The Problem of Evil - Common Sense Atheism

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The Local Argument from Evil 111 have to deal with Alice’s father, who will say, ‘‘You have 101 bottles of medicine on the table, each of which contains the same amount of medicine. Call that amount a ‘dose’. I want you to take 1/102nd of a dose from each bottle and give what you collect by this method to Alice.’’ If (on the other hand) they reject Charlie’s mother’s proposal, they will have to condemn Charlie to death without achieving any good thereby. We cannot evade this conclusion: No matter what the authorities do, they will have to permit the death of a child they could have saved, or almost certainly could have saved, without achieving any good by permitting that child’s death. It seems clear, therefore, that there can be cases in which it is morally permissible for an agent to permit an evil that agent could have prevented, despite the fact that no good is achieved by doing so. But then, it would seem, if the expanded free-will defense is a true story, this is exactly the moral structure of the situation in which God finds himself when he contemplates the world of horrors that is the consequence of humanity’s separation from him. The local argument from evil, the argument from horrors, therefore, fails. Here ends Theist’s speech in reply to Atheist’s presentation of the local argument from evil—or, more exactly, to her presentation of any local argument that appeals to a post-lapsarian horror (such as the Mutilation). It seems to me that if the audience of agnostics has been convinced by Theist’s response to the global argument (a big ‘if ’, you may want to say), they will be convinced by his reply to the local argument. But Atheist has at least one arrow left in her quiver, the arrow I just mentioned. If the local argument has failed, it is the local argument with the restriction under which we have been considering it: that it be based on a post-lapsarian horror. There is still to be considered the matter of pre-lapsarian horrors, horrors such as a fawn who dies horribly in a forest fire long before there are human beings. There were certainly sentient animals long before there were sapient animals, and the paleontological record shows that, and a priori considerations having to do with the uniformity of nature strongly suggest that, for much of the long pre-human past, sentient creatures died agonizing deaths in natural disasters (not to mention agonizing deaths due to predation, parasitism, and disease). Obviously the free-will defense
112 The Local Argument from Evil cannot be expanded in such a way as to account for these agonizing deaths, for only sapient creatures have free will, and these deaths cannot therefore have resulted from the abuse of free will. 5 It would seem that any approach to the problem of animal suffering must take account of the fact that there were sentient animals long before there were rational animals. (I believe that science has made only two contributions to the data of natural theology. The discovery of this fact is one of them; the other is the discovery that the physical world does not have an infinite past.) In the next lecture, we shall take up the problem of the sufferings of sentient but non-rational animals.
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THE PROBLEM OF EVIL
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1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX
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Preface These lectures were deliver
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Outline Contents Detailed Contents
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xii Detailed Contents agnostics’
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xiv Detailed Contents he is ‘‘h
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2 The Problem and Argument from Evi
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10 The Problem and Argument from Ev
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Lecture 2 The Idea of God I said th
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20 The Idea of God unifying princip
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22 The Idea of God ‘‘God was in
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24 The Idea of God And Demiourgos i
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26 The Idea of God evil. When we fi
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28 The Idea of God —immutable. Th
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30 The Idea of God worlds: those in
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32 The Idea of God (it would certai
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34 The Idea of God Now why do I dra
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36 The Idea of God not a possible p
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38 Philosophical Failure Note the w
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40 Philosophical Failure proved by
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42 Philosophical Failure which prem
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44 Philosophical Failure thesis. Al
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46 Philosophical Failure realist in
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48 Philosophical Failure of our con
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50 Philosophical Failure mere agnos
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52 Philosophical Failure representa
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54 Philosophical Failure minds, say
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Lecture 4 The Global Argument from
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58 The Global Argument from Evil I
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Page 113 and 114: 96 The Local Argument from Evil tha
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Page 131 and 132: 114 The Sufferings of Beasts the ac
Page 133 and 134: 116 The Sufferings of Beasts balls
Page 135 and 136: 118 The Sufferings of Beasts state
Page 137 and 138: 120 The Sufferings of Beasts Let us
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Page 149 and 150: 132 The Sufferings of Beasts to ens
Page 151 and 152: 134 The Sufferings of Beasts warned
Page 153 and 154: 136 The Hiddenness of God hiddennes
Page 155 and 156: 138 The Hiddenness of God admiratio
Page 157 and 158: 140 The Hiddenness of God Theist. S
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Page 169 and 170: Notes LECTURE 1 THE PROBLEM OF EVIL
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162 Notes I believe as strongly as
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164 Notes 10. Note that I do not sa
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166 Notes Christianity.) Let us say
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168 Notes LECTURE 6 THE LOCAL ARGUM
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170 Notes of them: all of them but
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172 Notes 20. One might, however, w
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174 Notes 3. Those who think that t
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176 Notes that the first conjunct i
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178 Works Cited Providence and Evil
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180 Works Cited ‘‘What is the P
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182 Index free will (free choice) 2
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REVELATION
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The Problem of Evil - Common Sense Atheism

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