| ||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
In this text, five of the world's leading philosophers of religion - Stephen T. Davis, David R. Griffin, John Hick, D.Z. Phillips and John K. Roth - present their answers to the problem of evil, taking into account ethnic cleansing, political repression, social violence, new work in Holocaust studies, and other issues and events that bear on the subject of evil in the world today. The other contributors offer a critique of each of these answers, to which its author subsequently responds. Helpful and perceptive postscripts are also included from John Cobb, Frederick Sontag and Marilyn Adams.
About the Author
Stephen T. Davis is Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Claremont McKenna College. He is the author of God, Reason, and Theistic Proofs (Eerdmans 1997) and editor of Encountering Jesus: A Debate on Christology (WJK 1988), The Resurrection (Oxford 1999) and The Trinity (Oxford 2000).
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
In the first edition of Encountering Evil, this essay began by noting Albert Camus's estimate-it appeared when he published The Rebel in 1951-that seventy million human beings had been uprooted, enslaved, or killed in the twentieth century alone. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
In the first edition of Encountering Evil, this essay began by noting Albert Camus's estimate-it appeared when he published The Rebel in 1951-that seventy million human beings had been uprooted, enslaved, or killed in the twentieth century alone. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organise and find favourite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I have not read this book, but given the names of the contributing authors, and the comments of the three American reviewers - especially - it seems clear that Alvin Plantinga is given little or no "air time", so to speak.
Indeed, Christopher Alsruhe's comments indicate that no answer(s) is/are supplied to the basic problem which, if true, make the absence of anything from Plantinga particularly weird since it seems to be widely agreed that his book "The Nature of Necessity" (available in condensed form as "God, Freedom and Evil") has effectively removed the "problem of a benign God and the existence of evil" as a subject worth further discussion in philosophical circles.
Having said that, I also agree with "the narrator's" comment that the book might have benefitted from a contribution by an out-and-out atheist - might also have made the book a more mentally "stretching" experience, as it were.
Anyone buying this book might want to supplement their reading by also obtaining one of the two Plantinga books referred to above.
Indeed, Christopher Alsruhe's comments indicate that no answer(s) is/are supplied to the basic problem which, if true, make the absence of anything from Plantinga particularly weird since it seems to be widely agreed that his book "The Nature of Necessity" (available in condensed form as "God, Freedom and Evil") has effectively removed the "problem of a benign God and the existence of evil" as a subject worth further discussion in philosophical circles.
Having said that, I also agree with "the narrator's" comment that the book might have benefitted from a contribution by an out-and-out atheist - might also have made the book a more mentally "stretching" experience, as it were.
Anyone buying this book might want to supplement their reading by also obtaining one of the two Plantinga books referred to above.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3 reviews
30 of 31 people found the following review helpful
Very well done
14 Jun 2000
Format:Paperback
Although there are probably as many theodicies as there are people in the world, Stephen Davis does a fine job selecting scholars who represent various, major viewpoints on the classic problem of evil to elucidate their positions. John Roth represents a theodicy of protest whereby it is insinuated that God may not be totally good. God, says Roth, has a dark side and so must be persuaded by human protest and prayer to do what is right. Hick, of course, represents the position of an Irenean theodicy where God is portrayed as simply unable to stop all evil since evil is born our of free will and God cannot contradict the free will He gave us (lest it cease being free will). More than that, however, God has created a world in which trouble and evil exist in order that, by virtue of our free will, we might grow in character through the hardship. God, says Hick, is in the business of soul-making and has an overall plan for us as His creation to grow into spiritual maturity through the joys and sufferings of this life. Davis takes the classic Christian perspective position that evil is the result of human sin, that Jesus died to redeem us of that sin. We are responsible for the evil in the world, but God has created a way to redeem the world by taking sin on Himself in the form of Jesus Christ. By recieving Christ into our lives, not only are we promised a future in eternity without evil, but we are able to grow through the sufferings of life instead of shun them as worthless. He argues that there is no logical contradiction between the Biblical God (omnipotent and omnibenevolent) and the existence of evil in the world. Griffin represents the process theology position that God is evolving with the creation and so is learning as He goes. Matter, says Griffin, is eternal like God and has its own kind of "free will." Complexity in the arrangement of matter, furthermore, is tied to the amount of free will something has. Thus a rock can do less evil and yet God is less able to use it for good, but something as complex (and thus having more free will) as a human is capable of doing much more evil by resisting God and much more good by submitting to God. Finally, Sontag takes a highly skeptical position about God's goodness. God is unpredictable and violent at times and all we can do is hope for the best. We must acknowledge God's existence and power, but Sontag's god is semi-demonic in nature which explains evil in the world and why he doesn't stop it.
