Apparently unjustified evil and the existence of God

Abstract

There are a variety of evidential arguments from evil against the existence of God. Common to all such arguments are observations of evil that appear to be unjustified, followed by an inductive inference to the conclusion that there is actually unjustified evil. Since unjustified evil is incompatible with the existence of God, it is concluded that God does not exist. If certain assumptions, commonly granted in discussions of the problem of evil, are granted, however, those assumptions, together with the consequential complexity of history, make the essential inference in all vidential arguments from evil rationally unjustified. All evidential arguments from evil therefore fail. In this thesis I argue that the consequential complexity of history is such that we are not rationally justified in inferring that there is actually unjustified evil. Given the absence of rational justification for the inference that is essential to all evidential arguments from evil, I conclude that all such arguments fail.