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Non-Identity Theodicy: A Grace-Based Response to the Problem of Evil

Vitale, Vince R.

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Questions as personal as those about suffering require a very personal response. However, the most popular responses to 'the problem of evil' revolve around abstract discussions of greater goods, maximization of value, and best possible worlds, depicting God as at best an impartial bureaucrat and at worst a utility fanatic, rather than as a loving parent concerned first and foremost for his children. Vince R. Vitale develops Non-Identity Theodicy as an original response to the problem of evil. He begins by recognizing that horrendous evils pose distinctive challenges for belief in God. The book constructs an ethical framework for theodicy by sketching four cases of human action where horrendous evils are either caused, permitted, or risked, either for pure benefit or for harm avoidance. This framework is then brought to bear on the project of theodicy. The initial conclusions drawn impugn the dominant structural approach of depicting God as causing or permitting horrors in individual lives for the sake of some merely pure benefit. This approach is insensitive to relevant asymmetries in the justificatory demands made by horrendous and non-horrendous evil and in the justificatory work done by averting harm and bestowing pure benefit. Vitale then critiques theodicies that depict God as permitting or risking horrors in order to avert greater harm. The second half of this book develops a theodicy that falls outside of the proposed taxonomy. Non-Identity Theodicy suggests that God allows evil because it is a necessary condition of creating individual people whom he desires to love. This approach to theodicy is unique because the justifying good recommended is neither harm-aversion nor pure benefit. It is not a good that betters the lives of individual human persons--for they would not exist otherwise, but it is the individual human persons themselves.

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Publisher

OXFORD UNIV PR

Bisac Major Subject

Philosophy

Bisac Minor Subject

Religious

Binding Type

Paperback

Country Of Origin

Number Of Units

Length

9.0 Inches

Barcode Indicator

EAN

Width

5.7 Inches

Publication Date

1970-01-01

Height

0.7 Inches

ISBN 10

0192845179

Weight

0.9 Pounds

Book EAN

9780192845177

Target Audiance

Adults

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Non-Identity Theodicy: A Grace-Based Response to the Problem of Evil