C. S. Lewis’s small book, The Problem of Pain, first published in 1940, is essentially a theodicy, specifically, a version of soul-making theodicy. In this essay I present Lewis’s theodicy and I offer some critical comments. I conclude by asking whether his theodicy remains intact and helpful upon the death of Lewis wife, as he reflects on that in A Grief Observed. I conclude that it does.

I sympathetically explore the thesis that God literally forgets sins. I articulate some altruistic God might have for forgetting certain sins. If so, then God may have altruistic reasons to relinquish a great-making trait (omniscience). But according to traditional Anselmian perfect being theology, God is necessarily perfect and so incapable of acting on these altruistic reasons. More broadly, a God who necessarily has all the perfections is a God who is incapable of making a certain kind of sacrifice: God can (...) never make tradeoffs that diminish God’s overall greatness, even when those diminishments are relatively small (like forgetting a particular proposition) and the (altruistic) rewards of making the tradeoff substantial. I argue that God’s inability to make such tradeoffs is not a trivial cost for traditional perfect-being theologians who also believe that God is in loving relationships with creatures. Along the way, I explore the prospects for a less traditional form of perfect being theology, perfect being kenoticism, and different models for divine forgetting. (shrink)

The article begins with a reflection on the ‘conversation between mythologies’ present in the debate between C. Robert Mesle and John Hick on the role of Irenaean theodicy and process theology to tackle convincingly the problem of evil in the contemporary and future context of scientific advancement. I argue that, although these two authors consider their mythological perspectives to be widely different, there is a possibility of advancing toward conciliating the two views. I call the resulting myth the ‘aesthetic myth,’ (...) which focuses on the Trinitarian God, seen concomitantly as omnipotent and limited. Inspired also by the thought of St. Francis of Assisi and St. Maximus the Confessor, this myth asserts nature’s free initiative as co-creator with the Logos and the natural evil emerging from this initiative. Moral evil comes from natural evil; thus, ‘original sin’ shows no unsurpassable gap between God and humanity. (shrink)

According to the most recent articulation of her view, Marilyn Adams’s reply to the problem of horrendous evils states that God offers compensation to those who experience horrendous evils. This compensation includes the good of the incarnation of God and the good of identification with God in virtue of suffering horrendous evils. Andrew Gleeson has raised a series of objections to Adams’s recent articulation. I argue that all of Gleeson’s arguments fail or fail to pose a distinct challenge. I then (...) present a different challenge: that her view provides insufficient compensation for horrendous evils. I conclude by suggesting a development of her view. (shrink)

Disgrace , by J.M. Coetzee, is a story of a rape; more, it is a tale in which the victim of the rape, Lucy Lurie, is silent. She demands neither sympathy nor justice for what happens toher, presenting herself as neither a victim nor someone seeking revenge. Instead she stands as a witness, and does so by adopting an attitude reminiscent of the thinking of Simone Weil—rejecting the possibility of rights, and not looking for explanations. Rape, Coetzee thus suggests, is (...) an act without meaning, a trauma whose reality cannot be exorcised through narration. Fittingly, therefore, the novel ends with a tableau of Lucy growing flowers in her garden; living, like Candide, without rationalisation or consolatory myth. (shrink)

My purpose in this paper is to clarify or explicate the concept of theodicy. More specifically, I shall provide an account of the concept that takes its logical aspects seriously into consideration as well as satisfies the basic intuitions philosophers of religions have had about it. This shall be done by systematically analysing the several theodical conditions found in the literature. As it shall be seen, these conditions are logically related to one another; collectively, they point not to one, but (...) to several concepts of theodicy. Thus, as by-product of this explicatory endeavour, I shall provide a logically guided, I may say, analysis of such conditions as well as a systematization of the theodical concepts arising from them. I shall follow what might be termed a semiformal approach; despite not developing a full logical theory, I use the standard notation and some important results from the field of formal logic. (shrink)

Our purpose in this paper is to contribute to the project of meta-theodicy, understood here as the elucidation of the concept of theodicy through the analysis of its adequacy. In our case, the analysis shall be made inside a framework including a taxonomical view of the theodical adequacy conditions which allows for a rigorously acceptable description of them as well as for a natural appraisal of the role, importance and intra-logical relations holding between them. The result of the analysis shall (...) be used to introduce definitions minimally precise of the notions of theodicy, satisfactory theodicy, plausible theodicy, ideal theodicy, and the like. (shrink)

