William Rowe has offered one of the most simple and convincing evidential arguments from evil by arguing that the existence of gratuitous evil in our world serves as strong evidence against the claim that God exists. Stephen J. Wykstra attempts to defeat this evidential argument from evil by denying the plausibility of Rowe’s claim that there are gratuitous evils in the world. Wykstra sets up an epistemological test that he refers to as CORNEA, (...) and he proceeds to demonstrate that Rowe’s inference to his existential claim is unjustified in light of our particular epistemic situation. Specifically, this inference is unjustified because compensating goods that would be “connected to” any given evil lack what Wykstra calls ‘seeability.’ Without seeability, it is illicit to infer the nonexistence of an object simply from the fact that we cannot detect it, and thus Rowe is denied justification for his first premise. Wysktra’s principle defense of the non-seeability of compensating goods rests on an analogy comparing children and parents to humans and God. I will show that Wykstra’s conclusion regarding the seeability of compensating goods is unjustified given this analogy. Without justification for the claim that some compensating goods lack seeability, Wykstra’s defeater crumbles. (shrink)

According to a simple Bayesian argument from evil, the evil we observe is less likely given theism than given atheism, and therefore lowers the probability of theism. I consider the most common skeptical theist response to this argument, according to which our cognitive limitations make the probability of evil given theism inscrutable. I argue that if skeptical theists are right about this, then the probability of theism given evil is itself largely inscrutable, and (...) that if this is so, we ought to be agnostic about whether God exists. (shrink)

When God is conceived of as an all-powerful and all-loving deity, many arguments for his nonexistence can be raised. Two of the main ones are the Argument from Evil (hereafter abbreviated AE) and the Argument from Nonbelief (hereafter abbreviated ANB). In what follows, I shall provide precise formulations of those two arguments, make some comments about them, and then try to refute the main defenses (of God's existence) that might be put forward against ANB, (...) which I consider the stronger of the two. I take ANB to be a sound argument establishing the proposition that God (conceived of in a certain way) does not exist. (shrink)

Wes Morriston has argued that given the mixture of goods and evils found in the world, the probability of God’s existence is much less than the probability of a creator who is indifferent to good and evil. One of my goals here is, first, to show how, by bringing in the concept of dispositions, Morriston’s argument can be expressed in a rigorous, step-by-step fashion, and then, second, to show how one can connect the extent to which different (...) events are surprising to conclusions concerning the probabilities of those events. My second goal is to evaluate two important objections to Morriston’s argument advanced by Timothy Perrine in his article, ‘Skeptical Theism and Morriston’s Humean Argument from Evil.’ Perrine’s first objection involves comparing how probable the evils in the world are if God exists with the probability if there is a deity who is indifferent to good and evil, and Perrine argues that given the version of skeptical theism that he and Stephen Wykstra have defended, the probability given theism is greater than the probability given an indifferent deity. Perrine’s second objection focuses instead on the probability of the mixture of goods and evils found in the world, and here he argues that there is no way of assigning a probability to that, either given the God-hypothesis or given the indifferent deity hypothesis, and therefore no way of comparing the probabilities of those two hypotheses. I then set out arguments that show that neither of Perrine’s objections is sound. (shrink)

Richard Swinburne presents a substantially rewritten and updated edition of his most celebrated book. No other work has made a more powerful case for the probability of the existence of God. Swinburne gives a rigorous and penetrating analysis of the most important arguments for theism: the cosmological argument; arguments from the existence of laws of nature and the 'fine-tuning' of the universe; from the occurrence of consciousness and moral awareness; and from miracles and religious (...) experience. He claims that while none of these arguments are deductively valid, they do give inductive support to theism and that, even when the argument from evil is weighed against them, taken together they offer good grounds to support the probability that there is a God. The overall structure of the discussion and its conclusion have been retained for this new edition, but much has been changed in order to strengthen the argumentation and to take account of Swinburne's subsequent work on the nature of consciousness and the problem of evil, and of the latest philosophical and scientific writing, especially in respect of the laws of nature and the argument from fine-tuning. This is now the definitive version of a classic in the philosophy of religion. (shrink)

