POES (God) Flashcards
What is natural evil?
evil which results from the workings of the natural world, such as natural disasters and disease.
What is moral evil?
Moral evil is evil which is caused by human action, such as murder and torture. There are infamous examples throughout history of evil actions on a mass scale, such as the holocaust and wars. This is a problem for God’s existence because why doesn’t God intervene to prevent these things?
What is the logical problem of evil?
DEDUCTIVE ARGUMENT
Epicurus:
Is God willing but not able to prevent evil? Then he isn’t omnipotent
Is God is able to prevent evil but not willing? Then he isn’t omnibenevolent
If God is both able and willing, then why is there evil?
If God is neither able or willing then why call him God?
Mackie developed this into the inconsistent triad-
P1. An omnipotent God has the power to eliminate evil.
P2. An omnibenevolent God has the motivation to eliminate evil.
P3. Nothing can exist if there is a being with the power and motivation to eliminate it.
C1. Evil, omnipotence and omnibenevolence thus form an inconsistent triad such that God (as classically defined) and evil cannot possibly co-exist.
P4. Evil exists because we experience evil in the world.
C2. Therefore God does not exist.
Apriori argument which then uses aposteriori evidence in the last 2 lines.
What is the evidential problem of evil?
It’s an inductive argument regarding evil as evidence against God’s existence.
Hume puts forward his evidential problem-
Animal suffering, natural disasters, survival extremes and creatures with limited abilites. A God wouldn’t have created this world with such unnecessary evil.
P1. We are only justified in believing what the evidence suggests (empiricism).
P2. We only have evidence of imperfection (a world with both good and evil).
C1. We are only justified in believing that imperfection exists.
C2. So, belief in a perfectly good being is not justified.
What is Augustine’s Theodicy?
Based around original sin. He noticed humans had a natural disposition to sin and questioned where that came from. He blames humanity and uses the Genesis. After Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they were punished to the fallen world, ending up with corruption in the human world. We are all born with sinful dispositions who deserve punishment. God is not responsible for evil as it results from the free will of angels and humans.
What is Plantinga’s ‘Free will defence’?
A development of Augustine’s Theodicy to respond to Mackie’s logical problem of evil.
P1. Evil is the result of the misuse of free will.
P2. God cannot remove evil without removing free will (that would be logically impossible).
P3. Life would be valueless without free will, so it is better to have free will despite the evil its misuse can lead to.
C1. It is therefore better for evil to exist than not to.
C2. An omnibenevolent and omnipotent God therefore would allow evil.
God has to give us free will or the universe would lack value, and humans have used free will to do evil. We have to accept our universe is better with negative value than non at all. It is logically impossible for God to remove evil without removing the greater good of free will. A perfect God would therefore allow evil.
What are strengths of Augustine’s Theodicy?
1)It does seem logically possible that God allows evil because it is either sin (moral evil) or punishment for sin (natural evil) or the work of satanic energies (natural evil).
What are criticisms of Augustine’s theodicy?
1)It seems unjust and not benevolent for Adam and Eve’s descendants to be punished for something they didn’t do. For example, it seems wrong to punish a child with cancer because it has original sin. It seems logically inconsistent.
2)Genetic science suggests too much diversity for everyone to descend from the same two people, plus evidence of evolution. The Genesis story is incredibly unscientific.
What is John Hicks modern take on Irenaean Theodicy?
