Who Permits Evil?: Plantinga's Free Will Defense and Kierkegaard's Free Spirit Offense : In Search of a Coherent Theistic Solution to the Problem of Evil

The aim of this essay is to create a coherent theistic model of a solution to the problem of evil. To this end, it is shown that the differences in Kierkegaard's and Plantinga's accounts of the problem of evil can be reconciled if looked at from a broader theistic perspective. This require...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Słowikowski, Andrzej (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: De Gruyter 2022
In: Kierkegaard studies / Yearbook
Year: 2022, Volume: 27, Issue: 1, Pages: 369-402
RelBib Classification:AB Philosophy of religion; criticism of religion; atheism
KAH Church history 1648-1913; modern history
KAJ Church history 1914-; recent history
NBC Doctrine of God
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Summary:The aim of this essay is to create a coherent theistic model of a solution to the problem of evil. To this end, it is shown that the differences in Kierkegaard's and Plantinga's accounts of the problem of evil can be reconciled if looked at from a broader theistic perspective. This requires, on the one hand, that Plantinga's immanent and logical vision be extended to include Kierkegaard's spiritual and existential view of evil, and, on the other hand, that a correction be made to Kierkegaard's view thereof, as a result of the way in which Plantinga presents the relationship between good and moral evil in the world. Consequently, in Plantinga's Free Will Defense the existence of God is consistent with the existence of evil, not because God has a reason to permit evil in the world, but because evil as a real element of the temporal world does not come from God. In Kierkegaard's Free Spirit Offense , in turn, the interpretative model applied demonstrates that the existence of moral good must be independent of the existence of spiritual evil, for otherwise the moral evil of immanence would not be able to be forgiven by the spiritual good of transcendence.
ISSN:1612-9792
Contains:Enthalten in: Kierkegaard studies / Yearbook
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1515/kierke-2022-0018