atheologian

I shall then go on to suggest that there is a wholly different (and more promising) way in which the atheologian could claim that the facts of evil constitute a defeater for theistic belief.

Warranted Christian Belief 1932- 2000

This is a sensible strategy: if the atheologian can show that this belief is relevantly objectionable, he won't have to deal piecemeal with all those more specific beliefs; he can do for them all in one fell swoop.

Warranted Christian Belief 1932- 2000

In particular, the atheologian who raises the de jure question with respect to Christian belief will not be mollified if told that it would be rational, given that you thought CMP reliable, to decide to continue to form beliefs in the CMP way.

Warranted Christian Belief 1932- 2000

The most the atheologian can sensibly claim, therefore, (if he is hoping for agreement from theist and neutral bystander) is that no good we know of is such that we know that it justifies a perfect being in permitting

Warranted Christian Belief 1932- 2000

(It's the same sort of reason the atheologian has for preferring atheism to theism, given that he thinks it unlikely that a world created by God would display all the evil the world does, in fact, display.)

Warranted Christian Belief 1932- 2000

The atheologian can properly claim that evil constitutes a defeater for Christian belief, therefore, only if he already assumes that Christian belief is false.

Warranted Christian Belief 1932- 2000

Christian belief -- at least until the atheologian produces a good reason or two for supposing Christian belief is false.

Warranted Christian Belief 1932- 2000

To show this, the atheologian would have to look into all the evidence for the existence of God -- the traditional ontological, cosmological and teleological arguments as well as many others; [574] he would be obliged to weigh up the relative merits of all of these arguments, and weigh them against the evidential argument from evil in order to reach the indicated conclusion.

Warranted Christian Belief 1932- 2000

(so the wily atheologian will claim) that fact is at best of dubious relevance with respect to the question whether Christian believers in

Warranted Christian Belief 1932- 2000

Alvin Plantinga, for example, says that in order for the atheologian to show that the existence of God is improbable relative to one's total evidence, “he would be obliged to consider all the sorts of reasons natural theologians have invoked in favor of theistic belief ” the traditional cosmological, teleological and ontological arguments, for example.”

The Problem of Evil Tooley, Michael 2009