Reconciling the Problem of Evil with God

Paradigmatic examples of logical arguments from evil are attempts to establish that the following claims are inconsistent with one another: (1) God is omnipotent, omniscient and wholly good. (2) There is evil in the world. Alvin Plantinga’s free will defense resists such arguments by providing a positive case that (1) and (2) are consistent. A weakness in Plantinga’s free will defense, however, is that it does not show that theism is consistent with the proposition that there are non-moral evils in the world (i.e., that there obtain morally bad states of affairs for which no creature is morally responsible). But many of us firmly believe that there are evils of that sort. I show how Plantinga’s free will defense can be extended so as to redress this weakness.

Open Theology

I clarify that an evil state of affairs is a state of affairs that satisfies the following conditions: (a) It entails the physical or mental suffering of a subject of experience, (b) it is morally in­ excusable, (c) it does not lead to a greater good for the subject involved, and (d) the subject would prefer not to be in this state if it were fully capable to understand its situation. I argue that there are two different kinds of causes of evil: nature and free will. I show that there is no problem of evil implied by the existence of evil as such. I distinguish between problems of evil, solutions to problems of evil, and theories of evil. I argue that the existence of evil is problematic only for those worldviews that cannot provide a theory of evil. I argue that in contrast to naturalistic worldviews, Christian worldviews have the resources to successfully establish a theory of evil.

2017

Evil is the opposite of good. This phenomenon has unleashed serious threat to human existence. The problem is that it is difficult to understand and even to deal with. Evil is a subject that has defied solution politically, socially or religiously. This paper examined the issue of the origin, effect and ways of dealing with evil for a better society. The research adopted the historical and literary methods of research. Various views are examined. Findings affirmed that God created evil as well as good. However, this view challenged the omnipotence and the goodness of God. The research identified bloodshed, corruption, demonic activities, human trafficking, child abuse and child dumping/abuse and many others as social vices associated with evil. This research recommends that man should learn to live with it, overcome it with good, while religious groups should lead in the campaign to end evil and/or reduce its effect on society.

2016

In this research, we discussed the types of evil: moral and natural, which are cited by atheistic philosophers as evidence against the existence of God. The so-called evidence from evil has been used by the atheistic and other non-theistic scholars to raise hypothesis on evaluating the possibility or likelihood that an omnipotent, omniscient, and wholly good God exists in a world that is littered with evil. Moral evil is evil that arise from the misuse of free will by moral agents, while natural evils are natural disasters such as: earthquakes, famine, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes etc. We discussed moral evil and Plantinga's free will defense. We also discussed the natural evil and how it poses threat to theism. The logical and the evidential arguments from evil are the forms of arguments developed from moral and natural evils. While many scholars have agreed that Plantinga's free will defense adequately responds to the problem of logical evil, the same

Philosophia, 1984

2023

The problem of evil is and ought to be an ethical problem. This book tries to show that by saying something else: I argue that theism is morally wrong. I introduce the logical problem of morally-impossible evil. This establishes an inconsistency between belief in the perfect goodness of God and a responsive recognition of moral necessity. When combined with the moral objections of anti-theodicy, this forces the theist to either deny that the morally impossible happens (which is clearly false) or else reject the meaningfulness of the concept (which is not reasonable). Since neither option comes without great moral cost, a consistent set of theistic beliefs must be seen to be morally problematic. But it doesn’t really matter whether this conclusion is true. This argument is not the purpose of the book; it’s only serving a purpose, as a provocation. What I hope is that the process of engaging with this argument will cause philosophers to attend to, and thus reflect on, important elements of the topic that might have been overlooked.

Ankara Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi dergisi, 2012

2015

The contemporary debate originates with the publishing of J. L. Mackie's "Evil and Omnipotence." 2 In this article, Mackie articulates the standard version of the logical argument from evil by claiming that the three core tenants of theism ("God is omnipotent; God is wholly good; and yet evil exists") are logically inconsistent. 3 H. J. McCloskey follows Mackie by taking a more general approach to the problem and examining a wider range of potential solutions. 4 The logical argument's momentum comes to a screeching halt with the publication of Alvin Plantiga's landmark work, The Nature of Necessity. 5 In this work Plantinga employs modal logic and possible world semantics to demonstrate "that it is possible that God could not have created a universe containing moral good without creating one containing moral evil." 6 By demonstrating this possibility, Plantinga shows that there is no necessary logical inconsistency between the existence of God and evil. Using this demonstration, he accomplishes a rare feat in the contemporary philosophical landscape: near universal agreement. Robert Adams states, "It is fair to say that Plantinga has solved this problem." 7 William Alston agrees: "It is now acknowledged on (almost) 2