¹ Ross, James F., “God and the World,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion (38/3 (1970), 314–15.Google Scholar

² McGill, Arthur C., Suffering: A Test of Theological Method (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1982 [1968], pp. 51–52.Google Scholar

³ Phillips, Dewi Z., “The Problem of Evil” in Brown, Stuart C., ed., Reason and Religion (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977), p. 121.Google Scholar

⁴ Hick, John H., “Remarks [on Phillips, “The Problem of Evil” and Swinburne, “The Problem of Evil”]” in Brown, , ed., Reason and Religion, p. 122.Google Scholar

⁵ Plantinga, Alvin, God, Freedom and Evil (New York: Harper and Row, 1974), p. 9.Google Scholar

⁶ Ibid., p. 11.

⁷ Plantinga does not use the term “genuine evil.” However, as Griffin, David points out in God, Power, and Evil: A Process Theodicy (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1976), p. 22Google Scholar, the key issue is not whether some events or acts appear evil, but whether there are genuinely evil events and acts. Appearances can be deceiving, as Alexander Pope might remind us.

⁸ Plantinga, , God, Freedom and Evil, p. 26.Google Scholar

⁹ Ibid.

¹⁰ Ibid., p. 26.

¹¹ Hick, John H., Evil and the God of Love (rev. ed.; San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1978), p. 370.Google Scholar

¹² Ibid.

¹³ Compare ibid., p. 369, with Plantinga, , God, Freedom and Evil, pp. 58–59, 63–64;Google ScholarThe Nature of Necessity (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1974), p. 192;Google Scholar and “Reply to the Basingers on Divine Omnipotence,” Process Studies 11/1 (1981), 25–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁴ The following discussion is indebted to Stephen E. Toulmin's model of argument for

Here, D stands for data, C for Conclusions, Q for the Modal Qualifier (often an adverb) which displays the quality of assent to the conclusion, W for the Warrant by which one moves from the data to the conclusion, B for the Backing for the warrant (often a crucial area of dispute), and R for a proffered Rebuttal (which, if successful, changes the quality of assent to the conclusion). One of Toulmin's illustrations runs, “Harry was born in Bermuda(d), and since a man born in Bermuda will generally be a British subject(W), on account of [the relevant] statutes and other legal provisions(B), so, presumably(Q), Harry is a British subject(C), unless both his parents were aliens, he became a naturalized American citizen, etc.(R).” If a rebutting condition obtains, then the qualifier, “presumably,” will have to be changed to another qualifier, e.g., “it is unlikely that;” if a rebutting condition probably obtains, then the assent qualifier will have to become proportionally weaker. See Toulmin, , The Uses of Argument (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958, p. 104.Google Scholar

¹⁵ In “Is Belief in God Properly Basic?” Nous 15/1 (1981), 41–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Plantinga argues that there are no acceptable criteria which show that beliefs such as “God is speaking to me now” cannot be said to be properly basic for a believer in certain conditions. If such a belief is properly basic, then one can also claim that belief in God can, in a loose sense, be properly basic for that person. Using Toulmin's model, one could say, “God is speaking to me now” expresses a properly basic belief for someone in the proper conditions(D), and since self-evident entailments from properly basic beliefs are epistemically as reliable as those basic beliefs(W) as contemporary epistemology shows (B), so, as reliably, but loosely (Q), “There is such a person as God” is also properly basic (C), unless it can be shown (1) that contemporary epistemology is unreliable, or (2) that this apparently self-evident entailment is unreliable because it generates a conclusion that contradicts another basic belief, or (3) that the necessary and sufficient conditions of proper basicality are discovered which show that this belief is not properly basic, etc.(R). One way to construe Plantinga's development of the Free Will Defense is to show the suggested rebuttals like (2) are forceless. Also see Alston, William P., “The Christian Language-Game” in Crosson, Frederick, ed., The Autonomy of Religious Belief (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981), pp. 128–62.Google ScholarGutting, Gary, Religious Belief and Religious Skepticism (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982), pp. 79–92Google Scholar, criticizes an earlier, and weaker, version of Plantinga's argument. Gutting claims that if one's epistemic peers disagree with one about whether a given proposition is properly basic, then one's clinging to one's own belief is an unwarranted epistemological egoism. However, Gutting does not show that one can have epistemic peers for all properly basic beliefs (e.g., who would be my epistemic peer for “I have a belly ache”?) and so his argument is not sustained.

¹⁶ See the literature cited in note 13.

¹⁷ Plantinga, , God, Freedom and Evil, p. 27.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Ibid., p. 28.

¹⁹ Plantinga, , The Nature of Necessity, p. 195.Google Scholar

²⁰ Plantinga, Alvin, “The Probabilistic Argument from Evil,” Philosophical Studies 26/1 (1979), 1–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²¹ See, e.g., Pike, Nelson, “Plantings on Free Will and Evil,” Religious Studies 15/4 (1979), 473;CrossRefGoogle ScholarAnderson, Susan L., “Plantings and the Free Will Defense,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 62/2 (1981), 274–81;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and David, and Basinger, Randall, “Divine Omnipotence: Plantinga vs. Griffin,” Process Studies 11/1 (1981), 11–24;Google ScholarMackie, J. L., The Miracle of Theism: Arguments for and against the Existence of God (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), pp. 162–76.Google Scholar

²² Hick, , Evil and the God of Love, p. 243.Google Scholar Subsequent references to this book will be noted parenthetically in the text.

