Top o' the Stack.
Is there an adequate naturalistic explanation for the unspeakable depth and depravity of moral evil? If not, what might we reasonably conclude? Can one plausibly argue from the depth and depravity of moral evil to the existence of God?
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Yesterday I ordered a book on Amazon and it arrived today. That's what I call service. The book is described here by its author:
. . . bold demonic action is on the rise, mainly due to the fact that sin is not only tolerated in society but even publicly celebrated. This is not what the film is about, but it is the basis of Fr. Gabriele Amorth’s ministry. It should be noted that Fr. Amorth was not, in fact, the exorcist for the pope but, rather, for the city of Rome.
Exorcisms are sacramentals, on which I have recently published a book. In it, I dedicate an extensive chapter to the subject of exorcisms and place it in the context of what theologians describe as “preternatural reality.” It means that demons operate in an order that surpasses the natural but is less than supernatural. The Latin word praeter indicates a realm that goes beyond the natural possibilities of any human being. In other words, demons cannot work miracles, but they can produce phenomena that appear miraculous to us because they exceed the power of the natural order. There are many references to this in Sacred Scripture.
After the Old Atheism (J. L. Mackie and Co.) came the New Atheism the 'four horsemen' of which were Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens. The New Atheism is now utterly passé. These latter-day naturalists have been replaced by the preternaturalists, Satanists among them.
Time to bone up on this stuff, folks, especially you folks with kiddies in the public schools. I'll dive into Ralph Weimann's book tomorrow. If you've read any of it, report below.
UPDATE 10/11. Tony Flood comments on the Holocaust Argument:
Bill, woven through your well-wrought argument (to the effect, as I like to formulate the point, that naturalists can't even frame a problem of evil) is your insistence (but I'm sure it's more than that) that there are no knock-down (rationally compelling, not merely rationally acceptable) arguments for any substantive philosophical position. ("Show me one you think is knock-down, and I'll knock it down," I remember you writing years ago.) Do you have an argument for that? Is your claim more than a gambit or posture, a bluff that someone can call? Might the auditor of a rationally compelling argument simply be psychologically impervious to its objective rational power? Is there a rationally compelling argument for your "non-substantive" philosophical position? Or is it merely rationally acceptable? Can you "rationally coerce" me to accept your universal negative claim? Sorry to hit you with a stream of questions which may not have been expressed with sufficient rigor.
Your essay reminded me of a possible issue with my putative transcendental argument in PaC: an exclusive disjunction (P V ~P); the elimination of ~P, namely, the class of non-Christian worldviews; ergo, P. Arguably one weakness is that it's impossible to show that no non-Christian worldview can account for rational predication (etc.).
I also appreciated your homo homini daemonium insight, which I hadn't considered before.
Thank you for the well-written comment, Tony. But it seems that you ignored my footnote which was intended to blunt the force of the objection/question that you pose in the first paragraph. The footnote reads:
*It follows, of course, that there are no rationally coercive arguments for my characteristic meta-philosophical thesis. I accept this consequence with equanimity. I claim merely that my characteristic thesis is rationally acceptable.
If we assume, as I believe we must, that meta-philosophy is a branch of philosophy, then, given that my characteristic thesis is a thesis in meta-philosophy, it follows that my characteristic thesis cannot be rationally coercive, i.e., rationally compelling. Now I am not a dialetheist; I hold to LNC and deny that there are any true contradictions. So I maintain, as I must given the two assumptions already stated, that my characteristic thesis is rationally acceptable but not rationally compelling. And so, being the nice guy and classical liberal that I am, I tolerate your dissent. I will not tax you with logical inconsistency should you reject my characteristic thesis.
You ask whether I can "rationally coerce" you to accept my "universal negative claim." No, I cannot, nor do I want to. I want to live in peace with your. I will now insert a psychological observation that I hope is not inaccurate. You started out a Catholic, became a commie — a card-carrying member of the CPUSA if I am not mistaken — and then later rejected that adolescent (in both the calendrical and developmental senses of the word) commitment to become some sort of Protestant Christian presuppositionalist along the lines of Cornelius Van Til and Greg L. Bahnsen. What you have retained from your commie indoctrination is your polemical attitude which, I speculate, was already present in nuce in your innate psychological makeup and perhaps environmentally enhanced and molded by your life-long residency in NYC.
You see philosophy polemically, as a matter of worldview. (You are psychologically like Ed Feser in this regard, but I'll leave my friend Ed out of it for now.) I do not see philosophy polemically, or as matter of worldview. I see philosophy as inquiry, not worldview, Wissenschaft, not Weltanschauung. And so I distinguish philosophy from politics, which is not to be confused with political philosophy. Philosophically, I have friends, but no enemies. Politically, I have both enemies and friends. And so I want the scum who support Traitor Joe beaten into the dirt figuratively speaking, that is, removed from power. The tone of the preceding sentence indicates how I view the politics of the present day: it is not matter of gentlemanly debate, but a form of warfare. Whether it must by its very nature be a form of warfare (as per Carl Schmitt) is a further and very difficult philosophical, not political, question.
All of this needs elaboration and nuancing. And I am aware that I haven't responded to all of your questions. More later. Time for this honorary kike to mount his bike. Combox open.
