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    Made withinDC&Austin
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    321,452
    Perspectives
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    42
    Theism faces a large and significant unanswered problem — Carmelics
    Home/Natural Theology
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    Theism faces a large and significant unanswered problem

    Natural TheologyProblem of Evil
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    2 reasons for
    1 reason against

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Rowe's evidential argument shows that gratuitous evils—suffering with no apparent justifying reason—actually exist, not merely possibly exist.
      ?

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    • 2.The existence of even one instance of gratuitous evil, such as a fawn dying in agony from a forest fire, is probabilistically incompatible with an omnibenevolent God.
      ?

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    • 3.Skeptical theist defenses require abandoning our epistemic access to moral facts, which undermines the very moral reasoning needed to affirm God's goodness.
      ?

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    Reason for 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Dostoevsky's Ivan Karamazov establishes that no future harmony or divine purpose can retroactively justify the suffering of innocent children.
      ?

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    • 2.Soul-making theodicies (Hick) presuppose that epistemic and moral development justifies suffering, yet natural evils predate any rational agent capable of such development by millions of years.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.The reality of evil is possibly consistent with the existence of God, but this consistency is not sufficient to resolve the tension
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    • 2.Theism cannot explain or justify the enormous degree and vast range of evil from a human perspective
      ?

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    Topics

    Natural TheologyProblem of Evil

    Connections

    1 topic

    Against an attribute of God1 linked

    Related

    Dostoevsky's Ivan Karamazov establishes that no future harmony or divine purpose...Rowe's evidential argument shows that gratuitous evils—suffering with no apparen...Skeptical theist defenses require abandoning our epistemic access to moral facts...Soul-making theodicies (Hick) presuppose that epistemic and moral development ju...
    +3 moreShow less
    The existence of even one instance of gratuitous evil, such as a fawn dying in a...The reality of evil is possibly consistent with the existence of God, but this c...Theism cannot explain or justify the enormous degree and vast range of evil from...

    Similar

    Theism is unable to satisfactorily resolve the problem of evil in the ...72%There are serious problems in the world, such as poverty, conflict, an...70%The fact that God's reality is not obvious to sincere seekers of belie...69%Job continues to suffer.68%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: hume-religion
    View source passageHide passage
    The tendency of Hume’s discussion of evil, in both the Enquiry and Dialogues, is to insist on the reality of evil and the doubts that this casts on any claim that the beauty, harmony and order of this world provides us with clear evidence that an infinitely powerful and good being created and governs it. As we have noted, Hume’s argument falls short of categorically denying that God exists on the ground that there is unnecessary evil in this world. What Hume’s arguments do show, however, is that
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (2 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit