evil and suffering

Question 1

What is the Fall? (Bibical Background to Evil)

Answer 1

• The Fall (Genesis 3): Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s command by eating the apple and this turned into everything turning sour, humans and animals harmony was lost, wome would have painful birth and be dominated by men whereas men would live a life of fruitless labour

Question 2

What is the Flood? (Bibical Background to Evil)

Answer 2

God’s decision to destroy the human race apart from Noah and his family and to start again.

(Evil God? how can an all loving God just give up)

Question 3

Other than the The Flood and The Fall, what are some other bibical backgrounds to evil?

Answer 3

• Some prophetic teaching agrues that God is the author of evil and author of good
• Some Bibical writing claim the fallen angel of Satan is the cause of evil
• The Old Testament book of Job examines a range of ideas about the cause and purpose of evil

Question 4

What did Hans Kung refer to the Problem of Evil and Suffering as?

Answer 4

‘The Rock Of Atheism’

Question 5

What is Suffering?

Answer 5

The mental/emotion/spirtiual/physical pain and distress that humans and animals experience as a result of moral and natural evil

Question 6

What is Natural Evil?

Answer 6

Natural evil refers to evil beyond human control and are the responsibility of the natural order/laws of nature.

BIGGEST PROBLEM FOR CHRISTIANS

Question 7

What are some secular examples of Natural evil?

Answer 7

• a child dying of agnosing and disfiguring cancer
• 2004 Boxing Day tsunami that killed 230k people in 14 countries

MORE BROAD: earthquakes, hurricanes, forest fires, genetic mutations etc. (any natural disaster)

Question 8

What are some Old Testament examples of Natural Evil?

Answer 8

God typically uses the forces of nature to wreak havoc on people (often the enemies of the Israelites)

• The Flood (punishment for the corruption on mankind)
• Plagues inflicted on the Egyptians to force the Pharaoh’s hand
• The Exodus (going out/freedom of Hebrew slaves) saw the escape of the Israelites but the drowning of many pursing Egyptians

“But you blew with your breath and the sea covered them. They sank like lead in the mighty water” (exodus 15:10 - remember last bit)

Question 9

What are some New Testament examples of Natural Evil

Answer 9

There are many example of Jesus curing and healing people such as curing the blind.

-> When asked about the cause of a man’s blindess, Jesus turned the question to the purpose of the man’s suffering saying it was a chance for God’s power to be seen

Question 10

What is Moral Evil?

Answer 10

Moral evil refers to the hurtful and harmful acts that humans either act out as moral agents or the human inaction when someone is in need.

Question 11

What are some examples of Moral Evil?

Answer 11

• Many Christians perhaps do a small act of unkindness from time to time but the idea of moral evil becomes acute when truly horrendous acts of evil are committed such as:
• Holocaust (death of 11 million people)
• Sexual Acts carried out by paedophiles towards innocent children

Why would God permitted such evils to be carried out?

Question 12

What is the logical problem of evil?

Answer 12

The Inconsistent Triad developed by Epicurus

1. God Is Omnipotent
2. God is Omnibenevolent
3. Evil exists

Is God willing but unable? -> impotent
Is God able but not willing -> malevolent
Is God both able and willing to prevent evil -> why is there evil?

Question 13

What is the problem that the Logical Problem of Evil serves to Christians?

Answer 13

• Denying God’s omnipotence would suggest for them a God not worthy of worship
• Denying God’s all loving nature would contradict the teachings of Jesus and destroy the basis of Christian belief

Question 14

Who are some Christians who have deined the existence of evil?

Answer 14

• Augustine: evil is the absence of good (like dark is the absence of light)
• Aquinas: evil was the lack of something good that was natural to it
  eg. A blind stone wouldnt been evil as stones aren’t supposed to see but a blind human is an evil

Question 15

What is the evidential problem of evil?

Answer 15

1. The sheer quality and quantity of natural and moral evil are overwhelming
2. Pointlessness of Evil that gives no useful purpose

God is omniscient, an omniscient God must have known the terrible suffering that would be caused by the laws of nature and humans

Question 16

What are some examples of the sheer quality and quantity of the overwhelming nature of Natural and Moral Evil?

