“PART II: Evidence for Jesus” – This section dedicates six chapters to Jesus Christ. For decades, Evidence That Demands a Verdict has met believers, seekers and skeptics at the intersection of faith and fact, laying a foundation of unshakeable, time-proven truth for us to stand on through ages of skepticism, mysticism and so-called tolerance. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders. Michael J. Murray (Grand Rapids and Cambridge, U.K.: Eerdmans, 1999), 47-75. . P. H. Nidditch (Oxford: Clarendon, 1975; original, 1777), 110. The Search OF the Savior: Why Jesus Came, Part 2 (Gal. Craig makes the same point in somewhat more developed fashion: . However, subsequent publications, including the short introduction to a new edition of Flew’s classic atheist book God and Philosophy (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2005), suggest that Flew’s belief in a God was not yet a settled conviction. Given its human impossibility, its uniqueness (i.e., nobody who has made similar claims, except C, has ever performed R), C’s claim that God is responsible for R, its existential and teleological significance (i.e., C performed R at a particular time t, not at any other time), and the religious context of the event (i.e., C performed R when his claims about himself hinged on the actuality of R occurring at time t), it becomes apparent that a particular message is being communicated through this event, namely, C is God’s chosen one. This is the inductive or evidential problem of evil. Later we will consider the evidentialist approach to the miracles of the Bible; here we will highlight the argument from fulfilled prophecy. William Lane Craig and Mark S. McLeod, Problems in Contemporary Philosophy, vol. 28 Notably Moreland, 33-35; Francis Beckwith, David Hume’s Argument against Miracles: A Critical Analysis (Lanham, Md. Terry L. Miethe (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987); and more recently, Gary R. Habermas and Michael R. Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2004). The internal test considers the claims of the writings as to their historicity and internal consistency. This means that it is always possible, however slender the possibility, that an apparent miracle will turn out to be scientifically explicable. Click here for the lowest price! 18 Montgomery, “Death of the ‘Death of God,’” in Suicide of Christian Theology, 125. 2), archaeological evidence (ch. . This depends, first, on how probable it is that God exists anyway. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2017. Montgomery, 193-201. The Search OF the Savior: Why Jesus Came, Part 1 (Luke 19:1-10), Bible Storying Series - Teaching The Story Of God Chronologically. However, they go about this task in a somewhat different way. Evil and the Evidence for God: The Challenge of John Hick’s Theodicy. He performed deeds that were interpreted as miracles. It invites readers to bring their doubts and doesn't shy away from the tough questions. Geivett, R. Douglas. The modern apologetics classic that started it all is now completely revised and updated—because the truth of the Bible doesn’t change, but its critics do. (3) It cannot be fulfilled by the actions of the human person making the prediction. The skeptic whose worldview excludes divine fulfillment of prophecy is advised that the evidence is sufficient to call such a worldview into question. Only at this point does Beckwith discuss God’s existence. Paris Hilton reveals past abuse in new documentary. Bloom then implicitly adds a fifth, namely, that the successful prediction must not be accompanied by a number of false predictions. Jesus’ claim to be God would lack all credibility had he remained dead. 2 All parenthetical citations in this section are from Montgomery, History and Christianity. These explanations typically function as alternatives to one or more of the generally accepted facts adduced by Craig and Habermas. Hardcover, 9781401676704, 1401676707 24), the historical support for the book of Daniel (ch. . Evidence that Demands a Verdict is broken up into four main sections: Part One: Evidence for the Bible. Collins concludes that “the relevant probability estimates in the case of the fine-tuning argument are much more secure than those estimates in the probabilistic version of the atheist’s argument from evil.”40, Evidentialists believe that miracles, like fulfilled prophecy, can be used in the verification of the supernatural. The fact that Jesus’ tomb was not venerated as a shrine shows, again, that the earliest Christians believed the tomb to be empty. Evidentialists are aware of the common criticism that the Gospel writers take the Old Testament texts out of context, but they reply that this criticism is without merit. 