Evil and Suffering

Question 1

Exodus 15:10

Answer 1

But you blew with your breath, and the sea covered them. They sank like lead in the mighty waters.

Question 2

The Brothers Karamazov

Answer 2

I hasten to give back my entrance ticket … It’s not God that I don’t accept, Alyosha, only I must respectfully return my ticket.

Question 3

Hick

Answer 3

What is the greatest difficulty in the way of such a theodicy? It is, I think, the stark question … whether all the pain and suffering, cruelty and wickedness of human life can be rendered acceptable by an end state, however good?

Question 4

Whitehead

Answer 4

God is ‘the fellow sufferer who understands.

Question 5

Roth

Answer 5

Good though he may be, Griffin’s God is too small.

Question 6

Plantiga

Answer 6

God’s creation of persons with morally significant free will is something of tremendous value. God could not elimate much of the evil and suffering in this world without thereby eliminating the greater good of having created persons with free will.