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The ‘harder problem’ of the devil's fall is still a problem: a reply to Wood

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 December 2016

MICHAEL BARNWELL
MICHAEL BARNWELL*
Affiliation:
Niagara University Philosophy Department, PO Box 2043, Niagara University, NY 14109-2043, USA
*
e-mail: barnwell@niagara.edu
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Abstract

William Wood has importantly distinguished between a ‘hard problem’ and a ‘harder problem’ in explaining the devil's fall. He points out that previous attempts to explain Satan's sin have focused only on the former and cleverly argues that consumer preference theory, when applied to Anselm's account of Satan's sin, can solve the latter. In this article, I demonstrate that Wood's solution (i) undermines itself, (ii) fails to absolve God of the charge of being tyrannical, (iii) surreptitiously reintroduces the harder problem, and (iv) eventually collapses back into the initial hard problem. I conclude by suggesting why one might nonetheless be motivated to distinguish between the two problems and what this implies about a belief in the devil's fall.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 53 , Issue 4 , December 2017 , pp. 521 - 543
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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