3 C. Sanders, Introduction to Research in English Literary History (New York: Macmillan, 1952). Jesus’ followers had no basis for hoping that he would be raised from the dead. 30 In addition to the sources already cited, see Boa and Bowman, 20 Compelling Evidences that God Exists, 51-60, for an overview of the argument; more detailed treatments can be found in Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers (New York: Norton, 1978); Stanley L. Jaki, God and the Cosmologists (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Gateway, 1989). Below I’m going to list the sections in the book and a brief synopsis of each. Among important books in the defense of Christianity, this one has few equals. First, they argue that the belief that all religions are basically the same does not take seriously the facts about the different religions. The same material is found in Montgomery, Where Is History Going, 37-52. I … Second, Habermas and Craig refute objections to each of these generally recognized facts and offer additional support for each of these planks of the argument. . “PART IV: Evidence for Truth” – The final section deals with the philosophical issues that are very relevant in dealing with our culture today. They contend that only theism, the belief that the world was created and is utterly dependent on an infinite yet personal Creator, is a philosophically viable worldview. However, if the testimonial evidence is multiplied and reinforced by circumstantial considerations . -- The canon -- The reliability of the Bible : Confirmation of the historical text : Confirmation by archaeology -- Jesus- a man of history -- Jesus- God's son -- The trilemma- Lord, liar or lunatic? Ever since David Hume’s critique of belief in miracles, answering skepticism about the rationality of believing any such events occur has been of crucial importance in Christian apologetics, and this problem is the focus of Beckwith’s book. As it’s been said before “the Bible doesn’t change but critics do!” I want to give you a peek into this book by laying out for you some of the book’s internal content. 4. Jesus forgave sins that had not been committed against him; he made statements that the Jewish authorities understandably interpreted as blasphemous claims to deity; he spoke on the Law of God as if it was his to define and apply. In an essay on the evidence from the fine-tuning of the universe for God’s existence, Robin Collins argues that this positive argument for belief in God is much stronger than the inductive argument from evil against belief in God. “God cannot be impersonal, personal, transcendent, polytheistic, pantheistic, monotheistic, able to beget, not able to beget, relevant, and irrelevant all at the same time. However, while evidentialists use it to prove the existence of God, classical apologists generally do not. “Introduction” – Here Sean and Josh take some valuable space to deal with misconceptions about Christianity and the “assumptions behind those misconceptions.” I thought this was a very thoughtful section to add. It also depends on whether this much evil is more likely to exist if God exists or if He does not. This section answers many of the relevant skeptical topics that come up about Jesus today. 'Mulan' leads to spike in Disney+ app downloads I first became aware of this monumental work when I was just beginning my apologetics journey. 29), the assumptions of skepticism (ch. 14), the “biblically faithful approaches to Genesis” (ch. Montgomery, 204-208. As classical apologists and philosophers have pointed out, an all-good and all-powerful God might choose to create a world in which evil would arise if God had some good reason for doing so. 54 Craig and Crossan, Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up, 160. 1 (Wheeling, Ill.: Searchlight Publications, 1995). This new problem is not whether God and evil both exist, but “how both can exist” (64). Paul, a persecutor of the Christians, converted to faith in Christ after an experience of seeing Jesus alive from the dead. If an event is scientifically inexplicable and has historical-religious significance, Beckwith concludes that we are justified in concluding that the event was supernaturally caused. These claims should be accepted at face value as truthful unless and until evidence to the contrary is produced. This assumes, of course, that we have already concluded that the event occurred at all. dealing with claims of contradiction in the OT. Luke 24:21). “Within this religious context the physiological anomaly of a resurrection takes on a significance which would not have been present if this individual had ‘just happened’ to rise from the dead for no apparent reason” (11). Beckwith admits that one or several pieces of testimonial evidence would usually be insufficient evidence to conclude that a miracle had occurred. “The theist will have deflected the specific objection to the existence of God on the basis of evil without even the most cursory analysis of evil if the theist has produced a compelling argument for the existence of God on independent grounds” (64-65). 808 pages. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1997. I’ll quote each section (or set of sections) and give an explanation. 13 See further The Evidence of Prophecy, ed. By Josh and Sean McDowell. Click here for Evidence That Demands A Verdict on Amazon Evidence That Demands a Verdict: Life-Changing Truth for a Skeptical World. 