Problem of Evil Flashcards
augustine soul deciding theodicy
soul deciding means we decide to obey god or not, evil is a test
evils are ‘nothing but privations of natural good’
links to the fall - Adam and eve had eternal suffering this will also happen to humans
god does not stop loving us despite our evil and offers redemption through the saving work of jesus
iranaeus soul deciding theodicy?
god is a ‘potter moulding his clay’
evil allows us to reach divine likeness - “let us make man in our likeness”, this means we are made in God’s image but need to grow
Treats Adam and Eve as children in their moral immaturity - they disobeyed a rule but is part of humanity growing
we learn through experiencing evil in the way Jonah learns repentance through his time in the belly of a whale, without suffering we can’t know the good.
how does hick develop soul deciding theodicy?
iranean theodicy is ‘evil and the god of love’ - without pain we wouldn’t develop virtues such as charity
god creates epistemic distance so we can come to our rational conclusions - if gods hand was continually intervening there would be no genuine self-chosen activity
hick and iranaeus disagree over hell, hick believes in universal salvation and sees hell as a place of purgatory but ironies believes hell for those who go against god
problem of evil 1, augustine
- Augustine’s soul-deciding theodicy – original perfection maintains God created a perfect world, “God saw everything he made and indeed it was very good” (Genesis 1); moral evil is thus a privation boni, brought about by human free will and our fallen human nature/ Original Sin
- Natural evil occurs as a result of the disharmony, and acts as a punishment
response to augustine, dawkins and aristotle
- Theory of evolution challenges the assumption that we have inherited the moral sins from ancient ancestors; pessimistic and irrational, “what kind of ethical philosophy is it that condemns every child, even before it is born, to inherit the sin of a remote ancestor?” (Richard Dawkins)
- Furthermore, if we accept we are fallen, God cannot justly punish us as if we are ignorant then we cannot be responsible for our actions (Aristotle)
hans kung response to dawkins, grace
• Catholics see the Fall as the “Happy Fault of Adam” which gave way for the inexpressibly greater blessing of God’s grace, allowing the sins of the elect to be redeemed through Jesus’ salvation on the cross – God demonstrates his love through Jesus, and through suffering with us via his son on the cross (Hans Kung)
jl mackie criticism of hans kung
- J L Mackie, in his article ‘Evil and Omnipotence’ argues why an omnipotent God could not create humans with characters which meant they would freely choose to do good?
- Augustine’s theodicy does not resolve the issue posed by the inconsistent triad – poses a view of an unloving or imperfect God (one who punishes an ignorant creation, has created imperfect humans) and arguably denies the evidential problem of evil (by arguing evil is a privation of good)
problem, of evil 2, hick and iranaeus
- Iranaeus’ soul-making theodicy asserts that (unlike Augustine’s theodicy) humans have potential to reach God’s divine likeness, yet must grow and develop through suffering. Goodness is dependent on its purpose of developing us into better people.
- Hick develops Iranaeus theodicy by maintaining that a complete and genuine relationship with God can come only through free choice; if God’s hand were to continuously intervene, nature would lack regularity, and we would be forced to believe in God thus God must keep epistemic distance and allow us to suffer and make mistakes
dz phillips criticism of hick and iranaeus
• D.Z. Philips ‘The Problem of Evil and The Problem of God’ – justifying evil for the benefit of others is a sign of a corrupt mind. The suffering of the victims at Auschwitz arguably serves no instrumental good for those who died. “Our moral growth is presented by Swinburne as the justification of those sufferings which he treats as a means of achieving it”, callousness towards the suffering of others
plan of love argument, aquinas for hick and iranaeus
• Still, the theodicy provides a more satisfactory answer than Augustine, as it accepts evil exists in the world and tries to understand the existence of evil in terms of a benevolent God. Iraneaus’ theodicy accepts evil exists and does not argue that the world is perfect – sadly some evils are huge and horrendous, but Aquinas highlights that God’s goodness is different to human goodness and God allows this evil as part of his plan of love which we are unaware of.
plan of love response, fry and attenborough
- Some evils do not allow people to learn or grow; the theodicy isn’t wholly satisfactory, as it doesn’t give an answer for all evils, only less major ones that may allow us to grow from.
- Stephen Fry echoes David Attenborough’s comment that the God who put the whale in the ocean put the parasite in the eye of an impoverished child – this is no loving God, but a cruel one, one that Fry calls a “maniac”
problem of evil 3, keats
- A world without any pain would be a meaningless, empty haze, in which we drifted about aimlessly, not suffering nor caring – “we have to learn in the face of life’s sorrows, in order to become better people” (Keats)
- With free choice must come real consequences, and from these we develop virtues of courage, charity, empathy “vale of soul making”
keats criticism inconsistent triad
- Could an all-powerful God not create a world where we could be good and not have to suffer to such as great extent? INCONSISTENT TRIAD
- “Could our world not be a little more hospital and still teach us what we need to know?” (Hume) Power of the human brain to extrapolate…
inconsistent triad response, benthamite notion
- The problem with the problem of evil and suffering is the very equating of evil with suffering – Benthamite notion that equates pleasure with good and pain with evil – there is no rational reason why we should make this connection
- We can accept that we dislike pain and like pleasure, but pleasure can lead to bad ends (overdosing on drugs) and goodness can come from pain (childbirth, exam success after lots of revision), so the very argument itself is based on a category error
- Thus God, whose nature we cannot possibly know and comprehend, allows suffering for His own omniscient reasons – as Lady Philosophy asserts to Boethius, the problem is with human understanding, not the nature of God
who is an example of evidential problem of evil
stephen fry and attenborough
