Speaking of Impossible Things: Can Formal Logic Yield Atheism?

[John Bauer]

I don’t really do formal logic. Formal logic led me to the conclusion of “atheism” and encountering God—road to Damascus style—forced me to reconsider my conclusions.

I am curious about this, now, because I’ve never encountered any valid and sound argument that leads to the conclusion of atheism. Would you share an example of this, please? (We are both believers, so I don’t expect you to mind if I eviscerate it.)

 

[atpollard]

I am curious about this, now, because I’ve never encountered any valid and sound argument that leads to the conclusion of atheism. Would you share an example of this, please? (We are both believers, so I don’t expect you to mind if I eviscerate it.)

Not complicated … the classic Problem of Evil.

So is God …

• Unaware (not omniscient)
• Not able to do anything (not omnipotent)
• Busy somewhere else (not omnipresent)

“Omnipotent, Omniscient and Omnipresent” are the defining characteristics of a being worthy of the title “God”, so fail on any one of those and whatever might exist … it is not God.

The alternative is …

• God was aware (and chose to do nothing)
• God had the power to do something (and chose to do nothing)
• God was present (watching evil without getting involved)

There is a news story about a group of teenage boys that stood watching a disabled child drowning and simply laughed as they filmed it on their phones. The State attempted to charge them with a crime because such “depraved indifference” was obviously ‘evil’ to any outside observer. The boys were destroyed in the press, but never charged because there is no Law that requires a bystander to get involved. There is no Law that obligates morality or compassion.

Are we prepared to “worship” and accept a God that is as morally bankrupt as those teenagers?
Actually, more so (God could have effortlessly intervened).

So for me which is more probable:

1. God is an immoral monster.
2. God does not exist.

As a practical matter, this was not an empty philosophical question for me. When I was 8 years old, my closest friend at school was raped by his mother’s boyfriend. There is nothing in the experience of an 8 year old for them to draw on to allow them to help a friend deal with that level of pain. I was barely able to process the existence of that level of evil. So the “question of evil” for me was both real and empirical. I searched three years for an answer, eventually settling on a quote from Bertrand Russel as the best explanation: “The evidence of contemporary Christian life is such that god, if he ever existed, must surely be dead”.

As a teen, I joined a gang and became an arsonist and drug smuggler.
So you may be able to dismantle the “logic”, but not the “experiential reality” behind it.

(There are a LOT of people that discover that experiential reality in a flavor of their own … I learned that when I became a foster parent accepting emergency placements in the middle of the night.)

 

[Bruiser]

I am curious about this, now, because I’ve never encountered any valid and sound argument that leads to the conclusion of atheism. Would you share an example of this, please? (We are both believers, so I don’t expect you to mind if I eviscerate it.)

I wouldn't think so, because a Syllogism MUST have unbreachable Premises. When a Biblical Premise can be shown to be unbreachable, when that Premise is inserted into any Syllogism; that Syllogism can never lead to a Conclusion of Atheism...

 

[fastfredy0]

The alternative is …

• God was aware (and chose to do nothing)
• God had the power to do something (and chose to do nothing)
• God was present (watching evil without getting involved)

Some interesting quotes I've found that may be relevant ...

The glory of God, not the happiness of the creature, is the true theodicy of sin.


“The entire problem of theodicy arises from a wrong question or a wrong presumption. Rather one should see God as essentially good and deriving the definition of good from observing the one true and living God. We abstract an idea of good and then try to measure God against that human abstraction. That is always a losing proposition because we don’t know what ‘good’ is. The problem occurs when persons come up to us and says, “if God does this, He can’t be good.” They don’t realize that is an internal contradiction. The only God that exists is a God who is good. He defines what is good by consistency with His own character, and not by the fact that He corresponds to some arbitrary understanding of good. But we must never fall into the trap – we can’t accept the presumption that we are trying to define God over against a human abstraction called “good.” Instead, we must simply come back again to the fact that God is good. Whatever He does is good. Albert Mohler

"It must be good that evil exists, because God sovereignly, providentially ordains only what is good. In terms of His eternal purpose, God has esteemed it good that evil should be allowed to happen in this world." Genesis 45:8 "Ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good." R.C. Sproul

Vincent Cheung - God is ontologically the most basic entity, and he is good. He is always good and righteous, and therefore it must be "good" that there is evil (although evil itself is evil, and not good).

