Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-nwzlb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-18T21:13:14.412Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

THE PROBLEM OF EVIL AND THE POVERTY OF THE FREE WILL THEODICY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2009

Get access

Extract

The Problem of Evil, as it is typically called, is the strongest argument against the existence of a Deity who is at once all-powerful, all-knowing, kind and loving, and whose reach extends everywhere. Simply stated, the existence of such a being is incompatible with the existence of evil and suffering in the world. We know that evil and suffering exist; thus a Deity such as that described above cannot exist.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1 Dostoevsky, Fyodor, The Karamazov Brothers, translated by Avsey, Ignat, (New York, Oxford, 1998), pp. 303-308Google Scholar.

2 Mackie, John Leslie, The Miracle of Theism: Arguments for and Against the Existence of God, (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1982), pp. 154-166Google Scholar.

3 Richard Preston, The New Yorker, Vol. 83 Issue 23, pp. 30-36.