The problem of evil

• Augustine and Aquinas on the Nature of Evil

  • Evil is not a ‘thing’ it is the absence of ’goodness’
  • ‘Good’ is the complete fulfilment of ones natural purpose (aristotle)
  • ‘Evil’ is a failure to flourish or to fulfil ones purpose
• Natural Evil

  Pain and evil that occurs independently of human actions

  • Boxing Day tsunami
  • china floods
  • devastating earthquakes
• Moral Evil

  Acts of cruelty carried out by humans upon humans or fellow creatures

  • Murder
  • Genocide
  • Rape
• Logical Problem of Evil - Syllogism

  • JL Mackie
  • Impossible for God and evil to exist logically

  1. God is omnipotent
  2. God is omnibenevolent
  3. Evil exists
  4. A good being eliminates evil as far as it can
  5. there are no limits to what an omnipotent being can do
  6. Therefore evil is incompatible with Gods existence
• The evidential problem of evil

  • Empirical argument against the existence of God

  Either

  1. There is an infinitely powerful, wholly good, God who created the world

  Or

  1. There is no such God

  Hume - Evil is inconsistent with a perfect deity

  William Rowe - Cites gratuitous violence and pointless evil as evidence that God doesn’t exist at all

  • Rowes Fawn example
• Response to the Problem of evil - There is no such God (atheist)

  • Gods non-existence for Sartre
  • existentialist who argued that we are radically free in the universe
  • There is no god to guide us in moral matters, should define fr ourselves what it means to be human
  • Must face suffering in world both human and animal
  • No purpose
• Response from believers: theodicies and defences

  • Theodicy: an attempt to explain the compatibility of God and evil in the world
  • Free will
  • soul making
  • afterlife
  • original sin
  • god has morally sufficient reasons for allowing suffering
  • Strong theodicy: provides own explanation/justification of why God permits existence of evil within the world
  • Weak theodicy: doesn’t explain why evil exists but defends theism that shows the existence of god is not incompatible with evil
• The Free-Will defence: Alvin Plantinga and Augustine

  • Alvin Plantinga
  • Rejects premise 4 of Mackies argument - ‘A good being eliminates evil as far as it can’
  • Augustine, Free-Will
  • Better for there to be free-will instead of no free-will
  • Moral evil is a consequence of human free-will
  • Means god is not responsible for moral evil in the world
  • Strong Theodicy - Adam and Eve explain why evil is in the world (original sin)
• Objections - JL Mackie

  • an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God would eliminate evil as much as possible

  1. Logically possible for an all powerful being to create a world with free-will where we always are do no Evil
  2. This alternative universe would be better than the one we inhabit
  3. This alternative universe Is not ours and does not exist
  4. Therefore god is not omnibenevolent or omnipotent
• Natural Evil- Plantinga explanation

  • Plantinga explains moral evil but not natural evil - Rowes Fawn
  • Plantinga uses supernatural explanation of Satan/Demons to account for natural evil
  • Could argue that natural = only natural evil, no room for supernatural
• Leibniz - best of all worlds

  • Our world is the best because it was created by god
  • Pain and suffering must be necessary evil
  • God knows of all possible combinations for all possible universes and this is actually the best one
• Objections to believers - Flew

  • Argues that God could have created a world in which all humans had a nature that is good
  • people are free provided they act on their desires and nature
  • people would act out of good nature and still have free will - wouldn’t carry out evil
• Objections to believers - flew syllogism

  1. It is logically possible for me to choose to do good on any one occasion
  2. it is logically possible for me to choose to do good on every occasion
  3. it is logically possible for any individual to choose to do good throughout their life
  4. god is omnipotent and can create any logically possible world
  5. therefore god would have created a world in which were all genuinely free and choose to do good
  6. God did not create such a world
  7. god is either not omnipotent or not wholly good
• Plantinga Free-will defence

  Weak theodicy

  1. God can create free-agents but cannot cause them to do good
  2. world with free will is greater than a world with no free-will
  3. God creates humans with free-will as it is the greater world
  4. Therefore god creates humans with free will to be morally good or bad
  5. Therefore the existence of an omni-being is compatible with free will
• Soul-Making theodicy (Iranean theodicy)

  • Presence of evil is necessary for personal growth

  1. God aims to create a world where free-agents develop morally
  2. A world In which free agents are imperfect but develop morally is better than a paradise where no one develops morally
  3. responding to suffering allows free-agents to develop morally
  4. Therefore it is greater for God to create a world with suffering

  The existence of evil has an educative purpose - more virtuous to overcome evil
• Soul making is better than humans being ‘ready-made’ good

  • more value in human goodness through freely chosen actions of toil and effort
  • Hick thinks it is wrong to say an all loving god would create a hedonistic paradise
  • suffering has plausibility of infinite reward in the afterlife
• Criticism to soul making: goodness is ‘ready made’

  1. hick argues it is better to have a cultivated good character as opposed to ready made
  2. gods good character is ready made
  3. gods character = perfect
  4. (3) entails that ready made goodness is more perfect than cultivated goodness
  5. god would want us to have the best kind of character, wouldve given us ready made goodness, no need for evil
• Hick: Afterlife theodicy

  • Omni-being would not allow humans to die without purpose
  • existence of an ever loving god is compatible with a world where there is a finite amount of time in this life and an infinite amount of time in the afterlife
  • God will compensate us for our suffering in the afterlife
• Objection to afterlife theodicy: Hell

  • Existence of hell defers the problem of evil to the next life
  • hell is infinite punishment and suffering for finite crimes
  • at odds with the nature of an all loving being
• Objection to afterlife theodicy: inability to compensate

  • Bullingdon club -> anti-social behaviour in public spaces and restaurants
  • would pay to ‘compensate’ the damages
  • doesn’t give them the right to make the workers suffer
  • applies in the same way with God
• Objection to soul-making theodicy: Animals

  • animals suffer tremendously
  • don’t appear to have any kind of spiritual growth
  • are also one of gods creations
  • inexplicable that they suffer so much
• Possible response to soul-making objection (animals) from Hick

  • God has not proven his own existence so that we choose to follow him
  • state of nature reminds us of our place in the world
  • salvation through God is there if we choose to take it
• Objection to soul-making theodicy: Terrible evils

  • Significant examples of evil (ie Genocide)
  • Free-will and soul making don’t really account for this
  • PTSD - from moral or natural evil - irreparably damages minds, needless suffering
• Objection to soul making theodicy: unequal distribution of evil

  • some places experience more evil than others
  • third world countries see much more suffering than western world

  possible response

  • this is exploitative behaviours exhibited by humans in action, part of free-will