The Inductive Argument from Evil

American Philosophical Quarterly 17 (3):221 - 227 (1980)
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Abstract

First I employ Bayes's Theorem to give some precision to the atheologian's thesis that it is improbable that God exists given the amount of evil in the world (E). Two arguments result from this: (1) E disconfirms God's existence, and (2) E tends to disconfirm God's existence. Secondly, I evaluate these inductive arguments, suggesting against (1) that the atheologian has abstracted from and hence failed to consider the total evidence, and against (2) that the atheologian's evidence adduced to support his thesis regarding the relevant probabilities is inadequate.

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reprint Reichenbach, Bruce R. (1981) "The deductive argument from evil". Sophia 20(1):221--227

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Bruce Reichenbach
Augsburg College

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