NOTES 37714 Or, minimally, did not act wrongly.
15 It is controversial whether there are any strictly unimaginably pointless evils. For any
evil you like, one could claim that it is a necessary condition of some specific great good
- say, the salvation of ten thousand persons – though one admitted that one did not
know in what manner it served as such a condition. Even if there was no reason to think
this was true of that evil, it does not follow that (a) it is not imaginable that it be true, and
hence (b) that there may be some great good such that, had we more information, we
could see it was necessary to that good, or (c) that even if we are not bright enough to see
the connection between a great good and a particular evil even were the connection
explained to us, there might nonetheless be one. The point is that strictly being an
unimaginably pointless evil is tantamount to being an evil that necessarily has no point
or being an evil that would be pointless in any possible world in which it occurred. In
order not to make things more complex, I will not directly enter into these matters here.
I take it that, to the degree that we understand the notion of being an unimaginably
pointless evil, there is no good reason to think that it fits any actual evil.
16 One could add or S’s being given the chance to come to have Q, provided she acts rightly
to the definition.
17 Again, one could say there probably are actually pointless evils or it is reasonable to
think that there are actually pointless evils or it is reasonable to think, and unreasonable
not to think, that there are actually pointless evils in stating this premise. The discussion
should make clear what might properly be said about these variations.
18 See previous note.
19 Some have argued that if there are evils that are either apparently pointless or neither
apparently pointful nor apparently pointless, the existence of those evils, or of our
evidential situation regarding them, is evidence against God’s existence. One way of
putting their point is this: the existence of some evil E which is, relative to our knowledge,
either apparently pointless or neither apparently pointful nor apparently pointless
constitutes an evil E distinct from E, and the existence of such evils as E is evidence
against the existence of God. Call an evil that is either apparently pointless or else
neither apparently pointful nor apparently pointless a murky evil. The same issues arise
about murky evils as arise about non-murky evils in a way that seems not to bring about
any distinctively new considerations.
20 Should suspend judgment, at any rate, if our total evidence is that the evils in question
are of the sort indicated. The same consideration applies regarding 2a** below.
21 See Annotated reading at end of chapter.
22 Or embodied ones of whom we have no trace; the possible scenario sketched here speaks
of unembodied agents simply to link up with accounts of angels and demons.
23 One could go on for some time considering possible points and then eliminating any
plausible candidates by some further complication of the example. I shall simply assume
that any plausible points such evils might serve can be dealt with by suitable qualifications.
If this is false, there is less to the critic’s claim than if it is true.
24 A Rowean will grant that if we have reason to think that God exists, this claim is false.
She also is likely to deny that there is any such reason.
25 Or something much like it; nothing hangs here on its being exactly 1–3 and 4–6 that
capture a Rowean’s position, so long as something similar does so.
26 A Rowean will grant that if we have reason to think that God exists, this claim is false.
She also is likely to deny that there is any such reason.
27 See previous note.
28 Unless, of course, its having a point, or not, is itself a matter of how it relates to our
cognitive states.