The Problem of Evil - Common Sense Atheism

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Detailed Contents xiii I invite my audience to consider carefully the question whether ‘‘ideal agnostics’’ would indeed react to this story by saying, ‘‘That story is true for all we know’’. LECTURE VI. THE LOCAL ARGUMENT FROM EVIL Local arguments from evil proceed not from a premise about ‘‘all theevilsoftheworld’’,butfromapremiseaboutasinglehorrible event. They take the form, ‘‘If there were a God, that would not have happened’’. (There are, of course, vastly many events on which such an argument could be based. Because, the ‘‘logic’’ of every such argument is the same, however, I gather all of them together under the rubric ‘‘the local argument from evil’’.) I defend the conclusion that even if Theist’s arguments in the two previous lectures are indisputably correct, they do not refute the local argument, which is really an argument of a quite different kind. But I go on to say that if Theist’s response to the global argument is accepted, it provides materials from which a reply to the local argument can be constructed. This reply, oddly enough, turns on considerations of vagueness much like those considered in philosophical discussions of the sorites paradox. LECTURE VII. THE SUFFERINGS OF BEASTS Since there were non-rational but sentient organisms long before there were human beings, the free-will defense cannot account for the sufferings of those organisms. (At one time, it might have been possible to say that the sufferings of beasts were due entirely to a corruption of nature that was consequent on our first ancestors’ separating themselves from God. It is obviously no longer possible.) I present a defense (in no way related to the free-will defense) that purports to account for the sufferings of pre-human beasts and all the more recent sufferings of beasts that cannot be ascribed to the abuse of free will by human beings. I finally consider some problems that confront anyone who (as I have done) employs both this second defense and the free-will defense. LECTURE VIII. THE HIDDENNESS OF GOD The problem of evil can sometimes seem to be a special case of a more general problem, the seeming absence of God from the world, the conviction that some people sometimes feel that, if there is a God at all,
xiv Detailed Contents he is ‘‘hidden’’. In this lecture, I raise the question: What does it mean, what could it mean, to say that God is hidden? The answer to this question, as I see it, turns on an understanding of the divine attribute of omnipresence. Consideration of the implications of the omnipresence of God shows that there can be only one sense in which God is ‘‘hidden’’: he does not present human beings with (or at least presents very few of them with) unmistakable evidence of his existence in the form of ‘‘signs and wonders’’. The fact that God does not present all human beings with such evidence suggests an argument for the non-existence of God that is of the same form as the global argument from evil: ‘‘If there were a God, he would present all human beings with unmistakable evidence of his existence in the form of signs and wonders. And yet no such evidence exists. There is, therefore, no God.’’ I present a response to this argument that is parallel to my response to the global argument from evil in Lectures 4 and 5.
Page 4: THE PROBLEM OF EVIL
Page 7 and 8: 1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX
Page 10 and 11: Preface These lectures were deliver
Page 12: Outline Contents Detailed Contents
Page 15: xii Detailed Contents agnostics’
Page 19 and 20: 2 The Problem and Argument from Evi
Page 27 and 28: 10 The Problem and Argument from Ev
Page 35 and 36: Lecture 2 The Idea of God I said th
Page 37 and 38: 20 The Idea of God unifying princip
Page 39 and 40: 22 The Idea of God ‘‘God was in
Page 41 and 42: 24 The Idea of God And Demiourgos i
Page 43 and 44: 26 The Idea of God evil. When we fi
Page 45 and 46: 28 The Idea of God —immutable. Th
Page 47 and 48: 30 The Idea of God worlds: those in
Page 49 and 50: 32 The Idea of God (it would certai
Page 51 and 52: 34 The Idea of God Now why do I dra
Page 53 and 54: 36 The Idea of God not a possible p
Page 55 and 56: 38 Philosophical Failure Note the w
Page 57 and 58: 40 Philosophical Failure proved by
Page 59 and 60: 42 Philosophical Failure which prem
Page 61 and 62: 44 Philosophical Failure thesis. Al
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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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98 The Local Argument from Evil (3)
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114 The Sufferings of Beasts the ac
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116 The Sufferings of Beasts balls
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118 The Sufferings of Beasts state
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120 The Sufferings of Beasts Let us
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124 The Sufferings of Beasts What I
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126 The Sufferings of Beasts on the
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128 The Sufferings of Beasts a worl
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130 The Sufferings of Beasts told t
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132 The Sufferings of Beasts to ens
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134 The Sufferings of Beasts warned
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136 The Hiddenness of God hiddennes
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138 The Hiddenness of God admiratio
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140 The Hiddenness of God Theist. S
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142 The Hiddenness of God about the
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144 The Hiddenness of God If this w
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146 The Hiddenness of God (2) Patri
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148 The Hiddenness of God in genera
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150 The Hiddenness of God intellect
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Notes LECTURE 1 THE PROBLEM OF EVIL
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154 Notes 14. But here is a defense
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156 Notes to the metaphysical probl
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158 Notes greatest possible being m
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160 Notes matters was said only to
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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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