for God. So God is still bound to physics, rather than, as most theists believe, able to create physics.

So, to me, to try to use physics to justify or explain omnipresence is both unnecessary and illogical. You can't use a physical theory to try to explain an immaterial God. You can still believe in God, of course, but you can't support the property of omnipresence using physics.<<

On an unrelated note, what do you think about having some sort of "faith forum" in the chapel from time to time, where different faculty or staff are free to speak on topics of deeper significance, eventually even allowing some debates, Q & A, apologetic lectures, etc. I think it would be neat to all come under one figurative big tent in the collective pursuit of truth.

>>I think that sort of thing would be great. I just don't know if I personally would want to participate as a religious skeptic, since it could really be a bad thing for me career-wise. A lot of parents would just never forgive me or like me again if they heard me present arguments against the existence of a theistic God, and you might be surprised at the ways that some people would bring that up later on as ammo against me. But I would go, I would enjoy it, and I would push my students to attend. I just don't know if I personally would want to be up there at the podium/lectern. Maybe in a few years...

-------- Original Message --------

	Subject:	Re: chat yesterday
	Date:	Thu, 17 Jul 2008 04:43:46 -0700 (PDT)
	From:	Andy

Ultimately, for better or worse, I chose to focus on one or two key points. I’ve found in discussions like this it’s quite easy to try to advance on a dozen different concurrent fronts, leaving both sides unable to address any of the issues fully. Perhaps we just take a bite-size piece at a time in our pursuit of the truth. And I’ll try to provide a more timely response next time, should you respond.

>>I understand and agree.<<

First, by way of introduction, let me say that I understand why it would appear to you that Christ’s claim to BE truth is a conflation of terminology. You must admit this would follow naturally for someone who denies any metaphysical personality*. J But assume for the sake of argument that that a metaphysical personality exists (for you must grant that a finite being cannot posit with any certainty the non-existence of an infinite one). If you can picture even for a moment that this possibility exists, it becomes easier to follow Christ’s seemingly incongruous statements.

>>It seems here, and below with your asterisk-marked footnote, you may be admitting that there are things that are not philosophically "neutral" to discuss. If that is so, then you may be literally wasting your time in this dialog. I don't think that it is so. I think that most of what we'll disagree on can be examined objectively without the need for presupposing a certain viewpoint. I hope so, or else we're just arguing post hoc to legitimize (to ourselves, mostly) what we already want to believe is true, because we can't be persuaded by rational argument.

I don't think it's possible to ascribe personhood to a logical relationship. Logical relations and things like properties are the "basement" or foundation in metaphysics -- part of what philosophers refer to as universals, and there are some different ways that they describe them: nominalism, conceptualism and realism. Without getting off on a tangent, truth is a relation, or a correspondence between particulars. It is also universal because it is the relation or correspondence between an infinite number of particulars.

Personhood implies a mind (intentionality), and a mind implies more than one simple relation or property. Therefore, a mind occurs much higher up on the scale of metaphysics. Mind is not a universal. This is true whether or not I believe in God or an immaterial spirit. Minds are more than just one logical relation or property, but cannot be an infinite number of them. It's a non sequitur to say that relations between things are equal to the things themselves: walking is not just two legs, but the relationship between how they move in space-time; thinking is not just a brain, but how it functions in space-time. Another example: if Jesus is truth, and if it is true that evil exists, then Jesus is the evil that exists. I think we'd both agree that there is an error in the logic here.<<

In the same way, when he claims in the same unbelievable statement to be THE truth, is he saying that he is the representation of every physical truth? Of course not. But is he the only truth that matters in an ultimate, metaphysical sense?

>>But determining that which is true depends on knowing how logic works. Logically, Jesus can be "the way to avoid damnation" or "the only way to heaven" or something like that. Jesus cannot be "truth, period"...which is what people sometimes say or imply by referring to Jesus as truth. I think we probably agree on that.<<

I’ve found it a fascinating reinforcement of this concept that in many cases, people who reject Christ’s claims often begin to part ways with Christ as the source of Truth when a clear prohibition of scripture does not square with their lifestyle. They are unwilling to adhere to God’s moral law, and seeking to create their own moral code, they exchange the metaphysical “truth” of scripture for their own metaphysical “truth,” typically establishing moral boundaries that fit their lifestyle. Isn’t it interesting that modern attempts to invent a new morality seldom forge any rules that would de-legitimize the new moralist’s own behavior? The moral code they create always seems conveniently to square with their current behavior.

>>As I think you know, I'm not a moral relativist. Thus, a lot of what you said above doesn't apply to me. However, I can say that my lifestyle today versus my lifestyle at the time I was in church are pretty much identical. That is, I haven't taken up anything since leaving the church that was prohibited, and thus there was no incentive for decadence for me.

I'm not sure if you are in this boat, but lots of people don't believe that atheists exist. It's an interesting thing for me to hear that, as I wonder how these same people would react to me if I claimed that religion was just opiate for the masses, or said, "No one really believes in God. Deep down they know it's an invented device to help us live with the belief that there's cosmic significance to our existence, and it helps us cope with death and hardships. But they establish this to fit their lifestyle, their desire to believe that we're all more important than we really are..." It's a little insulting, isn't it? And presumptuous. Now, am I saying that you may not be correct about *some* people? No. But I'm sure the above parallel argument (that no one really believes in God) also applies about *some* people as well. I'll agree with you that sometimes it is the case that person X actually believes in the Bible and the interpretations of it given by Evangelicals, but really wants to "fornicate" and engage in "lasciviousness" (I love the KJV), and so might try to stop believing in the suddenly-inconvenient moral standard that it is against God's commandments.

