Consequence Argument Redux

Sorry about the blogging hiatus. Hopefully it will soon end. Meanwhile, I was thrilled to discover that the super-cool Manuel Vargas over at the Garden of Forking Paths has put up an answer to my puzzlement (expressed here, as well as in the personal e-mail Vargas quotes) about why van Inwagen's Consequence Argument was (is?) such a big deal. A great discussion follows, surprisingly heading toward some sort of consensus that it is the core idea of the argument, itself quite ancient, rather than PvI's formulations of it, that is the big deal.