Alvin Plantinga - Does Evil Disprove God?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 ส.ค. 2024
- How could God be both all-powerful and all-good? Philosophers of religion offer 'defenses' (no logical contradiction between evil and God's existence) and 'theodicies' (complete systems explaining why God allows evil). But do they work?
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Alvin Plantinga is a breath of fresh air when it comes to Christian thinking. I'm so tired of over excited, know-it-all Christian apologists, completely lacking in humility. I don't trust those people for one second. There's too much ego invested which throws off their judgment. Alvin calmly acknowledges that he doesn't know what he doesn't know. I really am enjoying his perspectives lately.
lol. not according to most scientists and philosophers.
I wish that all these wonderful philosophers like John searle, plantinga, Swinburne, and others weren't retired or about to retired. It would have been an honor to be taught by them. It doesn't matter that some of them believe or dont believe in god, they're still great academics.
Who says Plantinga is about to be retired? And in any case, you still got Alexander Pruss and Edward Feser - who is better than ALL the philosophers you mentioned above combined; and coming up is also Michael Jones from IP, aka the next generation's WLC. I'd say that the Christian position in philosophy is just as strong as ever, you have no excuse to be sad or disappointed
@@logans.butler285 Hello dude the truth is that the new theist philosophers are top tier but i wanted to live in a world we're both Swinburne and Platinga we're a little bit more younger
well maybe the Swinburne and Plantinga of the next generation aren't as well known yet because they haven't had as much time
@@logans.butler285 Ed Fesser is better than all of them combined? How so? Lmao
I seem to agree with Plantinga in that the problem of evil does not disprove God's existence but rather it leads one to imagine that God's circumstances are far removed from ours. In the same way that much of adult behavior is not understood by children.
"god is not evil"
also god "go kill the canaanites, men, women, children and their pets"
the real problem is having tolerated people who want to pass laws dictated by pixies.
This will always be a source of pain for me as a believer, this problem of evil and suffering. It caused me to leave the faith for many years, and even now I can't pretend to have resolved it for myself. It's a pain and consternation I expect I'll carry with me for the rest of my life.
@msc14111990 good point.
Is this true:
1.Spice exists
2. An all sugar being would eliminate all spice
3.Therefore an all powerful all sugar being does not exist
This world is fallen from God. Genesis literally explains why suffering and death exist in the first place.
@@Loneshdo it doesn't _explain_ why it merely makes a _claim_ as to why. What do you consider to the difference between an unsupportable _claim_ & supportable _evidence?_
@@paulbrocklehurst3639 I read his question as "Assuming God is real, why would evil exist in the world?" so I provided a reason that is consistent within Christian theology. The truth or falsehood of the idea that the world is fallen is completely irrelevant in this conversation.
The free will defense is interesting, but by his own admission, heaven would be conceptually impossible, yes? He says God cannot create a world of free beings without evil. Well then if people go to heaven after the second coming, how then can people live in heaven with zero evil whilst being free beings?
May be we won't be free beings there.. We would be bound to commandments of god and our freewill would be taken at the time of our death.This god and religion thing is totally depressing
It's all a lot of bs. This is what I do, I want to do good because I want to live in a good world, I dont hurt others, I try to help when I am capable, and try to be a decent human, you dont need a god to be a good person, but a lot of evil has been committed by people who proclaim religiousness, look at the inquisition. Some people need the idea of god to cope with the world, that's fine, just dont think proclaiming that you're religious means you're good, it could be the opposite.
@@midwestairway People who claimed to be atheist did much more evil than those that claimed the be religious: Stalin, Mao Tse-Tung, Pol Pot. They caused more than 100 million deaths. So that argument against religion is not valid.
Those that kill in the name of Christ, are not Christians. Because Christ said "Love your enemies" and "Pray for those that prosecute you". Actually, being a Christian (following Christ's teachings) makes you a better person!
@@whitehorse3724 well put 👏
Dang Jos, the point about Heaven on New Earth is that the sinners are separated from the keepers of the Christ's commandments, and the sinful nature of humans would have been eliminated.
To find a reason to justify evil, such justification is in itself evil!
Therefore nobody should try to justify the actions of believers in atheist Dogma.
How are they at all doing that? They are reconciling the existence of God with that of suffering, not saying for suffering is good (although on the other hand the assumption is that all suffering is bad).
By what standard?