 

[fastfredy0]

Premise 1: From nothing, nothing comes
Premise 2: Every effect has a cause
Conclusion: Something/someone must have always existed. To always exist that someone or something must be
immutable. This doesn't prove that our God is the solution to these premises, but something
along those lines must exist.

Aside: My ability to present syllogisms falls short of @Josheb @John Bauer so take it easy on me ... giggle

 

[Bruiser]

Premise 1: From nothing, nothing comes
Premise 2: Every effect has a cause
Conclusion: Something/someone must have always existed. To always exist that someone or something must be
immutable. This doesn't prove that our God is the solution to these premises, but something
along those lines must exist.

Aside: My ability to present syllogisms falls short of @Josheb @John Bauer so take it easy on me ... giggle

It's a good Syllogism; so good, that Astronomy now says the Universe is Cyclical or Infinite; to accommodate the Syllogism...

Pantheism...

The Syllogism demands a theology...

 

[atpollard]

Some interesting quotes I've found that may be relevant ...

The glory of God, not the happiness of the creature, is the true theodicy of sin.


“The entire problem of theodicy arises from a wrong question or a wrong presumption. Rather one should see God as essentially good and deriving the definition of good from observing the one true and living God. We abstract an idea of good and then try to measure God against that human abstraction. That is always a losing proposition because we don’t know what ‘good’ is. The problem occurs when persons come up to us and says, “if God does this, He can’t be good.” They don’t realize that is an internal contradiction. The only God that exists is a God who is good. He defines what is good by consistency with His own character, and not by the fact that He corresponds to some arbitrary understanding of good. But we must never fall into the trap – we can’t accept the presumption that we are trying to define God over against a human abstraction called “good.” Instead, we must simply come back again to the fact that God is good. Whatever He does is good. Albert Mohler

"It must be good that evil exists, because God sovereignly, providentially ordains only what is good. In terms of His eternal purpose, God has esteemed it good that evil should be allowed to happen in this world." Genesis 45:8 "Ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good." R.C. Sproul

Vincent Cheung - God is ontologically the most basic entity, and he is good. He is always good and righteous, and therefore it must be "good" that there is evil (although evil itself is evil, and not good).

It was these sorts of views on “good” and “evil” that ultimately led me to embrace “nihilism” as a practical lifestyle. When the terms become meaningless, so do the reality they represent (and visa versa). An infant drowning must be good because God allowed it and God is good … we just don’t understand.

So let me set fire to a rival gang member before they can harm someone that I care about … to the glory of God?

 

[Josheb]

Not complicated … the classic Problem of Evil.

So is God …

• Unaware (not omniscient)
• Not able to do anything (not omnipotent)
• Busy somewhere else (not omnipresent)

“Omnipotent, Omniscient and Omnipresent” are the defining characteristics of a being worthy of the title “God”, so fail on any one of those and whatever might exist … it is not God.

The alternative is …

• God was aware (and chose to do nothing)
• God had the power to do something (and chose to do nothing)
• God was present (watching evil without getting involved)

............

That's not the classic problem with evil. That is the classic problem of thinking that's the classic problem. The classic problem thinking the classic Problem is classic errs because it, like most other theodicies, tries to provide a single explanation for evil. That is a mistake. It is very much like thinking the sinner's volition is relevant to salvation. Just as the sinner's volition is not germane, evil isn't a problem and there are multiple co-occurring reasons for its existence.

Besides, when evil is defined by those who are evil..... that's just evil .

I don’t really do formal logic............

.........I’ve never encountered any valid and sound argument that leads to the conclusion of atheism. Would you share an example of this, please?.

cracking me up asking the guy who doesn't do formal logic to present a valid and sound argument

Not complicated … the classic Problem of Evil.

So let me set fire to a rival gang member before they can harm someone that I care about … to the glory of God?

rotflmbo!

Can formal logic yield atheism?

Possibly. Maybe.

The problem is atheists aren't actually interested in formal logic. Many theists aren't either. Even under the best circumstances logic itself cannot reach God and intellectual assent isn't salvific. No matter how impeccable a rational case explaining a lack of divine existence may be..... the minute God shows up it falls apart. I'd venture to say most of us, those who've had a divine encounter (or whatever we might call it) don't really care whether it's logical. Y'all have read my recently posted testimony. There's no rational explanation for what happened and I do not care how logical the atheist's dissenting explanation may be, God's not bound by human logic and if he wants to rend the fabric of time and space to speak to me (or you) then too bad for your formal logic. God is extra-rational, not irrational. The very premise of any finite system being able to prove the Infinite is, by definition, irrational. Besides, the simple fact is theists and atheists look at exactly the same information and draw different conclusions, both trying to prove something that is unprovable. The only reason anyone knows anything about any externally existing God is because said God made Himself knowable and known. Absent God (however S/He/It may exist) acting in a revelatory manner we'd all be like an amoeba in Texas trying to prove the existence of a hippopotamus on Alpha Centauri.

I remember arguments I used to have with one of my undergrad professors trying to use Greco-Roman mythology as a defense of atheism. The premise of a god dragging the sun across the sky to form the day, as his argument went, is clearly not true. When I used the falsity of the premise in reverse, to prove the Greco-Roman comparison a severely faulty one, he lost his composure. Let's do say the humanoid dragging a gignormous ball of fire behind a chariot is prima facie absurd. What you, dear teacher, are saying is no one actually believed that was a rational explanation. Did an ancient Greek actually factually think that is what was happening? Didn't Aristarchus (c. 310 – c. 230 BC) have heliocentrism figured out 2,000 years before Copernicus? Wasn't Greco-Roman mythology an allegorical explanation of nature? Why then, dear professor, would you use it to argue the Judeo/Christian/Islamic God non-existent? Who literally thought a guy was dragging a fireball was literal?

That's what passes in secular, atheistic advanced academia, and when the tantrum threat to despotically affect one's grade ensures, that is what passes for a logical rebuttal.



At any rate, I gotta go (missus is calling) but I think the reality we're all looking at the exact same information but drawing different conclusions about an infinite entities existence is a good way to examine the problem of atheistic logic.

 

[atpollard]

Besides, when evil is defined by those who are evil..... that's just evil .

OK … that was just plain funny.

 

[John Bauer]

Not complicated: The classic Problem of Evil.

But which version? There is the logical problem of evil, the evidential problem of evil, the inductive problem of evil, etc.

So is God unaware (not omniscient)? Not able to do anything (not omnipotent)? Busy somewhere else (not omnipresent)?

None of the above—which is supposed to result in a problem, I think? But you haven’t identified one. God was present, aware, and had the power to do something. Okay, so what is the alleged problem?

See, there has to be a hidden premise at work. Is the argument that if God knows of, can prevent, and is present to an evil, then he is ontologically or perhaps morally obligated to prevent it? Is that the premise? If so, it is unargued (and false). It must be stated and defended, not merely assumed, because the whole argument hangs upon it.

After all, in Christian theism the worst evil in history was ordained by God for the salvation of the world.

And the analogy of the teenage boys falls apart for many reasons, not least of which is the fact that they delighted or took pleasure in the suffering—they “laughed as they filmed it”—which is what made the case so depraved. Christian theology says nothing of the kind about God. Scripture presents God as hating wickedness, as not predisposed to afflict or to grieve people, as judging justly, and yet ordaining whatsoever comes to pass for wise and holy ends. The same event can be evil in its proximate human intention and good in God’s ultimate intention (Gen. 50:20). Do we always know in any given case what that good is? No. But to conclude that there is, therefore, no such good is a non sequitur.

For me, which is more probable?

• God is an immoral monster.
• God does not exist.

And that is a false dilemma, of course, because there is a third option: God has a morally sufficient reason for permitting evil. Only if he doesn’t have a morally sufficient reason would the charge against his goodness have force. If he does, then the existence of evil is not evidence that he is a “monster.”

