If you happen to know about evolutionary peaks, good. If not I will briefly try to explain it though it is best if you know about evolutionary theory.

An evolutionary peak is a possible genome in the vicinity of which there is no other more fit genome. All mutations that could happen would result in a less fit genome (i.e. genes that replicate less than the genes in the peak genome). If evolution reaches a peak, it will stay there as it does not ‘have foresight’ (or ‘sight’) to move down the hill to another and higher peak even if there is one relatively nearby. Evolution is blind. The genome is evolutionary stable once at the hill. This continues until a change in the environment happens and another genome becomes more fit. Then evolution continues to change the genome to whatever is more fit. It is rare that a mutation occurs and thus gives evolution an opportunity to evolve change the genome into a more fit one. Evolution takes lots of time. It is even more rare that multiple mutations arise at a time.

Consider now webs of belief. A person’s web of belief is the entirety of all his beliefs. A web of belief may be more justified/warranted/better than another web of belief for a number of reasons (simplicity, coherency, lack of contradictions, mutual support, etc.). A person may change (at will but not completely free at will) his web of belief by changing its parts, either one belief at a time or many beliefs at a time. It is rare that a person changes his belief, if it is in the middle of his web of belief (=connected with many other beliefs). It is even more rarely that a person changes a lot of beliefs at one time.

The analogy is this:

Part of evolution	Part of web of belief
Genome	Web of belief
Fitness	Justifiedness, warrantedness, goodness
Mutation	Change in belief
Evolutionary peak	The web of belief that is more justified than all other nearby webs of belief

Do you see the analogy? It is quite interesting I think. Similarly to evolution not having ‘foresight’/'sight’, most people do not have the necessary foresight/sight to see that another web of belief although a bit away from their current web of belief is better than their current one. And if they are at a peak or close to a peak, they will not move towards a higher peak if it is a bit away and they only change a few belief at a time. In a way it is rational to change one’s web of belief toward the nearest peak one can spot. Though ultimately it is more rational to try to spot the highest peak and then move towards it. But it is so hard to spot the highest peak (=discover which web of beliefs is the best), that we for all practical purposes cannot do so and thus stay near a local web of belief. Further, it is not humanly possible to discover with a high degree of certainty which webs of belief are the peaks and which are not. There is no known formula in which one can input all one’s beliefs (there are too many of them too) and in the output is the web of belief’s goodness rating.

But if we cannot do this with much certainty, how should we be able to say that another person has a worse web of belief than we have with much certainty? We cannot. Though we can do rough analyses and make somewhat justified claims about other people’s webs of belief. It is vary hard if not impossible for two rational and sophisticated people to discover which of them has the best web of belief. If their webs of belief are very different and are both near a local peak, then there is no way for one of them to move towards the other while continuously getting a better web of belief. He would need to change many/a lot of beliefs at once, and this very rarely happens. Arguments usually only change a single/small number of belief(s) in a person at a time. What would need to be done to change one’s web of belief so drastically, rationally, is an evaluation of all relevant arguments ‘viewed’ from both webs of belief. In the case of atheism/theism, doing so will take at least several years. It would be much better if one simply found oneself closer to the atheism peak to begin with (I did), or changed to moving toward the atheism peak without first moving towards the theism peak. But then, a person who happened to be a theist (because of, say, his parents) would most probably first move towards the theist peak than the atheist peak. That is the most rational way given a conservative principle like “change as little beliefs at a time as possible to continue gaining a better web of belief.”.

Still, given the above, I’m relatively sure that, say, a thomist (in fact it was a thomist that inspired me to write this essay) has a worse web of belief than I do and that the highest thomism peak is much lower than the highest atheism peak. But I should not claim much certainty about this.

Merely a translation of the danish version here.