However, it doesn't explain, at all, any transition in metaphysical beliefs from conservative/Evangelical Christian all the way to atheist. It may explain why certain people would relax their moral standards in order to assuage their own guilt. But, all one would need to do is transition from conservative/Evangelical Christian to a liberal Christian (e.g., Unitarian Universalist) or Deist or any of the other hundreds of options in between. There's no need to change one's metaphysical views in order to change one's moral views.

Also, consider this: does it really serve a purpose to invent/create something you don't *actually believe* is true? This implies that people reject what is true in order to do what they want, and yet if they really don't *believe* that what they reject was wrong, then they're self-delusional, and one would think, probably won't be able to live with a mind divided between what one wants to be true versus what one really thinks is true. How does it gain any relief to the sinner who pretends not to believe in his sin, but deep down still feels the guilt and shame?

The last part of your sentence could be (and probably was) used to explain why the church no longer puts people in stocks, no longer prohibits movies, music, technology, etc., etc., etc. That is, one could always say that freedom/liberty of conscience is really a "crutch" or a symptom/sign of the loss of spiritual goodness. Lots of people still refuse to allow women to wear pants or makeup, etc., etc., and they might look at you and say, "Isn't it interesting, Andy, that your 'new morality' is supposed to be grounded in God's grace and liberty, but it always legitimizes those things you already *want* to do?!?!?" The same logic works there. I think the premise is what's flawed.<<

Interestingly, while your moral realism proposes that there is a transcendent moral standard out there, in the same way that you would accuse those who follow a certain religion of “creating” their own codes through their own creativity, I believe that it’s impossible for you to prove that the moral realist is not doing ultimately the same thing—as every moral realist out there may not agree on morality, and must fabricate his own moral code. I think more problematic, though, is the issue of consequences. What consequences does Hitler suffer for his actions?

>>By your own beliefs, if *anyone* repents and asks God for forgiveness, they will suffer no consequences in the afterlife for their actions, yes? And thus the dilemma of many theistic beliefs is exposed -- you can't have both mercy and justice. You can have mercy for some and justice for others. To say that by Jesus' death, justice is served, is to pervert what justice means: Jesus was said to be morally perfect and thus innocent. Letting someone innocent "take the fall" for someone guilty is not just. It's merciful on the part of the one who volunteered to take the fall. <<

Perhaps we can relegate this to our next debate.

>>Probably a good idea. This can get convoluted in a hurry.<<

To say something “ought” to be a certain way becomes a meaningless distinction, simply a set of neurons firing in your brain at the present time, if there are no consequences. It immediately begs the questions, “Who says so?” and more importantly, “So what?” To put a moral standard out there that no one need follow might avoid the unpleasant thought of ultimate consequences in the afterlife, but it would seem there is little value in following this moral law, and little danger in breaking it. I would be eager to hear your thoughts on this, though, since I haven’t studied it except for a cursory reading online…

>>In responding to that, I would point out that there are no consequences for not believing that 2+2=4. Morality, to me, is the same way. You don't have to have consequences in an afterlife in order to make something true.

Causing harm is immoral. You (all of us) ought not cause harm.

That's just the simple truth of the matter. Trying to get into why, and how, and whether or not someone believes it or accepts it are all different issues. I would say, briefly, that just as singular objects have a metaphysical property about them that we call "1", so moral actions have a metaphysical property that we call "good" or "evil". The labels themselves may be arbitrary (imagine for a moment switching around the labels, or the numbers), but the underlying properties are not. And the underlying properties (causing harm, or alleviating suffering) exist independently of our human mind and desire.

In the same way that 2+2=4, morality is all about causing harm and recognizing the symmetry principle: you have to apply the standard of actions to others that you want applied to yourself.<<

Looking forward to more good discussions on Truth, Andy

Me too! Now it's your turn. Tag, you're it!

I'll post the responses later on. Since it took us a few months to get this dialog fully going, it'll probably be a while.

A brief comment on presuppositionalism

An old friend of mine wrote me and told me about finding something negative (I'm not linking) about me via a web search for atheism. Hint: it involves Frank Walton.

I was reminded in looking at Frank's site of how pathetic he really is, which led to me remembering when I actually used to waste time arguing with people like him, the Triabloguers and other presuppositionalists. They waste such time by doing something simple: conflating strict reductionist physicalism/materialism with atheism.

When one begins with the fundamental presupposition that God has spoken in the Scriptures in Christ’s Law-word, you are left with the only worldview that can consistently allow for immaterial, universal, and abstract things like laws of science, laws of logic, and abstract concepts.

Funny, I thought there were numerous metaphysical ways to describe universals, properties and relations besides "Jesus"...

As has been pointed out before, the absurd burden of proof which these guys place on themselves requires them to show how every other explanation in metaphysics is logically inconsistent. Quite a tall order, given that brilliant philosophers have spent centuries thinking about these things. Instead, they use a simple straw man wherein atheists must be strict materialists who cannot embrace nominalism or conceptualism or any other theory of universals.

In addition, they hold that internal critiques are all that can be done "across worldviews" because of different presuppositions, but then proceed to contradict that by saying that certain basic beliefs are not justified within other worldviews (i.e., that logic is self-evident and incorrigible, that morality is about causing harm, &c.)

Morality and atheism: an analysis -- 1 of 3

See here for the outline of all three posts on morality and atheism.

I would argue that inserting God into the question of "what is good" actually confuses the issue, for two reasons:

1. The standards of goodness have to be objective and non-relative for us to use the phrase meaningfully, and thus not contingent on God's nature
2. Attempting to solve the Euthyphro Dilemma by invoking "God's nature" as non-arbitrary fails, and does not elucidate the meaning of "goodness"
   

Let's get into this further by looking at a recent dialog I'm engaging in with a friend.