As a practical matter, this was not an empty philosophical question for me. When I was 8 years old, my closest friend at school was raped by his mother’s boyfriend. There is nothing in the experience of an 8 year old for them to draw on to allow them to help a friend deal with that level of pain. I was barely able to process the existence of that level of evil. So the question of evil, for me, was both real and empirical. I searched three years for an answer, eventually settling on a quote from Bertrand Russel as the best explanation: “The evidence of contemporary Christian life is such that God, if he ever existed, must surely be dead.”

As a teen, I joined a gang and became an arsonist and drug smuggler.

The experience you shared is serious and should be taken seriously. What happened to your friend was horrific, and I can understand why that would cause you to approach the question of evil as existentially urgent rather than merely academic. And your own later descent into gang life and crime only underscores that this was not, for you, a parlor room philosophical exercise.

Nevertheless, I would say none of that functions as an argument against God, but rather as an account of why the question became existentially urgent, which is totally fair—and totally autobiographical. Russell’s line, while rhetorically powerful, is logically weak. At most, it says that religious hypocrisy and human wickedness made unbelief feel more plausible to him. That is autobiography, not proof.

So you may be able to dismantle the “logic,” but not the “experiential reality” behind it.

True, those are different things. Dismantling the logic of an argument does not necessarily dissolve the experiential reality that gave rise to it.

But I would never claim otherwise. What happened to your friend, and the way that evil impressed itself upon you after that, is not nullified by a philosophical rebuttal. That being said, the intensity of the experience likewise doesn’t make the argument sound. While the existential weight is real, the inference still has to be justified.

 

[makesends]

atpollard said:
I don’t really do formal logic. Formal logic led me to the conclusion of “atheism” and encountering God—road to Damascus style—forced me to reconsider my conclusions.

I am curious about this, now, because I’ve never encountered any valid and sound argument that leads to the conclusion of atheism. Would you share an example of this, please? (We are both believers, so I don’t expect you to mind if I eviscerate it.)

I should think, formal or not, the assumption that origin of existence is irrelevant is pretty much necessary to atheism

 

[atpollard]

And that is a false dilemma, of course, because there is a third option: God has a morally sufficient reason for permitting evil. Only if he doesn’t have a morally sufficient reason would the charge against his goodness have force. If he does, then the existence of evil is not evidence that he is a “monster.”

I am not sure that it is. The QUANTITY of evil serves as evidence against the probability that God has a good reason that is not known to us for every “child molestation” and “miscarriage” and “natural disaster” and “disease” that occurs which COULD have been prevented (by virtue of the definition of “Omni-“) but God did not prevent. This really does suggest that any ‘God’ that might exist is a monster by any reasonable human definition of “monster”. Or it serves as evidence that the non-existence of God is more likely than his existance.

Certainly not an absolute “mathematic” level proof, but “more likely than not” level of empirical evidence for a working theory.

What is the “morally sufficient reason” for “Bambi” and “Sue” (to return to the classic “Problem of Evil” argument examples)?
(If the reasons are unknown or unknowable, then why is God also not unknown or unknowable?)

 

[atpollard]

After all, in Christian theism the worst evil in history was ordained by God for the salvation of the world.

(God how I hate taking the other side, but …)

Is this not “begging the question”? I mean, if there is no God, then the “worst evil in history” was just one more Jew being crucified and people choosing to believe yet another lie that God really meant it for good. We are born, we die, and when we are gone we don’t even leave a hole to prove that we were here. No faith in an “invisible unicorn” will change that.

 

[QVQ]

(God how I hate taking the other side, but …)

Is this not “begging the question”? I mean, if there is no God, then the “worst evil in history” was just one more Jew being crucified and people choosing to believe yet another lie that God really meant it for good. We are born, we die, and when we are gone we don’t even leave a hole to prove that we were here. No faith in an “invisible unicorn” will change that.

@atpollard is a being. I cannot prove his existence by logic. It is not logical for him to exist and perhaps he doesn't. He is merely words on a screen and any evidence of his existence, provided by him, is suspicious as could be AI generated or humanly fraudulent. Does he exist....hmmmm?

