1.3B- The Problem of Evil

Question 1

What is moral evil?

Answer 1

-Evil done as a result of human choices

Question 2

What is natural evil?

Answer 2

-Found in nature, which owes nothing to human choice

Question 3

Why is there a grey ares between moral and natural evil?

Answer 3

-Not always as easy as that to seperate moral and natural evil
-If you live in an earthquake zone, for example, there’s some moral evil within this, we can’t generalise too much.
-However, if people were born poor or people were born a slave, it doesn’t make sense to say you chose to live somewhere.

Question 4

What did Epicurus say about evil?

Answer 4

-number of ways in which the problem of evil, set out by people like Epicururs, can be solved: Evil is caused by creatures using their free will, Evil is necessary as a means for people to develop some valuable moral qualities, such as compassion, and Developing a different understanding of the nature of God.

Question 5

What did John K. Roth say about evil?

Answer 5

-Believes evil is fundamentally damaging to human beings.
-If God created everything, he must’ve created evil.
-Definition of evil links to the Problem of Evil, which has led to powerful and emotive responses.
-One issue that has led to the most loss of faith
-Disscussions of evil focuses on the ‘logical’ problem and the ‘evidental’ problem.

Question 6

The inconsistent triad

Answer 6

-God is omnibenevolent (all-loving)
-God is omnipotent (all-powerful)
-Evil exists

Question 7

What does Augustine say about evil?

Answer 7

-His theodicy begins with Genesis 1, asserting God created a perfect world, including creating free human beings in his image.
-Before the Fall, the world and humans were perfectly good.
-Goodness is intrinsic.
-To explain how natural and moral evil entered the world, Augustine uses the Fall (Genesis 3).

Moral evil:
-The Fall of humans, Adam and Evfe in the garden of Eden, chose to disobey God.
-The first sin corrupted Human Nature, so bad choices, wrong actions, and death are now part of being human, as well as no longer being immortal.
-Augustine argues everyone deserves to be punished.

Natural evil:
-The Fall of angels caused disharmony in nature. This led to natural disasters.
-God is just in allowing natural evil to continue because of it also acts as a punishment for Original Sin. The creation has been affected by The Fall.

Question 8

Augustine’s soul-deciding Theodicy

Answer 8

-The choice is ours. We decide whether to obey God or not.
-Augustine believes the punishment continues through history, for all generations.
-We are all punished.

Question 9

Augustine’s privation of good

Answer 9

-Augustine argued from studying the Bible that God is good.
-In Genesis 1, God created a perfect world, therefore free from defective things.
-Importantly for Augustine, ‘evil’ is not a substance or a thing, so God didn’t create it. An example is blindness. It isn’t evil in itself, it’s the result of the eye not functioning properly.
-He used the term ‘privation’, an absence or lalck of that thing.

Question 10

Augustine’s Free Will Defence

Answer 10

-Augustine says that evil came not from God but from entities that have free world/will. God created everyone with free will.
-In the ‘City of God’, Adam and Eve (representing all humans) are tempted by the serpent (not an evil character) to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (which Adam and Eve want). They ignored God and freely decide to eat it.
-The result is their shame and corruption, and through them, those of all human beings.
-Augustine says that God foresaw this misue happening, because he is omniscient and planned to redeem humans by sending Christ.
-He argues that some people will still go to Hell, but this will be because of their abuse of free will, others will repent.
-For Augustine, this shows clearly that God has a positive purpose in allowing evil to happen.

Question 11

Criticisms of Augustine: J.L. Mackie

Answer 11

-J.L. Mackie questioned this. Some people have free will and yet we know that because of their character, they will always do the right thing. We describe some people as reliable as we know this from their characteristics
-Mackie says that an omnipotent God could mkae creatures with free will, but, always guarenteed to freely chose the right thing.

