Bad Samaritans, Aftertastes, and the Problem of Evil

Schlossberger, Eugene

doi:10.1007/s11406-014-9572-4

Philosophia

2014

DOI: 10.1007/s11406-014-9572-4

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Bad Samaritans, Aftertastes, and the Problem of Evil

Eugene Schlossberger

Abstract: The paper argues first that, by not rescuing innocents in certain ways (e.g

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“…For challenges to the justifying power of freedom, seeLewis (1993),Schellenberg (2004),Himma (2009),Schlossberger (2015),Sterba (2019), andEkstrom (2021).19 SeePittard (2018, 92) for the related suggestion that what justifies God's permission of pointless evils is our having difference-making responsibility, where (e.g.) "for Lola to have difference-making responsibility for averting E, it must be the case that had she chosen B, E would have occurred" (my emphasis).…”

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God and gratuitous evil: Between the rock and the hard place

Oliveira

2023

Int J Philos Relig

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To most of us -believers and non-believers alike -the possibility of a perfect God co-existing with the kinds of evil that we see calls out for explanation. It is unsurprising, therefore, that the belief that God must have justifying reasons for allowing all the evil that we see has been a perennial feature of theistic thought. Recently, however, a growing number of authors have argued that the existence of a perfect God is compatible with the existence of gratuitous evil. Given powerful, millenia-long sensibilities about power and love and justice, it isn't hard to find that suggestion simply incredible. Nonetheless, in this paper I will argue that the most prominent theistic alternatives to what has seemed incredible to most of us throughout most of history are themselves patently unacceptable for the theist as well. On any of the most widely accepted accounts of how God could have justifying reasons for permitting some evils, God's existence means that we have justifying reasons for perpetrating and allowing every evil that we see. That's hard to swallow too. If I'm right about all of this, then two competing outcomes seem to present themselves as a possible result. On the one hand, for the theist, the apparently outrageous suggestion that the existence of a perfect God is compatible with gratuitous evil no longer looks like it faces a formidable, hard-to-resist alternative. On the other hand, some like me might think that my arguments go no distance at all towards dispelling the incredibility of the gratuitous evil nouvelle vague. On this line, theism may seem now to be between the rock and the hard place: it seems hard to make sense of the existence of a perfect God whether or not He has justifying reasons for allowing all the evil that we see.

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God and gratuitous evil: Between the rock and the hard place

Oliveira

2023

Int J Philos Relig

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Bad Samaritans, Aftertastes, and the Problem of Evil

Abstract: The paper argues first that, by not rescuing innocents in certain ways (e.g

Cited by 1 publication

References 13 publications

God and gratuitous evil: Between the rock and the hard place

God and gratuitous evil: Between the rock and the hard place

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