To me it is quite straightforward that something can’t simultaneously be without change and also changeable. So I’ll leave it at that. I don’t think Elder Maxwell is suggesting that. I’m not sure what you think he is suggesting, but given your comments, I’m not sure I care anymore.

(BTW – I have read quite a few Plantinga books and have several on my shelf behind me)

If you can’t comprehend the reasons from reading my last post, I doubt that I will ever be able to make it clear to you. I’d be glad to dip into my archive of your past misreadings of my statements to share with our audience in a game of “Is it him or is it me?”, but I probably shouldn’t.

“Once again I’ll repeat my now oft made request. What do you think Elder Maxwell meant?”

Oh, but, Clark the words in that question are subject to ever so many interpretations that I’m at a loss as to what your question really means! I jest, of course, but the meaning of Elder Maxwell’s statements seem just as clear to me as the meaning of your question, and it therefore seems silly for us to behave as if your question is crystal clear while Elder Maxwell’s statements are opaque, and I refuse to participate in that game. (For some reason, I’m reminded of Susan Haack’s hilarious essay on how philosophers criticizing the use of metaphor have so often themselves used metaphor in the very process of making those critiques.)

“As to the problem of evil, I’m not sure how that is quite relevant.”

It’s a parallel situation in which people claim that something is a “straightforward” contradiction based on the fact that it seems like a contradiction to them, while careful thinkers have poked all sorts of wholes in their claims.

“And yes I am quite familiar with Plantinga”

Great! Which of his trilogy on warrant did you enjoy reading the most?

“indeed typically suggest his small book God, Freedom, and Evil to many people to come up to partial speed on the issue”

I think it’s a mediocre book. Modal logic is just something that can’t be effectively dumbed down to the level that Plantinga attempted in that book. I’d recommend The Nature of Necessity or nothing at all.

“If you think it resolves all the issues though, I’d probably differ.”

If you don’t think it resolves the logical problem of evil (as opposed to the evidentiary problem of evil, etc.) then, if Feinberg and Stackhouse can be trusted, you differ from the consensus opinion of the philosophical community.

Yes.

Clark: “To use the argument without coming to grips with it tends to entail a certain vague relationship with the meaning.”

To a certain degree, yes. But I’m not sure that, given Elder Maxwell’s purposes, that vague relationship with the meaning of the philosophical terms and positions he used and the philosophers he referred to wasn’t appropriate. I understand Elder Maxwell to be preaching the gospel and offering reassurance to those who are concerned that God is not aware of our difficulties or cannot guarantee that he will triumph. For various rhetorical purposes he uses some philosophical terminology and he refers to someone like Boethius. But that doesn’t mean that he was doing philosophy.

My indirect experience with him when I was working on the entry on divine foreknowledge for the Encyclopedia of Mormonism makes me believe that as long as a philosophical position guarantees God’s ability to bring about our salvation and to comfort us, Elder Maxwell would have had no trouble with a Latter-day Saint holding such a philosophical position. As far as I could tell, he felt that it wasn’t that important which philosophical position one adopted. The important thing was to insist on certain beliefs. He felt that the position he took better supported those beliefs than did others, but he had no trouble with others taking other philosophical positions. In my experience, he was willing for the question to remain open, which is why my entry ended up saying, ‘You can believe x or y, but not z.”

As to the problem of evil, I’m not sure how that is quite relevant. And yes I am quite familiar with Plantinga and indeed typically suggest his small book God, Freedom, and Evil to many people to come up to partial speed on the issue. If you think it resolves all the issues though, I’d probably differ.

Are you concerned because Clark does not appear to agree with some of Elder Maxwell’s statements or conclusions relating to philosophy (and theology)? Or are you concerned because you feel Clark implies that Elder Maxwell was a less than careful thinker or author?

Then you don’t have enough information to conclude that you are right and he is wrong when you “don’t personally agree with how Elder Maxwell reads” statements about an eternal now.

“Your attempt appears to be an appeal to authority via Elder Maxwell with respect to the philosophical issues.”

Elder Maxwell seemed to believe that he had a calling to speak out on these issues that you call “philosophical” and that he would call “things as they really are”. Given the less-than-fully-honored place that philosophy holds in the rhetoric of the Church and its leaders, it’s surprising (and, to me, offensive) that ostensibly loyal LDS philosophers (amateur or otherwise) are so quick to claim certain issues as their own turf and so quick to dismiss both scripture and General Authority sermons as “pre-critical” or too vague to have any discernible objective meaning.

“typically when I have these discussions it is with Protestants and I’m not familiar with modern Catholic views nor other Christian sects.”

Well, typically when I have discussions on this issue, it is with Mormons, so I suppose I’d have the same warrant for calling it the “Mormon view” that you have for calling it the “Protestant view”. But seriously, this view was well-developed long before the Protestant Reformation, as even a little reading would confirm.

“To say that something is a Protestant view is hardly to say it is only a Protestant view.”

I see. So if, say, the Nazis were in favor of gun control, there’d be nothing rhetorically wrong with saying that gun-control advocates have “adopted a [Nazi] view”?

“Can you explain the contradiction?”

I don’t think there is a contradiction, anymore than I think there is a logical contradiction in an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being permitting evil. (I wish I had a dime for everytime that an LDS philosopher claimed that, not only is there such a contradiction, but that it is an obvious and “straightforward” one. They’ve apparently never heard of Alvin Plantinga.) But I know from 10 years of past experience with you on the Internet that there is little point in debating you on the alleged contradiction in question, so I’ll forbear.

“You seem quite upset at me for choosing to interpret Elder Maxwell charitably and giving him the benifit of the doubt while simultaneously suggesting that I am somehow criticizing him.”

I don’t think you are interpreting him charitably. Interpreting him charitably would involve taking his words into account, taking his words seriously, and taking them at face value unless there is a good reason not to. That you disagree with a face value interpretation is not, in my opinion, a good reason. I don’t think that dismissing his statements is charitable, even if the words you use in dismissing them are more sugar-coated than saying flat out that you don’t think he was a careful thinker, speaker, and writer.

Can you say more about the distinction you allude to? Surely, user or doer, he meant something. Applying the tools of understanding that we have may or may not yield a determinate result, but what alternative do we have? If your point is that some terms carry specific usages within certain contexts and that it is not appropriate to presume that others who utilize those terms intend them to carry the same specialized meanings, then I think I understand what you are saying here.

But if that’s our operating principle, where do we go next?