The Problem of Evil Proves that Perfect Gods do not Exist: wiploc vs. Adonael

[Alcyonian]

Start Date: Monday 12 May 2008

wiploc vs. Adonael

This thread has been set up for a formal debate between wiploc and Adonael who will debate the following resolution:

"Resolved: The Problem of Evil Proves that Perfect Gods do not Exist"

wiploc will affirm and Adonael will oppose. The debate will have 3 rounds, wiploc will go first. These are the parameters of the debate. (http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showpost.php?p=5316196&postcount=13) A Peanut Gallery (http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=243112) has been set up in Existence of God forum for the rest of us to comment on the debate.

Enjoy the debate!

-FD&P Moderators

[wiploc]

Round 1
Wiploc, for the Affirmative

The Problem of Evil Proves That
Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnibenevolent Gods
Do Not Exist

The problem of evil (PoE) in a nutshell: If god exists, why doesn't he fix things? Is it because he isn't strong enough? Is it because he isn't good enough? Is it because he isn't smart enough? If god existed, and if he were smart, strong, and good enough, then he would fix it so that people didn't suffer. But people do suffer, so we know that no all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good god exists.

Evil: I usually go last in these debates, so I use whatever definition of "evil" my opponent uses. The PoE doesn't depend on any particular definition of evil. If evil were peanut butter, then the existence of peanut butter would prove that there is no omnipotent, omniscient, omni-anti-peanut-butter god.

This time I'm the affirmative, so I'll offer my definition, what I understand evil to be. But the PoE doesn't depend on my definition. It works equally well with any other definition, so long as good and evil are opposites.

Evil is unhappiness. More precisely , evil is the sources of unhappiness (stubbing your toe, running out of peanut butter, being cast into Hellfire), but we often extend the meaning to include the unhappiness itself. The problem of evil is often called the problem of suffering. So evil is unhappiness, or the causes of unhappiness. Good is happiness, or the causes of happiness. God's goodness or benevolence would be his causation of happiness or his desire for us to be happy.

Evil is distinguishable from sin. In Genesis, Eve's sin consisted of doubting and disobeying god. Evil was the punishment for sin (weeds, pain during childbirth, having to work hard for a living, and all other sources of unhappiness).

Omnipotence: True-omnipotence could create anything at all, including square circles and married bachelors. We cannot logically discuss a god who violates logic, so the "omnipotence" I'm discussing is punk-omnipotence, the ability to do anything except violate logic.

Omnipotence could create a world without evil. There is no logical contradiction---no square circle---in a world without evil, so it follows that an omnipotent god could create such a world.

Omnibenevolence: Benevolence, goodness, opposes evil, wants to eliminate evil. Omnibenevolence always, strongly, infinitely, totally, and unconflictedly wants to eliminate evil.

Omnibenevolence would eliminate evil if it could.

Omniscience: An omniscient god would know everything, including the future (What will happen tomorrow?), including alternative futures (what would happen tomorrow if I had made it rain last Thursday?), including all worlds he could have created and all interventions he could have made (What would happen tomorrow if I had started us off with Solomon and Ruth rather than Adam and Eve, had never put that stupid tree in the garden, and had tempted Ruth as a flatulent hedgehog rather than as a leggy serpent?).

The PoE again: An omnibenevolent god would eliminate evil if it could, and an omnipotent god could. If there were an omnibenevolent omnipotent god, then there would be no evil. Adding omniscience eliminates the possibility that god has the power to eliminate evil but is too stupid to use it, or that he has the desire to eliminate evil, but doesn't know people are unhappy. ("What if I have them cut off the ends of their dicks … maybe that will make them happy?")

An omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent god would eliminate evil. It follows therefore, that, if evil exists, there is no such god. Evil does exist. Therefore:

Conclusion: We know for a fact that the tri-omni god does not exist.


Elements of the PoE:

There are only five:


God is omnipotent;
God is omniscient;
God is omnibenevolent;
Evil exists; and
Logic works.

