On William Rowe’s Evidential Arguments from Evil

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-140
Author(s):  
Leo K. C. Cheung ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Evidential Argument ◽  
William Rowe

William Rowe has put forward four popular evidential arguments from evil. I argue that there was already a prominent distinction between logical and evidential arguments from evil—the IN-IM-distinction, and that its adoption leads to two important results. First, all three non-Bayesian evidential arguments are actually not evidential but logical, while the Bayesian evidential argument genuinely evidential. Second, and most importantly, Rowe’s Bayesian evidential argument is redundant, in the sense that it has the same difficulties his three non-Bayesian arguments have. His move from the three earlier non-Bayesian arguments to the Bayesian argument is futile.

Argument from Chance

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 199-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dariusz Łukasiewicz
Keyword(s):  
Evidential Argument ◽  
Theistic Argument ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Argument From Evil ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Small Probabilities

In the article, first I present the atheistic argument from pointless evil and the argument from chance. The essence of the argument from chance consists in the incompatibility of the existence of purposeless events and the existence of a God who planned the universe to the last detail. Second, I would like to show that there is a relation between the evidential argument from evil and the argument from chance. An analysis of the theistic argument from small probabilities is a helpful starting point for the presentation of how the two arguments are related.

Waiting for Godo… and Godan: Completing Rowe’s Critique of the Ontological Argument

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-86
Author(s):  
Roslyn Weiss
Keyword(s):  
Ontological Argument ◽  
William Rowe

In his critique of Anselm’s ontological argument for God’s existence, William Rowe introduces the concepts of “magico” and “magican”—defining “magicos” as magicians that do not exist, and “magicans” as magicians that do exist—to help diagnose what may have gone wrong in Anselm’s argument. As I made my way through Rowe’s intriguing article, I found myself waiting for “Godo”—and for “Godan.” I expected Rowe to invoke these counterparts to his “magico” and “magican”—a non-existing God to correspond to his non-existing magician, and an existing God to correspond to his existing magician—to complete his argument. Alas, like Vladimir and Estragon, I waited in vain: neither Godo—nor Godan—ever appeared. In what follows I shall argue that their inclusion in Rowe’s argument would have settled the matter against Anselm far more decisively than do Rowe’s forays into the murky waters of question-begging.

scholarly journals Theistic Replies to the A Priori Argument for Atheism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klaas J. Kraay
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
William Rowe

In the central chapter of Can God Be Free?, William Rowe offers what amounts to an a priori argument for atheism. In what follows, I first clarify this argument, and I then defend it against recent criticisms due to William Hasker. Next, however, I outline four ways in which theists might plausibly reply to Rowe's argument.

scholarly journals Reseñas

2017 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 149
Author(s):  
Revista de Filología y Lingüística
Keyword(s):  
Gabriel Garcia Marquez ◽  
San Luis ◽  
San Luis Potosi ◽  
Literatura Latinoamericana ◽  
William Rowe ◽  
Sor Juana ◽  
Civilization And Barbarism ◽  
San Luis Potosí

Brendan Lanctot. Beyond Civilization and Barbarism: Culture and Politics in Post-Revolutionary Argentina (1829-1852). Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell UP, 2014, 179 páginas (Reseña por Verónica Ríos).Mario A. Ortiz. La musa y la melopea: la música en el mundo conventual, la vida y el pensamiento de Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. México D.F., México: Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana, 2015, 192 páginas (Reseña por Dorde Cuvardic García).María Lourdes Cortés. Los amores contrariados. Gabriel García Márquez y el cine. México: Ariel, 2015, 354 páginas (Reseña por Carolina Sanabria).Palmar Álvarez-Blanco y Toni-Dorca. Contornos de la narrativa española actual (2000-2010): Un diálogo entre creadores y críticos. Madrid/Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/ Vervuert, 2011, 318 páginas (Reseña por Jorge Chen Sham).Magdalena Chocano, William Rowe y Helena Usandizaga (Eds.). Huellas del mito prehispánico en la literatura latinoamericana. Madrid/Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/ Vervuert, 2011, 439 páginas (Reseña por Jorge Chen Sham).Néstor Ponce. Diagonales del género: Estudios sobre el policial argentino. San Luis Potosí: El Colegio de San Luis, 2013, 225 páginas (Reseña por Jorge Chen Sham).Hélène Tropé (Ed.). S’opposer dans l’Espagne des XVIè et XVIIè siècles (Perspectives historiques et représentations culturelles). París: Presses Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2014, 266 páginas (Reseña por Jorge Chen Sham).

Gratuitous evil and divine providence

2010 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 281-302 ◽  
Author(s):  
ALAN R. RHODA
Keyword(s):  
Divine Providence ◽  
Gratuitous Evil ◽  
Evidential Argument ◽  
Argument From Evil ◽  
Definition Of

AbstractDiscussions of the evidential argument from evil generally pay little attention to how different models of divine providence constrain the theist's options for response. After describing four models of providence and general theistic strategies for engaging the evidential argument, I articulate and defend a definition of ‘gratuitous evil’ that renders the theological premise of the argument uncontroversial for theists. This forces theists to focus their fire on the evidential premise, enabling us to compare models of providence with respect to how plausibly they can resist it. I then assess the four models, concluding that theists are better off vis-à-vis the evidential argument if they reject meticulous providence.

scholarly journals Perspectival Skeptical Theism

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 244-264
Author(s):  
Jonathan Curtis Rutledge ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Rationality ◽  
Skeptical Theism ◽  
Reasonable Belief ◽  
Insufficient Attention ◽  
Evidential Argument

Skeptical theists have paid insufficient attention to non-evidential components of epistemic rationality. I address this lacuna by constructing an alternative perspectivalist understanding of epistemic rationality and defeat that, when applied to skeptical theism, yields a more demanding standard for reasonably affirming the crucial premise of the evidential argument from suffering. The resulting perspectival skeptical theism entails that someone can be justified in believing that gratuitous suffering exists only if they are not subject to closure-of-inquiry defeat; that is, a type of defeat that prevents reasonable belief that p even if p is very probable on an agent’s evidence.

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