Still not buying this.

If we have free will then we have the option to commit evil.

This doesn't necessitate that anyone actually have either the desire or ignorance required in order for evil to occur.

I don't think I'm being too presumptuous in saying that (according to Christian belief):
Jesus had free will
Jesus never committed an evil act

So I don't see how free will can be seen as a necessary consequence of free will.

I think the bolded is accurate, just that your conclusion doesn’t follow for most Christian theists.

“Though we can know that God is, we cannot know what God is.” –Augustine

A loose analogy to what Augustine is asserting would be to imagine experiencing a phantasm—you’d know that it is but not what it is, assuming it was unlike anything you’ve ever encountered or conceived of. Then, you’d go on to describe the whatness of your encounter apophatically (by negation) like “it was not like a personage, ghost, angel, etc.," because there's nothing (presumably) in existence or experience that it is like.

So what the heck is the bible all about then? We can't comprehend anything god does or is, possibly then we've been completely misinterpreting everything we've ever though we knew about anything to do with god. (And the same of course goes for all the other gods)

If that's true the result is utter Chaos as Christianity the world over falls apart.

I can't imagine the Pope saying, 'yep, got no idea what god is, we just made it all up until we've figured it out'.

Think about spiritual knowledge the same as science. We know lots of things about science, but there is lots we don't know.

There is lots we can learn about God from the Bible. However, there is much more to God that we won't understand now until we die and enter into the spiritual realm.

You mean his father didn't even tell him that he was going to be human sacrifice?

Wow... every time I learn something new about the Christina god it just reinforces how brutally cruel he is. How can a moral person worship such a cruel and vicious god?

It also avoids the problem of evil as a logical and evidential argument.

Alvin Plantinga claims that he has provided a solidly logical argument on behalf of an omnimax god who had to allow evil in the universe for the sake of permitting free will.

That only works logically, it seems to me, if you allow for freewill and a weird omnipotence that is not really omnipotent.

To sum up. Mr. Plantinga states that the omnimax god couldn't create a universe with true moral goodness without also allowing that universe to have free willed beings committing acts of evil.

Plantinga's argument doesn't work even logically, in my view, if you don't accept his view of God's limited omnipotence.

I submit that Alvin Plantinga throws away OMNIPOTENCE from the 3 omnis in order to salvage omniscience and omnibenevolence.

I haven't read Plantinga but is the "limitation" of omnipotence in the sense you are talking about really very different from questions about whether God could make it so that modus ponens isn't valid?

Ok. Assuming you love your mom. If you came home one day, and your mom had been grocery shopping, and cooking up a storm. If she showed you the fridge and the pantry filled with the best snacks and foods that you could imagine, all just for you and told you to help yourself to the food, it was yours! All of your favorites were there. Then there was just one package of food that she asked you not to eat, asked you to leave it alone, that ONE, was not yours. How hard would that be for you? Wouldn't you leave it alone out of love and respect for her? After all she gave you so much and asked for so little in return. Wouldn't you just leave it alone because you loved her and appreciated all of the great things that she provided for you to eat, and because seriously, you weren't lacking anything in the food department? And even if you were just really curious about it. wouldn't you simply just ask for a taste rather than taking it? Now compound this scenario with; what if she told you all of this food is for you, its yours, only just this one item, please don't eat it, I spilled poison on it and if you do eat it you will die. How hard could that be? Really it was a no brainier, especially if they had any love and respect for God. They were free to talk to him about it, because before they sinned, they could talk to God and he would answer them directly. Now the Bible says that Adam is the reason we were sold into slavery of sin and dying, even though Eve ate first. Because Eve was tricked but Adam was not. He knew it was an act of defiance and of lack of respect for God's right to give humans laws. That is why it was a sin for him to eat the fruit. Think about it, he saw that Eve ate and he deliberately joined her. Any human, if their small child ate poison, would call 911 or poison control. If that parent instead ate the poison too, what kind of love would that show for the child or, for themself? As long as the parent chose to get help for thee child rather than join the child in death, there would always be a chance that the child's life could be saved, but if the parent ate, that would be like throwing in the towel and committing both the parent and the child to certain death. Here Adam failed to go get Eve help. He could have gone to God and pleaded for her, yet refused to take the fruit himself. But instead, he failed miserably and failed to get her spiritual help with God and passed on sin to all of his children. That is why though people should be able to keep alive and youthful, we die usually of old age, though we have yet to even use more than 3 percent of our brain.

