Essays in Philosophy of Religion (Jostarhaye Falsafeh Din)

Divine eternal perspective and the problem of pointless evil

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Saba Fereidouni 1
Seyed Hassan Hosseini 2
Alireza Mansouri 3

1 PhD student in Philosophy of Religion, Institute of Humanities and Cultural Studies

2 Professor of Philosophy of Science, Sharif University of Technology

3 Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy of Science, Institute of Humanities and Cultural Studies

Abstract
In the current study, firstly, we will argue that the main challenge of evil to western theism is not the occurrence of undesirable states of affairs, but the existence of pointless evil in the world. Secondly, considering the distinction between temporal perspective and eternal perspective, we will distinguish between apparently pointless evil and actually pointless evil. The claim is that recognizing the latter is not possible from a temporal perspective. Thirdly, we will study some well-known versions of the argument from evil and demonstrated that occurrence of pointless evil, which is the sufficient reason for nonexistence of God, is presupposed in these arguments.
The main claim of this study is that the problem of evil can be reduced to the disagreement about existence or nonexistence of pointless evil in the world. But this disagreement is undecidable from a temporal perspective.

Keywords

"The Problem of Evil"
"Pointless Evil"
"Absolute Perfection"
"Timelessness"
"Eternal Perspective"
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