Dinesh D'Souza v. Bart Ehrman on the problem of evil

D'Souza and Ehrman both make excellent points and give good rebuttals. And I certainly found fault with Ehrman's brilliant but post-evangelical approach to philosophical questions. But for the moment I'll point out how D'Souza could have done better.

When Ehrman asked "where is God when there is suffering without relief?" one of the answers that should have been given is that God is present in creation even in those situations. Otherwise, the impression is given that God is present only when performing miracles. Given such an assumption, the choice for a theists would be between something like deism (inasmuch as God would often seem to be non-provident) and hyper-supernaturalism (God's always doing miracles... which does not seem to be obviously true).

Another point that D'Souza makes (and is a good one) is skillfully turned in a different direction by Ehrman. D'Souza argues that human evil outstrips Darwinian necessity. Good point, provided one interprets it in a somewhat sympathetic manner. Ehrman replies that he's not sure of which point human evil would have to be so great that it would force one to affirm the existence of God. Brilliant comeback, but obviously a red herring to one who sees the real value of D'Souza's question.

Here is how I would steer this discussion back on track. Human evil outstrips materialism inasmuch as it requires the ability to think abstractly and in a sense to desire infinitely. When we will evil, it is because we will a finite good in a sense infinitely, which is a kind of disorder, idolatry.

This abstract, infinitizing character of evil will problematicizes materialism and with it atheism. It doesn't so much demonstrate the existence of God as it undermines atheism (sort of like knocking down one of the premises of your opponent's argument rather than proving true the contradictory of that proposition).

***
Back to the debate. Again, D'Souza makes some excellent points, one of which is delightful (when Ehrman objects that "you're intellectualizing suffering" D'Souza replies, "That's why we're having a debate."), but still I'm going to point out where DD could have done better... perhaps he would have done much better had he, as I've had, the luxury of listening to the debate two or three times.

DD proposes (in the form of a question) that the Christian understanding of life after death is more consoling, telling the believer that they will be united with their loved one some day. Bart Ehrman replies that this proposal is actually cruel, because it amounts to saying, [and I paraphrase] "You should be happy because you'll get to see them again."; better to sit shiva with the mourning, like Job's friends did with him.

BE is onto something, even though he goes out of his way to characterize DD's proposal as "offensive." But I would point out that the correct Christian message is that you are together with the loved one in spirit: there is reason to be happy about this, but that reason coexists with the understandable feeling of loss from the absence of that loved one from your daily life. In other words, an emphasis on the communion of saints makes room for both the pain of separation and for the joy of communion.

P F Strawson's Freedom and Resentment: the argument laid out

Here is a summary and comments on the essay Freedom and Resentment by PF Strawson. He makes some great points, and when he is wrong, it is in such a way as to clarify things a great deal. My non-deterministic position is much better thanks to having read this. I’ll summarize it in this post and respond in a later one. In a nutshell: PFS first argues that personal resentment that we may feel toward another for having failed to show goodwill toward us would have no problem coexisting with the conviction that determinism is true. Moral disapprobation, as an analog to resentment, is likewise capable of coexisting with deterministic convictions. In fact, it would seem nearly impossible for a normally-constituted person (i.e., a non-sociopath) to leave behind the web of moral convictions, even if that person is a determinist. In this way, by arguing that moral and determinist convictions can coexist in the same person, PFS undermines the libertarian argument ...

response to friend who suggested that the self is a democracy of neural parts

This is a nice way to try to avoid being cornered re the irreality of the self if you're a reductionist, for you can assert that a pattern obtains at the microscopic level that is not all that unlike the pattern found at the societal level. No need for the one self that does it all: instead, you have many sub-selfs that compete for dominance or take turns guiding the whole. The problem with this is, however, that the voters/officials are all zombies. None of them thinks about the whole as such. And perhaps none of them thinks even about themselves (unless one is a panzoist). None of them makes a comparison of alternatives. The more this proposed democracy seems like a zombocracy, the more consciousness will be seem to be epiphenomenal. Furthermore, if the oneness of the self is less real than the multiplicity of explanatory neural parts, then why can't each of these neural parts be conceived of as democracy as well? And why not parts of these parts, et...

interesting article by Jimmy Akin on death before the Fall

http://www.ncregister.com/blog/jimmy-akin/did-animals-die-before-the-fall/ Akin below: Aquinas.... writes: In the opinion of some, those animals which now are fierce and kill others, would, in that state, have been tame, not only in regard to man, but also in regard to other animals. But this is quite unreasonable. For the nature of animals was not changed by man's sin, as if those whose nature now it is to devour the flesh of others, would then have lived on herbs, as the lion and falcon. Nor does Bede's gloss on Genesis 1:30, say that trees and herbs were given as food to all animals and birds, but to some. Thus there would have been a natural antipathy between some animals [ Summa Theologiae I:96:1 ad 2 ]. Aquinas thus holds that it was not all death that entered the world through man's sin, but human death.

The Human Question

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