Not Convinced Determinism Makes Sense of Moral Responsibility. Convince Me It Does

[MindForgedManacle]

C.S. Lewis was an idiot. A good writer perhaps, but what I've read of his forays into philosophy have been dreadful in my opinion.

Now, I know you didn't direct that question at me - which can be summed up as "If naturalism (and evolution) is true, then doesn't that undermine the basis for rationally holding to the belief that naturalism is true?" - but I'd like to take a stab at it, because it's basically just Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism.

The simplest way I know of to answer that is that A = A, regardless of how A originated. Another way of going at it is to point out that it is the application of one's reasoning faculty that determines its capability to apprehend truth, not how it came about. If a calculator spontaneously appeared out of a quantum vacuum, yet still worked exactly as any other calculator, would its seeming miraculous origin actually matter in regards to its ability to solve mathematical problems? Of course not, that's a red herring fallacy. If it works, it works. To repeat, it's application, not originaion, that matters with things like this

And it rather confuses some thing about evolution, I think. The only way the argument can be consistent is to claim that being able to determine the truth about one's environment is not an ability that enhances a species ability to survive, which is self-evidently absurd.


Further, I could turn it around on theists: How do you know God is all-good (skipping the question of God's existence all together for the sake of argument)? Given he's omnipotent and omniscient, he could be an all-malevolent being who merely uses his infinite power to continuously fool you about everything via illusions and interfering with you having a functional capacity to reason. There's no way out of this, because God could merely interfere with your reasoning to prevent you from realizing this. Even if you asked him, he could lie and you'd be none the wiser. He could even make you miss or forget any contradictions between his word and reality.

See why this line of reasoning is pointless? I can always invent something that doesn't really tell you if it's true or not, despite being possible. Christian apologists really like their fatuous "Get out of Solipsism Free" card, not realzing it makes them look like tools. I don't aim this at you, but at people like Craig and Plantinga, who enjoy taking a dump on the discipline I've become interested in, as well as others like science and history.