Posted on 04/07/2019 3:39:40 AM PDT by Kaslin
Peter Atterton, a professor of philosophy who teaches at San Diego State University, recently published an op-ed in The New York Times with the title, “A God Problem.”
The author contends that the traditional “Western,” i.e. Christian, conception of God as a being who is at once “perfect,” “all-powerful,” and “all-knowing” is in fact “not coherent.”
To put this another way, the idea of God is self-contradictory, as logically impossible as square circles, colorless red things, and married bachelors.
Professor Atterton’s position, as I will show, is no less mistaken now than when it was articulated by philosophers in centuries past.
Atterton launches a two-prong attack against the concept of God. First, he tries to show the (alleged) logical incompatibility between God’s omnipotence (His infinite power) and God’s moral goodness. Satisfied that he has achieved his first objective, Atterton then attempts to demonstrate the inconsistency between God’s omniscience (His infinite knowledge) and His benevolence.
In what we can call his “argument from omnipotence,” Atterton refers to an old philosophical dilemma dating back to the middle ages. The dilemma is framed in terms of a question:
Can God create a stone that God cannot lift?
If we answer that God, being omnipotent, can certainly create such a stone, then we actually deny God’s omnipotence, for there would now exist something that God cannot budge. However, if we respond that God could not create a stone that is too heavy for Him to move then we equally deny God’s unlimited power.
Atterton notes that Thomas Aquinas, unquestionably the most prominent of all medieval philosophers and a heavy-hitter in the history of philosophy in his own right, escaped the horns of this dilemma by clarifying the meaning of omnipotence:
God’s power is indeed unlimited, but this only means that God can do whatever is logically possible.
The idea of a stone that is both immovable and movable is no idea at all, for it is a contradiction in terms, and a self-contradiction is a logical impossibility. The ontological equivalent of a logical impossibility is nothing.
It is self-evident that God can’t create nothing.
However, Atterton objects, God could have created a world devoid of evil. Presumably, a perfect being would have created such a world. That the actual world is ridden with pain and suffering, Atterton seems to imply, militates decisively against the idea of a perfect and omnipotent being.
This argument, it’s crucial to observe, is the perennial argument from what has become known as “the problem of evil.” From at least the time of St. Augustine—undoubtedly the most influential of all Christian philosophers and a thinker whose work continues to arrest the attention of contemporary academics, both Christian and non-Christian alike—Christian philosophers and theologians have accounted for the presence of evil by way of multiple “theodicies,” the most prominent of which is “the free will defense.”
Atterton addresses that version of the free will defense stated most recently by the contemporary philosopher of religion, Alvin Plantinga, in which the latter contends that it is impossible for God to grant human beings the ability to do moral good without at the same moment giving them the ability to commit acts of evil. Indeed, the very possibility of a moral act, whether virtuous or vicious, good or evil, presupposes free agency on the part of human actors.
So, in other words, a world in which human beings possess free will but are not free to misuse their wills and act wickedly is a world in which they are not free.
And this is a logical impossibility.
Interestingly, Atterton evidently believes that the free will defense is cogent as far as it goes. He just doesn’t think that it goes far enough, for while this most intuitively appealing of all theodicies may explain moral or human evil, it fails to explain what philosophers of religion call “natural evil,” i.e. natural catastrophes that result in the suffering and destruction of innocent human and animal life.
There are two counter-objections to his objection that Professor Atterton fails to consider.
First, considering that he means to show the incoherence of the Christian conception of God, Atterton should look at how Christian thinkers have responded to the phenomenon of natural suffering. Within what is by no means a negligible current of the Christian tradition, natural evil is proof that the world is, as we’re informed by the book of Genesis, broken—mired in “original sin”—as a consequence of, yes, Adam and Eve’s abuse of their free will.
If Atterton has problems with this doctrine of original sin—and legitimate questions have indeed been raised regarding it—then he should identify them. But the burden is on Atterton to state his case, something that he has not done.
Second, there are two other theodicies (both of which complement one another as well as complementing the free will defense) that have been devised to meet the argument from natural evil: the “greater goods” and “natural order” defenses.
