Evidence, evil and religious belief

✍ Scribed by Harold F. Moore

• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Year: 1978
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 230 KB
• Volume: 9
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0020-7047
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00136192

✦ Synopsis

EVIDENCE, EVIL AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF

Some philosophers have argued that even if the existence of an omnipotent, loving God can be logically reconciled with the existence of evil, the existence of God is rendered improbable by the reality of evil. Alvin Plantinga has argued that this conclusion is unwarranted. In this paper I argue a) Plantinga's account of confirmation is internally inconsistent and b) in any event involves an impoverished and unacceptable account of confirmation. In closing, I attempt to show that the concept of 'evidence' is not applicable to questions like the existence of God. This result, in turn, raises a number of difficult and unsolved problems concerning the epistemic status of religious belief.

II

Cornman and Lehrer argue that because of the uncontestable reality of evil we are justified in concluding that it is improbable that God exists; evil counts as evidence against the existence of God and the rationality of religious commitment. 1

Plantinga claims this conclusion is unwarranted and to show this, he uses the following sketch of confirmation. 2