Rs- Good and evil

• What are three moral evils?

  Bombing, murder or rape.
• What are three natural evils?

  Earthquakes, hurricanes and tsunamis.
• Christian responses to good and evil:

  • Christians should treat others equally
  • You should help those in need
  • You should not question/ challenge God if you are suffering because God has a plan
  • Forgive others- Jesus taught forgiveness
• Forgiveness quotes:

  • "If you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you" (Matthew 6:14)
  • "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (Matthew 5)
  • "Love your neighbour as yourself" (Luke 10)
• Aims of punishment:

  • Protection- keeping the public safe

  Retribution- getting your own revenge

  Deterrence- putting someone off committing crimes

  reformation- change behaviour for the better

  Vindication- show the law must be respected

  Reparation- Put something back into society
• Aims of punishment quotes:

  • Rehabilitation/reformation- "turn the other cheek" (Matthew 5)(LB)
  • Retribution- "The punishment shall be for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth" (Exodus 21) (RC)
• Christian attitudes to Punishment and justice:

  • Christians do not support the idea of retribution as as a purpose of punishment
  • They do however, believe in justice, which means that forgiveness and justice should go together
  • Jesus taught compassion and not revenge and because of this many christians have been actively involved in prisons to make sure people are treated humanely.
  • Most christians also firmly believe that punishment should enable a person to reform
• Prison Reformers: John Howard?

  • He was a committed Calvinist( protestant christian)
  • He inspected prisons in the late eighteenth century
  • He found them diseased, dirty and corrupt.
  • He called for basic but essential provisions such as clean running water, separate cells for men and women, access to doctors and greater numbers of prison officers to support and ensure the safety of inmates.
• Prison reformers: Elizabeth Fry

  • She was a 19th century quaker prison reformer who dedicated her life to improving the state of British prisons after visiting Newgate prison in London in 1813.
  • She went on to teach female prisoners to read and write and she held Bible readings for inmates.
• Utilitarianism:

  • The greatest good for the greatest number
  • A humanist or atheist may use this attitude to argue in favour of putting someone in prison or for the death penalty.
  • The most loving thing to do ( the idea is, based on the christian idea of agape (love).
• Prison chaplains:

  • Provide spiritual care to prisoners and their families.
  • They have a demanding and essential job, providing counselling to inmates
  • Prisoners have to deal with a complex mixture of emotions and needs
  • Chaplains often help prisoners re-enter the community, working with parole officers and other volunteers.
• The death penalty quotes:

  Against:

  " in the image of God he created them" (genesis 1) (LB)

  human rights- "right to life" (humanists)

  For:

  " The punishment shall be for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth" (exodus 21) (RC)

  "legitimate public authority has the right and the duty to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offence" (Catechism) (RC)
• What do lb's believe about reformation?

  "turn the other cheek" Matthew 5
• What is relative morality?

  Relative morality may change with time and situation, for example a Liberal Protestant's view of Biblical teaching... they would say it could be outdated or not address today's issues.
• What is absolute morality?

  Thomas Aquinas... are that there are moral absolutes e.g. the ten commandments.
• What is conscience?


  An inner voice (Christians would say is God) which keeps a person on the right track: a sense of right and wrong; an instinct to help us make the right choice.
• How to forgive for Christians:

  1. Pray ( for themselves or others)
  2. Look to the Bible
  3. Look to Jesus' examples
  4. Seek advice e.g. at centre of reconciliation
  5. Confession to have own sins forgiven
  6. The eucharist
• What is a theodicy?

  A theodicy is a philosophical or theological attempt to explain why a benevolent and all-powerful God allows evil and suffering in the world.
• Augustine's theodicy:

  Argued that the Bible shows that God is wholly good and that, according to genesis 1, created world perfectly good and free from defect, evil and suffering: "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good" (Genesis 1:31)
• More on theodicies:

  Evil is the privation of good, just as darkness is the absence of light. Augustine said that evil came not from God, whom is all-good, but those entities which had free will- angels and humans who turned their backs on God, the supreme good, and settled for lesser goods.
• Irenaeus' theodicy:

  • Irenaeus also suggested that evil could be traced back to human free will.
  • However, he differed from Augustine by saying that God did not make a perfect world and that evil has a valuable part to play in God's plan for humanity.
  • He thought God created humans imperfectly in order that they could develop into perfection over time.