Of course, this small review doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the indepth and well written arguments of each of these scholars. The book is complex enough for college and graduate classes but written with the lay-person in mind as well (the writers are careful to define their terms in most cases). Also, I really enjoyed the fact that each contributor has the opportunity to critique the other's theodicies and then the chance to defend against the other's critiques. This point/counterpoint approach was excellent and informative.
My only critique of this book is the subtitle ("Live Options in Theodicy"). While the five views represented in this book are indeed reflective of five major worldviews of the problem of evil, they are not the only *live* options. To suggest so implies that any theodicy significantly different than those represented in the book is not a valid option. But because the problem of evil is more of a mystery and less of a logical problem to be solved with a fancy syllogism, it can be approached in a number of ways -- not just five.
A great overview of responses to the problem of evil
1 Mar 2012
Format:Paperback
Though some of the authors (particularly Phillips and Roth) do not offer theodicies proper, this books provides an excellent overview of theodicies and other responses to the problem of evil from some the foremost philosopher/theologians engaging this topic. While the interactions between the authors following each essay allows for further discussion beyond the initial essays, it could benefit strongly from an atheistic author strongly arguing for the problem of evil (though the atypical theologies of Roth, Griffen, and Phillips to offer some support for the problem of evil).
7 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Dealing with the Real Issue
17 July 2005
Format:Paperback
Theodicies sometimes address the problem of the co-existence of God and evil in what might be considered a sufficient manner, yet in the final analysis the views change God into something that is not God, or even a god. The Christian issue of theodicy presents a special problem for Christians, which I'm not sure has ever been addressed. The Bible, for Jew and Christian, makes clear what God is like (though not exhaustively). But it does give enough information to analyze the issue of theodicy (or does it and we've just missed it by addressing the wrong issues?).
It is common that Biblical theodicy is dealt with by actually avoiding the issue. Sure, we can say that a good and omnipotent God deals with evil by love, redemption, spiritual warefare, and many others. But by addressing the possible cures for evil, we outright fail to address theodicy at all.
Theodicy is only addressed when we question why God, good and omnipotent and unable to sin, or to accept sin, and able to create virtuous being without falling into sin, chose the OPTION to create mankind in such a way that he would certainly fall and then suffer true and often torturous outrages. The requirement of free will doesn't provide an answer. We can initially say that without free will, there is not virtue; but God doesn't have free will in that way; so does God lack virtue? Are the saints in heaven, which can never fall again, without freedom of will and thus without virtue?
Obviously, to deal with theodicy, we have to avoid the avoidance of the real issue, and rather address directly why God even allowed the fall of Man and the subsequent suffering (including what often amounts to torturous conditions even of the repentant) since He didn't have to do it this way. That issue is the truly sole point of theodicy and its understanding, and an issue that, again, I don't believe has ever been addressed or even honestly faced (of course, maybe it has but such essays are difficult to find).
This book addresses, as do others, theodicy in a pseudo fashion, making the use of the word "theodicy" in the title misleading. It is important in what it reveals, but in the final result, theodicy has not been discussed. Only how to get around the problem of solving the problem of theodicy has.
It is common that Biblical theodicy is dealt with by actually avoiding the issue. Sure, we can say that a good and omnipotent God deals with evil by love, redemption, spiritual warefare, and many others. But by addressing the possible cures for evil, we outright fail to address theodicy at all.
Theodicy is only addressed when we question why God, good and omnipotent and unable to sin, or to accept sin, and able to create virtuous being without falling into sin, chose the OPTION to create mankind in such a way that he would certainly fall and then suffer true and often torturous outrages. The requirement of free will doesn't provide an answer. We can initially say that without free will, there is not virtue; but God doesn't have free will in that way; so does God lack virtue? Are the saints in heaven, which can never fall again, without freedom of will and thus without virtue?
Obviously, to deal with theodicy, we have to avoid the avoidance of the real issue, and rather address directly why God even allowed the fall of Man and the subsequent suffering (including what often amounts to torturous conditions even of the repentant) since He didn't have to do it this way. That issue is the truly sole point of theodicy and its understanding, and an issue that, again, I don't believe has ever been addressed or even honestly faced (of course, maybe it has but such essays are difficult to find).
This book addresses, as do others, theodicy in a pseudo fashion, making the use of the word "theodicy" in the title misleading. It is important in what it reveals, but in the final result, theodicy has not been discussed. Only how to get around the problem of solving the problem of theodicy has.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
