Gratuitous Suffering and the Problem of Evil

Cover
Title
Copyright
Dedication
CONTENTS
1. Introduction
	The Need for Trustworthiness and Competence
	Foreshadowing
	Suggested Readings
2. The Question: Is There Gratuitous Suffering that Rules Out God?
	The Problem of Gratuitous Suffering
	The Gratuitous Premise
	The Consequence Premise
	The Logical Problem of Suffering
	The Problem of the Inferior Universe
3. Possible Theistic Responses to the Question
	The Logic of Responses
	The Five Approaches
	Faith as a Response
	Ignorance
4. The Confident Knowledge of God
	What the Approach Says
	Criticisms of the Approach
	Evidence for the Existence of God
		The Design Argument
		The Cosmological Argument
		The Social Argument
	Lessons
5. God Permits Gratuitous Suffering
	What the Approach Says
	Criticisms of the Approach
6. God’s Reasons for Suffering Revealed
	What the Approach Says
	Knowledge
	Free Will
	Soul-Making
	Afterlife
	Original Sin
	Lawfulness
	Motivation
	Divine Suffering
	Lessons
7. Our Inability to See God’s Plan
	What the Approach Says
	Criticisms of the Approach
	Modifying the Approach
	Lessons
8. God Is Not What You Think He Is
	What the Approach Says
	Conception of God as Unconscious
	Conception of God as Morally Bad
	Conception of God as Morally Unassessable
	Conception of God as Epistemically Deficient
	Conception of God as Weak
	Conception of God as Non-Individual
	Conception of God Involving Analogy
9. Warranted and Unwarranted Conclusions
Notes
Index