Recent Work in the Problem of Evil - Analysis

RECENT WORK Recent Work on the Problem of Evil TRENT DOUGHERTY This article covers the major lines of the debate concerning the problem of evil in the past 5–10 years. For broader treatment of the issue, see McBrayer 2010 or the reference works listed in the footnote at the end of this sentence.1 Downloaded from analysis.oxfordjournals.org at Baylor University on July 27, 2011 1. Background The year 1996 was a watershed year in the study of the problem of evil with the publication of The Evidential Problem of Evil.2 In the late 1970s, a consensus began to emerge that Alvin Plantinga (1974, 1977) had buried the so-called ‘logical problem of evil’ (put forth primarily by Mackie (1955)). About that same time Rowe (1979) began to press an ‘evidential’ version of the problem. But by 1996, buffeted by a barrage of criticisms, Rowe had abandoned the argument he had heretofore been advocating (Rowe 1996: 267, though see Trakakis 2007: 68ff for a creative reconstruc- tion of what’s going on in Rowe’s abdication). So Rowe set out a new, more direct argument from evil. It proceeds from the premiss P: No good we know of justifies an omnipotent, omniscient, per- fectly good being in permitting E1 and E2 (where E1 and E2 are instances of particularly horrendous suffering which we know to have occurred). to the conclusion – which we can denote by G – that there is no God. The force with which the conclusion may be drawn is a matter of some controversy, but Rowe thinks that P makes G pretty improbable (no more than 0.333 on Trakakis’s reconstruction). It is from here that we shall pick up the tale in 2001.3 1 Tooley 2009, Dougherty forthcoming, Beebe 2005 and Trakakis 2005, See also Gelinas 2009a, b. 2 It is questionable whether there is any substantive difference between the so-called ‘logical’ problem of evil and the ‘evidential’ problem of evil. 3 I am therefore skipping over Plantinga 1998 and Rowe’s 1998 reply. Analysis Reviews Vol 71 | Number 3 | July 2011 | pp. 560–573 doi:10.1093/analys/anr059 ß The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Analysis Trust. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected]  recent work | 561 2. Response to Rowe’s new argument Michael Bergmann (2001) takes aim at Rowe’s new argument. First, I will set out that argument in more detail. The question is how – assuming a ‘level playing field’ – i.e. assuming that Pr(G) ¼ Pr(G) ¼ Pr(P) ¼ Pr(P) – one’s learning P would affect one’s credence in G. Here is a representation of Rowe’s reasoning. Show Pr(G/P) < Pr(G), i.e. that P (relatively) disconfirms G. (1) Assume: Pr(G) ¼ Pr(G) ¼ Pr(P) ¼ Pr(P) Rowe’s ‘level playing field’. (2) Assume Pr(G) > 0 Granted by sane atheists. (3) Assume: Pr(P/G) < 1 Granted by sane theists. (4) Pr(P/G) < Pr(P/G) ! Pr(G/P) < Pr(G/P) Theorem. (5) G ! P By Rowe’s definition of P. (6) Pr(P/G) ¼ 1. From 5. (7) Pr(P/G) < Pr(P/G). From 3 and 6 Downloaded from analysis.oxfordjournals.org at Baylor University on July 27, 2011 (8) Pr(G/P) < Pr(G/P), i.e. P (relatively) disconfirms G. From 4 and 7. Bergmann accepts this reasoning,4 but notes that it falls prey to an objection that Rowe has hitherto seemed sensitive to. Previously, Rowe did not argue directly from P to G, but, rather, argued from P to the following and then from the following to G. Q: No good at all justifies an omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good being in permitting E1 and E2. But the move from P to Q – from ‘I know of no such good’ to ‘no such good exists’ – assumes a kind of extensivness of our knowledge of possible goods which Rowe is hard pressed to justify. Rowe seems to concede this in his 1996, and cuts Q out of the picture. Here’s why this is important. Admitting to relative disconfirmation isn’t admitting to much at all. We had granted that Pr(P/G) < 1, but as it approaches 1, the degree of disconfirmation converges on 0. So for Rowe’s point to have any real force, he needs to show that Pr(P/G) is quite low. The trouble with the move from P to Q or from P to G via the assump- tion that Pr(P/G) is very low is that they both assume some kind of know- ledge – that our knowledge of goods is representative of all the goods there are or that we know what God would be expected to do (which I think come to the same thing, since, as Swinburne (1991) points out, a state of affairs may be expected to be brought about by a perfect being in proportion to its goodness). Theists who press this line to block Rowe’s argument are natur- ally called ‘sceptical theists’ because their blocking move depends on a kind of scepticism. Unsurprisingly, there have been many objections that this 4 He gives an arithmetic proof on p. 280, but it contains a typo. The ‘x’ in the third line should be a ‘þ’. Trakakis sets forth Rowe’s reasoning a bit more perspicuously than Rowe himself does (2007), but, inexplicably, ignores Bergmann’s criticism. 