The Evidential Argument from Evil

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Daniel Howard-Snyder
Indiana University Press, 1996 - Philosophy - 357 pages

Is evil evidence against the existence of God? Even if God and evil are compatible, it remains hotly contested whether evil renders belief in God unreasonable. The Evidential Argument from Evil presents five classic statements on this issue by eminent philosophers and theologians and places them in dialogue with eleven original essays reflecting new thinking by these and other scholars. The volume focuses on two versions of the argument. The first affirms that there is no reason for God to permit either certain specific horrors or the variety and profusion of undeserved suffering. The second asserts that pleasure and pain, given their biological role, are better explained by hypotheses other than theism.

Contributors include William P. Alston, Paul Draper, Richard M. Gale, Daniel Howard-Snyder, Alvin Plantinga, William L. Rowe, Bruce Russell, Eleonore Stump, Richard G. Swinburne, Peter van Inwagen, and Stephen John Wykstra.

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Contents

The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism
1
An Evidential Problem for Theists
12
RICHARD SWINBURNE
30
Aquinas on the Sufferings of
49
ALVIN PLANTINGA
69
The Inductive Argument from Evil
97
STEPHEN JOHN WYKSTRA
126
PAUL DRAPER
175
Some Difficulties in Theistic Treatments of Evil
206
Reflections on the Chapters by Draper Russell and Gale
219
On Being Evidentially Challenged
244
A Second Look
262
The Argument from Inscrutable Evil
286
Some Temporarily Final Thoughts
311
BIBLIOGRAPHY
333
CONTRIBUTORS
351

Defenseless
193

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About the author (1996)

DANIEL HOWARD-SNYDER is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Seattle Pacific University.

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