He is a theist who is arguing that atheists have no ultimate justification, or grounds, for morality. This is a common claim, and has been replied to extensively by philosophers and scholars (myself being neither). This should not be confused with a weaker claim: that atheists cannot behave morally. Instead, the claim is that they can behave morally, but that their rationality and justification for doing so may be flawed. The idea is that atheists have an inconsistency in their moral argument by virtue of the claim that all morality is contingent upon God's nature in some way. The capitalized quotes come from an email he sent me, and I have italicized the relevant portion:

...BUT WHAT DOES WRONG MEAN? WHAT DOES RIGHT MEAN? WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SOMETHING BEING RIGHT OR WRONG? AND WHY DOES THAT OR OUGHT THAT COMPELL TO ACT THIS OR THAT? FROM A THEISTIC PERSPECTIVE, IT MAKES SENSE. THERE IS A GOD WHO HAS THIS CHARACTER OF GOOD...

Morality is typically taken as a sort of system, or set of rational principles, by which we recognize or render behaviors and actions as “good” or “evil”, where good means, “things that we (humans) ought to do” and evil means, “things that we (humans) ought not do.” Will you agree? To avoid circularity, it is usually helpful to try to use context in defining good and evil. That is, can we develop concrete examples of and definitions for the terms "good" and "evil" for the purpose of argument?

The concrete example of an immoral action I will use throughout is: drowning an otherwise healthy infant is immoral. This is an arbitrary choice, as I could substitute shooting for drowning, or an eleven-year-old child for an infant, and the moral value of the statement has not changed.

Developing concrete examples of morality and immorality is something of a problem for a theist who wants to rely on nothing more than “God’s nature” as the ultimate foundation/basis/ontology of goodness. For example, in my asking the question, “Is action X good?” it may be difficult, if not impossible, for you to answer if you only want to lean upon recourse to God’s nature, because God's nature is not self-evident and is therefore an unknown quantity. Simply by defining God's nature as the good does not help me to further elaborate on just what that means! If X = going to a baseball game today, what would your answer to, "Is action X good?" be? Is it morally neutral? How would you know that? Does God like baseball? Would you say that God's nature is baseball? Of course not...

Do all moral actions reflect something that God would do? If so, then I can mount a counter-argument that the absence of moral action on God's part makes your assertions dubious: e.g., if you say that I am morally obligated to feed my baby, but God is not obligated to feed the human race (God's children), then we have a bit of a double standard. This seems to be an approach that Willam Alston takes, in that he argues that God does not have the sort of moral obligations that we humans have. If this is true, then there is a semantic non-trivial error in calling God "good" if by "good" this does not entail and connote the same things for God as it does in all other circumstances. If God's version of "good" is substantively different than any other, then a separate moral standard has been introduced which should not be equivocated with the objective moral standard we usually pick out with that word; relativity is now in play, because there is more than one moral standard being used. In other words, what's good for the goose is not good for the gander.

If one cannot reliably give objective, non-God-related examples of morality, without recourse to Scripture or divine commandments, it may be difficult to have a dialog in the first place. If I asked you to define "what is good/evil?" and the answer is "whatever God is" then I can simply ask, "and what is that?" You must be able to give me a working definition, or else the statement, "God is good," is a tautology, as viciously circular and useless as the statement, "God is that which God is," or "God is wgoweigwe," or "goodness is wegoeiwgwe" -- none of these are meaningfully veridical. In addition, there are many properties of God that have no moral bearing: power, knowledge, presence...

In part three of the Craig-Nielsen debate, we see this raise its ugly head, as Craig is posed with a fundamental question of how he knows that God is good:

Here I think he is clearly confusing the order of knowing with the order of being. In order to recognize that God is good, I may have to have some prior knowledge of what the good is in order to see that God is good. But that does not affect the fact that in the order of being, values derive their source from God’s being. He’s confused the order of knowing with the order of being. Simply because you can recognize moral values without belief in God, you cannot infer from this that therefore objective moral values can exist without God. So I would say that we have fundamental moral intuitions. In fact, the Bible says that God has planted these on the heart of every human person so that we intuitively recognize objective moral values. These values are rooted ontologically in the being and nature of God himself.

Craig admits here that humans have "fundamental moral intuitions" that give us the ability to "intuitively recognize objective moral values" -- that certainly addresses the question of how humans could "know" God's goodness. That is, we have the faculties (reason) to evaluate goodness in the first place. A follow-up question for Craig that would get to the definition would be, "Okay, Dr. Craig, since you know God's goodness, tell me exactly what it is about God (or about God's nature) that makes God good?" In fact, I might be tempted to probe Craig's response further: if objective moral values exist, then we are saying that principles and standards exist against which we could assess God's own moral nature -- but in what way could we do this, to know that God is good, besides recourse to revelation/Scripture? How else could God's nature be known, except to suppose it? Indeed, it cannot, and Craig and other theists simply suppose and define God's nature to be good without bothering to further elaborate on what this means and how it would constrain or limit God and God's moral agency or freedom.

Does Craig's response get to the heart of what it means to say that God (or God's nature) is good? Not at all, and I'll revisit this again frequently to hammer home this point. It does not bother to address the issue of how and whether goodness is (or can be) defined by the theist in such a fashion. Craig claims that objective moral values are "rooted ontologically in the being and nature of God" but as I'll show below, metaphysical ultimacy and logical contingency refute this claim.