This article aims to provide an explication of a new conceptualisation of God's defeat of horrors (i.e., horror-defeat), and a successful solution to the Problem of Horrors—which we can term the ‘Reconciliation Account’. This specific conceptualisation will be formulated in light of the work of Marilyn McCord Adams, with an original extension of her work being made by utilising the work of Richard Swinburne and Robin Collins (amongst others), which, in combination, will provide us with a more robust solution to (...) the issue raised by horrors. (shrink)

This paper regiments and responds to an objection to skeptical theism. The conclusion of the objection is that it is not reasonable for skeptical theists to prevent evil, even when it would be easy for them to do so. I call this objection a “Dominance-Reasoning Objection” because it can be regimented utilizing dominance reasoning familiar from decision theory. Nonetheless, I argue, the objection ultimately fails because it neglects a distinction between justifying goods that are necessary for the existence of a (...) good and those that are necessary for God’s permission of the good. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that God is authoritative over us because he is our divine, causal parent. As our causal parent, God has duties to relate to us, but he can only fulfill those duties if he has the practical authority to give us commands aimed at our sanctification. From ought-implies-can reasoning, I conclude that God has that authority. After I make this argument, I show how the view has significant advantages over extant arguments for divine authority and can (...) help solve other significant problems in philosophy of religion. (shrink)

This article constructively retrieves St. Anselm of Canterbury’s theory of retributive justice and provides a defense of what can be called the retributive model of hell. In the first part of this article, we develop the place of retributive punishment in Anselm’s thinking and discuss how and when retributive punishment is a good thing. In the second part, we apply Anselm’s thinking on retributive justice to the problem of hell and provide a defense of how hell, defined as a state (...) of receiving retributive, damnatory, and irreversible punishment, is good. We then address a series of objections. Despite some criticism that both Anselm and the retributive model of hell receive in the contemporary literature, Anselm’s account of retributive justice can make unique and constructive contributions to the contemporary discussion of hell; by retrieving and applying Anselm’s thought to the problem of hell, we intend to kill two birds with one stone. (shrink)

There is an objection to divine timelessness which claims that timelessness shouldn’t be adopted since on this view evil is never “destroyed,” “vanquished,” “eradicated” or defeated. By contrast, some divine temporalists think that presentism is the key that allows evil to be destroyed/vanquished/eradicated/defeated. However, since presentism is often considered to be inconsistent with timelessness, it is thought that the presentist solution is not available for defenders of timelessness. In this paper I first show how divine timelessness is consistent with a (...) presentist view of time and then how defenders of Presentist-Timelessness can adopt the presentist solution to the removal of evil. After this, I conclude the paper by showing that it’s far from clear that the presentist solution is successful and that unless one weakens what is meant by the destruction/vanquishing/eradication/defeat of evil, one can only make the presentist solution work by adopting a number of additional assumptions that many will find unattractive. (shrink)

To most of us – believers and non-believers alike – the possibility of a perfect God co-existing with the kinds of evil that we see calls out for explanation. It is unsurprising, therefore, that the belief that God must have justifying reasons for allowing all the evil that we see has been a perennial feature of theistic thought. Recently, however, a growing number of authors have argued that the existence of a perfect God is compatible with the existence of gratuitous (...) evil. Given powerful, millenia-long sensibilities about power and love and justice, it isn’t hard to find that suggestion simply incredible. Nonetheless, in this paper I will argue that the most prominent theistic alternatives to what has seemed incredible to most of us throughout most of history are themselves patently unacceptable for the theist as well. On any of the most widely accepted accounts of how God could have justifying reasons for permitting some evils, God’s existence means that we have justifying reasons for perpetrating and allowing every evil that we see. That's hard to swallow too. If I’m right about all of this, then two competing outcomes seem to present themselves as a possible result. On the one hand, for the theist, the apparently outrageous suggestion that the existence of a perfect God is compatible with gratuitous evil no longer looks like it faces a formidable, hard-to-resist alternative. On the other hand, some like me might think that my arguments go no distance at all towards dispelling the incredibility of the gratuitous evil nouvelle vague. On this line, theism may seem now to be between the rock and the hard place: it seems hard to make sense of the existence of a perfect God whether or not He has justifying reasons for allowing all the evil that we see. (shrink)

Jim Sterba’s Is a Good God Logically Possible? looks to resurrect J. L. Mackie’s logical argument from evil. Sterba accepts the general framework that theists seeking to give a theodicy have favored since Leibniz invented the term: the search for some greater good provided or greater evil averted that would justify God in permitting the type and variety of evil we actually observe. However, Sterba introduces a deontic twist, drawing on the Pauline Principle (let us not do evil that good (...) may come) to introduce three deontic side constraints on God’s choice of action. He then splits the possible goods into four categories: first- vs. second-order goods, goods to which we have a right, and goods to which we do not have a right. He argues that his deontic constraints rule out each combination, thereby showing that no God-justifying good is on offer. To defuse the argument, I draw on a pair of ideas from Marilyn McCord Adams: (i) God is outside the bounds of morality, and (ii) God can defeat evils by incorporating them into an incommensurately valuable friendship with each human. Properly appreciated, these show that the new logical argument relies on a false premise that is not easily repaired. (shrink)

Abstract: In this paper, I respond to James Sterba’s recent book ‘Is a Good God Logically Possible?’ I show that Sterba concludes that God is not logically possible by ignoring three important issues: (a) the different functions of leeway indeterminism (and the political freedom presupposed by it) and autonomy (the two are very different things, even though both go under the name of freedom), (b) the differences in the conditions of agency in God and in creatures, (there is non-parity in (...) how each must apply the single moral law), and (c) the non-parity between our knowledge and God’s. I provide a brief summary of Sterba’s arguments, and I develop the following points: 1. Sterba’s argument against a Free-Will Defense hinges on his conflation of political freedom and autonomy; 2. Sterba’s crucial premise for his argument against soul-making theodicies (namely, that the “Pauline Principle” should be applied univocally across God and creatures) is false; 3. Sterba’s arguments against skeptical theism depend on his assumption that our knowledge is comparable to that of God. In each case, Sterba either does not recognize non-parity between God and creatures or does not recognize the difference between the profane (e.g., political matters) and the sacred, (e.g., spiritual matters having to do with the inner nature of the soul’s development). (shrink)

I examine issues in the philosophy of religion at the intersection of what possibilities there are and what a God, as classically conceived in the theistic philosophical tradition, would be able to do. The discussion is centered around arguing for an incompatibility between theism and two principles about possibility and ability, and exploring what theists should say about these incompatibilities. -/- I argue that theism entails that certain kinds and amounts of evil are impossible. This puts theism in conflict with (...) popular principles of modal recombination. However, theists have plausible explanations for the violations of recombination that they posit, and can suitably amend these principles without giving up their usefulness in accounting for what possibilities there are. -/- I also argue that despite the impossibility of these evils, God is able to bring these evils about. This puts theism in conflict with the principle that no one is able to do the impossible. However, theists can give a plausible account of why God is unique in being able to do the impossible, and have distinctive resources to address the arguments in favor of the idea that no one is able to do the impossible. And by denying this principle, theists are able to resolve several otherwise difficult puzzles, including reconciling conflicts between the divine attributes. (shrink)

This is a draft of the the unpublished Ph.D. dissertation which reads Cormac McCarthy and Stephen King synoptically through the lens of Christian hermeneutics.

The first and greatest commandment according to Jesus, and so the one most central to Christian practice, is the command to love God. We argue that this commandment is best interpreted in aretaic rather than deontic terms. In brief, we argue that there is no obligation to love God. While bad, failure to seek and enjoy a union of love with God is not in violation of any general moral requirement. The core argument is straightforward: relations of intimacy should not (...) be morally imposed upon autonomous beings. We contend that such reasoning applies to human beings’ relationship to God. So, even if our ultimate end is to enjoy communion with God, God has no right that human beings seek a relationship with him. If this is correct, then the command to ‘love God’ is not the sort of moral principle that can be supported by threats of hellfire or other forms of coercion. (shrink)

Richard Swinburne’s formulation of the argument from evil is representative of a pervasive way of understanding the challenge evil poses for theistic belief. But there is an error in Swinburne’s formulation : he fails to consider possible deontological constraints on God’s legitimate responses to evil. To demonstrate the error’s significance, I show that some important objections to Swinburne’s theodicy admit of a novel answer once we correct for Swinburne’s Lapse. While more is needed to show that the resultant “deontological theodicy” (...) succeeds, its promise highlights the significance of Swinburne’s Lapse and the prospects for theodicy it has obscured. (shrink)

Attempts to resolve the problem of evil often appeal to a greater good, according to which God’s permission of moral and natural evil is justified because (and just in case) the evil that is permitted is necessary for the realization of some greater good. In the extensive litany of greater good theodicies and defenses, the appeal to the greater good of an afterlife of infinite reward or pleasure has played a minor role in Christian thought but a more important role (...) in Islamic thought. In a recent article, Seyyed Jaaber Mousavirad invites us to reconsider a greater good theodicy of compensation. He contends that not only are all evils justified in that God compensates the sufferer in an afterlife, but because evils experienced produce some good, God has reason for bringing about or allowing evils in the first place (Mousavirad 211). In what follows I argue that this modified compensation theodicy is flawed in its premises, faces serious problems about its concept of justice, treats people as means only and not as intrinsically valuable, and ultimately fails to show that an afterlife compensation, along with some good produced here and now by evil, justify God bringing about or allowing evil. (shrink)

This paper explores the constraints of narrative theodicy to account for the misery of the powerless and uses Mary of Bethany as a case study as evaluated through the early modern theodical writings of Mary Astell and Mary Hays. Eleonore Stump has pointed out that Mary of Bethany’s misery is interesting because it is so personal; it results from losing her heart’s desire. But, Mary of Bethany’s case fails as narrative theodicy because it cannot sufficiently demonstrate the power of God (...) in situated expressions of suffering, speak to plight of the powerless, nor put the sufferer in a stronger epistemic position. Astell and Hays provide a solution for the problem of lived experiences of systemic oppression for the project of narrative theodicy, and in so doing, remind us of the continued significance of their work to the philosophical canon. To succeed, narratives used for theodicy must speak directly to the plight of those who suffer, and must allow the powerless, miserable, unprivileged, and oppressed to have access to religious knowledge of the relationship between God and the one in misery, the one powerless. (shrink)

One of the few points of agreement between most theists and non-theists working on the problem of evil is that the existence of a perfect God is incompatible with the existence of pointless evil. In a series of influential papers, however, Peter van Inwagen has argued that careful attention to the reasoning behind this claim reveals fatal difficulties related to the Sorites Paradox. In this paper, I explain van Inwagen’s appeal to sorites reasoning, distinguish between two different arguments in his (...) work, and argue that they both commit the same so-far-unnoticed mistake. (shrink)

Many people do not know or believe there is a God, and many experience a sense of divine absence. Are these (and other) “divine hiddenness” facts evidence against the existence of God? Using Bayesian tools, we investigate *evidential arguments from divine hiddenness*, and respond to two objections to such arguments. The first objection says that the problem of hiddenness is just a special case of the problem of evil, and so if one has responded to the problem of evil then (...) hiddenness has no additional bite. The second objection says that, while hiddenness may be evidence against generic theism, it is not evidence against more specific conceptions of God, and thus hiddenness poses no epistemic challenge to a theist who holds one of these more specific conceptions. Our investigation leaves open just how strong the evidence from hiddenness really is, but we aim to clear away some important reasons for thinking hiddenness is of no evidential significance at all. (shrink)

This loosely-argued manifesto contains some suggestions regarding what the philosophy of religion might become in the 21st century. It was written for a brainstorming workshop over a decade ago, and some of the recommendations and predictions it contains have already been partly actualized (that’s why it is now a bit "untimely"). The goal is to sketch three aspects of a salutary “liturgical turn” in philosophy of religion. (Note: “liturgy” here refers very broadly to communal religious service and experience generally, not (...) anything specifically “high church.”) The first involves the attitudes that characterize what I call the “liturgical stance" towards various doctrines. The second focuses on the “vested” propositional objects of those attitudes. The third looks at how those doctrines are represented, evoked, and embodied in liturgical contexts. My untimely rallying-cry is that younger philosophers of religion might do well to set aside debates regarding knowledge and justified belief, just as their elders set aside debates regarding religious language. When we set aside knowledge in this way, we make room for discussions of faith that in turn shed light on neglected but philosophically-interesting aspects of lived religious practice. (shrink)

