The Problem of Evil : The Gifford Lectures Delivered in the University of St. Andrews in 2003

Peter Van Inwagen

ISBN 10: 0199245606 / ISBN 13: 9780199245604

Edité par OUP Oxford, 2006

A propos de cet article

nach der Bestellung gedruckt Neuware - Printed after ordering - The vast amount of suffering in the world is often held as a particularly powerful reason to deny that God exists. Now, one of the world's most distinguished philosophers of religion presents his own position on the problem of evil. Highly accessible and sensitively argued, Peter van Inwagen's book argues that such reasoning does not hold: his conclusion is not that God exists, but that suffering cannot be shown to prove that He does not.

N° de réf. du vendeur 9780199245604

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: The Problem of Evil : The Gifford Lectures Delivered in the University of St. Andrews in 2003
• Éditeur: OUP Oxford
• Date de parution: 2006
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN à 10 chiffres: 0199245606
• ISBN à 13 chiffres: 9780199245604
• Reliure: Buch
• État de l'article: Neu
• Dimensions: 222 L x 145 H x 14 P (en millimètres) 222 millimètres de largeur par 145 millimètres de hauteur par 14 millimètres de profondeur
• Poids: 387 grammes

A propos de ce titre

Synopsis

It is generally supposed that the fact that the world contains a vast amount of suffering, much of it truly horrible suffering, confronts those who believe in an all-powerful and benevolent Creator with a serious problem: to explain why such a Creator would permit this. Many reflective people are convinced that the problem, the problem of evil, is insoluble. The reasons that underlie this conviction can be formulated as a powerful argument for the non-existence of God, the so-called argument from evil: If there were a God, he would not permit the existence of vast amounts of truly horrible suffering; since such suffering exists, there is no God. Peter van Inwagen examines this argument, which he regards as a paradigmatically philosophical argument. His conclusion is that (like most philosophical arguments) it is a failure. He seeks to demonstrate, not that God exists, but the fact that the world contains a vast amount of suffering does not show that God does not exist.

Along the way he discusses a wide range of topics of interest to philosophers and theologians, such as: the concept of God; what might be meant by describing a philosophical argument as a failure; the distinction between versions of the argument from evil that depend on the vast amount of evil in the world and versions of the argument that depend on a particular evil, such as the Lisbon earthquake or the death of a fawn in a forest fire; the free-will defense; animal suffering; and the problem of the hiddenness of God.

À propos de l?auteur

Peter van Inwagen is John Cardinal O'Hara Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame.