AS176: Justin Schieber vs Robert Johnson, Part 2

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:30 Thomas: Hello and welcome to episode 176 of Atheistically Speaking. I'm your host Thomas Smith. Well, we've got a lot, a lot a lot more debate for you here, so I'm just gonna get right into it because it's already gonna be long enough as it is. So I appreciate you listening and supporting me at patreon.com/atheist and that's it for me. I'll turn you over to me. Well the debate me. It's two different me's, okay? Sorry.

0:01:12 Thomas: I have maybe a quick one for Rob here. Let me me see if this works when I select it. Can you guys see that? Okay, if it didn't pop up, I will go ahead and read it. And this is from Charlie Baker. God interfering with our free will, and he's quoting Exodus, when the Lord hardens Pharaoh's heart, and he would not listen to Moses and Aaron just as the Lord had said to Moses. So what would your response to that be, Rob, where it looks like in the Bible, and I know, again, we were more talking about theism and not Christianity, But given that you subscribe and you mentioned the Bible and that you subscribe to Christianity, what would you say to that quote, if you don't mind? I

0:01:21 Justin Or Rob: Can't, unfortunately Yeah, that's a fair question And what's important is that That particular issue in Exodus 9 backs up a little bit further as we see God giving Pharaoh time and time again chances to turn the people over. And, you know, after each plague, you know, another question posed and so on. And this is actually brought up in Romans 9 as well. This is God hardened Pharaoh's heart. But I think, again, if we, again and I do, adopt this idea of Molinism that based on all of the things that God knew Pharaoh would do, that he hardened his heart based on what Pharaoh had done. So I think it's both based on how God had ordered the world, but it's also based on what Pharaoh did and would have continued to do.

0:02:40 Thomas: Think you probably described it by context a little bit, but I was really trying hard not to interrupt you guys' flow because it was really good. But I did want to wonder for people, definitely not me, but, you know, for other people, if he could define Molinism, you know, I mean, I know I could do it, but if somebody, no, could you define for Or maybe the people who aren't as experienced in philosophy of religion as you two clearly are define Molinism. And also if someone could give a good quick definition of skeptical theism just in case to clarify for people trying to follow along.

0:03:12 Justin Or Rob: Yeah, I'll pick up on Molinism, and then I'll let Justin do skeptical theism. So Molinism was this idea that was developed by Louis Molina. He was a 16th-century Jesuit priest, and what happened, he's a counter-reformer, right? So he was trying to understand these two streams that we see in the Bible of free will and God's sovereignty. So he posited that there is a third type of knowledge that God has, and it's called middle because it falls logically between God's free knowledge and natural knowledge, and it is before the divine decree, which states that God knows what we would do, not could or will, but knows what he would do in any set of circumstances. Circumstances, and based on that, he can order the world, maintaining our free will and still getting his will done. So That's that's a snapshot of it, and uh, there's actually an article on the website that I just wrote called A Brief Sketch of Molinism, so if anyone wants to familiarize themselves With That that's right.

0:04:07 Thomas: That's apologetics105.com, right?

0:04:10 Justin Or Rob: Yep, perfect, okay, um, well skeptical theism, uh, is, was developed primarily as a response to Rowe's argument, Rowe's evidential argument from evil. And skeptical theism, well I should say that the argument is, within the argument there is an attempt to move from the claim that there are many instances of suffering which appear to be gratuitous, which appear to be pointless, to the claim, that therefore at least one of them is pointless, right? So that seems like a really intuitive kind of move, but the skeptical theist comes along and says, "Look, compared to God, our knowledge and our understanding of the causal relations of different events is so minimal that we are not even entitled to that kind of inference."

0:05:08 Justin Or Rob: And so the skeptical theist pulls the rug out from under the Rowe argument. He says, look, we can't even say that. The problem is that, at least within the last 10 years or so, there's been a swap of papers about skeptical theism highlighting some of the things that it also entails, which are not particularly welcome on the theistic view.

0:05:30 Thomas: So do you accept that as a good definition, Rob?

0:05:34 Justin Or Rob: Yeah, I think that's fine. I think it's pretty basic.

0:05:36 Thomas: Because, sorry, yeah.

0:05:38 Justin Or Rob: I'll go ahead.

0:05:39 Thomas: Oh, I just wanted to ask you, is that something you subscribe to? You, because I'm actually getting in the questions, I'm getting some people who think you do and some people who don't. And I know multiple times Justin said, well, if you subscribe to skeptical theism, then, you know, all that most of this goes away, or maybe the particular point he was talking about, is that something you subscribe too? And if not, why don't you?

0:06:02 Justin Or Rob: No, I don't subscribe to it as saying this is the ground I'm sticking my flag into. And the reason why is because I'm not familiar with it enough to articulate it to a point where I can defend it adamantly if we're just talking about skeptical theism with, say, another Christian or something. The reason why I used it in my opening is because I think it's a good potential option. I don't see anything contradictory about it on its face, but no, it's not something that I would define myself as in a proper sense.

0:06:34 Thomas: So Justin, if, if he had, let's say, said, Well, I mean, you're a skeptical theist, therefore, you know, et cetera. How would you have defended your claims today against that?

0:06:45 Justin Or Rob: Well, at least in the At least if we're talking about Roe's argument, Roe original formulation of the argument, skeptical theism, I would argue, does do away with Roe argument. But it doesn't come out of that unscathed. There are problems that skeptical theists, at least the kind which would be able to dispense with Roes argument, there are problems with that kind of skeptical theist. One of them being that it would seem to put people in a kind of moral paralysis. So if we are unable to place probabilities on the motivations of God in the relation to the states of affairs in the world, then, for example, if I'm walking around in a park and there's a little girl drowning in a pond, I could easily save her. But then I have to ask the question, well, who am I to say that this is not for some greater good? Who am I? To intervene on God's ultimate plan, maybe this death is necessary for some suffering 500 years in the future. So this kind of extreme skepticism is not without its problems.

