A New Logical Problem of Evil

Abstract

This chapter shows that the logical problem of evil is far from dead. It does so by producing a new problem entirely distinct from the old problem of Epicurus, Hume, and Mackie, which was so influentially addressed by Plantinga. The theistic claims utilized by the new problem are claims about God's unsurpassable greatness, ontological independence from the world, and prior purity. What its two versions share is the idea that if there is no evil before creation, there can be no evil after. They are distinguished by the fact that one takes a modeling approach, arguing that the goods of a created world would necessarily model goods in God, while the other takes a motives approach, observing that if God is motivated to share the good as God knows it, which is good-without-evil, then no evil can arise when God does so.

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