6. Problem of evil

Question 1

Moral evil

Answer 1

Seriel kills, rapists, torture, terrorist attacks

Question 2

Natural evil

Answer 2

Tsunamis, earthquakes

Question 3

What is the problem of evil?

Answer 3

• Challenges Gods existance and attributes.
• Used as proof by atheists.

Question 4

The logical problem of evil

Basis of arguement

Answer 4

Epicurus (Greek philosopher)
1. God willing not able to prevent evil? ≠ omnipotent
2. Able to prevent evil but not willing? ≠ omnibenevolent
3. both able and willing, then why is there evil?
4. neither able or willing then why call him God?
Mackie reformulated and named Inconsistant triad - God of classical theism and evil can’t co-exist.

Question 5

The logical problem of evil

Type of arguement

Answer 5

A priori + deductive = if its premises are true, its conclusion must be true.
To defeat the arguemnt, have to discover logical reason as to why God would allow evil.

Question 6

Evidential problem of evil

Type of arguement

Answer 6

A posterori
Inductive - regards evil as against God’s nonexistance, doesn’t claim evil logically proves it.

Question 7

Evidential problem of evil

Main arguement

Answer 7

Amount of evil and suffering present cannot be reconsiled with God of Classical Theism.
Theres a logical possibility but evidence is against it.

Question 8

Evidential problem of evil

Hume’s arguement

Answer 8

Empirical approach.
* Animal suffering.
* Creatures = limited abilty to ensure survival and happiness.
* Nature = make survival harder.
* Why doesn’t God intervene during natural distasters.
The evidence of an imperfect world, while logically compatible with a perfect God, makes belief in a perfect God unjustified. You can’t infer perfect goodness from evil.

Question 9

Augustine’s theodicy

Who was St. Augustine?

Answer 9

(354-430CE)
Bishop of Hippo Regius.
Teachings hugely influencial throughout Christian world.
Believed God created the world perfectly.

Question 10

Augustine’s theodicy

Original sin and Augustine

Answer 10

• Thought humans had natural predissposition to sin.
• Concluded humanity for blame.
• Genesis 1:1 = was perfect, Eve disobeyed, ate apple = corruption of all humanity
• Original sin = corruption in human nature makes people want to sin, all humans inherited ‘seminally present in the loins of Adam’.
• All born sinful.

Question 11

Augustine’s theodicy

Augustine and evil

Answer 11

• Argued sin doesn’t actually exist, merely a privation of good (privatio boni)
• As humans fall away from God, we fall away from his goodness = what we mistakenly call evil, like darkness is absense of light.

Question 12

Augustine’s theodicy

A and freewill

Answer 12

Freewill = most important teaching when coming to suffering and evil.
We could have been created without the ability to sin, however we wouldn’t be free.
With freedom, there is concequences.

Question 13

Augustine’s theodicy

Augustine vs the logical problem on moral responsibility

Answer 13

• Strength = does seem logically possible as it’s either sin or punishment for sin or work of satanist energies.
• Doesn’t mistake that we are morally responisble for their sins, but its a factual concequence - we are infected thus deserve punishment.
• Weakness = unfair, unjust and thus incompatible with omnibenevolence to suggest that we deserve punishment for it. e.g. children w cancer.

Question 14

Augustine’s theodicy

doctrine of original sin is supported by the evidence?

Answer 14

• Strength =
• G. K. Chesterton = you could see evidence for original sin ‘in the street’.
• R. Niebuhr = original sin was the one ‘empirically verifiable’ Christian doctrine.
• e.g. A. said he stole pears at 16 for the pleasure of sinning.
• Weakness = scientific evidence.
• claim that the evidence we have of genetic diversity means that it’s not possible for all of humanity to have descended from two people. evolution not created. Inherited sin = wrong.

Question 15

Augustine’s theodicy

Strengths

Answer 15

• God’s omniP and omniB protected - moral responsibilty is on humanity.
• Protects free will.
• Recorgnised saving power of Jesus ∴ provided motivation to act morally.
• Evil and suffering have purpose for existance.

Question 16

Augustine’s theodicy

Weaknesses

Answer 16

• Moral - how can loving God allow this suffering to occour for mistakes of Adam?
• Logical - F.D.E Schleiermacher = ‘its a logical contradiction to say a perfect would could go wrong’
• Scientific - proves wrong about inheritence.
• Relies of notion world was once perfect but PW and biology suggest world has evolved for 1000s of years.
• Evil being result of misuse of freewill doesn’t explain natural evil.

Question 17

Augustine’s theodicy

John Hick critisicm

Answer 17

Said A’s view was unplausable for people nowdays; requires literal interpretations of Genesis, unfounded belief in angels + demons.

Question 18

Augustine’s theodicy

Followers of Pelagius critisicm

Answer 18

• objected that Adam’s crime is not a personal crime of his descendants.
• still seems unfair, unjust and thus incompatible with omnibenevolence to suggest that we deserve punishment for it.
  *That seems logically inconsistent.

Question 19

Irenaeus’ theodicy

Irenaeus dates

Answer 19

130-202BC

Question 20

Iranaeus’ theodicy

View of the ‘Fall’

Answer 20

Necessary stage in development of humans towards perfection. Punishment is a way to help children mature.

