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54 J. Value Inquiry 1 (2020)

handle is hein.journals/jrnlvi54 and id is 1 raw text is: The Journal of Value Inquiry (2020) 54:1-19 https://doi.org/1 0.1007/s10790-019-09680-x Is Animal Suffering Evil? A Thomistic Perspective B. Kyle Keltz' Published online: 1 February 2019 © Springer Nature B.V. 2019 1 Introduction Recently, there has been a growing interest in the problem of God and animal suffer- ing.1 Philosophers debate whether God would allow millions of years of animal suf- fering. Proponents of the problem of animal suffering argue that the amount of pain and suffering found in Earth's natural history make it likely that God does not exist. Within this debate, it is striking that the nature of pain and suffering are rarely examined. Instead, it is often assumed that pain and suffering are evils that a loving God would not allow without good reason. An illustration of this is William Rowe's argument in The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism. He states, In developing the argument for atheism based on the existence of evil, it will be useful to focus on some particular evil that our world contains in considerable abundance. Intense human and animal suffering, for example, occurs daily and in great plenitude in our world. Such intense suffering is a clear case of evil.2 So without argument, Rowe mentions that the human and animal suffering in the world is a clear case of evil. This leads to his famous fawn-in-the-woods example. He says to Suppose in some distant forest lightning strikes a dead tree, resulting in a for- est fire. In the fire a fawn is trapped, horribly burned, and lies in terrible agony for several days before death relieves its suffering.3 Recent monographs include Christopher Southgate, The Groaning of Creation: God, Evolution, and the Problem of Evil (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008); Michael Murray, Nature Red in Tooth and Claw: Theism and the Problem of Animal Suffering (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011); Nicola Hoggard Creegan, Animal Suffering and the Problem of Evil (New York: Oxford Univer- sity Press, 2013); and Trent Dougherty, The Problem of Animal Pain: A Theodicy forAll Creatures Great and Small (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2014). 2 William L. Rowe, The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism, American Philosophical Quarterly 16, no.4 (October 1979): 335. 3Ibid., 337. E B. Kyle Keltz bkeltz@southplainscollege.edu South Plains College, 1401 College Ave, Levelland, TX 79336, USA I_) Springer