0:07:57 Thomas: So I'm going to get to more questions submitted, definitely, but just again, because of that imbalance, I'd like to ask Justin a question, and it has to do with something Rob said. Now, Rob, as one of his arguments, and Rob, if I get this wrong, let me know. He had mentioned that atheists will say, well, why, why couldn't God's all powerful, why couldn't he have come up with a better system, a better way of creating us that isn't so full of suffering, etc., etc.? And I believe Rob's main response was, well, can you propose one? I mean, can, he's never heard of an atheist who can give an alternate explanation or an alternate kind of schematic of how a process that would have led to us could come about.

0:08:42 Thomas: Do you see that as a valid challenge? I mean, I know if we were talking scientifically, I think we would be required to provide some sort of plausible alternative when you're talking about models of the universe or anything like that. It's not like you can just say, well, something, you know, like you usually have to define something. So do you see that as a valid criticism?

0:09:03 Justin Or Rob: Well, if I'm remembering correctly, it was in the context of a discussion about the possible justifying reasons for free will, right? And he was saying that, look, if you want to say that it's possible to have free will and to guarantee that there will be no evil or no sin or whatever, then that's a problem. And presumably he's kind of referring to this idea of Alvin Plantinga put together this free will defense, which is a response to the logical problem of evil, which attempts to say that there is a logical contradiction. It's a much stronger claim than I was making tonight.

And Plantinga was saying, look, here's a scenario where it's possible to have, or here's a scenario that shows that it's impossible for God to preserve libertarian free will and while at the same time also completely preventing any evil, right? So I believe his comment was in response to something like that. What I was suggesting is free will be damned. If God doesn't have the kind of libertarian free will in the sense of morally significant free will where he can legitimately choose between two options because it's impossible for God to choose evil, if that's a perfectly fine scenario, why can't God just multiply that? Why can't he give us all perfect natures and have us be, you know, acting perfectly as a result?

0:10:42 Justin Or Rob: That's, of course, not an impingement on free will. It's just showing that free will is irrelevant. Because if God's lacking free will, it's not a bad thing, then why is it bad for us to lack it?

0:10:55 Thomas: Rob, I'd like to give you a chance to respond to that if you want.

0:10:58 Justin Or Rob: Sure, and that's because God doesn't create maximally great beings. He creates human beings. So I would argue that that's just like saying we need to create more gods. And I get what you're saying as far as why, if God has this morally perfect nature, but we still say that he has free will to choose, why is that the case? And why can't he duplicate that into humanity? My response still is because he's not creating more gods, he's not creating humans with the same nature, with these maximally great attributes.

0:11:29 Thomas: But why isn't he?

0:11:30 Justin Or Rob: Well...

0:11:30 Thomas: That was one area of the exchange that I'm not sure I understood your argument, Rob, because Justin was asking essentially why create these kind of pathetic humans, why create us, when he could just create other beings like him that apparently have fulfillment and whatever extent you guys agreed, if God has free will, and definitely God is good. I think you can both agree that by definition, I mean, God is a good being, so why can't he just create more little gods instead of us?

0:12:07 Justin Or Rob: If he created more little gods, that would mean that he is no longer the maximally great being that would be a shared, and be more like a Mormonistic type theology. So I guess I just don't see how that. I don't think that would be logically possible to do that, because then he would no longer be maximally great. And I'll be honest, I've actually never had that question posed me before, so I would definitely like to look at it more, but that would be my initial reaction. So I think it's a good question. I think, I think it's a question that deserves probably a better answer than what I gave. But I think that would be my first thing, is that that maximally great being category would no longer be solely owned, and it sounds a lot like a Mormonistic type theology to me.

0:12:48 Thomas: Do you care to respond to that, Justin?

0:12:49 Justin Or Rob: Okay. I would like to, but I don't know that it's appropriate, and maybe we should go to more questions.

0:12:50 Thomas: Okay, we'll go to more questions. Let me ask one. I think this has come up a lot, a lot of different listeners, so let me go ahead and select that, even though I know it's not doing you too much good. I So thanks, Jeff. Very appreciated.

0:13:14 Justin Or Rob: Hey, Jeff.

0:13:15 Thomas: Much appreciated. And he submitted a lot of incredibly thoughtful questions. But he says, human freedom at best explains so-called moral evils. It doesn't explain so-called natural evils like floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, et cetera. So Rob, what would your response to that be?

0:13:36 Justin Or Rob: The natural laws have to work in natural ways for us to understand them in a meaningful sense. If laws were sort of a hodgepodge put together of things work sometimes, things don't work other times, then it would be extremely difficult for us to understand the reality of natural disasters like you mentioned. The other thing too is that human beings are not without fault for what we see in the natural world. Like for instance, we have a significant intelligence about how things take place, weather patterns and the like, and even take a terrible, terrible, terrible tragedy like Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Like, we knew that the walls they built were only category three. We knew category five storms exist, yet people still lived there and they knew it was a frequented zone. So, I think a combination of natural laws having to work in natural ways, as well as a certain level of responsibility for humanity would go a long way to answering that.

0:14:29 Thomas: But surely that only explains for the last, what, 100 years? I mean, how long have we had the requisite knowledge to make that our fault? And as far as I know, I mean the science of the earth hasn't changed a whole lot. It may have been worse at some times, may have Been a little better, but natural disasters have to have been occurring long before we knew how to do anything about it, don't you think?

