{"product_id":"9780191529726","title":"The Problem of Evil","description":"It is generally supposed that the fact that the world contains a vast amount of suffering, much of it truly horrible suffering, confronts those who believe in an all-powerful and benevolent Creator with a serious problem: to explain why such a Creator would permit this.  Many reflective people are convinced that the problem, the problem of evil, is insoluble.  The reasons that underlie this conviction can be formulated as a powerful argument for the non-existence of God, the\u003cbr\u003eso-called argument from evil: If there were a God, he would not permit the existence of vast amounts of truly horrible suffering; since such suffering exists, there is no God.  Peter van Inwagen examines this argument, which he regards as a paradigmatically philosophical argument. His conclusion is that\u003cbr\u003e(like most philosophical arguments) it is a failure. He seeks to demonstrate, not that God exists, but the fact that the world contains a vast amount of suffering does not show that God does not exist.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlong the way he discusses a wide range of topics of interest to philosophers and theologians, such as: the concept of God; what might be meant by describing a philosophical argument as a failure; the distinction between versions of the argument from evil that depend on the vast amount of evil in the world and versions of the argument that depend on a particular evil, such as the Lisbon earthquake or the death of a fawn in a forest fire; the free-will defense; animal suffering; and the problem\u003cbr\u003eof the hiddenness of God.","brand":"OUP Oxford","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47072403423472,"sku":"9780191529726","price":34.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780191529726_p0.jpg?v=1763661096","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780191529726","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}