Evil and suffering Flashcards
What was the original sin?
-Eve ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge which God had forbidden
What do Christians believe about the original sin affecting them?
-caused humans to lose their immortality=all humans will die one day
Recite a quote about sin.
-“sin entered the world through one man”
What is evil?
- opposite of good
- some thinkers say it is good gone wrong
- some believe it had been personified it in the form of the devil or Satan
What are the 2 types of evil?
-natural and moral
What is natural evil?
-suffering created through no direct fault of humans (natural disasters)
What is moral evil?
-suffering is caused by the actions of human beings e.g the Holocaust
What is the problem of evil?
- if God is omnibenevolent, then He would care enough to stop the suffering caused be evil, so maybe He’s not omnipotent
- or He is omnipotent but not omnibenevolent
Summarise the Irenaean theodicy.
- God allows evil and suffering to exist for us to learn
- the world was created to have good and evil so humans choose to learn what is right and good
- God does not interfere with human decisions because that would mean no free will
Summarise the Augustinian theodicy.
- evil is an absence of goodness (when something good becomes corrupted)
- evil entered the world through the fall of the angels where some angels received less Grace, so it enters a perfectly good creation
- God does not intervene with humans making bad choices however he provides salvation
What do conservative Christians believe about suffering?
- see suffering like Augustine
- war, famine, disease all come from the evil within humans
- however does not explain why there is natural evil
What do other Christians believe about suffering?
- see the world as a test
- human evil should be something humans deal with
- some Christians believe God has a purpose of evil that humans do not understand
What does the book of Job tell us about evil?
-God is almighty and the human brain cannot comprehend