Therefore, there can be only five relevant "defenses":


God isn't omnipotent;
God isn't omniscient;
God is not omnibenevolent;
Evil doesn't exist; and
Logic doesn't work.

I've seen all five used. None of them work---not has a chance of working---because each one amounts to a concession that the PoE is correct.

The PoE says that the tri-omni god does not exist. If you say that god isn't really omnibenevolent (or omnipotent, or omniscient), then you are agreeing that the tri-omni god does not exist. If you say logic doesn't work, then you are admitting that it is illogical to believe in the tri-omni god. And if you say that nobody is unhappy, you are committing a linguistic impossibility, admitting, in effect, that, since neither facts nor logic are on your side, you have therefore taken refuge in random gibberish.

Since any straightforward response to the PoE amounts to a concession, it has been my experience that the art of defending against the PoE consists almost entirely of not realizing (or at least of concealing from one's audience) what one has given away. For instance, unknown-purpose defenders are at pains not to realize that---when they say god has more important things on his mind than fighting evil---they are conceding that god isn't really omnibenevolent. And free will defenders affect not to notice---when they say god can't do two things at once (have free will and eliminate evil)---that they are saying god isn't really omnipotent.

If evil exists, and it obviously does, the tri-omni god cannot possibly exist.

[Adonael]

Wiploc states that “so long as good and evil are opposites”, then the PoE can operate on any definition of evil. This is untrue. For instance, if we were to define evil (as many do) as a necessarily existing opposite of good, then wiploc’s PoE will surely fail. It would fail because a necessary existing evil is an evil that must exist in all possible worlds and thus there is no possible world without evil. Accordingly, any world that God exists must also have evil.

Moreover, wiploc defined evil as the source of unhappiness but that does not tell me what evil is or even why unhappiness is an example of evil. For wiploc, it seems that unhappiness just is evil and the definition of evil is just as good as any “so long as good and evil are opposites.” So, what is goodness? Wiploc states:“[g]ood is happiness, or the causes of happiness”. However, wiploc’s predication merely reaffirms the oppositional status of good and evil. So we have yet to hear what evil or the good is. Readers should note that my point of inquiry is not to hand wave or needlessly complicate manners. Instead, I am aiming to assess the coherency of evil within a Godless world. After all, if the good is the cause of happiness, then what of those who are happy when they rape, murder or molest children? Surely, wiploc’s definition will not do.

One of wiploc's examples of unhappiness was that that we stub our toe. A necessary part of the logical problem of evil is that no evil is compatible with God. Since wiploc believes that stubbing our toe is an example of evil, then, for wiploc, that we stub our toe is logically incompatible with the existence of God. I found this position humorous. For, even if all the present and future evil within the world were nonexistent in exception to the occasional sting from a toe stub, then wiploc will still hold that the logical PoE successfully disproves God’s existence...from a toe stub!

Yet, on a serious note: why does perfect goodness would require the wish that we have no pain at all? Wiploc did not say why. Rather we are to merely assume such a standard is true (not just true but necessarily true) but I see no reason to grant wiploc such a privilege. Wiploc needs to argue why God’s perfect goodness (along with God’s other omni traits) would necessarily demand that we experience no pain at all. Otherwise, we just have wiploc’s baseless injunctions about what perfect goodness (along with God’s other omni traits) would entail.

Finally, wiploc is under the impression that since there is no logical contradiction between having a world with no evil, then it “follows” that a world without evil is logically possible. In response, I ask: Is goodness a contingency too? I ask this question because wiploc has no problem stating that evil is a contingency because there is no contradiction of a world sans evil. Yet, on the same note, surely wiploc will agree that neither is there a contradiction in a world without goodness. Thus, for wiploc, it is possible that the good does not exist.

In fact, for wiploc, since there is no logical contradiction, there is a possible world just like ours but without the existence of goodness and obligation. Thus, in that possible world, there is no moral condemnation or obligation against rape or child molestation. Why? This is because there is no logical contradiction within the denial that “child molestation is wrong” or “you morally ought not molest children.” In fact, there is no logical contradiction within the claim that “you morally ought to rape” and so, that, too, is possible. In response to my claims, wiploc may protest with his earlier definition that evilness is unhappiness and rape will always cause unhappiness. Therefore, rape is evil. Here, though, wiploc would be confusing logical necessity to psychological necessity. This is to say that the unhappy response to rape is, at most, a psychological necessity and not a logical necessity.