Translation keys

Domains

D:x = things

D:y = things

D:t = moments

One variable predicates

Ex = x exists

At = the world was created at time t

Two variable predicates

Cxy = x created y

Three variable predicates

Kxyt = x created y at time t

Particulars

g = God

a = The world

n	English	Symbols	Explanation
1	God exists.	Eg	Assumption for reductio
2	That God exists, logically implies that God created the world.	Eg→Cga	Premise
3	God created the world	Cga	1, 2, MP
4	For all things and for all things, that a thing created another thing logically implies that there exists a moment such that that moment is before another moment at the first thing created the second thing at that other moment	(∀x)(∀y)(Cxy⇒[(∃t)(t<t1∧Kxyt1)])	Premise
5	There exists a moment such that that moment is before another moment and God created the world at that other moment.	(∃t)(t<t1∧Kgat1)	3, 4, MP
6	For all things there exists a moment such that that moment is before another moment and that thing created the world at that other moment, logically implies that there exists a moment such that that moment is before another moment and the world was created at the other moment.	[(∀x)(∃t)(t<t1∧Kxat1)]→[(∃t)(t<t1∧At1)]	Premise
7	It is not the case that there exists a moment such that that moment is before another moment and the world was created at that other moment.	¬[(∃t)(t<t1∧At1)]	Premise
8	There exists a moment such that that moment is before another moment and the world was created at the other moment, and it is not the case that there exists a moment such that that moment is before another moment and the world was created at that other moment.	[(∃t)(t<t1∧At1)]∧¬[(∃t)(t<t1∧At1)]	4, 5, conj.
9	It is not the case that God exists.	¬Eg	1-8, RAA

Some explanations to the premises

(2) is true when we are dealing with traditional monotheism. Traditional monotheism in the sense that there exists a God and God created the world.

(4) is reasonable when one considers it. If something is created at a moment by something else, then the first thing did not exist immediately before it was created by the other thing. There is at least one moment before a thing was created by another thing where it did not exist. That is what “created by” means.

(6) merely removes the creator so that the moment may be isolated.

(7) since time is a part of space-time and that space-time did not exist before the world was created, then there wasn’t a moment before the world was created. The world is here understood as the physical world in some sense that makes it possible that there is a non-physical world wherein God exists.

I posted this text a long time ago in Danish and I translated it and used it on the forum. I think I forgot to post the English version here as well. I apologize for the low quality English in the text.

-

I have earlier written a short article about why the stone-paradox not is a real paradox and therefore do not disprove omnipotent entities.

The paradox

The paradox is usually formulated thus:

Can an all-mighty [god, entity] create a rock so heavy that it cannot itself lift it? If it can, then it is not all-mighty and if it cannot, then it is not all-mighty. Given either outcome then the [god, entity] is not all-mighty.

Let us formulate the argument more explicit:

1. If god exists, then god is all-mighty.
2. Either god can a rock so heavy that he cannot lift it, or he cannot.
3. If god can, then he is not all-mighty.
4. If god cannot, then he is not all-mighty.
5. Given either outcome, god is not all-mighty. (2, 3, 4)
6. God does not exist (1, 5)

The problem

I claim that the problem lies with premise 3. It simply doesn’t follow that if god can create an object, which causes him to lose omnipotence, then he is not omnipotent. I will explain why later, let us now look at a similar argument which catches the problem mere clearly.

1. If god exists, then god is all-mighty.
2. Either god can remove his own all-mightyness or he cannot.
3. If god can, then he is not all-mighty.
4. If god cannot, then he is not all-mighty.
5. Given either outcome, god is not all-mighty. (2, 3, 4)
6. God does not exist. (1, 5)

It should be clear that premise 3 is false. If it in some way is not clear to you, then let me explain exactly where it goes wrong.

Actuality and potentiality – the root of the problem

All-mightyness is often defined as ‘can do everything’. This is too vague for us. Let us look at what one calls logical omnipotence (logical all-mightyness); one can do all which is logically possible. Logically possible is the weakest form of potentiality, because it just says that the thing is not self-contradictory.

If an entity can do all actions which are logically possible, then it can also create a rock so heavy that it cannot lift it. But this does not make it impotent; non-all-mighty. It is first when the rock becomes actual that the entity is no longer all-mighty. There being a possibility creation of a rock does not mean that it is created. Therefore there is a conflation of potentiality (can) and actuality (is) at the adherents to the argument.

