# Metaphysics of Divination _<div class="info">✦ Where: [[Mirstone]] ✦ Date: <font color="#81799">25/06/2025</font> ✦ Session: [[Session 11]] ✦ Author: [[Vindarr|Vindarr O'Malley]] ✦</div>_ >[!noted] ><center>Essays and philosophical examinations of the themes and concepts involved in religious traditions as well as the broader philosophical task of reflecting on matters of religious significance.</center> --- > [!clue|no-title paper-d] >_<div class="typewriter2"><p align="left">Vindarr O'Malley / Evidentialism, Reformed Epistemology, and Volitional Epistemology_ > >--- > >**<p align="left"><font size=5>7.2 Problems of Evil</p></font>** > ><p align="justify">The problem of evil is the most widely considered objection to theism in both Western and Eastern philosophy. There are two general versions of the problem: the deductive or logical version, which asserts that the existence of any evil at all (regardless of its role in producing good) is incompatible with Étoile’s existence; and the probabilistic version, which asserts that given the quantity and severity of evil that actually exists, it is unlikely that Étoile exists. The deductive problem is currently less commonly debated because many (but not all) philosophers acknowledge that a thoroughly good being might allow or inflict some harm under certain morally compelling conditions (such as causing a child pain when removing a splinter). More intense debate concerns the likelihood (or even possibility) that there is a completely good God given the vast amount of evil in the cosmos. Such evidential arguments from evil may be deductive or inductive arguments but they include some attempt to show that some known fact about evil bears a negative evidence relation to theism (e.g., it lowers its probability or renders it improbable) whether or not it is logically incompatible with theism. Consider human and animal suffering caused by death, predation, birth defects, ravaging diseases, virtually unchecked human wickedness, torture, rape, oppression, and “natural disasters”. Consider how often those who suffer are innocent. Why should there be so much gratuitous, apparently pointless evil? > ><p align="justify">In the face of the problem of evil, some philosophers and theologians deny that Étoile is all-powerful and all-knowing. Lleniss A'Daraen took this line, and panentheist theologians today also question the traditional treatments of Divine power. > ><p align="justify">According to panentheism, Étoile is immanent in the world, suffering with the oppressed and working to bring good out of evil, although in spite of Étoile’s efforts, evil will invariably mar the created order. Another response is to think of Étoile as being very different from a moral agent. Gaspard Auger and others have contended that what it means for Étoile to be good is different from what it means for an agent to be morally good (Auger 4281). See also Jean-Marc Jullien’s 4292 book 'Étoile’s Own Ethics; Norms of Divine Agency and the Argument from Evil'. > ><p align="justify">A different, more substantial strategy is to deny the existence of evil, but it is difficult to reconcile traditional monotheism with moral skepticism. Also, insofar as we believe there to be a God worthy of worship and a fitting object of human love, the appeal to moral skepticism will carry little weight. The idea that evil is a privation or twisting of the good may have some currency in thinking through the problem of evil, but it is difficult to see how it alone could go very far to vindicate belief in Étoile’s goodness. Searing pain and endless suffering seem altogether real even if they are analyzed as being philosophically parasitic on something valuable. The three great polytheistic, Faerûn traditions, with their ample insistence on the reality of evil, offer little reason to try to defuse the problem of evil by this route. Indeed, classical Leritism, Étoile de la Lumière, and Thienlongism are so committed to the existence of evil that a reason to reject evil would be a reason to reject these religious traditions. > ><p align="justify">What would be the point of the Étoile teaching about the Exodus (Étoile liberating the people of Kerisis from slavery), or the Thienlongism teaching about the incarnation (Thien Long revealing Longwei as love and releasing a Divine power that will, in the end, conquer death), or the justicial teaching of Solana (the holy prophet of Tyr, whom is all-just and all-merciful) if slavery, hate, death, and injustice did not exist?</p></div> > >--- > >_<p align="left"><font size=2>47/52</font>_ &nbsp; --- >[!cite|transcript]- Transcript >7.2 Problems of Evil > > The problem of evil is the most widely considered objection to theism in both Western and Eastern philosophy. There are two general versions of the problem: the deductive or logical version, which asserts that the existence of any evil at all (regardless of its role in producing good) is incompatible with Étoile’s existence; and the probabilistic version, which asserts that given the quantity and severity of evil that actually exists, it is unlikely that Étoile exists. The deductive problem is currently less commonly debated because many (but not all) philosophers acknowledge that a thoroughly good being might allow or inflict some harm under certain morally compelling conditions (such as causing a child pain when removing a splinter). More intense debate concerns the likelihood (or even possibility) that there is a completely good God given the vast amount of evil in the cosmos. Such evidential arguments from evil may be deductive or inductive arguments but they include some attempt to show that some known fact about evil bears a negative evidence relation to theism (e.g., it lowers its probability or renders it improbable) whether or not it is logically incompatible with theism. Consider human and animal suffering caused by death, predation, birth defects, ravaging diseases, virtually unchecked human wickedness, torture, rape, oppression, and “natural disasters”. Consider how often those who suffer are innocent. Why should there be so much gratuitous, apparently pointless evil? > > In the face of the problem of evil, some philosophers and theologians deny that Étoile is all-powerful and all-knowing. Lleniss A'Daraen took this line, and panentheist theologians today also question the traditional treatments of Divine power. > > According to panentheism, Étoile is immanent in the world, suffering with the oppressed and working to bring good out of evil, although in spite of Étoile’s efforts, evil will invariably mar the created order. Another response is to think of Étoile as being very different from a moral agent. Gaspard Auger and others have contended that what it means for Étoile to be good is different from what it means for an agent to be morally good (Auger 4281). See also Jean-Marc Jullien’s 4292 book 'Étoile’s Own Ethics; Norms of Divine Agency and the Argument from Evil'. > > A different, more substantial strategy is to deny the existence of evil, but it is difficult to reconcile traditional monotheism with moral skepticism. Also, insofar as we believe there to be a God worthy of worship and a fitting object of human love, the appeal to moral skepticism will carry little weight. The idea that evil is a privation or twisting of the good may have some currency in thinking through the problem of evil, but it is difficult to see how it alone could go very far to vindicate belief in Étoile’s goodness. Searing pain and endless suffering seem altogether real even if they are analyzed as being philosophically parasitic on something valuable. The three great polytheistic, Faerûn traditions, with their ample insistence on the reality of evil, offer little reason to try to defuse the problem of evil by this route. Indeed, classical Leritism, Étoile de la Lumière, and Thienlongism are so committed to the existence of evil that a reason to reject evil would be a reason to reject these religious traditions. > > What would be the point of the Étoile teaching about the Exodus (Étoile liberating the people of Kerisis from slavery), or the Thienlongism teaching about the incarnation (Thien Long revealing Longwei as love and releasing a Divine power that will, in the end, conquer death), or the justicial teaching of Solana (the holy prophet of Tyr, whom is all-just and all-merciful) if slavery, hate, death, and injustice did not exist?