The Problem Of Evil Flashcards
Types of evil
Natural evil - distress and suffering caused by the malfunction of the world (earthquakes, illnesses)
Moral evil - distress and suffering caused by humanity (absence of clean drinking water, even though rich people could afford to provide it)
The logical problem of evil
- says that an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient God cannot logically exist if evil in the world exists
Inconsistent triad:
- three proposals we are asked to accept:
1) God is perfectly good
2) God is All-powerful
3)Evil and suffering exists
- this ‘triad’ is inconsistent because we cannot believe all of them at the same time without contradiction
- if God is all powerful, then he could have made any kind of world, such as one without pain, illness or death
- a perfectly loving God cannot want the world to be the way it is, an all loving God would do all in his power save his ‘children’ from suffering, yet it is evident we suffer
- therefore, the very existence of evil presents a picture of a logically self contradictory God who logically cannot exist if he is to be all powerful and all loving
The evidential problem of evil
- it takes the evidence of our experiences, and asks us to find the most plausible explanation for them.
- Is it better to say God does not possess the traditional attributes of God, or better to say there is no God at all?
- Mill argues that evidence does not point to a loving creator (if it points to a creator at all) but one who is evil and sadistic
Augustine’s theodicy
- Augustines theodicy rests upon 2 major assumptions:
1) Evil did not come from God, since God’s creation was perfect
2) God is justified in allowing evil to stay if it allows us to retain free will - he defined evil as ’privation’
- he uses the example of blindness, also calling this privation because it is the lack of ability to see, in the same way evil is the lack of something good
- difference and variety is good and the necessary results of difference is that some creatures will be more limited than others
- he thought evil first came into the world with the ‘fall’ of the angels, he said the angels were created perfect but some received less grace then others, as part of the variety of things
- they then fell away from God as a direct result of their misuse of their free will
- this was then repeated in the Garden of Eden with the fall of Adam and Eve, their disobedience was so terrible it disrupted the whole world on a cosmic scale for all of the generations to follow
- God gave us free will, but we abused it and used it to turn away from God. So Augustine believed suffering is a deserved consequence of sin
- both moral and natural evil exists as punishments
- he argued free will was more valuable than having a world of puppets who always did Gods will, therefore he argued evil was a worthwhile price
- if we didn’t have the option to freely choose to commit evil, then neither would we be able to pick good
- the ’aesthetic principle’ is the idea that the existence of evil makes good even better
Irenaean theodicy
- like Augustine’s theodicy, the Irenaean theodicy suggests evil can be traced back to human free will
- it differs however, saying God did not make a perfect world in the first place and that evil is an important part of Gods plan
- argued goodness and perfection must be developed by humans themselves, thus the existence of evil is necessary for human development
- believed origin of evil could be found with Adam and Eve, but doesn’t lay the blame on them like Augustine but on the serpent
- suggests Adam and Eve are created in the ‘image’ and ‘likeness’ of God meaning that they had free will (image) and were spiritual as well as physical beings (likeness). However, argued humans are separate from God as we are mortal
- Adam and Eve are like naughty children, not fully understanding what they are doing is wrong, so punishment may be appropriate as a way to help humans mature
- believed Adam and Eve did not rebel against God, just merely went astray
- God had to punish humanity so they would understand their boundaries
- argued Jesus was the ‘new Adam’ who obeys God and then dies on the cross (the tree), thus undoing the fault of Adam
- Jesus’ crucifixion paves the way for all Christians to be forgiven
- Irenaeus does emphasise universal salvation, but that God judges all those who reject God and those people will be punished
Hick’s modern interpretation of Irenaean theodicy
- he followed Irenaeus’ idea that humans were not created perfect, they developed in two stages:
1) image - humans are ‘spiritually immature’ and through our struggle to survive in this ‘evil’ world we develop into the image of God in being ‘spirituality mature’
2) likeness - humans, in the future, are then able to grow into a relationship with God - therefore he created humans at an ’epistemic distance’ from himself - a distance in dimension or knowledge, by which God is not so close that humans would be overwhelmed by him and have no choice but to believe and obey him. By keeping a distance, God allows humanity to choose freely
- without evil, humans would not be able to develop positive qualities
- the best possible world is a where humans meet challenges in order to gain perfection
- Hick believed that this world is about ”soul making” and that through the process of living we are offered the opportunity for “moral growth”
- this growth is offered via a challenging environment which includes evil
- evil is necessary to make life a challenge or test to help us grow
- people only become in the image of God after death - so a belief in the afterlife is essential to this theodicy
- he suggests everyone will eventually be saved and in the image of God
- if a person is not ready to be saved they will continue to grow and develop in a purgatory like state
- Hick supports universal salvation, doesn’t believe in hell
A02
criticisms of Augustines theodicy:
- deliberate cruelty towards a child, for example, seems to be much more harmful than just a lack of goodness
- if we do accept evil is no more than a lack of perfection, it doesn’t explain why God allowed this lack of perfection into the world in the first place
- even if the choice to sin is wholly ours, God still made the choice to create the world knowing in advance what would happen
criticisms of Irenaean’s theodicy:
- while he argues evil is necessary for human development, this cannot be the case for babies that die of painful illnesses at young ages, as they’ve had no chance to develop
- doesn’t justify suffering of animals. If suffering is purely for the development of humans, it doesn’t seem fair for animals to suffer as well, also many animals suffer when humans aren’t around the learn from it
- some people seem to be made worse by suffering, they might lose their faith or become bitter
criticisms of Hicks theodicy:
- why would Christ have died on the cross to save humanity from sin, if everyone gets to go to heaven eventually anyway
- view that everyone will eventually freely come to God can be criticised, as if this turning to God is inevitable, then it cannot truly be free
- Kant argues that humans should not be used as a means to an end, but if Hick is right, it appears God does this when he allows suffering as a means to soul-making
- Phillips argues its not right to suggest God planned and designed evil to happen, as this would be an evil God