0:14:51 Justin Or Rob: Oh, definitely. And that's why I said that the second part's more of a peripheral additive than what natural laws having to to work consistently. I think that's the primary answer, yeah.

0:15:01 Thomas: And so I guess that entails, and I want to make sure I get this right, that whatever Whatever laws are required for free will, those, you're saying those entail other evils, like, or I don't know if that evils is the right word, but other suffering like earthquakes and floods, like in order for them to be consistent, they, those things need to happen. Is that right?

0:15:25 Justin Or Rob: I think if, if we, and let's look at the Christian worldview for a moment and look at something like the fall of humanity. So, so these things taking place after the fall, and we could probably talk about different Christians who definitely disagree on that, about how the fall exactly works, but yeah, I think, I think if, if we're consistent, we'd say for instance, um, they have typhoons or earthquakes or tornadoes or fires or whatever, that that would, one, be a result of the fall, and two, also be restricted to something like the natural evils always having to work on a consistent basis. So that would entail part of my response, I guess.

0:16:05 Thomas: Forgive me for grilling you one more time on this, because I just thought of, I thought of something else and I can't help it. I got to ask this.

0:16:12 Justin Or Rob: You better grill me next, damn it.

0:16:13 Thomas: I will, I do have a good one for you, Justin. Don't worry.

0:16:18 Thomas: But assume it's not unlikely, it seems to me, not unreasonable to assume that one day, 100, 200 years, I don't know what, we will have the technology and ability to avoid virtually every natural disaster. Do you have any explanation for why God would then have wanted to sort of punish people in primitive times more so than in that time? I mean, in that that time, most of these instances of suffering would be eliminated and life would be just way better. I mean, what did the people born a thousand years ago do so wrong to have that much more suffering inflicted on them?

0:16:57 Justin Or Rob: Yeah, two things. I don't really mind you grilling me because when Justin and I had our first debate, he received, and this was in my town, So he received far more grilling than I did. This is justified suffering.

0:17:13 Justin Or Rob: So, yeah, so I think one big mistake a lot of Christians make is they say, like, floods and natural disasters are God's punishment on people. And I guess I just don't see that to be the case, at least biblically speaking. I think it's a case of natural law taking place. And we can talk about why that's the case or why God might have a reason. Reason, but we could always talk about the skeptical theistic part, or theism part, which says, you know, we may not know why this particular natural disaster took place, but there's nothing logically incoherent by saying God doesn't have a reason for it. But people just saying it's just God's punishment, it's God, you now, saying these people are terrible. I don't know, I've never agreed with that. I think that's kind of a...

0:17:52 Thomas: Well, so I want to clarify, I'm not saying it's his punishment, but I am saying that would it not be considered unjust of a perfect being to to inflict so much more suffering that, I mean, by your view, is necessary in some way on a people who lived a thousand years ago versus a people Who lived later who, I mean, just any given person born at that time, did they do anything more wrong? I mean does that not strike you as unjust? I'm not saying he's punishing per se, but the distribution of this natural suffering as it were, isn't that a bit unjust?

0:18:28 Justin Or Rob: Well, I guess you mentioned in the beginning that in a In a couple hundred years, we may have a way to route pretty much every single natural disaster, and I would love to hear why that's the case. I think that would be awesome. I don't think it's true, but no, I didn't

0:18:41 Thomas: Do you think that's impossible? I mean, just look at the casualties that happen in this country, for example, when there's, what, a flood, a hurricane. They're still bad, of course, but they're so much better than in countries that are a little bit, in areas that are a little more behind in technology and development. Is it unreasonable to assume that that might carry forward to the point where it'd be greatly reduced? Maybe it won't be eliminated, but there could be a time when most of the planet doesn't really even suffer from natural disasters.

0:18:45 Justin Or Rob: Say it's possible.

0:19:13 Justin Or Rob: I think it could be better, and that sort of ties into the second part of what I was saying, which is why I think we as humans should have more responsibility to do things like fix living conditions in third world countries for people. So that may very well be a part of it, saying these things are continually happening, we need to build up other countries who are not our own, who are not in a third world status. So yeah, I don't see it as punishment and I don't see that it's, you said, unjust to the people who were a thousand years prior.

0:19:43 Justin Or Rob: And the other thing too is if we do understand God to be the author of life, then we don't really have any guarantee to live to 80 years anyhow, so I think it's a fun topic, I think it's interesting, and I'd definitely like to talk more, not now, but about, yeah, the conditions in a couple hundred years that would limit natural disasters. I think that would be interesting.

0:20:05 Thomas: Well, I have a bigger question for you, Justin, but I want to point that last part towards you. I don't think that came up necessarily in your guys' exchange. What do you think about what he just said, what Rob just said that we don't necessarily have? What was the words that we don't really have the right to a certain... Sorry, Rob, can you repeat what you said on that?

0:20:27 Justin Or Rob: It is. If we were, if we, right.

0:20:29 Thomas: We're not the authors of life, that part.

0:20:32 Justin Or Rob: Yeah, so if we're not, if we understand God to be the author of life, we don't necessarily have any right to say this is when we need to, this is where we need TO live. We're not guaranteed 80 years. So, and again, Christian worldview, we understand that there's something far better than this life after our human bodies pass.

0:20:51 Thomas: So what would be your response to that, Justin? Justin?

0:20:52 Justin Or Rob: To the gods, the author of life, and therefore, yeah,

0:20:58 Thomas: Yeah, I mean, as a, I guess, a response to your arguments about suffering, if you were to say, well, God's the author of life, and he has the right to sort of, we

0:21:07 Justin Or Rob: I mean, I think that that's probably, I mean, obviously the author-of-life premise there is going to be entailed by both theism and specific forms of theism, like Christianity, and it might be that Christianity also entails the additional claim that therefore, you know, he has the right to take, essentially, the Bill Cosby theodicy, where you know, I brought you in this world, I can take you out. It might be that Christianity.

