In the middle of intense, prolonged suffering, we can have significant doubts about God's existence. Are these legitimate? How do we deal with them?
In the middle of intense, prolonged suffering, we can have significant doubts about God's existence. Are these legitimate? How do we deal with them?
In the middle of intense, prolonged suffering, we can have significant doubts about God's existence. Are these legitimate? How do we deal with them?
The Problem of Evil is intended to show that God does not exist, but interestingly enough one of the premises it rests on--indeed, the most surprising one--can be used to prove the exact opposite: the premise that "Evil exists." How can the existence of evil show God exists? Is there a way to avoid this result?
My version of this argument is similar to that found in Robert Adams, Finite and Infinite Goods, though I think an amalgam of DCT and Aristotelian natures is the most convincing grounding of morality.
The classical Problem of Evil attempts to show God's existence is impossible, but things might be easier if we set our sights a little lower. The Probabilistic Problem of Evil attempts to show that the existence of God is improbable. In this video, I will look at a particular strategy for establishing this, which borrows the predictive methodology used in natural science.
C. S. Lewis "The Problem of Pain"
Assume for the sake of argument that God allows evil for our own good: what if we don't want that? The Megaphone Response holds that the only thing that is truly desirable for us requires us to experience evil, so it's not the case that we don't want God to allow it.
Megaphone Response
C. S. Lewis "The Problem of Pain"
Love is probably the most important things to humans apart from what we need to survive and for safety. In this video, I explore the possibility that love requires suffering, and then I relate this idea to the Problem of Evil.
Why does God allow evil to exist? Possibly evil is necessarily connected to goodness. Maybe in order for us to have goodness, we must have evil as well. Or, maybe we need to have evil in order to understand what good is and to appreciate it.
The Problem of Evil
The Manichaean Defense
The Epistemological Manichaean Defense
Why does God allow evil? The Character Building Defense argues that it is because we become better people for it. Is it worth the suffering to build character?
The Problem of Evil
The Character Building Defense
I was interviewed by theologian Chester Delagneau on the Problem of Evil. Chester is the author of Biblical Ethics: An Exegetical Approach to a Morality of Happiness and has a blog on human flourishing.
Why does God allow evil? The Free Will Defense argues that it is a necessary consequence of free will, and that free will is worth the evil we suffer. Is this a sufficient reason? And is it possible to have free will without evil?
The Problem of Evil
The Free Will Defense
Important notes