Revisiting the Logical Problem of Evil and Swinburne’s Greater Goods Theodicy

Abstract

The problem of evil is challenging the belief in the omniscient, omnipotent, and wholly good God. In its logical sense and deductive form, it claims that there are some pointless evils and myriads of life disorderliness with the existence of which God’s existence and his positive attributions are inconsistent. Needless to say, the reliability of this argument is based on the trueness or at least probable trueness of the concrete statement. Nevertheless, some philosophers like Swinburne have tried to deny the statement by the answers such as Greater goods theodicy. This article tries to look closely at atheists' logical argument and their alleged concrete statements, and then examine the Swinburne’s defense and its difficulties.

Keywords

• logical problem of evil
• adjunctive proposition
• the principle of credulity
• greater goods