So, I would say that the following things are true about saying, "God's nature is goodness," or a similar sentiment:

1. The phrase "God's nature" must be refined to exclude those characteristics and properties that are amoral: power, knowledge, &c.; in so doing some approximation of morality may emerge, but this clarification is integral to making any sort of philosophical progress
   
2. The term "goodness" may convey veracity only if it is given context or a non-circular and non-tautological definition; "God's nature" fails to do this
3. To say that we know God's nature depends on revelation or Scripture, both of which require significant human liability in establishing the veracity thereof; then, to say God's nature is goodness must mean we simply suppose this
   

On to supporting these premises:

• What it means to say that morality is not contingent on God's nature

Someone like myself, who may or may not believe in God, likes to try to see if we can separate morality entirely from the question of God’s existence. I think we can, and I think we must. I think we can use a rational approach based on classical foundationalism to figure out what sorts of things are “good” and “evil”, just as I will do in the next post on the subject, when I offer an atheistic ethical justification and moral motivation. Not only would I argue that we can do this without recourse to God, but I would argue that we have to. I would argue, in fact, that if goodness is not an objective standard by which God's nature/character can be judged and assessed, then the statement, "God is good," has:

1. zero meaning or value, like "God is qegfoqeif"
2. or is merely a tautology

And for the statement to be meaningful, for it to convey value, be non-relative, non-circular and non-tautological, goodness cannot be contingent upon God's nature, just as logic cannot be.

In modal logic, there is a classification known as "logically necessary" such that logical necessity can be applied to X when X must be true in any and all possible worlds. It is the heart of the issue involving the Euthyphro Dilemma: are moral standards and properties logically necessary, or are they contingent upon some other aspect of reality? The proposition: "All red carpets are red," is an a priori logical necessity -- it is true by definition and must be true in any and all possible worlds. Ditto with the idea of conclusions drawn from correct premises in a syllogistic mode of logic. The idea here is that God could not even make this proposition false.

The same would be true using false propositions that are logically necessary: "All completely round objects are completely square objects," is necessarily false. Something cannot simultaneously be fully round and fully square, and even God could not make this proposition true. God cannot change such logical principles, so they are not contingent.

On the other hand, the proposition: "There exists a red carpet," is a synthetic, or a posteriori logical possibility, whether or not the predicate is physically real -- this means that it may or may not be true in any one possible world, but it does not have to be true in all possible worlds. This is contingency. If a state of affairs, like me having a red carpet, is possible but not actual, then we would say that it doesn't obtain in this world, although it could in any possible world. The existence of the carpet is contingent, not necessary, and so God could control whether or not the proposition is true. As I have just shown, God cannot "change" logic in order to make a false statement true, nor a true statement false, because logic is not contingent upon God. Is morality any different?

What I would argue is that theists want to have their cake, and eat it too, by saying that morality depends upon God in some fashion (contingency), but they also want to have morality fixed to certain standards, and so they confine and limit the possibilities of God's character to fix the problem. This is theistic essentialism, and it's the trick up their sleeve: argue that God's nature must be good, such that possible worlds arguments do not hold because there can be no possible world without a morally perfect God. I'll challenge that in a moment, but for now, let's say it's true. What does this entail?

If theists contend that moral statements, such as, "Drowning an otherwise-healthy infant is wrong," are logically and therefore necessarily true in all possible worlds, then they accord to morality the metaphysical ultimacy which will undercut their argument that it can be contingent upon God's nature. That is to say, God cannot make drowning an otherwise-healthy infant moral by decree or will or command. Now, they qualify this further by saying that the reason for this moral truth is God's nature, but the important part is that God cannot change the moral truth: it is a logical necessity that drowning infants is a priori immoral.

Now, if theists do not accord such transcendent status to morality, then things get a little more complicated. This would be a theist who says that moral propositions must be evaluated as contingencies, where "drowning an infant is morally wrong," may or may not be true, given other facts and circumstances. Theists who assert such claims undermine the idea that truth in morality is an objective and transcendent affair, such as truth in mathematics. Therefore, it is important to nail down the terms of the debate before we even begin. Most theists would agree that God cannot change moral values, and they would argue this is because God cannot change God's own nature. This is an interesting argument, as it implies a few things about God's freedom and moral agency.

William Alston might argue at this point that God could drown an infant because God's moral perfection is different than moral values that humans apply because God cannot be morally obligated to act in a way consistent with an external standard. This is slippery, because some theists will try to "get away with" something here, but really they are still trapped: if we agree that it is wrong in all possible worlds for humans to do X, but not God, then we have undercut the justification for using the same terms of "goodness" and "evil" in application to God as we do for ourselves. In other words, if what is good for us is not good for God, or if what is evil for us is not evil for God, then to say, "God is good," is an equivocation. Thus theists who claim that there are different standards of morality undercut their claim that morality is objective and also render the phrase, "God is good," meaningless, as God's goodness may have little to nothing resembling our form of goodness. This flows logically into part (2) below, where I ask the question if it is intelligible for us to use God as a standard of goodness when it does not seem that God's nature can comport with goodness per se.

If theists do agree with my proposition about the transcendent moral wrongness of drowning an otherwise-healthy infant, then I would ask them if drowning the entire world, including children and infants, in the Noachian Flood was thus morally wrong, and they then have a bit of a dilemma if they believe this event is an actual historical event. If it is true that God's nature is the basis of goodness, but if God has committed acts which contradict moral standards of goodness, then there is an incoherence. Therefore, even theists recognize that a moral standard cannot be compromised in order to make it congruent with God's own character. Somehow, God's goodness must be salvaged because they know that the standard itself is ultimate, therefore there must be an excuse or apologetic to explain away any deviations from this standard, such that it does not appear to have been transgressed.

Now, this problem should not exist in the first place if goodness is that which God is. If goodness is that which God is, then there is no way that drowning infants is anything except good, since that is what God has done.