@@1godonlyone119 Is this true:
Spice exists
An all sugar being would eliminate all spice
Therefore an all powerful all sugar being does not exist
The "physical world/universe" exists, in large part, due to duality and the interaction and balance of these opposing forces. Light - Dark; North - South, Positive - Negative; Right - Wrong, On - Off, Yin - Yang, 1 - 0, Day - Night, Order - Disorder, Good - Evil, Up - Down, True - False, Male - Female, Hot - Cold, Wave - Particle, etc. is observed to be interwoven within the fabric of the "physical world/universe". Thus, the existence of Good would of necessity require the existence of Evil in the physical world/universe, and vice versa. Moreover, the scientifically confirmed property of duality in the physical world/universe does not preclude the existence of a Prime Observer/Cause.
The free will argument is limited and it only works to the extent that it explains suffering caused as a result of bad human choices and misuse of free will. It does not explain the pain,and suffering caused by natural events and things outside of human will and control,. To invoke the 'free will argument' is to ignore the pain, suffering and senseless death caused by natural events outside of human control,, such as earthquakes, diseases, tsunamis, weather events and so on. I wish people would would stop using this argument.
Yes it does. Free will of man vs free will of God. Man sins God sends natural disaster.
Man sins of his own free will. God allows him to freely choose and doesn’t intervene. He only intervenes in the life of a person he chooses to have a relationship with.
It’s sadly really simple the answer.
@markreeves9666 Unfortunately, that doesn't work. Natural disasters and other examples of the brutal savagery of nature have been happening long before humans even existed. There has been pain, suffering, and death in the world, while ever there has been living and sentient creatures - long before humans were here.
And another thing. It's 'humanity' or 'humans' - not 'man'. You should not use 'man' unless specifically referring to male humans..
I think there is no answer for all that evil. God must to give the reason when we encounter him.
Nice to hear him admit to the bearing this has on possibilities. I've never heard him address natural disasters though, like 200,000 people being washed away by a tsunami and I don't see how he could. Surely he couldn't go with an original sin defence.
He talks about this in detail in God, Freedom and Evil. It gives quite detailed logical analyses of the arguments.
if God exist then His knowledge of why he lets everything happen cannot be understood.if we understood it then we are gods for we would have infinite knowledge
in his book God and other minds, he explains physical evil(i.e. natural disasters) as being the work of Satan, not God
@@rimburemus7587
I dunno, rim. This is God talking, not Satan:
Isa 45:7 (KJV) "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things."
@@dougsmith6793 that is indeed what the Bible says. I was only making a claim about what Plantinga says in his own book, which can be checked. From what I understand you disagree with his "solution", which is only fair
Who created the TREE OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD & "EVIL"?????? Before he created man.....
1:35 God is omnipotent but he can't do just anything.
It's contradiction or a misunderstanding of "omnipotent". This a common move by theists to answer the problem of evil, they make god less powerful, less god like. An all powerful god that created everything with full knowledge would be able to create a universe in which he (or it) could bring just any possible state of affairs.
Free will in general doesn't solve the theism's evil problem. God knows everything in advance, god creates someone knowing what they will do when god creates them whichever way god creates them. God can't then logically grant them free will and pretend they could act any differently then the way he know they would act when god created them. If god wanted them to act differently he could have created them to act the way god wanted them to act.
There is just no getting around that that an all knowing and all powerful creator is responsible for everything it creates.
If theists want to get rid of the problem of evil they should just admit god is evil, or at least partly evil.
Divine Middle Knowledge (molenism) would say that God doesn't know what they will do, but can calculate it-he cannot "see" the future because it doesn't exist (Model A of time). Also, I think you misunderstand the purpose of God- it is not to make us do what he wants, to worship him- he wants to have a relationship with us- for that relationship to have any value God must allow us freewill to develop our consciences into his image (Irenaean) or just to develop a relationship. Also, does God create evil, or permit it to allow a world of consequence? Is God responsible for moral evil? (Dostoevsky)
Process theologians would also say it is prefereable to give up God's omnipotence rather than his omnibenevolence (see Boenhoeffer)
Actually I would argue that it is you who has misunderstood omnipotent. For millennia when Christian apologists and philosophers have used the word omnipotent (literally interpreted to all powerful), they have not meant "can do anything" instead they have meant "can do all possible things". They do not believe that God can make 2 = 4, or make something both be true and not be true for example because this is not logically possible. If you are going to argue against the Christian concept of God at least try to understand it instead of creating a straw-man. So when you say "If god wanted them to act differently he could have created them to act the way god wanted them to act." this would be to assume that God can freely force someone to do something which is logically impossible.