Classical Greek philosophy in its struggle to grasp the material world from its very beginning has been marked by the – sometimes undercurrent, some others overt and even intense, but never idle – juxtaposition between the mind and the senses, logos and perception or, if the anachronism is allowed, between realism and idealism. Parmenides is reportedly the first philosopher to insistently assert that thought and being are the same by his famous aphorism τὸ γὰρ αὐτὸ νοεῖν ἐστί τε καὶ (...) εἶναι, and that the “way of truth”, as opposed to the “way of opinion”, only runs through the intellect, since the truth is unattainable by the illusory senses. Thus, true may be only what our intellect can firmly grasp, and – by an easy, though not equally sound step – vice versa: that which our intellect can firmly grasp is necessarily true. In this paper I intend to set off Parmenides’ apparent influence on Anselm with regard to the latter’s celebrated ontological argument concerning the existence of God, and the influence of both on Spinoza’s Ethica, which is founded on the key tenet that not only does God necessarily exist – since God is intellectually conceivable –, but that God also by necessity is an utterly good one. (shrink)

The problem that suffering and other evils pose for the rationality of belief in an omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect person has been the focus of intense discussion for a long time. The main thing that I want to do here is to consider whether recent discussions have significantly advanced our understanding of the underlying issues. I believe that they have, and I shall try to indicate the ways in which that is so. The structure of my discussion is as (...) follows. The first two sections constitute the main part of the paper. In the first section, I shall consider how the argument from evil might best be formulated. Among the topics that I shall discuss are, first, the distinction between abstract and concrete formulations of the argument from evil; secondly, the distinction between incompatibility and evidential formulations; thirdly, the distinction between subjective and objective formulations; and fourthly, the relevance to the argument from evil of traditional arguments in support of the existence of God. One of my conclusions in the first section is that the argument from evil is best viewed as consisting of a core argument that is relatively straightforward – with the exception of one crucial premise – plus a subsidiary argument designed to support the premise in question. The second section will therefore be devoted to an examination of that subsidiary argument. In the third section, I shall consider different types of responses to the argument from evil. One useful classification, I suggest, is in terms of whether the goal is that of a total refutation of the argument, a defense, or a theodicy. In subsequent sections, I consider those options, and I show that none is successful. (shrink)

In this article, two of Theodore Drange’s atheological arguments against the God of Christianity are refuted by what I call the “Expectations Defense.” By means of this defense, it is shown that, despite what Drange argues, the existence of evil and unbelief cannot be used as evidence against the existence of the God of the Bible. The fact that biblical history describes God as allowing there to be vast amounts of evil and unbelief prevents us (...) class='Hi'>from citing the existence of those things as evidence against the existence of the biblical God. Quite simply, we should expect there to be great amounts of suffering and doubt if the God of the Bible exists. As a result of this, it follows that Drange’s arguments are unsound, and should be rejected by rational people. (shrink)

Richard Swinburne presents a substantially rewritten and updated edition of his most celebrated book. No other work has made a more powerful case for the probability of the existence of God. Swinburne gives a rigorous and penetrating analysis of the most important arguments for theism: the cosmological argument; arguments from the existence of laws of nature and the 'fine-tuning' of the universe; from the occurrence of consciousness and moral awareness; and from miracles and religious (...) experience. He claims that while none of these arguments are deductively valid, they do give inductive support to theism and that, even when the argument from evil is weighed against them, taken together they offer good grounds to support the probability that there is a God. The overall structure of the discussion and its conclusion have been retained for this new edition, but much has been changed in order to strengthen the argumentation and to take account of Swinburne's subsequent work on the nature of consciousness and the problem of evil, and of the latest philosophical and scientific writing, especially in respect of the laws of nature and the argument from fine-tuning. This is now the definitive version of a classic in the philosophy of religion. (shrink)