So, where am I going with all of this? It is simple: wiploc needs objective and necessary standards for goodness. This is because wiploc wishes to attribute actions to God based upon what must be the case if God is tri-omni. Yet, wiploc wishes to determine the logically possible with what can be denied or affirmed without logical contradiction. The problem is that this would also include the possibility of moral claims to obligation such like “You morally ought to rape” and morally descriptive claims like “Child molestation is morally good” because it their denials do not lead to contradictions and also because unhappiness is not a logically necessary response to rape or molestation. Likewise, it would also apply to claims like “God would eliminate all unhappiness because God is tri-omni”. Why? I say again: For wiploc’s argument to function, the characterization of obligation and the good must be necessary. It is this necessariness of what the good entails that allows wiploc to state that there is a logical contradiction between unhappiness and God. Otherwise, God and unhappiness can possibly coexist and wiploc’s case has failed. But, alas, for wiploc, this necessariness is exactly what his argument lacks. This is because, for wiploc, the claims to what constitutes goodness and obligation, like evil, are mere contingencies. Therefore, these claims cannot be treated as if God must logically abide by them in all possible worlds because they do not extend to all possible worlds.

[wiploc]

Round 2
Wiploc, for the Affirmative

The Problem of Evil Proves That
Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnibenevolent Gods
Do Not Exist

In my first post, I established that if a god were omnipotent, he could eliminate evil. If he were omniscient, he would know how to eliminate evil. If he were omnibenevolent, he would want to eliminate evil. If he were all three of those things, there would be no evil. Since there is evil (unhappiness) it is clear that there are no omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent gods.

I don't see that Adonael has disputed this, so I'll let this statement of the problem of evil stand.


That leaves me 900 odd words in which to address Adonael's comments, even if I don't see their relevance to the resolution: "The Problem of Evil Proves That
Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnibenevolent Gods Do Not Exist."


Necessary evil:

Adonael suggests that many people define evil as "a necessarily existing opposite of good." I'm skeptical. If such a person witnessed someone causing unhappiness by genocidally raping babies to death for fun, she wouldn't see that as evil. It wouldn't be necessary, so, according to her definition, it wouldn't be evil.

In any case, you can't define necessary evil into existence any more than you can define a necessary god into existence. And if you could, it would prove that god is necessarily not tri-omni. Thusly:

P1: A tri-omni god would eliminate evil. (Per the PoE.)
P2: Evil exists in all possible worlds. (Evil is necessary.) Therefore,
C: In no possible world is there a tri-omni god.


What is evil really:

Evil, as I have defined it, is anything that makes people unhappy. I mean that, but I don't think Adonael believes me. (He's not alone. Many people assume I am trying to re-describe some other meaning of the word "good." I'm not.) He conflates pain with unhappiness, but sometimes we stub our toes (or get raped) without being unhappy. He points out that rape makes rapists happy, which, I assume, is sometimes true. Rape is, according to my definitions, both good and bad: it makes people both happy and unhappy. A tri-omni god would fix that. Either there would be no rapes, or rapes would only make people happy. Perhaps he would match up sadists with masochists. Perhaps he would teach young would-be rapists other routes to happiness. It's not my responsibility to know how an omniscient god would go about eliminating unhappiness, if he even wanted to. An omnibenevolent god would want to. An omnipotent god would be able to.


Godless evil:

Adonael says he is "aiming to assess the coherency of evil within a Godless world." It happens that I am a strong atheist, but that has nothing to do with this debate. The PoE only disproves the existence of one category of gods; that leaves plenty of others. And my concept of evil is, I believe, a traditional Christian one.


The obligations of goodness:

Adonael, like Plantinga, asks why an all-good god would have to try to make people happy. He wouldn't have to. But if he didn't then he wouldn't be all-good. Water isn't obliged to dampen things because we call it wet; we call it wet because it dampens things.

