On Necessary Gratuitous Evils

European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 12 (3):117-135 (2020)
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Abstract

The standard position on moral perfection and gratuitous evil makes the prevention of gratuitous evil a necessary condition on moral perfection. I argue that, on any analysis of gratuitous evil we choose, the standard position on moral perfection and gratuitous evil is false. It is metaphysically impossible to prevent every gratuitously evil state of affairs in every possible world. No matter what God does—no matter how many gratuitously evil states of affairs God prevents—it is necessarily true that God coexists with gratuitous evil in some world or other. Since gratuitous evil cannot be eliminated from metaphysical space, the existence of gratuitous evil presents no objection to essentially omnipotent, essentially omniscient, essentially morally perfect, and necessarily existing beings.

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Mike Almeida
University of Texas at San Antonio

Citations of this work

Theism and Secular Modality.Noah Gordon - 2023 - Dissertation, University of Southern California
On Modal Arguments against Perfect Goodness.Michael Almeida - 2024 - In Mirosław Szatkowski (ed.), Ontology of Divinity. De Gruyter. pp. 183-194.
God’s Impossible Options.Kenneth L. Pearce - 2021 - Faith and Philosophy 38 (2):185-204.

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References found in this work

The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism.William L. Rowe - 1979 - American Philosophical Quarterly 16 (4):335 - 341.
Evil and omnipotence.J. L. Mackie - 1955 - Mind 64 (254):200-212.
God and necessity.Brian Leftow - 2012 - Oxford: Oxford University Press.
God, Freedom, and Evil.Alvin Plantinga - 1978 - Religious Studies 14 (3):407-409.

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