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God and the Problem of Evil
God and the Problem of Evil brings together influential essays on the question of whether the amount of seemingly pointless malice and suffering in our world counts against the rationality of belief in God, a being who is said to be all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly good.
- GenresPhilosophyReligion
Paperback
First published July 24, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 26, 2012
I just finished reading William Rowe’s anthology “God and the problem of Evil.� This is an impressive collection of papers on the problem of evil (the problem of how an omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect God can permit suffering) by thinkers on all sides of the debate.
The book is divided into four sections. The first consists of two historically interesting treatments of the problem of evil (Leibniz and Hume) with responses by contemporary philosophers (Robert Adams and Nelson Pike, respectively). The second section is devoted to the logical version of the problem, with (predictably) papers by Mackie and Plantinga, and the third section is devoted to the evidential version of the argument. It is clear that this is where the current debate rages. With contributions from a variety of thinkers (Rowe, Howard-Snyder and Bergman, Schellenberg, Draper, and van Inwagen), this section had some of the strongest atheistic arguments and some of the most interesting atheist-theist exchanges. Finally, the fourth section was devoted to theodicies (attempts to explain why God permits the evils that exist, rather than just arguing that advocates of the problem of evil haven’t proven their case). Here, Richard Swinburne and John Hick present their respective theodicies, and Marilyn Adams addresses the problem of hell and its relationship to the more general problem of evil.
The editor, Rowe, is an atheist himself, but the anthology is a fair and honest representation of the different viewpoints currently shaping the debate. In fact, if anything, the book leans a bit toward the theist’s side (at least insofar as two thirds of the contributors are theists!). This anthology functions as an excellent survey of the contemporary debate over God and evil among professional philosophers. It is an ideal resource for the student who is looking to be introduced to the modern debate, but is also equipped to deal with the technicality of essays like these.
The book is divided into four sections. The first consists of two historically interesting treatments of the problem of evil (Leibniz and Hume) with responses by contemporary philosophers (Robert Adams and Nelson Pike, respectively). The second section is devoted to the logical version of the problem, with (predictably) papers by Mackie and Plantinga, and the third section is devoted to the evidential version of the argument. It is clear that this is where the current debate rages. With contributions from a variety of thinkers (Rowe, Howard-Snyder and Bergman, Schellenberg, Draper, and van Inwagen), this section had some of the strongest atheistic arguments and some of the most interesting atheist-theist exchanges. Finally, the fourth section was devoted to theodicies (attempts to explain why God permits the evils that exist, rather than just arguing that advocates of the problem of evil haven’t proven their case). Here, Richard Swinburne and John Hick present their respective theodicies, and Marilyn Adams addresses the problem of hell and its relationship to the more general problem of evil.
The editor, Rowe, is an atheist himself, but the anthology is a fair and honest representation of the different viewpoints currently shaping the debate. In fact, if anything, the book leans a bit toward the theist’s side (at least insofar as two thirds of the contributors are theists!). This anthology functions as an excellent survey of the contemporary debate over God and evil among professional philosophers. It is an ideal resource for the student who is looking to be introduced to the modern debate, but is also equipped to deal with the technicality of essays like these.
February 26, 2015
Very helpful in terms of presenting a landscape of the variety of views concerning theodicy. Anyone interested in philosophy of religion should read this book.
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