In other contexts, people often mean other things when they talk about the "goodness" of god. People can call god good without meaning that he is good to anybody or good for anything. They can call god good in self-referential recursive way: god is good because what god likes is good, and he likes himself. And they can call god good in frankly non-cognitive ways: "He's mysteriously good, alright? It doesn't mean anything, but he's good."

None of that has to do with the PoE, or at least with my version of the PoE. I define omnibenevolent as desiring (strongly, infinitely, purely, unconflictedly desiring) people to be happy. And I prove absolutely that no such god exists who is also omnipotent and omniscient.

A tri-omni god isn't obligated to want to eliminate unhappiness---but a god who doesn't want to eliminate unhappiness isn't tri-omni.


Contingent goodness:

Yes, there are possible worlds in which nobody is happy.


Quotations:

Adonael says,
In fact, for wiploc, since there is no logical contradiction, there is a possible world just like ours but without the existence of goodness and obligation.
.
I never said this, and it does not follow from anything I said. How would a world be just like ours if nobody was happy? Obligation is a state of mind, a belief. How would a world be just like ours if nobody had such a belief?



For wiploc’s argument to function, the characterization of obligation and the good must be necessary. It is this necessariness of what the good entails that allows wiploc to state that there is a logical contradiction between unhappiness and God.

.

"Obligation" is no part of the PoE. I suspect that Adonael is conflating evil and sin, goodness and virtue.

The contradiction is between the existence of a thing (in this case, evil) and the existence of someone all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-determined-to-eliminate-that-thing. You cannot logically have both the thing and such a person---regardless of whether the thing is necessary. The PoE nohow depends on the necessariness of the thing.



It is this necessariness of what the good entails that allows wiploc to state that there is a logical contradiction between unhappiness and God.

.

Wrong. I was perfectly clear that the PoE works with any definition of good and evil so long as they are logically incompatible. Necessariness doesn't come into it.

An all-powerful god could eliminate X.
An all-knowing god would know how to eliminate X.
An all-anti-X god would want to eliminate X.

Nowhere is there a requirement for necessity.

[Adonael]

Some (not all) of Wiploc’s Misunderstandings

Wiploc opens his statement with a claim that I did not dispute the premise that God would eliminate evil. If by “dispute” wiploc means “deny”, then this is true. I merely questioned that premise and asked for its support because wiploc provided none. While I did not deny the premise, I did not agree with it and I demanded its support.

So, what was wiploc’s support? In my view, wiploc has not provided any support. Wiploc replied that God is not morally obligated to rid all evil. Rather, God just would rid all evil because God is tri-omni. In other words, God would not because there is a moral obligation, but instead God would rid all evil because it is God’s nature. However, this does not answer my initial question:
...why does perfect goodness would require the wish that we have no pain at all? Wiploc did not say why. Rather we are to merely assume such a standard is true (not just true but necessarily true) but I see no reason to grant wiploc such a privilege. Wiploc needs to argue why God’s perfect goodness (along with God’s other omni traits) would necessarily demand that we experience no pain at all.

Wiploc cannot respond to my question with “God would rid all evil because that’s the nature of a tri-omni being” without begging the question.

Wiploc’s Poor Argument

Wiploc offers the following argument:
P1: A tri-omni god would eliminate evil. (Per the PoE.)
P2: Evil exists in all possible worlds. (Evil is necessary.) Therefore,
C: In no possible world is there a tri-omni god.
P2 grants that evil’s existence is necessary. In modal logic, P2 is translated: □E. Moreover, in modal logic, when you state that □E, then you are stating that it is impossible for evil to non-exist. This is because □E is logically equivalent to ~◊~E. And, ~◊~E translates to: it is not possible for evil to not exist.