562 | recent work scepticism cannot easily be contained. To that we shall turn in a moment, but first Rowe must have his say. Rowe’s reply is that he simply finds it incredible that an omnipotent being can be limited in the ways implied by the unavoid- ability of particular evils. Kraay (2007: 216) says this is merely a ‘conversation stopper’, but that is a mistake. The foundation of one’s epistemic structure are one’s basic seem- ings. Contrary to what Kraay implies, it is no fault that one can’t provide an argument for the contents of one’s basic mental states, for by their very nature they are the foundations of justification. 3. How sceptical is sceptical theism? 3.1 Moral sceptical problems Almeida and Oppy (2003) raise problems for sceptical theism from consid- Downloaded from analysis.oxfordjournals.org at Baylor University on July 27, 2011 erations pertaining to moral reasoning (see also Jordan 2006; Maitzen 2009; Schnall 2007; Sehon 2010). Their argument is essentially this. (1) If the sceptical theist’s sceptical theses are true, then we are never able to know that an evil should be prevented (because, after all, it might be a means to a much greater good). (2) But we are sometimes able to know that an evil should be prevented. (3) So the sceptical theist’s sceptical theses are false. In reply,5 Bergmann and Rea (2005) argue that there is a fundamental difference between knowing that one ought to prevent an act and knowing that that act is on balance beneficial or detrimental. On their view, one needn’t know whether the act will leave the world on balance better or worse (see Howard-Snyder 2009 for more discussion of the relation between sceptical theism and moral theories). One just weighs what reasons one has at the time, and – so long as one cannot foresee that new relevant information is forthcoming – does what one has most reason to do at that time. They think they only need the following to be consistent for their reply to work: (*) For all I know, there is some all-things-considered reason (presently unknown or at least unappreciated by me) for me to permit E; but still, I know that I ought to prevent E. This is plausible. However, it’s not clear how good a move it is on the part of sceptical theists to divorce right action from knowledge of consequences, for their response to evil makes essential reference to the possible existence of 5 First they argue that adherents of revealed religion don’t face such a problem because God has revealed what they should do. However, first, if we have such a poor grasp of what God would or wouldn’t do, it seems hard to justify confidence that God’s apparent com- mands are not just tests (think Abraham and Isaac here). Second, the contents of revelation just aren’t specific enough to cover a wide enough array of present-day moral concerns.  recent work | 563 greater goods. The more deontological an ethic one takes, the more apt one might be to rule out any kind of greater good reply. Bergmann is not unaware of this issue (2008: 380, 392; forthcoming: appendix). On the other hand, some, like McCann (2005, 2009) deny that God has any duties to creatures (Swinburne 1998, esp. Ch. 12 recognizes duties in God). Consider this. One version of Oppy and Almeida’s criticism is this: In practical considerations—no less than in theoretical considerations— probabilities are the stuff of deliberation. And whereof one is not prepared to assign probabilities, thereof one is simply not able to deliberate. (2003: 515) Bergmann and Rea grant (2005: 247) that they are in no position to assign a probability to P1: Permitting the abduction will produce some outweighing good or prevent some worse evil. Downloaded from analysis.oxfordjournals.org at Baylor University on July 27, 2011 Yet they claim the following. 