Abstract

Starting from the problem of evil, Norbert Hoerster argues for an atheistic position. He discusses several historical and current attempts to reconcile the existing evils with the existence of God and comes to the negative conclusion that all of these attempts fail. From this, he concludes that the existing evils speak against the existence of God. In this article I argue that Hoerster's arguments are not sufficient for an atheistic conclusion. Rather, they only strengthen the case for agnosticism, the position according to which we cannot know whether God exists. I want to work out that Hoerster does not recognize this because he does not clearly distinguish the position of agnosticism from the position of atheism, and thereby gives away important potential for differentiation.