Sceptical theism, the parent analogy, and many goods

William R. Rowe argues for the low probability of the existence of God given our ignorance of the goods that come from apparently gratuitous evils. After exploring this argument, I present Stephen Wykstra's response, which is known as ‘sceptical theism’, focusing on the evocation of the so-call...

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Détails bibliographiques
Auteur principal: Oliveira, Gabriel Reis de (Auteur)
Type de support: Électronique Article
Langue:Anglais
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Publié: Cambridge Univ. Press 2023
Dans: Religious studies
Année: 2023, Volume: 59, Numéro: 4, Pages: 748-761
Sujets non-standardisés:B sceptical theism
B Evil
B parent analogy
B God
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Résumé:William R. Rowe argues for the low probability of the existence of God given our ignorance of the goods that come from apparently gratuitous evils. After exploring this argument, I present Stephen Wykstra's response, which is known as ‘sceptical theism’, focusing on the evocation of the so-called ‘parent analogy’. According to the parent analogy, God's knowledge, compared to ours, is analogous to the comparison between a parent's knowledge and a one-month-old infant's. After pointing out some difficulties with this analogy, I develop an improved version of sceptical theism. My main point is that the most valuable disinterested love and awe for God can be best developed in a world with two evils: our ignorance about most of the justifying goods and the apparent divine absence to sufferers. Moreover, since disinterested love and awe for God bring numerous benefits to human beings, God has good reasons for creating a world with these two evils.
ISSN:1469-901X
Contient:Enthalten in: Religious studies
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1017/S0034412522000701