Divine Evil?
الشر الإلهي؟
Le mal divin ?
This edited volume examines whether the God of the Old Testament, who commands apparent moral atrocities, is compatible with the existence of a perfectly good deity, engaging both defenders and critics of biblical divine commands.
Editorial summary
This edited volume engages one of philosophy of religion's most enduring challenges: the problem of evil. Michael Bergmann assembles contributions that examine whether the existence of evil, particularly in its most severe forms, constitutes decisive evidence against God's existence. The collection represents current analytic philosophy's approach to this classical theological difficulty, bringing together diverse perspectives on how theistic belief might withstand the evidential force of human and natural suffering.
The volume's contributors employ the rigorous argumentative methods characteristic of contemporary analytic philosophy, examining both logical and evidential versions of the problem of evil. While some chapters defend traditional theodicies that attempt to explain why God permits evil, others explore more modest defensive strategies that aim merely to show the logical compatibility of God and evil without claiming to know God's actual reasons. Several contributions engage specifically with skeptical theism, the view that human cognitive limitations prevent us from making reliable judgments about what goods might justify God's permission of various evils.
The work situates itself within ongoing debates in analytic philosophy of religion, responding to influential formulations of the problem by philosophers such as J.L. Mackie, William Rowe, and Paul Draper. Contributors examine whether recent developments in epistemology, particularly concerning skeptical scenarios and cognitive limitations, might defuse evidential arguments from evil. The volume also addresses second-order questions about the dialectical situation: what burden of proof theists face, whether the problem of evil carries special argumentative weight compared to other considerations, and how background beliefs about God's nature affect the force of evil-based objections.
Bergmann's collection advances the debate by bringing together cutting-edge work on both traditional and novel approaches to the problem. The volume demonstrates how contemporary analytic tools can shed new light on ancient questions, while acknowledging the genuine philosophical difficulty that evil poses for theistic belief. By presenting multiple perspectives rather than advocating a single solution, the work provides readers with a comprehensive view of the current state of philosophical engagement with divine evil. The collection's significance lies in its systematic examination of whether theism can survive what many consider its greatest empirical challenge.
Argument formulations engaged
Bergmann, Michael Divine Evil?. Oxford University Press, USA.
@book{divine-evil,
author = {Bergmann, Michael},
title = {Divine Evil?},
year = {n.d.},
publisher = {Oxford University Press, USA},
url = {https://god-database.com/en/works/divine-evil}
}