Talk:Problem of evil

Contents WP:SPLIT from Problem of evil and moved to Religious responses to the problem of evil

This article has been split into two articles due to length. Sections 4 and 5 have been copied and moved to Religious responses to the problem of evil. I will now add a short summary of it and a link to it to this article. Please go there and edit as you see fit! Original history of editing remains here. Jenhawk777 (talk) 00:38, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Problem of evil is now at 8400 words - well within the limits. Jenhawk777 (talk) 01:06, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Unsolicited advice

What's the distinction between the sections "Religious responses" vs "Responses, defences and theodicies"? Ideally, sections should not overlap. (t · c) buidhe 19:42, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Hey buidhe! Defences and theodicies are listed under definitions, and that's all they are; they are simply defined, no arguments are presented. That's where they belong.

Religious responses included at one time, all the religious arguments, which are really all the arguments there are against the problem of evil, that are already stated in the article by their p[roper titles. Having a separate section for religious responses meant all the same things being restated, which was not only redundant, but was also misleading - as if 'religious responses' were something separate from what is already discussed. So I split the article, and religious responses is now a separate article. If you think it should be removed entirely, I have no objection. Perhaps leave the link to it? Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:27, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

buidhe Hey, don't do anything radical yet. Your question has prompted me to do something with the organization of this article that makes it clearer that there are secular responses to the problem as well as religious ones. That differentiation is not clear. Most of what's in this article is religious responses, and it shouldn't be left that way. Our readers need more. Perhaps some rearranging and then reabsorbing some of Religious responses back into this article will be appropriate, but there should be a secular section and a religious section, and there isn't. I will work on that. Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:50, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

Jenhawk777, That's good, I wasn't really clear on there being both secular and religious responses to the problem of evil so I'm glad you're clarifying it. (t · c) buidhe 05:18, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

buidhe See what you think now. Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:50, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

revert at [1]

Editor2020 (talk · contribs) I am aware 'that that' construction is grammatical, it's just rather ungainly in written form. It distracts from the logic as it draws attention to itself instead of the defining clause which follows it; 'that that' leads to confusion over meaning, and most sentences benefit from being reworded to avoid it. Its use is declining. It's inelegant. I won't get into an edit war over this, but surely you can see that particular sentence could be stated better. How about "Supporters of the free will explanation state that altering the logical natural outcomes of choices would no longer embody free will."? Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:15, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

Rearranging to better recognize secular views

I am going to post a major reconstruction tag on this article in order to add a section on secular responses, and make it clearer that the detailed arguments section that is already there are all religious responses. This will require moving things around in the rest of the article as well, so it is a major overhaul, but it needs to be clearer who says what and why, and organization is the key. I will wait a bit to see if there is anyone who has any major objections to reorganizing up front, but of course, objection may not come till after, and that's perfectly fine too. Please don't be quick to revert, post here and I will accommodate all objections as best I can. Normally I would post those changes here first, but there is just too much. Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:32, 19 April 2021 (UTC) See "Unsolicited advice" above. Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:50, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Okay, I think I am done now. Thank you for your patience. Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:49, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

Jenhawk777, Thanks for clarifying secular vs. religious responses, that's helpful. However, now we have an issue where content is duplicated, for example there are two sections about "Evil as the absence of good (privation theory)". (t · c) buidhe 06:00, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

Au contraire mon frere buidhe - there are two sections titled the same - is that wrong? - but they are not duplicates.Jenhawk777 (talk) 06:04, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

Addition of a section on Hermeneutics

The Biblical texts are narratives of how people experienced the intervention / presence of God in their lives. Which is why we have to be careful when translating texts like the Bible into legal logical documents. The texts describe how evil disrupts the relationship with God. However it is not a philosophical abstract evil (influence of Greek philosophical thought). It is not something binary, but more relational. The texts do not connect it to Satan but to the ability to rebel to one's own detriment. 105.225.223.189 (talk) 21:54, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

"Protest Atheism" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Protest Atheism and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 December 15 § Protest Atheism until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Steel1943 (talk) 22:31, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

"Fully rebutted" in the body and lead

A recent addition to the lead claims that most scholars believe the problem of evil has been "fully rebutted" by Plantinga; but none of the sources support this wording. The only one that really says anything close is Meister, who uses "sufficiently rebutted" instead (and the wording is extremely central to his argument, since he specifically says that the existence of doubt is enough to undercut it; "fully rebutted" misuses him as a source.) The other two sources are even worse; Howard-Snyder and O'Leary-Hawthorne note that Plantinga has been well-received, but say nothing that could be reasonably interpreted as it being a accepted as a "full rebuttal" (indeed, they go on to critique it!) And Alston mentions Plantinga only in passing, in a way that could not possibly be interpreted the way it's said here; furthermore, his basic thesis (which, again, is not about Plantinga at all and therefore could not be used to cite the glowing reception of Plantinga asserted here) directly contradicts it, saying that It is now acknowledged on (almost) all sides that the logical argument is bankrupt, but the inductive argument is still very much alive and kicking (emphasis mine.) Meister alone is obviously not leadworthy, and collectively these sources don't support the idea of any sort of unity on the topic. It seems to me like these sources have been repeatedly reused and the language slowly made more severe over time by people who didn't actually take the time to verify them. --Aquillion (talk) 16:06, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

