The reasonableness of faith as a response to evil.

Abstract

To judge the degree to which natural evil makes God's being good improbable, we would need to know three things. We would need to know how the balance of evil in our world compares with that in other possible worlds. We would need to know what worlds God might have created. We would also need to know what sort of world a good God would be obligated to create. I argue that there are difficulties with each of these requirements, and therefore reasons to doubt the conclusive nature of the problem of evil.

In the final chapter, I argue that the goods of this world are as relevant as the evil in judging the moral character of a God whose existence is already assumed.

The question with which this dissertation deals is whether faith in God's goodness is reasonable. In order to defend a positive answer to that question, I first discuss William James and his "religious hypothesis." Given that the religious hypothesis is not overwhelmingly improbable, it is reasonable for at least some people to have faith in the religious hypothesis.

I next look at arguments for the existence of God. I conclude that belief in the existence of God (with 'God' defined without reference to his goodness) is reasonable. One who accepts the existence of God will state the issues involved in the religious hypothesis in terms of God's being good. For one convinced that God exists, the same issues and the same motivations discussed with regard to the religious hypothesis of James will surround the question of God's goodness. The reasonableness of faith's answer to this question depends on the same condition made of the religious hypothesis as an object of faith: it must not be overwhelmingly improbable.

I therefore turn to the question of whether the amount of evil in the world made God's existence overwhelmingly improbable. Evils may be divided into two classes: moral evil and natural evil. I argue that God's permission of moral evil can be given an adequate explanation. Therefore, the more significant problem of evil is the problem of natural evil.