Human persons can act with libertarian freedom in heaven according to one prominent view, because they have freely acquired perfect virtue in their pre-heavenly lives such that acting rightly in heaven is volitionally necessary. But since the character of human persons is not perfect at death, how is their character perfected? On the unilateral model, God alone completes the perfection of their character, and, on the cooperative model, God continues to work with them in purgatory to perfect their own character. (...) I argue that although both models can make sense of all human persons enjoying free will in heaven on various assumptions, the cooperative model allows all human persons in heaven to enjoy a greater degree of freedom. This consideration about the degree of heavenly freedom provides a reason for God to implement the cooperative model. (shrink)

I argue that we should emancipate the problem of evil and suffering from theodicist assumptions that lead to a chronic non-acknowledgment of the sufferers’ experiential point of view. This also entails emancipating the problem of evil and suffering from the need to consider the so-called argument from evil. In the argument ‘from’ evil, evil and suffering are seen as pieces of empirical evidence against theism. This presupposes understanding theism as a hypothesis to be tested in an evidentialist game of argumentation. (...) Such a presupposition already fails to acknowledge the depth and variety of both religious and nonreligious approaches to living with evil and suffering. One way of cashing out what moral antitheodicism amounts to is to analyze theodicism as a failure of recognizing others’ suffering. Furthermore, one way of cashing out what this mis- or nonrecognition amounts to is to analyze the unforgivability of evil. Focusing on recognition and forgiveness here can be understood as an attempt to show that there is something seriously wrong with mainstream analytic philosophers’ of religion preoccupation with the argument from evil. In contrast, an ethically proper response to evil and suffering emerges from a serious consideration of recognition, forgiveness, and the unforgivable. (shrink)

In The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky illustrates that encounters with evil do not solely impact agents’ beliefs about God (or God’s existence). Evil impacts people on an emotional level as well. Authors like Hasker and van Inwagen sometimes identify the emotional impact of evil with the “existential” problem of evil. For better or worse, the existential version of the problem is often set aside in contemporary philosophical discussions. In this essay, I rely on Robert Roberts’ account of emotions as “concern-based construals” (...) to show that theistic philosophers can effectively address the existential problem (and so, the problem should not be set aside). In fact, addressing the emotional impact of evil is crucial, I argue, given that resolving just the impact of evil on agents’ beliefs about God constitutes an incomplete response to the problem of evil. (shrink)

This paper provides a new defence against the logical problem of evil, based on the naturalistic functional/teleological theory of mind (NFT). I argue that if the NFT is self-consistent then it is consistent with theism. Further, the NFT entails that it is not possible for created minds to exist in the absence of evil. It follows that if the NFT is self-consistent then the existence of God is consistent with the existence of evil.

Moral luck occurs when factors beyond an agent’s control positively affect how much praise or blame she deserves. Kinds of moral luck are differentiated by the source of lack of control such as the results of her actions, the circumstances in which she finds herself, and the way in which she is constituted. Many philosophers accept the existence of some of these kinds of moral luck but not others, because, in their view, the existence of only some of them would (...) make morality unfair. I, however, argue that this intermediary approach is unstable, because either morality is fair in ways that rule out resultant, circumstantial, and constitutive moral luck (and this leads to moral responsibility skepticism), or morality is unfair in ways that permit the existence of those kinds of moral luck. Thus, such intermediary approaches lack the motivation that their proponents have long taken them to have. In the appendix, I point to ways in which morality is unfair concerning the scope of moral responsibility, moral obligation, moral taint, being a good or bad person, and flourishing. (shrink)

Even philosophers of religion working on the problem of non-human animal suffering have ignored the suffering of creatures like insects. Sensible as this seems, it’s mistaken. I am not sure whether creatures like these can suffer, but it is plausible, on both commonsensical and scientific and philosophical grounds, that many of them can. If they do, their suffering makes the problem of evil much worse: their vast numbers mean the amount of evil in the world will almost certainly be increased (...) by many, many orders of magnitude, the fact that disproportionately many of them live lives which are nasty, brutish, and short means that the proportion of good to evil in the world will be drastically worsened, and their relative lack of cognitive sophistication means that many theodicies, including many specifically designed to address animal suffering, would apply to their suffering only with much greater difficulty, if at all. Philosophers of religion should therefore more seriously investigate whether these beings can suffer and what, if anything, could justify God in allowing as much. (shrink)

The problem of evil is not only a logical problem about God's goodness but also an existential problem about the sense of God's presence, which the Biblical book of Job conceives as a problem of aesthetic experience. Thus, just as theism can be grounded in religious experience, atheism can be grounded in experience of evil. This phenomenon is illustrated by two contrasting literary descriptions of aesthetic experience by Jean-Paul Sartre and Annie Dillard. I illuminate both of these literary texts with (...) a discussion of the 18th Century philosopher Lord Shaftesbury's concept of ‘enthusiasm’. (shrink)