0:21:38 Thomas: Need to find a new name for that now.

0:21:39 Justin Or Rob: I know, I know, but what I would say about that is I don't think that you could reach that conclusion from that premise, and I would say that the conclusion that therefore that God can take your life away without any care, I don't think that that's entailed by the claim that he's the author of life. And so I think that it would be false on theism, but maybe that's something entailed specially to Christian theism. But Christian theisim is not something I take terribly seriously at this point. So I don't think that that would apply to theism generally, but maybe it's a specific feature of Christian theism.

0:22:25 Thomas: Okay, well I've referenced it, I'm gonna go ahead and start on what I think is my best question for you, Justin, I hope. We'll see. One of the more interesting exchanges I think think you guys had, was when you were talking about, I believe Rob asked Justin about why suffering would be necessarily bad under naturalism, and Justin, your response was interesting. I thought that was a good question, but your response, you sidestepped it, but I think legitimately by saying you're not defending naturalism. The proposition up for debate is more is suffering evidence against God, assuming theism, you know, assuming, right, is that a proper characterization roughly of what you said?

0:22:48 Justin Or Rob: Right, so essentially my point was there that on naturalism, it may or may not be that moral realism of some sort is true, right? Naturalism doesn't guarantee that. But on theism, I would take it as relatively uncontroversial that theism does entail that a robust kind of moral realism is true. So when you compare those two hypotheses, one entailing the moral issue and one not, then at least looking at it that way, then these problems with morally bad states of affairs, like suffering, that theism is going to have a weaker explanatory power there.

0:23:56 Justin Or Rob: But his question was about whether or not these things are really bad on naturalism. But again, the argument doesn't require that they be bad.

0:24:08 Thomas: Right, that's the part I wanted to highlight, and I thought it was interesting, and then I thought, it's almost as though you were handing over the reins to theism as to whether or not suffering is bad, because I do think it is pretty vital, one way or the other, to your argument, Justin, to say that suffering is something bad. I mean, it's not, yeah,

0:24:30 Justin Or Rob: Well, it's bad in the sense that, yeah, I'm going to use negative value terms to describe what happens when I stub my toe quite clearly.

0:24:38 Thomas: But we're talking about suffering for a reason, right? I mean, the debate is suffering, but not, the debat is not, you know, golf. Is it evidence against God? The debate is not—you know, specifically, it is not something—right? I mean—and I thought it was interesting that you were saying that all that matters is that it is bad under theism, which I think is—I think it is true because you are saying it is—you are almost saying it's inconsistent. You're pointing out an inconsistency logically or...

0:25:06 Justin Or Rob: Well, no, I don't want to do that. It's possible, of course, that I misspoke, so I don't want to say that suffering entails the falsity of theism. Theism, all I want to say is that you have this observation, this empirical fact of suffering. That's not up for debate. The empirical fact is that there's a widespread...there's a lot of suffering going on. And so the question is whether or not...what the implication of that is on theism and what the implication is on a plausible atheistic hypothesis. On theism, it's entailed, or at least I would think that it's plausibly entailed that suffering is a bad thing, that there's an extra thing being added to the mere empirical fact that there is suffering going on.

0:25:08 Thomas: Okay, sure.

0:26:02 Justin Or Rob: But it's that suffering is not only happening, but it's bad, and that has a special relevance to a theistic hypothesis, which says that God is, among other things, admittedly, interested also in the well-being of his conscious creatures. And so, yeah, and so that's what I'm saying. That's why it's especially a problem for theism, because of that, becauseof that interesting relationship. On indifference, there is nobody out to protect us, right? There is nobody interested in our well-being except for us.

0:26:22 Thomas: So... Oh, go ahead.

0:26:41 Justin Or Rob: And so that's the kind of, that's the incongruity going on there, I guess.

0:26:46 Thomas: Right, I see what you're saying, but I'm glad I get a chance to grill you a bit, because I... And maybe apologies if I'm missing something, but I think the interesting point that I'm trying to illustrate here is that you did say that it's... It doesn't... It's not entirely relevant on naturalism or on indifference to establish that suffering is necessarily bad, I think you did grant that—I hope you granted that it's necessary to your arguments to have a belief that suffering's bad, otherwise why are you even asking the question of if—well,

0:26:50 Justin Or Rob: Actually, well, let me think about this. I'm not entirely sure. I mean, like if I were just a complete nihilist and I thought that value terms were just like, if I was like the most extreme nihilists ever and I thought that value terms were just meaningless, then I could still raise this argument because it would still be the case that we're talking about the empirical fact of suffering, not the value of suffering. So the empirical fact of suffering, yes, exactly, non-theism,

0:27:45 Thomas: And you're talking about relative to theism, right? I mean, you're taking about—yeah, so the question I want to bring to you now is, could Could not one therefore say, well, if we're using sort of the value judgments of theism here and we're, and we'RE using to be consistent, we're going with that. Could you not just say under theism, sure, suffering is bad, but free will is better than that. And you would be kind of forced, well yeah, but you're sort of forced to accept that if you're only going with theism's definition of what's right and wrong. I mean, isn't that sort of a way out of your arguments? All

0:28:08 Justin Or Rob: Yeah, that's certainly, well yeah, so the free will, the appeal to free will would be an attempt to say that this goes to some degree to explaining the suffering, right? Because remember my argument was an explanatory argument, exploring the explanatory power of theism relative to indifference, right. So, yeah, I mean, it's been done quite a few times before where someone would appeal to free will to explain some kind of suffering, but as your questioner Jeff Lauder already brought to the table, that that really only applies to moral suffering. And usually philosophers want to distinguish moral suffering from natural suffering, moral suffering being the suffering that is in some way the fault of a moral agent, and natural suffering being suffering which is the result of the laws and the way that the universe is set up.

