Journal article
Is anti-theism incoherent?
- Abstract:
- Anti-theists argue that the world, or our lives, would be overall worse if God exists because God’s existence imposes distinctive downsides. Many hold, however, that anti-theism is incoherent if we assume that God would not permit gratuitous evil to occur. This is because that would entail that any alleged downsides of God’s existence would be permitted only if they are necessary to bring about a greater good or to prevent an even greater evil. I will argue that this emerging consensus is mistaken: the argument from the principle of non-gratuitous evil to the falsity of anti-theism is invalid because it trades on an ambiguity. Appealing directly to God’s perfect goodness fails for similar reasons. Anti-theism can therefore only be rejected via substantive axiological debate.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
Actions
Access Document
- Files:
-
-
(Preview, Accepted manuscript, pdf, 237.4KB, Terms of use)
-
- Publisher copy:
- 10.2307/48619321
Authors
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- Journal:
- American Philosophical Quarterly More from this journal
- Volume:
- 58
- Issue:
- 4
- Pages:
- 373-386
- Publication date:
- 2021-10-01
- Acceptance date:
- 2019-01-29
- DOI:
- EISSN:
-
2152-1123
- ISSN:
-
0003-0481
- Language:
-
English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
-
1085457
- Local pid:
-
pubs:1085457
- Deposit date:
-
2020-04-24
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
- Copyright date:
- 2021
- Rights statement:
- © 2021 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.
- Notes:
-
This is the accepted manuscript version of the article. The final version is available from University of Illinois Press at https://doi.org/10.2307/48619321
If you are the owner of this record, you can report an update to it here: Report update to this record