Monday, July 04, 2005

Conversations with Angie: Angie vs problem of evil, and Romans vs the butterfly efffect

Angie,

[deleting some stuff]

You said on the one hand that the problem I was addressing was not exactly your problem, but when you restated your problem, it sounded to me like it WAS your problem. You just characterize it a little differently.

The problem of evil states that God and evil cannot coexist. You state that God's character and evil cannot coexist. But the character you describe is the Christian idea of God. If God does not have the character traits you say are inconsist with evil, then the Christian God does not exist. The character traits you say are inconsistent with the existence of evil are character traits that the Christian God is supposed to have. If evil exists, then according to your reasoning, the Christian God does not exist. Maybe SOME God exists, but it's not the Christian one. Do you see what I mean?

I agree with you that the passage in Romans does not support the butterfly effect since it was God who subjected the cosmos to futility, not man's sin. I think the butterfly effect is a weak argument, but unless it can be ruled out as a possibility, the argument from the problem of evil is unsound. Or at least the deductive problem of evil is unsound, which is the one I've been addressing. But like I said in the previous email, there have been different version of the problem of evil by more contemporary philosophers, and I said I would go through those as well as the more contemporary theistic responses to the problem of evil. I just haven't got to those yet.

to be continued...

Conversations with Angie:  Is free will a good thing?

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