Really, all we've done here is pushed back the Euthyphro Dilemma by one step: while the Euthyphro Dilemma's original phrasing involves God's commands, which are assumed to be arbitrary, the use of "God's nature" in substitution is assumed not to be arbitrary. However, if indeed God's nature defines and ontologically roots goodness, is it by virtue of fact that it belongs to God, or is it by virtue of the fact that drowning infants is not in God's nature? If anything that belongs to God is automatically assigned the status of moral perfection, then it is obvious that morality is contingent upon the person to whom it refers, and is relative. This is what I will develop on in the next section. If God's nature defines and ontologically roots goodness by virtue of the fact that God's nature already corresponds to the objective standards of goodness, then the absolute, non-relative and non-tautological status of morality is preserved. The Euthyphro Dilemma is still alive and well, you see.

• Does invoking God's nature give any adequacy of explanation to "goodness"?

What would be implied if morality is contingent upon God's character simply because it is God's is that if the theist said that anything that was God's nature is defined as "the good", then if God's character qualities included the drowning of infants, the theist would have to say it is good to drown infants. Most theists would, understandably, not want to claim that God's nature includes anything we all already accept as immoral. And so what they are doing is, from the outset, limiting God's nature to mutually-agreed-upon objective moral standards of goodness.

This belies any claim that they make that God's nature supercedes morality, because there is no theist who will honestly say that if God's nature was one of meanness and jealousy and selfishness, that the moral value of these things would suddenly become positive. And thus they concede the metaphysical primacy of morality: it is not contingent upon God's nature. What they may argue instead is that it is logically necessary for God's nature to be morally perfect. Supposing this is one thing, supporting it is quite another.

After all, why could there not be an all-powerful and all-knowing being whose nature was such that it relished the suffering of its creations? Why could there not be an evil God? It is only paring down logical possibilities that the theist is capable of trying to define a morally perfect God. However, there is absolutely no substantive refutation of the existence of an evil God (it is a logical possibility), and thus it is not logically necessary for God's nature to conform to the objective standards of goodness that Craig admits humans have intuitions and knowledge of. Instead, Craig and other theists are admitting to us, up front, that the objective moral standards and values we all agree represent "goodness" are the logical necessities, and that only in supposing that God's nature conforms to these values makes God truly "good".

The reply that God is defined a priori as "all good" is not an objection or refutation to my claim, because it is not logically necessary that God's nature be thus, as there is no argument that could be presented that God's nature is somehow determined by metaphysical principles; and so to say, "God is good, and goodness is that which God is" is tautological and conflicts with the existence of objective moral standards. One way to prove this is to investigate as to what God (and therefore goodness) is: does God's nature permit, or even incite God to perform, actions such as the drowning of an infant? If yes, then theists have just asserted the moral goodness of drowning infants. If not, then they admit that God's nature is a reflection of objective moral standards. The circularity of "Goodness is that which God is" undercuts any ability to make philosophical progress or define the terms independently of one another, because the primacy of objective moral standards is undermined.

So in effect, they must admit that in all possible worlds, God's nature must be such that it is limited to the things that we all agree are standards of moral goodness. Thus the real issue is exposed: they define God's nature as good because they assign to it all of the virtues. It is not the other way around. What "God is good" really means is that "God is good because God's nature conforms to the objective standards of goodness that we all already agree exist."For example , God's nature is good because God's nature opposes the drowning of infants, and logically would not be good if it did not.

They don't really mean what they say when they claim goodness and evil are in some way dependent upon or contingent upon God's nature, because if "morality is whatever God is," then by definition, morality is contingent upon the character of God, which necessitates that God's nature conforms to objective standards of morality. There is no explanation as to why, at a metaphysical level, God's character must be that which corresponds to our sense of good: it is not logically necessary that God's nature be opposed to the drowning of infants. And in that sense, God's nature defines goodness, goodness is that which God is, yet that which God is becomes presupposed...a viciously circular logic and tautology at the same time.

By this contingency, it is possible that any attribute belonging to God defines goodness, and yet there are many logically possible attributes of God that would be immoral (such as enjoying the drowning of infants), as well as those which obviously have nothing to do with morality: God's omnipotence, omniscience, &c...

Here’s something from a debate between Drs. W. L. Craig and K. Nielsen:

"But God is all-knowing; he has perfect knowledge [whereas] we do not," which is true by definition. If there is such a God, this doesn’t give you any reason for doing it because perfect knowledge is compatible with perfect evil. "Well, it’s because God is all-good." Now I ask you Christians, "How do you know that God is all-good?" I know you believe it, you accept it, but how do you know it? Probably, the most common answer is this: "Well, you read the Scriptures, and you see the kind of exemplar that Jesus was ... and there are plenty of passages in which Jesus shows himself to be an incredible exemplar." But notice that to see that he is an exemplar already presupposes that you have a prior understanding of what is good and bad. Because you have an understanding of what is good and bad, you see Jesus to be a desirable exemplar. So you have an independent moral understanding and knowledge which doesn’t rest on your belief in God.

Suppose somebody says, "Look, God is the perfect Good by definition." Some philosophers used to call this an analytic truth--like "Puppies are young dogs." But if you didn’t know what "young" meant, you couldn’t even know what "puppy" meant. If you didn’t know what "good" meant, you couldn’t even know what "God" meant. You have to have some understanding of "good" to judge that God is the perfect Good. So again, you need a moral criterion that is your own and doesn’t come from God. It may come causally from God, but it doesn’t come in a justificatory sense, which is the relevant thing in arguing about morality. [emphasis mine]

This last part is especially useful when I hear theists say, “the Euthyphro dilemma doesn’t apply/work because goodness is not contingent upon God’s commands, and thus arbitrary, nor is it an objective standard by which God judges actions, and thus supersedes God entirely, but instead goodness is God’s nature.” What does this mean? What does it explain? Furthermore, is God's nature not simply the collective assembly of God's will and commands and actions? And in that sense, is it not just as arbitrary as the individual series of God's commands? If not, what determines (or determined) God's nature?