1. There is pro tanto reason for us to intervene to prevent the abduction. My question is this. Even granting Bergmann’s reply that his view is consistent with deontological ethics, in what kind of moral theory can one pos- sess a reason to perform some action where that reason conveys no probability at all on the proposition that that act will have the best consequences? 3.2 Theological sceptical problems In discussions of sceptical theism it is sometimes thought (Bergmann and Rea 2005: 245 or Howard-Snyder 2009: 42ff) that appeal to revelation can ap- pease sceptical worries stemming from sceptical theism. But it seems that if the sceptical theists’ sceptical theses undercut non-revealed moral truths, then they undercut revealed moral truths as well. Wielenberg 2010 raises similar issues. Beudoin 2005 also raises theological problems, as well as problems pertaining to the next section. 3.3 Epistemic sceptical problems Dougherty (2008) argues that sceptical theism doesn’t sit well with common sense epistemology. This is because it is a dictum of common sense that things are probably as they seem, and it seems to many that there is gratuitous evil. Common sense epistemology provides a source of immediate justification for all kinds of beliefs – perceptual, memorial, introspective and intuitive. Since sceptical theism aims to block a certain kind of inference – the dreaded ‘noseeum’ inference – it can’t possibly be an effective reply to what Dougherty calls the ‘common sense problem of evil’. Bergmann (forthcom- ing) replies that he rejects commonsense epistemology as defined by 564 | recent work Dougherty and says that one could only reasonably have the intuition that Dougherty claims to have if they accepted the following. (*) It’s false or unlikely that there is some possible worse evil that could be avoided by God (or some possible outweighing good that could be obtained by God) only if E or something as bad were permitted. In his ‘The Common Sense Problem of Evil’, (MS) Dougherty says he does accept (*) and that he does so because it seems obvious and that he has been given no good reason to doubt his intuition here. After all, we are not arguing in a void of complete ignorance about God: he is said to be omnipotent and omniscient. And it just seems incredible – as Rowe has pointed out (2001: 301) – that such a being is stuck with this or something much worse. Furthermore, Dougherty argues that the grounds Bergmann gives to accept Bergmann’s version of commonsensism also support Dougherty’s version of commonsensism. Downloaded from analysis.oxfordjournals.org at Baylor University on July 27, 2011 4. CORNEA One interesting feature of recent work on the problem of evil is a return to interest in probably the first academic version of sceptical theism. As men- tioned above, the contemporary era of the problem of evil began with Rowe’s ‘Variety’ (1979). The first response was by Wykstra, whose 1984 is a version of his reply to a version of Rowe 1979 at an APA conference. (Part of the story is told in Wykstra’s 2009 MS ‘In Memoriam?’) As narrated above, most of the attention has been in other regions in the last 5–10 years, but there have been some interesting exchanges concerning CORNEA. Here is Wykstra’s original 1984 version: CORNEA-1984 On the basis of cognized situation s, human H is entitled to claim ‘It appears that p’ only if it is reasonable for H to believe that, given her cognitive faculties and the use she has made of them, if p were not the case, s would likely be different than it is in some way discernible by her. (1984: 85) Here is his updated 1996 version (1996: 136ff, much assembly required to make the versions fit stylistically. See also Rowe 1996, 270ff): CORNEA-1996 Rowe’s argument works only if it is reasonable for Rowe to believe that if there were God-justifying reasons for all suffer- ings, then, likely we would not have the blindness to them we do. And, finally, here is a good summary of the idea from a more recent defence: In all versions, the key idea behind CORNEA is a proposed test for whether some alleged evidence E seriously ‘supports’. . . some hypothesis H . . . . [A]sk whether, if H were false, E is still pretty much what one  recent work | 565 should expect. If the answer is ‘Yes’, then E can’t seriously support H. (2007: 88) Laraudogoitia (2000) accuses CORNEA of backfiring due to, essentially, overlooking a fact about closure. The sceptical theist argues that CORNEA entails that the justified attitude concerning whether there are gratuitous evils is agnosticism. But the theist thinks it is reasonable to believe in God, and