The "invisible unicorn" is the most fascinating game in town.
The arguments you are presenting (as devil's advocate) are flawed in one particular aspect.
It is lament of the self centered sinner who "in these thought, myself almost despising:"
"When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,"

"I, me, mine," the sinner's lament.
From where he sits in sack cloth and ashes on the local garbage dump, he is aware the fact that he is cursed.
If he would bother to read the Bible he might notice in the First Book, Genesis, that he is exactly correct
So what is the salvation?
Will he find comfort in continuing to justify himself by, with, and for his own reason?
Or
"Haply I think on Thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For Thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings."

Because it is not logical. It is not of experience.
It is the sweet love of God remembered (John 3:16)

A person cannot will themselves or logic themselves to love.

*the quoted sonnet is Shakespeare Sonnet 29

 

[John Bauer]

Can formal logic yield atheism?

Possibly. Maybe.

Huh. Interesting. That is not something I would ever expect to hear presuppositionalist say.

Y'all have read my recently posted testimony.

Uh, no. What testimony?

 

[John Bauer]

I am not sure that it is [a false dilemma].

Nevertheless, it is. A false dilemma excludes possible relevant alternatives, which is what yours did. The proposition (“God has a morally sufficient reason for permitting evil”) is not a formal contradiction, so it is logically possible by definition. And since it is positively relevant to classical Christian theism, and has not been ruled out by argument, it is thus a genuine alternative that was missing.

The quantity of evil serves as evidence against the probability that God has a good reason that isn’t known to us …

The quantity of evil cannot, by itself, serve as evidence against the probability that God has a morally sufficient reason for permitting it. Why not? Because we are not in a position to assess that probability. To make that judgment, we would need epistemic access to the relevant goods, counterfactuals, long-range consequences, prevented evils, the interrelations of events, and the eschatological end of the story on a scale we simply do not possess. So the inference from “there is a lot of evil” to “therefore God probably has no sufficient reason for it” exceeds our epistemic warrant.

What you have, here, is not a probability argument so much as a protest: given the quantity of evil, you find divine permission intolerable. Fair enough as a statement of revulsion. However, that doesn’t somehow make it a justified probability calculus.

And Christian theism undercuts that assessment at a deeper level anyway. Given its claims about the depth of sin, the fallenness of creation, divine patience, redemptive history, and final judgment and consummation, a world profoundly disordered by evil is not at all surprising on Christian premises.

What is the “morally sufficient reason” for Bambi [natural evil] and Sue [moral evil] (to return to the classic “Problem of Evil” argument examples)?

That is unknown to us. But our ignorance of the reason doesn’t entail the non-existence of the reason—unless it can be shown that we should know. The structure looks something like this:

Premise 1: We do not see a morally sufficient reason.

Premise 2: If there were such a reason, we would probably see it.

Conclusion: Therefore, probably there is no such reason.
​

Without premise 2, the argument doesn’t get off the ground—and that premise is going to be very difficult to justify.

If the reasons are unknown or unknowable, then why is God also not unknown or unknowable?

Because revelation. God is knowable because he has made himself known. His morally sufficient reason for permitting this or that evil is not knowable because he has not made it known.

Is this not “begging the question”?

Only in an argument for the existence of God, which wasn’t being made. So, no it’s not.

 

[fastfredy0]

(If the reasons are unknown or unknowable, then why is God also not unknown or unknowable?)

I think God is unknowable as defined by we don't have a clue as to what 99% of God is all about. "His thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways". One cannot understand a Person that is omni-this and omni-that.

(God how I hate taking the other side, but …)

For sure
... 19 Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he still find fault? For who withstandeth his will? 20 Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why didst thou make me thus? 21 Or hath not the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor? 22 willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering vessels of wrath fitted unto destruction: 23 and that he might make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy, which he afore prepared unto glory
.... maybe there are some questions that shouldn't be asked? (not that I haven't made similar considerations)

 

[Josheb]

Uh, no. What testimony?

Bottom of the post, the part in italics.

 

[Rella]

Not complicated … the classic Problem of Evil.

So is God …

• Unaware (not omniscient)
• Not able to do anything (not omnipotent)
• Busy somewhere else (not omnipresent)

“Omnipotent, Omniscient and Omnipresent” are the defining characteristics of a being worthy of the title “God”, so fail on any one of those and whatever might exist … it is not God.

