Randal Rauser's review of my book Believing Bullshit - my response

A while ago the well-known Christian apologist and blogger Randal Rauser posted a very long review of my book Believing Bullshit on his blog. You can find Rauser’s review here.

While making a few nice comments about the book, Rauser was generally very negative. He posted the same review on the amazon page for my book and gave the book just two stars.

A negative review is fine, of course. However, Rauser’s review is academically poor (it was written in haste, I suspect).

Such is the length of Rauser’s review that I didn’t, at the time, have time to go through all of it, line by line, pointing out the numerous misrepresentations, muddles and errors that it contains. I told Rauser I would get round to responding.

I still don’t have time to respond to Rauser’s entire review in detail. But, being on sabbatical, I have  devoted a couple of hours to dealing with points Rauser made regarding just the first chapter of the book.

Were Rauser’s review more academically robust and interesting, I might have devoted the many more hours required to respond to the rest of it. But the review is poorly argued, and in any case I suspect no one will bother reading the thousands of words of commentary I would have to produce to deal with the entire thing properly. 

The first chapter of Believing Bullshitexamines the dubious way mystery is often appealed to defend belief systems, especially supernatural belief systems (religious and non-religious). Rauser picks up on a later section of the chapter - on the problem of evil and the way in which mystery is sometimes appealed to by theists in order to try to deal with that problem. Rauser writes:

Law then proceeds to identify numerous unjustified appeals to mystery. For example, later in the chapter he turns to Christian philosopher Stephen Wykstra's response to the problem of evil. Wykstra argue that the "the goods by virtue of which this Being [God] allows known suffering should very often be beyond our ken." (Cited in 60) In other words, for Wykstra, the fact that we cannot identify the reasons why God would allow specific evils is not a defeater to the existence of God since we shouldn't expect to be able to identify those reasons. Law retorts that "when loving parents inflict suffering on the child for that child's good, the parents will do their very best to explain to their child that they do care for them and that this suffering is for their own good." (60) But as a rebuttal to Wykstra this point is impotent since it is easy to envision conditions in which parents would not inform their children of the reasons why they suffer. (For example, the child may not be able to understand the reason, or understanding the reason might create a greater emotional burden or....) By the same token, God could have ample reasons for not informing us as to why we suffer specific evils. In short, Law's critique of Wykstra is much too brief and underdeveloped to be of any use. Sadly, this is one of numerous cases where Law's treatment of theistic positions and arguments is cursory to the point of distortion.

Ironically, it’s Rauser that’s here guilty of crude distortion.

First, if you check the book (p59-62) you will see that while my discussion of the Wykstra-type appeal to mystery does indeed include the parent analogy that Rauser mentions above, it also makes two additional, different points against Wykstra, the last of which I clearly flag as the most significant. By failing to mention these other two points, Rauser creates the false impression the only point I make with respect to Wykstra is the parent analogy. In fact my treatment of Wykstra-type appeals to mystery is not nearly as "cursory" as Rauser would have you believe.

The second of the points I make re Wykstra-type appeals to mystery is that there are presumably limits to how much evil can be put down to God’s mysterious ways. I ask, if the world resembled a vast Heironymous Bosch like vision of Hell with not a jot of beauty or happiness, would it still be reasonable for us to say “there’s no compelling evidence here that the world was not created by a supremely powerful and benevolent creator. It is still entirely reasonable for us to believe in an all-powerful, all-good god”. Intuitively not.

The third point I make, which relates to the second, and which I explicitly say is the most significant of the three points, is that the same sort of appeal to mystery can be employed to defend belief in an evil god against the evidential problem of good. I point out, what most of us intuitively recognise, that:

“we are justified in supposing there’s no evil god on the basis of the amount of good we observe. There are limits to the amount of good that can be put down to an evil god’s mysterious ways, and those limits are clearly exceeded by what we see around us”

In short, Rauser conveniently ignores most of my critique of Wykstra-type appeals to mystery. He omits all mention of what is actually my main objection, picking up instead on a less significant point (the parent analogy).

