ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author discusses some important criticisms of it and will continue his efforts to clarify, simplify, and strengthen the argument. Criticisms that have been advanced against the version of the evidential argument from evil. Although several important papers have developed such criticisms, special mention should be made of William Alston’s essay “The Inductive Problem of Evil and the Human Cognitive Condition” and several papers by Stephen Wykstra. If God exists then some good justifies him in permitting Sue’s horrendous suffering on being beaten, raped, and strangled. Since God has unlimited intelligence, cares infinitely about the totality of each creature’s life, and is unlimited in power, the argument from analogy implies that the goods justifying God in permitting horrendous human and animal suffering are often likely to be realized in the distant future. Alston emphasizes that he is considering Christian theodicies only as live possibilities for divine reasons for permitting evil.