43 Citing David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 3rd ed., rev. The evidential problem of evil asks, Is it evidentially plausible that God and evil coexist? Evidentialists, like classical apologists, seek to offer arguments for the existence of God on grounds that are in principle understandable and acceptable to non-Christians. Scientists should not shy away from concluding that God created the universe if that is where the evidence leads, as Douglas Geivett, an evidentialist philosopher, has argued. For if Jesus was raised from the dead, given the religious context of the event, then God evidently does exist. An absolute beginning for all physical reality implies that the universe was caused to come into existence by something beyond the investigative competency of the natural sciences. Second-century Christians who knew the apostles or their immediate disciples testified that the Gospels were based on eyewitness testimony. 20), the historical reliability of the nation of Israel under Kings like David (ch. As Habermas and Licona observe, Jesus’ life “created a context in which his resurrection from the dead would not be a surprise. . This line of argument “depends in no sense on theology. 45 Montgomery, Faith Founded on Fact, 57. Furthermore, in light of the converging nature of the facts in this case, and the inference to a rational cause made eminently plausible by them, any appeals to coincidence or freak accident become entirely ad hoc, a sort of naturalism-of-the-gaps. Be sure to pick this up when it comes out tomorrow! 32). $19.49. Flew’s extensive discussions and debates with Habermas and other evangelical apologists directly contributed to his rethinking his longstanding position of atheism. Montgomery, Faith Founded on Fact, 55. This type of miracle touches man at his deepest existential and personal level, and can be a source of hope, assurance, and peace of mind if the person who conquered death promises eternal life to those who follow his teachings. See also Boa and Moody, I’m Glad You Asked, 64-66. First, they generally subordinate the classical philosophical proofs for God’s existence to a different place in their apologetic, and a few evidentialists even reject the philosophical proofs as invalid and unhelpful. 25 clever small kitchen storage ideas under $50. “APPENDIX: Responding to the Challenges of Bart Ehrman” – A special section dealing with the (well-known at least in apologetic circles) skeptic Bart Ehrman who has made a career out of creating popular-level books casting doubt on Christianity. Norman Geisler, for example, states plainly: “Fulfilled prophecy does not prove the existence of God, but it does show that unusual events predicted in his Name that come to pass are evidence of his special activity.”17. Again following Montgomery, Beckwith favors “the legal model of evaluating evidence” as the best method for determining whether to believe a particular miracle claim (122). 37 Montgomery, “Death of the ‘Death of God,’” in Suicide of Christian Theology, 101. We discuss this prophecy in more detail in 20 Compelling Evidences that God Exists, 160-69. Evidence that Demands a Verdict has been a staple of any Christian apologetics library for over forty years. ), it should not bother the believer in miracles one bit that miracles cannot be demonstrated to be permanently inexplicable; scientific inexplicability in terms of currently well-established laws will do just fine. Flew asked us to imagine a situation in which we are told that an invisible gardener visits a garden every day and tends it. 25 Swinburne, Existence of God, 227, 235, 242-243. The first step for evidentialists such as Montgomery, then, is to defend the biblical writings, not as infallible Scripture, but as historically credible and reliable documents. 33 Hugh Ross, “Astronomical Evidences for a Personal, Transcendent God,” in The Creation Hypothesis: Scientific Evidence for an Intelligent Designer, ed. Any answer to this problem must show that the existence of God is compatible with the fact of evil in the world. “To be skeptical of the resultant text of the New Testament books is to allow all of classical antiquity to slip into obscurity, for no documents of the ancient period are as well attested bibliographically as the New Testament” (29). 2 The two main sections of this million-seller compendium cover The Documentary Hypothesis (asking who wrote the first part of the Old Testament), and Form Criticism (literary-historical analysis of the sources of the New Testament). The 'beautiful' game still has many ugly stains. There is no evidence that demands a positive verdict from every reasonable person.” and the explanation of the event as a violation connects the data in a simple and coherent fashion (just as we expect a natural law to do), and a denial of the event’s occurrence becomes an ad hoc naturalism-of-the-gaps, I do not see why it would not be entirely reasonable to believe that this event has occurred (based on a convergence of independent probabilities). Women friends of Jesus had experiences of seeing Jesus alive from the dead. Evidence That Demands a Verdict “I saw unequivocally that the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ is so overwhelming that it compels acceptance by proof which leave absolutely no room for doubt.” Using secular evidences and other historical sources, Josh McDowell's faith-building book is a "must read" for every Christian. . 