What is evil
Something which is undesirable and exhibits negative experiences that sentient beings have
Define physical evil
- Pain and suffering that sentient beings have
- They occur independently of human actions
- E.g earthquake,cancer
Define moral evil
- Acts of cruelty or immoral actions from humans
- Upon fellow humans and other creatures
- E.g genocides
Can physical evil come from moral evil
- Natural evil can be the consequence of human action
- E.g overpopulation is caused by humans but can occur as physical evil
- Some argue that disease is a punishment for human sin
- E.g St Augustine and God’s punishment for moral evil
Can moral evil be a form of physical evil
- Some see humans as a part of nature
- Within our nature as animals there is evil we commit
- Therefore humans may be a part of physical evil
- However this is a non-traditional view
- Some people see humans as distinct from animals
What is the logical problem of evil(intro)
- A priori
- Deductive
- The beliefs are false as it holds a set of contradictory beliefs
- By definition the beliefs contradict each other
- Mackie argues that believers are committed to holding 3 logically inconsistent beliefs:
- God is omnipotent
- God is wholly good
- Evil exists
Outline The Logical Problem of Evil
•Believers are committed to holding 3 inconsistent beliefs:
1.God is omnipotent
2.God is wholly good
3.Evil exists
•This is an inconsistent triad
•If any two are true, then the other must be false
•A theist would be committed to believe in all 3 propositions
•Therefore a theist’s belief in God is logically contradictory and false
Mackie’s addition to the Logical Problem of Evil
•Mackie adds 2 propositions to add clarity to the contradiction
4.A good being eliminates evil as far as it can
5.There are no limits to what an omnipotent being can do
•A theist believes in all 5 of these propositions to be true
•This is illogical as not all beliefs can be true at once
•Evil certainly seems to be real
•Therefore either God is not aware of evil
•Either God does not care about evil
•Or God is powerless to stop it
•If we accept any of these truths then a God of classical theism cannot exist
Platinga’s amendment of the logical problem of evil
- Platinga says he needs to add a further amendment to premise 4
- “Every good thing eliminates every evil that it knows about and can eliminate”
- This avoids the claim that God is omnipotent and benevolent but does not know about pain or suffering
What is the evidential problem
- A posteriori
- Inductive
- Uses our experience of evil to assume that it is less probable that God exists
- Based on evidence of evil from the world:
- It is less likely that there is an infinitely powerful, wholly good God
- That created the world
Outline the evidential problem of evil
•Give the existence of evil we must decide which is the more reasonable hypothesis:
1.There is an infinitely powerful, all knowing and wholly good God that created the world
2.There is no such God
•The sheer amount of evil in the world weighs against an omnipotent and wholly good God
•A question is proposed:
•”Why would an almighty, all-knowing and all-loving God allow such extraordinary pain and suffering to exist”
•E.g there are earthquakes that kill thousands of people which could be prevented by God’s intervention
•Given the amount of evil in the world, it is more probably that there is no God
Evidential problem of evil support:
1.Theory of evolution
- Darwin talked about the daily pain and suffering of animals
- The sheer amount of evil in the world weighs against an omnipotent and wholly-good God
Evidential problem of evil support:
2.The burning deer
- William Rowe gives an example of a trapped dear
- Imagine a deer trapped in a forest fire horribly burned in the aftermath
- The deer would be in agony for several days before dying
- The agony experienced by the deer is pointless and preventable
- Based on the fact that God does not prevent the agony of the deer:
- It is more reasonable to believe that there is no such God
What do weak theodicies or defences show
•How the existence of evil can still be compatible with God’s existence
What do stronger theodicies or defences show
•They provide justification as to why God permits the existence of evil
St Augustine’s Free Will theodicy
- The enormity of pain and suffering is the consequence of an even greater good-humans having free will
- God is god and powerful and he created a perfect world with humans who were given free will
- Evil was introduced into the world as his creatures turned away from God:
- The fall of the angel Satan and the failure of Adam and Eve to resist temptation in the Garden of Eden
- Augustine constitutes this as the original sin
- This led to the corruption of God’s creation
- As a result, all the natural goodness in the world vanished
- The theodicy puts the blame for moral and natural evil on the freely chosen acts of God’s creatures
- God’s work was initially perfect but evil was introduced by his creation due to free will
St Augustine’s Free Will theodicy WEAKNESS
- The theodicy depends on a literal interpretation of the bible
- Many believers see the bible as symbolic rather than factual
- Therefore the interpretations of the bible may not provide sufficient evidence to support evil’s existence
- Some believers believe that Satan introduced evil into the world
- Therefore the theodicy is a defence against only moral evil but not natural evil
Platinga’s free will defence
intro
- Platinga develops Augustine’s theodicy from free will into a defence or weak theodicy
- The fact that it is a defence shows that is is possible but not necessarily true
- We cannot know why God allows evil
- However we can show that the existence of God is consistent with the existence of evil
- Criticism of logical problem of evil
Outline Plantiga’s free will defence
1.A world with creatures who are free is more valuable than a world containing no free creatures at all
2.God can create free creatures but he cannot cause them to do what is morally right without removing their free will
3.Therefore God created a world with free creatures capable of doing what is morally right and evil
4.Therefore humans are the source of moral evil
•Therefore God can only eliminate the moral evil done by significantly free creatures
•By eliminating the greater good of free will
Platinga’s free will defence explained
- God is omnibenevolent because his goodness caused him to create a world with free creatures
- Instead of a world with creatures that had no free will
- If God does not prevent evil because if he did he would be removing free will
- It is better to have a world with free will and evil rather than a world with creatures without free will
- Humans need free will to be accountable for their actions
- Free will allows the possibility for them to do moral good
- It is possible that natural evil is a consequence of moral evil
- Therefore it is possible that the existence of evil can be logically consistent with the existence of God
- This argues against the logical problem of evil
Hick’s soul making defence
- Hick argues that we can identify an even greater good for the existence of evil than free will
- Evil allows humans to perfect themselves to become ‘children of God’
- Humans must use their free will to work towards moral and spiritual understanding
- For Hick, the world is a ‘vale of soul-making”:
- Our souls are strengthened and matured by the suffering of this life for the infinite rewards in the next
- A necessary condition for this development is for humanity to be set at an epistemic distance from God
- This means that we are born unaware of God’s existence and are unaware how to act perfectly morally
- Therefore God created an imperfect world so humans can freely reach the good
Criticisms of Hick’s free will defence
- There is a state of uncertainty in not knowing what God has planned for us
- The distribution of suffering in the world appears to be random and meaningless
- E.g terrible genocides and the suffering of animals
- Also not all people live long enough to fully develop their ‘soul’
- E.g young children who die at an early age would not be able to fully develop their soul by the time of their death
