Dr. Timothy McGrew address the common atheistic canard that extraordinary require extraordinary evidence. McGrew is a philosopher whose interests include formal epistemology, the history and philosophy of science, and the history and philosophy of religion.
An atheist asked the following question in a facebook group:
My response [with minor modifications]:
1. Because Christianity is true. [ Irrespective of proof or disproof ]
2. Because it's prudentially in your best interest eternally, and often temporally in this life too.
3. Because deep in your heart you know or suspect theism is true given the sensus divinitatis [sense of the divine] implanted by God in all human beings which all humans try to suppress in their unrighteousness. Possibly you even suspect deep in your heart that Christianity itself is true, given the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit which you might also be suppressing.
4. God commands you to believe the Gospel for the glory of God and for your own self-interest.
5. Because Christianity can ground ultimate meaning, purpose, dignity and value for your own life and all of humanity. Whereas atheism cannot.
6. Because the triune God of Christianity alone can give you what your heart has truly been seeking for all your life. The real goal that earthly things are only a pale ersatz/artificial shadow of.
The Weight of Glory by C.S. Lewis
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1e-ZB3sZNtL3_7IOtyPkCbimW6F0DX-FC/view?usp=sharing
7. There was no good reason for having left Christianity, because all your intellectual objections were, if you're being honest with yourself, post hoc rationalizations for excusing your betrayal and reneging on your commitment to Jesus in order to satisfy your sinful and selfish desires.
8. In all likelihood you didn't examine the positive case for Christianity as thoroughly as you should have because of confirmation bias. We tend to surround ourselves with and shield ourselves from evidence that goes contrary from our shallow desires.
9. Life is short, death is certain and eternity is forever.
"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." - martyred missionary Jim Elliot
10. Softly and Tenderly [Jesus is Calling]
Evidence for God
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2016/12/im-going-to-list-and-summarize-what-i.html
Required reading for atheists
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2019/11/required-reading-for-atheists.html
Book Reviews of Recent Atheist Authors by Christian Apologists
https://misclane.blogspot.com/2013/09/book-reviews-of-recent-atheist-authors.html
Making a case for Christianity
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2017/12/making-case-for-christianity.html
A case for Christ
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2019/01/a-case-for-christ.html
Over 100 Arguments for the Existence of God
155 Peer Reviewed Arguments For God's Existence
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XaMCHefpe0d8iJ2guiSQmB_vWkM74ykh/view
https://drive.google.com/file/d/15dCoOlLgFgV-GX5u2ju9joLWI8ESe6fe/view?usp=sharing
I've addressed the Evil God Challenge BEFORE HERE. In a YouTube video thread, someone responded to me with the following:
yes, I have watched some debates over the "probabilistic or inductive version of the problem of evil".
And it seemed to me that there was no reason to favour the omnibenevolent god over the omnimalevolent god.
So the problem of evil is not "solved".
would you agree with that ?
With minor adjustments, the comments below was my response; with some added links to other of my blogs which couldn't be linked on YouTube.
I've watched those debates too. For example William Lane Craig's debate with Stephen Law, and Craig's debate [if I recall] with Peter Millican. I disagree with you for a number of reasons. I'll just list 5 off the top of my head which I should really organize and make more rigorous and less repetitive. Among my goals includes showing no parity of argument.
1. Evil is defined in various ways in the Christian tradition. A popular one is the one borrowed from Neo-Platonism. The concept later termed Privatio Boni. That evil is the privation/negation/twisting/corruption of the good. Evil has no positive ontological status. Analogous to how shadows are the lack/diminishment of light, or cold is of heat. There is no such THING as shadows or cold. A moth eaten dress with holes would be analogous to evil in creation. However, a perfectly evil "God" would result in no dress at all [no creation]. If taken to it's logical conclusion, then no God at all. Such a concept of a "perfectly" evil God is contradictory given perfect being theology [see below]. Contradictions, like a square circle, cannot exist. A perfectly evil God is conceptually incoherent. He would have to have some good and good intentions [see numbers 3, 4 and 5 below].
2. One would first need to define and metaphysically ground good/bad, right/wrong before one can launch the evil God challenge. Given Christianity, one can ground them. But it's unlikely that non-Christians can without borrowing from a Christian worldview [cf. presuppositional arguments], and therefore cannot do an *external* critique or alternative. If they launch an *internal* critique and alternative given Christian premises and presuppositions, then all we have to do is show that there is no internal inconsistency as well as show that employing such premises can't be used to launch the challenge.
