Element contents
Series: Elements in the Problems of God
Evil and Theodicy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 January 2023
Summary
Suffering is ubiquitous. Quests to make sense of it in relation to the existence of God – and to find meaning in our lives in the face of it – are significant aspects of the human experience. Evil and Theodicy motivates the project of theodicy by examining arguments rooted in evil against God's existence and by critically assessing the response of skeptical theism. Ekstrom explores eight different lines of theodicy. She argues that, even if the prospects for theodicy are dim with respect to defending the rationality of theistic belief in light of suffering, nonetheless, work in theodicies is practically useful.
- Type
- Element
- Information
- Series: Elements in the Problems of GodOnline ISBN: 9781009293075Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication: 02 February 2023
References
Adams, Marilyn (1986). Redemptive Suffering: A Christian Solution to the Problem of Evil. In Audi, Robert and Wainwright, William J., eds., Rationality, Religious Belief and Moral Commitment, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 248–267.Google Scholar
Adams, Marilyn (1989). Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 63, 297–310.Google Scholar
Adams, Marilyn (1999). Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Alston, William (1991). The Inductive Argument from Evil and the Human Cognitive Condition, Philosophical Perspectives 5, 29–67.Google Scholar
Aquinas, Thomas (c. 1270/1920). Summa Theologica, revised ed., trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province, New York: Benzinger Brothers.Google Scholar
Augustine, Saint (c. 426/1950). The City of God, trans. Marcus Dods, George Wilson, and J. J. Smith, New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Augustine, Saint (c. 400/1977). Confessions, trans. Maria Boulding. Hyde Park, NY: New York City Press.Google Scholar
Bergmann, Michael (2009). Skeptical Theism and the Problem of Evil. In Flint, Thomas and Rea, Michael, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology, New York: Oxford University Press, 374–399.Google Scholar
Collins, Robin (2013). The Connection-Building Theodicy. In McBrayer, Justin and Howard-Snyder, Daniel, eds., The Blackwell Companion to Skeptical Theism, Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 222–235.Google Scholar
Dougherty, Trent and McBrayer, Justin, eds. (2014). Skeptical Theism: New Essays, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Draper, Paul (1996). The Skeptical Theist. In Howard-Snyder, Daniel, ed., The Evidential Argument from Evil, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 175–192.Google Scholar
Ekstrom, Laura (2004). Suffering as Religious Experience. In Van Inwagen, Peter, ed., Christian Faith and the Problem of Evil, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 95–110.Google Scholar
Ekstrom, Laura (2019). Toward a Plausible Event-Causal Indeterminist Account of Free Will, Synthese 196 (no. 1), 127–144.Google Scholar
Ekstrom, Laura (2021). God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fischer, John Martin (2012). Deep Control: Essays on Free Will and Value, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Flinders, Carol L. (1993). Enduring Grace: Living Portraits of Seven Women Mystics, New York: Harper Collins.Google Scholar
Frankfurt, Harry (1971). Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person. Journal of Philosophy 68, 5–20.Google Scholar
Frankfurt, Harry (2004). The Reasons of Love, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Harris, Michael J. (2016). But Now My Eye Has Seen You: Yissurin Shel Ahavah as Divine Intimacy Theodicy, Torah U-Madda Journal 17, 64–92.Google Scholar
Hasker, William (1992). The Necessity of Gratuitous Evil. Faith and Philosophy 9 (no. 1), 23–44.Google Scholar
Hasker, William (1998). The Foundations of Theism: Scoring the Quinn–Plantinga Debate. Faith and Philosophy 15 (no. 1), 52–67.Google Scholar
Hasker, William (2010). All Too Skeptical Theism. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 68, 15–29.Google Scholar
Hick, John (1978). Evil and the God of Love, 2nd ed., San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Howard-Snyder, Daniel, ed. (1996). The Evidential Argument from Evil, Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Jordan, Jeff (2004). Divine Love and Human Suffering. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 56, 169–178.Google Scholar
Julian of Norwich (c. 1400/1984). Revelations of Divine Love, trans. Elizabeth Spearing, New York: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Kushner, Harold (1981). When Bad Things Happen to Good People, New York: Anchor Books.Google Scholar
Lewis, David (2007). Divine Evil. In Louise Antony, ed., Philosophers without Gods, New York: Oxford University Press, 17–31.Google Scholar
Maitzen, Stephen (2009). Ordinary Morality Implies Atheism. European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 2, 107–126.Google Scholar
McBrayer, Justin (2013). Counterpart and Appreciation Theodicies. In McBrayer, Justin and Howard-Snyder, Daniel, eds., The Blackwell Companion to Skeptical Theism, Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 192–204.Google Scholar
