Shorter Andrew Sullivan: I've been taught that evil is part of god's good plan, therefore evil doesn't perturb my faith.
It's all very circular and very silly. Jerry's right: theodicy is one of those confusing issues that simply disappears cleanly if you get rid of the god-junk that clutters up the discussion.
- Log in to post comments
More like this
The blogalogue between Sam Harris and Andrew Sullivan on the subject of the reasonableness of religious faith continues. We pick up the action with Sullivan's latest salvo. He is responding to the following question asked by Harris: “What would constitute “proof” for you that your current beliefs…
There is bloggery afoot on ye olde problem of evil. Russell Blackford got the ball rolling with this post, an admirably succinct essay on why evil and suffering pose serious problems to tradtional notions of Christian theism. Andrew Sullivan demurred here, and then elaborated here. Jerry Coyne…
The National Catholic Register has the full text of a recent speech given by Pope Benedict XVI. It includes this:
In addition to the two phenomena of religion and anti-religion, a further basic orientation is found in the growing world of agnosticism: people to whom the gift of faith has not been…
The problem of evil has become a topic of discussion again. I don't think I've blogged about theodicy in any depth since 2006, so I guess it's time to take it up again.
In brief, the problem of evil is classically posed as a question of why evil should exist in the world if there is an omnipotent…