I’ve heard that claim, but do you think it is true? I don’t.
All LPoEs (Logical Problem of Evil’s) can be seen as an inconsistent set of propositions. Here’s a really simple version:

Simple LPoE:
1. God is all-good.
2. God is all-powerful.
3. God is all-knowledgeable.
4. If god is all-good, all-powerful and all-knowledgeable, then there is no evil.
5. There is evil.

The above set of propositions is inconsistent, i.e. they cannot all be true; it is impossible that they are all true. But from the fact that a set of propositions cannot be true, it does not follow that any one of them are impossible.

It does not follow either, that if all but one of them are true, then the last is necessarily false; impossibly true. That would be to commit a modal scope fallacy. What does follow from all but one of them being true is that the last one is false. So, there is a confusion between:

1. If all but one of the propositions in an inconsistent set are true, then the last proposition is necessarily false.

2. Necessarily, if all but one of the propositions in an inconsistent set are true, then the last proposition is false.

So, given the above I don’t know why someone thinks that a sound LPoE establishes that god is impossible. For that to work, one would need to establish that evil is necessarily and I don’t think that is feasible. After all, if evil is necessarily, it is not god’s fault that there is evil, is it?

Atheism-Theism and Agnosticism – Definitions (PDF)

————–

Introduction

In this essay I will explore the two major competing nomenclatures concerned with the definition of atheism, theism and agnosticism. Then I will argue that the new nomenclature is to be preferred. Then I discuss various issues with atheism/theism and agnosticism.

After that I reveal a questionnaire that one can use to determine one’s position according to the new nomenclature. I also reveal a table that shows the beliefs of the positions according to the new nomenclature.

The two nomenclatures

There are currently two major nomenclatures that concern the definitions of atheism/theism and agnosticism though there are also other less used ones.ⁱ First, let’s explore the old one.

The old nomenclature

I call it the ‘old nomenclature’ because it is the one that it currently dominant in both the common population and in the book-form dictionaries although online dictionaries and lexicons list both of them.ⁱⁱ

The possible positions are according to the old nomenclature:

• Atheism means “the denial of the existence of God or gods.“ⁱⁱⁱ
• Theism means belief/faith in the existence of God or gods.
• Agnosticism means either “the belief that there can be no proof either that God exists or that God does not exist.”^iv or is the lack of belief “either way”.

This is how the terms are generally used in the old nomenclature. There are several competing versions of the old nomenclature.

The second definition of agnosticism is often not found in dictionaries but people use it, that is, they use “agnosticism”to mean “on the fence” or undecided about the question.

According to the old nomenclature there are three possibilities that one might be: an atheist, a theist and an agnostic. These are sometimes not mutually exclusive giving rise to joint positions such as agnostic theist and agnostic atheist.

The new nomenclature

I call it the new nomenclature simply because it is newer in origin than the old. It is getting more and more popular.

The possible positions are according to the new nomenclature:

• “Atheism” means the lack of belief in God or gods.
• “Weak/negative atheism” means the lack of belief ‘either way’.
• “Strong/positive atheism” means the denial of the existence of God or all gods.

• “Theism” means belief in the existence of God or gods.
• “Agnosticism” means either the belief that there is no knowledge about God or gods, or the belief that knowledge of God or gods is impossible.

This is how the terms are generally used in the new nomenclature. There are several competing versions of the new nomenclature.

Weak vs. negative and strong vs. positive

“Weak atheism” and “strong atheism” is more commonly used than “negative atheism” and “positive atheism” respectively, but I prefer the latter pair. “Weak” and “strong” has connotations about how strong the belief is, or to what degree that it is held, or perhaps that the evidence for the belief is strong or weak, and this confuses people. “Weak” and “strong” also has another meaning in logic where a system is said to be weaker than another system if all the well-formed formula that are provable in that system is a proper subset of the other system.

