Real Atheology

Before her death in 2017, Marilyn McCord Adams had a long and impressive career as a philosopher and theologian. While she had many interests both philosophical and theological, the problem of evil loomed ever-present in her thinking. I intend this video as an introduction to her views on the problem of evil; specifically on the notion of axiological defeat that features so heavily. Adams, M. M., & Sutherland, S. (1989). Horrendous evils and the goodness of God. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes, 63, 297-323.Adams, M. M. (2018). Horrendous evils and the goodness of God. Cornell University Press. Adams, M. M. (1999). Horrendous evils and the goodness of God. Cornell University Press. Adams, M. M. (2001). Afterward. In S. Davis (Ed.), Encountering Evil: Live options in theodicy (pp. 191-203). Louisville: Westminster John Knox. Adams, M. M. (2006). Christ and horrors: The coherence of Christology (Vol. 4). Cambridge University Press. Adams, M. M. (2013). Ignorance, instrumentality, compensation, and the problem of evil. Sophia, 52, 7-26. Moore, G. E. (1903). Principia Ethica. Cambridge University Press.

In this episode, Ben Watkins sits down with Professor Pete Mandik to discuss several different ways of conceiving of materialism along with strengths and weaknesses of each approach. Professor Mandik also gives a summary of a view inspire by Quine he calls “Type-Q Materialism.” Additionally, Ben and Professor Mandik discuss various aspects of religious mysticism and touch on the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein.

The intrinsic probability of a theory is the probability that a theory has purely in virtue of its intrinsic features. In this video, I give a brief overview of Paul Draper's theory of intrinsic probability according to which the intrinsic probability of a theory depends only on its modesty and coherence.

This episode is part interview and part dialogue between Justin Schieber and Christian YouTuber Kyle Alander about Kyle's preferred approach to the problem of evil. Alander adopts a defeat-based approach along the lines of Marilyn McCord Adams, Trent Dougherty, and John Schneider. In this almost four hour long episode, they discuss how defeat is understood in the dialectic surrounding the problem of evil. We also unpack Kyle’s preferred defeat-based theodicy before exploring at some length multiple objections to it in an effort to clarify details. However, one topic we avoid here is whether adding such rich detail to one’s core theory in response to the data of evil and suffering should come at some epistemic cost for the theist. That topic will hopefully be explored in future videos. This episode is not only ridiculously long, it is also unique in its format. Rather than being a live recording, this is instead composed of video clips recorded with our cell phones in response to each other as time permitted - in most cases, this meant every other day. Those clips were then edited together into what you’re about to watch. Because this is a complicated topic, the conversation does include some misinterpretation but ultimately I think you’ll see that it tends toward clarity and understanding. Kyle's channel (Christian Idealism): https://www.youtube.com/@christianidealism7868

In this episode, Ben Watkins sits down to discuss the Van Tillian tradition of presuppositional apologetics often found online along with objective idealism— an epistemological view often associated with Post-Kantians like Hegel, Fichte, and Schelling. Two claims of Van Til are challenged using the resources of objective idealism: Those two claims are (i) Christianity is a necessary condition to know anything at all and (ii) the Christian and the non-Christian have no neutral ground to resolve their disagreements. In addition to challenging these claims by appeal to a form of objective idealism, Ben also gives a brief exposition of the argument from divine hiddenness. Contrary to Van Til and other presuppositional apologetics, it is not the case everyone believes God exists. In fact, there are some people who do not believe God exists, and this fact is evidence for atheism over theism.