she knows that if God exists, then there is no gratuitous evil. And the following closure principle will hold for normal theists. CPL If it is reasonable for S to believe p, and S knows that p entails q, then S is committed to the reasonableness of q. From this principle – together with the theist’s theism and knowledge about the relevant entailment – it follows that the theist is justified in believing there is no gratuitous evil. But this contradicts the agnosticism dictated by Downloaded from analysis.oxfordjournals.org at Baylor University on July 27, 2011 CORNEA. This is a clever argument, but fallacious. Rowe is clear that he is partitioning out the evidence for theism and only claimed that the individ- ual evidential contribution of evil was to lower the probability of theism. He calls the move from theism to the denial of gratuitous evil the Moorean Shift (1996 (orig. 1979): 6–8) after Moore’s curt reply to the sceptic. The sceptical theist can consistently push CORNEA and the Moorean shift, because she only argues that CORNEA blocks the noseeum inference, not that one’s all-things-considered attitude towards gratuitous evil ought to be agnosticism. Graham and Maitzen (2007) note CORNEA’s resemblence to some prin- ciples in mainstream epistemology. They seek to bring objections to those principles to bear on CORNEA. The principles are Nozick’s ‘sensitivity’ con- dition on knowledge – essentially that you know only if, were p false, you wouldn’t believe p, and Dretske’s sensitivity account involving conclusive reasons – essentially, you know p if you have a reason R for it such that were p not true you would not have R (and/or R would not be true; we needn’t go into that here). One of the main objections to those theories is that they violate almost any plausible closure principle on knowledge. The closure principle in question is, essentially, this one: GMCL If S knows that p, and knows that p entails q, then S is in a position to know q. They argue that CORNEA fails to honour this principle, and find that ‘in- tolerable’. On a very reasonable interpretation of Wykstra’s exact wording of CORNEA, it is very plausible that it does indeed run afoul of some plausible closure principle. Wykstra (2007) replies by highlighting aspects of CORNEA which suggest a way to avoid the problem. Wykstra notes (2007: 91) that in his original formulation he made a distinction which is the crux of his response to 566 | recent work Graham and Maitzen. The distinction in question is (or is relevantly related to) Carnap’s distinction between ‘incremental’ confirmation and ‘absolute’ confirmation or what Wykstra calls ‘dynamic’ and ‘static’ support. An item of evidence E gives dynamic support to a target proposition p when it gives p an additional increment or ‘boost’ of probability. Obviously, this is con- sistent with p remaining very improbable on balance with respect to a set of total evidence. A total body of evidence E statically supports a target proposition p when p is more likely than not, given E. Wykstra correctly points out that there is a difference between closure principles and principles of warrant transmission. He can accept closure, thus he can accept that S’s knowing that she sees a zebra and that being a zebra excludes being a disguised donkey entails that S is in a position to know that she is not looking at a cleverly disguised mule while at the same time denying that the very same evidence E whereby S comes to be justified in believing there’s a donkey can, by itself, justify – or even boost the probabil- Downloaded from analysis.oxfordjournals.org at Baylor University on July 27, 2011 ity of – the proposition that it’s not a cleverly disguised mule. That’s just to say that Wykstra is not a dogmatist in Pryor’s sense (Pryor 2000). Rather, as a good Bayesian, Wykstra can assert that in normal conditions S’s background evidence will already rule out the mule scenario as having too low a prior probability. The previous attempt at CORNEA removal used a clever strategy. It noted that CORNEA was similar to a well-known theory of evidence, a major objection to which was that it leads to a denial of closure. McBrayer (2009) also notes the similarity to Dretske’s view of evidence and picks up on another troubling feature of it: it is formulated as a counterfactual sensitivity constraint on evidence. McBrayer offers several examples where CORNEA seems to have sceptical consequences. Dretske’s