Love and the Problem of Evil

The focus of this paper is the virtual certainty that much of what we must prize in loving any human person would not have existed in a world that did not contain much of the evil that has occurred in the history of the actual world. It is argued that the appropriate response to this fact must be some form of ambivalence, but that lovers have reason to prefer an ambivalence that contextualizes regretted evils in the framework of what we welcome in human life.

The Problem of Evil and the Problem of God

Books reviewed: D. Z. Phillips, The Problem of Evil and the Problem of God (London: SCM Press, 2004). xxiii + 280 , price £19.99 pb.
Reviewed by Patrick Sherry, Lancaster University
Religious Studies Department
Lancaster University
Lancaster LA1 4YG     

Advent's Answer to the Problem of Evil

Traditional Christian answers to the problem of evil may be identified as either theistic or christological. While theistic theodicies enjoy greater philosophical interest, christological theodicies are more practical, remaining embodied in the semiotics of the worshipping church, and are utimately more successful. The Christian church's liturgical practice of Advent – where Christology, soteriology and eschatology come together – is a common and coherent response to the problem of evil. The practice of Advent comprises an eschatological ethics of justice and mercy which embraces their evil side-effects and the tension of present and future justice. Advent thus presents the problem of evil as a constructive part of Christian theology and ethics.     

Epistemic Blame and the New Evil Demon Problem

Philosophical Studies - The New Evil Demon Problem presents a serious challenge to externalist theories of epistemic justification. In recent years, externalists have developed a number of...     

Richard Swinburne,Providence and the Problem of Evil

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion -     

Recasting Analytic Philosophy on the Problem of Evil

In his recent book, A Frightening Love: Recasting the Problem of Evil, Andrew Gleeson challenges a certain conception of justification assumed in mainstream analytic philosophy and argues that analytic philosophy is ill-suited to deal with the most pressing, existential, form of the problem of evil. In this article I examine some aspects of that challenge.     

Axiology,Realism, and the Problem of Evil*

Discussions of the problem of evil presuppose and appeal to axiological and metaethical assumptions, but seldom pay adequate attention to those assumptions. I argue that certain theories of value are consistent with theistic answers to the argument from evil and that several other well‐known theories of value, such as hedonism, are difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile with theism. Although moral realism is the subject of lively debate in contemporary philosophy, almost all standard discussions of the problem of evil presuppose the truth of moral realism. I explain the implications of several nonrealist theories of value for the problem of evil and argue that, if nonrealism is true, then we need to rethink and re‐frame the entire discussion about the problem of evil.     

Ignorance, Instrumentality, Compensation, and the Problem of Evil

Some theodicists, skeptical theists, and friendly atheists agree that God-justifying reasons for permitting evils would have to have an instrumental structure: that is, the evils would have to be necessary to secure a great enough good or necessary to prevent some equally bad or worse evil. D.Z. Phillips contends that instrumental reasons could never justify anyone for causing or permitting horrendous evils and concludes that the God of Restricted Standard Theism does not exist—indeed, is a conceptual mistake. After considering Phillips’ and other objections in the neighborhood, I argue that the Expanded Theism of Christian theology does forward a God who ‘digs in’ and eternally answers for horrors.     

Satisfied Pigs and Dissatisfied Philosophers: Schlesinger on the Problem of Evil

I argue that George Schlesinger's proposed solution to the problem of evil fails because: (1) the degree of desirability of state of a being is not properly regarded as a trade-off between happiness on the one hand and potential on the other; (2) degree of desirability of state is not capable of infinite increase; (3) there is no hierarchy of possible beings, but at most an ordering of such beings in terms of preferences; (4) the idea of such a hierarchy is anyway morally repulsive. Schlesinger is right that the problem of evil disappears, but what makes it vanish is a recognition of the limits of our concepts of satisfaction and happiness, not the incoherent claim that satisfaction or happiness is capable of unlimited increase.