A Radical Solution to the Problem of Evil

Sophia 56 (2):279-287 (2017)
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Abstract

The problem of evil is widely recognised to be the most serious challenge to the reasonableness of believing this world to be God’s creation. In this paper, I offer a novel way of responding. I argue that given a certain sort of divine command metaethics our moral intuitions and beliefs about what moral goodness substantially involves cannot reasonably be expected to provide reliable insight into what God’s moral goodness substantially involves. As such, even if it is unreasonable to believe this universe to be the creation of an intuitively morally good, omnipotent, omniscient being, this does not entail that it is unreasonable to suppose it to be the creation of God.

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Gerald K. Harrison
Massey University

References found in this work

God, freedom, and evil.Alvin Plantinga - 1974 - Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism.William L. Rowe - 1979 - American Philosophical Quarterly 16 (4):335 - 341.
Evil and omnipotence.J. L. Mackie - 1955 - Mind 64 (254):200-212.
God, Freedom, and Evil.Alvin Plantinga - 1978 - Religious Studies 14 (3):407-409.
19 The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism.William Rowe - 1999 - In Eleonore Stump & Michael J. Murray, Philosophy of Religion: The Big Questions. Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 6--157.

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