Intentionality, Belief, and the Logical Problem of Evil

Abstract

The logical problem of evil is the appearance of inconsistency between the existence of God and the existence of any evil at all. A defence against the logical problem of evil is an argument that purports to show that this appearance is misleading and in fact there is no such inconsistency. Such defences, like all philosophical arguments, generally rely on controversial premises. For instance, Plantinga's Free Will Defence relies on a Molinist account of the metaphysics of freedom (Plantinga 1974, ch. 9). The use of these sorts of controversial premises limits the dialectical e ectiveness of such defences, so that no one defence can eliminate the logical problem in all contexts. In this paper, I provide a new defence against the logical problem of evil, relying on a di erent package of controversial assumptions, and capable of going places Plantinga's Free Will Defence can't. My aim will be to show that certain views in the philosophy of mind, which are popular among naturalists but might also reasonably be endorsed by theists, have the consequence that it is not possible for created minds to exist in a world without evil. Since the existence of created minds is a very great good, it seems that if this theory of mind is correct then God would be justi ed in creating a world containing at least some evil.