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- Title
Constructing a World Without Evil: Some Conceptual Obstacles in Discourse on the Problem of Evil.
- Authors
Duke, Charles
- Abstract
This paper addresses the problem of evil, specifically the possibility of constructing an evil-free world. Someone might assert that God could and should actualize a state of affairs such that the evils characteristic of lived experience should be prevented or rendered impossible. "If God is omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient, then God should be able to create a world without evil," one might say. If such a God exists, it is not immediately obvious how such a God could simply actualize some state of affairs, P, that excluded evil. To suggest that God could do this presupposes that P is actually conceivable and within God's power to bring about. If one concedes that an omnipotent God could do only that which is not logically impossible for God to do, then a person, S, who proposes that God should bring about P seems to shoulder a burden of proof for demonstrating how the actualization of P is not impossible. If S suggests that God can and should bring about P, then it is not unreasonable to expect S to spell out the particulars of an evil-free state of affairs. Suppose S succeeds in showing that it would not be impossible for God to actualize P. In that case, S is readily justified in inquiring why God, provided he actually exists, has not done so. However, perhaps it is the case that this concept of an evil-free state of affairs, one compossible with the stipulations of some semblance of free agency and regularity in the laws of nature, is somehow incoherent. In this paper, I aim to identify two potential problems related to proposing an evil-free world and suggest that one should, at best, remain agnostic about the possibility of whether an omnipotent God could actualize any such state of affairs.
- Subjects
OMNIPOTENCE of God; POSSIBILITY; PHILOSOPHY of religion; GOOD &; evil; ETHICS
- Publication
Humanities Bulletin, 2022, Vol 5, Issue 1, p63
- ISSN
2517-4266
- Publication type
Article