The alternative is …

• God was aware (and chose to do nothing)
• God had the power to do something (and chose to do nothing)
• God was present (watching evil without getting involved)

There is a news story about a group of teenage boys that stood watching a disabled child drowning and simply laughed as they filmed it on their phones. The State attempted to charge them with a crime because such “depraved indifference” was obviously ‘evil’ to any outside observer. The boys were destroyed in the press, but never charged because there is no Law that requires a bystander to get involved. There is no Law that obligates morality or compassion.

Are we prepared to “worship” and accept a God that is as morally bankrupt as those teenagers?
Actually, more so (God could have effortlessly intervened).

So for me which is more probable:

1. God is an immoral monster.
2. God does not exist.

As a practical matter, this was not an empty philosophical question for me. When I was 8 years old, my closest friend at school was raped by his mother’s boyfriend. There is nothing in the experience of an 8 year old for them to draw on to allow them to help a friend deal with that level of pain. I was barely able to process the existence of that level of evil. So the “question of evil” for me was both real and empirical. I searched three years for an answer, eventually settling on a quote from Bertrand Russel as the best explanation: “The evidence of contemporary Christian life is such that god, if he ever existed, must surely be dead”.

As a teen, I joined a gang and became an arsonist and drug smuggler.
So you may be able to dismantle the “logic”, but not the “experiential reality” behind it.

(There are a LOT of people that discover that experiential reality in a flavor of their own … I learned that when I became a foster parent accepting emergency placements in the middle of the night.)

As I have always understood it, Scripture says Bible that Satan is called “the god of this world” (more precisely, “the god of this age” in 2 Corinthians 4:4), meaning this present fallen world system lies under his influence. That does not mean he is equal to God, nor that he rules independently, but that evil presently operates in a world corrupted by sin.

So the existence of evil is not evidence that God is unaware or powerless. Rather, it shows that for a time God permits human rebellion and demonic influence, while still remaining sovereign over the final outcome.

God’s present restraint in immediately stopping every evil act should not be confused with approval or inability. Delayed judgment is often mercy, patience, and the giving of space for repentance. Evil may act now, but it does not reign forever.

If evil exists in a world where God does not instantly overrule every action, then that suggests moral creatures are permitted to act truly, not merely appear to act. Scripture constantly addresses people as responsible beings: choose, repent, believe, obey, refuse, harden not your heart. Those commands imply that human responses matter.

God’s patience in delaying judgment makes sense if people are being given space to turn, repent, and respond. If every act were irresistibly predetermined in the same sense some claim, then patience toward repentance becomes difficult to understand, because the outcome would already be fixed apart from any genuine response.

So perhaps the better biblical picture is not absolute autonomous free will, nor robotic determinism, but that God remains sovereign while humans are still accountable moral agents whose choices are real.

 

[Arial]

So perhaps the better biblical picture is not absolute autonomous free will, nor robotic determinism, but that God remains sovereign while humans are still accountable moral agents whose choices are real.

Though your summary above is close to accurate it falls slightly short of the picture found in Reformed theology. Autonomous free will and robotic determinism are not the only two choices. And "robotic determinism" does not accurately represent Reformed theology. And though you do not mention that theology in your post it is implied by "robotic determinism"; a claim often made against Reformed theology. (That is why I bring it up.)

RT does not affirm robotic determinism but rather compatibilism---that divine determination and genuine human willing coexist without contradiction. "Real" could mean the person could have done otherwise in the same sense, or acting according to one's own nature and desires, which is compatibilist.

So, another option is: what if humans act voluntarily according to their nature, therefore they are morally responsible. A Reformed syllogism as this pertains to evil in the world would be


Premise 1: God ordains all that comes to pass, including events involving evil.
Premise 2: God ordains evil in such a way that human agents act according to their own sinful desires.
Premise 3: Acting according to one’s sinful desires grounds moral responsibility.
Premise 4: God’s ordination of evil does not make Him morally blameworthy if He does not act with sinful intent.
Conclusion: Therefore, God can sovereignly ordain evil while humans remain fully responsible and God remains righteous.