The coronavirus pandemic has people asking about the problem of evil again. For anybody who has thought about the problem of evil, no new example of evil or suffering should change anything. Either the problem of evil has been solved or it hasn't. The new coronavirus doesn't add anything new to the discussion. If the Bubonic Plague or the Spanish Flu didn't disprove the existence of God, then neither does Covid-19. But I thought I'd make this post anyway and see if I can find all the posts I've made in the past on the problem of evil and list them here.
Alvin Plantinga's solution to the deductive problem of evil. I wrote this one when I was just trying to understand Plantinga's argument in God, Freedom, and Evil, so it may not be entirely accurate.
More on the problem of evil. This is a follow up post on the last one.
Can God actualize any possible world he wants? In this post, I made some corrections to my previous post on Plantinga's argument.
Omnipotence and the problem of evil. This is a short post explaining one point Plantinga made in his book.
What makes a counter-factual true?. I made this post after stumbling upon what I would later find out is a common objection to Molinism--the grounding objection--but I hadn't quite understood the objection yet.
Conversations with Angie: The Problem of Evil Stated. This is the first post in a series of posts I did on the problem of evil. I'm not going to link to every post in the series, but there are links to the bottom of each post to the next post in the series, so you can follow those. The last one is Conversations with Angie: Finally reconciling evil with God's goodness. This series is probably the most detailed discussion on my blog about the problem of evil. My thoughts on the topic have evolved, though, so this series isn't necessarily exactly what I would say today, though it's close enough I guess.
Conversations with Angie: Update on Alvin Plantinga. This corrects something I said about Plantinga's argument earlier. This conversations about Plantinga lasted for three posts, so see the links at the bottom of this post and the next one.
Does libertarian freedom entail the ability to do good or evil? This post isn't directly about the problem of evil, but it is relevant to the free will theodicy and the free will defense, which are responses to the problem of evil.
Feasible and infeasible worlds. This is also not directly about the problem of evil, but it is relevant to Molinism which, in turn, is used by Plantinga and others in their response to the problem of evil.
A quick and dirty response to the problem of evil. This was my effort to give a succinct response to the problem of evil. It tries to cover most of what is in the Conversation with Angie series, but in a very abbreviated way.
The value of resolving the intellectual problem of evil. This one gives a practical reason for dealing with the problem of evil before evil strikes, so it's pretty relevant to what's going on right now with Covid-19.
And that's it. It's possible that I might've missed a post or two, but that's most of them.
5 comments:
I agree that Covid-19 doesn't change things with regard to the POE.
You might recall that this and the problem of suffering have been topics I have thought about a lot too. I reread some of your arguments and was tempted to engage with you again over what I see as unresolved problems, but I wonder whether instead we could cut to the chase and agree something? That is, if the arguments and counters about these topics (POE, POS) are characterised as a contest, a fair appraisal of the outcome would be a draw.
You want me to agree to a draw? I can't tell whether you're joking or not. Do you honestly think it's a draw, or are you just saying we should call it a draw so we don't have to argue about it?
You're welcome to tell me what you think the unresolved problems are (although I think I can guess on at least one of them), but I don't really want to argue about it having spent a lot of time over the years arguing about it already. I have become lazy over the years. I joined this site called debate.org several years ago and got debating out of my system. I'm working on three books now defending Christianity and I hope that once I'm finished with them, I can release them to the public and never have to argue with anybody again. I'm just going to hit the "send" button and say, "I have spoken." But don't let that stop you from responding to anything on my blog. I'm still listening. I'm just engaging with people less.
I think I understand your stance. I too stepped back from debating online for a few years, partly as I said in another reply because I was busy with study, but also because I became weary of the kinds of unproductive dialogue that often ensued.
Debating with you was an exception to that, because you were unfailingly polite, thoughtful and informative. Even if we didn't agree, I felt that I learned something.
I wasn't joking, no. I have followed the arguments, defences and theodicies in great detail over the decades and I genuinely think it's a draw. I wondered whether you felt the same, or whether you find your arguments on this subject more convincing than the counters.
I admit that the resolution perhaps needs to be more fine-grained. for example, I might concede that the logical problem of evil is resolved, but disagree on where that gets you. However, having spent decades debating on this and reading the arguments on both sides, I really see no slam dunk.
Does that make sense?
Yes, that makes sense.
The problem of evil is resolved to my personal satisfaction. However, I am sympathetic to those who do not think it is resolved. I think it's perfectly understandable that somebody would see evil and suffering as an obstacle to belief in a perfectly good and loving God who is also omnipotent.
I think the logical problem of evil is a non-starter, but the evidential argument from evil is a real difficulty. Whether it suffices as an argument against the existence of God, I think, depends on your whole noetic structure. That's why it can seem more persuasive to some people than others. So although I am satisfied that God exists in spite of all the evil and suffering that goes on in the world, I don't think a person who disagrees with me is being at all unreasonable because their disagreement with me is due to their own noetic structure.
Yes, I think what you have said captures very well what I mean by 'draw'. An interesting question for me is how our respective noetic structures developed?
In any case, thanks for another interesting exchange. I hope you don't mind if I comment occasionally.
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