problem of evil Flashcards
logical problem of evil
Epicurus(ancient Greek philosopher, one of the first to formulate the problem of evil)
Mackiereformulated this argument into the ‘inconsistent triad’ which argued that the God of classical theism (omnipotent and omnibenevolence) cannot exist if evil exists.
Omnipotence entails the power to eliminate evil. Omnibenevolence entails the motivation to prevent evil.
a priori argument
deductive - monotheism and belief would be reduced to irrationality in the face of evil if the logical prob succeeds
evidential problem of evil
a posteriori argument that the evidence of evil in the world makes belief in God unjustified - existence of god is improbable hypothesis
it is highly likely that an omnipotent being could remove all evil, and a morally perfect being would desire evil’s non-existence
therefore the existence of evil, both moral (i.e. caused by moral agents) and natural (i.e. caused by nature), constitutes good evidence against such a being’s existence.
plantinga free will
it is conceivable that a world in which there is contra-causal free will for at least some beings is ‘more valuable…than a world containing no free creatures at all’.
Thus is because genuine libertarian freedom enables us to choose to love, cherish and care. In more general terms, free will allows an agent to actively choose the good and reject the bad.
As God is benevolent he seeks to actualise (bring about) the best LPW, and so God will create a world with some free beings in it.
mackie’s utopia hypothesis is incoherent - It is true that there is a LPW with free creatures who only ever choose to do the good. BUT it is not possible for God to actualise this world, as if God had created a world in which all people act morally, then God has in fact caused the good actions of humanity because he has caused the world to come into existence.
BUT Any given action is either random or determined: there is simply no room for libertarian free will whereby an action can somehow be uncaused yet not random.
augustine theodicy
evil is a result of free will and the fallen human nature through which it is maintained that God created a perfect world and ‘‘indeed it was very good’’ ( Genesis 1)
Augustine argued Evil does not actually exist. It is merely the absence of Good. As humans fell away from God, we fell away from his goodness, resulting in what we mistakenly call ‘evil’.
“All evil is either sin or a punishment for sin”– Augustine.
Augustine’s theodicy claims that God allows evil because we deserve it
Original sin violates moral responsibility
It’s problematic for all humanity to be blamed for the actions of Adam and Eve
- God cannot be held responsible for the existence of something he did not create or will.
- Humans and fallen angels are to blame:
-BUT a loving God does not punish a child because he has inherited a sinful nature which he did not choose to have and which he has no control over.
HOWEVER Augustine is not actuallyarguing that God himself blamed all humanity for Adam’s sin, he’s merely pointing out that it was a factual consequence of Adam’s sin that all future humanity became corrupted with original sin.
BUT It’s not our fault that we have original sin,so it still seems unfair and thus logically incompatible with omnibenevolence to suggest that we deserve punishment for it.
Peter Singer argues it is “impossible to believe” that a child who dies from natural evil such as a disease deserved it because of sin.
God is omniscient, so is ultimately responsible for evil because he knew how we would use our freedom.
Analogy of a parent giving his children a gun and telling them not to use it – except God is even more irresponsible because He knows the ‘children’ will use it
Evil is not just a privation: Hick: evil can have positive, overwhelming force – it is more than just a lack of goodness (i.e. a privation)
E.g. War has a positive force and if anything peace is the absence of war, so peace is the privation!
Iranaean theodicy
On the basis of the quote from Genesis ‘God made humans in his image and likeness’, Irenaeus made a distinction between man being made in: the image of God verses the likeness of God.
Creation has two steps for Irenaeus – firstly being made in God’s image where we have only a potential for good due to spiritual immaturity. Step two is where we achieve God’s likeness by choosing good over evil which enables us to grow spiritually and morally. The idea is that encountering and overcoming evil makes us become better more virtuous people.
A biblical example Irenaeus pointed to is Jonah and Whale: Jonah disobeyed God and then the natural evil of a storm and a big fish who ate him helped Jonah learn his lesson and he then obeyed God. Evil thus serves the good purpose of motivating us to be good.
hick theodicy
Hick argued that human beings were not created perfect but develop
The Fall is a result of immature humans who are only in the image of God - now can grow into relationship with god
Irenaeus & Hick’s theodicy claims that God allows evil because it serves the good purpose of soul-making
the Irenaean theod views Jesus as ‘the suffering servant’ of Isaiah: Jesus had to suffer a humiliating + extremally painful; death to enable hmnty to save themselves by being inspired to be like Christ – this is the ‘Christus exemplar’ theory of Jesus’ atonement on the cross.
Hence, Jesus offers a glimpse into God’s plan for humanity: Jesus is what we will resemble once our spiritual growth through the vale of soul making is complete
purposeless evil
We do not really ‘grow spiritually’ from papercuts, so why not remove them and keep evils that do aid spiritual growth?
BUT Hick could respond that suffering is a spectrum (like colour): you simply cannot remove parts of the whole, as all parts are necessary to create the whole
Purposeless evil: no chance of leading to spiritual development. For example, a child who dies of cancer. They are too young to even understand what is happening
dysteological
Hick repliedthat evil which seems pointless is part of the process of soul-making. If we believed that all evil was ultimately for a person’s benefit, then it would be difficult to develop for our own soul-making. For example, the child’s parents could learn something.
William Rowe gave the example of a fawn dying in a forest fire. We have evidence that such things happen, but no one would ever be able to gain sympathy or compassion from them.
Rowe argues that God could have created a world in which the fawn died instantly rather than dying in agony - the intensity of the evils we see defy a greater purpose.
- the scale of human suffering as gd evidence against God - as Stendhal concluded, ‘God’s only excuse is that he doesn’t exist’
Voltaire ridicules Leibniz’s suggestion that this is the ‘best of all possible worlds’ simply by pointing out the massive atrocities that occur, such as the Lisbon earthquake (1551), killing around 30000.
- Thus the problem of evil can lead to protest atheism, the belief that God, if he exists, is not worthy of praise or worship, and one should reject his design on the grounds that it is inherently immoral.
if God’s only choice was between a world which could go so badly wrong that it now contains slavery, genocide etc. and not creating at all, then God should not have created anything
