PHIL 101 Exam 2 (Tracy Lupher JMU)
Logical Problem of Evil - ✔️✔️The existence of God is logically incompatible with the
existence of evil and suffering (deductive)
Evidential Problem of Evil - ✔️✔️If omnipotent, omniscient, and all benevolent God
exists...then why is there suffering and evil?
Not omnipotent - ✔️✔️Is God willing to prevent evil but not able to? Then He's
______________________ (Epicurus)
Then whence cometh evil? - ✔️✔️Is God both able and willing to prevent evil?
(Epicurus)
Why call him God? - ✔️✔️Is God neither able nor willing to prevent evil? (Epicurus)
Epicurus - ✔️✔️The man who came up with the Able and Willing arguments
surrounding God and prevention of evil
Super-Naturalistic Explanation - ✔️✔️Explaining the features of the world by describing
the supernatural processes (things that occur outside of nature) that produced them
The two Types of Scientific Ignorance - ✔️✔️There are things science cannot explain
now, but maybe later
and
There are things science cannot explain in principle
Scientific Explanation - ✔️✔️A rough idea; an explanation answering a why question
Spatiotemporal Event - ✔️✔️an event that happened at a particular place and time (To
explain event E you need a __________ event outside of E)
Causal Explanation - ✔️✔️E2 caused by E means E occured first - Both events have to
be in space and time
Global Why Questions - ✔️✔️Ask why the totality of the universe's history is the way it
is
The Two possible Universes - ✔️✔️Universe with no material objects (nothing was is or
will be)
Actual universe
, Why is there something rather than nothing? - ✔️✔️THE BIG QUESTION
Gottfried Leibniz - ✔️✔️Believed the world is the best of all possible worlds...meaning
there is a God
Samuel Clarke - ✔️✔️Believed that, given the Principle of Sufficient Reasoning, God is
the reason this particular world we live in exists
Sober - ✔️✔️causation is a relationship that between events which occur in space and
time...but God is outside of space and time
Naturalistic Explanation - ✔️✔️Scientific explanation explaining features of the world by
describing the processes in nature that produced them
Principle of Sufficient Reason - ✔️✔️Everything in nature has an explanation
General Argument - ✔️✔️1) There are things Science will never be able to explain
2) Either those things have no explanations or the existence of God explains them
3) Everything has an explanation
-------------------------------------------
So, God exists
God of the Gaps argument - ✔️✔️There is a gap in our understanding
---------------------------------------------
Therefore the cause of that gap must be supernatural
1st Argument from Evil - ✔️✔️1) If God exists, He's PKG (All powerful, all knowing, all
good)
2) If PKG being existed there would be no evil
3) There is evil (denying consequent)
Hence, no God
Reject premise 1 or 3 - ✔️✔️Points to attack when arguing against the 1st Argument
from Evil (God is NOT all PKG and Moral Categories are Illusory)
Natural and Human - ✔️✔️The Two Types of Evil
Natural Evil - ✔️✔️Floods, pompeii, and other such disasters
Human Evil - ✔️✔️Holocaust, piking of babies, Medieval Italian torture dungeons, Phil
101 exams etc.
Logical Problem of Evil - ✔️✔️The existence of God is logically incompatible with the
existence of evil and suffering (deductive)
Evidential Problem of Evil - ✔️✔️If omnipotent, omniscient, and all benevolent God
exists...then why is there suffering and evil?
Not omnipotent - ✔️✔️Is God willing to prevent evil but not able to? Then He's
______________________ (Epicurus)
Then whence cometh evil? - ✔️✔️Is God both able and willing to prevent evil?
(Epicurus)
Why call him God? - ✔️✔️Is God neither able nor willing to prevent evil? (Epicurus)
Epicurus - ✔️✔️The man who came up with the Able and Willing arguments
surrounding God and prevention of evil
Super-Naturalistic Explanation - ✔️✔️Explaining the features of the world by describing
the supernatural processes (things that occur outside of nature) that produced them
The two Types of Scientific Ignorance - ✔️✔️There are things science cannot explain
now, but maybe later
and
There are things science cannot explain in principle
Scientific Explanation - ✔️✔️A rough idea; an explanation answering a why question
Spatiotemporal Event - ✔️✔️an event that happened at a particular place and time (To
explain event E you need a __________ event outside of E)
Causal Explanation - ✔️✔️E2 caused by E means E occured first - Both events have to
be in space and time
Global Why Questions - ✔️✔️Ask why the totality of the universe's history is the way it
is
The Two possible Universes - ✔️✔️Universe with no material objects (nothing was is or
will be)
Actual universe
, Why is there something rather than nothing? - ✔️✔️THE BIG QUESTION
Gottfried Leibniz - ✔️✔️Believed the world is the best of all possible worlds...meaning
there is a God
Samuel Clarke - ✔️✔️Believed that, given the Principle of Sufficient Reasoning, God is
the reason this particular world we live in exists
Sober - ✔️✔️causation is a relationship that between events which occur in space and
time...but God is outside of space and time
Naturalistic Explanation - ✔️✔️Scientific explanation explaining features of the world by
describing the processes in nature that produced them
Principle of Sufficient Reason - ✔️✔️Everything in nature has an explanation
General Argument - ✔️✔️1) There are things Science will never be able to explain
2) Either those things have no explanations or the existence of God explains them
3) Everything has an explanation
-------------------------------------------
So, God exists
God of the Gaps argument - ✔️✔️There is a gap in our understanding
---------------------------------------------
Therefore the cause of that gap must be supernatural
1st Argument from Evil - ✔️✔️1) If God exists, He's PKG (All powerful, all knowing, all
good)
2) If PKG being existed there would be no evil
3) There is evil (denying consequent)
Hence, no God
Reject premise 1 or 3 - ✔️✔️Points to attack when arguing against the 1st Argument
from Evil (God is NOT all PKG and Moral Categories are Illusory)
Natural and Human - ✔️✔️The Two Types of Evil
Natural Evil - ✔️✔️Floods, pompeii, and other such disasters
Human Evil - ✔️✔️Holocaust, piking of babies, Medieval Italian torture dungeons, Phil
101 exams etc.
