Encountering Evil: The Evil-god Challenge from Religious Experience

Abstract

It is often thought that religious experiences provide support for the cumulative case for the existence of the God of classical monotheism. In this paper, I formulate an Evil-god challenge that invites classical monotheists to explain why, based on evidence from religious experience, the belief in an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent god (Good-god) is significantly more reasonable than the belief in an omnipotent, omniscient, evil god (Evil-god). I demonstrate that religious experiences substantiate the existence of Evil-god more so than they do the existence of Good-god, and, consequently, that the traditional argument from religious experience fails: it should not be included in the cumulative case for the existence of Good-god.

The proper basicality of belief in God and the evil-god challenge

“…1.For defences of this version of the evil-god challenge, see Collins (2019), Lancaster-Thomas (2018a), (2018b), and (2020), and Law (2010). For responses to this version of the challenge, see Lougheed (2020), Wilson (2021), Page and Baker-Hytch (2020).…”

The Evil‐god challenge Part II: Objections and responses

“…Law () and Lancaster‐Thomas (), for example, claim that the argument from religious experience for the existence of Evil‐god is stronger than the argument from religious experience for the existence of Good‐god.…”