The problem is that wiploc defined God as a being that can only do what is logically possible:

Omnipotence: True-omnipotence could create anything at all, including square circles and married bachelors. We cannot logically discuss a god who violates logic, so the "omnipotence" I'm discussing is punk-omnipotence, the ability to do anything except violate logic.
But, if it is logically impossible for evil to not exist, then God could not rid evil because God can only do what is logically possible! Thus, there is an irreconcilable confliction in wiploc’s definition of omnipotence and that evil necessarily exists. Wiploc’s argument fails.

Wiploc’s View on What is Logically Possible

In my previous response, I stated what wiploc’s position would permit:
In fact, for wiploc, since there is no logical contradiction, there is a possible world just like ours but without the existence of goodness and obligation.

Wiploc denied the truthfulness of my above statement. But, the basis for my quoted claim is that wiploc explicitly stated that something could be deemed logically possible because there is no contradiction within its affirmation. You can see wiploc’s statement for yourself:

Omnipotence could create a world without evil. There is no logical contradiction---no square circle---in a world without evil, so it follows that an omnipotent god could create such a world.

Accordingly, we can also note that there are no contradictions within the affirmation that “rape is morally good” and thus if we use wiploc’s reasoning, then it “follows” that in some worlds “rape is morally good”. The same can be applied to any descriptive claims to including “that we suffer is morally good”. Wiploc could respond with the claim that suffering causes unhappiness and hence is evil, but that is only a psychological necessity and not a logical necessity. The point is that it is then possible that God could possibly co-exist with two facts that are deemed, by many, to be evils: rape and suffering. Wiploc replies that rape is both bad and good. Yet, he also speaks of good and evil being logical incompatible[1]and thus it seems as though wiploc is being inconsistent.

Anyways, let us put rape and suffering aside and examine unhappiness. Can God co-exist with unhappiness? Wiploc is under the impression that evil or unhappiness is incompatible with God. This impression owes itself to both that evil can be rid of and that would want to rid evil. Yet, why would God want to rid evil? Wiploc replies that this is what omni-benevolence demands. I see no given reason to accept wiploc’s reply and as I had accentuated earlier, wiploc approaches the fallacy of question begging by assuming that the extinguishment of evil is what perfect goodness demands.


I may also note that there is no explicit contradiction within the denial of the statement “a perfectly good being would want to extinguish all unhappiness” and thus there is (prima facie) no good reason to think “a perfectly good being would want to extinguish all unhappiness” is logically necessary. If we have no good reason to believe that the “a perfectly good being would want to extinguish all unhappiness” is logically necessary, then we have no good reason to believe that it is a statement that is true in all worlds. If we have no good reason to believe that the statement is true in all worlds, then we have no good reason to believe that the statement is NOT possibly true in any world. And, finally, if we have no good reason to assert that it is NOT possibly true in any world, then the logical PoE fails to prove its point. The logical PoE would fail because the logical PoE would leave the possibility open that God would not want to rid all evil.

----

[1] Wiploc: “I was perfectly clear that the PoE works with any definition of good and evil so long as they are logically incompatible”

[wiploc]

Round 3
Wiploc, for the Affirmative

The Problem of Evil Proves That
Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnibenevolent Gods
Do Not Exist

One of my writing teachers once said that the best thing about writing workshops is that you get to learn what other people think you wrote. I want to congratulate Adonael and the unusually good peanut gallery for really letting me know where I was unclear or misleading.

Evil:

Let me drop, for the time being, my claim that the PoE works with any definition of "evil" so long as it is the opposite of good. I define "evil" as, "human suffering or unhappiness, or the causes thereof."


Good:

And "good" is "human happiness, or the causes of human happiness."


Benevolence:

God's benevolence is his desire that we be happy. That's my definition. That's what I mean when I call god benevolent. If god is good, he is, by definition, a cause of human happiness. If god is benevolent, he, by definition, wants us to be happy.

Adonael still doesn't believe this. He keeps asking how god's benevolence entails him wanting people to be happy. But god's benevolence is his desire for people to be happy.


The PoE:

There are no gods who

have the power to make people happy,
are smart enough to know how to make people happy, and
really really want people to be happy.

That's bulletproof. It cannot be disputed.

And it's my case. It's all I'm saying.