10 Ibid., 179-86; Robert W. Manweiler, “The Destruction of Tyre,” and Elaine A. Phillips, “The Fall of Nineveh,” in The Evidence of Prophecy, ed. . Includes bibliographies The uniqueness of the Bible -- How was the Bible prepared? (239-240). These chapters deal with canonization (ch. The book is the classic Evidence The Demands A Verdict: Life-Changing Truth For A Skeptical World given additional content and revised! Evidence That Demands a Verdict is an easy-to-read, front-line defense for Christians facing the tough questions of critics and skeptics. In the case of the evidential argument from evil, we have no way to quantify the relative amounts of good and evil that have been and will be produced in the universe, and indeed have good reason to admit that we know about only a small fraction of the good and evil that have occurred and will occur in the universe. Altizer’s mistake “stems from his general disrespect for historical facts: he will not allow a given religion to speak for itself. If God raised Jesus from the dead, then the true God is the God of Jesus Christ. 515 b.c.–a.d. But Beckwith does not see this as a liability. We will regard the documents, even though today they are usually printed on fine India paper with verse numbers, only as documents, and we will treat them as we would any other historical materials” (25-26). He was to be born a human son, yet he preexisted as God (Micah 5:2; Isaiah 9:6-7). The fact that he rose from the dead provides strong warrant for accepting his divine claims. (3) Stroll begs the question by assuming that the miraculous events reported in the Gospels could not have happened simply because they were miraculous (19-21). For example, Francis Beckwith objects to the Baha’i teaching that all the world’s major religions were inspired by God. 27 William Lane Craig, The Existence of God and the Beginning of the Universe (San Bernardino, Calif.: Here’s Life, 1979), 55-80; Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 1994), 100-116; and his debate book on the subject with Quentin Smith, Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993). Montgomery and other evidentialists use this threefold test regularly to defend the historical reliability of the New Testament.4. Click here for the lowest price! The “evidence” that truly does demand a verdict is that the stories we are familiar with not only deeply conflict but have been contrived and massaged to fit a preexisting expectation. The bibliographical test does not establish the factual accuracy of the historical narratives in the documents, only that the documents as we know them are substantially the same as they were when originally written. That is, they do not examine the evidence for particular miracles per se, but dispense with miracles in general prior to the examination of the evidence” (121). 18), the historical issues with Exodus (ch. . Yet the vast majority of scientists have been won over to the big bang by the evidence. Among important books in the defense of Christianity, this one has few equals. (56, 57). The Messiah was to be a Jew who brought light to the Gentiles (Isaiah 42:6-7; 49:5-6). The chapters cover the “nature” of truth (ch. : Rowman & Littlefield, 1993). It has convinced skeptics of the Bible's reliability, helped believers articulate their faith, and given them the vital facts they need to defend … 7), the identity of Jesus (Ch. 10), the issue of Christianity being a copy-cat religion (ch. Montgomery comments: “The New Testament affirmation of the existence of God (the Divine Gardener in Flew’s parable) is not a claim standing outside the realm of empirical testability. Specifically, the (deductive) problem of evil asks whether it is logically possible for an all-good, all-powerful God to exist simultaneously with a world he created and yet has evil in it. Josh and Sean McDowell are releasing a book this week that is a foundational resource for apologetics in our time. 44 The expression “convergence of independent probabilities” comes from Montgomery, who in turn attributes it to Cardinal John Henry Newman; see Beckwith, “History and Miracles,” in In Defense of Miracles, ed. Since that time, Evidence has remained a trusted resource for believers young and old. For evidentialists, the main reason we know God exists is because he revealed himself in verifiable ways in history—ultimately and most definitively in Jesus. The Messiah was to be a Jew who brought light to the Gentiles (Isaiah 42:6-7; 49:5-6). 