@@hollylevi861 Exactly! An example I like would be an answer to the question "Can God sin?"
The answer is "no" because sinning would be a reduction of God- if he could do that, then he wouldn't fit St.Anselm's definition of "greatest possible being"
holly levi Thank you! Great explanation!
@@hollylevi861 The problem with creating arguments for or against the Christian concept of God is there isn't one Christian concept of God. First God is omnipotent then when that proves problematic it's changed to constrained by logic. Soon the conception of god will be something constrained by the laws of physics.
Christian apologists and others who want to believe in such things have been shrinking and reimagining God to fit in our gaps in knowledge and understanding for a long time. We should expect that trend to continue for a long time because our understanding of the world has many ever shrinking gaps.
In case the man goes to the heaven, presumbly that place would be a world with no Evil and with free Will creatures?
Yes, but he would have freely chosen to be there. If God had created him in heaven and gave him no choice in being there, then he would be forced against his will. So in order to give us the choice of being with him in heaven he had to give us a freewill. By giving us a freewill, it made choosing evil possible. So in order to truly have free creatures, there must be the possibility of choosing evil. God had to first give us the freedom to sin before we could have the freedom from sin. God gave us the choice to be in heaven instead of forcing us there against our will. Just like he gave the angels the choice to follow Lucifer
@@johnroemeeks_apologetics god made things that way for what reason what point to make , sounds like an ego saying see look at what I made and u have to learn it but not understand it cuz ur so beneath me and I only want ur praise
I’ve wondered about that. I think when we repent and believe we are giving up our free will. We are saying “your will be done” and asking the Holy Spirit to soften and fix our hearts and direct them. And He makes our hearts so they freely only want what is good.
how can souls burn? hell is a stupid punishment, only a god could think "I'll burn something immaterial"
God has free will and He 'always' loves and 'never' does wrong. So, why He does not give the same free will to human beings also.
Then, we will also 'always' love and will 'never' do anything wrong.
What is the problem in giving such kind of free will to us so that we never commit evil acts and retain our free will also (just like God has free will but he 'never' does anything wrong)?
Discontinue doing bad, attempt to do good.
Program your heart and mind to correct your freewill.
Put effort and admit. Immediate rewards and the hope of a new earth.
Plantinga qualifies “omnipotent” to the point of meaning “God can do anything that doesn’t contradict my argument.”
I think it’s more “God can do anything that’s logically consistent.” William Lane Craig explains it as God is omnipotent, but he can’t create a married bachelor or other absurdities.
This definition allows Plantinga to then make a logical conclusion and fit God’s omnipotence into it.
He still has the burden of proving his conclusion is logical. I
God just Can't do oxymoron
@@medleysa I never understood this. God created the rules of logic in the first place, right?
If I can conceive of a world in which there is a "logically-consistent logical inconsistency", an Oxymoron in other words, and I am created by an omnipotent, omniscient God, then he must be able to conceive of it as well. Am I able to conceive of something that God cannot?
If God can conceive of a logically-consistent contradiction, and he is all powerful, then he can actualize it/make it true/correct/real. God could make a married bachelor or frozen fire, etc. The question still remains then: why didn't he if he is all powerful, all knowing, and all good?
Can someone define God. When talking about God. I can't believe no one bothers to define God so we can understand what the argument is.
Whether you believe in God or not. First define what God is so we can understand what you believe is real or not.
Alejandro Martin Christians define God as a triune and a maximally great being, both of which have concrete definitions
Alejandro Martin.. The multiple characteristics and qualities of the kind of God they are talking about is repeated at 0:44 and at 1:20 ...
So presumably, you have no free will in heaven, since free will causes evil.
BennyOcean Brilliant.
BennyOcean I don't think heaven necessarily entails that the people there CAN'T still fall away(aka sin). It's a possibility(at least) that the people who make it to heaven are precisely the ones who will persevere there for eternity despite the ability to still fall away. Anyway, that's just my initial thought. I am actually more inclined to think there is no freewill in heaven if it exists. If you are in the full presence of an infinite goodness and love(God), it seems to me that it would remove the freedom to do evil. anyway...I'm just passing through don't mind me.
An incorrect conclusion, which is what you can expect from an atheist. A neccesary condition might not be a neccesarily sufficient condition. Once a persons nature is changed by God he might still have free will but not exercise it for evil purpouses. Also evil might be removed entirely and so it becomes logically impossible to choose evil since there is nothing to chose. Other choices might still remain.
