Customer Reviews

The Evidential Argument from Evil (Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Religion)

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Anyone interested in the debate over the evidential argument from evil simply must have this book. It includes two influential but distinct formulations of the argument--those by William Rowe and Paul Draper--followed by a number of essays written in response to one another. The list of authors who contributed to the anthology is impressive. Besides Rowe and Draper, the book also contains essays by Richard Swinburne, Alvin Plantinga, Richard Gale, Bruce Russell, Peter van Inwagen, and Stephen Wykstra.

Like Cole Mitchell, I was also somewhat disappointed by the demographics of the book (10 of the book's 16 articles were theistic). Despite this flaw, I was still so pleased with the book that I rated it with 5 stars. Any serious student of the problem of evil will want their own copy of this book.

This book is a great example of what a good philosophical collection can be -- both an introduction to a problem and a valuable addition to the work on the problem. This book contains many essays (by Howard-Snyder, William Rowe, Peter van Inwagen, Alvin Plantinga, Paul Draper, et al.), but I have found each of them invaluable. The only problem I have with it is that I wish there were more nontheists in the mix (with 10 of 16 articles and 3 of 5 people who were allowed two articles being theistic); but that's just my partisanship showing. No matter what antecedent leanings you have, this book will probably shake you up in one way or another. This is a gem.

Daniel Howaed-Snider has put together a truly excellent collection of articles on one of the most difficult problems confronted by the philosopher of religion. I approached the work as a philosophy graduate student and an atheist convinced that the problem of evil constituted a nearly unbridgeable barrier to rational belief in God. Howard-Snyder's book changed my mind. I recommend it to any and all philosophically inclined theists, atheists and anyone else interested in the philosophy of religion. Both sides of the issue are well represented by some of the best contemporaty philosophers of religion

Howard-Snyder's book is an excellent resource for anyone interested in recent trends in the philosophy of religion. Not only does it reproduce in one convenient volume several of the major papers on the topic in the last 15 years, it includes several new works by some of the foremost participants in the ongoing debate (Stephen Wykstra, Alvin Plantinga, Bruce Russell, and William Rowe, to name but a few).

Another reason for having this book on hand is its excellent bibliography, both of the works cited in the essays which comprise the volume itself, but also of the wider literature on the subject. As William Alston says in the book's final essay, these are not likely to be the last words on the evidential argument from evil: but they do represent, at least in my opinion, the best collection of words on that topic produced to date.

The existence of evil - undeserved human and animal pain and suffering - has been a barrier to religious belief for many people. One of those people was this reviewer's mother, raised Catholic but turned atheist after witnessing terrible suffering in her native Scotland during World War II. As she once told me, "when you've seen mothers holding their children, both riddled with machine gun bullets from German planes, it's impossible to believe there's a good God in heaven". Bertrand Russell once made the comment that "no one can believe in a good God if they've sat at the bedside of a dying child."

C.S. Lewis called this issue "The Problem of Pain" in his book of that title. The current preferred term is "The Evidential Argument From Evil" because, as explained in the Introduction, it's not a "Problem" except for people who believe in God.

Readers of this book will discover why belief in an all-good, all-powerful God, in the face of human suffering and evil, is not necessarily "cognitively dissonant". It provides a balanced, fair treatment of the issue by both believers and atheists.

The book is quite technical at times. Several of the essays feature complex equations purporting to illustrate various logical propositions. There is also a good deal of philosophical jargon used. Nonetheless, while the book is not as readable as anything by C.S. Lewis (or Ayn Rand for that matter), it provides the best treatment I've seen in print of the arguments for both sides in this perennial issue.

"The Evidential Argument from Evil" is a collection of scholarly articles written by the top philosophers currently writing in the field. It includes both defenders and critics of the evidential argument from evil. Many of the contributions are excellent and greatly enhance the discussion.

For the most part, the theistic critics of the Problem of Evil tend not to focus directly on the issue of theodicy- providing reasons why God may permit evil in the world. Richard Swinburne is the only contributor who attempts to offer a full-fledged theodicy, though Eleanore Stump offers a discussion on the book of Job that approaches a theodicy as well. The main emphasis is on defenses- merely logically possible accounts- and an appeal to our cognitive limitations. Basically, most of the theistic writers try to demonstrate that we are simply not in a cognitive position to judge with any certainty whether or not God has a sufficient reason for the evils that exist in the world. Since we have no idea whether or not God has a reason, it is a bit hasty to conclude from the existence of unexplained evil in the world that God probably does not exist.

This is one aspect of the Problem of Evil that I do not tend to emphasize in my own analysis of this issue. I tend to think that a bare appeal to our cognitive limitations is inadequate. While it is legitimate to point out that we should not expect to understand God's reasons for any particular evil, it is not legitimate to avoid offering any sorts of plausible reasons why evil and suffering in general exists in the world.

