Evil and Suffering Flashcards
Moral evil
- acts committed by human beings, such as murder, theft, rape etc.
- evil that comes from human inaction
- done by other people’s intentions
Natural evil
- evil caused by the world directed towards humans
- produced by the chance operations of the laws of nature
Suffering
the mental or physical pain/hardship/distress brought about by both moral and natural evil
Examples of natural evil (events)
- 2008 Sichuan earthquake
- 1883 eruption of Krakatoa and subsequent earthquake
Examples of moral evil (events)
- Rwandan genocide (attempt by the Hutu to exterminate the Tutsi)
- the Holocaust
Logical POE: Mackie’s inconsistent triad
- God is omnipotent
- God is omnibenevolent
- Evil exists
The Free Will Defence
- God has to allow evil in order to preserve free will
- in order to bring about the best ‘goods’ in life, such as love and compassion, we have to be ‘free’ to choose the opposing vices of hatred and heartlessness
- humans can make their own decision and be responsible for their own actions so they can develop qualities that are intrinsically valuable
Eschatology
the theology of what will happen at the end of the universe
John Hick’s eschatological solution
- God has all the time he wants in which to bring people to freely love the good, so in the end everyone will reach heaven
- Evil is a necessary part of the process by which we become fit for heaven
Evidential problem of evil
There are known facts about evil that are evidence against the existence of God:
- Evil that is overwhelming in quantity and quality
- Evil that is pointless because it serves no useful purpose
Evidential POE examples
- The Permian-Triassic extinction - characterised by the elimination of about 90% of the species on Earth
- The eruption of Mount Vesuvius and subsequent obliteration of Pompeii
Rowe’s example of a fawn
- in some distant forest a lightning strike causes a forest fire
- a fawn is trapped in the fire, horribly burned, and lies in agony for several days before finally dying
- fawn’s agony is pointless: it suffers and dies alone, so no humans know about it and no eventual good comes from it
- neither preserves human free will not builds human character
Why suffering could be good in some circumstances
- suffering is temporary and can lead to a greater good (e.g., vaccinations, dental procedures, surgeries)
- while some people despair, others can be restored by suffering through uncovering unsuspected reserves of strength
- can develop compassion and empathy for others
Mackie’s account of the Free Will Defence
- there exists ‘first-order goods’ (e.g., reading a good book) and ‘first-order evils’ (e.g., sadness, pain, misery)
- second-order good exists to maximise first-order good and to minimise first-order evil
- second-order evil exists to maximise first-order evil and to minimise first-order good
- freedom is a third-order good - it allows us to choose between instantiating first- and second-order goods and evils
- God is a fourth-order good that creates us with freedom
First-order good
a good at the basic level of human experience
Second-order good
higher-level or more abstract values that emerge from the interplay of first-order goods and evils
Mackie’s rejection of the Free Will Defence
- it is logically possible for a person to make free, good choices, all of the time
- God could have created humans so that they would only make free, good choices
- God did not do so
Plantinga’s rejection of Mackie’s rejection of the Free Will Defence
- the words ‘free to choose’ must mean that there is a real choice between real options
- being ‘made’ in such a way that you can only choose the good is not a free choice as you are doing what God has made you do
- God can do everything that is logically possible, but it is logically impossible to make people always freely choose the good
- in any possible world in which an agent is created, he freely performs at least one morally reprehensible action (transworld depravity)
The Irenaean Theodicy
- we are made in the image of God and then in his likeness
- humans need to grow into the likeness of God, an ongoing process
- this requires humans to have genuine freedom to choose good or evil
- our moral development requires a world which makes this possible
Hick’s soul-making theodicy
- the human telos is to have a conscious and personal relationship with God
- this can be achieved only through a free and willing response based on the experience of the world with all its good and evil
- the world is geared to enable spiritual growth (soul-making)
- God set an epistemic distance between himself and humanity to allow humans full freedom to choose to have a personal relationship with God
- a loving relationship is only authentic and valuable if it is freely chosen
Griffin’s process theology
- rejection of creatio ex nihilo
the earth already exists, and God’s act of creation was to give form and order to it - rejection of traditional omnipotence
God is persuasive instead of coercive, as coercion does not align with free will
the best God can do is attempt to persuade things to be better, which takes a long time - God and creation are relational - God is the soul of the universe and is, in some ways, temporal, changeable and part of the world (panentheism)
- God is therefore not transcendent and cannot intervene to eliminate evil
- God shares all our suffering
Epistemic distance
A distance of knowledge. The world operates in such a way that humans cannot know from it that there is a God, otherwise it would be impossible not to be influenced by the knowledge and faith would not be genuine
Panentheism
‘everything is in God’
God is the soul of the universe, existing therefore within space and time
The Augustinian Theodicy
- based on the doctrine of original sin
- all humans are innately sinful due to Adam and Eve’s disobedience in the Garden of Eden
- evil is justified as it serves as a punishment for human sin
- God’s creation was originally perfect, but was corrupted by free-willed creatures
Strengths of the Irenaean/Hick theodicy
- there is empirical evidence of the development of good character in the world through suffering
- the idea of epistemic distance explains animal and pointless suffering (the end of heaven for all justifies the means)
- allows for genuine moral development
Weaknesses of the Irenaean/Hick theodicy
- the idea that mystery is needed for genuine goodness is not a comforting reassurance
- some evils do not have a greater good and do not allow for character development for either the individual or the community
- if God is truly omniscient our character development is not genuine (predecided)
- the appeal to the epistemic distance to justify animal suffering fails, since there appears to be no benefit to animals themselves
- the amount of suffering may not be proportional to the promise of heaven
Strengths of the Free Will Defence
- Plantinga is right in saying it would be logically impossible for God to have created a world in which people had free will but never made morally bad choices
- natural evils bring about second-order moral goods such as love, sympathy and compassion, which are to be valued above happiness and pleasure
- shows that a world with free creatures is more valuable than a world without them - there is no genuine achievement or happiness without freedom
- it is true that humans value the risk of pain
Weaknesses of the Free Will Defence
- no convincing response to the evidential POE
- Plantinga’s explanation of natural evil (Adam and Eve’s free will with the serpent) relies on mythology, which is not compatible with a philosophical argument
- based on the assumption of libertarianism - the FWD collapses if freedom is denied (determinism)
Strengths of Process Theology
- God’s lack of omnipotence seems like a realistic answer to the POE
- The idea of God creating order out of chaos is supported by quantum mechanics, which demonstrates that reality is a chaotic process of flux and change at a subatomic level
- the fact that God suffers because he contains the sensory experience of the universe is a comfort to believers, as they can know that God understands their suffering
Weaknesses of Process Theology
- a non-omnipotent God may not be worth worshipping
- the issue of the evidential POE still stands - if God’s persuasion of the universe into more complex forms also brings more evil, why did he not cease his efforts?
- even though God may do his best, there is no guarantee that God will overcome evil
Libertarianism
Although some aspects of human experience are determined by physics, biology, and chemistry, humans nevertheless have a degree of free will and so can be held morally responsible for their actions
Causal determinism
The view that every event is determined by antecedent events and conditions and by the laws of nature, so humans do not have free will