view of evidence entails that, essentially, if our evidence weren’t veridical, we wouldn’t have it as evidence. CORNEA entails, similarly, essentially, that our appearance states are evi- dential only if it is reasonable for us to believe that if they were non-veridical, we could somehow tell. Counter-examples are not hard to come by it seems: its appearing to me that all crows are black is evidence that all crows are black even though in the closest possible world in which they’re not – presumably one in which there are a few freak and unobserved non-black crows – things would appear just as they do now. Wykstra (MS: ‘CORNEA Transplant’) seeks to solve this problem by giving a probabilistic version of CORNEA. On plausible assignments of probabilities, the probabilistic version appears to survive McBrayer’s pro- posed counter-examples. Dougherty (MS: ‘In Defense of CORNEA’), in reply, argues that there is no need in this case to go Gettier on a precise account of CORNEA. All one needs is one sufficient condition for support failure. That is, all that is required is some factor X such that if appearance states have it, they do not justify, and that the appearance of gratuitous evil has factor X.  recent work | 567 Given the close analogies between, say, not understanding a master chess player’s moves and not understanding God’s plan, it is prima facie plausible that the appearance of gratuity has factor X. 5. Major books The last five years has seen the publication of a number of very good books on the problem of evil. I briefly treat them here. Peter van Inwagen was one of the first to carefully express a form of sceptical theism (van Inwagen 1988, 1991). In his The Problem of Evil (Oxford, 2006), he gives his most recent version of his free will defence against the ‘global’ argument from evil and his vagueness reply to the ‘local’ problem of evil. (Regarding his distinction between the ‘global’ and ‘local’ formulations, compare Tooley’s (2002 and 2008: 101ff) distinction between ‘abstract’ and ‘particular’ formulations). There is little new (though Downloaded from analysis.oxfordjournals.org at Baylor University on July 27, 2011 the vagueness argument appears in yet another form) in the volume, it is, rather, a magisterial version of his thoughts on the topic. While there’s not much new in van Inwagen’s monograph, he has collected a group of essays which are quite diverse and represent in some cases quite a departure from the previous literature (van Inwagen 2004). There are famil- iar items – a chapter by van Inwagen that consists mostly of parts of lectures 4 and 5 from his 2006 and discussion on probability and evil in a nice exchange between Otte and Draper – but there are also very new items. Alvin Plantinga gives a fuller version of his ‘O Felix Culpa’ theodicy based on the premiss that any world with incarnation and atonement is better than any world without it (though he says he can run the argument on much weaker premisses). The volume also contains items quite different from what analytic philosophers are accustomed to seeing, including religious experience, the thought of John Paul II, and battered women. 5.1 Excursus on hiddenness If the problem of evil and the problem of divine hiddenness were for the most part considered separate issues prior to 2000, it should no longer be so. The Rowe–Bergmann debate in the pair of 2001 articles explicitly discuss (Bergmann 2001: 282ff, Rowe 2001: 298ff). Rowe’s previous claim (1996: 276) was that if God were like a loving parent (a thesis theists make use of (Wykstra 1996: 139) and the reasons for allowing our suffering were beyond our comprehension, then He would make an effort to be consciously present to us. Howard-Snyder and Moser 2002 contains a number of important essays on the problem of divine hiddenness, including two (van Inwagen (see esp. 29) and Kvanvig) which explicitly raise the question of the relation- ship between the two problems. Kvanvig says ‘the purported problem of hiddenness is just a special case of the general problem of evil’ (159). 