The Problem Of Evil And The Problem Of God

by Phillips, D. Z.

• ISBN13: 9780800637750
• ISBN10: 0800637755
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-07-01
• Publisher: Fortress Pr
• More Book Details
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Summary

Creative and original, here is D. Z. Phillips's most systematic attempt to address the problem of evil. He argues that the problem is inextricably linked to our conception of God and that the concept of God in recent philosophy of religion is problematic, even harmful. That intellectual inheritance, he claims, attempts to distinguish between logical and existential problems of evil and offers us distorted accounts of God's omnipotence and will. As a result, God is ridiculed out of existence or found unfit before the bar of decency. Yet Phillips elucidates in a second part a neglected tradition in which we reach a different understanding of God's presence amid suffering and which addresses the ultimate question of how God can be said to be with those who are crushed by life's afflictions. This new work is an ideal text for students of philosophy, religion, or theology, but it also speaks clearly to anyone who reflects seriously on the danger of adding to human evil by the way in which we write and think about it.

Author Biography

D. Z. Phillips currently holds the Danforth Chair in Philosophy of Religion at Claremont Graduate University, California, and is Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the University of Wales, Swansea, where he is Director of the Rush Rhees Archives.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	x
Introduction: On Telling the Problem of Evil	xi
1 Why this Book?	xi
2 Do We Need Theories?	xiv
Part I Our Problematic Inheritance
1 Logic and Omnipotence	3	(19)
1 How Do We Determine the Logic of 'Omnipotence'?	5	(8)
2 Why Not Extend the Grammar of 'God'?	13	(9)
2 Logic and God's Will	22	(27)
1 Sovereignty as 'All Power'	22	(4)
2 God, Morality and Free Acts	26	(7)
3 Can God Suffer the Consequences?	33	(11)
4 Means, Ends and Morality	44	(5)
3 God's Morally Insufficient Reasons	49	(46)
1 Looking for God's Reasons	49	(2)
2 Evil and Logical Necessity	51	(5)
3 Evils as Opportunities for Character Development	56	(2)
4 Evils as Opportunities for Moral Responsibility	58	(2)
5 Physical and Mental Evils as Causal Initiatives	60	(3)
6 Admirable Responses to the Sufferings of Others	63	(3)
7 Admirable Responses to Our Own Sufferings	66	(5)
8 Evils and Bad Choices	71	(6)
9 Things are Not as Bad as They Seem	77	(1)
10 God Never Sends Us Unlimited Suffering	78	(3)
11 Compensation or Redemption After Death	81	(14)
4 The Free-Will Defence	95	(18)
1 Free Will and the Logical Problem of Evil	95	(5)
2 Counterfactuals and 'Those Others'	100	(6)
3 Free Will and God's Non-Interventions	106	(2)
4 The Importance of the Free-Will Defence	108	(5)
Interlude: Where Do We Go From Here?
5 God Unmasked	113	(15)
1 Retrospect	113	(3)
2 Questioning God	116	(5)
3 Is God Fit to Plead?	121	(7)
6 Goodbye God	128	(19)
1 Death by Ridicule	128	(2)
2 Limiting Questions	130	(4)
3 Beyond Caprice?	134	(13)
Part II A Neglected Inheritance
7 God, Contracts and Covenants	147	(17)
1 Covenant as Contract	147	(1)
2 God as an Agent Among Agents	148	(3)
3 God as Pure Consciousness	151	(5)
4 A Purifying Atheism	156	(3)
5 An Eternal Covenant?	159	(5)
8 God's Absence and Presence	164	(30)
1 Is 'God' Epistemically Distant?	164	(8)
2 Outside the World	172	(5)
3 Creation, Power and Freedom	177	(9)
4 God's Grammatical Predicates	186	(8)
9 Faith and Expectation	194	(26)
1 Dying to Expectations	194	(7)
2 Expectations and the Unthinkable	201	(8)
3 Witness in Extremis	209	(11)
10 Sacrifice	220	(27)
1 Belief as Sacrifice	220	(5)
2 The Persistence of Instrumentalism	225	(4)
3 A Chosen People	229	(3)
4 Can Believers be Harmed?	232	(8)
5 Purity and its Danger	240	(7)
11 Last Things	247	(29)
1 Last Judgement	247	(8)
2 Who are the Goats?	255	(6)
3 Death and Eternal Judgement	261	(4)
4 The Sacrificed and Eternity	265	(11)
Index of Names	276	(3)
Index of Subjects	279