A very, very poor display on the side of the atheists.
vedran lekić If God is able to make a place without evil (heaven) despite allowing free will, then there is no reason why he couldn't made earth the same way. Then he necessarily should have created Earth with no evil (necessarily, because we assume he is all-good). But since he didn't made Earth without evil we can conclude that at least one of the following is true: God does not exist, he can't prevent evil if there is free will (not even in heaven), he can prevent evil on Earth but he isn't all-good and doesn't want to. The latter is especially amusing because nobody believes in an evil god even though one can justify the belief in an evil god just as well (just as badly) as the belief in a good god. Better justified than both is a God who is neither good nor bad but who doesn't give a shit. But wait, if he doesn't give a shit while he is actually all-powerful he could easily prevented all evil on Earth, so he is actually bad.
Wasn't it Aquinas that God proving him/herself to us would destroy free will. Add that into your thinking
No. But it does prove God is flawed, potentially evil, and not worthy of worship. In my opinion, nothing should be worshipped. When you worship something, you place it on a pedestal that it inevitably does not deserve to sit atop.
That's a bold claim. How do you go about calculating all the variables that constitutes the most optimal world for humans and their maker from all possible worlds? You are essentially claiming to have access to all this unfathomable data. How about taking your arrogance off that pedestal that nothing should be on.
@@felixthecat1974 Wow you're a jackass. I didnt claim to know any variables. Piss off.
@@ajr01-x6e It's okay. I'll dumb it down for you. "But it does prove God is flawed..." You made a claim that God is imperfect for creating the world the way it is. In other words, you are implying that you know a better possible world that could have been created out of all the possible worlds. If you don't know any variables, how could you possibly make any claims, let alone claim that there is PROOF that "God is flawed, potentially evil, and not worthy of worship."? Contradict yourself much, Andy? Or is this all too much for you to process?
@@felixthecat1974 Yeah I think God, assuming hes still in charge probably doesnt run the universe as smooth as it could. If I could do everything people thought God could do, I do think I would do a better job.
@@ajr01-x6e Better implies a standard. What exactly is this standard you're referring to that God intended but fell short of that you could have done a better job at?
I've always found it hard to grasp what Alvin Plantinga is saying. Watching these 4 minutes of him trying to explain evil and God has confirmed my confusion. I don't think he's a good communicator, maybe he would agree with me.
I usually understand him pretty easily, unless he gets too technical, which he does in many of his books. Maybe he isn't the problem.
Junior Bakiny As you said Junior, he has a habit of getting too technical in trying to explain his views. I freely admit I find him hard to understand, my brain struggles to grasp what he's saying, so yes, it could be my problem :-)
Is this true:
Spice exists
An all sugar being would eliminate all spice
Therefore an all powerful all sugar being does not exist
@@alpacamaster5992 No
Evil proves that it can exist if it resides outside of God’s loving constraints & that it doesn’t listen to God.
I dunno, Mike. This verse suggests that God and evil are not necessarily enemies:
Isa 45:7 (KJV) "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things."
I hate to admit this but to be honest his logic in this particular subject is legit. But think about it for a moment and I put this from emotional perspective to the issue not logical, doesn't this vastness and severity of world's evil make the notion of a benevolent God ludicrous? Just think about a natural evil like a child been born with severe disability and some kind of lymphoma. What is that damn reason that God knows but we should not or cannot know? In a universe that there is no difference between praying to God and not doin so what is the importance of god to be existed or not?
Plus according to his argument I can imagine a omniscient omnipotent and omni malevolent deity who probably has much worse evil reasons to allow these evil occurances. Now I wonder how he will disprove my deity..
maybe he isnt so nice
I think the free-will defense might be based on a misunderstanding regarding the nature of freedom. Plantinga seems to assume that freedom means causal independence of God; but this is surely impossible. Everything that exists depends for its existence at every moment on the causality of God- including human freedom. If my will could be independent from the casual activity of God then it follows that God would not be omnipotent (how can God limit himself or chose not to control something?).
+bayreuth79 I think its important to note that while our dependence on God to have the CAPACITY to have free will/existence and so forth is certainly true, it doesn't seem to follow that therefore my will is dependent upon God, only my capacity to have a will in the first place does. About your last point: as I am sure you have probably heard it argued, Aquinas proposed the idea that God cannot do what is logically impossible. But this is not a knock on his omnipotence. God can't make someone free and not free at the same time.
