Category: Good and Evil
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Naomi Wolf on the Return of the Demons
Over the last three years, many of us who are naturally and by training skeptical of supernatural explanations have wondered whether the astonishing upsurge of irrationality and outright evil society-wide and, most depressingly, in the institutions that ought to serve as bulwarks against this madness, may be due to demonic influence. For the scale of…
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Homo Homini Lupus
Top o' the Stack. Opening paragraph: A 28-year-old Gypsy girl from the Tene Bimbo crime family 'befriends' an 85 year-old single man, marries him, and then poisons him, causing his death, in an attempt to steal his assets. The two were made for each other, the evil cunning of the woman finding its outlet in…
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Galen Strawson on God
Substack latest. Does the fact of evil render the nonexistence of God certain? ……………. Tony Flood comments: A good one, Bill. Bahnsen held that atheists, having no reason for affirming an absolute moral standard (which evil offends) can't even frame a problem of evil. He also held that the classic argument you summarized is missing a premise: God could…
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Can Evil be Eradicated?
Not by our own effort, as I argue at Substack.
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Does the Demonic Play a Role in the Politics of the Day?
This just in from Vito Caiati: Your thought provoking post An Oligarchic Pathocracy and in particular the twenty characteristics of this collective psychological derangement, each of which is an absolute inversion of the natural, the good, and the rational, leads me to consider whether potent demonic (Satanic) forces are at work here and now, either…
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Political Ponerology
Ponerology is the theological study of evil. Political ponerology is thus the political-scientific study of evil. A tip of the hat to Tony Flood for referring me to this Mises Wire review by Michael Rectenwald of Andrew M. Lobaczewski's Political Ponerology. I just now ordered a copy from Amazon. A new edition of Political Ponerology, by…
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Parallel Problems of God and Evil, Mind and Matter
For Bradley Schneider. ………………………………….. It is a simple point of logic that if propositions p and q are both true, then they are collectively logically consistent, though not conversely. So if God exists and Evil exists are both (objectively) true, then they are collectively logically consistent, whence it follows that it is possible that they be collectively logically consistent. This…
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Evil as Privation and the Problem of Pain, Part Two (2021 Version)
Part One is here. Some pains, though bad in themselves, are instrumentally good. You go for broke on your mountain bike. At the top of a long upgrade your calves are burning from the lactic acid build-up. But it's a 'good' pain. It is instrumentally good despite its intrinsic badness. You are satisfied with having…
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Study history to know yourself and what you are capable of
In this important video, Jordan Peterson explains how history describes you. Part of what he is doing is railing against the pernicious leftist displacement of evil onto external conditions, social and economic, and its removal from its original and true locus, the foul and diseased heart of the human animal. For your own good, please…
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Evil as Privation and the Problem of Pain, Part One (2021 Version)
For Vito Caiati. This 2021 version of a November 2010 post corrects unclarities, infelicities of expression, and outright errors in the initial entry . And the font is more legible for ancient eyes. ……………………. When theists are confronted by atheists with the various arguments from evil, the former should not reject the premise that objective…
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Is Theism Empirically Refutable?
Consider the following passage from J. J. C. Smart: It looks as though the theistic hypothesis is an empirically refutable one, so that theism becomes a refuted scientific theory. The argument goes: (1) If God exists then there is no evil, (2) There is evil, therefore (3) It is not the case that God exists.…
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C. S. Lewis on the (Non) Additivity of Pain in Relation to the Problem of Evil
In The Problem of Pain (Fontana 1957, pp. 203-204, first publ. in 1940), C. S. Lewis writes, We must never make the problem of pain worse than it is by vague talk about the 'unimaginable sum of human misery'. Suppose that I have a toothache of intensity x: and suppose that you, who are seated…
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Generic and Specific Problems of Evil
Substack latest. The nature and tractability of the problem depends on the type of theism espoused. ………………………. Vito Caiati comments: I very much profited from the short essay “Generic and Specific Problems of Evil” that you posted on Substack yesterday. I have read it several times, and, if viewed from the perspective of the ultimate destiny of…
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Presentism and Evil: If Presentism is False, then God does not Exist
Bradley Schneider sent me the following argument and would like my opinion. I am happy to accommodate him. (I have edited his argument for the sake of brevity, the soul of blog. I have also given it a title.) PRESENTISM FALSE? THEN GOD DOES NOT EXIST! 1) An all-good, omniscient, omnipotent God should not allow…
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Requite Evil with Good?
From The Notebooks of Paul Brunton: When Confucius was asked his opinion of the injunction to return good for evil, he answered, "With what then will you return good? Return good for good, but justice for evil." Is this not wiser counsel? Does not the other push goodness to an extremist position, rendering it almost…