Question 12

Augustine’s principle of plentitude

Answer 12

-Augustine argued that the best type of world is one that contains every possible variety of creature and not one that consists only of the highest kind of being.
-It is a universe where all posibilites of experience are realised. Some creatures are, therefore, imperfect.
-If we ask questions about species, if things were all the same, they wouldn’t be species, there would be angelic beings.
-If this occured, it would be the highest heaven; not the earth.
-This explains why God would have created seemingly horrible creatures, for Augustine.

Question 13

Augustine’s aesthetic theme and contrast theory

Answer 13

-Augustine points out that such evils as a substance that poisons, the fire that burns, and the water that drowns are evil only in a relative sense.
-Poisons are not ‘evil’ in themselves, but are harmful only when brought into conjunction with other substances with which they react.
-There is a similarity between certian aspects of Augustine’s aesthetic theme and ‘contrast theory’, which states that the concept of goodness only makes sense in contrast to evil.

Question 14

Strengths of Augustine’s theodicy

Answer 14

-takes responsability for evil away from God.
-The fact humans have free will means God is not responible.
-Gillian Evans states “All evil arises in the wall of man.”

Question 15

Weaknesses of Augustine’s theodicy

Answer 15

-contradicts himself, by saying that God created a perfect world, but evil exists.
-Inconsistencies in the Free Will defence?, he supports freedom of will, but also brings up human’s ignorance, saying that we cannot overcome our ‘wretched’ condition.
-Augustine’s predestination, for him, our election to heaven is a matter for the unknowable will of God, this weakens his theodicy.
-Literalist interpretations of Hell, modern Christians wouldn’t interpret The Fall literally, unlike Augustine.
-Evolution and Earth development, findings of geologists prove Earth developed very slowly over a period of years, ruling ot his ‘perfect world spoilt by evil’ theory.
-Biology of humans?, Augusitne’s claim that everyone was present in Adam is disproved by DNA, relying on an ancient understanding of Biology.
-An evil God?, even if free will and an omniscient God are compatible, it can be argued that God has to take some responability
-Denying the existence of evil, the arguemnt that evil isn’t an entity within itself, upsets many people
-Perfect world gone wrong?, question why a perfect world would go wrong.
-Existence of angels?, there’s no proof angels exist.

Question 16

Irenaeus’ Soul-making theodicy

Answer 16

-thought humans were made in the ‘image’ of God, but are not yet in God’s ‘likeness’.
-For Irenaeus, being made in God’s image has to do with being a rational creature, having the ability to make choices and showing compassion and love towards others.
-Being made in the ‘image’ of God doesn’t guarantee moral perfection.
-to become in God’s ‘likeness’ is a long journey for humans; it’s a privilege, and not an automatic right.
-If a postive free choice for God is made, then Christinas, by doing good actions for others, may eventually become in God’s ‘likeness’, and achieve moral perfection. They will then become spiritual beings with God in Heaven.
-Evil helps us become better people, we learn the right way through experience.
-Irenaeus goes on the show that evil is the result of free will, that means for him, God is partly responsible for the existence of evil.
-Believes God had to allow evil, so humans would understrand what good was.
-Believes evil is necessary, so humans can exercise their free will.
-suggests the continuation of soul-making into the next life.

Question 17

Hick’s Soul-making theodicy

Answer 17

-Follows same line of thought as Irenaeus’, but makes an attempt to strengthen his argument.
-argues both moral and natural evil are essential to ‘soul-making’.
-decidedly eschalotogical, it focuses on humanities future perfection in God’s kindgom.
-Having a place of genuine freedom is central to Hick’s theory. Accepts the free will defence. Only relationship that is worth having is freely chosen. If harm cannot happen, then there’s no oppotunity to learn qualities such as tolerance, patience or forgiveness.
-Hick says God creates an epistemic distance that permits us to come to our own, rational conclusion.
-Generosity, fellowship, concern, courage, patience or charity are qualities that wouldn’t be possible in a world without suffering. There would be no self-chosen activites if God were always intervening in the world.
-Underlying idea of Hick’s argument is that something’s goodness may depend very much on it’s purpose. He argues a world with no pain may be a good world in essence, but it wouldn’t be good for making us better people, or for soul-making. He argues the world is instrumentally good, as it makes us develop into better people.
-Hick arguement appears to avoid the problem of intrinsic good, as whilst things may not be good, good things can arise from it.
-For Hick, hell is part of the problem of evil, he argues we cannot explain hell, as it exists to produce good. The pain of permant seperation from God will remain.
-Takes the view that hell is esssentially purgatorial.