As a matter of fact, even Rauser’s response to my use of the parent analogy involves a serious distortion. As you can see above, Rauser suggests I have overlooked the fact that sometimes a parent won’t give a child an explanation for why the child is being made to suffer, because the explanation is beyond the ability of the child to understand.

Well I don’t overlook that. In fact, I actually address that issue in the book. I say that such a parent will nevertheless “make some sort of attempt to explain why they are causing this suffering, even if only in the kind of oversimplified terms a child might understand.” They won’t just sit in stony silence, offering absolutely nothing in the way of explanation or even reassurance, while causing their child immense pain.

I then go on to anticipate and deal with the suggestion that God has indeed offered us such explanations and reassurances regarding the suffering he inflicts – they are to be found in the Bible. As I point out, this just raises the question – why are the explanations so unclear and, in any case, “what about the countless generations of humans that suffered before the Bible was written?”

As you can see above, the only other suggestion Rauser makes for why a parent might fail to offer any such explanation or reassurance to their child while making that child suffer horribly is that this “might create a greater emotional burden”.

Really? Think about that for a moment. Is this a situation you find “easy to envisage”? I don’t. I can’t imagine any circumstances in which I would refuse to offer any explanation or reassurance to my child while I was inflicting terrible but necessary suffering on them. But even if Rauser can envisage such a situation, that’s still not enough to get Wykstra off the hook. For what Rauser needs to show is not that there could be, but that there’s quite likely to be, a reason why God will fail to offer any explanation or even reassurance at all to those upon whom he inflicts horrendous suffering.

So, Rauser’s criticism of my discussion of Wykstra-type appeals to mystery to deal with the problem of evil is (i) misleading because Rauser creates the impression that my only response to Wykstra is the parent analogy when in fact that’s the least of my objections (ii) doubly misleading because, far from overlooking a point Rauser suggests I overlook, I actually address it, (iii) weak because the point Rauser does make re the parent analogy is dealt with in the book and (ii) doubly weak because Rauser just ignores my main argument against Wykstra.

In short, Rauser's critique is inaccurate and shoddy. As I say, I think it was written in haste.

Rauser then continues:

As one reads the chapter one is led to wonder how Law would react to naturalists, atheists and skeptics who appeal to mystery. Consider atheist philosopher Colin McGinn. McGinn argues that many of the most recalcitrant problems in philosophy such as the mind brain problem may simply be beyond our ability to understand (they really are mysteries). Moreover, he argues that we should expect such mysteries given that we are finite, fallible evolved creatures. McGinn certainly makes a reasonable case for our cognitive limitations. Why would we think that we can necessarily understand all the deepest problems of existence? But if it is reasonable for the atheist to play the mystery card when it comes to something like the problem of consciousness then why is it not reasonable for the theist to do so when it comes to the problem of evil?

I enjoyed this reference to Colin McGinn as I’m a fan of his. In fact I was taught briefly by McGinn while I was at Oxford (in fact in our first tutorial I saw the classic paper on mysterianism to which Rauser is alluding on McGinn’s desk with a rejection letter from a philosophy journal – which goes to show that even classic papers like that can be summarily rejected).

Anyhow, let me first point out that I say very clearly in the book that atheists etc. are also prone to such dodgy moves (it’s not the content of the belief system that makes it an intellectual black hole but the manner in which it is defended etc. – thus any belief system can become an intellectual black hole, atheism included). Someone reading Rauser’s review might well conclude I assume that naturalists, atheists etc. are immune. I don’t assume that. Nor do I believe it (though I do believe, and have argued, that religious belief systems are particularly prone to these sorts of immunizing appeals to mystery).

Secondly, I am very clear in the book that of course it’s legitimate to appeal to mystery on occasion. Indeed, I acknowledge that some things may be in principle unknowable. Here’s the conclusion of the mystery chapter:

Mystery, as such, is no bad thing. Pointing out mysteries can be a valuable exercise – firing up our curiosity and getting us to engage our intellects. Nor is there anything wrong with acknowledging that some things may forever remain a mystery, may even be in principle unknowable.