Appropriate Response:

Perhaps Adonael will say, "Well, if that's all you're saying, then of course you are right---but, that's not what I mean when I say god is 'good.'" And then he can offer his definition of goodness, and we can investigate whether a god of that type might possibly exist. (We might even want to extend the debate again in order to do so. Or we might prefer to discuss it in the peanut gallery.)

What I won't settle for is an undefined meaning of "good." People often undefine the word in order to evade the PoE, saying, in effect, "God may not be good to anyone, and he may not be good for anything, but he is still good---in some unknown sense." That is not a defense against the PoE, it is a retreat into incoherency.

Which is why Adonael's question, "Yet, why would God want to rid evil?" wants elaboration. He's obviously not talking about the same good and evil that I am. What is he talking about? I invite him to grant that the PoE works with my definitions, and then to offer his own alternative definitions.


Necessary Evil:

Evil is not necessary. I never meant to grant that evil is necessary. I repudiate any suggestion that evil is necessary.

Clearly there are possible worlds without unhappiness. Therefore, equally clearly, evil is not necessary.

Even if we were to define "evil" in other ways, it still wouldn't be necessary unless we defined it as something common to all possible worlds. What would that look like? Perhaps, "'Evil' is 'possible,'" or, "'Evil' is 'a world,'" or, "'Evil' is 'existence itself.'" In other words, we would have to distort the meaning of the word "evil" so much that it would have nothing to do with the PoE as we know it.

If we did thus redefine "evil," might the PoE still work? Sure.

P1: If god were strong enough to eliminate the world, and if he were smart and knowing enough to eliminate the world, and if he really really wanted to eliminate the world, then there would be no world.
P2: There is a world. Therefore,
C: No such god exists.

The PoE might still be bulletproof.


Adonael's moral claims:

Adonael says that, unless the immorality of rape is necessary, there must be possible worlds in which rape is moral. The truth of this claim depends entirely on what we get when we unpack the concept of morality. As a utilitarian, I can agree that there are possible worlds where rape is good---because there are possible worlds where rape makes everybody happy.

If Adonael insists that "rape" refer to sex acts that make people unhappy, then he has a square circle, a logical contradiction. It is not logically possible to have a world in which rape is both moral and immoral, in which it effects both a net increase and a net decrease in happiness.

Adonael may not be a utilitarian. He may have intended some other morality. That's for him to say, but I can't respond until he does say.


Incompatibility of good and evil:

Rape is somewhat good (it makes some people (rapists) happy) and it's very evil (it makes lots of people very unhappy). So in what sense are good and evil incompatible? In the sense that they are opposites. It is not a logical contradiction for an elevator to go both up and down, but it can't do both at once. It is not a contradiction for an air conditioner to blow both hot and cold, but the net effect cannot be both hot and cold.

My point, when I insist that the PoE will work for any definition of good and evil so long as they are opposite (a claim, note, that I have at least temporarily withdrawn) is that if we defined good as fast and evil as wet, then the PoE would not work: the existence of wetness would not prove that an all-fast god did not exist.

[Adonael]

Wiploc’s Definition of the Evil


As you can probably tell, the implications of wiploc’s argument are absurd. We can say that wiploc’s implications are absurd because we know that some acts are good or evil irrespective to the psychological reactions they can create. For instance, child molestation can be evil irrespective to the suffering or unhappiness that child molestation can produce. This is because a basis for the evilness of child molestation can rest sorely in it being a sexual act without informed consent. Thus, we have:


If “unhappiness or suffering” means “evil”, then “Child molestation is evil” logically entails “child molestation is unhappiness or suffering”. (E→□(C→U))
“Child molestation is evil but child molestation is not unhappiness or suffering” is consistent. ◊(C&~U)
Therefore, “unhappiness or suffering” does not mean "evil". ~E


Allow me to show you its validity:


(E→□(C→U))
◊(C&~U)
Assumption: E
□(C→U) (MP 1,3)
W: (C&~U) (from 2)
W: C (simp, 5)
W: ~U (simp, 5)
W: C→U (from 4)
W: U (from 6 and 8)
W:~E (from 3; 7 contradicts 9)



As a result, we can throw out wiploc’s definition of evil.


