What was once a very secularized field has been "invaded" by theists. Before you dismiss, please consider making a donation. An Atheological Argument from Evil Natural Laws* (1991) Quentin Smith. Regarding questions about religion, God, naturalism and atheism, Quentin of the Smith's work argues that big bang cosmology and quantum cosmology are inconsistent with the existence of God, and are the main topics discussed in the literature on Quentin Smith's work on atheism, naturalism, and the existence of God.Help students and faculty explore life's hardest questions.Contact us if you have questions, or would like to get involved!

Quentin Smith earned a doctorate in philosophy from Boston College and has worked both as an independent philosopher and as a professor at Antioch College. * I should like to thank Keith Chrzan, P.G. One such proper part is an event-type of the form xNow all events of the type schematized by (S) consist of two events of the above-illustrated sorts, such that we have the true premiseit follows that each instance of E is as a whole intrinsically evil if the negative value of the prey's being savagely killed outweighs the positive value of the predator's being nourished. In Hick's words, "... in order for man to be endowed with the freedom in relation to God that is essential if he is to come to his Creator in uncompelled faith and love, he must be initially set at an epistemic 'distance' from that Creator. in terms of a set of all properties of a given genus and function exemplified by the relevant sort of animal or animal-like creature, but a precision of this sort is not necessary for o ur purposes.Now, if theses (8)-(14) are true, it follows that the law of predation E is ultimately evil. I should also like to thank two anonymous referees for Not long ago I was sleeping in a cabin in the woods and was awoken in the middle of the night by the sounds of a struggle between two animals. But I believe the considerations I have presented put the ball in the theist's court and at the very least make it Thus, it seems to me that I am entitled to believe that the horror I experienced on that dark night in the woods was a veridical insight.

He argues that it is possible that all natural evil is due to the free activity of non-human creatures; that there is a balance of good over evil with respect to the actions of these creatures; and there is no world God could have created which contains a more favorable balance of good over evil with respect to the free activity of these creatures. In the following section I shall consider and respond to some familiar objections to claims of this sort.It is arguable that it is implicit in Swinburne's theodicy in Swinburne's theodicy arguably implies that instances of the law of predation causally contribute to the provision of moral agents with the knowledge necessary for morally significant action, whereas instances of a law V of vegetation-nourishment would not. If E is ultimately evil and is actually instantiated, then there is actually no being that is omnibenevolent, omnipotent and omniscient. A law L' is overall intrinsically good but ultimately evil if the following three conditions obtain:However, I shall not assume that the law of predation meets this three-part sufficient condition of being ultimately evil. I think we are warranted in believing (13) since A defender of Plantinga's line of thinking might respond to the foregoing by rejecting the force of my probabilistic claims about the causes and effects of the instances of E. He may allege, for instance, that my claim Further defences of my argument are possible and there are probably still further objections that need to be considered. For example, I shall not assume that the aggregate of the actual instances of the law of predation is such that its over-all positive value is outweighed by the negative value of the aggregate of the actual causes and effects of these instances. Swinburne infers fromBut (17) does not follow from (16).