tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post5932627344408376595..comments2024-03-28T05:47:54.177+00:00Comments on Philosophical Disquisitions: Addendum to “The End of Skeptical Theism?”: On What God Would DoJohn Danaherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06761686258507859309noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post-37419621218848729382011-02-18T12:06:47.926+00:002011-02-18T12:06:47.926+00:00That seems fine to me, but it does rely on the abi...<i>That seems fine to me, but it does rely on the ability to build the analogy (say that one class of agents must be like another). </i><br /><br />Which is where Philo's (and hence probably Hume's) arguments in <i>Dialogues Conerning Natural Religion</i> are going to trip up proponents of Christian theism: isn't it more likely, based on our analogies, that there were a team of designers and builders, for example? And, as for evil, as Hume has it, "as this goodness is not antecedently established, but must be inferred from the phenomena, there can be no grounds for such an inference, while there are so many ills in the universe, and while these ills might so easily have been remedied, as far as human understanding can be allowed to judge on such a subject. I am Sceptic enough to allow, that the bad appearances, notwithstanding all my reasonings, may be compatible with such attributes as you suppose; but surely they can never prove these attributes." <br /><br />He also says that a person "may be fully convinced of the narrow limits of his understanding; but this will not help him in forming an inference concerning the goodness of superior powers, since he must form that inference from what he knows, not from what he is ignorant of. The more you exaggerate his weakness and ignorance, the more diffident you render him, and give him the greater suspicion that such subjects are beyond the reach of his faculties", which sounds like the beginnings of the modern responses to sceptical theism.Paul Wrighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07812075028283068443noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post-40424610992564579412011-02-17T19:41:29.021+00:002011-02-17T19:41:29.021+00:00Two things.
First, re: McGrew's argument. I&#...Two things.<br /><br />First, re: McGrew's argument. I've skimmed that paper so this is preliminary, but she appears to make the argument that you can determine the likelihood that a particular object (or state of affairs) is the result of design based on (frequency) data from known designers (i.e. human or animal agents).<br /><br />That seems fine to me, but it does rely on the ability to build the analogy (say that one class of agents must be like another). And it would also seem to open the door Broad Epistemic Theism (discussed in the post above), which makes the problem of evil more pressing. Why? Because working with the data that we have from known agents, we could easily argue that the evil we observe in the world is the result of a malevolent agent as opposed to a beneficent one.<br /><br />Second, I think some theists might like to rely on a Plantinga-style properly basic account of their belief in God. This might be thought to sidestep the problem of skeptical theism, but I've summarised arguments to the contrary on this blog before.<br /><br />Also, Bogdan recommended that I cover Steve Maitzen's article on "Anselmian Atheism" on my podcast. Reading over it last night I think it has something interesting to say about this issue. Namely: that God as defined by theists must be either (a) utterly beyond the comprehension of any human being; (b) non-existent or (c) not maximally great. Maitzen argues that (b) is the most plausible of these options.John Danaherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06761686258507859309noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post-59277666002765425362011-02-17T09:22:31.708+00:002011-02-17T09:22:31.708+00:00Adito,
in her interview with Luke over at commonse...Adito,<br />in her interview with Luke over at commonsenseatheism, Lydia McGrew says that you don't always need to know an agents desires to realize that something was designed by him. She uses as an example the discovery of a deep-space Volkswagen and mentions that W L Craig makes the same point but with ruins on another planet (if I remember correctly). I think Lydia says more on the Volkswagen in her paper Testability, Likelihoods, and Design. The link is available over at CSA, but for some reason I cannot access the pdf. Below is the link to the interview.<br /><br />http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=10555Bogdanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15449119709471870254noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post-81532214401968872472011-02-17T05:42:26.557+00:002011-02-17T05:42:26.557+00:00Actually you're exactly right, I misread that ...Actually you're exactly right, I misread that paragraph. While I'm here though... If a theist rejects ST then do you know how they might try to justify their knowledge of God? It seems like the usual position is that given God has done X and the best explanation for a being doing X is that he has some set of desires and intentions Y we can conclude fairly safely that he has Y. But that kind of inference can only be made when we have some idea of the range of possible desires and intentions the being might have. So why should it apply to something so totally alien to our minds? I think we have reason to be skeptical about Gods nature even without ST.Aditohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02106865378195027880noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post-26334227980998462242011-02-16T14:46:43.305+00:002011-02-16T14:46:43.305+00:00I'm not sure I fully understand.
I think I m...I'm not sure I fully understand. <br /><br />I think I may have addressed that point in the second-to-last paragraph of section 6. <br /><br />If not, perhaps you could rephrase the question.John Danaherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06761686258507859309noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post-32435537139022203512011-02-15T18:44:33.612+00:002011-02-15T18:44:33.612+00:00Why does our lack of knowledge about all things co...Why does our lack of knowledge about all things considered goods not extend to Gods nature? It seems like no matter how a theist tries to define the limits of their knowledge about the good God will always be outside it and His nature will just be assumed.Aditohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02106865378195027880noreply@blogger.com