@@real_john_doe But you are presupposing a modern concept of free will, one which Thomas Aquinas did not accept. The modern notion of freedom is the capacity to chose between alternatives. The ancient notion of freedom is the capacity to flourish as the kind of thing that you are. You are not free when you have chosen, but only when you have chosen well. Plantinga’s notion of freedom is modern
Brilliant 👍
Benevolence and malevolence together forms divine design.
My freedom is limited only insofar as my knowledge of the good is limited. God would in no case impede on my freedom by showing me what is good- in fact, he would be increasing it. And so, for God to cause me to choose A over B is actually an increase of my freedom, since God wills only what is good; that is, he wills himself.
I adore Plantinga's fan club - it's so amusing to see people who are philosophically daft pretending to be philosophically sophisticated.
Any argument or just complaining he's famous and you're not?
Anelice Melo Yes of course. Not that I need any, the only people who take Plantinga's sophistry seriously are theists who don't actually know much about philosophy.
Anyone who disagrees with you is philosophically inept.
Lean Alcantara No just people who are taken in by Plantinga's bait and switch routine, which even Plantinga himself no longer endorses in any serious way.
The free will defense does not justify evil that is not caused by human actions, like genetic diseases and natural disasters which affect both bad and good people. Of course, one could still argue about the original sin and shenanigans of that sort, but fortunately Prof. Plantinga doesn't even mention those. Now if you think the universe is pretty random and follows laws that are indifferent to human well-being, all this evil just makes sense. I am not saying that this line of thinking disproves God's existence, but I do believe it goes to show that if He exists at all, traditional religions do a pretty bad job of explaining his doings.
It is sad how, even these days, the human need for purpose and justice leads most people to just ignore logic, empirical evidence, and probability, looking the other way, while science, philosophy and other human enterprises provide us with sensible explanations for how things work and how we can live well with that.
I agree nothing should lead people to just ignore logic, empirical evidence, and probability. Yet atheists exist. It is quite the conundrum. Planting's treatise is an exercise in logic which defeats the argument of the problem evil. Your comment holds the implicit claim that God does not exist but this is your implicit claim and you are responsible to prove it. So prove the non-existence of God or keep quiet.
"while science, philosophy and other human enterprises provide us with sensible explanations for how things work and how we can live well with that."
Incorrect. Science is not an agent, neither is philosophy so it cant "provide" humans with anything . This understanding of science is a myth. Even so, if God does not exist there is no "well" since there is no good. Your comment is both incorrect and unsubstantiated.
@@vedranlekic9725 dobro si mu rekao ;)
The "physical world/universe" exists, in large part, due to duality and the interaction and balance of these opposing forces. Light - Dark; North - South, Positive - Negative; Right - Wrong, On - Off, Yin - Yang, 1 - 0, Day - Night, Order - Disorder, Good - Evil, Up - Down, True - False, Male - Female, Hot - Cold, Wave - Particle, etc. is observed to be interwoven within the fabric of the "physical world/universe". Thus, the existence of Good would of necessity require the existence of Evil in the physical world/universe, and vice versa. Moreover, the scientifically confirmed property of duality in the physical world/universe does not preclude the existence of a Prime Observer/Cause.
this is a nice thought, but just because many things have 'opposites' doesn't mean anything concrete about the nature of the universe
Potential for evil or exclusion of free will hardly argue/refute the fine-tuning argument. I mean my free will is determined by the restraint of mine or the things that came before my mechanics.
Free will is like it's own determinism, it accepts one and relies on another and there is nothing to suggest we are truly free or that freedom doesn't imply grand disorder or that grand disorder wouldn't force us beyond our own existences even.
It's all complete and utter nonsense. God is omnipotent, but there are things he cannot do. What garbage. Here's where yall went wrong... Believing there's a supreme all powerful creator. There's not. He's a fiction of human mind.
I'll be honest I get what he's saying, but I still don't believe it. Basically, because we aren't of the perfect level of God, whether that be Intelligence or Perception, so we can't possible come up with a reason as to why Evil exists with God around. Therefore, Evil can exist with God existing, we just don't know. It sounds like a stupid shortcut route to the answer.