²³ For present purposes, I will argue against neither the classical Augustinian theodicy nor contemporary versions of it, although the arguments which I develop in this section against Hick's positive position could also be applied mutatis mutandis to an Augustinian theodicy. I accept Hick's rejection of it as conclusive, i.e., that it proffers an unacceptable aesthetic resolution to a moral problem. His criticism can also be applied to contemporary arguments such as Harris, Errol E., The Problem of Evil (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1977)Google Scholar, which concludes that evil is privative and necessary for the perfection of the universe (see pp. 47-49).

²⁴ Hick, John H., Death and Eternal Life (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1976), pp. 242–61, 450–66.Google Scholar

²⁵ See the criticism of this point in Tilley, Terrence W., Talking of God: An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis of Religious Language (New York: Paulist, 1978), pp. 97–100.Google Scholar

²⁶ This criticism is also made by Griffin, David Ray, God, Power, and Evil, p. 201.Google Scholar

²⁷ Phillips, , “The Problem of Evil,” p. 137.Google Scholar

²⁸ How credible the redescription of the Nazi Holocaust as willed by a good God is can be seen in Rubinstein, Richard, “The Dean and the Chosen People” in his After Auschwitz (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs Merrill, 1966), pp. 46–58.Google Scholar People sometimes suggest that God does not will, but permits, evils. This distinction is based on an analogy with human agents. Unfortunately, it breaks down if it is used to attempt to explain an evil, for there is no distinguishable difference between what an omnipotent being wills and permits. Some would also claim that there is no logical difference between omnipotent willing and permitting.

²⁹ See the criticisms of James F. Ross (see note 1, above); Neville, Robert C., Creativity and God (New York: Seabury, 1980), pp. 11–12;Google ScholarHefner, Philip, “Is Theodicy a Question of Power,” Journal of Religion 59/1 (1979), 87–93;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Frankenberry, Nancy K., “Some Problems in Process Theodicy,” Religious Studies 18/2 (1981), 179–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁰ Ogden, Schubert M., “Evil and Belief in God: The Distinctive Relevance of a ‘Process Theology,’” Perkins Journal 30 (1978), 32–33.Google Scholar

³¹ Ogden, Schubert M., The Reality of God (New York: Harper and Row, 1966), p. 63.Google Scholar

³² This sort of claim is exemplified in Malcolm, Norman, “Anselm's Ontological Arguments” (first published, 1960) in Platinga, Alvin, ed., The Ontological Argument (Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor, 1965), p. 143.Google Scholar Of course, it can be found in numerous other authors.

³³ Griffin, , God, Power and Evil, p. 270;Google Scholar also see Basingers, , “Divine Omnipotence,” p. 13.Google Scholar

³⁴ See Plantinga, , “Reply to the Basingers,” p. 25.Google Scholar

³⁵ Another type of defense is developed in Ackermann, Robert, “An Alternative Free Will Defense,” Religious Studies 18/3 (1982), 365–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Ackermann argues on the analogy of the “Turing Machine Paradox” in computer theory that it is possible that even an omniscient God could not predict in advance the choices even of a determined agent. Whether this is more useful than a process theodicy is moot.

³⁶ Phillips, , “The Problem of Evil,” p. 139.Google Scholar

³⁷ Phillips, Dewi Z., The Concept of Prayer (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965), p. 106.Google Scholar

³⁸ Theodicists could respond that they are not presuming that God's being evil is conceivable, but rather presuming that there is good reason to say that a good God exists in spite of evil in the world. In that case, theodicists such as Hick could agree with their opponents that belief in God's existence or nonexistence could be warranted by inference from the states of affairs in the actual world. This implies that theodicists must agree with atheologians that God's nonexistence is a conceivable possibility and that the assertion that God exists must we warranted or grounded. But, if a proposition must be warranted by argument or grounded in evidence, then that proposition is nonbasic or contingent. Yet the religious believer holds that “There is a God” is properly basic or warranted by a properly basic belief, according to Plantinga (see the article cited in note 15 above), or that it is necessarily true that there is a God, according to Phillips, (see The Concept of Prayer, p. 82.).Google Scholar If either account is correct, the claim that theodicists cannot avoid distorting what they are attempting to explain could be sustained.

³⁹ Phillips, , “The Problem of Evil,” p. 120.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ See Phillips, , The Concept of Prayer, pp. 158, 160;Google ScholarReligion Without Explanation (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1976), pp. 151–82.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Phillips, , The Concept of Prayer, p. 160.Google Scholar

⁴² Swinburne, Richard, “The Problem of Evil” in Brown, , ed., Reason and Religion, p. 133.Google Scholar

⁴³ Phillips, D. Z., “Belief, Change, and Forms of Life: The Confusions of Externalism and Internalism” in Crosson, , ed., The Autonomy of Religious Belief, pp. 78–81.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ A similar conclusion is reached by Dore, Clement, “Do Theists Need to Solve the Problem of Evil?” Religious Studies 18/1 (1982), 19–38.Google Scholar Also see Fitzpatrick, F. J., “The Onus of Proof in Arguments About the Problem of Evil,” Religious Studies 17/1 (1981), 37–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴⁵ Ramsey, Ian T., Religious Language: An Empirical Placing of Theological Phrases (London: SCM Press, 1957), p. 87.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ I am indebted to Professors Joseph Kroger (Religious Studies) and Peter Tumulty (Philosophy) of St. Michael's College, to Professor Stephen Casey of the University of Scranton and to Professor Gerald McCarthy of Clark University for their reading and criticizing earlier versions of this essay. The usual disclaimers apply.