Answer 16

-> the millions of creatures that were destroyed by natural disasters long before the appearance of humans on the planets (The Great Dying - wiped of 96% of all marine species)

-> Dostoyevsky’s ‘Brothers Karamazov’: a little girl who has been abused and tortured by her own parents - evil is too high of a price to pay for the joys of heaven

“It’s not God that I don’t accept, only I mosy respectfully return my ticket”

Question 17

What are some examples of the pointlessness of evil?

Answer 17

-> Rowe’s example of a fawn dying a slow and agnosing death in a forest fire after it got stuck under a tree with no one around to help or save it

-> It serves no good in terms of enabling human free will or moral and spiritual development

Question 18

What does the Free Will Defence need to show?

Answer 18

1. Humans cannot have free will without the existence of moral evil
2. Having free will is worth the cost in terms of suffering

Question 19

What did John Mackie argue in his Free Will Defence?

Answer 19

Argued against Free Will Defence as he was an atheist and tried to show why it didn’t work but instead proved himself wrong

He argued that there was different orders of good and evil.

Question 20

1. Mackie’s FWD: What is a Fourth Order Good?

Answer 20

God created humans with free will which teaches us to be morally responsible

Question 21

2. Mackie’s FWD: What is a Third Order Good

Answer 21

choice between two things.

pain and suffering allows us to spiritually and morally ‘grow’ but many which choose the opposite

Question 22

3. Mackie’s FWD: What is a Second Order Good/Evil

Answer 22

Good: we can respond to suffering with love and compassion

Second order good exists to maximise first order good and minimise first order evil

Evil: we can respond to suffering with cruelty and hate

Second order evil exists to maximise first order evil and minimise first order good

Question 23

4. Mackie’s FWD: What is a First Order Good/Evil

Answer 23

Good: experience in life of happiness or pleasure (eg. eating a delicious meal)

Evil: misery or pain (eg. breaking a leg)

Question 24

What is Mackie’s Rejection of the Free Will Defence?

Answer 24

Logically it is possible for soneone to choose good at every point of choice therefore God could have made people so they have free choice but also choose good

he did so he:
- lack power OR
- lacks love OR
- doesn’t exist

Question 25

What is Plantiga’s defence of the Free Will Defence on the problem on moral evil? (possible worlds argument)

Answer 25

Plantiga lists out 3 possible worlds

PW1: the current world with ‘morally significant free will’ and no casual determinism from God meaning evil and suffering
(Plantiga: PW1 is Logically Possible)

PW2: the world without ‘morally significant free will’ but with God’s casual determination to make people choose good
(Plantiga: logically possible but would make humans robots)

PW3: free will and casual determinismwith no evil - what Mackie argues world should be
(Plantiga: logically impossible as free will is incompatible with casual determinism)

Question 26

What is Casual Determinism?

Answer 26

The idea that every event is caused by preceding events and conditions and by the laws of nature. Therefore humans don’t have free will

Question 27

What is Plantiga’s defence of the Free Will Defence on the problem on natural evil?

Answer 27

• Punishment = Fall
• Logically possibly that God created or allowed natural evil due to human sin in Eden

Question 28

What are some strengths of the Free Will Defence?

Answer 28

• Plantiga shows the FWD approach is logically possibly and Mackie’s rejection isn’t possible
• FWD address issue of natural evil as nature has to be follow its laws of operation
• A world with geniue free will has much more value than one without free will where humans are robots

Question 29

What are some weaknesses for the Free Will Defence?

Answer 29

• Plantiga’s Worlds may be possible but there is no way to check them as true
• We cannot disprove or prove the cause of natural evil and we are all relying on the idea that libertarianism is the right interpretation of human experience
• Not everyone would agree that a world with geniue free world is more valuable. God is omniscient and knows the extent of the evil in the world yet allowed it.
  Link to Dostoyevsky’s Brother Karamazov: can being free justify such a terrible cost?