It's the first time I've ever seen someone answer with "I don't know," and it works lmao
How much free will do people actually have. Consider Phineas Gage who suffered severe brain trauma and became a social miscreant as a result. Or the mass murdered in the Austin Tower shootings who had a brain tumour. Extreme examples for sure but who can actually say that their actions are completely independent of their circumstances, upbringing and brain chemistry? Also the free will defence only works if people have full knowledge of the consequences of their actions. Some of the worlds worst evils were the result of human actions not in the conscious will to commit evil but in the will to do good which had the unintended consequence of resulting in evil. Consider Fritz Haber who invented a way to capture atmospheric nitrogen and make fertilizer from helping to alleviate world hunger but also making it possible to make explosives and bombs resulting in the death of millions. Great evil the result of the free will desire to do good.
the individual free will does not mean it can not be violated
Quran explains suffering.
Surah Al An-Kabut "Do the people think they will br left alone after saying we believe & not be put to the test"
Further talks about those who say we believe but when hardships befall them they turn on their heels & forsake their faith.
I'm asking, if we have free will, y do we need god
What do you mean
Contrary to Plantinga's claim, omnipotence necessarily does mean that an omnipotent being can bring about any logically coherent state of affairs. (Arguably, even an omnipotent being could not produce a married bachelor or a square circle.) An omnipotent being who is unable to bring about any coherent state of affairs, such as a world without evil, in patently and definitionally not omnipotent.
As usual, this apologist, as most, simply assert idiotic, clearly false claims and then use those patent lies to 'prove' their point. A deliberate and patent liar is a poor exemplar for the claimed god.
What natural evils have to do with freewill!
Fallen angels cause them
@@DrBased true. But plantinga said it can be also fallen angels
Isaiah 45:7 KJV
Plantinga's _Free Will Defense_ completely falls apart when you give it any serious thought because if it were true that a god created everything without exception he _must_ have created our wills too since there's nowhere else our wills could have come from except the creator of all. The only possible conclusion of such a scenario is our wills are all caused by the _ultimate_ cause: the creator even though it seems to be us. There's really no escaping this conclusion & saying 'God can do anything' doesn't mean he could not be responsible for our wills in the first place does it? The only way we can be responsible for our actions is if we are living in a godless cosmos & appreciating that we *are* the cosmos itself at _every_ level. Carl Sagan defined the cosmos as 'All there is, ever was & will ever be'. Understand that & you'l;l understand that we are inseperable from it & _can't_ be separate from it even if it _seems_ like we must be.
The will stems from the mind, which in the mind is created by God. Christian theology proclaims God instills his creation with a mind, taken from his spirit and made separate from him. This is essentially a non-falsifiable proposition, and attempting to argue against it, would be that of an ignorant one. But even if you attempt to, a human is made from parts of other humans, does that mean I control my son's actions? Or is it some divine nature that instills this principal you are proposing? Either way, Plantinga's position still stands firm.
@@zebre676 *The will stems from the mind, which in the mind is created by God.*
Well I'd say that the will _is_ the mind but even if it isn't the same problem still applies.
*Christian theology proclaims God instills his creation with a mind, taken from his spirit and made separate from him.*
Okay but it's still from God therefore it's actions are ultimately down to God whatever they are. It's as if I designed robots, built them all & programmed them too & set them 'free' to do as their programming & menchanics dictate which is entirely as I set them up to be even if I can't predict the results myself (mind you an all knowing God like the one in the Bible knows what the future is anyway as did Jesus when he predicted that Peter would deny him 3 times therefore Peter had no free will either since Jesus can't be wrong).
*This is essentially a non-falsifiable proposition, and attempting to argue against it, would be that of an ignorant one.*
It's an apriori proposition which we can logically know must be correct without any need for an experiment.
*But even if you attempt to, a human is made from parts of other humans, does that mean I control my son's actions?*
No God does because if God made you & everything else which exists ulitimately _everything without exception_ is down to the Creator of _all_ & there's no getting around that.
*Or is it some divine nature that instills this principal you are proposing?*
Well if there is a devine creator of all there is then everything is as the creator made it without exception.
*Either way, Plantinga's position still stands firm.*
No it doesn't. Not if God created _everything_ but it might if there were _more_ than one creator of all.
man created god then god created man 😂
The problem here is that the argument doesn't take into account what god has enabled us to do. Let us for the sake of argument assume that I have a god-given free will - I am not at all convinced that I do, but I'll entertain the concept here as a thought experiment. Now this is a thought experiment and I urge you to take it as such. I am in no way granting that we have free will, nor am I insinuating that the scenarios I present are something I would imagine myself actually doing - so don't go there.
So anyway - according to you, your god has given me free will.