0:29:27 Justin Or Rob: So free will would be relevant to one half of that equation.

0:29:27 Thomas: Right. Do you want to respond to that, Rob?

0:29:34 Justin Or Rob: Well, yeah, the reason why I asked the question, and I know Justin's not defending naturalism, but I thought it was important to bring out because I don't think, if he's saying we see suffering in the world, and then theism gives a poor explanation to why that's the case, I want to know why do you think suffering is objectively bad? Like, where is it grounded in? To me, the most consistent position is nihilism because you're saying ethics and morals are illusory. But if that's the case, then why argue that there's suffering in the world objectively and that theism is a poor explanation for it? That's why I asked the question. I just think – I don't think a naturalist or an atheist can ground objective moral values and duties, which do pertain very heavily to suffering.

0:30:22 Justin Or Rob: Sure, sure. So, I mean, there's – well, I guess there's two things to address there. There's one that, you know, naturalists or atheists would be incapable of grounding facts about the values of suffering. And that's a very, I mean, that's an interesting question. And there's a variety of answers out there, obviously, and some of them being that it's not even necessary to ground them. That in the sense that you could just say that these are, you now, just facts that exist out there. They don't get further explained. They're just brute in the universe, right? That's one possible way. There's other ways, of course. I'm not necessarily subscribing to that.

0:31:09 Justin Or Rob: And then there's the question of whether or not one can run this argument, this comparative explanatory argument, by appealing to the empirical fact of suffering. The empirical fact is that it's not just a matter of time. The fact of sufferings is something we both agree on. That's the agreed-upon observation here. The question is whether or not that observation fits better on naturalism or on indifference or on theism. On theism, there is something that does not exist on naturalism, mainly a God who cares about suffering, right? So that's a huge difference. On theism, you'd expect that it wouldn't just be a complete indifferent free-for-all about the suffering.

0:31:54 Justin Or Rob: On theism, you'd expect certain intervening behaviors, perhaps, from morally perfect beings. So it's less expected on theism. At the very least, it's less expected.

0:32:08 Justin Or Rob: Yeah, I guess I just don't see, because you said we both observe suffering in the world. So we both observ things that take place that would institute suffering. But the question is, how do we ground it? How do we know that it's not illusory? Well, suffering isn't illusary.

0:32:27 Justin Or Rob: But it may very well be if you're a nihilist, if it's not objective. Like, why is it bad? Okay.

0:32:35 Justin Or Rob: So you mentioned an abstract object. Like, it could be grounded in something else. But abstract objects don't have any causal powers. They can't tell you to do something. So it would be insufficient to grounding a duty. But you didn't say you held to that view. You said that's a possibility. But I think that view, just by the fact that abstract objects aren't causal, We can't account for duties, which are objective, so... Sure, sure. I'll address both these points. As to the issue about abstract objects, I mean, nothing about the things that I did say about that view entails that they need to be causally relevant here. It is not those abstract objects which are doing the actions in the world. That's not what the view would say.

0:33:24 Justin Or Rob: Secondly, the point you made just before that about, I'm forgetting, but perhaps we can move on. We can move along. We've talked about that quite a bit, and that was in our last debate as well, so yeah,

0:33:34 Thomas: Well, okay. Well, I do, I have another question, um, from, from me. I think it'll be hopefully the last one that no one asked because I really, I really want to know, I cannot think of a possible explanation. We talked a lot about hypothetical examples of suffering and the fawn argument was, was brought up or the, sorry, the faun scenario, I guess. And, uh, that's when the, you know, a natural fire from, like, lightning burns down the forest or whatever, a faun is caught in it and dies and suffers. I just want to put to you, Rob, you did seem to answer those things by saying the ripple effect, there could be unknown goods that come of that, that sort of thing. That was, roughly speaking, your answer to that problem, right? I just wanted to clarify before I go on.

0:34:23 Justin Or Rob: Pretty much.

0:34:23 Thomas: Okay, I really cannot think of the difference. Given an all-powerful God, God, how in the world could there be more good that would come from the faun burning to death and suffering than from, say, just instant death via tree branch, crush the skull instantly? I mean, things like that. I mean it might seem like a silly question, but I think it's important because we are dealing with an all-powerful being who supposedly would want to eliminate needless suffering, right? Like completely needless suffering that serves no purpose. What could could possibly be the additional value that anyone could get from the faun actually internally feeling pain versus just the same exact scenario, the fawn still dies in the same place even, yet it's killed in a less painful way?

0:35:10 Justin Or Rob: Yeah, there's a couple things with Rose's arguments that are interesting, because he sets it up in almost a way where he sets up parameters so tight that he can't possibly fail. So he's saying, well, no one observed this happen. No one knows that this happened, so no one can say, "Hey, we've got to do more to get these deer out of here to make sure that when we have lightning storms that we have little alarms on trees that get deer out to the forest quicker" or whatever. He sets it up in a way where no one sees this event take place. So it's almost, I wouldn't say logically contradictory, but he's saying no one sees the event take place, but I'm going to tell you that it took place. So that's maybe.

0:35:53 Thomas: Well, but it's not hard to imagine something at least very much like that, right? I mean, we're talking about thousands of years. We're not even talking about humans. We're talking About millions of years of potential suffering anywhere in the entire world. Surely examples like that happened, right. Oh, man.