Sometimes it’s also reasonable, when faced with a problem case for an otherwise well-established theory, to put it down as a mysterious anomaly. If on countless occasions an experiment has confirmed water boils at 100 degrees C, the fact that on one occasion it appeared not to may quite reasonably be put down to some unknown factor. If we can’t discover what went wrong, it can be reasonable for us to just shrug and move on – putting the freak result down to some mysterious problem with the set-up (a faulty thermometer, perhaps).

It’s also often reasonable, when we have a theory that works but we don’t fully understand why it works, to say, “Whythis happens remains, for the moment, a mystery. But we know it does”. We might have strong evidence that smoking causes cancer, say, long before we understand why it does so.

So the appeal to mystery has its proper place, even in science. What I object to is the way in which the appeal to mystery is increasingly relied on to deal with what otherwise would appear to be powerful evidence or arguments against certain beliefs, particularly beliefs in the supernatural. Whenever mystery is erected as a barrier to rational inquiry, a barrier that says, “You scientists and philosophers may come this far armed with the power of reason, but no further – turn back now!” we should be concerned, particularly if no good reason is given for supposing science and reason cannot, in fact, take us further. The more we appeal to mystery to get ourselves out of intellectual trouble – the more we use it as a carpet under which to sweep inconvenient facts or discoveries – the more vulnerable we become to deceit: to deceit both by others and by ourselves.

So, yes, some things may be in principle be beyond our comprehension, and yes it can sometimes be legitimate to appeal to mystery. As you can see, I very clearly spell all this out in my first chapter (though you’d be hard-pressed to guess it from Rauser’s review).

What I object to, pretty clearly, is not the suggestion that some things might be in principle mysterious and unknowable, but rather the way in which mystery is increasingly appealed to in order to immunize what we believe against evidence and arguments to the contrary.

Now, we can agree that consciousness is a baffling phenomenon - perhaps necessarily so, as McGinn argues. But the point is consciousness is a problem for everyone – atheists and theists, naturalists and non-naturalists. There’s a thorny puzzle here whichever side of these various fences you sit. It’s not a problem that favours one side over another.

Some “problems” in science and philosophy are simply puzzles – we can’t figure out the solution to a puzzle or answer to a question. The problem of consciousness is an example.

Other “problems” are different. They are problems for a particular belief system – problems in the sense that they constitute a very significant intellectual threat to the belief system (and not to its negation). That’s a very different sort of “problem”. It’s a “threat” problem.

Theists recognize that the problem of evil is a threat-type problem. It’s not a problem for atheists. It’s not any sort of threat to what atheists believe. But it is a very significant problem, and is of course widely recognized to be such a problem, for theists like Rauser. It’s a problem precisely because the amount of evil we observe appears more than enough to render belief in an all-powerful and all-good deity highly unlikely.

Some theists (like Wykstra) appeal to mystery in order in order to immunize what they believe against this evidential threat. I point out that this is an example of a more general practice when it comes to what appears to be evidence against supernatural belief. I give non-theistic examples too (concerning crystal healing, ESP)

So does Rauser have a point re the use of mystery to deal with the problem of evil?

No. He just muddies the waters by muddling up different sorts of “problem”. The analogy Rauser draws between the problem of evil and the problem of consciousness is false. The problem of evil is a threat-type problem for his brand of theism. And increasingly to appeal to “mystery” in order to immunize theism against such an intellectual threat is, I suggest, a clear warning sign of an intellectual black hole. Nothing Rauser says here suggests I am mistaken about that.

So that’s what Rauser has to say about my first chapter. His review of that chapter is inaccurate, muddled, and sets up straw men. The rest of Rauser’s review of Believing Bullshit is equally academically shoddy. But, as I say, I lack the time or the patience to go through and respond to his similar commentary on the other seven chapters.

Podcast interview with Alan Litchfield

The Odds of an Evil God & The Truth of Moral Questions

For podcast go here. 

