1. H.P. Owen,Concepts of Deity (London: Macmillan, 1971), p. 72.
2. The idea that pantheism cannot account for evil, or that it cannot resolve the problem of evil has been a major criticism of pantheism at least since Spinoza. It was one of Bayle's principle objections. Pierre Bayle,Historical and Critical Dictionary: Selections, trans. Richard Popkin (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965). Cf. Kierkegaard: ?So-called pantheistic systems have often been characterised and challenged in the assertion that they abrogate the distinction between good and evil, and destroy freedom. Perhaps one would express oneself quite as definitely, if one said that every such system fantastically dissipates the concept ofexistence.? Søren Kierkegaard,Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. D.F. Swenson and W. Lowrie (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1944), p. 111.
3. For what is still a good overview of the problem of evil and proposed solutions see H.J. McCloskey, ?God and Evil?,Philosophical Quarterly 10 (1960), pp. 97?114. Also see, Nelson Pike,God and Evil: Readings on the Theological Problem of Evil (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1964); Marilyn McCord Adams and Robert M. Adams, eds.,The Problem of Evil (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990).
4. Alvin Plantinga, ?God, Evil and the Metaphysics of Freedom?, inThe Problem of Evil, ed. Marilyn McCord Adams and Robert M. Adams (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 83?109, 108.
5. He is by no means the only example. See, for example, Peter Van Inwagen, ?The Problem of Evil, the Problem of Air, and the Problem of Silence?, inPhilosophical Perspectives, Vol. 5, ed. James Tomberlin (California: Ridgeview Publishing, 1991), pp. 135?165. Van Inwagen claims that the existence of evil does not constitute any evidencewhatsoever against the existence of God. Also see, R.M. Adams, ?Must God Create the Best??, inThe Concept of God, ed. T.V. Morris (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 91?106. My present concern is not to argue for the sheer implausibility of their theses, but merely to register the fact that their essays, in a sense, constitute a refusal to address the problem of evil.