(1 Timothy 2:13-14) . . .For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14 Also, Adam was not deceived, but the woman was thoroughly deceived and came to be in transgression.

(Romans 5:12) . . .That is why, just as through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because they had all sinned. . .

If my kids ever eat the food with my name on it in the fridge. I shall hunt down their descendants and murder them all.

the fall changed the dna of man
and the earth degenerated with it

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devolution_(biology)

Ok, using your analogy let's assume you wouldn't touch it but your mom said that a very very very distant relative had done this thousands of years ago and you were still paying the price for it (and so would your offspring etc etc). That sounds pretty ****ed up to me.

What makes you think that?

Id not put poison food in the fridge.

I will quote his argument as understood by Original Position. I hope he doesn't mind.

The original post is on this thread:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/13...ument-1113489/

Can someone explain to me why this doesn't fail at condition No 2?

This guy is American right? So I'm assuming that his environmental influences were predominantly christian and that's probably why he's a Christian (wonder if he's ever applied his impressive intellect to THAT little nugget) but this logic should be applicable to any god/creator being. Seems to me like someone attempting to explain why there would be evil in a world made by god because it doesn't fit with how they think things should be.

How about:

1. It is possible that free-willed persons are such that they all choose to do some evil.
2. It is possible there are no gods and all our behaviour is the result of random interaction between a multitude of factors and has no meaning beyond that despite the fact that some people would dearly like it to in order that reality be easier to cope with.
3. er...

or:

1. God (of your choice) is twisted and cruel and made us capable of doing evil for the entertainment value.
2. er...

Equally valid IMHO.

If you start from the position of 'there are gods', you end up with the tortured logic of people like Plantinga as they struggle to make the facts fit the theory. Maybe if he started with a more open paradigm...

Oh come on. I mean its fine to say "i'm not very good at logic" but dont then try and critique a professuonal philosopher's use of logic.

Point 2 is an axiom. He is taking it as obviously true* (and will defend that position, if challenged). If you dont think its true then the argument wont convince you and nor should it. Similarly, the suggested axioms you provide will impress some and not others.

Axioms arent "valid" theyre just plausible or theyre not.

* assumin original position reconstructed it correctly.

I didn't say I wasn't 'good at logic', you're putting words in my mouth there, I said I wasn't 'equipped' in that I haven't studied it and don't know the relevant phrases and concepts but that's already changing.

Also, and you agreed with this, it doesn't invalidate my viewpoint. Tell me, who on this forum IS qualified to critique a 'professuonal philosopher'? (Your posts contain a lot of spelling and grammatical errors, is there a reason for that?)

I don't need to be a genius to see that Platinga is a Theist trying to justify what he would like to believe.

Not quite what I was hoping for. What I wanted was someone who HAS studied logic to explain the argument behind his being able to make that statement. Can you do that or are you just going to critique my critique?

Third try at a reply. Hopefully more civil than my previous attempts...
I shouldnt have used quotes but not knowing the relevant phrases and concepts is what i meant by being bad at logic.
Anyone who understands what they've said. If you dont "get" what a philosopher has put forth it is most probably a failure of comprehension rather than one of logic.
Spelling is due to stubby fingers and an ipad. I dont think i make many grammatical errors, although i do post as if speaking rather than as if i were writing.
No, thats definitely true and doesnt require a genius.
I have studied logic and i told you why he can make that statement. Axioms are things we accept without argument. They are his starting point.

There isnt much value in me trying to defend an axiom i find implausible when it was original position's attempt to summarise plantinga's view from memory. I cn see why people would think it was true, but i think a world of perfectly moral freely acting agents is possible.

If there's one thing I've learned very swiftly on this forum is that any vagary of expression will be pounced on. If I need to improve anything about my posting, it's how I articulate my concepts. If I have to use the phrase 'what I meant' again here, I'll consider it a fail.

Your statement "but i think a world of perfectly moral freely acting agents is possible." is not the same thing as "In order for a world to have moral goodness, it must have free-willed persons".

I find his axiom implausible too, that's why I was hoping someone could help to define the logic behind his being able to use it.

I get what he's saying. I may perceive the force as little as the utensil perceives the taste of the food but I still recognise self serving logic when I see it. The guy believes in the christian god and is seeking to explain evil in a way that god still comes out looking good, we have evil because he gave us free will. Awesome, god is still good and evil is explained, I can sleep easily again. Job done.

