Prof. Steven Nadler discusses Leibniz, Malebrance, and Arnauld on theodicy and the problem of evil. You can find his book here: www.amazon.com/Best-All-Possib...
After this interview now I have both of my favorite modern day philosophers having deep affiliations with university of Wisconsin, Madison! The late professor Dallas Willard & professor Steven Nadler! As well great job by Mr. Alan Saunders! Since I am just an engineer, had to listen to this twice! Thank you both!
21:46 I haven't read Leibniz, so I apologize if I'm mischaracterizing him, but it would seem then that there's a certain Good that precedes God in his view. God does not create Good. God, chooses some sort of pre-existing Good, but he chooses it because he's rational. Is this rationality in himself or is it rational because it is relative towards the goodness? If the latter, then God's choice is not rational in itself. Leibniz position would seem to imply that God's choice does not coincide with creation, his choice is just orientated towards the ready-made. God is just a medium for Goodness and he distributes it to the world (his creation), he is not the source of goodness. If this is the case, then I have a sincere question: how is this not pagan? I'd prefer Descartes view because it actually leaves space to deal with the monstrous arbitrariness of existence itself.
So actually in the last 40 years you don't even here atheist philosophers argue the logical problem of evil. Alvin Plantinga's free will defense knocked down that argument. You must give people like Dawkin's credit to continue to argue something that the experts have already destroyed as irrational. But then is not much of a scholar.
Purpose of life is not happiness. Purpose of life is a purpose, harmonious enough with our instincts and drives that it generates a will to endure, without breaking or sulking, the hostilies of human existence. The purpose of life being happiness is a very new idea, emerging out of the ashes of orthodox religion in europe. Marx, Nietzsche, Mill, adam smith et. al. are just ad-hoc attempts to replace what was lost in the ashes. Just Imagined Personal or communal Utopias where we maximize individual or communal "happy". Unfortunately, unlike money and all your consumerist traps, happiness is not a commodity. It is elusive, for the modern man, for the billionaire and for the homeless guy. Both are on drugs, of different sorts, to numb the pangs of existence.