Kant argues that any argument for a transcendent God presupposes the logically flawed ontological argument. The teleological argument cannot satisfy the demands of reason for a complete explanation of the meaning and purpose of our universe without support from the cosmological argument. I avoid the assumption of a perfect being, and hence the ontological argument, in my version of the cosmological argument. The necessary being can be identified with the creator of the universe (...) by adding analogical mental relations. The creation of the universe is then shown to reflect modern scientific cosmology as well as stories and metaphors in the Eastern and Western religious traditions and to resolve the problem of evil. (shrink)

The traditional problem of evil is set forth, by no means for the first time, in Part X of Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion in these familiar words: ‘Is [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?’ This formulation of the problem of evil obviously suggests an argument to the effect that (...) the existence of evil in the world demonstrates that God does not exist. The purpose of this paper is to examine this argument, with a view to showing that while it is not a conclusive argument, it is much stronger than some apologists for traditional theism allow. (shrink)

This dissertation alleges to successfully defend the argument from evil and thereby show that belief in an omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent god is implausible. The three basic premises of the argument juxtapose the perfect attributes of the traditional Western notion of god to the existence of evil in an attempt to lead to the conclusion that god lacks one or more of the aforementioned attributes. Though some argue that the conclusion is not necessitated by (...) the premises since there is no logical inconsistency in asserting both that god possesses these attributes and that evil exists, it is argued here that a suppressed premise needs to be made explicit for the argument to function properly such that evil can be taken as evidence against the existence of a perfect deity. ;The theist proposes a variety of solutions to the apparent discord engendered by the coexistence of evil and a perfect deity. J. L. Mackie, in criticizing these various theistic proposals, claims that they all are either adequate or fallacious. Adequate solutions are comprised, essentially, of a denial of one of the three original premises of the argument, i.e., that either omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence or evil is not real. The fallacious solutions, of which there are four types generally thought to be exhaustive, are shown to be inadequate for salvaging the traditional Western concept of deity. Familiar themes discussed among the fallacious solutions are: that the world is better with some evil than without; evil is necessary as a contrast to good; evil is necessary to bring about a greater good; evil is necessary for soul-making; evil is the result of free-will. ;Finally, a solution proposed by Clement Dore which does not properly fit into Mackie's schema, the "pollution" solution, so nicknamed because evil is viewed as a waste by-product of the natural functioning of causal laws upon the matter of the universe, is discussed. Four possible interpretations of this solution are offered and each interpretation, in turn, is found to be invalid. In conclusion, evil is shown to be powerful evidence against the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent god. (shrink)

Is evil evidence against the existence of God? Even if God and evil are compatible, it remains hotly contested whether evil renders belief in God unreasonable. The Evidential Argument from Evil presents five classic statements on this issue by eminent philosophers and theologians and places them in dialogue with eleven original essays reflecting new thinking by these and other scholars. The volume focuses on two versions of the argument. The first affirms that (...) there is no reason for God to permit either certain specific horrors or the variety and profusion of undeserved suffering. The second asserts that pleasure and pain, given their biological role, are better explained by hypotheses other than theism. -/- Contributors include William P. Alston, Paul Draper, Richard M. Gale, Daniel Howard-Snyder, Alvin Plantinga, William L. Rowe, Bruce Russell, Eleonore Stump, Richard G. Swinburne, Peter van Inwagen, and Stephen John Wykstra. (shrink)

First I employ bayes' theorem to give some precision to the atheologian's thesis that it is improbable that God exists given the amount of evil in the world (e). Two arguments result from this: (1) e disconfirms god's existence, And (2) e tends to disconfirm god's existence. Secondly, I evaluate these inductive arguments, Suggesting against (1) that the atheologian has abstracted from and hence failed to consider the total evidence, And against (2) that the atheologian's (...) evidence adduced to support his thesis regarding the relevant probabilities is inadequate. (shrink)

