The problem of evil

• St. Augustine - the evidential problem of evil

  evil is always suffered by someone
• St. Augustine - the logical problem of evil (inconsistent triad)

  'either God cannot abolish evil, or he will not' (David Hume), God is either not all-loving or he does not exist
• St. Irenaeus' theodicy (soul-making)

  • believes doing wrong is part of maturing and growing up, eg. sees Adam and Eve as children
  • 'let us make man in our image‘ (imago dei) - Genesis 1, we are made in God's image but we need to grow into his likeness
  • evil has purpose, allows us to appreciate the good
  • punishment for going against God
• Objections to St. Irenaeus' theodicy

  John Hick - we all have free will, we come to our own rational decisions, suggests the world is instrumentally good

  Tennyson - if no evil, life would be dull and meaningless
• St. Augustine's Theodicy (soul-deciding)

  • God made everything good in its own way, eg. a rock is good (for its purpose) but not in the same way which food is good
  • the choice is ours to obey God
  • the punishment is passed on to all
  • evil is the result of sin
  • you must have the will to do good
  • evil is humans going wrong, there is no such thing as a bad human
• Objections to St. Augustine's Theodicy

  • if in baptism original sin is cleansed, why does it still hurt?
  • if no belief in religion, there is no way to blame Adam and Eve, so who is to blame?
• Swinburne

  • instrumentalism - value depends on usefulness
  • natural evil is necessary to prepare us for preventing evil, natural evil is a precondition of moral evil
• Objections to Swinburne

  where is the mercy and justice?
• DZ Phillips

  • believes the human mind has the inability to understanding the world and tragedy of the world, “overwhelming evil”
  • there are instrumental uses of evil, evil as means