42 The inclusion of levitation is odd, but Beckwith likely had the Ascension in mind. (2) We must know that it was given before the event. Main Evidence that Demands a Verdict: Life-Changing Truth for a Skeptical World. Scientists often operate by the ideal that everything can and should eventually be explained scientifically, and the big bang presents an apparent dead end to this ideal. Apologists of a more classical orientation have also used this threefold test, including one of the present authors; see Ken Boa and Larry Moody, I’m Glad You Asked, 2d ed. In other words, there is no one explanation for each instance of evil. The Resurrection Debate, ed. That is, a miracle is (a) scientifically inexplicable, (b) religiously significant, and (c) supernaturally (or, divinely) caused. . The narratives fulfilled prophetic details, not because that is what happened, but because they were massaged to conform to those existing expectations. Irreconcilable data gives us no knowledge of God whatsoever.”20, Second, evidentialists maintain that Christianity has a solid claim to be the only true religion because it alone can produce testable evidence of God’s activity in establishing Christianity in the first place. 49 Craig and Crossan, Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up, 161-162. . Extra props goes to Sean and Josh for adding this section! . If you’re like me, you want to know about the details of the content, so here it is. 46 Gary R. Habermas, The Resurrection of Jesus: An Apologetic (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980); “The Resurrection Appearances of Jesus,” in In Defense of Miracles, edited by Geivett and Habermas, 262-275; Habermas and Antony G. N. Flew, Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? 6 Alexander Keith, Evidence of the Truth of the Christian Religion Derived from the Literal Fulfillment of Prophecy, 6th ed. Evidentialists argue that such theories are either purely speculative or are based on misreadings of the New Testament writings, and that all fail to come to terms with significant factual evidence. Montgomery concludes “that on the basis of the accepted canons of historical method . These evidences include the miracles of the Bible, the uniqueness of the Bible, and fulfilled prophecy. Click here for Evidence That Demands A Verdict on Amazon 21 Montgomery, “Death of the ‘Death of God,’” in Suicide of Christian Theology, 141. “How To Know God Personally” – A four page gospel presentation! On the other hand, the Resurrection would lack all significance if it had appeared in history merely as an anomalous or inexplicable event. 22), the writing of the first five biblical books (ch. The Gospels themselves report that the disciples were quite surprised, no doubt because no amount of preparation could overcome the shock of Jesus’ horrific death and the seeming end it put to all their hopes (cf. Quite the contrary: the Gardener entered his garden (the world) in the person of Jesus Christ, showing himself to be such ‘by many infallible proofs’ (Acts 1:3).”37. That is what Evidence That Demands a Verdict, by Josh McDowell, is all about. Evidence that Demands a Verdict is a title well known to many Christians. Evidence That Demands a Verdict, Volume 1: Historical Evidences for the Christian Faith by Josh McDowell. Since no discipline dealing with empirical judgments can render such certainty (e.g., law, history, psychology, anthropology, archaeology, etc. Their enumerations differ from one presentation to another, but the following facts appear again and again on the lists.48. Douglas Geivett explains the difference between these two versions of the argument. But they have to be careful. Geivett and Habermas, 217-21. This model holds that there may be a number of reasonable explanations for a body of evidence, and that one is to choose from this pool of live options that explanation which is the best, that is, which most successfully meets such criteria as having explanatory power, explanatory scope, and not being ad hoc. John Leslie (New York: Macmillan, 1990), 154-73; William Lane Craig, “The Teleological Argument and the Anthropic Principle,” in The Logic of Rational Theism: Exploratory Essays, ed. Montgomery tells of a conversation he had with Eliade in which the renowned scholar agreed that “Christianity’s unique, historical focus on a ‘once-for-all’ incarnation of God in Christ” sharply distinguishes it from mythical and mystical religions. . He claimed that he was divine. Presenting Evidence That Demands a Verdict. We see here a telling, even defining, difference between the evidentialist and the classical apologist. They argue that a much more difficult version of the problem still remains to be addressed. 29 See the works by Hugh Ross cited in chapter 9, n. 56; see also Newman, “The Evidence of Cosmology,” in Evidence for Faith, ed. And, of course, if the miracles of religion A and religion B are evidentially equal, and religion A claims to be ordained by the true God because the leader has the ability to instantaneously heal patterned baldness, while religion B appeals to the resurrection of its founder, then religion B has a qualitatively better miracle. He “failed to realize that the wise and intelligent person bases his or her convictions on evidence, not on Humean ‘probability.’ That is, an event’s occurrence may be very improbable in terms of past experience and observation, but current observation and testimony may lead one to believe that the evidence for the event is good” (38). Evidence That Demands a Verdict - Introduction SECTION III. He is the God of the Jewish people who inspired the Old Testament, who sent Jesus his Son into the world for our salvation, and who commissioned the apostles and their associates to establish the Christian church and to produce the New Testament. The bibliographical test seeks to determine whether the existing or extant copies of a document are reliable reproductions of the wording of the original document. Faced with these realities, the evangelical apologist must be prepared to give a reason for claiming that Jesus Christ is the only Savior and that true knowledge of God can be found only in the Christian faith. 3. 41 Beckwith, David Hume’s Argument against Miracles; see also his “History and Miracles,” in In Defense of Miracles, edited by Geivett and Habermas, 86-98. 16 (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1989); Knowing the Truth about the Resurrection (Ann Arbor: Servant, 1991); Reasonable Faith (1994), 255-98; “Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?” in Jesus Under Fire, ed. Granted (at least for the sake of argument) that it is possible that God created a world where evil exists, how likely is this to be in fact the case? Whereas classical apologists tend to argue that one must first establish the existence of God in order to render miracles credible, evidentialists argue that miracles can actually serve as evidence for the existence of God. Hume himself had enunciated the evidentialist principle that “a wise man . Buy Evidence That Demands a Verdict: Vol 2 by McDowell, Josh (ISBN: 9780840743794) from Amazon's Book Store. He will be both king and priest, offices kept separate in Judaism (Psalm 110).14 Newman also cites prophecies indicating that the Messiah would come toward the end of the Second Temple period (ca. “There is room for speculation about the mystery surrounding God’s actual reasons for permitting evil. This is very roughly the explanatory power of the hypothesis. Still, he recognizes that providing “good reason” to believe in a God capable of doing miracles “makes it more plausible to believe” that a particular event is a miracle (71). 8 John A. Bloom, “Truth Via Prophecy,” in Evidence for Faith, edited by Montgomery, 175-76. Sean noted that in Chapter 3 there are some outstanding new evidences they included to support the reliability of scripture! This is an extremely notable area because a lot about the historicity of specifics in the Old Testament are dealt with here. 4:4-7), 3. . The evidentialist is not closed to using theistic arguments to make belief in God more plausible or acceptable. 31), and the last chapter deals with the knowability of history in general (ch. 47 Craig, The Historical Argument for the Resurrection of Jesus During the Deist Controversy (1985); Assessing the New Testament Evidence for the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus, Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity, vol. In Defense of Miracles: A Comprehensive Case for God’s Action in History. Evidence That Demands A Verdict: An Overview. (1) It must be clear. For example, the swoon theory, which holds that Jesus merely passed out on the cross and was revived after being left for dead in the tomb, attempts to overturn the fact of Jesus’ death. Indeed, many apologists, such as William Lane Craig, J. P. Moreland, and Richard Swinburne, cannot for various reasons be neatly placed into one approach rather than the other. I am thrilled for the updated and expanded edition of this landmark resource to reach the hearts and minds of a rising generation, and I … In other words, these are factors that must be just right—often within a very small range—for us to be here noticing them in the first place. 30), the possibility of miracles (ch. (18 pages!). Sources: College head coach quits after opening game. And he predicted his resurrection.”55 Instead, the Resurrection comes with an interpretive context of the supernatural acts and revelations of the God of Israel in the Old Testament and the supernatural works and claims of Jesus in his earthly ministry.56 Here these and other apologists adduce evidence from the Gospels that Jesus did in fact claim to be deity. In practice the two facts most often disputed are the empty tomb and the first appearances of Jesus. The thirty-two chapters cover Evidence for the Bible, Evidence for Jesus, Evidence for the Old Testament, and finally Evidence for Truth. . Moreover, if on the basis of the evidence we conclude that God probably does exist, then, given that God is good and all-powerful, we may conclude that God is justified in permitting evil even if we do not know what his reason or reasons may be (61). 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