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Divine Goodness and the Problem of Evil

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Terence Penelhum
Terence Penelhum
Affiliation:
Professor of Philosophy, University of Calgary
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Extract

The purpose of this paper is not to offer any solution to the problem of evil, or to declare it insoluble. It is rather the more modest one of deciding on its nature. Many writers assume that the problem of evil is one that poses a logical challenge to the theist, rather than a challenge of a moral or scientific sort. If this assumption is correct, and the challenge cannot be met, Christian theism can be shown to be untenable on grounds of inconsistency. This in turn means that it is refutable by philosophers, even if their task is interpreted in the most narrowly analytical fashion. It has recently been argued that the challenge of the problem of evil can be met on logical grounds, and that if the existence of evil is damaging to theism it is not because the recognition of its existence is inconsistent with some essential part of it. I take two examples of this position. The first is in the paper ‘Hume on Evil’ by Nelson Pike; the second I owe to Professor R. M. Chisholm.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , October 1966 , pp. 95 - 107
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1966

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References

page 95 note 1 Pike, Nelson, ‘Hume on Evil,’ Philosophical Review, vol. lxxii, (no. 2, 1963), pp. 180–197.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

The argument is also presented in his volume God and Evil (Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1964), pp. 85–102.Google Scholar

page 95 note 2 I learned of this argument through seminar discussion, and Professor Chisholm is not responsible for any inaccuracies in my account of it or any infelicities in my examples.

page 98 note 1 Pike, op. cit. p. 197.

page 99 note 1 Findlay, J. N., ‘Can God's Existence be Disproved?’ in Flew and MacIntyre, New Essays in Philosophical Theology (S. C. M., London, 1955), pp. 47–56.Google Scholar

page 101 note 1 See The Language of Morals, chapter 6 (Oxford. Clarendon Press, 1952).Google Scholar