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Murphy's Anselmian theism and the problem of evil

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 July 2023

Luke Wilson Open the ORCID record for Luke Wilson [Opens in a new window]
Luke Wilson*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Illinois Wesleyan University, IL, USA
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Email: lwilson2@iwu.edu
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Abstract

Mark Murphy has recently defended a novel account of divine agency on which God would have very minimal requiring reasons and a wide range of merely justified reasons. This account grounds his response to the problem of evil. If God would not have requiring reasons to promote the well-being of creatures, Murphy argues, then the evil we observe would not count as evidence against theism. I argue that Murphy's conclusion, if successful in undermining the problem of evil, also undermines probabilistic arguments for theism. However, there is good reason to resist his conclusion. Even if God does not have requiring reasons, but merely has justifying reasons, to promote creaturely well-being, God may nevertheless have most motivating reason to do so, and this would be enough to predict divine action, at least given Murphy's further assumption that God is perfectly free. It does not follow from the rational permissibility of God's Φ-ing that it is possible for God to Φ.

Keywords

problem of evildivine motivationdivine reasonsMark Murphy
Type
Original Article
Information
Religious Studies , First View , pp. 1 - 15
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

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