And when I get up in the morning according to the video your god has given me the freedom to choose between a healthy breakfast of say...:
A) Cereals
B) Yogurt
C) My baby daughter
Would it eliminate my freedom for god to remove option C here? Would I become a mindless robot by not having the option to eat my daughter? Clearly it wouldn't. If you are a christian you must believe that your god has chosen to make a world here it is possible to do cruel and evil things to other people. And not only that, but he has allowed certain sick individuals to take pleasure from doing so. But let us say for a moment that for some reason your god cannot logically eliminate option C for some reason. What if your god does not intend for me to eat my daughter but has deemed it impossible to remove my ability to harm people without violating my free will.
Let us say that if I was to choose to murder my wife. In his wisdom your god has then allowed me to choose freely between a number of methods to do so which includes these three options:
A) I could stab her with a knife
B) I could strangle her with my hands
C) I could blast her with lasers coming out of my eyes
No wait... It would seem that your god *has* in fact prohibited my free will to do C. C is in fact an option that your god does not allow me to do, no matter how hard I might try. Now why would your god prohibit me from shooting lasers from my eyes but not to strangle a person? And does the fact that I can't shoot lasers from my eyes mean I am just a mindless robot? Well no - I don't think it does. Could your god have created a universe where the very laws of the universe meant I was incapable of murdering my wife with method A and B in the same way that I am currently incapable of C. Well clearly he could. Could he do this in a way that would still allow me to choose between cereals and yogurt for breakfast? Clearly he could. Would this mean I was a robot? Clearly it wouldn't.
The argument is just silly and I would say that even if I grant every premise it still refutes itself.
Clearly if your god does exist then every possible depravity or evil deed he has allowed us to partake in is something he allows us to do despite having the option to prohibit us from doing so and every action he has prohibited us from doing is his choice also. Clearly the video doesn't adequately address the problem of evil since your god could have given us free will without the ability to do evil - there really is no contradiction between the two.
All of that makes very little sense
You can if you desire, eat your daughter
And you can choose how to prepare and serve her too
But you wont...I hope
Not being able to murder your wife by eye-lasers is not a limit on free will
it is simply the way things are in this world
If you want to you can choose to murder your wife
and you have many ways of doing so to choose among
You do have free will
but there are all kinds of restrictions and limitations on your use of it
for instance your love for your daughter limits your free will
David Walsh
You completely missed the point. I your worldview saying that I can or can't do something because of the restraints of the physical world is exactly the same as saying that your god has allowed me or kept me from doing something. Your god could easily have made a world where I had free will and was unable to harm anyone in exactly the same way that he supposedly has made a world where I have free will despite being unable to fire laser beams from my eyes. If you can't imagine such a world that is simply your imagination failing you.
itsjustameme
Maybe there is such a world as you imagine somewhere.
I live in this one and I dont regard gravity etc as a Divine imposition on my freedom.
Is your love for your child (if you have one) an imposition on your freedom to eat it?
David Walsh
Like I said in my original post I am in no way tempted to eat or murder anyone. I am making a philosophical argument and have taken the argument out to the furthest reaches of a tangent to show how absurd and fundamentally flawed the Christian position is.
Any yes - gravity is in fact a limiting factor to my free will. This is exactly my point. There is no reason that I could not lead a meaningful and rich life in a world where killing or even hurting another person was as restricted from my array of choices as lifting off by flapping my arms is in this reality.
And in fact many Christians believe the world was like this once. How many times have I heard Ken Ham say that before the fall there was no death. What happened to an ant in the garden of Eden if Adam stepped on it by accident if Ken Ham is right? Clearly it would not have been hurt by any action Adam could take.
itsjustameme
Very pleased to hear you wont be eating your daughter. You didnt answer whether you consider love a restriction on your free will.
I dont support the christian myths; but I think your arguments are just as flawed as theirs.
I find the arguments of Plantinga et al to be utterly banal & trite rationalisms; as if logic were Truth.
In my opinion, Alvin has it a little backwards. A theodicy is *exactly* what he describes a defense as. The driving motivation for a theodicy is to explain why there isn't a contradiction.
In ANY case, there is no answer. It's not logically possible. The Problem of Evil has no solution. This is trivial and obvious. It boggles my mind that this has been being discussed for thousands of years.
Wanna defend the logical problem of evil?
AcidRain64 "In ANY case, there is no answer. It's not logically possible." - Prove.
Djonatan K. Been done a million times over. Google, you'll find many proofs.
AcidRain64 Sorry, I have done this. It may be argue that the Evil represent a good argument to not believe in God, however, don't have a LOGICAL CONTRADICTION in the existence of God and evil.