Recent discussion of the problem of evil has centered around what is known as the probabilistic or evidential argument from evil. According to this argument the evil in our world is evidence against the existence of God, even though evil is logically consistent with God’s existing. Based on this it is claimed it is irrational to believe one of the traditional theistic religions, unless there is overwhelming positive evidence to counter this negative (...) evidence. One of the most important and widely discussed versions of this argument is due to Paul Draper.1 In this paper I will look at Draper’s argument and argue that he has made a simple fundamental error; as a result his argument is irrelevant to most theists. After discussing this error in Draper’s argument, I will discuss probabilistic arguments from evil from the perspective of confirmation theory. The error in Draper’s argument is easily made and could occur in any probabilistic argument from evil; looking at confirmation theory and probabilistic arguments from evil will provide insight into reasoning about evil and belief in God. (shrink)

Among the central theses defended in this paper are the following. First, the logical incompatibility version of the argument from evil is not one of the crucial versions, and Plantinga, in fostering the illusion that it is, seriously misrepresents claims advanced by other philosophers. Secondly, Plantinga’s arguments against the thesis that the existence of any evil at all is logically incompatible with God’s existence. Thirdly, Plantinga’s attempt to demonstrate that the existence of a (...) certain amount of evil in the world does not render improbable the existence of God involves both a false claim and a fallacious inference. (shrink)

The problem of evil has traditionally been formulated as a claim about the incompatibility of the statements ‘God exists’ and ‘There occur instances of suffering’. Hume, for example, in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion , part x, claims that the statements ‘God exists’ and ‘There occur instances of suffering’ are incompatible. In his esssy ‘Hume on Evil’, Nelson Pike argues that it has not been shown that the statements ‘God exists’ and ‘There occur instances of suffering’ are incompatible (...) because it has not been shown that God could not have a morally sufficient reason for permitting suffering he could prevent. 1 Moreover, according to Pike, the theist who is convinced that God must have a morally sufficient reason for permitting suffering he can prevent will claim that the statements ‘God exists’ and ‘There occur instances of suffering’ are not incompatible. He will claim this even though he cannot specify the morally sufficient reason why God permits suffering he can prevent. The theist will thus maintain that God exists even given the occurrence of suffering in the world. 2 Robert Richman, in his essay ‘The Argument from Evil’, argues that Pike is too generous to the theist. According to Richman, only if the theist can specify the morally sufficient reason why God permits suffering he can prevent will the theist be rationally justified in maintaining that God exists in the face of suffering in the world. Richman supports his position by reformulating the argument from evil in terms of what he calls ‘the logic of our moral judgmentsr’. 3 Richman thinks that his formulation of the argument from evil is successful against the theist who cannot specify the morally sufficient reason why God permits evil he can prevent. In this paper, I shall argue that Richman's argument is not successful against the typical theist, i.e. the person who accepts the existence of God on the basis of faith or a priori arguments. 4. (shrink)

First, I consider J.L. Mackie's deductive argument from evil, noting that required modifications to his premises, especially those dealing with what it is to be a good person and omnipotence, do not entail that God would be required to eliminate evil completely. Hence, no contradiction exists between God's existence, possession of certain properties, and the existence of evil. Second I evaluate McCloskey's arguments against reasons for evil often suggested by the theist: that (...) evil is a means to achieving the good, that evil is a by-product of securing the good, and that certain goods are logically dependent on the existence of certain evils. I argue that in none of these objections is McCloskey successful. (shrink)

Where was God? Where was the intelligent designer of the universe when 1.5 million children were turned into smoke by zealous Nazis? Where was the all powerful, all knowing, wholly good being whose very essence is radically opposed to evil, while millions of children were starved to death by Stalin, had their limbs chopped off with machetes in Rwanda, were turned into amputees by the diamond trade in Sierra Leone, and worked to death, even now, by the child slave (...) trade that, by conservative estimates, enslaves 250 million children worldwide?Without divine justice, all of this suffering is gratuitous. How, then, can a wholly good, all-powerful God be believed to exist? The existence of evil is the most fundamental threat to the traditional Western concept of an all-good, all-powerful God. Both natural evil, the suffering that occurs as a result of physical phenomena, and moral evil, the suffering resulting from human action, comprise the problem of evil. If evil cannot be accounted for, then belief in the traditional Western concept of God is absurd. (shrink)

In a previous issue of Philo, Michael Almeida claimed to have “defeated” William Rowe’s “New Evidential Argument from Evil” againstthe existence of a benevolent god. However, Almeida’s argument suffers from serious logical errors and even logical absurdities, leaving Rowe’s argument intact and quite unthreatened by anything Almeida argues.

