Evil and Suffering Flashcards
What does Hans Kung call the Problem of Evil and Suffering?
‘The Rock of Atheism’
What are some examples of biblical evil in the Old Testament?
- Genesis 3 - The Fall
- The Flood
- Egyptian Plague
- Exodus
What is suffering?
The mental/emotional/spiritual/physical pain and distress that humans and animals experience as a result of moral and natural evil
What is Natural Evil?
Natural evil refers to things beyond human control such as the laws of nature or diseases.
- Essentially, evil that happens as a result of things that Christians believe is under God’s control making it hard for them to accept it
What are secular examples of Natural Evil?
- A small child dying of cancer
- 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami that killed over 230k people
- Animals caught up in a forest fire with no means of escape
What are some religious examples of Natural Evil?
- The Flood
- The Egyptian Plagues
- The Exodus which saw many Egyptians drowning
What is Moral Evil?
Moral evil refers to the hurtful and harmful acts that humans as moral agents either carry out or to human inaction when some is in need
- Many question why God would permit so much evil to be carried
What are examples of Moral Evil?
- An act of unkindness
- Holocaust
- Pedophilia
- Sexual Violence
What is the logical problem of evil?
The Inconsistent Triad by Epicurus:
1. God is Omnipotent
2. God is Omnibenevolent
3. Evil Exists
- All 3 statements cannot be correct
What problems do Christians have in resolving the logical problem of evil?
- Denying God’s omnipotence would suggest for them a God that is not worthy of worship (eg. Roth)
- Denying God’s omnibenevolence would contradict the teaching of Jesus and destroy the basis of Christian belief
How have some Christian theologians answered the logical problem of evil?
Denied the existence of evil
- Augustine: evil is the absence of good just like how darkness is the absence of light
- Aquinas: evil is the lack of something good that is natural to something (eg. blindness in human would be evil but blindness in a rock would not be)
What are the two main arguments for the evidential problem of evil?
- The sheer quantity and quality of both natural and moral evil are overwhelming
- The pointlessness of so much evil serves no useful purpose
What are some examples of the overwhelming nature of evil?
- Millions of creatures destroyed in the Great Dying in the Permian Period
- The terrible cruelties seen in the Dostoyevsky’s Brother Karamazov which is enough to make Ivan claimed that evil is too high a price to pay for the joys of heaven
Finish the Quote from the Brothers Karamazov - ‘It’s not God that I don’t accept Alyosha…
…only I most respectfully return my ticket’
What is Rowe’s example of the pointless evil seen in the world?
A fawn suffering a slow and agonising death under a tree in a forest fire - It serves no good in terms of enabling human development so why would God allow for it to happen?
What quality of God does the evidential problem of evil question?
God omniscience (his all knowing). Why would an all knowing God allow for the world to exist if he was aware of the terrible suffering that would be caused by the laws of nature and humans
What does the Free Will Defence need to show?
- Humans cannot have free will without the existence of moral evil
- Having free will is worth it in the terms of suffering
Who rejects the Free Will Defence?
John Mackie
What is a first order good/evil?
a good or evil at the basic level of human experience
good: happiness or pleasure eg having a nice meal with happiness
evil: misery or pain eg,. having an accident and breaking a leg
What is a second order good/evil?
our response to first orders either maximising them or minimising them.
good: responding to suffering with kindness, love and compassion.
evil: responding to suffering with cruelty, hate and spite
What is a third order good and it’s significance?
The ability to choose between two things (freewill). Pain and suffering are needed to help us develop the capacity for sympathy allowing us to morally grow - the downside is simply that many will choose the opposite
What is the fourth order good?
God creating humans with free will teaching us to be morally responsible
Why did Mackie reject the Free Will Defence?
He said logically it is possible for someone to freely choose good at every point of choice yet because we don’t God is a flawed designer compared to the descriptions of classical theism.
He also presents his own inconsistent triad (same as Epicurus)
Who defended the Free Will Defence?
Plantiga
What was Plantinga’s first possible world?
This was the world as it is with ‘morally significant free will’ and no causal determination with pain and suffering. This world is logically possible as it the world we supposedly live in now
What was Plantinga’s second possible world and it’s limitations?
The world without ‘morally significant free will’ but with God’s casual determination to make people choose good meaning no evil in the world.
-> Whilst this world is logical possible, it would mean humans are robots meaning there would be no point of God making us