Djonatan K. It is a quintessential example of a logical contradiction! I'm not sure why it is so hard for people to wrap their heads around, it's about as basic as it gets. It is like saying "2+2=4, AND 2+2=5"! The two statements cannot both be true, for that would be a logical contradiction. Such is the case with God as defined in The Problem of Evil. Other gods may exist, but the one defined in the problem cannot.
God warns us in his scriptures that sinning will cause us to suffer. Hoping that we will use our free will correctly, and avoid our suffering, he allows us our free will, and he also grants us all of our sincerely held desires. Unfortunately for us, it is our own desires and actions that cause us to suffer, even though God has given us full instructions on how to avoid the desires and actions that bring about our suffering.
No, the fact that we suffer does not mean that God doesn't exist -- it just means that we have made bad choices, against God's good advice.
YOU WILL NEVER KNOW.....Until you start SERVING GOD.
He is a genius
No one needs to disprove god! There is no proof for a god!
Good luck trying to get around the problem of infinite regression, the fine-tuning of the universe, the fact that something cannot come from nothing, and Aquinas’ 5 ways
Beings subsist in this physical realm by devouring other beings. That fact alone undermines theistic belief systems.
How so? Is it evil that a lion eats a gazelle to survive? If you say yes, why?
@@medleysa It's evil to create a system imbued with such suffering. Imagine being eaten alive, or watching a loved one being eaten alive and being powerless to stop it? The very definition of evil.
What about natural disasters?
isn't he a calvinist?
Maybe you are talking in circles
Yes, there is a simple explanation. Imagine you have brought a child into the world and at some point
it no longer works as it should. It does bad things from your perspective and from other people's
perspective. For example, God created something as senseless as brain tumors in infants.
To keep someone or everyone from throwing your child in the trash can, you have to present your
obviously bad child's behavior in a better light. That's where theodicy comes in. And for that they
need many understanders of God.
The oldest trick in the book : we dont know, we won't even know one day, because we're so finite and god so infinite...
why are they talking about that whereas there are so many finite things that have a concrete and direct values ? I guess they dont even know themselves.
Anyway... thanks for at least showing us that St Augustin, Descartes and Spinoza have said it all, before us and better than us. These poor guys just didnt have internet and youtube...
--- La différence aujourd'hui surtout c'est parce qu'ils parlent anglais et non latin.
I'm wondering how natural evil fits into this equation.
RakeRocter I totally forgot about this comment. As of right now I would agree with you that the only thing that is evil is the human perception of what is evil.
Suffering/=evil
@@alpacamaster5992 not neccesarily. If you work out you suffer for a goal. Is that evil? A women chosing the pain of childbirth in order tot produce life. Besides It is clear that the Joy and beauty of life outweigh its malice and suffering. If not everyone would have killed himself. It would be absurd to conclude that death (evil) is better than life (good)
That is the common rebut to this. There is a need for more defenses, which there are, or at least people have attempted more defenses
No, Satan defied Adam; 'he is from dust, I am from fire. I won't prostrate to him'. Both got they had to have. Adam was sent to the earth. Evil had his perminant life. He wanted not to die. You see Satan in any human form who conform to it. But of course, you still need to have to have your special glasses on to see. That is Baseerat, you don't buy them anywhere; you develop them yourself. The way to develop those glasses for your eyes is to train all your senses. We call this process Akhlagh. The training comes from Mohammad(sa), himself. Many found it. Rumi was just one of them.
freewill eh? translation its my fault! oh okay you re re...
The self-serving, circular reasoning of theology is on full display here. Calling his argument "philosophy" is absurd.
Anything about "God" is sheer nonsense and has always been!
By that logic, your statement is one in which it refers to God, therefore about God.
Thus your statement is sheer nonsense.
@@EM-mp3bx About "God", you dipstick, that's totally different!!!
@@GeoCoppens How is it totally different? As above-mentioned, your statement "anything about God is sheer nonsense" is in itself a statement about God and thus self refuting.
"About" in our context would be defined as "On the subject of; concerning." Is your statement not on the subject of and of concerning God?
Yes it is. Therefore your statement is self refuting.
@@EM-mp3bx You still don't understand the difference between God and "God"! Are you trying to pose as smart or what?
@@GeoCoppens I understand the difference accordingly to how I interpreted your statement.
Though I am not sure if I have interpreted it as you have intended it to be interpreted.
So, feel free to clarify exactly what you mean.