First I employ Bayes's Theorem to give some precision to the atheologian's thesis that it is improbable that God exists given the amount of evil in the world (E). Two arguments result from this: (1) E disconfirms God's existence, and (2) E tends to disconfirm God's existence. Secondly, I evaluate these inductive arguments, suggesting against (1) that the atheologian has abstracted from and hence failed to consider the total evidence, and against (2) that the atheologian's (...) evidence adduced to support his thesis regarding the relevant probabilities is inadequate. (shrink)

Stringent non-consequentialist constraints on permitting horrendous evils pose a formidable challenge to the project of theodicy by limiting the ways in which it is permissible for God to do or allow evil for the sake of bringing about a greater good. I formulate a general and potent argument against all greater-good theodicies from the existence of robust side constraints on permitting evil. Then I contend that the argument fails. I begin by distinguishing between side (...) constraints on doing evil and side constraints on allowing evil, and then I draw on the work of David Lewis and Fiona Woollard to argue that, because of the unique ways that God is related to the world, it is plausible that God can both create and sustain our universe, despite all of its evils, without violating any of these constraints. (shrink)

In this chapter, I investigate two recent arguments by Michael Tooley that begin with some facts about evil and conclude that the probability of God existing is low or extremely low. Tooley's first argument fails because it relies on a very controversial assumption about unknown rightmaking and wrongmaking properties. Tooley's second argument makes use of some ideas about formal inductive logic and logical probability that Carnap developed, but this argument fails because it applies Carnap's ideas in (...) ways that conflict with our inductive intuitions. Thus, Tooley's arguments depend on very controversial assumptions that should be rejected. (shrink)

Alvin Plantinga claims that certain beliefs entailing God's existence can be properly basic. He uses this claim to suggest two distinct replies to evidential arguments from evil against theism. In "Reason and Belief in God" he offers what he calls his "highroad" reply, and in a more recent article he suggests what I call his "modest" reply. First I show that Plantinga's highroad reply fails, because it relies on a faulty analysis of probability on total evidence. Then (...) I reformulate his modest reply so that is applies specifically to David Hume's evidential argument from evil. And finally, I show that a certain "existential" problem of evil undermines Plantinga's modest reply to Hume's argument. (shrink)

Theists are, according to Lovering, in an “unenviable position.” Lovering . Noting that debates on evil and God’s existence depend conceptually upon claims about what God would or would not do, he lays out three frameworks within which such claims could operate, all of which raise significant problems for theism. While his contention that these arguments depend on such claims is correct, the dire consequences for theism do not follow. After briefly discussing his three alternatives, I will argue (...) that while some of his supporting arguments are successful, his overall conclusion is not. Although both Broad Skeptical Theism and Broad Epistemic Theism are untenable, the latter has more resources than he suggests for dealing with the evidential argument from evil. More significantly, Narrow Skeptical Theism need not be ad hoc as Lovering contends, but is a position which we ought to accept provided it is not itself used as a pseudo-theodicy. The upshot of these observations is that theistic arguments may reasonably be grounded in considerations about what God would do. (shrink)

There has been in recent years a plethora of defenses of theism from analytical philosophers such as Plantinga, Swinburne, and Alston. Richard Gale's important book is a critical response to these writings. New versions of cosmological, ontological, and religious experience arguments are critically evaluated, along with pragmatic arguments to justify faith on the grounds of its prudential or moral benefits. A special feature of the book is the discussion of the atheological argument that attempts to deduce a contradiction (...) from the theist's way of conceiving of God's nature. In considering arguments for and against the existence of God, Gale is able to clarify many important philosophical concepts including exploration, time, free will, personhood, actuality, and the objectivity of experience. (shrink)

