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Society & Culture:Philosophy
Philosophy of Religion/Introduction to Philosophy/Ethics: The New Problem of Evil: Contemporary Versions (evidential)
Hi Friends!
Now we witness the recent debate on the problem of evil (POE). William Rowe meets Stephen Wykstra. A student of Rowe’s. An amazing debate. Rowe modifies the logical problem of evil with an epistemic clause. “As far as we can tell”. That is, evidence, rationality, not strict Logical Proof. This is the Evidential Problem of Evil, not the Logical Problem of Evil.
One way to sum up Rowe's argument is this,
P1) God is an all powerful, all knowing and morally prefect being.
P2) God would not permit any evil without an overriding good.
P3) There are cases where as far as we can tell there is no overriding good.
P4) P3 is inconsistent with belief in an all powerful, all knowing and morally perfect being.
C) As far as we can tell, an all powerful, all knowing and morally prefect being does not exist.
Notice this is not the claim there is no God, it is the claim that a rational human being will not believe such a being exists.
Does it work? Steve Wykstra steps forward with his response. Are we smart enough to know the why of all things, are we relatively speaking, as children are to adult humans, adult humans are to God? This response is more radical than we might think. It leads to profound questions about what we really can know about anything.
Remember our motto: The best answer makes us ask better questions. Again: This is Epistemology. What can we know (“as far as we can tell”)? About the most important things? A lot.
For our Ethics students, notice that Rowe's argument looks like a utilitarian one.
Cheers~
Dr. Lee Basham
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