An Attempt to Decipher Platinga (Part 1)
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Plantinga is not performing a theodicy, but performing a defense on a possibly logical proof. He is not trying to show that the seemingly logically inconsistent argument is consistent. He is merely trying to prove that there is a possibility that it is consistent. So by proving that there is a possibility for the proof to be logically consistent, he basically destroys Mackie’s argument by showing it as only possibly logically inconsistent.
First, here is Mackie’s argument or as Platinga describes it (Set A)
1) God is omnipotent
2) God is wholly good
3) Evil Exists
Plantinga first isolates exactly what kind of contradiction Mackie believes this proof makes. He talks of three different kinds of contradictions: explicitly contradictory, formally contradictory, and implicitly contradictory.
An explicit contradiction is a conjunctive proposition, one conjunct of which is the denial or negation of the other conjunct. Or in other words: S is P and it is false that S is P. But no explicit denials are to be found in Set A. An explicit contradiction is a contradiction that is obvious without employing the rules of logic.
A formal contradiction is a set in which an explicit contradiction can be deduced by the laws of logic from one of its members. But Set A is not formally contradictory because no laws of logic permit us to deduce the denial of one of the propositions from the other members. A formal contradiction is a contradiction that is only obvious by adding another proposition employing the rules of logic.
An implicitly contradictory set is a set in which a necessarily true proposition has been added and is explicitly contradictory to the other members of the original set. Something is necessarily true if it is impossible that it be false, or if its negation is not possibly true. A necessary truth does not have to be a truth of logic or mathematics to be true, but can be true in the broadly logical sense. A proposition p is possibly true (in the BL sense) just in case its negation or denial is not necessarily true (in the same BL sense).
Plantinga believes when Mackie said that Set A was contradictory, he meant implicitly contradictory. Mackie had to add two additional premises to show the contradiction. In other words, he needed to add some necessarily true premises to make Set A formally contradictory.
19) A good thing always eliminates evil as far as it can
20) There are no limits to what an omnipotent being can do
But 20 is not necessarily true; there are limits. God cannot perform logical contradictions like a square circle or a mountain without a valley. He cannot exist and not-exist both at the same time. 19 also is not necessarily true due to a possibility of a lack of knowledge of the event. So it then becomes:
19a) Every good thing always eliminates every evil that it knows about and can eliminate.
This is where the omniscient characteristic of God comes in. So at this point it seems the proof becomes implicitly contradictory. But 19a is not necessarily true. This is because it is “entirely possible that a good person fail to eliminate an evil state of affairs that he knows about and can eliminate. So it now becomes:
19b) A good being eliminates every evil E that it knows about and that it can eliminate without either bringing about a greater evil or eliminating a good state of affairs that outweighs E.
But this in not necessarily true either. This is because there are situations in which there are multiple evils that you can eliminate, but cannot properly eliminate them all. So it now becomes:
19c) An omnipotent and omniscient good being eliminates every evil that it can properly eliminate
This creates Platinga’s Set A’
1) God is omnipotent
2) God is wholly good
2’) God is omniscient
3) Evil exists
19c) An omnipotent and omniscient good being eliminates every evil that it can properly eliminate
20) There are no nonlogical limits to what an omnipotent being can do
But this is not formally contradictory due to the inclusion of both 19c and 20. So the atheist might introduce the following to get a formally contradictory set:
21) If God is omniscient and omnipotent, then he can properly eliminate every evil state of affairs
But this is not necessarily true either. The question is asked: Under what conditions would an omnipotent being be unable to eliminate a certain evil E without eliminating an outweighing good? There are many examples of a great good only being able to obtain from a milder evil. Platinga then makes the amusing statement: One wonders, therefore, why the many atheologians who confidently assert that this set is contradictory make no attempt whatever to show that it is.
The next step is “to show that a set S is consistent you think of a possible state of affairs( it needn’t actually obtain) which is such that if it were actual, then all of the members of S would be true.” 1,2, and 2’ are now all joined together as 1:
1) God is omniscient, omnipotent, and wholly good
3) Evil exists
To show that 1 and 3 are consistent, a proposition must be found, that when added, is in conjunction with 1 which entails 22. It does not matter whether or not it is true, just as long as it is consistent
22) God creates a world containing evil and has a good reason for doing so
Idea of being free with respect to an action –a person who is free to perform that action and free to refrain from performing it; no antecedent conditions and/or causal laws determine that he will perform the action, or that he won’t. It is within his power, at the time in question, to take or perform the action and within his power to refrain from it.
Morally significant action –for any given person, if it would be wrong for him to perform the action but right to refrain or vice versa
Significantly free –a person who is free to make a choice on a morally significant action
Moral evil –results from free human activity
Natural evil –any other kind of evil
Preliminary statement of the Free Will Defense:
“A world containing creatures who are significantly free (and freely perform more good than evil actions) is more valuable, all else being equal, than a world containing no free creatures at all…The fact that free creatures sometimes go wrong, however, counts neither against God’s omnipotence nor against His goodness; for He could have forestalled the occurrence of moral evil only by removing the possibility of moral good…The heart of the Free Will Defense is the claim that it is possible that God could not have created a universe containing moral good (or as much moral good as this world contains) without creating one that also contained moral evil. And if so, then it is possible that God has a good reason for creating a world containing evil.”
Objection 1 –Argument from causal determinism and freedom
Basically states that you can have free will but all your actions are causally determined. They are opposites and are contradictory to each other
Objection 2 –It is possible, in that BL sense, that there would be a world containing free creatures who always do what is right
Is it within God’s power to create any possible world he pleased?
A possible world is a way things could have been; it is a state of affairs of some kind. There are states of affairs that obtain or are actual and also states of affairs that don’t obtain. To be a possible world, a state of affairs must be very large—so large as to be complete or maximal. A possible world is any possible state of affairs that is complete. If A is a possible world, then it says something about everything; every state of affairs S is either included in or precluded by it.
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