The Free Will Defense - Isn't it Unusable?

[Chas]

That's because there's a third proposition you've skipped over. You need to add "god is always good" in there.

Ok...

I grant your point.

The propositions:

P1. An Omnibenevolent God exists

and..

P2. Evil Exists

are not logically contradictory.

In defending this view, we would be delving into theodicies and theology, which means I would have to do a lot of teaching on Anselmian Perfect Being Theology and the attributes of God under such a view as the scholastics held.

In defending the view, a definition of "evil" would have to be given as well.

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But that god cannot be omnipotent and loving. One or the other, but not both.

I believe He can be both. My view is defended by the scholastics and theologians such as Aquinas, Anselm, and others.

Speaking strictly logically, and taking into account Anselms's conceptualization of The Greatest Conceivable Being, a being who can be both would be greater than a being who could only be one or the other. Therefore, God must be both omnipotent and loving.

I am unmoved bt St. Anselm's arguments. Just because one can conceive of something does not entail its existence. The argument is silly.

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Basically you would change the topic to try to put Atheists on the defensive. I've seen about a thousand of those discussions going in a circle on the internet and no matter how much the Atheist parties explain the discussion never seems to go back to the problem of evil and always gets sidetracked to Moral Relativism vs Moral Absolutism. It's the same every time. Besides it shouldn't really matter what Atheists think as evil, since the whole problem of evil revolves around what Theists think anyway.

For example, I as an Atheist aren't concerned as to why evil exists. It doesn't contradict with my beliefs at all, you'd expect some humans to act evil because the things we'd classify as evil (unwanted violence mostly) exist in every species.

The problem of evil is addressing the Theistic position. Where an Atheist believes morality or evil comes from is not relevant to the discussion. Once again it is not a discussion about the Atheist's beliefs.

The second big big objection I have to your post is about the objections to Christianity mostly being a misunderstanding of their doctrines. Christianity is not a single religion with a single doctrine. In fact it's thousands of different sects and cults and religions with an equal number of doctrines. It's impossible to know the doctrines of them all so I'm not sure about your own particular branch or brand of Christianity. Maybe I have serious objections and maybe I have minor ones, but you can't say that it's just a misunderstanding of Christianity because Christian thought is so diverse.

If an atheist argues that evil is evidence that the God of the Bible does not exist, then yes, it is relevant what the atheist thinks evil is. Afterall, they are the one presenting the argument.

The conspicuous problem with an atheistic/naturalistic view of reality, is that "evil" is simply a word used to describe certain actions or behaviors that are not conducive to the survival of a species. It all ultimately boils down to that one issue, for that is what nature is concerned with. But if every person that commits evil, is themselves, a by-product of evolution, then nature is the one responsible for producing entities that act in a way that we have been programmed to believe is not conducive to the survival of a species.

This was the line of reason used in the Leopold and Loeb trial by Clarence Darrow, for in his closing speech he remarks as to why the boys killed Bobby Franks:

"Why did they kill little Bobby Franks? Not for money, not for spite; not for hate. They killed him as they might kill a spider or a fly, for the experience. They killed him because they were made that way. Because somewhere in the infinite processes that go to the making up of the boy or the man something slipped...."

and...

"This terrible crime was inherent in his organism, and it came from some ancestor..."

Closing Argument
The State of Illinois v. Nathan Leopold & Richard Loeb
Delivered by Clarence Darrow
Chicago, Illinois, August 22, 1924

Darrow admitted the guilt of his clients but argued that forces beyond their control influenced their actions. Law professor Phillip Johnson describes Darrow's argument this way: "Nature made them do it, evolution made them do it, Nietzsche made them do it. So they should not be sentenced to death for it." Darrow convinced the judge to spare his clients. Leopold and Loeb received life in prison.

The following year, Clarence Darrow played a leading role in another "trial of the century." He defended John Scopes for teaching evolution in violation of a Tennessee law.

So we see from the above that if we take the naturalistic/Darwinistic view of evil as simply that which is descriptive of an act which is not advantageous to the survival of a species which a person commits as a result of being born with a certain chemical and physiological makeup that makes them more prone to certain acts, then the people that committed certain acts in the name of the God they worshipped were no different than the two boys who killed young Bobby Franks. They were simply acting in accordance with their particular physiological makeup given to them by nature. Their belief in God was a belief that encouraged and fostered their survival as a species which was itself the by-product of socio-biological pressures, and they acting in accordance with their pre-determined beliefs were simply them dancing to their DNA.


But I am willing to wager, if I were a betting man, that some of the very atheists here will hesitate to agree with this conclusion. For inherent in the general understanding of an act being evil is the idea of moral culpability....i.e. that one could have chosen not to do a certain act, but did it anyway and at the expense of another person's welfare which would make the act an evil act or a wrong thing or bad thing to do.

But since for an act to be evil, the one committing the act must be morally culpable, then how can we really call anything evil if we are not morally culpable?

No, Darrow was not making a 'slave to DNA' argument, and was not referring to "pre-determined beliefs" - whatever those are.

He was referring to their lack of empathy, their inability to identify with their victim. They were lacking in their nature.