The thought that evil in the world poses a problem for belief in the existence of God is an ancient and very natural idea - going back at least to Job. But can that basic idea be converted into a sound argument for the non-existence of God? Arguments from evil against the existence of a deity come in two very different forms. On the one hand, one has what are known as incompatibility versions (...) of the argument from evil. These are typically directed against God conceived of as in classical monotheism––that is, as an omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect person––and such arguments attempt to show that the existence of such a deity is logically incompatible with certain true propositions about the existence of evil states of affairs. Then, on the other hand, one has what are known as evidential or inductive formulations of the argument from evil. These arguments have the more modest goal of showing that facts about evil states of affairs in the world make it unlikely that deities with certain properties exist. Arguments of the latter sort will be the focus of the present chapter. -/- As we shall see, evidential arguments from evil can be formulated in several ways, a full exposition of which would lead us into some quite technical waters. My goal, however, will be simply to make clear the basic ideas. Having done that, I shall describe three different responses to such arguments. One involves the idea of a theodicy, while a second appeals instead to countervailing evidence in support of the existence of God, and a third employs the idea of morally significant states of affairs that lie outside our ken. We shall see, I think, that all three responses are problematic. (shrink)

If God is morally perfect then He must perform the morally best actions, but creating humans is not the morally best action. If this line of reasoning can be maintained then the mere fact that humans exist contradicts the claim that God exists. This is the ‘anthropic argument’. The anthropic argument, is related to, but distinct from, the traditional argument from evil. The anthropic argument forces us to consider the ‘creation question’: why did (...) God not create other gods rather than humans? That is, if God is omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect then why didn’t He create a world populated exclusively by beings that are perfect in the same way that He is—ontological equivalents— rather than choosing to create humans with finite natures and all the suffering that this entails? (shrink)

A recent development in the philosophy of religion has been the attempt to justify belief in God using Bayesian confirmation theory. My dissertation critically discusses two prominent spokesmen for this approach--Richard Swinburne and J. L. Mackie. Using probabilistic confirmation theory, these philosophers come to wildly divergent conclusions with respect to the hypothesis of theism; Swinburne contends that the evidence raises the overall probability of the hypothesis of theism, whereas Mackie argues that the evidence disconfirms the existence of God. After (...) a careful analysis of the individual authors, this dissertation critically examines the assumptions of the project. The authors consider arguments for the existence of God separately--the cosmological argument, the argument from design, apparent miracles, the problem of evil, and arguments from religious experience--and then conjoin them to assess the cumulative effect of the arguments. The assumptions are that the probability calculus may be interpreted for a successful inductive argument for or against the existence of God, that inference to best explanation is applicable to the justification of religious belief, that the justification of belief in God is analogous to the justification of a scientific theory, and that a classical foundationalist conception of rationality is correct. It is the contention of this dissertation that all of these assumptions are incorrect. All of the major interpretations of the probability calculus are examined and it is argued that there are either no interpretations for the probability assignments or no interpretations which will advance an argument for or against the existence of God. It is also argued that the usual methods for interpreting the explanatory power of theism will not determine any non-zero probabilities; however, density measuring will provide a non-zero interpretation. In the final chapter it is argued that a subjective Bayesian conception of rationality is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition of rationality and that classical foundationalism is self-referentially inconsistent. An alternative approach to the rationality of religious belief is offered that proceeds along Reidian and Plantingan lines, belief in God is properly basic. (shrink)

I argue that Christian apophaticism provides the most powerful and economical response to the evidential argument from evil for the non-existence of God. I also reply to the objection that Christian apophaticism is incoherent, because it appears to entail the truth of the following contradiction: it is both possible and impossible to know God’s essential properties. To meet this objection, I outline a coherent account of the divine attributes inspired by the theology of the Greek Father’s (...) and St. Gregory Palamas. (shrink)

