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The Argument from Evil: Reply to Professor Richman

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Douglas Langston
Douglas Langston
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Religion, New College of the University of South Florida
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Extract

The problem of evil has traditionally been formulated as a claim about the incompatibility of the statements ‘God exists’ and ‘There occur instances of suffering’. Hume, for example, in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, part x, claims that the statements ‘God exists’ and ‘There occur instances of suffering’ are incompatible. In his esssy ‘Hume on Evil’, Nelson Pike argues that it has not been shown that the statements ‘God exists’ and ‘There occur instances of suffering’ are incompatible because it has not been shown that God could not have a morally sufficient reason for permitting suffering he could prevent.1 Moreover, according to Pike, the theist who is convinced that God must have a morally sufficient reason for permitting suffering he can prevent will claim that the statements ‘God exists’ and ‘There occur instances of suffering’ are not incompatible. He will claim this even though he cannot specify the morally sufficient reason why God permits suffering he can prevent. The theist will thus maintain that God exists even given the occurrence of suffering in the world.2 Robert Richman, in his essay ‘The Argument from Evil’, argues that Pike is too generous to the theist. According to Richman, only if the theist can specify the morally sufficient reason why God permits suffering he can prevent will the theist be rationally justified in maintaining that God exists in the face of suffering in the world. Richman supports his position by reformulating the argument from evil in terms of what he calls ‘the logic of our moral judgmentsr’.3 Richman thinks that his formulation of the argument from evil is successful against the theist who cannot specify the morally sufficient reason why God permits evil he can prevent. In this paper, I shall argue that Richman's argument is not successful against the typical theist, i.e. the person who accepts the existence of God on the basis of faith or a priori arguments.4

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , March 1980 , pp. 103 - 113
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

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References

page 103 note 1 In God and Evil, ed. pike, Nelson (Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1964). See especially Pp. 92–3.Google Scholar

page 103 note 2 Ibid. p. 98.

page 103 note 3 Religious Studies, IV, 203–11.Google Scholar

page 103 note 4 ‘Typical theist’ is, of course, a technical term. It is not at all clear that someone who accepts the existence of God on the basis of an a priori argument is at all typical.

page 104 note 1 Richman, , pp. 203–4.Google Scholar

page 104 note 2 Ibid. p. 206.

page 104 note 3 Interestingly, other people have misunderstood the point Pike was making in ‘Hume on Evil’. For example, Farlow, King in his ‘Über Formal Entscheidbar Satzenkonjunktionen Der Principia Theologica Und Verwandter Systeme’ (Analysis, 170, pp. 140 f.Google Scholar) also misunderstands Pike's claim.

page 104 note 4 Ibid. p. 211

page 104 note 5 Since this is my reconstruction, one will not find Richman explicitly treating principles (A) and (B) or steps 1–7 in his essay. These are my articulations of his implicit positions. I do think that an examination of his article will show that these principles and steps would be endorsed By Richman.

page 105 note 1 Richman, , pp. 210–11.Google Scholar

page 106 note 1 Henze, in his ‘On Some Alleged Human Insights and Oversights’ (Religious Studies, VI, 369–77Google Scholar) disputes whether God can be considered a moral agent. Despite his objections, I shall assume that God can be so considered.

page 106 note 2 Richman, , p. 208Google Scholar. The accusation of irrationality is not found in this quotation. Perusal of Richman's article will reveal, however, that Richman links irrationality with moral scepticism and so he would also regard anyone who accepted principle (A) as irrational.

page 107 note 1 Ibid.

page 107 note 2 Richman often uses the expression ‘excusing conditions’ instead of ‘morally sufficient reasons’ (cf. God and Evil, p. 88Google Scholar). Following Richman, I use these terms interchangeably.

page 108 note 1 Richman, , p. 209.Google Scholar

page 108 note 2 Notice that, for the typical theist, there is not just a possibility that there is a morally sufficient reason; there must be a morally sufficient reason (cf. ‘Hume on Evil’ in God and Evil).Google Scholar

page 109 note 1 Even though not all of the events of this story actually took place, I think that the case as I present it is certainly plausible.

page 110 note 1 Note that I use the word ‘usually’ in the last sentence because in cases like the 747 case we do not require the specification of a morally sufficient reason.

page 112 note 1 Richman, , p. 210.Google Scholar

page 112 note 2 In fact, since principle (B) is formulated in terms of omission, we see that the courtroom case does not even support principle (B).

page 112 note 3 Cf. Richman, , p. 209Google Scholar ‘… for God's permitting evil in the world…’.

page 112 note 4 God and Evil, p. 98.Google Scholar