Evidential Problem Outline

Evil Is Evidence against Theistic Belief – William L. Rowe

A. The Issue

a. “Grounds for belief in God aside, do the evils in our world make atheistic belief

more reasonable than theistic belief?”

b. “Theism is the view that there exists an all-powerful, all-knowing, perfectly good

being (God).” – Restricted theism (does not include a claim that isn’t entailed by

it)

B. The Argument

a. Rowe’s Propositions

i. There exist horrendous evils that an all-powerful, all-knowing, perfectly

good being would have no justifying reason to permit.

ii. An all-powerful, all-knowing, perfectly good being would not permit an

evil unless He had a justifying reason to permit it.

iii. Therefore, God does not exist.

b. If theists reject this argument, they must reject the first or second premise.

c. Most accept the second.

i. There must be some greater good that the evil leads to.

ii. Can that be true in ALL cases? Surely this is hard to believe.

d. Perhaps there is a solution/scenario where this works, but it seems unlikely and

unreasonable to presume so.

C. Evaluating Two Responses

 a. Theist – “We can’t assume the first premise is true. God’s mind infinitely

transcends ours. Just because we don’t know why, it does not follow that we can

assume there is no reason.”

i. Rowe – No good that we can understand or witness justifies the presence

of suffering.

Christian Theism and the Evidential Argument from Evil – Michael L. Peterson

A. The Skeptical Theist Defense

B.