0:36:11 Justin Or Rob: I think, hold on, because if you read his entire narrative about the deer, like a lot of the specific details to me is like I guess it's possible. I'm not saying it's logically impossible or anything like that. But, again, we go back to the part of I can say we don't know why, but it's not logically impossible that there is a greater reason. And I agree, it's hard to think of a reason for moment one why that's the case. I think it's harder to think about a reason why, let's say, a child gets hit by a car and dies. That's hard think about as well as to why, but I think a possibility can be brought about. And if that's a case, then there's nothing logically contradictory about it.

0:36:51 Thomas: Then I have to ask you, is there any observable instance of suffering in our world that could possibly shake your faith in God then? I mean, is such a thing as suffering so bad that you would say, no, no good? I means, it sounds like your answer could apply to any suffering. I mean we could literally all be feeling as much pain as possible right now and it seems like your answer would still work, you'd just say, well, there's probably some good reason for that. Is there anything that would shake your faith on that?

0:37:23 Justin Or Rob: Well, of course, with that, let us say everyone is feeling the most amount of suffering they can possibly feel. And what I'm saying is that there's nothing logically contradictory about it. So, of course, it could work in various circumstances. But if you're asking if there's something emotionally that could shake my faith, I mean, I don't know. I haven't experienced the full gamut of things emotionally. But is it possible? Of course it's possible. But I just don't now. I mean I can't put myself in that situation. But I think the good question to ask is what should change my faith? What should make me not believe in God? And there could be a couple answers to that that I would entertain that I think would if something came about. But, yeah, you're right. There could be an maximal amount of suffering in the world. And I could still say, well, it's not logically contradictory to God's existence because of X amount of reasons.

0:38:16 Thomas: Well, it's one thing to say that it's not logically impossible, but there are tons of things that aren't logically impossible. I mean, little space aliens could be manipulating me right now. It's not logically impossible, but it's unreasonable to believe that, I hope, about me. Do you guys believe that? Because it's definitely not true. I'm just telling you. Totally not true! I am not just a group of aliens in a skin suit. Definitely not. Anyway. Do you see what I mean, though? There's a difference between logical impossibility and something that's reasonable to believe.

0:38:41 Justin Or Rob: So that comes to the distinction between – I mean you guys have been – going back and forth here a little bit about the logical problem of evil, whether it is even a possible justifying reason, right?

0:38:59 Justin Or Rob: And, of course, in the debate, I never defended the logical problem of evil. I've defended the inductive problem of evil, the evidential problem of evil, which says that not only is that almost certainly the fawn example something to have occurred before, it's almost certainly to have occurred millions and millions of times before. And if not in that exact circumstance, then in other circumstances where you run out of food and you starve to death slowly as an animal over days, or you get eaten alive or you die of infection over a long period of time. Those instances of suffering are going to be the modus operandi of the natural world.

0:39:45 Justin Or Rob: It's just what happens. And I'm not saying that it's logically impossible for God to have justifying reasons for those kinds of events. I've merely claimed that there are other hypotheses that make way more sense of these kinds of things.

0:40:04 Thomas: Rob, do you care to respond to that or do you want me to move on to another question?

0:40:07 Justin Or Rob: Let's just move on. I think we can go back and forth on that all day, I think. Good.

0:40:10 Thomas: Okay. Justin, I've got a question for you here. I know you should be excited. Sorry, I went back. So I'm highlighting it here. Mike McElroy asked, why should we expect God to intervene to prevent suffering? Why should Should our suffering have any kind of primacy in God's calculus?

0:40:28 Justin Or Rob: Well, if we are assuming classical theism here, then at the very least we have a God that is not only morally perfect, but is also interested in our well-being. He's interested in other things, of course, too. It's not as though well-being must always trump, in all possible circumstances, any other goods that God might want to bring about. But there's certainly a reason for him to, you know, however strong, for him to intervene at times and prevent suffering that is unjustified.

0:41:07 Justin Or Rob: And again, it might be the case that you can bring up a scenario where there is a reason where God would want to play hands off because there's some greater good being brought. But I'm sorry, at the end of the day, when we count up the billions and billions and millions of slow deaths in the natural world, it's just not plausible to me that every single one of them is positively related to some great good down the line. And so I think because of that, there's good reason to think that indifference much better explains these facts.

0:41:33 Thomas: Rob, did you want to respond, Rob? This

0:41:44 Justin Or Rob: Yeah, I guess one thing, I mean, if we're going to assume the Christian worldview here, then it kind of ties back to what I said in my opening, which was that the chief purpose in life on the Christian world view, or even if you want to talk classical, I would add to with Christianity, is that our main goal here is not to live a life of happiness without any suffering. I would argue that suffering and sacrifice are necessary parts of life, in that we are to spread the knowledge of God, not to live lives that are free of pain and the like. So if we understand that in the context of heaven is real, and there are certain people who go to heaven based on criteria like faith, then to me suffering seems to dissipate and not really matter that much if there's something greater beyond this world.

0:42:35 Thomas: Is a good opportunity to go to a Twitter question. Actually, most of these have been on the Google Hangouts Q&A, which is kind of a nice way to ask questions. But we also got some on Twitter hashtag. And at Russell Teapot asked, I think I'll kind of pose both these questions because they're free.

0:42:54 Thomas: They're free will related. Yeah, I can't, someone with a really dirty Twitter name should ask something, so I'd have to say it. That's like too good of a question. I got to say, no. He asks, is there free will in heaven? And is there evil in heaven and, and tied to that also, because I know free will was a lot of Rob's explanation for some of these, these things. How do we determine that we actually have the kind of free will that Rob has described as, which is an explanation for something like that? Suffering.