Likewise “positive” and “negative” also has irrelevant connotations. “Positive atheism” can be understood to mean making something positive out of one’s lack of belief in god, e.g. by going to atheist conferences etc..^v “Negative” atheism can be understood to mean that atheism has a negative valued influence on one’s life or something similar to that. However, “positive” and “negative” also have non-misleading connotations. With regards to definitions, as this is, a negative definition is sometimes said to be one that defines something as lack of other things. If we define “nothing” as “the lack of all things”, then the definition of “nothing” is negative. “Positive” is used to mean the opposite. These meanings carry over to the negative and positive atheism definitions sine negative atheism is indeed defined as the lack of something else, that is, belief and positive atheism is defined not as a lack of something.

Usage

The positive/negative distinction was or is used by philosophers such as Anthony Flew^vi and Michael Martin^viiviii and possibly more that I don’t know of. They see a lot of action on internet discussion boards.

Agnosticism and the three possibilities

According to the new nomenclature there are precisely two possibilities that one might be in relation to belief in God or gods: An atheist or a theist. Either one has belief or one hasn’t. An atheist is a person that has no belief in God or gods. A theist is a person that has.

Atheists come in two flavors, negative and positive. A negative atheist is a person who has no belief that God or gods exist, and no belief that God or gods do not exist. Note the difference between lacking a belief that God or gods exist, and believing that God or gods do not exist. More on this later. We may formalize the negative atheism position as ¬B(G)∧¬B(¬G), and the positive atheism position as B(¬G).

Why the new nomenclature is be to preferred

Why should we use the new nomenclature? I think there are multiple good reasons. First we should just note a couple of things we should desire from a nomenclature about something:

• Exhaustiveness. There are only the possibilities listed in the nomenclature.

• Exclusiveness. One can only have one position in the nomenclature.

• Clear definitions and an easy to use methodology.

I’ll argue that the old nomenclature fails on the second point and the third point, while the new nomenclature does not.

Clear definitions and exclusiveness

I think the old nomenclature is unclear. It is not easy to tell which position one has even if one knows the nomenclature. The difficulty is to find out whether, according to the old nomenclature, one is an atheist or an agnostic. How would one go about doing that? I suppose one could ask oneself: Is there any god belief in my mind? If the answer is ‘yes’, then one is a theist. But if the answer is ‘no’ what is one then? An atheist? An agnostic? Both? It is not clear whether these two categories are mutually exclusive or not. Some seem to think they are and some seem to think they are not. Confusion is all around.

Agnostics are sometimes said to be the ones that are “unsure” whether God or gods exist. What exactly counts as “unsure? It appears that that has to do more with psychological certainty than belief which is the topic. This is perhaps why many have argued against a straw man when trying to criticize atheism (in the old nomenclature). They thought that atheism implies that one is 100% sure that there is no God or no gods but this is a confusion, atheism does not imply that. Neither theism or atheism have anything to do with certainty or justification for that matter. Many theists and atheists alike do not have proper justification for their beliefs and some theists and atheists alike do have proper justification for their beliefs.

Sometimes atheists and agnostics have been seen as one group, perhaps because it is hard, if one accepts the old nomenclature, to distinguish between them. It seems that the public still holds this view. At least if we assume that polls are fitted to the people they are polling. Polls or statistics usually include a joint “atheist/agnostic” category.^ix

In my studies with ordinary non-philosophic people, which consisted of talking with them about whether they consider themselves atheists or theists or agnostics, most of them failed to distinguish between belief in not-p and the lack of belief in p. To be more clear: The question asked had the form: Do you believe that p? where “p” is any proposition (or sentence perhaps). They think that answering “Yes” implies that they believe in p (correct) but answering “No” implies that they have belief in not-p (incorrect). They fail to distinguish between non-belief in p and belief in not-p. They just mix them together. The problem is probably caused by a dumb language construction. Normally when we want to express that we believe that something is not the case we say “I don’t believe that p” when we really ought to say “I believe that p is not the case.”. It is very easy to see the difference between these two when we formalize them. The phrase “I don’t believe that p” is formalized as ¬B(P) and the phrase “I believe that p is not the case” is formalized as B(¬P). Clearly the negation is to be placed different places.