3. The move W.L. Craig makes has some merit. Given perfect being theology, God by definition is good [the summum bonum and the ens perfectissimum], and therefore it makes no sense to posit an "Evil God" challenge, because by definition, such a being wouldn't be God. But, instead, a really powerful [or omnipotent] being, but not God. Though non-theists will think we theists will be cheating by defining God [to our advantage] in such a way that it precludes such a malevolent being from being God. Besides, whether you call it "God" or not, doesn't answer the logical possibility. True. So, one would have to say more than that.
Given perfect being theology, such a perfectly rational being would not choose to be evil. It makes no rational sense for such an intelligent, all-knowing [omniscient] and all-wise [omnisapient] being to choose to be and promote evil. Wisdom is knowing the best means to arrive at the best ends, and choosing it. In the Christian tradition, it makes perfect sense that an omni-God who has all perfections to their high degree seeks as His goals, 1. to glorify Himself & make His glory known to creation for His own joy [without denying He was all-sufficiently satisfied and happy/blessed SANS creation, pace the "full bucket paradox"], 2. out of the overflow of His goodness/joy/happiness/blessedness to share His goodness and perfection with/to/through His creation. That's why the famous catechism's answer to the question, "What is the chief end [i.e. goal, purpose] of man?" was "To glorify God and enjoy Him forever" [or as Piper famously suggested, BY enjoying Him forever]. What possible motive would an evil god have to promote evil? He's literally agent irrational in his goals and plans, and therefore not truly perfect or omnipotent. Destroying parity.
Since all of God's attributes are coupled with each other. God's omnipotence is coupled with wisdom. So, if the evil God is not all wise, then neither is he all powerful. This is especially true in versions of classical theism that affirm something like Thomistic divine simplicity whereby all God's attributes are one and the same thing, and not as we like to distinguish them into different attributes. Wiki says, //"In theology, the doctrine of divine simplicity says that God is without parts. The general idea can be stated in this way: The being of God is identical to the "attributes" of God. Characteristics such as omnipresence, goodness, truth, eternity, etc., are identical to God's being, not qualities that make up that being, nor abstract entities inhering in God as in a substance; in other words we can say that in God both essence and existence are one and the same."// Though, I'm sympathetic to simplicity, I'm not toward Thomistic versions of ABSOLUTE divine simplicity [ADS].
4. Along with privatio boni, evil has also been defined in the Christian tradition as that which violates one of more of the following 3 senses of God's will. God's 1. revealed will and/or 2. dispositional [heart] will, and/or 3. will of design [not including God's 4. decretive will, that always happens]. Such distinctions don't exist, or may not be able to exist in the "Evil God" because all his intentions are only evil. Given privatio boni, perfect being theology etc. it's difficult to explain how an "evil god" can or would maximize or optimize evil conceptually and then by execution.
[For more, see my blog post here: Distinctions in God's Will from a Calvinist Perspective]
5. So, far all of the above need not require Calvinism [though all are compatible with it]. I'm a Calvinist. and Calvinism may have some moves which might help. Most Calvinists do not hold to divine voluntarism, though some do [though open, I'm inclined against it myself]. In fact, if any theological position would best fit with voluntarism [rather than say, divine essentialism etc.], Calvinism would be a prime candidate [despite John Calvin himself rejecting it]. Assuming NON-Christian divine voluntarism for the sake of argument, then there is no problem of the evil God challenge. God can arbitrarily choose, and then inform and command his creatures that things like rape, theft and murder as good. By such a voluntaristic conception of God, that God isn't evil. And so, there is no evil God by which to launch an "evil God challenge". But such an extreme form of voluntarism is contrary to the Christian conception of God, even a voluntaristic Christian version.
