Saturday, February 09, 2013

Alex Rosenberg Misses the Point on the Logical Argument from Evil Against God's Existence




On Feb. 1 theist William Lane Craig debated atheist Alex Rosenberg on the existence of God at Purdue University. Rosenberg has written The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life without Illusions, which I read this week.

I found it interesting that Rosenberg argued against God's existence using the Mackie-type logical argument from evil. Rosenberg challenged Craig to give a logical, rational rebuttal of this and, if Bill did, Rosenberg would gladly become a Christian.

Bill did refute Rosenberg's argument. It was easy to do, since nearly all if not all atheistic philosophers stopped defending the Mackie-type logical argument after Alvin Plantinga's defense which showed, conclusively, that there is no logical contradiction between there being an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good being and the existence of evil. 

After hearing this Rosenberg spoke and committed the informal logical fallacy of "missing the point." Wow. I conclude Rosenberg is unfamiliar with the literature on the argument from evil.