Evil and Suffering

Question 1

What are the evaluations for John Hick’s soul-making theodicy?

Answer 1

strengths

• His view we are created at an epistemic distance from god and the view that heaven is promised for everyone can justify all the evils in the world
• Soul-making can be accepted and individual people and humanity as a whole need challenges and suffering to develop character
• It is logical to believe that if god is our ‘father’ why would he want us to be punished and go to hell

Weaknesses

• Hicks argument contradicts itself he states that we have no good explanation for the suffering of animals but then he states there were no inexplicable animal suffering then our epistemic distance from God would be breached
• Does the promise of heaven justify allowing the extreme amount of evil and suffering in the world

Question 2

All the philosophers associated with Evil and Suffering.

Answer 2

Rowe - Evidential problem of evil
Griffin - Process theodicy
Hick - Soul-Making theodicy
Mackie - First proposes the free will defense then opposes his own view
Plantinga - Defends the free will defense and argues that Mackie’s defense is illogical
Epicurus - Proposes the inconsistent triad
Augustine - Evil is a privatio boni: an absence of good
Aquinas - Evil was the lack in something of a good that was natural to it

Question 3

Key quote to support Plantinga’s MSR 1 and 2

Answer 3

MSR 1 - ‘God could not eliminate much of the evil and suffering in this world without
thereby eliminating the greater good of having created persons with free will’

MSR 2 - ‘God allowed natural evil to enter the world as part of Adam and Eve’s punishment for
their sin in the Garden of Eden’

Question 4

What is a key difference between Hicks theodicy and Augustine’s theodicy (Hick opposed Augustine’s theodicy and proclaimed it was “Utterly unacceptable”) ?

Answer 4

Augustine’s theodicy
* God created the world as perfect, but evil was a result from Adam and Eve’s fall from the state of perfection.

Hick’s Irenaean theodicy
* God intentionally created the world as imperfect, allowing the world to serve as a ‘vale of soul-making’ giving humans the capacity to grow morally.

Question 5

Why does Mackie propose the FWD but then reject it?

Answer 5

Propose:
* The world has to contain a mixture of good and evil in order for humans to be able to make choices between the two and exercise their free will

Reject:
1. It is logically possible for a person to make free, good choices all the time
2. God being omnipotent, could have made people so they have true free choice yet always choose good
3. God did not do so
4. Either God lacks the power to do so, or God is not loving enough to do so
5. Either way the FWD fails
6. Therefore God does not exist

Question 6

What is MSR 1 (Plantinga)?

Answer 6

• Three possible worlds
• World 1 - world with morally significant free will, and no causal determination from God, therefore there is evil and suffering
• World 2 - world without morally significant free will, but with causal determination from God, therefore there is no evil and suffering
• World 3 - world with morally significant free will, and with causal determination from God, therefore there is no evil and suffering
• World 1 = logically possible
• World 2 = also logically possible but would make humans robots therefore more logical for God to create the first world
• World 3 = logically impossible because genuine free will is incompatible with causal determinism => therefore Mackie’s argument fails

Question 7

What is MSR 2 (Plantinga)?

Answer 7

‘God allowed natural evil to enter the world as part of Adam and Eve’s punishment for
their sin in the Garden of Eden’