568 | recent work Van Inwagen thinks that the problems are disjoint but ‘essentially related’. His 2006 book ends with a chapter on divine hiddenness. Hasker 2008 is not published through a university press and so will be missed in many treatments, but Hasker’s thoughts are well worth consider- ing. He opens with a (too) brief survey of the debate, including a view not as much emphasized in other works: so-called ‘open theism’, the view that God does not know the future as traditionally thought, and so part of the explan- ation of evil consists in God’s own risk-taking (Ch. 8 addresses problems specific to this view. See also Hasker 2004 and Langtry 2008). A helpful aspect of Hasker’s treatment is that it approaches the problem of evil not in a purely defensive way, but through the lens of a theory of creation. As such, he has much illuminating to say about the nature of the relationship between evil and evolution (Ch. 5 is thus the meatiest chapter). His thoughts on the value of freedom (Ch. 6, See also his 2004, Chapter 2) are reminiscent of those of Swinburne, but expressed in a more ‘sensitive’ way. Downloaded from analysis.oxfordjournals.org at Baylor University on July 27, 2011 In Knowledge of God (2008), Michael Tooley (97ff) forcefully presents a very rigorous version of the Problem of Evil. He brings to bear many of the distinctions mentioned in his 2002. In particular, Tooley offers a probabilistic argument based on, at first, one instance of evil which it seems God has a duty to prevent. Then he considers the probabilistic effects of supposing there are multiple, indeed, many (‘in excess of a billion’, 42), such evils. His con- clusion is that consideration of the evils in the world make theism (apart from positive arguments, some of which he treats briefly) ‘very, very low’ (142) and ‘extremely unlikely’ (146). The crux of his argument (which is stated explicitly on 117–21) depends on a claim about the symmetry of right- and wrong-making properties (129) roughly to the effect that it is as likely a priori that a factor is wrong-making as that it is right-making. Tooley’s argument is very careful but has some serious disadvantages. First, it is completely couched in terms of Carnapian syntactic confirmation theory. This theory is almost universally thought to be deeply and irreparably defective by confirmation theorists. Plantinga rehearses some of these prob- lems. Additionally, the dialectic is complicated, as Plantinga notes (170–71), by the fact that anyone justified – inferentially or non-inferentially – in believing that there is a God will be justified in rejecting some of the pre- misses. So the connection between atheological arguments from evil and positive theistic arguments is more subtle than just the fact that theistic arguments could counter-balance the effects of the argument from evil. Rather, they affect whether the argument from evil gets any purchase against the theist in the first place. Plantinga’s reaction to Tooley’s central assump- tion about moral property symmetry is agnosticism. He suggests we have no way of finding out such things. Much more deserves to be said, however, since the principle does seem intuitive. Symmetry seems somehow more ‘natural’.  recent work | 569 One objection to this which Plantinga doesn’t make use of is that within the Christian tradition evil is often conceptualized in negative terms. This might provide the theist with some reason to think right-making properties will outstrip wrong-making properties. One might think that because virtues are second-order goods (forgiveness assumes a first-order wrong), good-making properties will outstrip bad-making ones. So suppose A unjustifiably harms B. A can exercise for- giveness, patience, magnanimity, sympathy and a host of other virtues in response to this. However, perhaps the reverse is true as well. B forgives A, and B is rude, proud, etc. in reply. This deserves further inquiry though. Bruce Langtry (Langtry 2008) offers a densely argued book which has three main movements. First, he considers the Leibnizian question of whether it is a problem that this does not appear to be the best world, thus engaging Rowe 2004, which argues against theism on the grounds that God would be morally at fault for having made a world which could be easily surpassed. Downloaded from analysis.oxfordjournals.org at Baylor University on July 27, 2011 Next, he advocates a Plantinga-style free will defence, and finally he works towards a soul-making theodicy similar to Swinburne’s (though, as with Hasker, in a more ‘sensitive’ manner). There is a fair amount of static in the book due to Langtry’s sometimes languishing efforts to juggle several conceptions of God at once. Michael Murray (Murray 2008), is one of the first to give extended, careful treatment to an important