Question 21

Iranaeus’ theodicy

Image vs likeness

Answer 21

“God made humans in his image and likeness”
* Image - when you look like something on the surface.
* Likeness - where you are actually like something.
Creation = two steps for Irenaeus –
1. being made in God’s image where we have only a potential for good due to spiritual immaturity.
2. where we achieve God’s likeness by choosing good over evil, enables us to grow spiritually and morally.
The idea is that encountering and overcoming evil makes us become better more virtuous people.

Question 22

Iranaeus’ theodicy

Biblical example

Answer 22

Jonah and Whale.
J disobeyed God then natural evil of a storm and a bih fish who ate him the spat him out days later helped J learn his lesson = obeying God.
→ Evil thus serves the good purpose of motivating us to be good.

Question 23

Iranaeus’ theodicy

Hick’s modern version

Answer 23

human beings were not created perfect but develop in two stages:
Stage 1: Spiritually immature: through struggle to survive and evolve, humans can develop into spiritually mature beings.
The Fall is a result of immature humans who are only in the image of God.
Stage 2: Grow into a relationship with God

Question 24

Iranaeus’ theodicy

Hick and epistemic distance

Answer 24

means that we cannot truly know of God’s existence. If God did make himself known to us, we would follow his commands out of obedience to his authority instead of following them because we had figured out that they were the right thing to do.
e.g. Vardy example - peasant girl forced to marry king, not bc she loves him but obedience.

Question 25

Iranaeus’ theodicy

“A vale of soul-making” meaning

Answer 25

where things happen to us for our own good.

Question 26

Iranaeus’ theodicy

Soul-making vs the evidential problem on dysteleological evil

Answer 26

• Strength = evidence of overcoming evil develops a person’s character and virtue.
• “What does not kill me, makes me stronger” – Nietzsche.
• Weakness = distribution of evil we observe in the world is decidedly not aligned with the soul-making requirements of those who suffer from it.
• some evil is dysteleological = no chance of leading to spritiual development.
• some evil is soul-breaking = destroys a persons character, eg PTSD., holocaust

Question 27

Iranaeus’ theodicy

Strengths

Answer 27

• Hick - optimistic theodicy.
• Offers explaination for suffering aswell as moral and natural evil.
• Biblically based.
• Evil is necessary for certain types of good to exist e.g. bravery/compassion.
• Soul-making cannot take place in paradise, so we need suffering to develop into God’s likeness.
• Basil Mitchell - Jesus died to take away our sins, so we can go to heaven.
• Concept of humans progressively improving fits with evolution/science.

Question 28

Iranaeus’ theodicy

Weaknesses

Answer 28

• Suffering shouldn’t be an instrument for omniB God.
• Possiblity of future reward doesn’t make up for present suffering.
• Suffering isn’t distributed equally. e.g. Arthur Labinjo died at 6 from horrific abuse from parents.
• Central Christian belief of needing atonement through Christ is comprimised by concept of soul-making.
• Suffering really intense ‘soul-breaking’

Question 29

Dostoyevsky/ evil in literature

The brothers karamazov

Answer 29

an objection to the existence of God alleging that the evil and suffering in the world is contradictory to belief in an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient God.

Question 30

Dostoyevsky/ evil in literature

Weakness of soul-making

Answer 30

• Ivan (character) connects suffering of innocent children and gain of heaven for others.
• People get into heaven because of, on the back of, the suffering of innocent children. Ivan says no good person or God would design this connection into heaven:
• “if everyone must suffer, in order to buy eternal harmony with their suffering, pray tell me what have children got to do with it?” – Dostoyevsky’s character Ivan.
• Hick doesn’t say that every case of evil has a soul-making benefit, but that the possibility of soul-making requires a world in which evil, even purposeless evil, is possible. Ivan’s point is that this is not a morally acceptable system and that his own moral virtue compels him to reject it.

Question 31

Dostoyevsky/ evil in literature

Defense of Hick for weakness of soul-making

Answer 31

1. Earthly suffering will “pass away in eternity”.
2. William Lane Craig = argument regarding child suffering, that they will go straight to heaven.
3. Heaven is infinite. It is worth suffering from evil to get there.

Question 32

The problem of evil & the issue of free will

For various theodicies then, it is not logically possible for God to eliminate evil without:

Answer 32

• Contradicting his divine justice, since we deserve evil as punishment for our freely chosen evil actions (Augustine).
• Removing our free will, since all evil results either directly (moral evil) or indirectly (natural evil) from the abuse of free will (Augustine & Plantinga).
• Removing opportunities for growth from evil through freely choosing good over evil (Irenaeus & Hick).

Question 33

Weakness: the challenge that libertarian free will doesn’t exist

Answer 33

• libertarian free will seems to require an undetermined event which is nonetheless somehow also under the control of an agent.
• A.J. Ayer’s perspective: Choices are either determined or random; both scenarios negate the idea of “doing otherwise.”
  Mackie’s elaboration: Actions stem from randomness, external causes, or one’s character. Moral choices are linked to character but aren’t self-created.
  Conclusion: Compatibilist free will (actions determined by character) is the only coherent definition.

Question 34

Mackie further critic to free wil

Answer 34

Mackie concludes that the only coherent definition of free will is a compatibilist one, where “free choice” is when our actions are determined by our character.
allows Mackie to then argue that if there were a perfect God, he would have made sure to have given us all a morally good character.

Applying this to theodicies, this means:
* Adam and Eve would have never disobeyed God. Augustine & Plantinga therefore lose their explanation of natural evil.
* All humans would behave morally now, so Augustine & Plantinga lose their explanation of moral evil.
* Hick also loses his explanation of why God couldn’t have created us fully or at least better-formed than he did.