0:43:27 Justin Or Rob: The first question, is there free will in heaven? It probably won't surprise you that Christians disagree on this particular area. I do think that Christians have free will in heaven, and I think that's because we understand the depth and the turmoil that comes as a result of sin. So much like I don't think people can forfeit their salvation, I think if we say, well, in heaven the eternal conscious torment of hell would serve as a reminder to people, about what sin is like, and we will have such a knowledge at the throne of judgment in the Bible that we have a better idea of how terrible and destructive sin is. So I do think there's free will in heaven, and I don't think that's different or incompatible with saying there won't be evil in heaven either, based on the things that have taken place in humanity and what we would call the end times or the last of the last days. So in the second piece, what was the second question?

0:44:33 Thomas: Sure. Well, you've answered a lot of the challenges Justin's brought up with free will might be a justification. So he's asking, how do you know that we actually have that free will that you're saying is a justification?

0:44:47 Justin Or Rob: I would say it would be properly basic. It's something that we can sense, and based on that, unless someone submits a defeater for it, then I think it would be properly basic to understand that we do have a legitimate choice between.

0:45:00 Justin Or Rob: So based on that, I think it's fair to say that we have free will as being properly basic, and if someone would like to bring a defeator for that, then we can interact with that. I do, but that would be just so many more.

0:45:10 Thomas: Do you have anything to say on that, Justin? Yeah.

0:45:17 Justin Or Rob: I mean, those are all questions that deserve, you know, entire books to themselves. And what we can do if it's easier, if you just want to direct your question towards Justin, he can answer it and then we can just move on and we don't have to have Cross if you don't want to, Justin or Thomas, it's fine.

0:45:34 Thomas: Oh, well, we're almost coming to the end of the Q&A. I mean, well we could really go on all day with this, but yeah, yeah. I'm going to max out the Google Hangout of eight hours and And then I think we can just start another one and then we'll be good, right? All right.

0:45:34 Justin Or Rob: Sure. We have eight hours.

0:45:52 Thomas: I think I'll be honest. I think, unfortunately, I've run out of good questions submitted for Justin. So I'm going to have to ask one more for Rob. And that's why I'm kind of trying to include both of you on these questions because of the balance and stuff. But, Rob, you mentioned the fall at one point, and someone has asked, Mike actually, again, has asked—I'll go ahead and select that in case it does anyone any favors—do you believe in a literal fall of a literal Adam and Eve in a liberal garden? If so, why are you even talking about natural laws working consistently, if science based on consistent natural laws leads to the story of the Garden of Eden being false?

0:46:06 Justin Or Rob: Yeah, I think that's taking in a presupposition that that cataclysmic event like the fall couldn't change natural laws. So I'm not saying that they're consistent insofar as they can never change. What I'm saying is that if there was a perfect setup in the world and then something were to happen where it would be fall, and that is the new, not even new, but that's what we see, that's the world we're in, and that's a consistency that we have now. I guess I don't see how that couldn't be something prior that happened that would change the set of events for us in humanity.

0:47:07 Thomas: So, you'd essentially be saying that if somehow there were scientists around back then, you know, if they were just going on what the natural laws are and observable laws, they would say there was a Garden of Eden, whereas now those have been changed by some event, so we say, scientists say there wasn't.

0:47:27 Justin Or Rob: Well, no, I think what a lot of people have trouble with, and this gets into another in-house debate with Christians, is this idea of young earth, old earth, was there death before the fall, and so on. I look at the fall as more of a spiritual thing with sin natures and the like, and I sort of lean towards the position that there still was death, animal death and the likes, before what we would call the fall. I do think there's a literal Adam and Eve, and I think the fall that normally I reference is more, more of a spiritual, but if someone picked up a young earth view, let's say, I think they could probably argue that somewhat successfully, but I look at it as more of an earth-changing, life-shattering, laws are now upside down kind of event.

0:48:15 Thomas: Okay, well, I think I'll put it to you both. We do have plenty more questions, but as I referenced, they're mainly for Rob. So I want to just ask you guys, would you prefer to wrap up with closing statements now? Do you want to keep grilling Rob with some questions? What would you guys like to do?

0:48:32 Justin Or Rob: I think closing statements would be pretty fine. I don't want to make it a completely one-sided thing, and I think it's already been, just because the nature of the questions have already been largely...

0:48:42 Thomas: Hey, I did my best to grill. That's it. I'm going back to that question I asked, Jess. I'm gonna grill you some more on that. All right. Well, with that said, thank everyone. I just thank you guys so much for the questions you submitted. I know, obviously, I couldn't get to all of them, but I think I got to a good number of them and they were very good. So thanks. And with that, I would like to open up closing statements and I will go toward Rob. I'll get my timer here just so that we don't go overboard. And Rob, you have five minutes, closing statements.

0:49:12 Justin Or Rob: Oh, five minutes, all right. Well, first of all, I want to thank you for moderating, as well as Justin for participating again. I think what's interesting in the debate for me and things that I've learned is that we can express one particular view, and then as we get deeper and deeper, come into some unknowns where we don't particularly know the answer.

And, you know, that's one thing I kind of like about dialoguing with Justin, and is that he's not a person where everything that he says is true and he knows the answer to everything, and that's why I kind of like that type of interaction, because some of the questions he asked, I don't have a certain answer for it, and it's an answer that it's good to go and research and find.

