Author: Edward H. Madden
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description

Author: Chad Meister
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 0830866469
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
The question of evil--its origins, its justification, its solution--has plagued humankind from the beginning. Every generation raises the question and struggles with the responses it is given. Questions about the nature of evil and how it is reconciled with the truth claims of Christianity are unavoidable; we need to be prepared to respond to such questions with great clarity and good faith. God and Evil compiles the best thinking on all angles on the question of evil, from some of the finest scholars in religion, philosophy and apologetics, including Gregory E. Ganssle and Yena Lee Bruce Little Garry DeWeese R. Douglas Geivett James Spiegel Jill Graper Hernandez Win Corduan David Beck With additional chapters addressing "issues in dialogue" such as hell and human origins, and a now-famous debate between evangelical philosopher William Lane Craig and atheist philosopher Michael Tooley, God and Evil provides critical engagement with recent arguments against faith and offers grounds for renewed confidence in the God who is "acquainted with grief."

Author: Chad Meister
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 0830891749
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 183

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Book Description
Evil abounds. And so do the attempts to understand God in the face of such evil. The problem of evil is a constant challenge to faith in God. How can we believe in a loving and powerful God given the existence of so much suffering in the world? Philosophers and theologians have addressed this problem countless times over the centuries. New explanations have been proposed in recent decades drawing on resources in Scripture, theology, philosophy, and science. This Spectrum Multiview volume stages a dialogue between the five key positions in the current debate: Phillip Cary: A Classic View William Lane Craig: A Molinist View William Hasker: An Open Theist View Thomas Jay Oord: An Essential Kenosis View Stephen Wykstra: A Skeptical Theism View According to the classic position, associated especially with the Augustinian tradition, God permits evil and suffering as part of the grand narrative of divine providence to bring about the redemption of creation. Molinism modifies the classic view by adding God's middle knowledge to the picture, in which God has knowledge of what creatures would do in all possible worlds. Open theism rejects the determinism of the classic view in favor of an account of God as a risk-taker who does not know for sure what the future holds. Essential kenosis goes further in providing a comprehensive theodicy by arguing that God cannot control creatures and thus cannot unilaterally prevent evil. Skeptical theism rejects the attempt to provide a theodicy and instead argues that, if God exists, we should not expect to understand God's purposes. Edited and with an introduction by Chad Meister and James K. Dew Jr., God and the Problem of Evil hosts a generous and informative conversation on one of the most pressing issues in the Christian life. Spectrum Multiview Books offer a range of viewpoints on contested topics within Christianity, giving contributors the opportunity to present their position and also respond to others in this dynamic publishing format.

Author: Professor James A Keller
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 1409477797
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 186

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Book Description
Why do bad things happen, even to good people? If there is a God, why aren't God's existence and God's will for humans more apparent? And if God really does miracles for some people, why not for others? This book examines these three problems of evil – suffering, divine hiddenness, and unfairness if miracles happen as believers claim – to explore how different ideas of God's power relate to the problem of evil. Keller argues that as long as God is believed to be all-powerful, there are no adequate answers to these problems, nor is it enough for theists simply to claim that human ignorance makes these problems insoluble. Arguing that there are no good grounds for the belief that God is all-powerful, Keller instead defends the understanding of God and God's power found in process theism and shows how it makes possible an adequate solution to the problems of evil while providing a concept of God that is religiously adequate.

Author: Fred Berthold
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791460412
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 124

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Book Description
Revises the traditional free will defense regarding the existence of evil in the world of a loving God.

Author: Bruce Langtry
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191608149
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
God, the Best, and Evil is an original treatment of some longstanding problems about God and his actions towards human beings. First, Bruce Langtry explores some implications of divine omnipotence, omniscience, and perfect goodness for God's providence. In particular, he investigates whether God is in some sense a maximizer. Second, he assesses the strength of objections to the existence of God that are based on the apparent fact that God could have created a better world than this one. Finally, he assesses the strength of objections to the existence of God that focus on the problem of evil. To create a (possible) world is to strongly or weakly actualize it. A world is prime if God can create it, and he cannot create a world better than it. This book's conclusions include the following: (1) If there is at least one prime world, then if God does create some world he will create a prime world. (2) If there are no prime worlds, then it does not follow that God does not exist. Instead, what follows is that if God creates a world he will create one that is good enough, despite the fact that he could create a world which is better. (3) This conclusion does not give rise to a good objection to theism, based on the apparent fact that the actual world is improvable and yet it is not good enough (4) Even if there is a best world, or several equal-best worlds, God cannot create any of them. (5) A good partial theodicy for evil can be provided, appealing to goods bound up with human free will, moral responsibility, and the roles of individuals' own personal traits in shaping their own and other people's lives. The partial theodicy is neutral between Theological Compatibilism and libertarianism. (6) The problem of evil does not provide a very strong objection to the existence of God.

