Why God Cannot Do What Sterba Wants

Abstract

Sterba argues that if God existed, God would allow lower-level evils and suffering but should and would prevent all significant and horrendous evils. Since such serious evils do exist, God does not exist. In reply, I argue that in creating a Sterba world, God would be violating one of God’s central purposes for the world, viz., that human beings be rationally free to deny God’s existence and presence. Given the total absence of horrendous evils in Sterba worlds, despite human intentions to inflict them, it would be obvious that God exists and is at work. There might still be atheists, but atheism would be irrational.

Keywords

• evil
• horrendous evil
• god
• epistemic distance
• freedom