Abstract
According to The Evidentialist problem of Evil, the existence of disproportionate, prima facie gratuitous evil and suffering in the world is enough evidence against the existence of the Omnipotent, Perfectly Loving, Omniscient God of Classical Theism. A contemporary way of dealing with this argument is Skeptical Theism , for which the very fact that there is an huge amount of evil that looks gratuitous to us does not mean that we can reasonably believe whether this evil is indeed gratuitous or not . In this paper, I present and discuss a number of influential criticisms against this view according to which a proponent of Skeptical Theism will be forced to accept a number of unpalatable skeptical conclusions. I argue that this is not the case.
Highlights
The Evidential Problem of Evil, namely the view for which the existence of prima facie, gratuitous evil in the world
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 bad or worse
In the literature on Radical Skepticism, PI and Phenomenal Conservatism. (PC) are usually employed in order to refute the first premise S1) of the Radical Skeptical argument; roughly, the idea is that following these two “common-sense informed” epistemic principles, we are prima facie justified in believing that our perceptions are generally reliable and we are not the victim of a skeptical scenario
Summary
The Evidential Problem of Evil, namely the view for which the existence of prima facie, gratuitous evil in the world. In the case of the evidential Problem of evil, the inference from “I can see no reason to allow this evil” to “There is no reason to allow this evil” is justified only if it is reasonable for one to believe that the sample of reasons currently understood is representative of all of the reasons that are. As we have no reason, due to our cognitive limitations, to believe that the sample of reasons currently understood to allow or not allow a certain evil x are representative of all of the reasons there are, the inference from “I can see no reason to allow this evil” to “There is no reason to allow this evil” is not justified. (ST4) We have no good reason for thinking that the total moral value or disvalue we perceive in certain complex states of affairs accurately reflects the total moral value or disvalue they really have (Bergmann, 2001)
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