Author: Brian Davies
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199831459
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Brian Davies offers the first in-depth study of Saint Thomas Aquinas's thoughts on God and evil, revealing that Aquinas's thinking about God and evil can be traced through his metaphysical philosophy, his thoughts on God and creation, and his writings about Christian revelation and the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation. Davies first gives an introduction to Aquinas's philosophical theology, as well as a nuanced analysis of the ways in which Aquinas's writings have been considered over time. For hundreds of years scholars have argued that Aquinas's views on God and evil were original and different from those of his contemporaries. Davies shows that Aquinas's views were by modern standards very original, but that in their historical context they were more traditional than many scholars since have realized. Davies also provides insight into what we can learn from Aquinas's philosophy. Thomas Aquinas on God and Evil is a clear and engaging guide for anyone who struggles with the relation of God and theology to the problem of evil.

Author: Michael L. Peterson
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
ISBN: 0268100357
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 636

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Book Description
Of all the issues in the philosophy of religion, the problem of reconciling belief in God with evil in the world arguably commands more attention than any other. For over two decades, Michael L. Peterson’s The Problem of Evil: Selected Readings has been the most widely recognized and used anthology on the subject. Peterson's expanded and updated second edition retains the key features of the original and presents the main positions and strategies in the latest philosophical literature on the subject. It will remain the most complete introduction to the subject as well as a resource for advanced study. Peterson organizes his selection of classical and contemporary sources into four parts: important statements addressing the problem of evil from great literature and classical philosophy; debates based on the logical, evidential, and existential versions of the problem; major attempts to square God's justice with the presence of evil, such as Augustinian, Irenaean, process, openness, and felix culpa theodicies; and debates on the problem of evil covering such concepts as a best possible world, natural evil and natural laws, gratuitous evil, the skeptical theist defense, and the bearing of biological evolution on the problem. The second edition includes classical excerpts from the book of Job, Voltaire, Dostoevsky, Augustine, Aquinas, Leibniz, and Hume, and twenty-five essays that have shaped the contemporary discussion, by J. L. Mackie, Alvin Plantinga, William Rowe, Marilyn Adams, John Hick, William Hasker, Paul Draper, Michael Bergmann, Eleonore Stump, Peter van Inwagen, and numerous others. Whether a professional philosopher, student, or interested layperson, the reader will be able to work through a number of issues related to how evil in the world affects belief in God.

Author: Michael L Peterson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429979789
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 170

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Book Description
This concise, well-structured survey examines the problem of evil in the context of the philosophy of religion. The main problem of evil consists in reconciling belief in a just and loving God with the evil and suffering in the world. Michael Peterson frames this issue by working through questions such as the following: What is the relation of rational belief to religious faith? What different conceptual moves are possible on either side of the issue? What responses have important thinkers advanced and which seem most promising? Is it possible to maintain religious commitment in light of evil? The author relies on the helpful distinction between moral and natural evil to clarify our understanding of the different aspects of the problem as well as avenues for response. Thus, the reader of this book gains not only an intellectual grasp of the debate over God and evil in professional philosophy but also the personal benefit of thinking through one of the most important issues in human life. }This concise, well-structured survey examines the problem of evil in the context of the philosophy of religion. One of the core topics in that field, the problem of evil is an enduring challenge that Western philosophers have pondered for almost two thousand years. The main problem of evil consists in reconciling belief in a just and loving God with the evil and suffering in the world. Michael Peterson frames this issue by working through questions such as the following: What is the relation of rational belief to religious faith? What different conceptual moves are possible on either side of the issue? What responses have important thinkers advanced and which seem most promising? Is it possible to maintain religious commitment in light of evil? Peterson relies on the helpful distinction between moral and natural evil to clarify our understanding of the different aspects of the problem as well as avenues for response. The overall format of the text rests on classifying various types of argument from evil: the logical, the probabilistic, the evidential, and the existential arguments. Each type of argument has its own strategy which both theists and nontheists must recognize and develop. Giving both theistic and nontheistic perspectives fair representation, the text works through the issues of whether evil shows theistic belief to be inconsistent, improbable, discredited by the evidence, or threatened by personal crisis.Peterson explains how defensive strategies are particularly geared for responding to the logical and probabilistic arguments from evil while theodicy is an appropriate response to the evidential argument. Theodicy has traditionally been understood as the attempt to justify belief in a God who is all-powerful and all-good in light of evil. The text discusses the theodicies of Augustine, Leibniz, Hick, and Whitehead as enlightening examples of theodicy. This discussion allows Peterson to identify and evaluate a rather dominant theme in most theodicies: that evil can be justified by designating a greater good. In the end, Peterson even explores how certain types of theodicy, based on specifically Christian renditions of theism, might provide a basis for addressing the existential problem of evil. The reader of this book gains not only an intellectual grasp of the debate over God and evil in professional philosophy but also the personal benefit of thinking through one of the most important issues in human life. }

Author: N. T. Wright
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 083083415X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 177

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Book Description
N.T. Wright explores all aspects of evil and how it presents itself in society today. Fully grounded in the story of the Old and New Testaments, this presentation is provocative and hopeful; a fascinating analysis of and response to the fundamental question of evil and justice that faces believers.