Towards a Refuttal of Stephen Law's "Evil God" Challenge

Below is a e-mail sent to London, to Justin Brierley, host of the Primier Radio's "Unbelievable," a show that brings together two opposing opinions and seeks friendly exchange.  A recent guest was Stephen Law, an atheist who had courageously debated William Lane Craig in this November's "Reasonable Faith" Tour of the United Kingdom. In a follow-up show that discussed Law's sole reliance on the Problem of Evil, he elaborated on what he called the "evil god challenge."  The problem of evil sees an inconsistency between God's mercy, God's power, and the presence of evil in the world.  Dismissing God's inability to control the flow of evil, Law assumed that such a God would be of necessity evil in nature.  If not so, no God would exist, at least not One worthy of worship.

 

Many others have responded mainly with the ontologically impossible state of God who is good being of any sense evil.  I see the matter as one of perception of what involves the evil action, if we could analyze any situation and totally label it evil, and do this in such a way that all factors would be weighed before such pronouncements.  Such analysis is impossible.  Perceived evil need not be actual evil.

 

Presented is the email for your examination.  Read and ponder.

Stephen Law's "Evil God Challenge"

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FROM:

• Doran Fischer

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• unbelievable@premier.org.uk

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Thursday, December 29, 2011 7:11 AM

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Justin,

As always, a splendid series of interviews in the wake of the William Lane Craig debates. I admire your fairness to showcase both Craig and his chief debate opponent in the Reasonable Faith tour, Dr. Law.

As many of your listeners, I am not impressed with the Evil God Challenge of Dr. Law. I have agreed with many responses that questioned the proposition on ontological grounds, but, on first listen, I took the reasonings of the challenge to be much like the opinions we Americans had of the police in the 1960's and 70's. The references to those committed to "serve and protect" as the "fuzz" and "pigs" seemed to arise from the rebellious factions in those days, the unwashed hippy, the drug-induced youth, the drop-outs. Law's dismissal of God as evil seemed to follow these same lines, the segment of society that hinders you the most takes on some degree of demonization. However, this quick analogy does limp terribly, as you pointed out the relative strength of all analogies at the end of one of your shows. The police are corruptible, and possibilities of the forces of law enforcement to engage in criminal activity makes this quick assessment of Law's opinions rather weak.

Still, there may be something to this line of thought of declaring God as evil as an expression of perspective that doesn't allow for God being good, and His apparent evils as misunderstood by those who can't understand the ways of God in dealing with a sinful world. So, I'll attempt this second analogy, taking advantage of the fact that in viewing things historical, my American perspective should come at odds with your British understanding of events. To demonstrate that one's perspective in some issue could be lacking depth, let's examine one event in the American Revolution, the Boston Massacre of 1770. Tragic as this event was, we may consider the issues such as the specific number of loss of life constituting a "massacre." The fact that five people died may be an outrage to me, while you Justin may take issue that a "massacre" could be more the matter of burning, looting, and strewing carnage over five city blocks. We may take issue with the matter of provocation, the ill-temper of rock and snowball throwing colonials over against the muskets of the redcoat. We may argue over the acts of quartering troops at public expense, the colonial distaste at personal cost over against the British feeling of respect for those who had been stationed to protect the interests of the crown. But the view of the "evil redcoat" whose actions of firing on a crowd that they deemed correctly or incorrectly as dangerously aggressive will be seen from two different perspectives. In their trial, the soldiery was acquitted thanks to the shrewdness of one lawyer named John Adams, whose efforts ran against the prompting of his own brother Sam Adams who used the event as propaganda to inflame further revolution though more of the thirteen colonies. In the end, you Justin may defend the actions of the soldiers, declaring them not "evil oppressors," but really unfortunate men who were placed in difficult times to do their duties among an unappreciative people.

This is my assessment of Law's Evil God Challenge, engaging in a true understanding of God's activities in difficult times done in the perspective of an unappreciative heart and mind. If he envisions an evil god, could he do equal time on the premise of a possibly good god whose goodness we couldn't begin to fathom? Or could all this be such as Jesus complains of in His parable of The Great Banquet, "But they all with one accord began to make excuses ..." (Luke 14: 18a).

As always, a refreshing exchange of ideas, and I'm looking forward to continued pleasantries of opinion in your remarkable forum. Keep up this wonderful work in the new year.

Doran Fischer

Ixonia, Wisconsin (USA)

Legacy of the Strawman: The "Pedestaled" Argument

The view that most arguments can be easily refuted if presented in an inaccurate form and crushed has led to a new vista:  arguments and positions that merit shoddy treatment.  This tweak on the politically incorrect position conceives then of arguments and positions that must be per faciem allowable, to be orthodox in all social structures.  Such as these need not be under review, unless the trends sweep away to further ideologies that become the pampered pets of social dreamers.

This variation of the argumentum ad auctoritatem focuses its placement not on logical grounds, but rather that a figure possessing ability of discernment in some viable field that grants him/her a deciding opinion on some matter of concern.  In its worse manifestations, it gravitates toward the views of the elite, or notions of a celebrity.  In the market of ideas, a form of status is assumed where the views of Class A supersedes the notions of a predetermined inferior Class B.

I have sensed that we are fast moving away from the concept of an arena of ideas, where all submissions are given fair movement to be recognized as valid, workable, flawed, or commendable.  We are soon lapsing into a society of only a few capable minds worthy of submitting plans and concepts.  Is a conservative opinion to be rejected due to its conservatism, or can it attain the flow of thoughts that contribute to the workings of a fair, equitable society?

One more video presentation on the strawman fallacy

In searching for realistic explanations for the fallacy of Ignoratio Elenchi, I discovered this somewhat equal treatment of the issue without perceived biases toward any position.

Watch and ponder.

Towards a Refutation of New Atheist Rhetoric: The Uncle Joe Analogy

The amount of misinformation that is ushered in a single missive of the pillars of New Atheism is staggering.  The seminal work of Dawkins' The God Delusion is centered on creation of a figure of God as misanthropic, self-possessed, egocentric, intolerant.  This is the strategies of Hitchens in god is not Good.  Most approaches to New Atheist argument is the classic creation of strawman.  It is based on the simple premise that such a personal God as conceived and created by the minds of the pundit of New Atheism is totally unworthy of worship and praise.  I would agree, to the extent that such depictions would be accurate, and if they are not, the whole of these arguments are worthless.  The God of The God Delusion is nothing but a poor caricature.

This is the point of the age of misinformation that is soon to be the New Atheism.  This is the core concept of the following analogy.  If the New Atheist cannot substantiate their depiction of the Godhead, crass and biased as it is, we must only surmise why such depictions are the stock and trade of this movement.

Read and ponder.

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THE UNCLE JOE ANALOGY

You are the member of a wonderful family, filled with many noteworthy members of kindness and charity.  As you contemplate the rationale of the generosity of this clan, you come to realize that the foundation of this virtue is that of the family patriarch, Uncle Joe.  In all your dealings within the family, all the uncles, aunts, cousins, parents (grand and great-grands, as well as the mothers and fathers) have nothing but praise for this relative.  You are acquainted with this wonderful man from childhood visits.  Members of the community gush with appreciation for the gentle deeds of Uncle Joe.  For many years for have encountered nothing but commendations for Uncle Joe.  In the long and short of this matter, Uncle Joe is a paragon of all that is good, as acknowledged by the vast number of the general populace.

Then you meet with a viewpoint of those who have been critical of Uncle Joe.  In fact, more so than critical, it is vindictive.  You have heard reports of these men from others, and you have had the opportunity to listen in on their conversations.  You know the events of experiences you have had with Uncle Joe, and it seems unreasonable to make such ill-reports about the valued uncle.  As you hear these messages, you try to understand the reasons for such malicious words:

1.  Uncle Joe, for all his merits, has made enemies.

2. Uncle Joe, for all his merits, has caused people to envy him.

3.  Uncle Joe, for all his merits, had done things to offend others.

4.  Uncle Joe has no merits.  It is all sham.  These individuals who despise him are correct.

Of these initial options, the fourth one has clear deficits.  You could make a list of such merits.  You can clearly witness the times Uncle Joe had performed with honor.  The other three have one common theme, a negative reaction to the meritoriousness of Uncle Joe.  The first variation has Uncle Joe perform actions that has disenfranchised others, in spite of the virtuousness of the acts.  The second variation has others in competition with Uncle Joe's merits; the only matter here is that Uncle Joe has out-performed these others, who resent him for this.  The third variation has Uncle Joe in dutiful performance of his meritoriousness, but somehow that this has possibly harmed or insulted individuals.

As you try to contemplate other reasons, you cannot derive another reason.  You are convinced of Uncle Joe's kindness and humane relations with others.  If others despise Uncle Joe, it is for a lack of understanding Uncle Joe's true nature.  It results in an attempt to poison minds and upset people in questioning the gentility of the patriarch.

The weakness of this analogy is finding a fifth (or more) reason(s) beyond those expressed in this post.  But this reason must begin with the true nature of Uncle Joe; anything more than this is unsubstantiated rumor-mongering.  Uncle Joe is good, undeniably so.  This has been recognized for ages.  To refuse this opening foundation reduces all vitriol against Uncle Joe as baseless.

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If there is a sound base to the conceptualization of God by New Atheists, they have not discovered it.  For them to argue against God, they must envision Him as malevolent.  But this is rudimentary strawman argument.  But it defeats the purpose, as it posits the idea of an ability to envision Him.  It may well be that they have not done so properly.