I think this language confusion is the primary reason why most ordinary people who are agnostics consider themselves agnostics.¹

I also note that even though there is not exact clearness in the new nomenclature it is more clear than the old nomenclature and thus is to be preferred for this reason.

Other considerations: Etymology

It has been claimed that both the new and the old nomenclature “fits” the etymology better. I believe that neither fits it the best.

“Atheism” comes from the Greek “theos” which means god, and the prefix “a-” which can mean either “without” or “not”. So, “atheism” can mean, according to the etymology, either “without god” or “not-god”. The former can be interpreted as negative atheism in the new nomenclature and the latter can be interpreted as atheism in the old nomenclature and positive atheism in the new nomenclature.

But even if etymology showed that the original Greek word means only “no-god” or only “without god” it would be a fallacy to argue that so does the word also today. This fallacy is called the etymological fallacy.^x A word’s etymology is a good guide to what a word means today but it is only probabilistic. Consider, as an example, the word “electronic”. It comes from the Greek word ‘elektro’ which means ‘amber’.^xi

Issues with the new nomenclature

Two meanings of agnosticism

Another reason to prefer the new nomenclature is the proper definition of “agnosticism” within it.

“Agnosticism” in newer philosophical literature usually means one of two things: What is called strong agnosticism which is the belief that no one can know whether God or gods exists, and what is called weak agnosticism which is the belief that no one currently knows whether God or gods exist. This distinction can be found both in online lexicons^xii and in works by philosophers.^xiii

The new nomenclature is compatible with both of them, but in the questionnaire I have used agnosticism to mean weak agnosticism.

The scope of agnosticism

There is a scope problem in the definition of agnosticism. Who is it, exactly, that either lacks knowledge of God or gods, or that cannot have such knowledge? Is it oneself? All humans? All sentient beings? These are separate questions with perhaps separately answers. In the questionnaire

In the questionnaire I have set the scope of agnosticism to oneself.

The scope of atheism/theism

Should positive and negative atheism refer to all gods or just a specific god? This may strike one as a minor issue. Some people continue to employ their chosen version of the meaning of positive or negative atheism and think that that is what the term means. The fact is that the term is ambiguous. I think we can get rid of that ambiguity by distinguishing between the two different meanings. The most commonly meant scope of atheism is the set of normal gods, which are the most usually used god concepts. This excludes concepts such as pantheism and includes classical theism, the various versions of the christian god, the muslim god, the hindu gods etc. This is how I use the word atheism when it is not qualified. If needed one can qualify atheism by making it relative to a specific god or set of gods, e.g. the nordic gods. In the questionnaire I have used set the scope to the most common gods simply written as “gods”.

“Theism” however is usually taken to mean only belief in a single god. Belief in multiple gods is called polytheism.

Negative atheism and propositional attitudes

It is tempting to regard negative atheism as an attitude towards propositions, but this would exclude non-cognitivists, i.e. people who think that the sentence “a god exists” does not express any proposition. It results in a contradiction if we see consider non-cognitivists as negative atheists and that negative atheism is a propositional attitude since that implies that the sentence expresses a proposition and the non-cognitivist denies this. I think it is best to include non-cognitivists as negative atheists and so I have to find some way to make sense of it. It of course involves dropping the propositional attitude analysis of negative atheism. What might one replace it with? We shall not explore that now.

Knowing and believing that one knows

We colloquially say that agnostics are those who don’t know that a god exists, and that gnostics are the ones that does. What are we to do then we both atheists and theists call themselves gnostics? Either a god exists or it doesn’t, and so either some atheists know, some theists know or neither any atheist or any theist knows. It is not possible that both a theist and an atheist knows since that implies that a god exists and that a god does not exist. How are we to fit our nomenclature to this?

The answer is pretty simply. The nomenclature is to be about what one believes that one is, not what one actually is. So agnostics are those who believe that they know, and agnostics are those that don’t believe they know.

