Doświadczenie zła jako racja dla ateizmu (analiza koncepcji Jerome'a I. Gellmana)
IN WHAT SENSE EVIL JUSTIFIES ATHEISM?

Summary/Abstract: In this paper, I critically analyse Jerome Gellman’s proposal that there exists a type of experience in which a subject experiences evil and perceives in this evil that there is no God. This a-religious experience gives prima facie suport to the belief that there is no God. I show how accepting Gellman’s propos al allows us to go beyond the classical distinction between the intellectual and the emotional problem of evil. It also allows us to defend the rationality of some atheists, who do not believe in God because they experienced evil, but do not know the relevants arguments from evil. I suggest that there are two problems with Gellman’s account. The first is that there are no clear criteria of identifying a given experience of evil as the perception of God’s non-existence. The second problem concerns the scope of Gellman’s proposal. It is possible that some experiences of evil, which lead people to the belief that tere is no God, do not count as perceptions that there is no God. In case of beliefs formed on the basis of such experiences, one must therefore look for another, non-perceptual grounds for justifying such beliefs.

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