Nevertheless, the theistic critics make a good case that we should not truly be surprised if we are unable to think of the reasons why God allows so much evil and suffering in the world. Thus, when the defender of the Problem of Evil jumps from the premise that we don't know why so much evil exists, to the premise that God does not have a sufficient reason for permitting the evil that exists, they improperly assume that we are in the type of cognitive situation where we should expect to find reasons even if they existed.

The atheist defenders of the problem offer several different formulations of the argument throughout the volume. As Bruce Russell notes, there are several different formulations of the evidential argument from evil, so theistic critics must be careful not to jump the gun and assume that a critique of one type constitutes a critique of all types. Of particular note is the type of argument developed by Paul Draper. Draper does not challenge the theist to explain apparently gratuitous evil, he offers a hypothesis competing with theism that he believes explains the evidence concerning the distribution of pain and pleasure in the world better than theism. This is a powerful argument that must be addressed, and it cannot simply be lumped together with all other types of arguments from evil.

Ultimately, I would have liked more authors to attempt the development of substantial theodicies like the soul-making theory or the free will defense. These seem to be critical aspects of the problem of evil that were not really addressed. Nevertheless, this book contains a number of excellent essays that advance the discussion of the problem of evil. Many of the essays are quite technical and challenging, but for the reader who is prepared for such an advanced discussion, this book will prove useful. However, for a comprehensive overview of the problem of evil, the reader may have to look elsewhere.

This book is a collection of articles from theologians and philosophers alike on "The Evidential Argument From Evil". What makes this book a fantastic read is the approach of the book: every article takes the arguments of the preceding article into consideration. Thus the articles build up an interesting dialog to the problem given. If the topic appeals to you, grab this book to obtain fascinating insights into different views on this problem and their respective flaws.

The existence of evil - undeserved human and animal pain and suffering - has been a barrier to religious belief for many people. One of those people was this reviewer's mother, raised Catholic but turned atheist after witnessing terrible suffering in her native Scotland during World War II. As she once told me, "when you've seen mothers holding their children, both riddled with machine gun bullets from German planes, it's impossible to believe there's a good God in heaven". Bertrand Russell once made the comment that "no one can believe in a good God if they've sat at the bedside of a dying child."

C.S. Lewis called this issue "The Problem of Pain" in his book of that title. The current preferred term is "The Evidential Argument From Evil" because, as explained in the Introduction, it's not a "Problem" except for people who believe in God.

Readers of this book will discover why belief in an all-good, all-powerful God, in the face of human suffering and evil, is not necessarily "cognitively dissonant". It provides a balanced, fair treatment of the issue by both believers and atheists.

The book is quite technical at times. Several of the essays feature complex equations purporting to illustrate various logical propositions. There is also a good deal of philosophical jargon used. Nonetheless, while the book is not as readable as anything by C.S. Lewis (or Ayn Rand for that matter), it provides the best treatment I've seen in print of the arguments for both sides in this perennial issue.

Published in 1996 by Indiana University Press and edited by Daniel Howard-Snyder, `The Evidential Argument from Evil' in a small anthology of contemporary essays discussing the evidential argument from evil from both theistic and atheistic perspectives.

The problem of evil is generally considered to be the most forceful argument against the existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing and all-loving God. It asks the simple yet profound question; if there is a God why is there evil. The argument from evil comes in three broad forms; 1) the logical argument which asserts that God and evil are incompatible - if one exists the other can not, 2) the evidential argument which concedes that while evil and God are not logically inconsistent the amount and type of evil in the world makes God unlikely, and 3), the existential argument which is concerned with the impact that evil has on one's ability and willingness to believe in a God of love. Within the philosophy of religion the logical argument is generally considered to be a failed argument and as a result has disappeared from serious discussion (Mackie being one of its last proponents). Following the demise of the logical argument the majority of philosophical discussion regarding the problem of evil has shifted to the evidential argument.

This small anthology includes many of the most influential papers written on this subject in the latter part of the twentieth century. The contributors (Plantinga, Rowe, Van Inwagen, Alston, Draper, Stump etc.) represent a virtual who's who of leading philosophers working on this issue. And, while some of these essays have been previously published and are available thru other means, this text provides a handy and accessible compilation of these important papers. With regard to potential drawbacks I offer a couple of thoughts, neither of which are especially significant. First, while the papers are by-in-large of an outstanding scholarly quality the essay by Richard Gale is out of place in this collection (to be fair to Gale I think he may have been trying to write a fun polemical piece - but just missed the mark). Additionally, the essays by Swinburne and Russell while solid could probably be dropped in a future edition, perhaps in favour of something on animal pain.

Overall this is an outstanding collection of essays on the evidential argument from evil. I highly recommend it for all readers interested in this subject.