That is to say, the theist's reply that God's nature "solves" the Euthyphro Dilemma must purport to show how God's nature is non-arbitrary. Some theists, including Robert Adams, and along a different line, William Alston, have tried to do just that, but in so doing, have revealed its impossibility. Adams admits that God's nature is good in virtue of the fact that God's nature is loving towards God's creatures. Adams thus admits that the standard of "being loving towards other creatures" is the virtue that makes God good. Ergo, if someone is not loving towards other creatures, then that person is not good, which is the transcendent moral principle that is not contingent upon whom the being or Being is. It isn't that "being loving towards other creatures" could be good or bad, and simply is good because that's God's nature, versus nsfl's. So Richard Adams is impaled on the second horn of the dilemma.

Alston removes moral obligation from the definition and thus equivocates on the meaning of goodness. This impales Alston on the first horn of the dilemma -- in attempting to make sense of God's goodness, the definition of goodness itself becomes relative to the person to whom it refers. This is, admittedly, a logical escape from the implications of the Euthyphro Dilemma. But it may be an escape from the frying pan into the fire: now using the phrase, "God is good," connotes entirely different concepts from the phrase, "nsfl is good," and so while in the latter case it means, roughly, "nsfl is good, thus he does not drown infants," no such logical connotation is made by the former.

What should immediately follow from the claim "God is good" is, as Dr. Nelson pointed out, that theists are pressed to explain the claim they make: what does "God is good" mean? We all understand that the concept "young" is not contingent on puppies, and so it is non-circular to say, "puppies are young dogs" in pointing out a vital distinction in the nature of puppies v. dogs. When the theist says, "God is good," however, without recourse to an external standard against which we can evaluate God's goodness, it is a circular reference if all this means is "God is that which God is" because "Good is that which God is, and God is good." To avoid circularity or tautology, theists must make recourse to using the objective standards of morality that we all agree on, and thus define goodness in terms of these standards.

Theists claim that God's nature, as Craig said in the quote above, serves to "ontologically root" moral values, which appears to be the same as to claim that moral values exist as (part of) God's nature. But have we made any progress? Are all these things virtuous because they relate to God, or is God good exactly because these virtues are God's nature? It must be the latter, because otherwise we make morality contingent upon God's nature.

Some theists believe that God's authority or omnipotence somehow give a logical foundation to morality, but philosophers have refuted these notions long ago. Simply because someone has authority over you does not mean that they will use their authority/power in a moral fashion, and this has been shown by human rulers in history. The quantity, or degree, of authority does not have any bearing on the quality of how it is used. Simply because God has more authority does not entail that God will/must use this authority in a moral fashion. The Euthyphro Dilemma is as clear here as ever: is something good because God's authority demands it, or does God use its authority to demand those things that are good because they are good?

The exact same points can be made about any other attribute of God's nature/character, be it God's power or authority or knowledge: none of those attributes logically necessitates morality in how they are used, nor can morality be contingent upon any of them. The idea that God has a determined nature/character brings up questions. While human nature is determined by DNA and environment/development, what could God's nature be determined by? If God's nature is not determined, then God's nature could freely change, and if God's nature is the basis for morality, then morality itself is arbitrary: contingent upon a relative standard.

One way to think about how God's nature is arbitrary, but morality cannot be, is the following possible worlds thought experiment:

Suppose that there is a world in which a god named Booblefrip exists, and so do humans, almost exactly like our world. Booblefrip created all that we see and experience as humans in a physical world. Booblefrip is "all powerful" in the sense that any logical possibility (contingency) can be accomplished by his will. Booblefrip is also omniscient. The only significant difference between our world and the world of Booblefrip is that Booblefrip takes pleasure in the suffering of humans. In point of fact, Booblefrip so enjoys our suffering that It (gender neutral) introduced pathogens and parasites and genetic defects into this world in order to elevate human suffering. And, Booblefrip enjoys flooding the world so as to drown infants. The question I would have to ask a theist is this -- is morality contingent upon the nature of Booblefrip in this world, in the same way that you claim that morality is contingent upon the nature of YHWH in ours?

Those who are interested in more extensive debates of this sort, especially with respect to questions about whether "God's nature" is a sufficient reply/solution to philosophical problems like the Euthyphro Dilemma and other presuppositional apologetics, should see the Martin-Frame written dialog. as well as some other articles at infidels.org. In it, the heart of the question is laid bare: is it possible to say that morality is contingent upon some aspect of God's character?

They would argue vociferously that "taking pleasure in the suffering of others" is not a character quality that is morally good. This is a standard we agree on.

The sorts of people who make these arguments include, but are not limited to, presuppositionalists. The problem is that if they leave "God is good" as an undefended and unexplained presupposition, then they have no more philosophical economy than if I simply say, "Doing harm without cause is evil." Or if I say, "Contributing to the physical or mental well-being of others is good." If you can’t give me a reasonable explanation of God’s nature, or why it good, then you’ve no more explained why something is good than if you said, “Goodness is awvpoweigfnqwe.” (nonsense) And if I can't go further with my meta-ethical justification, then we're on equal footing, if that. Also, these presuppositionalists have to be careful in making claims like, "drowning an infant is morally evil," because they will immediately be confronted with things like the Genesis Noachian Flood, and they will have to try to reconcile the notion that when God does an action, it is morally good, while when humans do it, it is morally evil. This is clear moral relativism.

