164 ARGUMENTS: MONOTHEISTIC CONCEPTIONSRb If the rationale of an evil is unknown to us even after our most careful
reflections, then it has no rationale.^57
Rc There are many evils that have no rationale (from Ra, Rb).
Rd If God exists, then all evils have a rationale.
Re God does not exist (from Rc, Rd).
And while Ra is very plausible, Rb relies again on its being Principle P1
rather than Principle P2 that is the proper principle to apply to propositions
like Ra.
Questions for reflection
1 Are God exists and There is evil logically incompatible propositions?
How is the Consistency Strategy related to this question?
2 Does it solve whatever evidential problem the existence of evil may pose
for monotheism if the monotheist says that God is very powerful but
not omnipotent, knows a lot but is not omniscient, or is very good but
not morally perfect?
3 Discuss the notion of a best possible world. What is contained in this
notion? Is it logically possible that there be such a world?
4 Can even an omnipotent God create persons who are free and morally
responsible for their actions but guaranteed always to act rightly?
5 What is it for an evil to have a point? Can a morally perfect God allow
an evil that has no point?
6 Does Rowe’s “Bambi argument” prove its point?
7 Discuss this argument: real evil exists only if persons have intrinsic
worth; that persons have intrinsic worth is more plausible if
monotheism is true than if any alternative is true; hence it is more
plausible that there is real evil if monotheism is true than if any
alternative is true; if it is more plausible that there is real evil if
monotheism is true than if any alternative is true, then there being real
evil is not an objection to monotheism; hence there being real evil is not
an objection to monotheism. Is this argument, or some close cousin,
sound and valid?
Annotated reading
Griffiths, Paul (1983) “Notes toward a critique of Buddhist karmic theory,”
Religious studies 18, 3 pp. 277–91. Argues that Buddhist karmic doctrine is
incompatible with what we learn from contemporary physics.