Questionnaire

1. Do you believe that a god exists?

Yes. Go to 2.

No. Go to 3.

2. Do you believe that you know that a god exists?

Yes. You are a gnostic theist.

No. You are an agnostic theist.

3. Do you believe that no god exists?

Yes. Go to 4.

No. You are an agnostic negative atheist.

4. Do you believe that you know that no god exists?

Yes: You are a gnostic positive atheist.

No: You are an agnostic positive atheist.

Notes

This questionnaire assumes that the person does not hold contradictory beliefs about these matters. If this is not assumed one can be both a positive atheist and a theist etc.

Rigorous table

Position	Belief that a god exists	Belief that one knows that a god exists.	Belief that no gods exist.	Belief that one knows that no gods exist.
Gnostic theist	T	T	F	F
Agnostic theist	T	F	F	F
Agnostic negative atheist	F	F	F	F
Agnostic positive atheist	F	F	T	F
Gnostic positive atheist	F	F	T	T

Notes

This table assumes that the person does not hold contradictory beliefs about these matters. If this is not assumed one can be both a positive atheist and a theist etc.

References

Source.

Gamgee wrote:

In the Ontological Argument, Anselm refutes Guanilo’s Perfect Island criticism by stating that God has Aseity. Anselm does not, as far as i know, make any attempt to prove that God has Aseity, or even if Aseity is logically possible.

I argue that it is not, for the following reason:

1) We accept that God does not exist in the physical world.

2) Therefore, there must exist some realm outside of normal time and space (realm x, for conveniency)

3) God exists in realm x

4) Therefore, God requires realm x to exist so that he can exist in it.

5) Without realm x, God would not exist

6) Therefore, God is contingent upon realm x for his existence. Aseity is false.

Any obvious holes in my logic?

It’s not that bad but it’s badly structured. I’ll help you:

Definitions

D:x ≡ things

D:y ≡ things

Ex ≡ x exists

Fxy ≡ x exists in y

Cxy ≡ x in contingent upon y.

a ≡ God

b ≡ non-physical world

c ≡ physical world

Desired conclusion: God is contingent upon the non-physical world.

Desired route: Something to do with worlds.

Version one

1a. Ea

God exists. (Premise)

2a. ¬Fac

God does not exist in the physical world. (Premise)

3a. (∀x)(Ex→(Fxc∨Fxb))

For all x, if x exists, then x exists in the physical world or x exists in the non-physical world. (Premise)

4a. ⊢ Fab (1, 2, 3)

Therefore, God exists in the non-physical world.

5a. (∀x)(∀y)((Ex→Fxy)∧¬Ey)→¬Ex

For all x, if x exists in y and y does not exist, then x does not exist.

6a. ((∀x)(∀y)((Ex→Fxy)∧¬Ey)→¬Ex)→Cxy

If, for all x, for all y, if, if x exists, then x exists in y and y does not exist, then x does not exist, then x is contingent upon y.

7a. ⊢ Cab (5, 6)

Therefore, God is contingent upon the non-physical world.

But 5 is false. It says that if x exist, then x does not exist. I got stuck there. Trying to figure out how to formulate it in some other way to avoid this.

Version two

1b. Ea→Fab

If God exists, then God exists in the non-physical world. (premise)

2b. (∀x)(∀y)((Ex→Fxy)∧¬Ey)→¬Ex

For all x, for all y, if, if x exists, then x exists in y, and y does not exist, then x does not exist. (premise)

3b. ((∀x)(∀y)((Ex→Fxy)∧¬Ey)→¬Ex)→Cxy

If for all x, for all y, if, if x exists, then x exists in y, and y does not exist, then x does not exist, then x is contingent upon y. (premise)

And here I got stuck. I couldn’t find a way to get to Cxy without assuming ¬Eb.

Version three

1c. ¬Eb→¬Ea

If the non-physical world does not exist, then God does not exist. (Premise)

2c. (∀x)(∀y)(¬Ey→¬Ex)→Cxy

If for all x, for all y, if y does not exist, then x does not exist, then x in contingent upon y. (Premise)

3c. ⊢ Cab (1, 2)

Therefore, God is contingent upon the non-physical world.