In his article, ‘What's Wrong with Tooley's Argument from Evil?’, Calum Miller's goal was to show that the evidential argument from evil that I have advanced is unsound, and in support of that claim, Miller set out three main objections. First, he argued that I had failed to recognize that the actual occurrence of an event can by itself, at least in principle, constitute good evidence that it was not morally wrong for God to (...) allow events of the kind in question. Miller's second objection was then that, in attempting to show that it is unlikely that God exists, I had failed to consider either positive arguments in support of the existence of God or possible theodicies, and thus that I was unjustified in drawing any conclusions concerning the probability that theism is true in the light of the total evidence available. Miller's third and final objection was that one of the approaches to logical probability that I employed – namely, that based upon a structure-description equiprobability principle, rather than a state-description equiprobability principle – was unsound since it has clearly unacceptable implications. In response, I argue that all three of Miller's objections are unsound. The third objection, however, is nevertheless important since it shows that my type of argument from evil cannot be based merely on the evils found in the world. One must also consider good states of affairs, and their relations to bad ones. I show, however, that that deficiency can be addressed in a completely satisfactory manner. (shrink)

A clearer case of a horrible event in nature, a natural evil, has never been presented to me. It seemed to me self evident that the natural law that animals must savagely kill and devour each other in order to survive was an evil natural law and that the obtaining of this law was sufficient evidence that God did not exist. If I held a certain epistemological theory about "basic beliefs", I might conclude from this experience that (...) my intuition that there is no God co existing with th is horror was a "basic belief" and thus that I am epistemically entitled to be an atheist without needing to justify this intuition, But I do not hold such an epistemological theory and believe that intuitive atheological beliefs, such as the one I experienced (and the corresponding intuitive theological beliefs, such as that God is providentially watching over this gruesome event) require justification if they are to be epistemically warranted. The following sections of this article present a justification for the atheological intuition I experienced that dark night. My justification will consist mostly in providing reasons to believe premise (3) in the following probabilistic argument.. (shrink)

James Sterba has constructed a powerful argument for there being a conflict between the presence of evil in the world and the existence of God. I contend that Sterba’s argument depends on a crucial assumption, namely, that God has an obligation to act according to the principle of meticulous providence. I suggest that two of his analogies confirm his dependence on this requirement. Of course, his argument does not rest on either of these analogies, but (...) they are illustrative of the role that meticulous providence plays in his argument. I then investigate the ethical principles Sterba invokes in his use of meticulous providence and suggest that not only do we often not predicate goodness of human persons based on these principles of obligation, but that these principles are much too stringent to function to determine moral obligations and moral goodness. From there, I contend that to think that God has a similar obligation regarding meticulous providence in order to be good encounters several serious problems, especially with respect to the soul-building Sterba wants to preserve. I conclude by considering Sterba’s reply in terms of a limited application of meticulous providence. (shrink)

While the existence of horrendous evils has generally been taken to be evidence against the existence of God, some philosophers have suggested that it may be evidence for the existence of God. This paper introduces three main kinds of theistic arguments from horrendous evils: the argument from objectively horrifying evils, the pragmatic argument from evil, and an argument from reasonable responses. For each of these arguments, I will first reconstruct (...) a standard version of the argument, before suggesting ways the argument may be challenged, or further developed. (shrink)

J. L. Schellenberg, in “A New Logical Problem of Evil,” published in The Blackwell Companion to the Problem of Evil, argues that (if God exists) God has, of necessity, a disappreciation of evil, operating at a metalevel in such a way as to give God a non-defeasible reason to rule out actualizing a world containing evil. He also argues that since God’s motive in creating the world is to share with finite beings the good that God (...) experiences prior to creation, which is good without evil, it follows that God will create a world that contains no evil. I investigate in detail the foregoing lines of argument and provide grounds for rejecting them. My paper is published in Vol 38 No.2, whose date is nominally April 2021 although the issue is not in fact available yet. (shrink)

The evidential argument for atheism from evil may be appealing because it seems both less naïve and more enlightened than theism. However, implicit in the argument that the world contains so much evil that it could not have been created by God is the tacitnihilistic proposition that the world is so bad that it would be better that it not exist at all. Besides entailing an unattractive rejection of the worth of the existence of (...) the world, atheism motivated by the argument from evil is also embroiled in moral inconsistencies that make it difficult or impossible for the atheologian to live and act in the world with moral consistency and seriousness. (shrink)