The problem of horrendous evil is the problem of reconciling the existence of horrendous evils with the existence of a God that is nevertheless good to individuals. A solution to the problem along the lines of that proposed by Morilyn McCord Adams resolves the problem by appeal to various sorts of intimacy with God on the part of the participants in horrendous evils. One half of the problem concerns the victims of horrendous evils. A second half of the problem of (...) horrendous evil is the same problem for those perpetrators of horrendous evils who also potentially have their lives defeated. The present paper argues not only that the intimacy such an overall strategy appeals to fails to solve the first half of the problem, but also that it makes no progress at all on the second half. (shrink)

Many things in the natural world work so well that they seem to have been designed. But by what? Could nature itself, by processes including those of evolution, be the designer? Or must their complex structure and function be attributed to some intelligent designer or God? Is natural design compatible with intelligent design? How good is the argument from the presence of design to an intelligent designer? And if we could legitimately infer the probable existence of an intelligent designer from (...) the presence of design in the natural world, what could we then infer about that designer's nature? (shrink)

I consider two views that combine different elements of general theistic replies to natural evil, those of Peter van Inwagen and William Hasker. I end with a Hasker-style defense – one that, unlike Hasker's, denies the existence of pointless natural evils – and some brief observations on the direction of future debate.

I examine different strategies involved in stating anti-theistic arguments from natural evil, and consider some theistic replies. There are, traditionally, two main types of arguments from natural evil: those that purport to deduce a contradiction between the existence of natural evil and the existence of God, and those that claim that the existence of certain types or quantities of natural evil significantly lowers the probability that theism is true. After considering peripheral replies, I state four prominent theistic rebutting strategies: skeptical (...) theism; Richard Swinburne's view that moral knowledge entails natural evil; the soul-making theodicy; and the natural law theodicy. (shrink)

Many theist as well as many atheist philosophers have maintained that if God exists, then every instance of undeserved, unwanted suffering ultimately benefits the sufferer. Recently, several authors have argued that this implication of theism conflicts with ordinary morality. I show that these arguments all rest on a common mistake. Defenders of these arguments overlook the role of merely potential instances of suffering in determining our moral obligations toward suffering.

Analytical philosophers of religion widely assume that God is a person, albeit immaterial and of unique status, and the divine attributes are thus understood as attributes of this supreme personal being. Our main aim is to consider how traditional divine attributes may be understood on a non-personal conception of God. We propose that foundational theist claims make an all-of-Reality reference, yet retain God’s status as transcendent Creator. We flesh out this proposal by outlining a specific non-personal, monist and ‘naturalist’ conception (...) of God, which we call the ‘euteleological’ conception of God, and then considering euteleological interpretations of omnipotence, omniscience and divine goodness. (shrink)

Augustine, the fourth-century Christian philosopher, is perhaps best-known for his spiritual autobiography Confessions. Two aspects of the problem of evil are arguably critical for comprehending his life in Books 1 through 9 of the work. His search for the nature and origin of evil in the various philosophies that he encounters (the intellectual aspect) and his struggles with his own weaknesses (the experiential aspect) are windows for understanding the actual dynamics of his sojourn. I defend the idea above by providing (...) a fuller examination of the key role that both aspects play in his spiritual journey. Examining relevant events from Augustine's life chronologically, I analyze his philosophical wanderings from his encounter with Cicero's work Hortensius through his eventual disillusionment with the Manichaean religion, and finally, his move in the direction of Christian teachings with the help of Neo-Platonism. Along the way his philosophical questions (the intellectual aspect) and his struggles with his own depravity (the experiential aspect) have an effect on each other until his ultimate move toward Christianity resolves both problems of evil. (shrink)

Ivan Karamazov is frequently used, and misused, in discussions concerning the problem of evil. The purpose of this article is to correct some pervasive misinterpretations of Ivan’s statement, as found in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. I criticise some common misinterpretations, as exemplified in the theodical work of Marilyn Adams and John Hick, as well as the more nuanced interpretation of Stewart Sutherland. Though Sutherland’s interpretation is the strongest, it nevertheless misses the mark in identifying Ivan as a positivist. I argue (...) that Ivan Karamazov is not a positivist, but a romantic, and a hopeless one at that. We should, therefore, not read Ivan as stating an argument for the non-existence of God, but instead see him as a representative of a very particular and robust form of non-cognitive atheism. (shrink)

