Abstract

The overall aim of the dissertation is twofold: to show that what we know about evil does not count against theism and to at the same time account for the persistent belief that evil somehow does count against theism. ;Theism is incomplete with respect to instances of evil. That is, theism does not offer detailed explanations for the world's evils despite the fact that it affirms that God is good and the creator of all that exists. It offers no detailed explanation of particular evils, like the death of a child, nor even of whole classes of evils. Such detailed explanation is not possible because theism tells us too little of God's purposes, obligations , etc. As a result it is analogous to a scientific theory which is incomplete for the phenomena within its domain. Developing the notion of incompleteness here utilized involves discussion of the sense in which theism is a theory and the examination of the concepts of explanation and theory domain. ;The fact that theism is incomplete has two important consequences. First, it assures that evil cannot be shown to be evidence against theism. If we are to justifiably count evil as evidence against the existence of God, then we must be able to show how evil alters the probability of God's existence. This we cannot do. Second, it assures that theism may face a problem of a different sort, the problem of competition from an equally complete or more complete alternative. The existence of evil tends to draw attention to this latter problem. But though evil helps draw our attention to a problem, evil is not itself the problem. Seeing this connection helps us to understand why the belief that evil counts against theism persists. ;These claims are defended by development of a classification of arguments from evil. The arguments of the various classes are then evaluated and the cause of failure determined. From that it emerges that a crucial element in their failure is our ignorance of the details of theism. This brings to the fore the incompleteness problem, and shows us how the two are so easily confused