My suggestion that if there are any gods, that they might not actually be 'good' is equally valid IMHO and it's not based on an implausible condition either.

This is all very interesting but the more we discuss these side issues the further we're getting from my asking for help in understanding what logic may have support a professional philosopher to make an assertion like that. I may have to stop responding to you for a while but that's the only reason.

Okay.

I feel kind of bad about this, as I do seem to be part of a general pile-on here. But yeah, some people here are probably more careful in how they say things than they might normally be.

It is important in criticizing Plantinga's argument to realize what he's arguing against (this is something that wasn't clear in bunny's post). He is criticizing an argument against the existence of God called the logical problem of evil. This argument claims that the existence of the Abrahamic God is logically inconsistent with the existence of evil.

Thus, it is enough to defeat this argument if you show that these two things are not logically inconsistent. To do this, it doesn't matter if the premises you use are actually true, they only have to be possibly true. Thus, it doesn't really matter whether you think these premises are plausible (at least for this specific argument), but whether you think they are possibly true. Plantinga thinks that even the atheist should grant that (2) is possibly true (and he gives his reasons why) and that if you accept it and the other premises, then the logical problem of evil fails.

I think that actually omnibenevolence is the first one that Plantinga loses. He argues that god gives persons free will and gives them the best of all possible worlds to apply free will to, but free will means that he can't influence their actions and so they will sometimes do evil acts simply exactly on account of having free will. It's not just a personal character flaw, for god made man in his own divine image, instead, it's a flaw of free will. Let's apply this to god. Man makes only a limited amount of choices, some of his choices will be evil. God makes infinitely many choices, therefore he will make infinitely many evil choices, which makes god infinitely evil. Therefore, if evil actions are a function of free will, and god has free will and is infinite, then god can't possibly be omnibenevolent.

Omnipotence is the second to go. For Plantinga free will means that it's not determined, which is why he rejects compabitilism (the view that god could create a world so perfect that persons would never choose evil.). But if god is omnibenevloent then he is incapable of evil choices, which is a restriction upon his free will. Therefore if god is omnibenevolent then he can't have free will.

Indeed. Despite being my third attempt at a measured reply, I still wasnt able to get past "...his environmental influences were predominantly christian and that's probably why he's a Christian (wonder if he's ever applied his impressive intellect to THAT little nugget)".

Dont post angry...

The thing is is that he (boosh) does have a nugget of truth in there. Most people don't really think too deeply about what they've been taught. I, for one, blindly believe that having high cholesterol is bad. I don't worry about checking to see what cholesterol is, whether it might be something that doesn't really matter, or whether it might be good. I just trust that when the doctor says something about mine being high and that the cure is to eat a diet of nasty foods, he is right.

That is the state of most people in most things. That is as it should be. I don't have the time to worry about every little aspect of my life.

The huge problem with his line of thinking is that he doesn't recognize that a Christian apologist doesn't count as someone who hasn't examined their beliefs. They have. By definition.

He should learn how to be a better arguer against their positions if he wants to make a difference. Knowing that I have a scientific background and stating that that is why I am scientific doesn't have anything to do at all with whether I should be scientific.

He also neglects the data that some people are born into very religious households and eventually come to reject religion and that others do the opposite. That some people change religions. A few change religions nearly as often as they change hair styles. If everyone was only believing because of their upbringing, this could never ever ever ever happen. Since it does happen, it happens.

Also, if it were just a matter of what he thinks it is, he should be rejecting his own ideas. They are not his own, and are unreasonable by his own arguments.

Don't. I consider it a 'self improvement' and you've done it in a very calm and reasonable way.


Thanks.

Has he?

I just don't agree. Arguing specifics with Christians is the same to me as arguing whether or not Thetans prefer to wear blue or red shoes. Also, Christianity has had a very long time to develop answers to the most awkward questions and Christians have impossible to disprove catch-alls coming out of their ears. ~ON the subject of Deities, anything you imagine could be true, you can't argue against that.

Since I'm coming at this from the position of there actually being no god, I'm not interested in the discussing the specifics of something that most likely doesn't exist but I am curious about how people come to believe in the first place and there IMO lies the real weakness of any belief system, if it has one. Not the specifics, but why it exists in the first place.

I have to go out but I'll come back to this, it's the crux of my world outlook and I'll either persuade you in the end or be persuaded otherwise.