Whether evil provides evidence against the existence of God, and to what degree, depends on how things seem to the subject—i.e., on one’s perspective. I explain three ways in which adopting an atheistic perspective can increase support for atheism via considerations of evil. The first is by intensifying the common sense problem of evil by making evil seem gratuitous or intrinsically wrong to allow. The second is by diminishing the apparent fit between theism and our observations of evil. The third (...) is by lowering the initial plausibility of theism. I call this “the perspectival problem of evil” and argue that skeptical theism does not fully address it. (shrink)

I offer part of an account of divine moral perfection. I defend the claim that moral perfection is possible, then argue that God has obligations, so that one part of his moral perfection must be perfection in meeting these. I take up objections to divine obligations, then finally offer a definition of divine deontic perfection.

In a recent paper in this journal, Jason Megill (2011) offers an innovative meta-argument which deploys considerations about multiple universes in an effort to block all arguments from evil. In what follows, I contend that Megill has failed to establish a key premise in his meta-argument. I also offer a rival account of the effect of multiverse models on the debate about evil.

Recent feminists have critiqued G.W. Leibniz’s Theodicy for its effort to justify God’s role in undeserved human suffering over natural and moral evil. These critiques suggest that theodicies which focus on evil as suffering alone obfuscate how to thematize evil, and so they conclude that theodicies should be rejected and replaced with a secularized notion of evil that is inextricably tied to the experiences of the victim. This paper argues that the political philosophy found in the writings of Catherine Macaulay (...) (1731–1791) can serve as a support to Leibniz’s larger claims and can also offer a more concrete, situated notion of evil that escapes the contemporary feminist critique. Macaulay’s work on natural and moral political evil, especially, will be presented as an early modern precursor to feminism, which defends divine perfection and a pre-established harmony in the face of political evil. I then identify three unique theodicical arguments in Macaulay’s work: the pragmatically beneficial defense, the eschatalogical defense, and the redemptive defense. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between the problem of evil and a kenotic view of the Atonement evidenced not just by feminist theologians, but by analytic philosophers of religion. I will argue that, although kenosis provides an interesting story about the ability of Christ to partake in human suffering, it faces debilitating problems for understanding divine concurrence with evil in the world. Most significantly, I will argue that the potential tensions between divine justice and divine love can be loosened by (...) looking at ‘redemptive accounts’ of theodicy in the scholarship of women writing in the early modern period in philosophy, particularly Mary Hays , and Catharine Macaulay . Their work collectively confirms the problem of concrete evil and yet offers a unique theodicy grounded in the saving power of the Atonement and restorative power of Christian service. Their arguments are all the more compelling for having been written in response to egregious civil rights abuses and rampant domestic violence of their day. If the Atonement is the divinely-ordained method for gaining insight into the redemptive power of divine grace, then rather than speculating about the metaphysical nature of the divine, this paper will question how we can understand divine perfection in light of evil in the world, especially if the Atonement of Christ involves kenosis. (shrink)

Marilyn McCord Adams argues that God’s goodness to individuals requires God to defeat horrendous evils; it is not enough for God to outweigh these evils through compensatory goods. On her view, God defeats the evils experienced by an individual if and only if God’s goodness to the individual enables her to integrate the evil organically into a unified life story she perceives as good and meaningful. In this essay, we seek to apply Adams’s theodicy of defeat to a particular form (...) of suffering. We argue that God’s goodness to individuals requires that God defeat the suffering to which a range of disabilities can give rise. (shrink)

Marilyn McCord Adams agrees with D. Z. Phillips that instrumental theodicy is a moral failure, and that sceptical theists and others are guilty of ignoring what we know now about the moral reality of horrendous evils to speculate about unknown ways these evils might be made sense of. In place of theodicy, Adams advocates ‘the logic of compensation’ for the victims of evil, a postmortem healing of divine intimacy with God. This goes so deep, she believes, that eventually victims will (...) see the horrors they suffered as points of contact with the incarnate, suffering God and cease wishing they had never suffered them. I argue Adams’s position falls foul of the very criticisms she and Phillips make against instrumental theodicy. (shrink)