This world contains horrendous evils. It is also partly populated by realistic, purpose‐driven optimists. In this chapter, I mount an ad hominem argument that it is unreasonable for people to strike the latter life posture apart from belief in God. I review nontheistic alternatives – life postures that qualify realism, dampen hopes, curtail on meaning‐making, or aim at getting beyond personality altogether. I conclude that my argument should have force with those who are robustly realistic, robustly optimistic, (...) and firmly committed to finding value in personal life. (shrink)

It is often claimed that belief in God is based on faith, while non-belief is grounded in rationality. This claim is inaccurate. Moral philosopher Carlo Alvaro takes the reader through his philosophical journey—a journey taken with the absolute absence of faith. Through reasoning alone, and with an objective assessment of the classical theistic arguments, Deism takes the reader from disbelief to a particular version of deism. Deism discusses such arguments as the Kalam Cosmological, the asymmetry against the evil-god (...) challenge, the anthropic principle, and the moral. Such arguments lead to the undeniable conclusion that there exists a timeless, space-less, wholly good, and infinitely powerful being endowed with freedom of the will, who brought the universe into existence a finite time ago. An objective appraisal of such arguments leads to the conclusions that atheism is an irrational philosophical position, that God does not interact with humans, at least not during our physical existence on earth, and that God is the best explanation of the objectivity of moral value and duty. (shrink)

This paper examines Alvin Plantinga's defence of theistic belief in the light of Paul Draper's formulation of the problem of evil. Draper argues (a) that the facts concerning the distribution of pain and pleasure in the world are better explained by a hypothesis which does not include the existence of God than by a hypothesis which does; and (b) that this provides an epistemic challenge to theists. Plantinga counters that a theist could accept (a) yet still rationally maintain (...) a belief in God. His defence of theism depends on the epistemic value of religious experience. I argue, however, that Plantinga's defence of theism is not successful. (shrink)

Employing the premiss that "fundamental religious doctrines are arguable," the author considers the traditional arguments for the existence of God and gods, in addition to arguments for and against His existence from authority, particular experience, pragmatism, and the phenomenon of evil. His conclusion is that there exist no reasonable grounds for such belief, and that it doesn't matter much, in general, whether God exists or not, since God's proper function is as an ideal. The work provides (...) an interesting and easy-to-read introduction to the problem, and the chapters on the traditional arguments for God's existence are particularly stimulating.—L. C. (shrink)

Here I consider the two most venerated arguments about the existence of God: the Ontological Argument and the Argument from Evil. The Ontological Argument purports to show that God’s nature guarantees that God exists. The Argument from Evil purports to show that God’s nature, combined with some plausible facts about the way the world is, guarantees (or is very compelling grounds for thinking) that God does not exist. Obviously, both arguments cannot (...) be sound. But I argue here that they are both unsound for the very same reason. (shrink)

Mark C. Murphy addresses the question of how God's ethics differs from human ethics. Murphy suggests that God is not subject to the moral norms to which we humans are subject. This has immediate implications for the argument from evil: we cannot assume that an absolutely perfect being is in any way bound to prevent the evils of this world.

This chapter contains section titled: Natural Religion in EHU The Critique of the Design Argument in DNR The Problem of Evil Part 12 and the Interpretation of DNR Conclusion References Further Reading.

A number of authors have developed evidential arguments from evil in the past thirty years. Perhaps the best known evidential arguments from evil are those presented in Rowe (1979) and Draper (1989). We shall spend most of this chapter examining these two arguments.

In _Consciousness and the Existence of God_, J.P. Moreland argues that the existence of finite, irreducible consciousness provides evidence for the existence of God. Moreover, he analyzes and criticizes the top representative of rival approaches to explaining the origin of consciousness, including John Searle’s contingent correlation, Timothy O’Connor’s emergent necessitation, Colin McGinn’s mysterian ‘‘naturalism,’’ David Skrbina’s panpsychism and Philip Clayton’s pluralistic emergentist monism. Moreland concludes that these approaches should be rejected in favor of what he calls ‘‘the (...) Argument from Consciousness.’’. (shrink)