and neglected (though see Swinburne 1998: 171ff), aspect of the problem of evil: pre-human animal suffering. Noting that most treatments of this category of suffering attempt to justify it in reference to goods accrued to humans (e.g. Swinburne 1998: 189ff), he opines (I demur) that this keeps them from succeeding. Instead, he defends the proposition that it is a good ‘for the cosmos’ to move from disorder to order (in at least some places) via a slow, regular process. Though vague, this is a very interesting line of thought (and certainly not without precedent: Swinburne makes much of it, but most specifically in his 1998, Chapter 3 (and he cites earlier precedents)), and exploring it further is an important research project. Another book that takes a look at a specific and neglected area is Divine Evil? The Moral Character of the God of Abraham edited by Michaels Bergmann, Murray and Rea. In this book, an impressive array of philoso- phers addresses problems of evil that arise from directly within the Judeo-Christian Scriptures. Nick Trakakis (Trakakis 2007) has written a very careful and thorough (though occasionally inexplicably spotty) defence of Rowe’s argument that has not received enough attention. Trakakis 2008 repudiates the argumen- tative approach altogether on moral grounds. Unfortunately, misguided guilt over theodicy is developed at book length in David Burrell’s 2008 Deconstructing Theodicy (Brazos Press). The basis of the book seems to be a misapplication of speech act theory to theology. Taking cryptic remarks of 570 | recent work Wittgenstein as a basis, he evinces a dismissive attitude to theory. God is the creator, we are created, so reason’s wings are clipped from the beginning, end of story. Brian Davies’s 2006 The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil is much the same, except based on cryptic remarks of Aquinas instead. Both Burrell and Davies would do well to read Chapter 3, ‘Divine Goodness’, from C.S. Lewis’s The Problem of Pain. It is a dictate of what we might call ‘Common Sense Theology’, that religious practices – at least those of the Christian tradition in which Burrell and Davies operate – require a significant grasp of God’s character in nature, revelation, and through the imago dei implanted in us, by which we understand – to some small but adequate degree – what God is like and what he expects morally, and, thus, what we can expect of him. One hopes that Davies’s forthcoming volume on Aquinas (Thomas Aquinas on Good and Evil, OUP, 2011) will avoid the extremes of his 2006. Most of these criticisms of theodicy were addressed in advance by Downloaded from analysis.oxfordjournals.org at Baylor University on July 27, 2011 Plantinga (2000: 481ff), and re-emphasized by Hasker 2008, Chapter 2, van Inwagen (2006: 56–62) and more recently by Eleonore Stump (2010: 16ff) to whom we now turn. Finally, there is one book (I am tempted to say ‘to rule them all’) which represents a true breakthrough. Eleonore Stump published, in the last part of 2010, Wandering in the Darkness which is in a manner her magnum opus. In it, she offers an account (as she notes, the distinction between a ‘defence’ and a ‘theodicy’ is a matter of perspective) – largely based on the work of Aquinas – of why God allows suffering. Central to this account is the notion of human flourishing and our limited ability to perceive when we are experiencing it. A massive but page-turning volume of nearly 700 pages, she conveys her ac- count via biblical narratives (defending this practice explicitly). According to the Aquinas-Stump view, loving interpersonal relationships are key to human flourishing, especially one’s relationship with God. One thing that comes through very well from this method and her application is how wrong we can be about how our lives are going, and how insignificant even horrendous suffering can seem in light of the rest of the story. A truly magnificent achievement, the book is rich with compelling narratives from inside and outside the Judeo-Christian Scriptures.6 Baylor University, Waco, TX 76798, USA [email protected] 6 Research for this project was supported in part by the Institute for Studies of Religion, Baylor University. Thanks to Chris Tweedt for compiling the bibliography and to him, Scott and Lindsay Cleveland for helpful comments.  recent work | 571 References Almeida, M. and G. Oppy. 2003. 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