Table Of ContentTHE EVIDENTIAL ARGUMENT FROM EVIL
The Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Religion
MEROLD WESTPHAL, GENERAL EDITOR
THE
EVIDENTIAL
ARGUMENT
FROM
EVIL
EDITED BY DANIEL HOWARD-SNYDER
Indiana
University
Press
B L O O M I N G T ON A ND I N D I A N A P O L IS
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The evidential argument from evil / edited by Daniel Howard-Snyder.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-253-32965-5 (alk. paper). —
ISBN 0-253-21028-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Theodicy. I. Howard-Snyder, Daniel.
BT160.E94 1996
214—dc20 95-11208
ISBN 978-0-253-32965-3
ISBN 978-0-253-21028-9 (pbk.)
5 6 7 8 9 13 12 11 10 09 08
For Frances
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CONTENTS
PREFACE / ix
INTRODUCTION: THE EVIDENTIAL ARGUMENT FROM EVIL DANIEL HOWARD-SNYDER / xi
1. The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism
WILLIAM L. ROWE 1
2. Pain and Pleasure: An Evidential Problem for Theists
PAUL DRAPER 12
3. Some Major Strands of Theodicy
RICHARD SWINBURNE 30
4. Aquinas on the Sufferings of Job
ELEONORE STUMP 49
5. Epistemic Probability and Evil
ALVIN PLANTINGA 69
6. The Inductive Argument from Evil and
the Human Cognitive Condition WILLIAM p. ALSTON 97
7. Rowe's Noseeum Arguments from Evil
STEPHEN JOHN WYKSTRA 126
8. The Problem of Evil, the Problem of Air,
and the Problem of Silence PETER VAN INWAGEN 151
viii / CONTENTS
9. The SkepticalTheist
PAUL DRAPER 175
10. Defenseless
BRUCE RUSSELL 193
11. Some Difficulties in Theistic Treatments of Evil
RICHARD M. GALE 206
12. Reflections on the Chapters by Draper, Russell, and Gale
PETER VAN INWAGEN 219
13. On Being Evidentially Challenged
ALVIN PLANTINGA 244
14. The Evidential Argument from Evil: A Second Look
WILLIAM L. ROWE 262
15. The Argument from Inscrutable Evil
DANIEL HOWARD-SNYDER 286
16. Some (Temporarily) Final Thoughts on
Evidential Arguments from Evil WILLIAM P. ALSTON 311
BIBLIOGRAPHY / 333
CONTRIBUTORS / 351
INDEX / 353
PREFACE
When I was a student at Syracuse University, I once told an acquaintance
in the English Department that my dissertation was on the problem of evil. I recall
her reply as though I heard it yesterday: "The problem of evil? Isn't that old hat? I
mean, what more can be said after Ivan Karamazov?" Apparently, quite a bit. Barry
Whitney recently published a bibliography of over 4,200 philosophical and theo-
logical writings on the topic, all published from 1960 to 1990. That's nearly one
publication every two and a half days. One might rightly wonder how much of this
torrent of literature is any good, but one certainly cannot seriously question
whether the problem of evil continues to capture the interest of philosophers and
theologians alike. It's hardly "old hat."
Philosophical study of the problem of evil has shifted from issues having
to do with the compatibility of theism and evil to what is often called "the eviden-
tial problem of evil." My aim in collecting the essays of this book has been to bring
together recent work on the latter topic. But I didn't want just another collection
of previously published pieces. Rather, 1 wanted a handful of the very best previ-
ously published essays to act as a stage upon which dialogue might progress, a place
where new work might be done. However, I also wanted a collection that a student
or educated layperson could understand, with only minimal assistance from an
instructor or a course or two in basic philosophy. Each of the authors has written
with these goals in mind. An instructor might easily use many of the essays of this
book in an undergraduate course in the philosophy of religion.
A book of this sort requires the cooperation of many individuals. Each
new essay was refereed by at least one other contributor, but usually more. More-
over, many other philosophers cajoled, provoked, challenged and otherwise
pressed the contributors to do better than they had initially done. It is with heart-
felt gratitude that I thank Robert Adams, Mark Brown, David Conway, Mark Culli-
son, Martin Curd, Evan Fales, Gregory Ganssle, Phillip Goggans, William
Gustason, William Masker, Bruce Hauptli, Frances Howard-Snyder, Hud Hudson,
Jeff Jordan, Norman Kretzmann, C. Stephen Layman, Thomas Loughran, Alastair
Norcross, David O'Connor, John O'Leary-Hawthorne, John Schellenberg, Stefan
Sencerz, James Sennett, Thomas Senor, James Taylor, William Wainwright, Mark
Webb, and David Wideker. (If you ought to be on this list, please forgive me my
negligence.) For encouragement from the start and for help in other ways, I wish
Description: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