By Alan Litchfield

Stephen Law

Stephen Law Discusses His Interesting Thoughts on Morality, His “Evil God Hypothesis,” and His Views on Religion

Philosopher Stephen Law challenges theists to explain, “. . . why the hypothesis that there exists an omnipotent, omniscient and all-good god should be considered significantly more reasonable than the hypothesis that there exists an omnipotent, omniscient and all-evil god. Theists typically dismiss the evil god hypothesis out of hand because of the problem of good – there is surely too much good in the world for it to be the creation of such a being. But then why doesn’t the problem of evil provide equally good grounds for dismissing belief in a good god?” Law is the editor of the Royal Institute of Philosophy journal THINK. He has published several books and is senior lecturer in philosophy at Heythrop College, University of London. His books include Believing Bullshit, The Philosophy Gym, Humanism, A Very Short Introduction, and The War for Children’s Minds. During our conversation, Law shares his interesting views on morality, discusses how science relates to morality, and challenges both theists and non-theists to think.

For podcast go here.

Glenn Peoples on the Evil God Challenge

I have been having an exchange with Glenn Peoples on his blog about the Evil God Challenge. Glenn thinks the problem of evil (and reverse problem of good) is neutralized by the theodicies (and reverse theodicies). Hence there's no reason provided by the vast quantities of evil/good we observe to conclude that belief in a good or evil god is unreasonable. So all Glenn has to do to show that belief in a good god is quite reasonable is, he thinks, to come up with e.g. a fairly good moral argument for the existence of God. So here's my latest comment...

Let me explain how things look from my end.

I give you what appears to be overwhelming empirical evidence against the existence of your particular God - the evidential problem of evil (e.g. hundreds of millions of years of horror before humans show up, a million plus generations of children around half of which are killed through disease and/or starvation before they reach the age of 5 before Jesus shows up, etc. etc.)

You appear to respond, in effect, by saying: (i) but we theists have all sorts of explanations for all this evil (theodicies), which I think are quite good explanations (ii) even if they are not that good, they can be supplemented by sceptical theism which I don’t rule out, so (iii) the onus is on you to show all these theodicies collectively fail and that sceptical theism is untenable, before you can say that you have provided good evidence against the existence of my God.

But the thing about the theodicies, Glenn, is that they are what Popper calls ad hoc. They lead to now new tests. Or, if they do, but the further test fails, there’s always another gerrymandered explanation for the failure that can be cooked up. Similarly, appeals to God’s mysterious ways and facts-beyond-our-ken are ad hoc. There’s no way empirically to test the claim that such facts-beyond-our-ken is indeed the correct explanation for why there’s so much evil.

Much the same intellectual strategy that you are employing to defend theism is also employed by Young Earth Creationists (YEC), conspiracy theorists, Erich von Daniken style alternative historians (aliens built the pyramids) and countless other wackos to convince themselves and their followers that what they believe cannot be so silly after all.

For of course, if I present a series of evidence-based arguments against YEC, its proponents can say, “Ah, but we have some, we think, quite good explanations of the order of the fossil record, for light from distant stars, etc. - hundreds of such explanations in fact” (explanations cooked up at the Institute for Creation Research and other multi-million dollar funded “research” institutions), and (ii) in any case, God might have his mysterious reasons for arranging the fossils, etc. like that, so (iii) the onus is on you to show all these YEC-type explanations collectively fail and that such appeals to God’s mysterious reasons is untenable, before you can say that the facts to which you point provide good evidence against YEC.

Of course, when we then try to show the failings of the YEC explanations offered, the proponent of YEC can always gerrymander up yet more explanations, and then even more, thereby continuing to make their theory “fit” the evidence. They thus render their theory empirically unfalsifiable (this is the strategy I call “But it Fits!” in my book Believing Bullshit).

