Sunday 27 February 2011

Evidential Problem of Evil

Regarding the Logical Problem of Evil, originally proposed by Epicurus, I really feel that it can be resolved with Plantiga's Free Will Defense. However this defense falls short of the evidential problem of evil, presented by William Rowe:

1: There exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.
2: An omniscient, wholly good being would prevent the occurrence of any intense suffering it could, unless it could not do so without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.
3: (Therefore) There does not exist an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good being.

How does one counter such an argument?

Mainly by denying (1).

We can never know that (1) is true. Although (2) is also somewhat questionable, since it assumes that intense suffering is necessarily an unmitigated evil.

I have a paper in Think which expands on the relevant section in QoT

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