Do We Now Have a Logical Argument from Evil?

Dear Colleagues,

Since the early 1970s, atheists and theists have both tended to reject the logical argument from evil because they thought that Alvin Plantinga had shown against John Mackie that the God of traditional theism was at least logically compatible with some evil in the world. However, in 2019, I published Is a Good God Logically Possible? (Palgrave paperback), in which I argued that the all-good, all-powerful God of traditional theism is logically incompatible with ALL the evil in the world. There followed an author-meets-critics session on the book with afterthoughts all published in the International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, a number of public presentations, and a debate at Princeton University. Most recently, there were sixteen contributors to a Special Issue of Religions on the topic of my book, and I was able to respond to all of them in that same issue.

In my judgment, these various defenses of my logical argument from evil have, so far, been successful. My argument has succeeded because, as a logical argument from evil, it relies on some necessary premises and it has a way of taking into account all the goods with which the God of traditional theism, if he exists, could provide us. Hence, the question that this Special Issue addresses to atheists and theists alike is appropriate. There really is no more important question today in the philosophy of religion.

Prof. Dr. James Sterba
Guest Editor

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