See voluntarist Calvinist Vincent Cheung's book that's freely online, "The Author of Sin" [downloadable HERE]. The point I'm having difficulty expressing is that in some versions of CHRISTIAN divine voluntarism [Calvinistic or not] the evil God of the "Evil God challenge" is virtually indistinguishable, or at least significantly similar enough that the differences would seem to boil down to how this God optimizes/maximizes what we would term "evil" [despite them not being actually evil given that paradigm]. Since evil is defined by his volition, we cannot logically argue against such a God's behavior as being objectively evil. The Christian voluntaristic conception need only adjust the features so as to affirm that God's commands to His creatures are to love God, love oneself and love one's neighbor as attenuated by Biblical revelation. That better solves the problem. Especially since it's in keeping with perfect being theology and agent rationality. For myself, I'm inclined to the mediating position between voluntarism and essentialism called Divine Command Essentialism. God is the good [Himself] and is the standard of goodness. Virtues are grounded in God's nature/essence [essentialism aspect] and God's commands for what's right and wrong to His creatures flow from His will/volition [voluntarism aspect] which are grounded in and reflect His good nature.
See also my blogposts:
The Evil God Hypothesis: Some Observations and Answers
God in Relation to Law: Ex Lex, Sub Lego or Sibi Ipsi Lex
Distinctions in God's Will from a Calvinist Perspective
June 19th is now St. Spurgeon's Day. Celebrating the day *can* include one or more of the following:
- reading or listening to a Spurgeon Sermon or book
[e.g. his book "The Soul Winner": https://archive.spurgeon.org/misc/soulwinr.php; or his book "All of Grace": https://archive.spurgeon.org/all_of_g.php ];
- wearing orange like Protestants do on St. Patrick's Day instead of green to emphasize the Protestant Gospel rather than the Catholic one;
- smoking a cigar and/or moderately drinking alcohol because Spurgeon did both for most of his life;
- eating fish [preferably sturgeon because it rhymes with Spurgeon];
- dressing up like one of the characters in John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress [because Spurgeon loved it and read the book over 100 times];
- getting baptized by immersion the credobaptist way;
- conceiving twin sons (or daughters) in the hopes that at least one of them will become a preacher or preacher's wife [as Spurgeon had when his twin sons Charles and Thomas were born on 20 September 1857. Thomas became the preacher];
- wearing a crown because he's nicknamed the "Prince of Preachers" [a Burger King crown will do];
- quoting Spurgeon and posting memes of Spurgeon on social media
- evangelizing the lost by sharing with them the basic Evangelical Gospel generally agreed upon by Evangelical denominations like Baptists, Presbyterians, Lutherans etc. Maybe using the "Wordless Book" method possibly invented by Spurgeon where he used three different colors to evangelize. Other persons and groups added more colors. Gray [instead of black to avoid the charge of racism] representing the state of sin; Red representing the blood and atonement of Jesus; Silver [instead of white] representing the perfect righteousness of Christ imputed to the believers; Blue for the need for baptism; Green representing growth and sanctification in the Christian life; and Gold representing heaven after death.
The following is an interview of James N. Anderson by Cameron Bertuzzi on Anderson and Greg Welty's 2011 peer-reviewed paper, The Lord of Noncontradiction which argues that necessary truths like the laws of logic necessitates the existence of God. I'm apologetically a presuppositionalist, and so is Anderson. I believe he might be the first presuppositionalist to be interviewed by Bertuzzi. Cameron has been hesitant to interview presuppositionalists because he's not impressed by them. But that's probably because he has never encountered a knowledgeable one before. Fortunately, he now has and has interviewed him on an actual detailed argument for God.
UPDATE:
See also the discussion between Atheist philosopher Alex Malpass and Christian philosopher James Anderson:
Does Logic Prove God? | w/Alex Malpass & James Anderson
https://youtu.be/4qpwVLLebng
There is No Such Name as Yahshua!
https://youtu.be/2UKvbRbXSz0
What Is The Hebrew Name For Jesus? Yahshua? Yeshua? by Michael Brown who has a holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from New York University.
Was “Yahshua” the Real Name of Jesus? By Dr. Eli Lizorkin-Eyzenberg
https://weekly.israelbiblecenter.com/jesus-hebrew-name-yeshua-yahshua/
Nehemia Gordon explains the meaning of the name of Jesus [already cued up]
https://youtu.be/qgQMeweGjp4?t=24m20s
[[For Nehemia Gordon's case that the likely pronunciation of the tetragrammaton is "Yehovah", see my blogpost here:
https://misclane.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-proper-pronunciation-of-sacred-name.html]]
Having watched the following video, I decide to blog a response:
Atheist grills Calvinist on Salvation
https://youtu.be/_a3eMTy4mAw
I posted the following in the video comments:
//I'm a Calvinist. There is a sense in which we can "do" something for our salvation. I'll explain that in multiple posts. But some preliminaries. God is within His rights not to save any sinner. If anyone ends up in hell, it's because they deserve to be there on account of their sins. God doesn't send innocent people to hell. They will be there justly/in justice. That anyone is saved from hell is a matter of mercy and grace. Grace and mercy, by definition, are not obligated. If it were obligated, then it would be justice, not mercy or grace. If a human governor pardoned only 10 out of 1000 prison inmates, he is not doing any injustice toward the rest who weren't pardoned.
It is true that we could only truly desire to be saved only if the efficacious and irresistible special grace of God works in a sinner. Does that mean we can't do anything to be saved? Yes. Does that mean we have nothing to do? no. We have a duty to believe, and to strive to believe even if we can't. Indirect doxastic voluntarism is true, even though the grace of God is necessary to bring about genuine faith. Under normal circumstances direct doxastic voluntarism is usually [or always] false. We cannot, by an act of the will, choose to believe something. Say, contrary to the evidence etc. However, INdirect doxastic voluntarism is true. We can exercise our wills so as to incline our minds toward believing X, Y, or Z. For example, we can immerse ourselves in apologetical material that will incline us to be willing to believe in Christianity. Which may eventually lead to our believing [in a non-saving way] the truth of Christianity. Or immerse ourselves in anti-theistic and anti-Christian literature that will incline us toward unbelief or even eventually disbelief in Christianity. Unless one believes in the Sandemanian heresy [which a minority of Calvinists believe [e.g. Clarkians]], then faith is not mere assent to the true propositions of the gospel. Saving Faith involves notitia, assensus and fiducia [knowledge, assent, and Spirit inspired genuine trust and recumbency in the promises of the Gospel] . That's why it's possible to believe in the truth of Christianity without being truly saved and regenerate [cf. the Parable of the Sower]. It's a carnal belief, not a saving and spiritual belief. Given that, see my next post which is taken from one of my blogs.
Here's an excerpt from one of my blogs to finish where I was going above given the necessity of regeneration [I couldn't link to the blog on YouTube, but I can here: https://gospelcrumbs.blogspot.com/2013/07/detecting-and-finding-god.html]:
//Does that mean that humans can't affect their eternal destinies by looking for God and examining the various evidences for God? No, it doesn't. One CANNOT CHANGE their pre-ordained destiny, but ONE CAN AFFECT IT because God ordains both the ends as well as the means; all the while upholding causal relations. In other words, God providentially predestines not only what will happen, but how they will happen.
So, if God ordained that a person will be saved, then God also ordained the means to their salvation. That can include things like their 1. seeking for God, 2. examining the evidences, 3. praying, 4. reading the Bible, 5. studying apologetics et cetera.
It will be argued, "Sure, God may also ordain the means, but people will not actually seek God unless and until God first regenerates them so that they can genuinely and sincerely seek after God." The charges and assumptions being, that it's not possible for people to initiate a search for God. And that therefore there's no point in admonishing people to search for God. Also, unless they first have reason to believe they are regenerated (and/or numbered among the elect), they have no reason to have confidence or expectation that their search will be fruitful and that they will, in the end, actually find God. But those are false inferences. God's promise that those who sincerely seek Him will find Him stand (e.g. James 4:8; John 6:37b; Matt. 11:28-30; Isa. 55:6-7; Jer. 29:13; Ps. 145:18; cf. James 1:8.; Luke 11:9-10; Heb. 11:6). That's true whether one is regenerated or not. Moreover, God doesn't require either the elect or non-elect to know they are regenerated or elect before they can seek after Him. Humans are free moral agents (even if they don't have libertarian free wills as Calvinism implies). Being free moral agents created by God, all humans have the duty to seek after God and believe in Him regardless of the possibility of their success in that search.
Given Calvinism, both the elect and non-elect can "search" for God, but only the elect will sincerely, honestly and persistently search for Him because of regeneration. Since a knowledge of one's regeneration isn't essential to saving faith, everyone can have personal psychological hope that they might find God by searching for Him.
Therefore, regarding those who are currently non-Christians, for all they know, God will use their search for Him (whether it's currently sincere or insincere) to eventually lead to their finding Him. Their search which may have begun insincerely may end up being sincere by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit. So, we are all without excuse if we fail to search for God.//
