An Unusual Zoroastrian Solution to the Problem of Evil

Speaker: Daniel Nolan (UC, Santa Cruz)

The ‘Olamā-ye Eslām is a Zoroastrian apologetic work, perhaps from the thirteenth century CE. This paper argues that it contains a distinctive response to the problem of why an omnipotent and all-good deity would permit the existence of evil. Ormazd, the great good deity of Zoroastrianism, will not directly destroy or disable Ahriman, the chief source of all evil, because that would be incompatible with Ormazd’s perfect goodness. Instead, Ormazd is only permitted to achieve the neutralization of Ahriman through indirect means, wearing the author of evil out in a struggle for the material world. In focusing on which actions the good deity may perform, as opposed to the ends the good deity seeks, this theodicy takes an approach not found in contemporary discussions of the problem of evil.

Daniel Nolan is Professor of Philosophy at the University California, Santa Cruz. He has previously held positions at the University of Notre Dame (Indiana), Australian National University, the University of Nottingham, the University of St Andrews, Syracuse University (New York), and Macquarie University. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, an Honorary Professor at the University of Queensland, and is a co-editor of the journal Noûs. Nolan has published in a wide range of areas. His central focus is metaphysics, but he has contributed to philosophy of science, philosophical logic, philosophy of language, epistemology, ethics and metaethics, and ancient philosophy. He has published three books, Topics in the Philosophy of Possible Worlds (Routledge), David Lewis (Routledge), and Zoroastrianism and Contemporary Philosophy (Cambridge University Press).

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This event is cosponsored by the Global Philosophy Research Group in the Philosophy Department, the Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies, the Federation of Zoroastrian Associations of North America, the Ontario Zoroastrian Community Foundation, the Zoroastrian Society of Ontario, and the Encyclopaedia Iranica Foundation.