A Hindu Perspective on Justice in a World of Suffering: A Caitanya Vaiṣṇava Response to the Problem of Evil
type: CreativeWork
description: The problem of evil is one of the most powerful objections to perfect being theism, according to which, God is conceptualized as the personal omnibenevolent, omniscient, omnipotent God. Certain versions of this problem, as developed in recent decades in Anglophone philosophy of religion, pertain to Hindu traditions such as Vaiṣṇavism. However, relatively little attention has been paid to the theological insights of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda (1896-1977), who is an influential guru within the Caitanya Vaiṣṇava tradition and whose teachings provide responses to this problem. In this dissertation, I address this scholarly lacuna by examining Prabhupāda’s lectures, conversations, and exegetical writings in order to reconstruct his theodicy and develop my own theodicy (which builds on that of Prabhupāda) and illustrate its relevance for contemporary discourses within Anglophone philosophy of religion. More specifically, I discuss William Rowe’s evidential argument from evil and demonstrate that the theodicy that I develop can account for the existence of the types of horrendous evil that Rowe describes. Throughout the dissertation, I examine various objections to the karman doctrine that is a core component of my theodicy. I conclude that my theodicy can provide a compelling response to Rowe’s evidential argument from evil. I also illustrate how this theodicy can respond to some other formulations of the problem of evil, such as those advanced by Paul Draper. Given the specific word count, I do not comprehensively analyze such formulations. However, I seek to pave for further exploration in subsequent work. I now offer a brief summary of my dissertation. In chapter 1, I explicate the problem of evil and some of its variants. Next, I provide some background information about the Caitanya Vaiṣṇava tradition as well as Prabhupāda’s life and work. I also survey various responses to the problem of evil, both within and outside Hindu thought. In chapter 2, I lay the c…
abstract: The problem of evil is one of the most powerful objections to perfect being theism, according to which, God is conceptualized as the personal omnibenevolent, omniscient, omnipotent God. Certain versions of this problem, as developed in recent decades in Anglophone philosophy of religion, pertain to Hindu traditions such as Vaiṣṇavism. However, relatively little attention has been paid to the theological insights of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda (1896-1977), who is an influential guru within the Caitanya Vaiṣṇava tradition and whose teachings provide responses to this problem. In this dissertation, I address this scholarly lacuna by examining Prabhupāda’s lectures, conversations, and exegetical writings in order to reconstruct his theodicy and develop my own theodicy (which builds on that of Prabhupāda) and illustrate its relevance for contemporary discourses within Anglophone philosophy of religion. More specifically, I discuss William Rowe’s evidential argument from evil and demonstrate that the theodicy that I develop can account for the existence of the types of horrendous evil that Rowe describes. Throughout the dissertation, I examine various objections to the karman doctrine that is a core component of my theodicy. I conclude that my theodicy can provide a compelling response to Rowe’s evidential argument from evil. I also illustrate how this theodicy can respond to some other formulations of the problem of evil, such as those advanced by Paul Draper. Given the specific word count, I do not comprehensively analyze such formulations. However, I seek to pave for further exploration in subsequent work. I now offer a brief summary of my dissertation. In chapter 1, I explicate the problem of evil and some of its variants. Next, I provide some background information about the Caitanya Vaiṣṇava tradition as well as Prabhupāda’s life and work. I also survey various responses to the problem of evil, both within and outside Hindu thought. In chapter 2, I lay the c…
author: Gupta, Akshay
language: eng
keywords: Hinduism, Problem of Evil
license: https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/
date published: 2022-04-27
date modified: 2026-07-24T01:33:28Z
provider: Cambridge University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Cambridge

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.17863/CAM.91580