Question 18

Strengths of soul-making theories

Answer 18

-Irenaeus accepts evil in the world, God seemed to allow evil to continue to exist, exists for a good reason so God can develop.
-Things are more worthy if you have to work for them, Irenaeus believes that things end up being worth more, if you have to struggle for it.
-The process of moral development, Irenaeus taught that if humans can overcome difficulties to realise potential.
-Supported by science, Irenaeus’ theodicy can be understood in light of modern evolutionary theory.
-Doesn’t deny evil, Both make no attempt to deny either the real existence of evil in the world or that God can use evil as a tool to help humans to develop towards godliness. Irenaeus’ argument takes a positive approach to evil and looks towards the future.

Question 19

Weaknesses of soul-making theories

Answer 19

-Christians don’t like it, Irenaeus has a ‘positive’ approach towards evil, and downplays the Fall, or in turn the importance of Jesus.
-Universal salvation?, Hick believed in Universal Salvation seemed to contradict Bible teachings, and undermines suggestion that we can only progress towards God’s moral likeness by an engagement with suffering within the world.
-Suffering of the young, The theodicies of Hick and Irenaeus don’t solve the problem of why many ‘innocent’ individuals suffer terribly throughout their lives. They treat people as a ‘means to an end’. If a tragic death facililates moral and spiritual growth for the family, it is little consolation.
-Does moral perfection exist?, For these theodicies to be sucessful, one has to have a theoretical idea that a state of moral perfection actually exist. Irenaeus says it’s possible for all humans to reach the ‘likeness’ of God, but not all will achieve this state during their physical life.
-Too much suffering?, The theodicy fails to explain the sheer extent of suffering which is required for God to achieve his will of mankind. Therefore, does one have to question the attributes of God?

Question 20

Gottfried Leibniz

Answer 20

-devleoped Best of all Possible Worlds argument. He argued that God could have created many universities.
-Because God is good, the universe he created must necessarily be the best of all possible worlds. Evil only exists because some evil is necessary for there is to be good.

Question 21

Baruch Spinoza

Answer 21

-Claimed evil is an illusion which arises as the result of a subjective cotemplation of reality.
-If something is not useful to us, we may label it ‘suffering’ or ‘evil’. However, from an objective standpoint, we would realise that everything has it’s value, and is necessary in the overview of existence.

Question 22

Richard Swinburne

Answer 22

-focuses on the positive value of suffering
-“My suffering provides me with the oppotunity to show courage and patience. It provides you with the oppotunity to show sympathy and to help alleviate my suffering.”

Question 23

D.Z. Phillips

Answer 23

-challenges many 20th Century views, including Hick’s and Swinburne’s.
-Phillips philosophical approach has a deep awareness of the inability of the human mind to understand the divine and a strong sense of both the tragedy and the wonder of human existence. He portests against tidy moral assumptions, found in utilitarianism, Situation Ethics, etc.
-opposed instrumentalism
-Phillips gives various morally insufficient reasons for evil. These include claims that: evil gives oppotunity for character development, evil is logically necessary, Evil acts as a spur to greater effort and to be better people, Things are not as bed as they seem, suffering is never more than we can bear, all will be redeemed after death.

Question 24

The free will defence

Answer 24

-Plays a central role in the theodicies; however, it can be also be considered as a stand-alone defence (although it fails to meet the challenge of natural evil is understood in this manner.)
-The free will of humanity is a fundamental, essential good. Mankind have to choose freely to worship God, should they so wish.
-Free will necessarily involves the capacity to choose evil, hence, evil and suffering exist as a product of human choice.
-Two criteria to be sucessful, must be understood in a non-compatibilist sense and omnipotence must be understood as the ability to do anything logically possible.