religions Article Is God Morally Obligated to Prevent Evil? A Response to James Sterba Joseph Brian Huffling Department of Philosophy, Southern Evangelical Seminary, Charlotte, NC 28277, USA; bhuffl
[email protected] Abstract: James Sterba’s book, Is a Good God Logically Possible?, argues that given the amount of significant and horrendous evil in the world, it is not possible for a (morally) good God to exist. This article draws on the work of Brian Davies’ interpretation of Thomistic metaphysics and theology proper and argues that God is not a moral being, and thus has no obligations to prevent such evil. If such is the case, then the problem of evil as presented by Sterba is not a problem for God’s existence. Keywords: God; moral; morality; evil; James Sterba; Brian Davies; Thomas Aquinas; good 1. Introduction James Sterba argues that a good God is not logically possible.1 It may interest some that as a theist, I agree with him in a way. How on earth could a theist agree with an atheist in saying that a good God does not exist? In his book, Is a Good God Logically Possible?, Sterba makes the argument that given the amount of horrendous evil in the world, there is no justification, even in principle, for an all-good God allowing it.2 While many if not most philosophers today favor a more inductive argument in the vein of William Rowe, Sterba uses a logical, deductive approach to argue against any possibility of God’s existence.3 Citation: Huffling, Joseph Brian. This article will outline Sterba’s main argument, focusing on his point that any such 2021.