The Evidential Problem Of Evil Flashcards
What is the evidential problem of evil?
1)it is a posteriori argument (it is based on what we’ve seen and experienced) that acknowledges that the existence of evil may not outright disprove God, but argues that the sheer quality and quantity of moral and natural types of evil make God’s existence highly unlikely
2)it focuses on the evidence of evil to suggest that it is improbable for a benevolent and omnipotent God to allow such suffering
Who is William Rowe and what did he say about the evidential problem of evil?
-William Rowe is an American philosopher
-He came up with the idea of “gratuitous (pointless) evil” stating that not all evil builds character virtues like sympathy and compassion and is therefore pointless
-He uses the example of a fawn dying in a forest fire to highlight that some evil seems to occur without any redeeming or morally sufficient reason
Who is David Hume and what did he say about the evidential problem of Evil?
-David Hume was a Scottish Empiricist (empiricism is the belief that we are only justified in believing what evidence suggests)
-He said “there can be no grounds for such influence when there are so many misfortunes in the universe” outlining the idea that evidence proves there can’t be God because there are so many misfortunes
-Hume says it’s “possible” for a perfect God to exist for reasons consistent with omni-benevolence but they are “unknown to us” (as an empiricist he would therefore conclude he does not exist because we can only rely on the evidence we have)
Who is John Stuart Mill and what did he say about the evidential problem of evil?
-He is a British philosopher
-he argued that evil alone is enough to prove that either God does not exist or that if he does he is not all loving (perhaps even malevolent/cruel