But that is, indeed, all bullshit, isn’t it? The fact is, YEC IS pretty straightforwardly falsified by the available empirical evidence, notwithstanding the possibility of endlessly explaining that evidence away by ad hoc means and/or appeals to mystery. Most of us can see that straightaway (those of us whose minds have not been captured by YEC, that is). The endless ad hoc-ery and mystery-mongering is just a smokescreen.

The onus is clearly not on us to refute all the explanations on offer by the YECs. In fact that’s an impossible task given the ad hoc character of their explanations and the fact they're prepared to keep constructing them ad nauseum. It’s entirely reasonable for us to insist that the available empirical evidence DOES indeed very effectively undermine YEC, and that it does so precisely because the YECs’ method of explaining it away is so hopelessly ad hoc.

This is why, before we are presented with any argument FOR classical theism or YEC that might be furnished to save or support the theory, it is indeed entirely reasonable to conclude, on the basis of the kind of observational evidence outlined, that classical theism/YEC is false.

POSTSCRIPT. Glenn has responded with three points, to which I've responded. Here's the points with my responses...
PPS 18th Dec. I have now expanded the explanations below because they were too sketchy.

Hi Glenn

my quick response to your three comments.

First, here's what an ad hoc hypothesis actually is (as Popper and I use the term). It's a hypothesis introduced to save a theory from refutation, a hypothesis that is not independently testable.

Illustration. The Aristotelean cosmology said the heavenly bodies are perfectly spherical. Galileo observed mountains on the moon through his telescope. One Aristotelean attempted to save his theory by insisting there was an invisible substance on the moon that covered the mountains, making it perfectly spherical. This theory-saving hypothesis was ad hoc because (at the time) it was untestable.

Not all theory-saving hypotheses are ad hoc. Newton's theory of universal gravitation predicted a smooth orbit for Uranus. Uranus was observed to have a wobbly orbit. To save Newton's theory, scientists introduced the hypothesis that there was a further planet tugging Uranus out of orbit. This new hypothesis was not ad hoc as it led to new tests - astronomers looked at where the mystery planet would have to be, and found it - that's how Neptune was discovered.

Even when individual theory saving hypotheses are not individually ad hoc, they can be collectively rendered ad hoc if the defender of the theory is prepared endlessly to cook up new hypotheses to save the theory. Or appeals to mystery, of course, which are also, in effect, ad hoc. This is the strategy I call "But it Fits!" in the book Believing Bullshit.

Now to Glenn's response. He says...

GLENN: 1) I’m not even close to being persuaded that the plausibility of theodicies is anything like the plausibility of explanations for why we should believe in a young universe.

ME: What you’re persuaded of is irrelevant. I have pointed out why your method of dealing with the problem of evil is essentially similar to that employed by Young Earth Creationists to deal with counter-evidence.

GLENN: 2) Theodicies don’t strike me as ad hoc. Things like the free will defence or the soul building defence (etc) are generalisable. E.g. the might be stated something like “For any perfectly good and all powerful being, it would still be conceivable that they allow X provided it has some outcome that is compatible with their good character, such as Y.” Ad hoc explanations are really one-off explanations of a sort that are just made up to explain one very specific situation by appealing to principles that are of no use otherwise. So it’s not ad hoc at all.

ME: That’s not what ad hoc means, Glenn. Ad hoc explanations lead to no new tests. The theodicies are ad hoc, by Popper’s definition (he coined the phrase). Look it up. Or, when the theodicies are not ad hoc, and the further test is failed, they are salvaged by yet another defensive manouevre, just as in the case of YEC, thereby rendering the theory unfalsifiable (or an appeal to mystery, of course). Nutters who believe dogs are spies from the planet Venus, etc. employ the exact same strategy.

Ad hoc hoc defences CAN be generalizable. For example, to defend my theory that the Earth is ruled by alien lizards, I can deal with an apparent counter-evidence by saying: "Ah, but that evidence was of course planted there by the alien lizards to fool us." That's a great general, blanket immunizing strategy. it's not one off.