McBrayer, Justin and Howard-Snyder, Daniel, eds. (2013). The Blackwell Companion to the Problem of Evil, Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Meister, Chad and Moser, Paul, eds. (2017). The Cambridge Companion to the Problem of Evil, New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Murphy, Mark (2017). God’s Own Ethics: Norms of Divine Agency and the Argument from Evil, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nelkin, Dana (2011). Making Sense of Freedom and Responsibility. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
O’Connor, Timothy (forthcoming). Laura Ekstrom’s God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will, Faith and Philosophy.Google Scholar
Oppy, Graham (2013). Rowe’s Evidential Arguments from Evil. In McBrayer, Justin and Howard-Snyder, Daniel, eds., The Blackwell Companion to Skeptical Theism, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 49–66.Google Scholar
Pereboom, Derk (2013). A Defense without Free Will. In McBrayer, Justin and Howard-Snyder, Daniel, eds., The Blackwell Companion to Skeptical Theism, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 411–425.Google Scholar
Peterson, Michael (2022). Monotheism, Suffering, and Evil, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pew Research Center (2021). Views on the Afterlife, November 23, www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/11/23/views-on-the-afterlife.Google Scholar
Plantinga, Alvin (1974). God, Freedom, and Evil, Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans.Google Scholar
Plantinga, Alvin (2000). Warranted Christian Belief, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Plantinga, Alvin (2004). Supralapsarianism, or “O Felix Culpa.” In Van Inwagen, Peter, ed., Christian Faith and the Problem of Evil, Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1–25.Google Scholar
Rea, Michael (2013). The “Too-Much-Skepticism” Objection. In McBrayer, Justin and Howard-Snyder, Daniel, eds., The Blackwell Companion to Skeptical Theism, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 486–506.Google Scholar
Rowe, William (1979). The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism. American Philosophical Quarterly 16, 335–341.Google Scholar
Rowe, William (1996). The Evidential Argument from Evil: A Second Look. In Howard-Snyder, Daniel, ed., The Evidential Argument from Evil, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 262–285.Google Scholar
Senor, Thomas (2013). Skeptical Theism, CORNEA, and Common Sense Epistemology. In McBrayer, Justin and Howard-Snyder, Daniel, eds., The Blackwell Companion to Skeptical Theism, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 426–443.Google Scholar
Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter (2007). Overcoming Christianity. In Antony, Louise, ed., Philosophers without Gods, New York: Oxford University Press, 69–79.Google Scholar
Stump, Eleonore (1994). The Mirror of Evil. In Thomas Morris, V., ed., God and the Philosophers, New York: Oxford University Press, 235–247.Google Scholar
Stump, Eleonore (1999). The Stob Lectures, Grand Rapids, MI: The Stob Lectures Endowment.Google Scholar
Sullivan, Meghan (2013). Peter van Inwagen’s Defense. In McBrayer, Justin and Howard-Snyder, Daniel, eds., The Blackwell Companion to Skeptical Theism, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 396–410.Google Scholar
Swinburne, Richard (1998). Providence and the Problem of Evil, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, Richard (1970). The Meaning of Life. In Taylor, Richard, Good and Evil, New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Tolstoy, Leo (1882/2008). My Confession. In Klemke, E. D. and Kahn, Steven, eds., The Meaning of Life: A Reader, 3rd ed., New York: Oxford University Press, 7–16.Google Scholar
Trakakis, Nick (2013). Antitheodicy. In McBrayer, Justin and Howard-Snyder, Daniel, eds., The Blackwell Companion to Skeptical Theism, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 363–376.Google Scholar
Wolf, Susan (2007). The Meaning of Lives. In Perry, John, Bratman, Michael, and Fischer, John Martin, eds., Introduction to Philosophy: Classical and Contemporary Readings, New York: Oxford University Press, 62–73.Google Scholar
Wolf, Susan (2010). Meaning in Life and Why It Matters, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Wolterstorff, Nicholas (1987). Lament for a Son, Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans.Google Scholar
Wolterstorff, Nicholas (1988). Suffering Love. In Morris, Thomas V., ed., Philosophy and the Christian Faith, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
World Health Organization (2019). Maternal Mortality, September 19, www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/maternal-mortality.Google Scholar
Wykstra, Stephen (1984). The Humean Obstacle to Evidential Arguments from Suffering: On Avoiding the Evils of Appearance. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 16, 73–93.Google Scholar
Wykstra, Stephen (1996). Rowe’s Noseeum Arguments from Evil. In Howard-Snyder, Daniel, ed., The Evidential Argument from Evil, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 126–150.Google Scholar
- 13
- Cited by