Array
(
    [fullTitle] => Representing the Parent Analogy
    [abstract] => 
I argue that Stephen Wykstra’s much discussed Parent Analogy is helpful in responding to the evidential problem of evil when it is expanded upon from a positive skeptical theist framework. This framework, defended by John Depoe, says that although we often remain in the dark about the first-order reasons that God allows particular instances of suffering, we can have positive second-order reasons that God would create a world with seemingly gratuitous evils. I respond to recent challenges to the Parent Analogy by arguing that God, like a good parent, wants a rightly ordered relationship of mutual love with created beings.

    [authors] => Array
        (
            [0] => Array
                (
                    [givenName] => Jannai
                    [affiliation] => Western Kentucky University
                )

        )

    [keywords] => Array
        (
            [0] => Problem of Evil
            [1] => Evidential Argument
            [2] => Skeptical Theism
            [3] => Parent Analogy
        )

    [doi] => 10.24204/ejpr.2021.3363
    [datePublished] => 2021-12-29
    [pdf] => https://www.philosophy-of-religion.eu/menuscript/index.php/ejpr/article/view/3363/version/751/2851
)
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Representing the Parent Analogy

Jannai
Western Kentucky University

DOI: https://doi.org/10.24204/ejpr.2021.3363

Abstract

I argue that Stephen Wykstra’s much discussed Parent Analogy is helpful in responding to the evidential problem of evil when it is expanded upon from a positive skeptical theist framework. This framework, defended by John Depoe, says that although we often remain in the dark about the first-order reasons that God allows particular instances of suffering, we can have positive second-order reasons that God would create a world with seemingly gratuitous evils. I respond to recent challenges to the Parent Analogy by arguing that God, like a good parent, wants a rightly ordered relationship of mutual love with created beings.

Keywords: Problem of Evil

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