GLENN: 3) Even if things were different and theodicies were ad hoc, they are intended as explanations for why a person might do or allow something that you didn’t expect them to. If anything is allowed to be ad hoc, surely it’s something about why so-and-so might do something. If you rejected the explanation because it was ad hoc, you’d be effectively stacking the deck against any explanation in terms of a person’s intentions, which would be unfair in this case, to put it mildly. But this is moot, since theodicies aren’t ad hoc in any important sense anyway.

ME: The theodicies are indeed ad hoc in Popper's sense. They lead to no new tests (either that, or further explaining away is done ad nauseum to deal with further explanatory failures, or they're supplemented by appeals to mystery). This is NOT like when someone does something out of character and we say, ah, but they probably had this reason for doing it. Often, we can test our hypothesis. So the suggestion is not ad hoc at all. And the occasional ad hoc explanation for anomolies is in any case acceptable (even Popper thought so). However, when there’s considerable evidence against a theory and it’s all dealt with by ad hoc means (and/or appeals to mystery), then that counter-evidence is NOT neutralized.

You’re strategy is, in short, very much like a wife who, when presented with a husband who very often acts in seemingly cruel and vicious way, beating her and her children, maintains he is nevertheless entirely noble and virtuous. She simply explains all the bad stuff away in a manner that is entirely ad hoc (or, when her excuses and explanations for his behaviour clearly fail, just constructs yet more explanations ad nauseum, and/or appeals to his having mysterious unknown reasons).

You, Glenn, say: "If you rejected the explanation because it was ad hoc, you’d be effectively stacking the deck against any explanation in terms of a person’s intentions". This is just false. You have misunderstood what "ad hoc" actually means, as I and Popper use the term. Explanations in terms of people's intentions usually aren't ad hoc, as it's usually possible to test the explanation. E.g. We believe Tom is kind and non-violent. We discover he has killed someone with a knife. We postulate that he killed in self-defence. That it was a case of self-defence is something that can be investigated and indeed potentially shown to be false. It's not ad hoc. But even if it were, it would acceptable if it's a one off example. What's not acceptable is to rely almost entirely on ad hoc means to save your theory from refutation. That's what you are doing, Glenn.

To return to the beaten wife - the wife is being irrational if she insists there’s no prima facie good evidence that her husband is NOT entirely noble and good. She’s deluded. You seem, to me, are a similar case.

Now of course, the wife might insist she has these other very good reasons for thinking her husband really is noble after all. Perhaps she has. But, as things stand, her husband’s horrific behaviour really is excellent evidence that he’s not entirely noble and good, notwithstanding the wife’s endless supply of untestable excuses and explanations.

That’s right, I am suggesting you’re deluded, Glenn. Not very gracious of me, but it’s what I think. Clearly, when we are both so very confident of the reasonableness of our respective, but mutually exclusive, positions, one of us very probably is pretty deluded. The above considerations suggest it’s you.

PPPS. That this is the fundamental problem with the theodicies (and skeptical theism, actually), a problem that the EGC brings out at an intuitive level, is something I'm writing up as an academic paper.

Postscript 20 Dec. Glenn has responded again. Here's my (slightly edited) reply (quoting him):

Glenn you say: "you've got to insist that even explanations that are compatible with all the facts an are true will be discarded by your method of labelling explanations as ad hoc, basically ensuring that no explanation at all will get through your filter,"

Of course true explanations can quite rightly and justifiably be rejected. Happens all the time. But in any case you haven't shown your explanations are true, at this point (considering just the evidential problem of evil prior to considerations favouring theism). You are just assuming they are, at this point!

"No explanations at all will get through your filter." Not sure what this means. Non ad hoc explanations of counter-evidence are fine. Even the occasional ad hoc explanation is acceptable. The only thing I am ruling out is a theory defended against seemingly very powerful counter-evidence more or less entirely by ad-hoc means (plus mystery-mongering). I'm saying, very sensibly, that that does NOT neutralize the counter-evidence! This must, by now, be blindingly obvious to you.

