Providence and the Problem of Evil

by Swinburne, Richard

• ISBN13: 9780198237990
• ISBN10: 0198237995
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1998-11-05
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
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Summary

Why does a loving God allow humans to suffer so much? This is one of the most difficult problems of religious belief. Richard Swinburne gives a careful, clear examination of this problem, and offers an answer: it is because God wants more for us than just pleasure or freedom from suffering.Swinburne argues that God wants humans to learn and to love, to make the choices which make great differences for good and evil to each other, to form our characters in the way we choose; above all to be of great use to each other. If we are to have all this, there will inevitably be suffering forthe short period of our lives on Earth. But because of the good that God gives to humans in this life, and because he makes it possible for us, through our choice, to share the life of Heaven, he does not wrong us if he allows suffering. Providence and the Problem of Evil is the final volume of Richard Swinburne's acclaimed tetralogy on Christian doctrine. It may be read on its own as a self-standing treatment of this eternal philosophical issue. Readers who are interested in a unified study of the philosophical foundations ofChristian belief will find it now in the tetralogy and in his trilogy on the philosophy of theism.

Author Biography

Richard Swinburne has been Nolloth Professor of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion at the University of Oxford since 1985; he is a Fellow of the British Academy.

Table of Contents

Introduction	ix
PART I. THE PROBLEM OF EVIL	3	(46)
1. The Need for Theodicy	3	(27)
2. Theodicy in Christian Tradition	30	(19)
PART II. THE GOOD GOALS OF CREATION	49	(76)
3. Beauty	49	(5)
4. Thought and Feeling	54	(28)
5. Action	82	(29)
6. Worship	111	(14)
PART III. THE NECESSARY EVILS	125	(98)
7. The Fact of Moral Evil; and Free Will	125	(13)
8. The Range of Moral Evil; and Responsibility	138	(22)
9. Natural Evil and the Scope for Response	160	(16)
10. Natural Evil and the Possibility of Knowledge	176	(17)
11. The Evils of Sin and Agnosticism	193	(24)
Conclusion to Part III	217	(6)
PART IV. COMPLETING THE THEODICY	223	(30)
12. God's Right	223	(14)
13. Weighing Good against Bad	237	(16)
Additional Notes	253	(6)
Index	259