All I care is that the sources are well-represented. Thanks for taking a second look at them. Remsense ‥ 论 16:07, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

The lead doesn't say Plantinga? He's certainly one of the popular ones, sure, but the lead doesn't say that. Also, Alston does broadly support that statement with: "It is now acknowledged on (almost) all sides that the logical argument is bankrupt". The inductive problem is irrelevant, because the sentence at issue explicitly says "most philosophers see the logical problem of evil (aka, not the inductive/evidential) as having been generally rebutted by various defenses." I agree that the body statement is a little Plantinga-specific though. Just10A (talk) 16:45, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

I adjusted the wording to better reflect the sources. As for Snyder/Hawthorne, literally the first sentence of the paper is "It used to be widely held by philosophers that God and evil are incompatible. Not any longer." and immediately quotes another that says "it is fair to say Plantinga has solved this problem." The fact that they offer their own critique is not relevant here (unless we want to include their own attributed opinion) because they acknowledge from the get-go that they are in the minority and what the broad consensus seems to be, and that's what the sentence is concerned with. The solution here is certainly just to minorly adjust the wording to better suit the sources as opposed to just removing it wholesale. Just10A (talk) 17:01, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

"Widely held and isn't any longer" doesn't paraphrase to generally rebutted, it translates to "the issue is now questionable." And it's misusing Alston as a source to directly cut a sentence from him in half and paraphrase only half of it - why do you consider only half of that sentence to be worth noting? Likewise, the text in the body, which you restored, inaccurately said that Alston credited Plantinga; neither does it make sense to say that two sources state the logical part was rebutted at the top of the criticism section, since it isn't criticism, so I'm unclear as to why you want to move it back into the criticism section. Either way, the numerous problems (Snyder/Hawthorne completely failing to reflect the text you added to the lead in any reasonable way, and Alston being misused by directly cutting a sentence in half and only using half of it) obviously leave the one remaining source undue for the lead. You saw something inaccurate in the body that you thought was leadworthy; now that the problems with its sourcing have been pointed out, the thing to do is to slow down and reconsider its place and prominence in the body, not to immediately rush to put it back into the lead again. Especially given that numerous people have objected to your addition to the lead on multiple grounds, including @Micahtchi:, who added a tag you removed without properly verifying the underlying issue; @Daveparslow: and @Zefr:, who reasonably objected to the language but didn't think to check the sources to note that they failed to support it, and multiple IPs. You've reverted your poorly-sourced addition back into the lead four times ([2][3][4][5]) in addition to removing the tags; it's time to actually slow down and talk to the people who object before restoring it again. --Aquillion (talk) 18:20, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

You fundamentally misunderstand multiple aspects:

1.) "Likewise, the text in the body, which you restored, inaccurately said that Alston credited Plantinga; neither does it make sense to say that two sources state the logical part was rebutted at the top of the criticism section, since it isn't criticism, so I'm unclear as to why you want to move it back into the criticism section. This is just showing you didn't even look at the page. It's not in the "criticism" section (which I believe you mean "critique section," because there is no "criticism section" there. Again, clearly not even looking at the page). The section was renamed "Discussion" to better represent the content, so it doesn't need to be moved. Additionally, your edit didn't even move all of the "non-criticisms" out, some still remained, which is what made it a better fix. Again, I agreed the body text was overly Plantinga specific, and that can be addressed.

2.) "And it's misusing Alston as a source to directly cut a sentence from him in half and paraphrase only half of it - why do you consider only half of that sentence to be worth noting? No it's not. The sentence in the lead is about the logical problem, and Alston's statement supports it. As for his commentary on the inductive problem, there's nothing wrong with including that as well. We can, but that's a separate issue. But the idea that his statement doesn't support the text regarding the logical problem is so crazy it that would legitimately borderWP:CIR issues.

3.) I'm one of the pages only editors, I followed tag procedure for the tag and addressed any issues and made changes as they were raised, as in here. This page is sprawling and far from perfect, it can certainly be improved. But your changes of removing it completely is simply not supported by the sources. The statement is clearly supported by all 3 (now that fully was removed).

I'm reverting both your and my recent edits per basic WP:NOCON and WP:QUO procedure, in addition to just removing "fully" as that seems to not be in contention. We can discuss better statements here if need be. Just10A (talk) 18:54, 23 April 2025 (UTC)