8 marker answers

Question 1

The Fall of Adam and Eve (positives)

Answer 1

1. when Adam fell, the whole of creation was affected so humans are ultimately the cause of evil
2. some Christians believe that all people inherited the tendency to sin from Adam and Eve, this is called the Original Sin, and this means that all humans are tainted with the tendency to sin.
3. it was Adam and Eve’s free choice to disobey God, so it was their fault evil and suffering and sin entered the world, not God’s
4. the fall affected the natural world and this helps to explain natural disasters.
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Question 2

The fall of Adam and Eve (negatives)

Answer 2

1. it doesnt seem fair of God to punish the whole of humanity for the sins of two people. How could a good God make evil chosen by two people lead to such terrible consequences for so many people?
2. Unjust to punish someone for a sin that had been committed by someone else and goes against the bible Ezekiel 18:20 ‘The person who sins is the one who will die. This child will not be punished for the parent’s sins, and the parent shall not be punished for the child’s sins’.
3. if god is Omniscient, all-knowing- then surely he would have known that they would have disobeyed then, and why would he then let them go ahead and disobey him?

Question 3

st Augustines theodicy (positves)

Answer 3

1. it makes sense for evil to be understood as a punishment for sin as punishments by their nature are meant to be unpleasant.
2. evil cannot properly be called a substance “It is the gap between what there is and what there ought to be”.
3. moral evil is not a substance and therefore God cannot have created it simply as a result of human free will or a choice to break God’s goodness.
4. God is still all loving and good as he is merciful, humans can choose to do good and to accept him. It’s not his fault if many people don’t.

Question 4

St Augustine’s theodicy (negatives)

Answer 4

1. people who are suffering would be unlikely to see it as simply an ‘absence of good’
2. humans tend to ‘feel’ pain more severely than the equivalent of the opposite.
3. It is inappropriate to describe the worst human atrocities simply as an ‘absence of good’.
4. if evil is the punishment for sin then surely it is disproportionate to the sin that causes it?

Question 5

the free will defence arguement (postivtives)

Answer 5

1. the idea that suffering exists because God has given humans free will is fair enough as a lot of suffering in the world is plainly caused by immoral actions of people.
2. the freedom to choose whether we do the right or wrong action is important as it means that our actions will carry moral significance.
3. it seems that the only way to have true free will is to have the capacity to choose evil, therefore, God cannot be held responsible for moral evil as this is caused by humans mistreating their free will.
4. if humans were not free to choose evil, there wouldn’t be any free will to choose good either. Freedom is necessary for genuine love and moral actions.

Question 6

The freewill defence argument (negatives)

Answer 6

1. The cost of free will is too great. God being omniscient means he would have known the horrors that humans would freely inflict on each other.
2. God should have given us limited free will so that humans were completely free but wouldn’t choose to do the worst things.
3. for example, Hitler would have still had the freedom to dislike Jews, but not the ability to cause a genocide against them.
4. in general people do choose to do the right actions, therefore people are capable of using their free will to do good, Someone who is considering evil should just choose not to.