Question 30

Whose Theodicy did John Hick reject and prefer?

Answer 30

He rejected Augustine soul deciding theodicy as outdated and theologically unsatisfactory (Augustine argued that if we choose to do good then we will go to heaven)

Instead he prefered Irenaeus’ soul making theodicy as he stated God made humans imperfect and therefore is partly responsible for the existence of evil as in order to do good, we must know what evil is (like how we know short is short due to tall people)
-> evil must exist for humans to grow

Question 31

What were some influences for Hick’s Soul Making Theodicy?

Answer 31

• His wanted to apply modern scientific, theological and philosophical insights
• He wanted to respond to challenge of atheism
• His religious convictions that arose out of personal experience

Question 32

Hick Soul Making Theodicy 1: Humans are the high point of evolution - what did Hick mean?

Answer 32

-> Humans went through a long evolutionary process willed by God as the source of all life has led to personal human life

-> The human telos or goal is to have a conscious and personal relationship with God

-> He believe this personal relationship with God can only be achieved through a free and willing response based on experience of the world

Question 33

Hick Soul Making Theodicy 2: The world is a ‘vale of soul making’ (quote from John Keates) - what does this mean?

Answer 33

-> The world allows spiritual growth rather than a soul deciding world (Augustine) where human choices of evil or good determine their fate

-> The world is not a “paradise of pets” (Hick), it is geared to allow spiritual growth so human can become children of God

Question 34

Hick Soul Making Theodicy 3: What is Hick’s Two-Stage concept of humanity?

Answer 34

-> Creation in God’s image means that humans have a special character
-> People have the potential for a conscious and personal relationship with God
-> The potential is fulfilled in the afterlife

Question 35

Hick Soul Making Theodicy 4: God set an epistemic distance between himself and humanity - what does this mean?

Answer 35

-> Epistemic Distance: distance of knowledge

-> The world is religiously ambiguous (‘as if there were no God’)

-> humans has full freedom to choose a personal relationship with God which makes it an authentic relationship as it is not forced upon them

-> perhaps the natural and moral evils in the world allowing humans to develop the second order virtues

Question 36

Hick Soul Making Theodicy 5: Sin in Evitable, How?

Answer 36

-> Sin is a failure to live in a right relationship with God which affects all human relationships with God, humans and the rest of creation

-> Alienation from God is a result of the struggle for survival in an often hostile environment

-> God permits alienation out of respect but only he can set things right (Jesus’ death and resurrection)

Question 37

Hick Soul Making Theodicy 6: Hick was a univeralist. What does this mean?

Answer 37

• rejected idea of hell and eternal punishment as incompatible with an loving God
• he believed that all humans would eventually be united with God in eternity

Question 38

Objection 1 to Hick’s Theodicy: Animal suffering - What was Hick’s response?

Answer 38

• Pain is needed to warn animals of danger
• Animals do not fear future harm or death unlike humans
• Animals have to exist to stop us from realising our ‘special nature’ and they have to suffer to an extent beyond our understanding

Question 39

Objection 2 to Hick’s Theodicy: Epistemic distance doesn’t excuse purposeless evil - What was Hick’s response?

Answer 39

• This has to remain a mystery as otherwise the epistemic distance would be lost and we would know that Gosd existed and wouldnt freely choose a relationship with him

Question 40

Objection 3 to Hick’s Theodicy: Can’t justify the worst evils such as the Holocaust - What was Hick’s response?

Answer 40

• If the worst evils were removed then the next worst ones would become the worst (has to be a standard of evil for us to understand)
• the more evils are removed, the less free and responsible humans are

Question 41

Strengths of Hick’s Soul Making Theodicy

Answer 41

• theodicy fits with current scientific thinking on evolution
• epistemic distance justifies evil (kind of) since the final goal is heaven so it justified the means
• the claim that the concept of eternal damnation in hell is a defeat for the love for God makes sense (hell isn’t compatible with omnibenevolence)

Question 42

Weaknesses of Hick’s Soul Making Theodicy

Answer 42

• Although it fits scientifc thinking on evolution, why did humans have to evolve if they are made in the image of God?
• Hicks argument on animal suffering was weak. The end doesn’t justify the means when thinking of the amount of suffering just to get to heaven
• Many Christains reject this idea of everyone will get to heaven eventually as it goes against then purpose of Jesus and hos resurrection.
• If all of us are ultimately saved then isn’t that God overruling human freedom?