I think that most theists would jump at the opportunity to correct me if I said, "God has a nature whereby God causes harm without justification, and this is the definition of evil." What they would correct is not likely that my definition of evil (causing harm without justification) is wrong, but that this evil is not what God's nature is. So in a sense, we agree on the foundational principles, like that causing harm for fun is morally evil. And they would probably agree that the principle is metaphysically ultimate -- it would be just as wrong for God to do it as for us, and this would apply in any and all possible worlds. Therefore it cannot be contingent upon God's nature, as there are possible worlds in which God's nature obtains differently. QED

Conclusion: Saying "God is good" has little to no explanatory value. Either moral propositions are logically necessary or they are contingent. If morality is contingent, then we can come up with possible worlds in which moral standards are defined by a god's nature, but that this god's nature does not conform to the same moral standards accorded to YHWH. That is, it is completely logically possible that a god can exist with a different defined character/nature, and thus God's nature is contingent but not moral standards. If theists make morality contingent upon a god's nature, while nothing determines god's nature, then to say, "God is good," is tautological and conflicts with the existence of objective moral standards. This is incoherent, and therefore God's nature cannot "determine" morality when it is, itself, indeterminate (nothing transcends God in this view).

See here for the outline of all three posts on morality and atheism.

Morality and atheism: an introduction

In this introduction, I lay out my perspective and approach, and my feeling that we'll either run into a regress or circularity fairly quickly; the latter is to be avoided at all costs. In the first post -- part one -- I analyze atheism and morality by looking at two critical issues: 1) whether morality can in fact be contingent on God's nature, 2) whether invoking God's nature gives us an adequate explanation of goodness. In the next post -- part two -- I analyze whether God's nature can conform to the objective standards of goodness and virtues, or whether evidence and logic contradict this approach. Finally, in the last post -- part three -- I want to lay out a case for moral motivation and justification that I think makes being a moral atheist not only good (by definition), but rational.

Outline of posts:

1. Introduction


2. Morality and atheism: an analysis -- part 1 of 3

   morality cannot be contingent on God's nature
   
   does "God's nature" explain goodness?
   
   conclusions

3. Morality and atheism: an analysis -- part 2 of 3

   God cannot be "good" in the same sense we can be
   
   God's nature vs. human nature
   
   conclusions

4. Morality and atheism: an analysis -- part 3 of 3

   on moral motivation
   
   on meta-ethics
   
   conclusions

Although I have, on more than one occasion, attempted to talk about morality flowing from basic facts about human nature and society, I also put on a thick coat of whitewash and preface everything with, "I never took a philosophy course...so forgive my errors..." But it's not a real excuse to commit fallacies of logic, and so I'm going to try to parse out some things about morality that I've pondered on for a long time and make them clear. Also, there's no excuse for indolence, and I've procrastinated on writing up a more clear and extensive treatment of morality than my last attempts for a long time, partly out of recognition of the work it would require.

I think of myself as someone who is capable of at least some degree of objectivity in analysis, and I think I've shown that in criticizing fellow atheists for dismissing valid theistic arguments and criticizing what is thought of as "militant atheism" as well. Like the lib-deb, there are things about the culture of atheism I sincerely dislike. I also admit freely that there are things about strictly materialistic naturalism that are unattractive to deal with, when compared with religious and transcendent dealings. I think that this is due to the ability of a theist to simply invoke certain phrases which effectively end any philosophical inquiry or analysis, such as "God's nature" or "God's will" or other mysterious things which they sort of fall back on when pressed on something difficult. I want to see if perhaps these maneuvers, or belief in a god generally, are a valid way to deal with morality. Even though I don't believe in the Christian God (for reasons manifold), if I found out that there was a good argument to believe in the God of Aristotle and Ben Franklin, I could easily live with that. Also, it takes quite a few leaps and bounds to get from a philosophically-necessary god (little "g") to the God of the Jews or Christians or Muslims from revelation and Scripture.

It may be the case that there are simply some philosophical problems that are insoluble. If that is true, and if morality is one of those things, all that it means is that there is no final clear solution to questions like, "what is the good?" and "how ought man live?" If that is the case, then perhaps whether or not we believe in God, we come to a place where assumptions must be made (presuppositions) that are incapable of being reduced further or explained further. The sorts of theists who make these arguments include, but are not limited to, presuppositionalists. When this happens for the theist, they may invoke a god-related phrase to end the regress, while an atheist may simply say, "perhaps that's just all there is to it." When this point occurs, does the theist have a "leg up" on the atheist? Do they have more philosophical economy and currency, or are the god-related phrases just another way to layer on complexity and mystery, rather than clarifying the problem? If I say, "it seems that the nature of morality is such that moral actions have the property of producing happiness, health and wealth, while immoral actions produce pain and suffering, and perhaps that's all there is to it," have I lost an argument with a theist who says, "moral actions are a reflection of God's nature"?

It seems that we have two basic options when it comes to justification: 1) a regress that ends with a basic belief, or brute, irreducible fact, or 2) a circular system of justification. In 1) we see justifications of the form, "A is based on B, which is based on C, which is based on D...Z is a standalone presupposition." An example of this: "I wash my shirt because I want to be clean and smell good; I want to be clean and smell good in order to be sociable and attract a mate; I want to be sociable and attract a mate because these are my biological nature; my biological nature is an insurmountable part of me and my happiness." It is understood that we reach some basic (brute) fact upon which we agree the problem is not easily digested any further, and hopefully we are satisfied with the progress and rationale in ending there. These can be thought of as axioms or basic beliefs.

In 2) we see justifications of the form, "A is based on B, which is based on C, which is based on A, which is based on C, which is based on B..." An example of this: "I believe that God exists; I believe that the Bible is God's Word; I believe that a strict-literal-historical interpretation of the Bible is imperative because the Bible itself has been translated and preserved by God; the Bible reveals God and shows me that God exists..." and in this sort of justification we see an interdependent set of premises that are set out to sustain an overarching world view or religious belief. In my particular example, there is a hierarchy of linkage: obviously if the first premise is false, all the rest are false as well. That is not necessary. Sometimes, A, B and C are all on "equal footing" and if one fails, then the others are still left standing, albeit with one less "linkage".

