'The anthology is one of the best collections of articles coming out a scholarly conferece that I have seen, both in terms of the very high level of the articles taken individually and in terms of the tightness of fit among all the articles together.' -- Mark Kulstad, Professor of Philosophy, Rice University 'Elmar Kremer and Michael Latzer's collection of essays is a terrific addition to the growing literature on early modern philosophical theology ... This book represents an extremely rewarding and valuable collection of scholarship on an area of major current concern.' -- Andrew Black, Professor of Philosophy, University of Missouri, St Louis

Many distinct, controvertial issues are to be found within the labyrinthine twists and turns of the problem of evil. For philosophers of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centures, evil presented a challenge to the consistency and rationality of the world-picture disclosed by the new way of ideas. In dealing with this challenge, however, philosophers were also concerned with their positions in the theological debates about original sin, free will, and justification that were the legacy of the Protestant Reformation to European intellectual life. Emerging from a conference on the problem of evil in the early modern period held at the University of Toronto in 1999, the papers in this collection represent some of the best original work being done today on the theodicies of such early modern philosophers as Leibniz, Suarez, Spinoza, Malebranche, and Pierre Bayle.