‘I used to say to our audiences: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!”’
(Or to put it another way, I’ve read a number of his apologetic works, and they didn’t hold water to me at all; I was particularly offended by his weak arguments in The Problem of Pain, and by his trilemma. So I don’t think he would argue honestly in good faith etc.)
Giving weak arguments does not demonstrate that one is not arguing honestly and in good faith; only that one has cognitive limitations, or blind spots, or something of the sort. Which, alas, we all have here and there, and it’s hardly astonishing if a religious person has them in areas closely related to his religion.
(That might, for present purposes, be functionally equivalent to not arguing honestly and in good faith, and I share the suspicion that CSL wouldn’t be likely to be deconverted after an hour’s discussion. But it’s not the same thing, and in particular doesn’t have the same implications for the person’s character generally.)
Indeed—and by the principle of charity, if we’re to bother to discuss his work, we must assume that he’s arguing honestly and in good faith with cognitive limitations, rather than the converse.
Mm. If you say so. I don’t view it that way:
(Or to put it another way, I’ve read a number of his apologetic works, and they didn’t hold water to me at all; I was particularly offended by his weak arguments in The Problem of Pain, and by his trilemma. So I don’t think he would argue honestly in good faith etc.)
Giving weak arguments does not demonstrate that one is not arguing honestly and in good faith; only that one has cognitive limitations, or blind spots, or something of the sort. Which, alas, we all have here and there, and it’s hardly astonishing if a religious person has them in areas closely related to his religion.
(That might, for present purposes, be functionally equivalent to not arguing honestly and in good faith, and I share the suspicion that CSL wouldn’t be likely to be deconverted after an hour’s discussion. But it’s not the same thing, and in particular doesn’t have the same implications for the person’s character generally.)
Indeed—and by the principle of charity, if we’re to bother to discuss his work, we must assume that he’s arguing honestly and in good faith with cognitive limitations, rather than the converse.