God and the Problem of Evil

God and the Problem of Evil brings together influential essays on the question of whether the amount of seemingly pointless malice and suffering in our world counts against the rationality of belief in God, a being who is said to be all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly good.

Contributors. Preface. Acknowledgments. PART I. HISTORICALLY IMPORTANT ESSAYS AND CONTEMPORARY RESPONSES. 1. Theodicy (Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz). 2. Must God Create the Best (Robert Merrihew Adams). 3. Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (David Hume). 4. Hume on Evil (Nelson Pike). PART II. THE LOGICAL PROBLEM OF EVIL. 5. Evil and Omnipotence (J. L. Mackie). 6. The Free Will Defense (Alvin Plantinga). PART III. THE EVIDENTIAL PROBLEM OF EVIL. 7. An Exchange on the Problem of Evil (Daniel Howard-Snyder, Michael Bergmann and William L. Rowe). 8. Stalemate and Strategy: Rethinking the Evidential Argument from Evil (J. L. Schellenberg). 9. Pain and Pleasure: An Evidential Problem for Theists (Paul Draper). 10. The Problem of Evil, the Problem of Air, and the Problem of Silence (Peter van Inwagen). PART IV. THEOFICIES. 11. Some Major Strands of Theodicy (Richard Swinburne). 12. Soul-Making Theodicy (John Hick). 13. The Problem of Hell: A Problem of Evil for Christians (Marilyn McCord Adams). Index.