Description
Book SynopsisWhile the problem of evil remains a perennial challenge to theistic belief, little attention has been paid to the special problem of animal pain and suffering. This absence is especially conspicuous in our Darwinian era when theists are forced to confront the fact that animal pain and suffering has gone on for at least tens of millions of years, through billions of animal generations. Evil of this sort might not be especially problematic if the standard of explanations for evil employed by theists could be applied in this instance as well. But there is the central problem: all or most of the explanations for evil cited by theists seem impotent to explain the reality of animal pain and suffering through evolutionary history. Nature Red in Tooth and Claw addresses the evil of animal pain and suffering directly, scrutinizing explanations that have been offered for such evil.
Trade ReviewReview from previous edition Michael Murray has written what I believe to be the only book-length study in English of theodicy and animal suffering in the philosophy of religion. The problem is so obvious and so clearly important that a book like this is long overdue. Philosophers of religion, theologians, and, indeed, anyone interested in the intellectual credibility of classical theism will find this book, stimulating and helpful... Nature Red in Tooth Claw is both careful and comprehensive... littered with interesting arguments... the book is excellent. * Gary Chartier, Religious Studies *
This book offers an overview of theistic attempts to reconcile the existence of the suffering of non-human animals with the exsistence of the God of classical theism -- the omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good creator of the world. It is clearly written and comprehensive... Over the course of his book, Murray develops a powerful argument. * T. J. Mawson, MIND *
Table of Contents1. Problems Of and Explanations for Evil ; 2. Neo-Cartesianism ; 3. Animal Suffering and the Fall ; 4. Nobility, Flourishing, and Immortality: Animal Pain and Animal Well-Being ; 5. Natural Evil, Nomic Regularity, and Animal Suffering ; 6. Chaos, Order, and Evolution ; 7. Combining CD's
