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| Reviews |
| - 'Peter Van Inwagen is one of the most interesting and original philosophers of religion writing today.' - Stephen Priest, The Philosophical Quarterly
- 'Van Inwagen must be the clearest writer and the best stylist in analytic philosophy, at least since the passing of W. V. Quine.' - Daniel J. Hill, Ars Disputandi Journal
- '[a] fine book' - Trenton Merricks, The Times Literary Supplement
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| Description | | - Van Inwagen is one of the world's most respected philosophers of religion
- Presents his own definitive position on one of the most vexed debates in philosophy and theology
- Powerfully argued, and highly accessible
- Promises to be the most important publication of the year in this field
| It is generally supposed that the fact that the world contains a vast amount of suffering, much of it truly horrible suffering, confronts those who believe in an all-powerful and benevolent Creator with a serious problem: to explain why such a Creator would permit this. Many reflective people are convinced that the problem, the problem of evil, is insoluble. The reasons that underlie this
conviction can be formulated as a powerful argument for the non-existence of God, the so-called argument from evil: If there were a God, he would not permit the existence of vast amounts of truly horrible suffering; since such suffering exists, there is no God. Peter van Inwagen examines this argument, which he regards as a paradigmatically philosophical argument. His conclusion is that (like
most philosophical arguments) it is a failure. He seeks to demonstrate, not that God exists, but the fact that the world contains a vast amount of suffering does not show that God does not exist.
Along the way he discusses a wide range of topics of interest to philosophers and theologians, such as: the concept of God; what might be meant by describing a philosophical argument as a failure;
the distinction between versions of the argument from evil that depend on the vast amount of evil in the world and versions of the argument that depend on a particular evil, such as the Lisbon earthquake or the death of a fawn in a forest fire; the free-will defense; animal suffering; and the problem of the hiddenness of God. |
Readership: Scholars and students of philosophy of religion and of theology.
| Contents |
Introduction
1.
The Problem of Evil and the Argument from Evil
2.
The Idea of God
3.
Philosophical Failure
4.
The Global Argument from Evil
5.
The Global Argument Continued
6.
The Local Argument from Evil
7.
The Sufferings of Beasts
8.
The Hiddenness of God
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| Authors, editors,
and contributors |
Peter van Inwagen, University of Notre Dame, Indiana
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