The God Beyond Belief: In Defence of William Rowe's Evidential Argument from Evil

386 Pages·2006·1.97 MB·English

by  Nick Trakakis

THE GOD BEYOND BELIEF
STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION
Volume 27
The titles published in this series are listed at the end of this volume.
THE GOD BEYOND BELIEF
IN DEFENCE OF WILLIAM
ROWE’S EVIDENTIAL
ARGUMENT FROM EVIL
by
NICK TRAKAKIS
Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 10 1-4020-5144-1 (HB)
ISBN 13 978-1-4020-5144-9 (HB)
ISBN 10 1-4020-5145-X (e-book)
ISBN 13 978-1-4020-5145-6 (e-book)
Published by Springer,
P.O. Box 17,3300 AA Dordrecht,The Netherlands.
www.springer.com
Printed on acid-free paper
Cover art:Animal Fates,Franz Marc,1913. Oil on canvas,195(cid:1)263.6cm
Photo Credit:Kunstmuseum Basel,Martin Bühler
All Rights Reserved
©2007 Springer
No part of this work may be reproduced,stored in a retrieval system,or transmitted
in any form or by any means,electronic,mechanical,photocopying,microfilming,recording
or otherwise,without written permission from the Publisher,with the exception
of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered
and executed on a computer system,
for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.
To my father and mother
for giving me the opportunity to pursue my dreams
And to my wife,Helen
amor magnus doctor est
In the light of our experience and knowledge of the variety and scale of
human and animal suffering in our world, the idea that none of this
suffering could have been prevented by an omnipotent being without
thereby losing a greater good or permitting an evil at least as bad seems
an extraordinary,absurd idea,quite beyond our belief.
William Rowe,“The Problem of Evil and
Some Varieties of Atheism,”p.338
After such knowledge,what forgiveness?
T.S. Eliot,“Gerontion”
CONTENTS
Foreword xi
Preface xiii
Note on gender-inclusive language xvii
1. Introduction 1
1. Aims and Limitations 2
2. Methodology 4
3. What Is a Good Argument? 8
4. Overview 10
2. Background to the Problem of Evil 17
1. Orthodox Theism 17
2. The Problem of Evil 23
2.1 Philosophical Background 23
2.1.1 Goods and Evils 23
2.1.2 Versions of the Problem of Evil 27
2.1.3 Ethical Theory and the Problem of Evil 30
2.2 Historical Background 33
3. Rowe’s Evidential Arguments from Evil 47
1. The Early Rowe (1978–86) 47
1.1 The 1979 Argument 49
1.2 The Theological Premise 50
1.3 The Factual Premise 51
1.4 Wykstra on Rowe’s Case in Support of the
Factual Premise 55
2. The Middle Rowe (1988–95) 57
2.1 The Factual Premise Revisited 57
vii
viii CONTENTS
2.2 The Inference from Pto Q 58
2.3 The Structure of the Argument 61
3. The Late Rowe (1996–present) 62
3.1 Rowe’s New Evidential Argument 62
3.2 Atheism or Agnosticism? 67
3.3 Rowe’s Resurrection of the ‘Middle’Argument from Evil 68
4. What No Eye Has Seen:The Epistemic Foundations
of Wykstra’s CORNEA Critique 77
1. The Original CORNEA 78
2. The Problem with C 82
1
3. CORNEA and the Principle of Credulity 84
4. Counterexamples to C –C 88
2 4
5. C and Noseeum Inferences 90
4
5. CORNEAApplied to Rowe’s Evidential Argument 99
1. Applying C to Rowe’s Arguments 99
4.2
2. Rowe’s Response to CORNEA 101
3. CORNEA and the Burden of Reasonability 101
4. Rowe on Step 2 of Wykstra’s CORNEA Critique 104
5. Wykstra’s Argument – Rowe’s Version 106
5.1 The RST–EST Distinction 108
5.2 The Inference from (5) to (6) Re-examined 109
5.3 The Prospects for EST 110
5.3.1 Appendix to ‘The Prospects for EST’ 115
5.4 Rowe’s Restriction to RST 116
6. Wykstra’s Argument – The Analogical Version 118
6.1 Analogical Reasoning 119
6.2 Rowe’s Critique of Wykstra’s Parent Analogy 121
6.3 Wykstra’s Revised Parent Analogy 122
6.4 Rowe’s Critique of the New Parent Analogy 124
6. Further Objections to Rowe’s Noseeum Assumption 135
1. Howard-Snyder’s Argument from Complex Goods 135
2. Durston’s Argument from the Complexity of History 138
3. The Progress Argument 145
4. Alston’s Analogies 154
7. In Support of the Inference from Inscrutable
to Pointless Evil 163
1. The Argument from Moral Scepticism 163
2. Rowe’s Case in Support of RNA 174
3. Concluding Remarks 181
CONTENTS ix
8. The Problem of Divine Hiddenness 189
1. What is the Problem? 189
2. Analogies in Support of RNA 191
4
3. The Case Against RNA 194
4
3.1 The Sceptical Theist Response 194
3.2 The Appeal to Human Freedom 197
3.2.1 Hick’s Freedom in Relation to God 197
3.2.2 Swinburne’s Moral Freedom 206
4. In Conclusion 216
9. Meta-Theodicy:Adequacy Conditions for Theodicy 227
1. The Evils to be Explained 228
2. The Goods to be Invoked 233
3. The Nature of Theodical Explanation 238
4. Summary 242
10. Theodicy Proper,or Casting Light on the Ways of God:
Horrendous Moral Evil 251
1. Sketch of a Theodicy 251
2. Problem I:Curtailing the Exercise of Free Will 256
3. Problem II:Necessary Evils? 261
3.1 Tierno’s ‘Adequacy Argument’Against
Free Will Theodicies 261
3.2 The Inadequacy of Tierno’s ‘Adequacy Argument’ 263
4. Conclusion 269
11. Theodicies for Natural Evil 275
1. Soul-Making and Natural Evil 276
2. Swinburne’s Free Will Theodicy 279
3. Reichenbach’s Natural Law Theodicy 287
4. Conclusion 295
12. The Compatibility of Gratuitous Evil with Theism 303
1. Van Inwagen’s God of Chance 304
2. Van Inwagen’s No Minimum Thesis 309
3. Taking the Sting Out of the No Minimum Thesis 314
4. Peterson’s Rejection of Meticulous Providence 317
4.1 Peterson on the Defensive 318
4.2 Peterson on the Offensive 320
5. Conclusion 324