Philosophy Paper 1:Topic three Challenges to religious belief the problem of evil and suffering Flashcards
(32 cards)
What is the definition for evil
evil-anything that causes pain and suffering
What is the definition of moral evil
Moral evil- any suffering taht is brought about through the actions of a free will agent (humans). these evils would not have occured without human action.
e.g murder theft, violence, rape, war, animal abuse, geneocide
What is the definition for natural evil
Any suffering that is brought about as a consequence outside of the free will agents control. Brought about by the laws of nature.
tornados tsunamis flooding etc
What is the definition for
God of classical theism
omnipotence
omnibenevolent
God of classical theism- God of western religion with all perfect attributes
Omnipotence-all poswerfull
Omnibenevolent- all loving
Describe the logical problem of suffering classical epicurus
- Epicurus ancient greek philosopher wh developed epicurus paradox
Suggests that if God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent then how is it possible for moral and natural evil/suffering to exsist? - Deductive argument
Question: If god is able to abolish evil and wants to, why is there still evil in the world?
Premise 1: Ig god wants to abolish evil and cant he is not omnipotent
premise 2: if god can abolish evil but doesnt want to he is not omnibenevolent.
conclusion: therefore god is either unwilling or unable to abolish evil
What are quotes to support epicurean paradox
“If god is willing to prevent evil but is not able to….then he is not omnipotent”
“either god wants to abolish evil and cannot or he can but does not want to”
Describe the Modern development of the epicureas paradox, the inconsistent triad (Mackie)
- Australian philosopher mackie
- formualted the problem of evil into the inconsistent triad.
P1:God is omnipotent
p2:God is omnibenevolent
p3: evil exsists
Mackie argued that these propositions were inconsistent. They cannot be true all at once. One of these must be false if the others are true
- remove omnipotence whilst god is loving and wants to remove evil he is not able to. spported by whitehead who argues god started off evolution but is also part of the universe and constrained ot that.
(does not satisfy god of classical theim who made the world ex nihilo - remove omnibenevolence:why would he allow suffering
Describe mackies developed paradox of omnipotence
Mackie claims that all theodicies ultimatley reply on god limiting his own omnipotence.
“can an omnipotent being make things which he subsequently can’t control” (limit his own power)
“can an omnipotent being make rules which then bind himself”
If answered yes:If god can create rules that limit his bower then he has created rules that limit himself and therefore his omnipotence.
If answered no: God cannot create rules that limit his power so he is not omniotent
any solution to the problemm of evil fails because they both conclude god is not omnipotent
What is a quote for mackies paradox of omnipotence
“paradox of omnipotence has shown that gods omnipotence must be restricted one way or another”
Describe william rowe’s concept of intense animal suffering
- william rowe in his work the problem of evil and some varities of atheism evidential problem of evil
- argue that the existence of a god and intense suffering could not justified
Rowe accepts some evil must be jusitified under two condiitons. evil could have been prevented byt god does not intervene because a greater good could come out of it. (killing of a young woman sophie lancaster foundation)
instances of evil could have been prevented but werent becuase some worse evil would have resulted from its prevention. nucelur weapons heroshima
does not allow unjustified evil. e.g holocaust, the rwanda genocide or animal suffering (fawn in forset fire)
Omnipotent omniscient god would have known that was about to happen and prevented it. evil does happen. god does not exisit.
Describe gregory paul premature deaths
- Gregory paul considers the huge numbers of premature human deaths
- huamn population of aroun 6.5 billion. paul estimates that the total number of humans to have ever existed is around 100 billion.
- paul estimates that over 50 billion of those died in childhood. paul claims this is due to the occurance of moral evil or natural evil.
- paul calls this the holocaust of the children.
e.g diesease malaria alone has killed 20 billion children. starvation climate issues.moral evil war forced famine 150 million deaths.
300 billion died prenately
children are too young to make descions about god and have no free will. no all loving all powerful god would allow this.
Quotes for pauls holocaust of the children and premature births
“If a creator exsits, then it has chosen to fashion a habitat that has maximised the level of suffering and death among young humans”
“not possible to reconcile the christian.. pacifist creator with the state of the universe”
What is the background tp Augustinian type theodicy
A theodicy is an argument used to defend the existence of the god of classical theism but justifies why evil is allowed to occur.
St augustine (monk and theologican)
Augustinian type theodicy the perfect creation of the world
God’s creation was originally free from evil and was ex nihilo. Evil didnt exist before the sin of angels and humans. They misuesed their free will and turned away fom God.
It is impossible for God to create evil as evil is not a substance in itself. Evil is just the lack/privation of goodness. it is the turning away fro evil that is evil.
Augustines own metaphor was evil is like darkness- absence of light good health
Augustinian theodicy quote for perfect creation
Genesis 1 “God saw all that he made and it was good”
Augustinian type theodicy the development of moral evil evil as a consequence of sin
Augustine concedes that everything in the universe, god made had the potential to chnage (only god is unchangable). change entails the possiblity of change from perfect to being corrupted evil.
evil only occured when the angels and humans with free will chose to corrupt their goodness and turn away from God.
They abused gods gift of freedom and this is beyond human understanding.
Augustinian type theodicy the fall of human beings and creation
All humans ultimatley descended from adam then all humans share adams guilt and sin. Adam and eve ate the forbidden fruit and turned away from God.
As we all share the same guilt we deserve to face the same punishment through moral evil.
natural evil is a direct result from privation of evil.
The cross overcomes evil, soul deciding
To bring good out of evil christians refer t the happy mistake (felix culpa). were it not for the original sin god would have never needed jesus for salvation.
those who freely accept jesus as their savior would be redeemed and after this life be reunited with god in heaven. soul deciding theodicy
humans seek redemption through christ.
what are strengths to augustines type theodicy
Bibicially based: strong theological groundings based on bible
evil is not a substance: Brain davis (modern pilosopher) argues with thia A MORAL EVIL IS A GAP BETWEEN WHAT YOU OUGHT TO DO AND WHAT YOU DO.not talking about something God “makes”, but about what creatures fail to do or be.
free will: Platinga agrees with augustine that god had to give humanity free will so we could choose god.
Weaknesses of augustinian type theodicy: genesis god is guilty and logical error
- Hick believes that genesis is just a metaphor for creation
- God is guilty an all knowing god would have foreseen the original sin and prevent it
- God created the world perfectly and then it went wrong. for the orignal sin to happen a and e would have needed to know baout evil and evil cannot exist ut of nothing implying it already exsisted
What are the scientific errors of the augustinian type theodicy
- geological scientific records indicate that th earth has akways had natural imperfections. e.g volcanos earthquakes etc. therefore there is no scientific evidence to support the idea that the world was once perfect and free from natural evil.
- it is biologicaly impossible to have descended from adam. no one persons sin can be transferred gto all of humanity. All humanitys did not origninate from one pair of human beings
- Darwins theory of evolution His theory of evolution demonstrated that suffering, competition, predation, and extinction were part of life long before humans existed. This undermines the Augustinian theodicy, which depends on a literal Fall of man introducing all evil and death into creation.
- Dawkins uss analogies and empirical evidence through evolution to suggest we did not descend from adam “we know Adam and Eve never existed, that foundational myth crumbles.””
Moral errors of augustinain type theodicy
Moral error 1: it seems unjust to punish the whole of humanity for the sins of adam and eve. in augustines’s time people were punished for their parent’s sins but this does not work in our contemporary society.
Moral error 2: Augustine argued that god would save some people if they repented their sins and believed in jesus’s message fo atonement. if god was omnibenevolent he would save everyone
Background to irenaean type theodicy
- Irenaeus of lyons scond-third century early christian bishop
- incomplete theodicy added and dveloped by john hick
What does the irenaean type theodicy state about the creation of the world
Irenaeus admitted god can be seen as partly to blame for the existence of evil.
* God maintained the presence of evil delibretly as he wanted his creation to develop qualities that would make them spiritually perfect.
* He wanted humans to develop into God’s perfection supported by quote from genesis “let us make human kind in our image, according to our likeness”
god made humaniry posessing qualities of god and humans can actualise these godly qualities through moral dilemmas. ever moral action made a person becomes more like god.
Analogy: God is a craftsman working with humans as his material and suggests that huamns should allow god to mold them into his oerfection. Humanity should freely decides to develop into gods likeness and spiritually mature
