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Showing papers on "Skeptical theism published in 1991"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The inductive argument against the existence of God has been criticised by Rowe as mentioned in this paper, based on a low estimate of human cognitive capacities in a certain application, and it is now acknowledged on (almost) all sides that the logical argument is bankrupt.
Abstract: The recent outpouring of literature on the problem of evil has materially advanced the subject in several ways. In particular, a clear distinction has been made between the "logical" argument against the existence of God ("atheological argument") from evil, which attempts to show that evil is logically incompatible with the existence of God, and the "inductive" ("empirical", "probabilistic") argument, which contents itself with the claim that evil constitutes (sufficient) empirical evidence against the existence of God. It is now acknowledged on (almost) all sides that the logical argument is bankrupt, but the inductive argument is still very much alive and kicking. In this paper I will be concerned with the inductive argument. More specifically, I shall be contributing to a certain criticism of that argument, one based on a low estimate of human cognitive capacities in a certain application. To indicate the point at which this criticism engages the argument, I shall use one of the most careful and perspicuous formulations of the argument in a recent essay by William Rowe (1979).

66 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The most powerful version of the "evidential argument from evil" can be found in this article, where a serious hypothesis h that is inconsistent with theism and on which the amounts and kinds of suffering that the world contains are far more easily explained than they are on the hypothesis of theism is presented.
Abstract: It used to be widely held that evil-which for present purposes we may identify with undeserved pain and suffering-was incompatible with the existence of God: that no possible world contained both God and evil. So far as I am able to tell, this thesis is no longer defended. But arguments for the following weaker thesis continue to be very popular: Evil (or at least evil of the amounts and kinds we actually observe) constitutes evidence against the existence of God, evidence that seems decisively to outweigh the totality of available evidence for the existence of God. In this paper, I wish to discuss what seems to me to be the most powerful version of the "evidential argument from evil." The argument takes the following form. There is a serious hypothesis h that is inconsistent with theism and on which the amounts and kinds of suffering that the world contains are far more easily explained than they are on the hypothesis of theism. This fact constitutes a prima facie case for preferring h to theism. Examination shows that there is no known way of answering this case, and there is good reason to think that no way of answering it will be forthcoming. Therefore, the hypothesis h is (relative to the epistemic situation of someone who has followed the argument this far) preferable to theism. But if p and q are inconsistent and p is (relative to one's epistemic situation) epistemically preferable to q, then it is not rational for one to accept q. (Of course, it does not follow either that it is rational for one to accept p or that it is rational for one to reject q.) It is, therefore, not rational for one who has followed the argument up

59 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors argued that the belief in the God of traditional theism provides rational grounds for atheism, and suggested that theists would be wise to acknowledge that it does provide some rational reasons for atheism.
Abstract: we have reason to conclude that the God of traditional theism (an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good being) does not exist.1 Confronted with this argument, theists, I suggested, would be wise to acknowledge that it does provide some rational grounds for atheism. Whether atheism is the position that from the rational point of view we all ought to adopt, however, will depend on what else we know or have reason to believe that is relevant to whether theism or atheism is true. While some philosophers may have been persuaded both of the strength of the argument and of the wisdom of the advice, others

36 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the argument from evil is formulated as a core argument, with the exception of one crucial premise, plus a subsidiary argument designed to support the premise in question, and the second section is devoted to an examination of that subsidiary argument.
Abstract: The problem that suffering and other evils pose for the rationality of belief in an omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect person has been the focus of intense discussion for a long time. The main thing that I want to do here is to consider whether recent discussions have significantly advanced our understanding of the underlying issues. I believe that they have, and I shall try to indicate the ways in which that is so. The structure of my discussion is as follows. The first two sections constitute the main part of the paper. In the first section, I shall consider how the argument from evil might best be formulated. Among the topics that I shall discuss are, first, the distinction between abstract and concrete formulations of the argument from evil; secondly, the distinction between incompatibility and evidential formulations; thirdly, the distinction between subjective and objective formulations; and fourthly, the relevance to the argument from evil of traditional arguments in support of the existence of God. One of my conclusions in the first section is that the argument from evil is best viewed as consisting of a core argument which is relatively straightforward-with the exception of one crucial premise-plus a subsidiary argument designed to support the premise in question. The second section will therefore be devoted to an examination of that subsidiary argument. In the third section, I shall consider different types of responses to the argument from evil. One useful classification, I suggest, is in terms of whether the goal is that of a total refutation of the argument,

29 citations