But I think on the whole, as we look at probabilistic versions of the problem of evil in different types, I still think that if we adopt a Christian worldview, view, it makes more sense than what we see on naturalism, if we were to carry that view out to its logical conclusion, insofar as what we see with suffering being pretty much illusory to the point where it's not really objective. My second point was on, we looked at skeptical theism as well as various types of theodicies where we would say that things like natural law, freedom, and moral responsibility supersedes to that of suffering, and that it's necessary as a byproduct for that to exist. And the other part was skeptical theism, which we talked about in the context of Roe's argument, which says we don't know why an all-loving, powerful, and knowing God would allow suffering to take place. And Justin admitted that if we were to adopt that view, that first argument falls away.

0:50:59 Justin Or Rob: And lastly, one thing we didn't get a chance to talk about a whole lot, but I think is is interesting, and even if you don't subscribe to it, interesting to at least consider is the idea of Molinism and how that plays into our lives as an add-on to free will, if you will. That God has middle knowledge, and logically prior to the decree, he has ordered the world as such, that his will is still accomplished and our free will is yet to come.

It's still intact, and there's much more deeper parts to that that I'd like to express, but of course we're limited on time. The other thing I would like to encourage people listening to do is to actually have meaningful dialogue with people who you disagree with. I think, and I'm sure Justin would agree with me, is that a lot of times people prefer to respond in things and quips and just nonsensical statements and anger, And I think it would be a lot better for both sides if people just responded meaningfully and with sincere desires, rather than what I see most of the time, which is just people being really angry for no particular reason in general. So I think that would be really good for the dialogue between Christians and atheists and probably all types of faith as well.

But to conclude, I still don't see – I see merit in discussing the emotional problem of evil and why people react to certain situations the way they do. I think that's really good. But as far as the logical problem, I think that has been defeated. In the evidential problem, I don't think we have enough data to say one way or another where the evidence truly lies, so to me it's still a push, but I'd definitely be willing to discuss it more.

0:52:37 Justin Or Rob: Moving forward, because I think it is a topic worth talking about a little bit more. So that's all I have for my closing. So again, I want to thank you guys for moderating and participating, and then the people for listening. So thank you.

0:52:51 Thomas: Thanks, Rob. All right, Justin, five minutes closing.

0:52:56 Justin Or Rob: Yeah, I mean, I won't take all five minutes. I don't really actually have anything planned, but I'll just say a few things here.

0:53:05 Justin Or Rob: Yeah, so, you know, I want to thank you, Thomas, and Rob for having this, for making this happen, and I enjoyed our discussion. I think I got to understand where Rob is coming from a little bit more, because we've debated in the past, and so that I'm coming to understand Rob and his positions a bit more which is always valuable, and And yeah, when it comes to the arguments that I presented this evening, I'm not entirely sure that they've been interacted with in a direct way. So there's been posits, like additional details to theism, to say, okay, maybe this is why, posits being things like possible unknowns that we can appeal to.

But of course unknowns can be appealed to on both sides. I can say, you know, just as Rob can say there are possible unknown reasons why God might allow the child to drown in the pool, I can easily come back and say, well, but Rob, there's a bunch of obvious, you knows, it's obvious that there's a bunch unknown reasons, additional reasons, why God would want to prevent that child from drowning. And so I think that appealing to unknowns in this way, at least in response to the arguments of the type that I brought out today, are largely irrelevant because they cancel each other out.

0:54:48 Justin Or Rob: The unknowns on each side cancel each another out, and you're left with the question of what hypothesis better explains the facts on the ground. And I think that, unsurprisingly, I think that an indifference, an atheistic hypothesis is going to do better, and it's going to have more explanatory power in its ability to explain those particular facts than theism, and even more so Christian theism. I think Christian theism has more baggage that makes it more problematic for its explanatory ambitions.

0:55:30 Justin Or Rob: But that said, I really enjoyed this conversation. So yeah, watch me on Real Atheology.

0:55:40 Thomas: Hey, I was going to get to that. I want to say, so thanks, Justin. And I think maybe it's possible you guys are just too nice. I think I need to get some participants who really hate each other and trying to crawl through the screen and attack more. No, that was great. I think that was really respectful dialogue and I certainly learned a lot. I mean, I already knew all Molinism. I mean knew it, but no. So I want to thank you guys. Thank you listeners for watching so much and as I referenced, I was going to say, find Justin Schieber on Real Atheology. Is there anything else you'd like to point people to?

0:56:20 Justin Or Rob: No, not really. That's my main project going on. Unreasonable Doubts is wrapped up, so that's where you'll find most of my content.

0:56:29 Thomas: And you can find Rob on Apologetics105.com and the podcast by that name. Anything you would like to promote, Rob?

0:56:38 Justin Or Rob: Yeah, I would like to promote reasonablefaith.org, just not to say that that's an end-all, be-all for Christian thought, and that's what people need to engage in, but just for the other side, for people to examine someone who approaches it from a natural theological perspective, not a presuppositional one. So I think that would be good for people who are looking for, atheists who are looking for arguments from the other side.

0:57:01 Thomas: Excellent. And of course, if you want to find my stuff, you can go to Atheistically Speaking, the podcast on iTunes. If you want support more endeavors like this, you can patreon.com/atheist, and that'll support more endeavors like this debate, which was great, thank you guys so much. I'm gonna go ahead and call that a wrap. Uh, I hope to talk to you again soon, both Justin and Rob. Maybe Rob, I can get you on the show sometime on another topic or something. All Right, thanks So much, guys, we are out. Look All right, that's it. I do just want to quickly thank, I got two new patrons, and I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. That's Nicole Carmody and Kimberly Hart. Thank you so much for supporting the show. Others, if you'd like to, as I mentioned already, patreon.com/atheist, much appreciated. And that's an hour episode, so I don't have time to say anything. But next week, going to be very, very good. I liked it a lot. Yeah, yeah, that's it. All right. I'll talk to you guys next week.

0:57:27 Justin Or Rob: Sure. Hey guys take care and