Link blog: theodicy, de-conversion, alvin-plantinga, ex-christian

A Logical Argument from Evil and Perfection

"I began this essay by looking at Plantinga's God, Freedom, and Evil, where we find a suggested form of a successful argument from evil. I made two adjustments to this form: first, by eschewing talk of the proper elimination of evil in favor of its prevention; and second, by bringing in the notions of good-making and evil-making properties. With these changes, I proposed a valid argument from evil. I then noted that, as the other premises seemed unobjectionable, the weight of the argument fell on premise (3), the proposition that "Every evil-making property (EMP) is such that its instantiation is not entailed by the instantiation of some greater good-making property (GMP)." I offered a subargument for this premise making use of the possibility of God's existing alone, together with his perfection, to show that from the perspective of perfect-being theism, (3) would be true. But if (3) is accepted by perfect-being theists, then the argument from evil succeeds."
(tags: free-will alvin-plantinga plantinga argument logical theodicy philosophy evil)

From Bible-Belt Pastor to Atheist Leader - NYTimes.com

Small town pastor turns atheist, gets ostracised by Christians, turns to the Clergy Project and now helps run the Recovering from Religion organisation.
(tags: ex-christian de-conversion clergy atheism religion)