John Hick's reworking - PofE

Question 1

INTRO - define

Answer 1

Vale of Soul Making - humans were created as imperfect at the start so that they can grow into the image and the likeness of God

Question 2

Section one: AO1

VALE OF SOUL MAKING - NATURAL EVIL

Answer 2

Upwards and soul making – Created in Imagio dei - We were created at an epistemic distance to God and although born in likeness must grow and mature to be in the image – only possible by choosing right from wrong. God brings in suffering for the benefit of humanity as a direct consequence of human free will. From it we learn positive values, and about the world around us.

Question 3

Section one: AO2 FOR

VALE OF SOUL MAKING - NATURAL EVIL

Answer 3

Character building evil offers the opportunity to grow morally. If we programmed to do ‘the right thing’ we would have no moral values to our actions
-Hick: 1st order evils lead to 2nd order goods: without evils we can’t have any true virtues e.g can’t experience true happiness with our sadness

predictable environment. The world runs to a series of natural laws. These laws are independent of our needs, and operate regardless of anything. Natural evil is when these laws come into conflict with our own perceived needs.
Aquinas (Eternal Law) partially revealed partially in Natural Law and Divine Law (the Bible)

Question 4

Section one: AO2 AGAINST

VALE OF SOUL MAKING - NATURAL EVIL

Answer 4

An all-powerful /all-loving God would certainly have a better solution to letting humans suffer to learn.
-Problem of inconsistent triad
-(Hume) couldn’t God create the world a little more hospitable

Tooley - Is this world the best possible world for human development? Cited e.g. of those who die young and those who experience too great a pain to learn from it, as well as those who suffer to little to learn anything
-World is ideally not suited for human development
- evidential problem

Question 5

Section two: AO1

AFTERLIFE

Answer 5

In Hick’s view, during the afterlife, people continue with their growth and development towards a relationship with God, and in the end everyone will be saved. Not only will there be salvation Christians, but for everyone regardless of their religious beliefs.

Question 6

Section two: AO2 FOR

AFTERLIFE

Answer 6

It is an inclusive approach and is seen as a way forward for religious acceptance and diversity

Question 7

Section two: AO2 AGAINST
AFTERLIFE

Answer 7

If soul making continues after death if we have not yet turned to God then it makes turning to God inevitable and is not necessarily a free choice. In the end if we all arrive at the same destination, perhaps our choice of different paths is only an apparent choice and not a genuinely free one.

Kant – immoral if people are used as a means to an end yet God does this when he allows suffering as a means to soul-making, particularly when some suffer so others can learn

Same God who put the whale in the

Question 8

Section two: AO1

LANGUAGE GAMES

Answer 8

Wittgenstein’s Language Games: Ultimately the existence of evil being a contradiction to a perfect God cannot be proved or disproved as the validity of the arguments can only be determined by ones religious position - if one is playing the game of religion, the rules of this argument make sense, yet if one is playing the game of science, one will not be able to understand this argument in turn meaning conditioned by language/ the game

Question 9

Section two: AO2 FOR

LANGUAGE GAMES

Answer 9

Arguments about God are to strengthen faith of what religious believer already believes. To seek a rational explanation is a failed enterprise as to ask whether God can exist with evil is not a logical question but one of faith
However this means that the theodicies cannot empirically prove the problem of evil being non-contradictory to an omnibenevolent God

Question 10

Section two: AO2 AGAINST

LANGUAGE GAMES

Answer 10

Dawkins – faith is an excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence