Thomas Talbott

Thomas Talbott is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Willamette University, Salem, Oregon.

"[4] He sought to explain, for example, how Alvin Plantinga's Free Will Defense had transformed the way in which contemporary philosophers approach the so-called problem of evil and why, in particular, even atheistic philosophers came to abandon the claim that evil is logically inconsistent with the existence of God.

I would ask but two things of those who [might understandably] reject such a view: first, that they resist the temptation to moralize, and second, that they consider the alternatives carefully.

According to John Beversluis, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Butler University, for example, Talbott's view is "so outrageous...that I will not dignify it with a reply....If Talbott is right, he is logically committed and morally obliged to oppose everyone dedicated to alleviating world hunger, ridding the world of terrorism, finding a cure for cancer...and so forth.

He then points out that a cogent argument in the present context would require two things of Beversluis: "first, that he identify a relevant instance of p, and second, that he make some attempt to deduce q from p. But Beversluis," Talbott insists, "does not so much as identify the proposition that he claims logically commits me to the moral obligation he alleges; much less does he make the required deduction.