Wiploc’s Conception of the Good

I asked for wiploc’s reason why perfect goodness would compel God to eliminate all evil. Wiploc replied (in his first response) that it is within God’s nature as a perfectly good being. In other words, wiploc stated that necessarily, perfect goodness would entail God eliminate all evil because necessarily, perfect goodness entails that God would eliminate all evil. Yet, this is circular reasoning.

In his latest reply, wiploc revisits this same issue with:


Adonael still doesn't believe this. He keeps asking how god's benevolence entails him wanting people to be happy. But god's benevolence is his desire for people to be happy.
First, I did not raise scepticism that God’s benevolence entails God wanting people to be happy. I raised scepticism that God’s benevolence entails God ridding all evil. You could reply that since you defined evil as unhappiness, then my raising doubts about God ridding all evil is equivalent to me raising doubts about ridding all unhappiness:


1.~Ba(God wants rid all evil)
2. Evil=unhappiness
3. ~Ba(God wants to rid all unhappiness)

This assumes that I agree with 2, but I don’t and I have stated why.


Wiploc further states on the same issue:

“..."Yet, why would God want to rid evil?" wants elaboration. He's obviously not talking about the same good and evil that I am. What is he talking about? I invite him to grant that the PoE works with my definitions, and then to offer his own alternative definitions.”

Wiploc still has not defended his assertion, has he? Instead, wiploc continues to reassert that his conception of what the good would entail that God would eliminate evil and wiploc does so without a shred of given reason. For wiploc, it’s true by definition. If you ask wiploc to defend his definition, then you’ll get a repeat of the definition.

Wiploc, I’m sorry, but this is not proper argumentation.


You’ll also notice, contra wiploc, that I have not taken a position on some other good. I merely asked why it is that his conception of perfect goodness entails that God would eliminate all evil. Wiploc has failed to answer me on this and yet, somehow, incessantly reasserts that his PoE is “bullet proof”. How can it be said to “bullet proof” when wiploc has repeatedly failed to get the assumptions of his PoE off the ground?

[wiploc]

Round 4, Conclusion
Wiploc, for the Affirmative

The Problem of Evil Proves That
Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnibenevolent Gods
Do Not Exist

If evil exists, then there is no god who is
· strong enough to eliminate evil,
· knows enough to eliminate evil, and
· really really wants to eliminate evil.

That's the PoE. It's bulletproof. There is no possible refutation.

There are five possible relevantresponses:


concede that god isn't that strong,
concede that god isn't that knowing,
concede that god isn't all that keen on eliminating evil,
deny that evil exists, and
concede that belief in tri-omni gods is unreasonable.


Adonael's responses do not fit into the above categories. The PoE, therefore, has not even been challenged in this debate.

I call knowing everything by the name "omniscience." Some people respond to the PoE by saying that they don't believe in a god who knows everything; they believe in a god who knows everything except the future. And they use the same word, "omniscience," to describe that god. This is a perfectly clear and reasonable response to the PoE. They can concede that I have disproven the tri-omni (with omniscience defined my way) god, but there remains the possibility of a tri-omni god (with omniscience defined their way).

I give this as an example of a relevant response to the PoE. I don't have a problem with this kind of response. It is not obscurantist; it communicates what people believe.


I call wanting people to be happy by the name "benevolence," (or, sometimes, when I'm a little sloppier, I call it "goodness"). I call an unconflicted commitment to people being happy, "omnibenevolence." Adonael's response is to point out that words could have other meanings. That's true, but it's hardly the point. We could have this debate in another language, and it wouldn't change the fact that there is no god who

· strong enough to eliminate evil,
· knows enough to eliminate evil, and
· really really wants to eliminate evil.

I'm right about that. Once again, I invite Adonael to admit that I'm right about that. Because I am; I am obviously right.

