Open Letter on Evil

[everythingafter]

[Captain Scarlet]

Indeed. The formal FWD of Platinga has been refuted esp the consistency of transworld depravity with gods attributes. But again this is a problem of theisms own making. The simpleexplanation for evil is that we are evolved animals who still have savage instincts living on a hazardous planet in a hostile universe. The reallycomplicated and hard to understand explanation is that we are the object of the design of an all loving god in a fine tuned universe etc. Mackie and others have argued that it is also consistent that god could have created a world without suffering and with free will. But for me the argument from theists centres around that we don't understand gods masterplan so we can't criticize. But god has clearly done it before by instantiating Eden and heaven as possible worlds where people freely believe in a world of no suffering. Finally the theistic defence works at least as well if not better if god was all evil creating a world where he urged people to evil but let them choose good. It's clearly a problem for theism and makes atheism more likely.