How do you attempt to rationalise with the completely irrational?

[seer]

... which is invisible, and whose existence we can only accept on the basis of faith alone.

aka. not objective.

Are the laws of logic objective?

[seer]

You have yet to lay out your argument. Why so coy?

Epicurus' logic is undermined by what I just related. That is all that is needed. Never mind the fact that you can not define suffering as a moral wrong in any objective sense.

[Sparko]

Ooh, a personal attack in lieu of a salient point! Nicely done.


... which is invisible, and whose existence we can only accept on the basis of faith alone.

aka. not objective.

You really don't get it do you? God created the universe and since it is a creation of his, it reflects his nature. It is built into reality. Just like math and logic are objective facts. 1+1=2 even if nobody in the world knows math. Even before there were humans. Objective morality is the same. It exists whether anyone follows it or not. It is not making up rules and having everyone follow them. It is not about "faith" any more than math is about faith. Torturing babies for fun is evil even if everyone in the world thought otherwise. Even if nobody in the world believed in God. That is an example of objective morality.

[whag]

you are the one who brought up "predation"

It’s irrelevant who brought it up, since predation, disease, and calamity are the three subproblems in the problem of natural evil. The bullet points, if you will.

Adam was the first human. Whether you believe he lived 6,000 or 1 million years ago. Once he sinned creation fell along with men. I know you don't believe that, but that's your problem not mine. We are discussing this from the framework of Christianity, not naturalism. So bringing up naturalism into a discussion about the problem of evil with a Christian God is just a category area

No, the discussion is about theodicy, so the question of what expression the curse took in light of what we know about natural history is fair game. If the Fall is pre-disease, for example, I’m not sure that would be in concordance with what we know about evolution. If the Fall was pre-calamity, same deal. The natural history record is filled with evidence of calamity. How was the curse of Adam expressed in nature?

So within the Christian paradigm, there is no problem of evil with the Christian God, because 1. the fall of Creation was the fault of man and 2. God in his mercy is holding off on destroying all evil until the full number of saints is achieved.

I know that the Christian paradigm reconciles the problem of evil. I wasn’t arguing otherwise.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Epicurus' logic is undermined by what I just related. That is all that is needed. Never mind the fact that you can not define suffering as a moral wrong in any objective sense.

Of course it can be defined as a moral wrong. That you do not agree with the conclusions such philosophical arguments arrive at is another matter.

You appear to be attempting to state as absolute facts what are merely the philosophical arguments and contentions of various individuals that are premised on the existence of a Judaeo-Christian deity.

Nor has your somewhat glib response to moral evil dealt with natural evil.

[Whateverman]

Are the laws of logic objective?

No. They're not, because they don't actually exist as laws. They're a by-product of the existence and use of language, and as such, are descriptive rather than prescriptive.

[seer]

No. They're not, because they don't actually exist as laws. They're a by-product of the existence and use of language, and as such, are descriptive rather than prescriptive.

Are they absolute and universal? Because if they are merely descriptive they are subject to change - correct?

[seer]

Of course it can be defined as a moral wrong. That you do not agree with the conclusions such philosophical arguments arrive at is another matter.

You appear to be attempting to state as absolute facts what are merely the philosophical arguments and contentions of various individuals that are premised on the existence of a Judaeo-Christian deity.

I thought you studied these things? Epicurus' argument is called the logical (deductive) argument from evil. It fails by adding the premise I stated. There is the probability argument from evil, but that was not what we were discussing. And how do you make the case for suffering being a moral wrong in a non-subjective way. Please school us!

Nor has your somewhat glib response to moral evil dealt with natural evil.

I have no idea what you are saying.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

It fails by adding the premise I stated.

What premise? You have posted a few comments that appear to be very loosely based on arguments made by Plantinga, as well as possibly one or two others.

I have no idea what you are saying.

I keep typing that I am not "saying" anything.

[seer]

What premise? You have posted a few comments that appear to be very loosely based on arguments made by Plantinga, as well as possibly one or two others.

Good grief, am I speaking to an evil twin who wasn't involved in the debate?

1. A good God would want to end suffering.
2. An all powerful God could end suffering.
3. A good and all powerful God may have sufficient moral reasons to allow temporary suffering for a greater, eternal good.

Thereby preserving both His power and goodness.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Good grief, am I speaking to an evil twin who wasn't involved in the debate?

1. A good God would want to end suffering.
2. An all powerful God could end suffering.
3. A good and all powerful God may have sufficient moral reasons to allow temporary suffering for a greater, eternal good.

Thereby preserving both His power and goodness.

That is not a premise. That is merely you stating your opinion.

[Sparko]

I know that the Christian paradigm reconciles the problem of evil. I wasn’t arguing otherwise.

I think that concession ends the discussion since the whole point of the argument was to try to prove that the Christian can't reconcile the problem of Evil.

[seer]

That is not a premise. That is merely you stating your opinion.

Of course it is a premise, even if you don't call it a premise it sill defeats Epicurus' logical argument. And it is no more an opinion than Epicurus' points.

[Ronson]

no it's not. Logic is objective. There are fundamental rules/laws of logic that can't be changed and don't depend on what people know or think.

Like "A cannot be the same as Not-A in the same way at the same time"

A child grows up in a house where none of the electric sockets are live. If he never leaves that house and no one fixes the breakers - logically - for him, electric sockets are harmless (as well as useless) so he can safely stick paperclips into them.

There are laws of nature that we are all subject to, and being universal we all learn what those are. "A cannot be the same as Not-A in the same way at the same time" is a universal law of nature. We learn that law and so it becomes logical - to us - but we are not born with logic. Seer said there are "laws of logic" and I don't believe there are "laws", only what we learn to be laws. That's different than the laws of nature.

[Ronson]

Right and I maintain that the laws of logic are born from God's rational nature. Like His moral law is born from His moral nature. Both I think could be called objective, though I prefer universal.

So you are saying there's a difference between what you call "laws of logic" and the laws of nature?