We can also deal with Adonael's problem with the my language. He doesn't like me to use the word "good" to refer to human happiness or the causes of human happiness. So, what should we do? We could change the word, or we could change the definition. What word or definition would Adonael like? He won't say. Despite repeated invitations, he doesn't offer an alternative meaning for the word "good." No, he merely declines to accept my meaning. Does he want me to guess his meaning? Does he want me, within our thousand word post-limit, to state a version of the PoE that encompasses all of the dozens or hundreds of meanings of "good" found in the OED?

I don't know. I don't know what he wants. All I know is that he has declined to engage with my posts in a substantive way, and he has offered nothing substantive for me to engage with.

What's interesting is that, a different thread http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthread.php?p=5344819#post5344819 et. seq., he is getting the same treatment he's giving me, and feeling the same frustration he's causing me.

See his frustration:

… i dont understand why you'd reply to my argument with your reply to a different argument than mine.

Did you examine my second premise?
What, if i may ask, do you think it states?

what i meant was not to add on what my premises would entail. Just address the premises, as they stand, and as written by me.

A premise can work as a definition. It's not as if they cannot be both. Moreover, I'd take it that the second premise is true by definition.

One would think, since he stands in my shoes in that thread, that he would have sympathy for me in this thread. But, apparently, no.

crc

[Adonael]

Wiploc states:

That's the PoE. It's bulletproof. There is no possible refutation.

There are five possible relevantresponses:
• concede that god isn't that strong,
• concede that god isn't that knowing,
• concede that god isn't all that keen on eliminating evil,
• deny that evil exists, and
• concede that belief in tri-omni gods is unreasonable.

Adonael's responses do not fit into the above categories. The PoE, therefore, has not even been challenged in this debate.

It is true that did not refute the PoE, but that does not mean that there was no challenge. Remember, the debate resolution does not obligate me to refute wiploc's PoE; it only obligates me to illustrate its failure. Indeed, my approach within this debate has been to poke holes within wiploc’s version of the PoE. To do this, I need not to argue from a theodicy or some theological defence. Rather, I could and did just argue from a state of neutrality and scepticism. That is to say that I sat back without committing myself to a theodicy or a theological defence and accentuated the holes in his argument. If the holes that I accentuate kick the feet from underneath wiploc, then his PoE fails and it fails without offering a single theodicy or defence.


So, what were wiploc’s holes? Wipoc’s holes were his definitions and conceptions of what the good entails. This is the fulcrum of wiploc’s PoE. Wiploc thought he’d be able to cruise through this debate without supporting his definitions and conceptions. I won't allow it. In a formal debate, if your definitions or conceptions are questioned, then you are to properly defend them. Why this standard? Well, this works to help prevent people from making or believing untrue and even ridiculous definitions.


My Inconsistency?

Wiploc wishes to show an inconsistency on my part with quotes some other argument that I engaged myself in. First, even if wiploc is correct that I am being inconsistent, then this does not mean his definitions are in the clear. It only means that I must pick between my arguments given in this debate and in the other thread.

Secondly, wiploc is taking my statements from the other debate and takes them out of their context. I won’t entertain this strategy. My quotes were in response to objections towards whether or not definitions can be true (not if my definition was true) and whether the definition conjoined with other premises beg the question. Finally, the definition I speak of within that other thread is true by definition. You’ll notice that—no thanks to wiploc—the referent within the definition I spoke of was an unsurpassably great being. The definition was (minus the modalities) "if there is an unsurpassably great being, then that being is morally perfect, omniscient and omnipotent."Obviously, assuming the (com)possibility of all things mentioned, then it is true by definition. After all, its denial would negate the being’s unsurpassableness.

There’s not too much to add here, folks. I have shown wiploc’s case as insufficiently reasoned. Wiploc has failed to argue his definitions; wiploc has failed to support his conceptions (in a non-circular manner) of what the good entails and it was he who retracted an argument as false. This is all I need and more to prove my point: wiploc's argument within this debate has failed to argue its conclusion.

[George Hathaway]

Thank you both for participating in the debate. All the statements have been made. Commentary in the Peanut Gallery (http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=243112)

Regards,
George Hathaway
Formal Debate Moderator