Sublime

Many insist that this problem is the single strongest objection to the existence of God in general and the plausibility of Christianity in particular.

it is not only Christianity that cannot completely explain the problem of evil; no worldview can. The real question, then, is which worldview offers the most satisfying explanation of the problem of evil, which is both livable and intellectually defensible, even though that explanation will inevitably leave important questions unanswered.

Utilitarianism advanced its most successful claims in the nineteenth century. Thereafter intuitionism followed by emotivism held sway in British philosophy, while in the United States pragmatism provided the same kind of praeparatio evangelica for emotivism that intuitionism provided in Britain. But for reasons that we have already noticed

Rather than accept the evidentialists’ requirements by attempting to construct a traditional argument for Christianity, Plantinga challenged the entire notion of traditional proof as the primary basis for belief.

faith is a power or skill to act in accordance with the nature of the kingdom of God, a trust in what we have reason to believe is true.

that have been offered down through history to explain the empty tomb, postmortem appearances, and origin of the disciples’ belief in Jesus’ resurrection, and let’s see if they do better or as well in explaining these facts as the resurrection hypothesis.

But we can discern another implicit assumption inside the first hidden premise. The assumption is—“if I can’t see any reasons God might have for permitting that evil . . . then probably he doesn’t have any.”178 But that premise is obviously false.

Atheist Alternative: The Universe Exists Necessarily! What can the atheist do at this point? He has a more radical alternative open to him. He can retrace his steps, withdraw his objection to premise 1, and say instead that, yes, the universe does have an explanation of its existence. But that explanation is: The universe exists by a necessity of

evidential argument against God.