Stephen Law on The Problem of Evil

Stephen Law, author of The Philosophy Files, The X-Mas Files and The War for Children's Minds, explains the Problem of Evil and gives an original take on this traditional philosophical problem.

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Comments

[Kinch Feuerbach]

This is a very interesting interview. Stephen Law is incisive and certainly doesn't hold off from difficult questions. His discussion of the equal plausibility of good and evil God hypotheses is particularly intereresting. Naturally, as a theist, I didn't find him convincing - he did not, for example, address theodicies that work evil into the very basis of creation...that is they hold evil as a necessary product of the act of creation. However, I think it would be good for all theists to listen to this (and others like it) podcast and, if needs be, to abandon their faith or at least to think carefully about it. A fine post, I hope to see more like it.
K. Feuerbach

[Jim]

There is an interesting response to Stephen Law's claim that the widespread apparently pointless suffering we see makes God's existence improbable. The response is represented in the writing of Steve Wykstra. What we see makes a hypothesis plausible only if it's reasonable to believe that what we see would be different if the hypothesis were false. So the apparently pointless suffering we see supports atheism only if it's reasonable to believe it would look different if God exists. But is that belief reasonable? Probably there are connections only God knows of between sufferings and goods, so that goods we see often result from apparently pointless sufferings. Also God is probably aware of goods 'beyond our ken'; many sufferings that look pointless to us result in them. Further, resulting goods may well be realized elsewhere in the universe or be reserved for the future or an afterlife. We can hardly guess what the good-securing strategies of an omniscient all-good creator would be. As what we see of suffering might very well look the same if God exists, the appearance of widespread pointless suffering provides no support for atheism.

Another difficulty: even if what we see of suffering is strong evidence against theism, it doesn't follow that theism is improbable. For that evidence might be trumped by evidence for theism. Law rejects some popular arguments for God's existence, but there are plenty he doesn't mention (represented by philosophers like Richard Swinburne and Al Plantiga). Also there may be adequate defenses for those popular arguments, which are in any case meant to functional cumulatively in conjunction with other arguments. I think the case for God's existence deserves more consideration than Law can give it in his brief interview. Atheism is no slam dunk.

[Frank]

It`s always interesting to have the opportunity to hear people`s opinions on themes like theodicy. Steven Law`s conclusion would seem to be that the existance of a theistic God is highly improbable. Apparently other concepts of God such as deism are not affected by his arguments.

I find the inerviews concise and highly comprehensible but I would like to ask why you usually choose to call on atheists to speak on religious topics. Do I detect an element of bias?