Array
(
    [fullTitle] => Encountering Evil: The Evil-god Challenge from Religious Experience
    [abstract] => 
It is often thought that religious experiences provide support for the cumulative case for the existence of the God of classical monotheism. In this paper, I formulate an Evil-god challenge that invites classical monotheists to explain why, based on evidence from religious experience, the belief in an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent god (Good-god) is significantly more reasonable than the belief in an omnipotent, omniscient, evil god (Evil-god). I demonstrate that religious experiences substantiate the existence of Evil-god more so than they do the existence of Good-god, and, consequently, that the traditional argument from religious experience fails: it should not be included in the cumulative case for the existence of Good-god.

    [authors] => Array
        (
            [0] => Array
                (
                    [givenName] => Asha
                    [affiliation] => University of Birmingham
                )

        )

    [keywords] => Array
        (
            [0] => God
            [1] => evil
            [2] => good
            [3] => religious experience
            [4] => miracle
            [5] => arguments for God's existence
        )

    [doi] => 10.24204/ejpr.v0i0.2617
    [datePublished] => 2020-09-24
    [pdf] => https://www.philosophy-of-religion.eu/menuscript/index.php/ejpr/article/view/2617/version/545/2719
)
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Encountering Evil: The Evil-god Challenge from Religious Experience

Asha
University of Birmingham

DOI: https://doi.org/10.24204/ejpr.v0i0.2617

Abstract

It is often thought that religious experiences provide support for the cumulative case for the existence of the God of classical monotheism. In this paper, I formulate an Evil-god challenge that invites classical monotheists to explain why, based on evidence from religious experience, the belief in an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent god (Good-god) is significantly more reasonable than the belief in an omnipotent, omniscient, evil god (Evil-god). I demonstrate that religious experiences substantiate the existence of Evil-god more so than they do the existence of Good-god, and, consequently, that the traditional argument from religious experience fails: it should not be included in the cumulative case for the existence of Good-god.

Keywords: God

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