It's possible that all justifications will come back to one of these two ending points: 1) a brute fact or presupposition, or 2) a vicious circularity. If that is indeed the case, then all we can hope to do in our arguments and justifications is simply avoid contradiction and incoherence. So long as we don't set out some thing B which logically violates some thing A, then we may be offering substantively similar rationales. I am inclined to believe that (1) is supremely favored over (2), for the simple reason that circularity doesn't imply any sort of progress, which some degree of progress can be made in chaining together logical premises. Circular reasoning is recognized as fallacious, while limited reasoning and knowledge leading to basic beliefs is not. Also, by the very nature of either: a) our limited and mortal minds, b) our language, or c) both of these, it is possible we are simply never going to be able to unify all philosophical questions and solve all philosophical problems and answer all philosophical questions. This implies that basic beliefs and axioms may always exist.

In closing, what I have hoped to do in this introduction: I wanted to point out my attitude coming in to any dialog or analysis of atheism and morality. I wanted to point to my attempts at objectivity and willingness to concede that god(s) or a God may exist, given certain limitations. I wanted to point out the general direction that such analyses/arguments will go: towards properly basic (unjustified) beliefs, also known as brute facts, or towards circularity. I have staked out that a regress is preferred over circular reasoning, and so what I'm already asserting is that basic presuppositions will be staked out.

The PoE and "God's Glory"

I'll first quote a generic Calvinist so readers can see the variants of theodicy amongst sects of Christians:

Rather, pain and suffering are a means by which his redemptive wisdom, mercy, and justice are manifested to his rational creatures for the benefit of the elect...It doesn't. Rather, it enriches the life of the redeemed...

I'll bullet list some questions, and you can answer Y/N to the numbers that correspond, such that my own "simplistic" misunderstandings can be corrected:

• So evil --> mercy isn't to God's glory then, but to our experience of God's glory?
• So the consequences of the Fall are not God's fault because of compatibilism -- that God co-suffered the consequences in the form of Jesus?

1. How can God be blameless in ordaining the Fall?

2. How can God blame us for the consequences of the Fall?

The greater good defense is only designed to answer the first question, not the second.

An answer to the second question depends on your version of action theory; in this case, compatibilism.

The greater good defense is one plank of a broader theodicy.

It seems

In addition, even if he regards the Christian faith as incoherent, that in no way absolves him from discharging his own burden of proof.

I'm still unsure as to how or when I supposedly did this.

It will hardly do for him to say, "Sure, I'm incoherent—but you're incoherent too!"

Where and when did I say or show incoherence, or commit tu quoque?

Another place on this same Calvinist website asserts:

ii) I do regard natural evil as a manifestation of divine judgment. But this ordinarily goes back to the Fall. It isn’t directly punitive with respect to any particular victim. But it is a general manifestation of divine judgment.

Dave Amstrong is a prolific Catholic apologist, and his writings on the PoE are as extensive as any other topic he's addressed:

Christian Replies to the Argument From Evil (Free Will Defense): Is God Malevolent, Weak, or Non-Existent Because of the Existence of Evil and Suffering?
http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ124.HTM

Alvin Plantinga's Decisive Refutation of the Atheist Use of the Problem of Evil as a Disproof of God's Existence, Goodness, or Omnipotence (+ Discussion)
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2006/10/alvin-plantingas-decisive-refutation.html
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/davearmstrong/116071794487746081/#116977

Critique of Agnostic Ed Babinski's Post: "The Problem of Evil, Alvin Plantinga and Victor Reppert" (the "Emotional" Argument From Evil) (Dave Armstrong vs. Ed Babinski)
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2006/10/critique-of-agnostic-ed-babinskis-post.html

Serious Christian Treatments of the Problem of Evil and Breezy Atheist Dismissals of Them Sans Rational Argument (+ Discussion) (Dave Armstrong vs. John W. Loftus)
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2006/10/serious-christian-treatments-of.html
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/davearmstrong/116042118212142615/#116612

Some Christian Replies to the Problem of Evil as Set Forth by Atheists (+ Discussion) (Dave Armstrong vs. "drunken tune" and John W. Loftus)
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2006/10/some-christian-replies-to-problem-of.html
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/davearmstrong/116046273013664968/#116725

Dialogue #2 With an Atheist on the Problem of Evil (+ Discussion) (Dave Armstrong vs. "drunken tune")
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2006/10/dialogue-2-with-atheist-on-problem-of.html
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/davearmstrong/116060670288633022/#116870

Dialogue #3 With an Atheist on the Problem of Evil (Dave Armstrong vs. John W. Loftus)
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2006/10/dialogue-3-with-atheist-on-problem-of.html

Can God be Blamed for the Nazi Holocaust? Reflections on the "Problem of Evil" and Human Free Will
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2006/06/can-god-be-blamed-for-nazi-holocaust.html

Dialogue With an Atheist on the "Problem of Good" and the Nature of Meaningfulness in Atheism (+ Part Two) (The Flip Side of the Problem of Evil Argument Against Christianity)
(Dave Armstrong vs. Mike Hardie)
http://web.archive.org/web/20020810223936/ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ518.HTM +
http://web.archive.org/web/20011119015359/http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ519.HTM

Reasons for Suffering and Encouragement and Hope in the Midst of It: A Biblical Compendium
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2006/03/reasons-for-suffering-encouragement.html

Comfort and Peace From Scripture
http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ188.HTM

Dave's major argument is that Plantinga's free will theodicy "solves" the logical PoE. He has directed most of his posts towards establishing this, and I think he's done as much as anyone can do. I'm not saying (of course) that I think his effort correlates to success in solving this problem, but he has done a great job of attempting to solve it, at least.

Here's my rebuttal, and here are other posts on the topics of PoE.
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