This works. Premise two is analytic. Premise one is sometimes true per definition.

Comments

This argument was remarkably hard to formalize for me.

Abstract:

I respond to Cartesian’s case for broad theism as argued with an argument from souls.

response-to-cartesians-case-for-broad-theism

Abstract
The problem is how freely we are ‘allowed’ to define things. In this essay I will address a definition
similar to “x is the source of …”. I conclude that we ought not to allow such definitions.

the-source-of-e280a6-and-definitions

Link to the debate

Link to the peanet gallery viz. the thread to discuss the debate.

Wiploc’s Third Post

Deleet characterized my argument like this:

Quote:

1. God is omnipotent.

2. God is omniscient.

3. God is omnibenevolent.

4. God exists.

5. If (God is omnipotent and god is omnibenevolent and god is omniscient and god exists) then evil is nonexistent.

6. Evil exists.

7. God is essentially omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent.

8. Therefore, God does not exist.[/strike]

.

.

Number five is the only one I can get behind. But, hey, #5 is the one Deleet is arguing against …

Quote:

…then necessarily I have to deny (5). This is exactly what I am doing.

…so that’s cool.

Quote:

I would have thought we were [here to discuss the "real" definitions of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence.]

.

.

No, I’ve already conceded that if we use other (perfectly legitimate) definitions, then the LPoE (logical problem of evil) won’t necessarily work. I’m not defending any version of the PoE but my own. So all that’s left to discuss is whether my version works.

If it bothers you that I define those words in that way, we can use other words instead. F’rinstance:

X-factor: able to do anything that doesn’t violate logic.

Y-factor: knows everything, including the future and counterfactuals.

Z-factor: totally, purely, infinitely, unconflictedly, opposed to the existence of tribbles.

In which case, the PoT (problem of tribbles) becomes this:

5. If a grilled cheese sandwich is x-factor, y-factor, and z-factor, and if the grilled cheese sandwich exists, then it follows that tribbles are do not exist.

That’s my case. It is patently unbeatable. So I can’t let myself be distracted by arguments over peripheral stuff like whether my definitions are “real.”

Quote:

It seems that Wiploc wants to force me to accept his definitions, but I don’t see why.

.

.

I want to force you to deal with my argument. We can dispense with definitions altogether, if that helps:

If thing-A is able to do anything except violate logic, and also knows everything including the future and counterfactuals, and also desires (purely, totally, infinitely, unconflictedly) the nonexistence of thing-B, then thing-A and thing-B cannot logically exist in the same universe.

Quote:

Again, it seems to me that even given this, god could still have a morally sufficient reason not to remove evil.

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No way, because god is limited only by logic. If he wants a taco, he can have a taco plus no evil. If he wants a chinchilla, he can have a chinchilla plus no evil, Except for evil itself, he can have anything plus no evil. If evil itself is what he wants, then he isn’t z-factor. If there’s something other than evil that he can’t have, then he isn’t x-factor. Either way, if evil exists, the tri-factored grilled cheese sandwich does not.

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If Wiploc wants to define omnibenevolence in a way that makes a morally sufficient reason impossible he should say so.

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I’m telling you straight out that evil cannot exist if an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent god exists. I don’t know how I can be more clear.

Any theist who wants to rationally believe in a tri-omni god is going to have to disavow one or more of those definitions.

I’m told that there is a branch of Christianity that says that god doesn’t know the future. They still call him “omnibenevolent,” but they say he was just guessing when he picked which world to create. That’s fine. That works. They don’t have a problem with the PoE, and the PoE doesn’t have a problem with them. They can even use the PoE as a tool for winning more people to their belief. They get to tell anyone who believes god is omnipotent and omnibenevolent (as I have defined those terms) that god logically cannot also be omniscient (as I have defined that term).