But the key point, Glenn, is, once explaining away all counter-evidence by more or less entirely ad hoc means (plus mystery mongering) is allowed - and that IS your strategy, as you seem finally to have realized - EVERY NUTTY THEORY BECOMES ENTIRELY IMMUNE TO COUNTER EVIDENCE. Indeed, this is the preferred method of dealing with counter-evidence by nutcases the world over.

I can now quite reasonably believe the world is ruled by evil, shape-shifting alien lizards. A wife can quite reasonably believe the husband who beats her and her children is wholly noble and good. Any counter-evidence can quite reasonably be endlessly explained away by ad hoc means (supplemented, if required, by mystery-mongering). Our absurd beliefs will be just as reasonable as yours. And yours as reasonable as ours.

Fumbling Feser

Edward Feser, Catholic philosopher and big fan of Aquinas, wrote a post a year ago explaining why he thinks the evil God challenge doesn't apply to his sort of non-personal, classical God-of-the-philosophers. This is because Aquinas et al demonstrated that anything that's God must be good, given the medieval background metaphysics. Hence an evil god is impossible.

I pointed out that showing an evil God is impossible is irrelevant (I also pointed this out in the paper "The Evil God Challenge" which Feser has read). Even if there were a conceptual problem with the idea of an evil God (and there may also be similar problems with the notion of a good God, actually, but let's set that worry to one side), that does not prevent the evil God challenge from being run. Feser still can't understand why, but here's the reason.

Assume an evil God is conceptually impossible. Nevertheless, there might also be powerful empirical evidence against an evil God. In fact there is - far too much good in the world. And if that empirical evidence is sufficient to rule an evil God out beyond reasonable doubt (at least until some very good counter-argument etc. is forthcoming), why then isn't the evil we see sufficient to rule a good god out beyond reasonable doubt(at least until some very good counter-argument etc. is forthcoming)?

Some have objected that if something is ruled out conceptually, then it makes no sense to suppose there could also be empirical evidence against it. But it seems there can.

For example, William Lane Craig's cosmological argument relies on the thought that an infinitely old universe is a conceptual impossibility. Yet Craig also thinks there's also good empirical evidence that the universe is not infinitely old (i.e. evidence for a Big Bang). So he, for one, accepts that something that's ruled out conceptually might also be reasonably ruled out inductively, on the basis of empirical observation.

Anyhoo, Feser has responded again, in a post called "Broken Law", repeating the same old points. So I thought I'd call this post "Fumbling Feser" in reply. As Feser continues to fumble and drop the ball on the evil God challenge. He continues to maintain it just "doesn't apply" to his classical God. In fact, it does apply. Which is not to say it cannot be met (perhaps even by the construction of a cogent demonstrative proof of the existence of a good God, whether personal or non-personal, perhaps even in the style of Aquinas).

So here's my latest comment on his "Broken Law" post...

Hi Edward

You say:

"Suppose, finally, that you also think there are demonstrative (as opposed to merely inductive or evidential) arguments for the existence of the God of classical theism -- that you endorse an Aristotelian argument from motion to a purely actual Unmoved Mover, say, or Aquinas’s “existence argument” in On Being and Essence for something that is subsistent being itself, or a Neo-Platonic argument for a source of the world that is an absolute unity. If such arguments work at all, then given the background metaphysics, they prove conclusively (and not merely with some degree of probability) that there is a God who cannot in principle be anything less than perfectly good."

Perhaps you have such an argument. In setting out the challenge, I don't claim you don't. This is the bit you still don't understand. The evil God challenge is a challenge. Perhaps the above meets it. Perhaps not. But the above does not show that that the challenge does not apply, i.e. because if correct it shows an evil god is impossible.

Showing an evil God is impossible is irrelevant, for the reasons I explained and which you still don't get.

Demonstrating there's a good god IS relevant, but it is simply a way of meeting the challenge, rather than showing it "does not apply".

You may think this is a fine distinction that doesn't matter much, but it does matter. Because it leaves the very powerfully formulated version of the problem of evil set up via the evil god challenge still on the table, rather than just swept aside on the grounds it "doesn't apply".