The first refers to the goods of spiritual and moral maturity. According to this line of reasoning, God allows obstacles and hardships, i.e. natural suffering, so that by surmounting these trials and tribulations we may develop into the spiritually and morally mature beings that He wants for us to become.
No pain, no gain.
The second refers to the stability or order in the world. Exercises of free will would be impossible in a world that was utterly unpredictable from moment to moment. If, for example, God intervened every time something unpleasant was about to happen so as to prevent it from occurring, then the world would be radically discontinuous with itself. Planning would be unthinkable, let alone impractical.
No, free will can exist only within a world with stability and, hence, predictability.
Atterton’s argument from omnipotence has failed to show that the concept of God is incoherent.
In my next essay, I will show that his argument from God’s infinite knowledge—the argument from God’s omniscience—fares no better.
What better time to criticize Christians’ notion of God than Lent?
Same ‘stuff’
Same season
Different year
But celebrate the diversity Islamic theocracy is bringing to the West...
2 Timothy 2:23
“But foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strifes.”
Not to mention, why would God want to create a rock He couldn’t lift? Just to be tested by one of His smug creations?
Both the author of this piece and the philosopher he criticizes need a better understanding of what they mean by things like “create”, “nothing”, “existence”, “logic”. These words are empty of meaning without a concept of a world, i.e., a system limited by rules. It’s “self-evident” to me that it arises from Him, and, consequently, everything that is dependent on it. The alternative is to say that “the World just is because it is”, which not an explanation at all.
Iirc, Einstein has the rock, and everything in the universe moving all the time. The fool cannot and will not bend God’s will to his own for the sake his simpleminded stunt. His proof will come along at the proper time as God sees fit.
God is God. God does not have to be rational.
As a student of philosophy at Union college under professor Warren Steinkraus I dealt extensively with the problem of sin and the presence of evil in nature. Atterton should study classical philosophy. He has missed much.
If the rock was that big, what would he lift it *from*?
Let him philosophize his way out of that.
Man judging & defining God is the ultimate lunacy.
The very finite trying to describe and understand the infinite in his extremely finite terms and knowledge.
How much of the universe does any man understand? Not one millionth of one percent.
Yet, devoid of this knowledge, and so stupid he will not acknowledge his almost infinite ignorance, he comes to a conclusion.
Arrogance. Ultimate arrogance.
Saying that God has infinite knowledge implies that He has no Free Will since everything is already predetermined. When He walks through the Garden and asks “Where are you?”, theologians are reduced to implying that God was being disingenuous.
I tend to leave it at “God knows what He is doing”
‘God’s power is indeed unlimited...’
this in itself can’t be based on logical possibilities, as it is grounded purely in supposition and opinion...
‘The alternative is to say that “the World just is because it is”, which not an explanation at all.’
isn’t that the exact argument that theists use to explain a deity...?
‘The alternative is to say that “the World just is because it is”, which not an explanation at all.’
“isn’t that the exact argument that theists use to explain a deity...?”
That would depend on the theist, I suppose. They would need to go further, though, and explain why an explanation is needed at all.
After 30 years of argumentation,
the theist is reduced to answer unknown,
the atheist is reduced to answer unknown,
so why debate?
So that babblers can get grants and salaries paid for by the taxpayers.
this seems to be the most basic, elemental truth of all.
“why is an explaqnation needed at all?” indeed.
Man will always wonder and ask. An omnipotent, omniscient God will always continue being omnipotent and omniscient regardless of the feeble creations. Though on a relative scale, the created beings must necessarily follow the immutable rules which they must, the illusions under which they labor, and the thoughts/constructs of their own which they naturally offer as their whole truth...
along with inherent evil such as why the officiating crew in the Auburn-Virginia game chose their corrupt path relegating this years national championship to a permanent ASTERISK with what is likely the worst, most corrupt call in basketball history.
“why is an explanation needed at all?” indeed.
To me, the reason is that it is necessary to answer a question of more immediacy: “what should I being doing?”. It’s a relevant question for any creature with free will. The atheist and the theist will differ on who or what decides the “should”. If you claim not to have free will, then you have to pretend that you don’t care.
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