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The pre-eminent good argument

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 February 2019

ALEXANDER BOZZO
ALEXANDER BOZZO*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI53233, USA
*
e-mail: alexander.bozzo@marquette.edu
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Abstract

According to J. L. Schellenberg, a perfectly loving God wouldn't permit the occurrence of non-resistant non-believers – that is, non-believers who are both capable of believing in and relating to God, but who fail to believe through no fault of their own. Since non-resistant non-believers exist, says Schellenberg, it follows that God doesn't. A popular response to this argument is some version or other of the greater good defence. God, it's argued, is justified in hiding himself when done for the sake of some greater good. But proponents of this defence have overlooked or neglected an important sub-argument in Schellenberg's case – what I call the ‘pre-eminent good argument’. In this article, I identify the nature of the argument and offer a solution to it.

Type
Original Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 56 , Issue 4 , December 2020 , pp. 596 - 610
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

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