Preface 1. Evidence 2. Intelligent design 3. Natural selection 4. Common ancestry Conclusion References Index.

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Evidence and Evolution: The Logic Behind the Science

I will argue in this paper that our knowledge about pain and pleasure creates an epistemic problem for theists. The problem is not that some proposition about pain and pleasure can be shown to be both true and logically inconsistent with theism. Rather, the problem is evidential. A statement reporting the observations and testimony upon which our knowledge about pain and pleasure is based bears a certain significant negative evidential relation to theism.' And because of this, we have a prima facie good epistemic reason to reject theism-that is, a reason that is sufficient for rejecting theism unless overridden by other reasons for not rejecting theism.

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Pain and pleasure: An evidential problem for theists

Ockham's razor, the principle of parsimony, states that simpler theories are better than theories that are more complex. It has a history dating back to Aristotle and it plays an important role in current physics, biology, and psychology. The razor also gets used outside of science - in everyday life and in philosophy. This book evaluates the principle and discusses its many applications. Fascinating examples from different domains provide a rich basis for contemplating the principle's promises and perils. It is obvious that simpler theories are beautiful and easy to understand; the hard problem is to figure out why the simplicity of a theory should be relevant to saying what the world is like. In this book, the ABCs of probability theory are succinctly developed and put to work to describe two 'parsimony paradigms' within which this problem can be solved.

Ockham's Razors: A User's Manual

A Dictionary of Philosophy of Religion

Preface Introduction: The Evidential Argument from Evil/Daniel Howard-Snyder The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism/William L. Rowe Pain and Pleasure: An Evidential Problem for Theists/Paul draper Some Major Strands of Theodicy/Richard G. Swinburne Aquinas on the Sufferings of Job/Eleonore Stump Epistemic Probability and Evil/Alvin Plantinga The Inductive Argument from evil and the Human Cognitive Condition/William P. Alston Rowe(R)s Noseeum Arguments from Evil/Stephen Wypkstra The Problem of Evil, the Problem of Air, and the Problem of Silence/Peter van Inwagen The Skeptical Theist/Paul Draper Defenseless/Bruce Russell Some Difficulties in Theistic Treatments of Evil/Richard Gale Reflections on the Essays of Draper, Russell, and Gale/Peter van Inwagen On being Evidentially Challenged/Alvin Plantinga The Evidential Argument from Evil: A Second Look/William L. Rowe The Argument from Inscrutable Evil/Daniel Howard-Snyder Some (Temporarily) Final Thoughts on Evidential ARguments from Evil/William P. Alston Bibliography Contributors Index

The Evidential Argument from Evil

Many of us - believers as well as nonbelievers, car mechanics as well as philosophers - have at some times in our lives felt instances of suffering in this world to be evidence against theism, according to which the universe is the creation of a wholly good Being who loves his creatures, and who lacks nothing in wisdom and power If it has proven hard to turn this feeling into a good argument, it has, perhaps, proven just as hard to get rid of it Indeed, the most logically sophisticated responses to the "problem of evil" can leave one wondering whether our intuitive perplexities have not been lost in the gears of the formal machinery brought to bear on them Maybe this is an unavoidable epiphenomenon of analysis; nevertheless, I want to try to mitigate it here For this reason (and a second forthcoming one), my springboard will be William Rowe's recent formulation of the case from suffering against theism} Rowe exemplifies the recent turn away from "logical" (or "deductive," or "demonstrative s ) formulations, construing the case instead as "evidential" (or "inductive," or "probabilistic") in nature The crux of his argument is that much suffering "does not appear to serve any outweighing good" This "does not appear" defence is succinct and non-technical, affording considerable insight into our ordinary intuitions, but also making itself easy prey to misconstrual I shall thus be amplifying Rowe's argument and defending it against specious criticisms, as well as - ultimately rebutting it This close attention to Rowe and his critics, however, is not an endin-itself It is a means of elucidating and vindicating a perspective from which we can see why a theist should, as Hume puts it, "never retract his belief'' on account of the suffering atheologians are inclined to adduce as evidence against theism Vindicating this perspective requires coming to close grips with the most lucid atheological evidential case one can find - and this is my second reason for taking Rowe's work as a springboard

Stephen J. Wykstra

Papers

The humean obstacle to evidential arguments from suffering: On avoiding the evils of “appearance”

Review of J. L. Schellenberg, The Wisdom to Doubt: A Justification of Religious Skepticism

7. The “Inductive” Argument from Evil: A Dialogue

Foundations of Skeptical Theism: Cornea, Core, and Conditional Probabilities

Cornea, Carnap, and Current Closure Befuddlement