Gratuitous Suffering and the Problem of Evil

Description

Cover Title Copyright Dedication CONTENTS 1. Introduction The Need for Trustworthiness and Competence Foreshadowing Suggested Readings 2. The Question: Is There Gratuitous Suffering that Rules Out God? The Problem of Gratuitous Suffering The Gratuitous Premise The Consequence Premise The Logical Problem of Suffering The Problem of the Inferior Universe 3. Possible Theistic Responses to the Question The Logic of Responses The Five Approaches Faith as a Response Ignorance 4. The Confident Knowledge of God What the Approach Says Criticisms of the Approach Evidence for the Existence of God The Design Argument The Cosmological Argument The Social Argument Lessons 5. God Permits Gratuitous Suffering What the Approach Says Criticisms of the Approach 6. God’s Reasons for Suffering Revealed What the Approach Says Knowledge Free Will Soul-Making Afterlife Original Sin Lawfulness Motivation Divine Suffering Lessons 7. Our Inability to See God’s Plan What the Approach Says Criticisms of the Approach Modifying the Approach Lessons 8. God Is Not What You Think He Is What the Approach Says Conception of God as Unconscious Conception of God as Morally Bad Conception of God as Morally Unassessable Conception of God as Epistemically Deficient Conception of God as Weak Conception of God as Non-Individual Conception of God Involving Analogy 9. Warranted and Unwarranted Conclusions Notes Index