Do your medieval "demonstrations" that few philosophers find persuasive really carry much weight against my otherwise overwhelming empirical evidence that your God does not exist?

We'd need to examine them and find out. Though, as I say, the verdict of the philosophical community is already in.

I know you think that's because most philosophers don't really understand them. Actually, I am pretty familiar with arguments of your sort. I've even read your book on Aquinas.

In effect, your response to the evil god challenge is just to say *the evidential problem of evil* "doesn't apply" to your classical God. Because you can demonstrate your God exists.

As a response to the problem of evil - and my evil god challenge - that's obviously hopelessly question-begging.

POSTSCRIPT: The moral is, if you think you can ignore the evil god challenge because you think you can show a priori that an evil god is impossible, think again. That does NOT deal with the challenge. Feser's objection is just an illustration of this more general error.

The "It's hopelessly impressionistic!" response to the evidential problem of evil

The suggestion that the evidential problem of evil is pretty useless as an argument against the existence of God because it is based on claims about suffering, etc. that are hopelessly "impressionistic" has come up several times recently.

David Hart made the move in response to my contribution to 50 Voices of Disbelief (see this post). And now "Fun with Formal Ideas" runs the same move in a comment on the preceding post.

So it's worth dealing with. Here's the comment on the preceding post (nb by "Eth" commentator means the God of Eth):

"Eth is impressionistic, Stephen, it is not founded in any facts, data or evidence where these may be considered synonymous or statistically significant and relies finally upon a appeal to common sense."

David Hart said:

"Nicholas Everitt and Stephen Law recycle the old (and incorrigibly impressionistic) argument that claims of God’s omnipotence seem incompatible with claims of his goodness."

{POST SCRIPT: as TAM's transcript of the radio prog reveals, Denis Alexander also hints at the "It's hopelessly impressionistic" move. Re. huge amounts of suffering, Alexander says: "we simply are not in a position to measure those kind of things, we can measure certain things in science and so forth but..."}

The objection seems to be that assessments of how much good or evil exists are so subjective and unreliable as to be pretty worthless as evidence. Pain and suffering, for example, cannot be given numerical values, or reliably measured using a calibrated instrument in the way, say, mass or velocity can. Ditto happiness, etc.

Does this really deal the evidential problem of evil a fatal blow?

I don't see why.

The evidential problem of evil (and mirror problem in the God of Eth) is based on the empirical observation that the universe is filled with immense amounts of seemingly pointless suffering. This provides us with excellent evidence there is no all-powerful all-good God, in the same way immense amounts of (from an evil God's point of view) seemingly pointless good is excellent evidence there's no evil God either.

Consider a different scenario - a school run by an all-powerful headmaster whom we never see. But we can see how his school is run. Many pupils are beaten senseless, forced to eat shit, and left physically and psychologically crippled by their experiences. Others have wonderful gifts bestowed on them - great food, education, etc. The distribution of these goods and evils appears to be pretty random.

Now consider two hypotheses - that the school is run by a supremely wicked headmaster, and that the school is run by a supremely good headmaster. Both are pretty decisively ruled out by what we observe of the way the school is run.

Notice that the fact that we cannot give numerical values to the pleasures and pains we observe being dealt out, or place them on some sort of objective, calibrated weighing scale, is largely irrelevant. It does not follow that the argument against each hypothesis is based on evidence that is "hopelessly impressionistic".

If that *did* follow, no conclusions about the moral properties of any individual could ever be drawn on the basis of the pleasures or pains they knowingly inflicted. For the reasoning we used would similarly be based on assessments that were "hopelessly impressionistic"!

The "hopelessly impressionistic" response to the evidential problem of evil is, in short, mere smokescreen.

For the evidential problem of evil and my version of it go here. http://journals.cambridge.org/repo_A72V8TEm

What complicates things is that the "hopelessly impressionistic" move is often mixed together with a "no-see-um" move (I think Hart is running a combination of the two - though it's hard to be sure).