Colleagues,
Once again, thank you for your engagement with the logical problem of evil. I left class last night feeling impressed and humbled by your questions, vulnerability, honesty, and wit.
We are leaving Mackie and Plantinga behind! Since we have (somewhat!) tied up loose ends on the logical problem of evil, we will turn to another expression called the evidential problem of evil. Whereas the logical problem of evil submits that there is a logical impossibility given the existence of both God and evil, the evidential problem of evil asks: Given certain types of evil in the world, what is the probability of the existence of a God with certain properties? What might those properties be? We will begin our adventure with a doozy of a consideration: The existence of animal suffering and evolution. Draper and Rowe trace the parasitic wasp that so troubled Charles Darwin and outline the problem of animal suffering via evolution. Coakley provides a response.
Required:
Draper, Paul. “Darwin’s Argument from Evil” from Scientific Approaches to the Philosophy of Religion, edited by Yujin Nagasawa (2012), 49-69.
Coakely, Sarah. “Evolution, Cooperation and Divine Providence” from Evolution, Games and God: The Principle of Cooperation (2013), 376-383.
Optional:
Rowe, William. “The Evidential Argument from Evil” from “Evil and Theodicy,” from Philosophical Topics 16, no 2 (1988).
