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Dialetheism and the Problem of Evil

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Abstract

According to dialetheism, some contradictions are true. In a recent paper, Aaron Cotnoir has suggested that theists who are also dialetheists can resolve the paradox of the stone by accepting a contradiction and arguing that God both can and cannot make the stone. However, Zach Weber has replied that dialetheism is of no help in avoiding one of the most serious problems for theism, namely the problem of evil. This paper argues that the situation is even worse than this for dialetheist theists since one motivation for dialetheism closes off what otherwise might be a loophole in a classical version of the problem of evil.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See also Beall (2019a, 2019b, 2019c, 2019d, 2019e, 2019f, 2021), Pawl (2019), McCall (2019), Cotnoir (2019), Uckelman (2019), for discussion of dialetheism in Christianity. Chowdhury (2021) discusses dialetheism in Islam. Dialetheism is also relevant to the study of non-theistic religions. For the case of Buddhism, see for example, Garfield and Priest (2003), Deguchi et al. (2008), Ziporyn (2013), Cotnoir (2015), and Kreutz (2019).

  2. 2.

    Brown and Nagasawa (2005, p. 309) call this the “problem of inferiority” rather than the “problem of evil”, but I prefer the more familiar name.

  3. 3.

    Adams (1972, p. 317) raises this problem just to set it aside, but Brown and Nagasawa (2005) argue the case in detail. See also Plantinga (1973, p. 539) and Forrest (1981, p. 52).

  4. 4.

    Formally, (∃x)(∀y)(x ∈ y ↔ ϕ(x)), where x does not occur in ϕ (Suppes, 1972, p. 6).

  5. 5.

    In classical Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory, the axiom schema of naive comprehension is replaced by the axiom of the schema of separation, according to which (∀z)(∃x)(∀y)(y ∈ x ↔ (y ∈ z ∧ ϕ(z))), where x does not occur in ϕ (Suppes, 1972, pp. 6–7). If there were a set of everything, each instance of the axiom schema of separation would imply the corresponding instance of the axiom schema of naive comprehension, thus reintroducing Russell’s paradox, and further motivating denying the existence of a set of everything.

  6. 6.

    We also put this example aside before on the grounds of transitivity. However here the issue is trickier because even though the example is inconsistent with the transitivity of betterness, a dialetheist may still retain transitivity in the face of the example by accepting the inconsistency.

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Acknowledgements

I thank Nick Trakakis for introducing me to the classical version of this problem. I am also grateful for the comments from the audience at the Philosophy of Religion in Southeast Asia conference, especially Jeremiah Joven Joaquin and Yujin Nagasawa, and for comments from the students in my graduate seminar, Md. Shahidul Islam, Lan Tianxiang, Lee Yong Teck, and Freddie Mingquan Wu. This paper is part of our Metaphysics of Humanity project, supported by a grant from the Ministry of Education, Singapore (grant number, A-0003057-00-00).

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  1. Department of Philosophy, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Ben Blumson

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Correspondence to Ben Blumson .

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  1. Center for Science Technology & Society, Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand

    Soraj Hongladarom

  2. Department of Philosophy, De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines

    Jeremiah Joven Joaquin

  3. International Buddhist Studies College, Mahaculalongkornrajavidyalaya University, Ayutthaya, Thailand

    Frank J. Hoffman

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Blumson, B. (2023). Dialetheism and the Problem of Evil. In: Hongladarom, S., Joaquin, J.J., Hoffman, F.J. (eds) Philosophies of Appropriated Religions. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5191-8_6

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