ARGUMENTS AGAINST MONOTHEISM 161Conclusion
Of course there are other attempts – some made, some waiting discovery –
to move from (E) There is evil through some set of further premises to not-
(G) God does not exist. The enterprise of constructing such arguments is
endless. The arguments so constructed infer from the existence of evil to
the non-existence of God either claim that (a) (E) and (G) are logically
incompatible or (b) seek some set S of discernible truths which, together
with (E), is incompatible with (G) – or, if you prefer, a set S of discernible
truths that, together with (E), entail the denial of (G). It turns out that (a)
is false, and none of the versions of (b) considered above are successful.
These attempts are typical ones – a fair sampling of such efforts. It is, then,
dubious that the existence of evil is in fact evidence against the existence of
God.^55 If there is a genuine problem of evil only if there is some such
argument, it is dubious that there is any genuine problem of evil.
Epilogue
Another angle on Rowean arguments
We have called any evil that God could have no point in allowing a divinely
unjustifiable evil. A follower of Rowe’s argument need not suppose that
there are actual evils that are divinely unjustifiable. She need only claim
something weaker. Suppose an evil that we have good reason to suppose
real has this feature: we can conceive of no point that this evil might serve
which does not involve our positing the existence of things we have no
reason to think exist. Call such evils inexplicable evils. An evil whose only
conceivable purpose was to make trolls better people would be, in the
relevant sense, inexplicable. Then the idea behind a Rowean argument will
be:
1 An evil that is inexplicable is actually pointless.
2 God would not allow actually pointless evils.
3 There are inexplicable evils.
4 There are actually pointless evils (from 1 and 3).
5 God does not exist (from 2 and 4).
The justification of 1*** is that an inexplicable evil – one for which we
cannot think of any possible point without positing things which we
have no reason to suppose exist – is an evil we may justifiably claim has