Question 43

What does Hick say in “Evil and the God of Love”? (OPTIONAL - CAN SKIP)

Answer 43

“We believe or disbelieve out of our own experiences and must be faith to that experience”

• accepts that some may not agreee such as Dostoyevsky
• believes there is something greater that the human experience amounts too

Question 44

Proccess Theology by Griffin rejects the idea of ‘creation ex nihlo’, What does Griffin believe instead?

Answer 44

Creation Ex Nihlo is a mistranslation of Genesis 1:1, (Earth was without form and void -> Earth being without form and void)

God did not create a universe from scratch rather his task was to make an already existing chaotic matter into an ordered universe

Question 45

Proccess Theology by Griffin rejects the idea of an omnipotent creator, What does Griffin believe instead?

Answer 45

God is not fully in control of the universe and the universe already existed so he cannot be blamed for everything in the world such as evil

Question 46

Proccess Theology by Griffin rejects the ‘so called truths’ of the Bible, What does Griffin believe instead?

Answer 46

So called truths of the Bible cannot be accepted simply because they are logically possible. Only those things that should be accepted as true should be things true /commons to peoples experience

Question 47

Griffin said God and the universe exist panentheistically - what does he mean?

Answer 47

God is not transcendent and instead God is the soul of the universe. The universe is in a God.

Question 48

Griffin used the analogy of humans as embodied minds to explain the panentheistic relationship between God and the universe - How?

Answer 48

The human mind cannot dictate the way the body works so God cannot control his body and over billions of years God persuaded the universe into ever increasing complexity and order.

Question 49

What does a pantheistic God mean for the problem of evil?

Answer 49

Evil is not God’s fault as he cannot control the universe or answer prayers. He is just divinely persuading the universe into his mould

Question 50

Griffin’s Process Theology believed the drive towards increased complexity inevitably lears to two possible and parallel results - what?

Answer 50

• increased/increasing potential for enjoyment and fulfilments
• increased/increasing potential for suffering
• the more complex the creature, the greater the potential to work with God or reject him

Question 51

Process Theology believes God is not culpable for the suffering during evolution - how?

Answer 51

• God cannot influence entites that are at the lowest level of existence as they lack any awareness for a God to appeal to
• If God avoid the process that could lead to evil, the result would be a world without meaning/value
• Suffering is for the good? Allows for spiritual growth
• God shares our suffering - we are not alone

Question 52

What are some strengths of Griffin’s Process Theology?

Answer 52

• Fits in with current scientific knowledge and with Bibical criticism
• Concept of God as a ‘fellow sufferer’ gives reassurance to those suffering as God is experiencing their suffering and understands it
• Rejection of God’s omnipotence allows for a loving God which is central to the Christian faith
• emphasis on what we know from this world: the only immortality we have is objective immorality where we live on in the mind of God

Question 53

What are some weaknesses of Griffin’s Process Theology?

Answer 53

• cannot be sure on the right translation from Genesis 1:1
• John Roth: “Griffin’s God is too small” - for many theists an all powerful God isnt worth worship
• objective immortality dissatisfying explanation for the after life

Question 54

Which theodicies are “best fit” for different denominations of Christianity?

Answer 54

Catholic and some Protestants: soul deciding Augustine theodicy

Liberal Christian: Process Theology

Other Christians (unspecified) believe in FWD or Hick’s Soul Making Theodicy

Question 55

Why do many Christians reject Philosophical views on Evil and Suffering?

Answer 55

They prefer to believe in blind faith such as the examples:
- Book of Job where Job doesn’t understand why humans suffer but believed in God no matter what
- Jesus’ on the Cross felt separation from God yet he still trusted and believe in God which led to his heavenly ascension