Problem of Evil

• Natural evil


  Evil caused by non-human agencies e.g hurricaines
• Moral evil


  Evil caused by deliberate misuse of human freewill e.g murder
• Logical problem of evil

  inconsistent triad states that three beliefs cannot be held at the same time without contradiction

  • a priori statement - theoretical
• evidential problem of evil

  -a posteriori - personal observation

  -too much evil to believe that God is good and loving

  -J.S Mill - evil doesn’t suggest a good God, but a creator
• Augustine’s theodicy - ‘Confessions’ = soul-deciding theodicy


  • influenced by his belief: world divided between good and evil - we deserve punishment as God is just
  • evil is “privatio boni” (absence of good)
  • Evil occurs from the Fall, Adam and Eve were tempted by a fallen angel and misused their freewill - lead to corruption of natural world and human soul, introducing evil
  • “God made everything. Everything God made was good” - evil isn’t ’thing’, it’s privatio boni
  • ”we are all seminally present in the loins of Adam” - we all inherit sin from Adam and Eve
  • NOT GOD'S FAULT: "To defect from him who is the Supreme Essence, to something of less reality, this is to begin to have evil will". Only began in the post-lapsarian state
• inconsistent triad


  evil exists, God is all-loving, God is all-powerful.

  -a priori argument

  -proposed by Epicurus, but Mackie applied it to the God of Classical theism

  -If evil is present, something in the triad must be untrue

  -“Either God can abolish Evil or he will not; if he cannot he is not all-powerful”
• Augustine’s theodicy criticisms


  -relies on Biblical text

  -Questions the omnipotence of God - can’t undo the damage

  -Questions omniscience - he would have anticipated the misuse of freewill
• Irenaeus’ theodicy*Against Heresies*

  -We’re made Imagio Dei, but must grow to God’s likeness (“let us make man in our image, according. to our likeness” - Genesis 1:26)

  -Believed Adam and Eve to be morally immature children - God sends us evil to help us. Without them, we wouldn’t know goodness or repentance

  -analogy and potter and clay - “but if you let yourself be hardened, then you reject the work of his skill”
• “Physical pain, mental suffering and moral wicked” - John Hick
• God created the world ‘ex nihilo’ (from nothing), so is responsible for everything within it. Including evil, if evil exists so does the God of Classical Theism
• David Hume and the evidential problem of evil*Treatise of Human Nature*


  -amount of evil in the world can’t be reconciled with the God of Classical Theism

  -small amount of evil is necessary to highlight God’s goodness and as motivation for good actions

  -evidence of unnecessary evil = God doesn’t exist

  • evil - "rock of atheism"
• “To defect from him who is the Supreme Existence , to something of less reality, this is to begin to have an evil will” - Augustine. Evil is NOT God’s fault
• World was made without evil as we have scientific evidence of the Big Bang and evolution
• Friedrich Schleiermacher - anti-Augustine

  Evil would have come out of nowhere (illogical) unless God made it

  • the problem of evil is a "logical error"
• "we are seminally present in the loins of Adam" - St Augustine
• J.L Mackie *Evil and Omnipotence*


  • Inconsistent triad - God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent and evil exists - they can't all exist at the same time
  • " if any two of them were true the third would be false."
• Rabbi Irving Greenburg *The Triumph of Life*


  • "No statement, theological or otherwise, should be made that would not be made in the presence of children"
  • Fate of the world in humanity's hand. Strong evil manifests evil e.g holocaust. Incredible good manifests good
• John Hick's soul-making theodicy *God of Love*


  • Agreed with Iranaeus - "vale of soul-making" - souls are shaped here
  • Evil and suffering help us grow into a free relationship with God - It's an instrumental good
  • God deliberately maintains an epistemic distance, we can make choices in an immediate way
  • By tackling hardships, we freely turn to God and after death we continue the spiritual journey via universal salvation
  • "a necessary World of Pains is to school an intelligence and make it into a soul"
  • "we can see no gain from the soul ... only a ruthlessly destructive purpose"
• Evaluation of Hick

  • (+) removes religious pressure and maintains God's omnibenevolence
  • (+) Focuses on maintaining a relationship with God
  • (-) No explanation for dysteleological evil - hope not a philosophical answer
  • (-) universal salvation saves those that're undeserving
• Criticisms of Iranaeus an Hick

  • (+) Possible to learn values through suffering
  • (-) Human development justifies some suffering, but not by pain experienced in this life
  • to suggest we could learn values without suffering is mere speculation
  • (+)takes the influence away from Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection
  • (+) Our souls continue this journey in the afterlife
• Augustine - *Confessions* - Beginning of Evil

  • Genesis 1: "God created the Heavens and the Earth ... good"
  • Goodness is intrinsic - each action has its own scale of goodness
  • Evil is a privation of Good
  • "God cannot be blamed for evil because God cannot create a privation"
  • Moral evil enters vie The Fall
• Augustine *Confessions* on Natural Evil


  • fall of angels = disharmony and imbalance in nature links to natural disasters. God allows it as punishment for Original Sin
  • "In all such cases the evil state of affairs can plausibly be seen as the collapse of a good state of affairs"
• J.S Mill *On Liberty*

  • supports evidential POE
  • "Nearly all of the things in which are hanged or imprisoned for doing to one another are nature's everyday performances"
• POE evaluation

  • (+) Augustine - evil and God can coexist because it wasn't his fault
  • (+) Iranaeus - evil is how we learn
  • Both emphasise that humans have freewill and moral agents. If God breaks the epistemic distance, it's not freewill
  • (-) Schliermacher - logical error. A perfect world can't go wrong. God created evil, or an imperfect world
  • (-) Darwinism has disapproved Genesis, so the Fall is incorrect