Providence and the Problem of Evil

by Richard Swinburne

This book offers an answer to one of the most difficult problems of religious belief: why does a loving God allow humans to suffer so much? Swinburne argues that God wants us to learn and to love, to make our choices about good and evil for ourselves and others on our own, to form our characters in the way we choose, and, above all, to be of great use to each other. If we are to have all these choices and commitments, then there will inevitably be suffering for the short period of our time on Earth. This controversial work concludes Swinburne's acclaimed four-volume philosophical examination of Christian doctrine.

Genres: Philosophy, Religion, Theology, Christianity, Nonfiction

278 pages, Paperback

First published August 27, 1998

About the author

Richard G. Swinburne is an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford. Over the last 50 years Swinburne has been a very influential proponent of natural theology, that is, philosophical arguments for the existence of God. His philosophical contributions are primarily in philosophy of religion and philosophy of science. He aroused much discussion with his early work in the philosophy of religion, a trilogy of books consisting of The Coherence of Theism, The Existence of God, and Faith and Reason.

Reviews

[Amora · Rating 4 out of 5]

Swinburne’s theodicy is the following: there are several goods in the world (such as very serious free will, responsibility, justified belief, etc) that we would expect a good God to provide that cannot logically exist without the existence of evil. He goes over how these things are great goods in the first section and, in the second section, explains why they cannot logically exist without the existence of evil. After that, he makes a convincing case that God has a right to allow evil to exist to create these great goods. Loved this book, but Swinburne’s theodicy isn’t my favorite. I think there’s more accessible theodicies out there.

Edit: I changed my mind about this theodicy not being my favorite. After thinking about it carefully, I can say this book presents the best theodicy out there that I’ve seen!

[Mantvydas Juozapavicius · Rating 3 out of 5]

Neįtikino.

[Kyle Deming · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://www.skepticalchristian.com/br_...

[Mark Neeley · Rating 4 out of 5]

The tetralogy finishes with a fantastic ending.