The Problem of Evil and Replies to Some Important Responses
I begin by distinguishing four different versions of the argument from evil that start from four different moral premises that in various ways link the existence of God to the absence of suffering. The version of the argument from evil that I defend starts from the premise that if God exists, he wou...
| Published in: | European journal for philosophy of religion |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
University of Innsbruck in cooperation with the John Hick Centre for Philosophy of Religion at the University of Birmingham
[2018]
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| In: |
European journal for philosophy of religion
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| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Evil
/ Suffering
/ Theism
/ Creationism
/ Proof of God's existence
/ Atheism
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| RelBib Classification: | AB Philosophy of religion; criticism of religion; atheism |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (doi) Volltext (teilw. kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | I begin by distinguishing four different versions of the argument from evil that start from four different moral premises that in various ways link the existence of God to the absence of suffering. The version of the argument from evil that I defend starts from the premise that if God exists, he would not allow excessive, unnecessary suffering. The argument continues by denying the consequent of this conditional to conclude that God does not exist. I defend the argument against Skeptical Theists who say we are in no position to judge that there is excessive, unnecessary suffering by arguing that this defense has absurd consequences. It allows Young Earthers to construct a parallel argument that concludes that we are in no position to judge that God did not create the earth recently. In the last section I consider whether theists can turn the argument from evil on its head by arguing that God exists. I first criticize Alvin Plantinga's theory of warrant that one might try to use to argue for God's existence. I then criticize Richard Swinburne's Bayesian argument to the same conclusion. I conclude that my version of the argument from evil is a strong argument against the existence of God and that several important responses to it do not defeat it. |
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| Contains: | Enthalten in: European journal for philosophy of religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.24204/ejpr.v10i3.2590 |