3.1 The Problem Of Evil And Suffering

Question 1

What is meant by natural evil?

Answer 1

Evil caused by the natural state of things e.g. the 2018 Indonesian earthquake

Question 2

What is meant by moral evil?

Answer 2

Evil that has come about as a direct result of human intentions and choices e.g. murder, theft, rape etc

Question 3

Which of the evils is easier to explain for religious believers?

Answer 3

Moral evil as it is caused by humans exercising their free will

Question 4

What is the logical problem of evil?

Answer 4

Put forward by the pre-Christian Greek thinker Epicurus and focuses on the INCONSISTENT TRIAD

Question 5

What is the inconsistent triad?

Answer 5

• the premises that god is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent are inconsistent with the fact that evil exists.
• if god is omnipotent, he can stop evil
• if god is omniscient, he knows about evil and how to stop it
• if god is omnibenevolent, he would want to stop evil

Question 6

What does Hume add to the logical problem of evil?

Answer 6

As evil does exist, the god of classical theism doesn’t

Question 7

What does J L Mackie propose in “Evil and Omnipotence”

Answer 7

There are adequate and fallacious solutions to the problem of evil

Question 8

What are the adequate solutions to the problem of evil according to Mackie?

Answer 8

• changing the nature of God/limiting the meaning of omnipotence
• either god isn’t capable of doing the logically impossible OR evil is not a thing
• HOWEVER in practice they reassert the proposition that god is omnipotent

Question 9

What are the fallacious solutions to the problem of evil?

Answer 9

• offering ways to solve the problem while retaining the theistic concept
• claiming that evil is necessary for free will, or the counterpart to God BUT whilst they claim to keep the theistic concept they don’t try to hide

Question 10

What is meant by the paradox of omnipotence?

Question 11

General religious responses

Answer 11

• punishment for sin
  (Suffering seems random, e.g. job was punished severely as a test by god, not because of any sin he had committed, those who commit evil acts seem to get away with them)
• test from god
  (If god is omniscient, why would we need to test a believers faith? God could test without such extreme and brutal suffering)
• its the devil
  (If god is omnipotent, he should be able to stop the devil, if god is the creator, then he created the devil and is responsible for suffering)

Question 12

Augustine’s theodicy

Answer 12

He argues that evil is a PRIVATION - a lack or absence of something. Evil is, therefore, not an actual phenomenon; it does not exist e.g. the evil of disease is due to a lack (privation) of good health.
For Augustine, privation is a result of the fall as recorded in genesis 3, when human beings disobeyed god, causing original sin to enter the world and cause corruption in humans and the natural order.

Question 13

Strengths of Augustine’s theodicy

Answer 13

• it is consistent with classical theism, which holds that god is omnipotent, ombnibenevolent and not responsible for evil
• responsibility for evil is recognised but attributed to humans rather than god
• free will is presented as the reason for suffering
• evil and suffering could be considered a price worth paying for freedom
• offers an explanation for natural evil

Question 14

Weaknesses of Augustine’s theodicy

Answer 14

• it isn’t scientifically possible for all of humanity to be seminally present in Adam
• original sin doesn’t seem fair since we suffer because of Adam’s actions
• if the world was created perfect, how did Adam find out about evil to make a sinful choice
• gods omnipotence and omniscience is challenged by Augustine’s solution