Other theists back away from believing that god can do anything other than violate logic. Others yet say god isn’t all that opposed to evil. Some say there is no evil. Others simply admit that their religion doesn’t make sense.

Those are the five possible relevant responses to the LPoE. Everything else is evasion, obscurantism, equivocation, or distraction.

The LPoE is the tool we use to prove that a particular kind of god cannot exist. Not letting people distract us with irrelevant debate over other possible definitions is how we hold people’s feet to the fire for long enough that they have to admit that the LPoE works, that it’s bulletproof.

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… that being’s single highest wish is to remove all evil. Maybe this is what Wiploc means with the ‘unconflictedly’ above.

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I don’t care if the god has another goal, even an equally strong goal. Free will, for instance—there’s a nice goal. But if this other goal conflicts with the goal of eliminating evil, and if it is a strong enough goal that the god acts on it as opposed to acting on his goal of not having evil, then the god is not omnibenevolent.

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Given this definition … of omnibenevolence only the greater good defense would be left. … I think the LPoE is sound and ‘bulletproof’.

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Wow! You’re my hero. Do you know how many times I’ve had this debate with people who were just too stubborn to admit the obvious?

Morally Sufficient Reason:

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[An MSR] might even be unthinkable, non-imaginable and unknowable for humans but that doesn’t matter as long as it is logically possible.

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There are no secret rules of logic. The only thing that logically conflicts with the absence of evil is the presence of evil. If god wants the presence of evil, then he isn’t omnibenevolent. If he wants something else but isn’t strong enough to combine that with the absence of evil, then he isn’t omnipotent. Either way, he isn’t the tri-omni god.

Deleet’s Third Post

About the structure of the argument

Wiploc writes:

Number five is the only one I can get behind. But, hey, #5 is the one Deleet is arguing against

Sorry. Bad language choice by me. Here is a fix for you:

1. If God exists, then God is omnipotent.

2. If God exists, then God is omniscient.

3. If God exists, then God is omnibenevolent.

4. God exists.

5. If (God is omnipotent and god is omnibenevolent and god is omniscient and god exists) then evil is nonexistent.

6. Evil exists.

7. If God exists, then God is essentially omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent.

8. Therefore, God does not exist.

Your argument could be called a reductio because you show that assuming god exists implies a contradiction (evil and no-evil, or god and no-god), or you could view it as an extended modus tollens. Either way it’s valid.

Different LPoE’s

Wiploc writes:

No, I’ve already conceded that if we use other (perfectly legitimate) definitions, then the LPoE (logical problem of evil) won’t necessarily work. I’m not defending any version of the PoE but my own. So all that’s left to discuss is whether my version works.

Okay. I’ll then just remark that Wiploc has not proved what Wiploc set out to prove viz. the debate resolution:

The logical problem of evil proves the nonexistence of tri-omni gods.

What Wiploc have proven is that:

The logical problem of evil proves the nonexistence of tri-omni gods using special definitions that need not be “good” definitions and are chosen by Wiploc.

This doesn’t strike me as very impressive.

Theists and definitions

Wiploc remarks:

Any theist who wants to rationally believe in a tri-omni god is going to have to disavow one or more of those definitions.

But I don’t there are any theists that believe in a tri-omni god as defined by Wiploc. That’s why I think Wiploc’s proof is unimpressive: It’s simply not hitting the mark.

Closing remarks

I used the possible morally sufficient reason objection against Wiploc’s logical problem of evil. He responded to that by claiming it’s against the definition of omnibenevolence i.e. that all I was doing was redefining omnibenevolence. I pointed out that his definition is probably not what is commonly meant by theists or any theist at all. Wiploc conceded this to my surprise. We both agree that his argument works against the god it was supposed to work against. I don’t think that it really hits any god a theist believes in.

There was a bit confusion, or at least I was a bit confused. I think that we ought to better discuss the debate before engaging in it next time.

I think the space limit was a problem. It turned out only to be a problem with me first post though.

With these remarks I’d like to close the debate. Thanks to Wiploc for participating and thanks to FreeRatio.org for hosting it.