The problem of evil

• What is the definition of theodicy?

  Theodicy comes from the Greek words ‘theos’ meaning ‘God’ and ‘dike’ meaning ‘righteous’.
• What does theodicy mean?

  Theodicy means, ‘In defence of a righteous God’ – an attempt to justify the existence of God in the face of evil and suffering.
• What are the 3 rules of a theodicy?


  1.It does not deny the existence of God.2.It does not qualify the nature of God.3.It does not advocate giving up faith when faced with evil and suffering.
• How does theodicy justify the problem of evil?

  It provides good reasons why God allows evil and suffering, good reasons which outweigh the evil and suffering itself.
• What was the Irenaean theodicy?


  •Irenaeus (130-202 CE)• •Soul Making Theodicy• •Based upon Genesis 1:26 – “Let us make man in our image and after our likeness.”
• What does the Irenaean theodicy state?

  •God exists and he is omnipotent and omnibenevolent.•Humans were created imperfect with the form (image) but not the content (likeness) of God.•Being in God’s image involved having intelligence, morality and personality, yet it lacked completion.•Completion would be gained through development where courage, honour, generosity, kindness and love were gained.
• Why did God cause evil?

  God did not create a perfect world, because true goodness and human perfection has to be developed rather than ready made.

  Evil is necessary.
• What is the freewill argument?

  •True goodness requires free will. Man was created with true moral autonomy and had the freedom to make moral decisions.•Free will makes us humans. Without it we would be autonomous/robots. Free will has the potential for disobedience and evil. Goodness has to be developed by free choice.•The potential to grow into the likeness of God is to be found in responsible moral choices.
• Actual evil, both moral and natural, is essential for development.
• The presence of evil in our lives is justified by its power to enable us to develop in power, freedom and knowledge.
• Evil and suffering help people grow and give them opportunities to become good, for example, to develop personal qualities such as compassion.
• Hick explains that this world is a 'Vale of Soul Making' not a paradise.
• Eventually, evil and suffering will stop and everyone will develop into God's likeness.
• Everyone will eventually be rewarded in Heaven - some who have made enough progress in life will be rewarded immediately; others who have fallen short of the goal in this life will continue their progress towards Heaven in Purgatory.
• This will refine them.
• What was Johns Hicks further addition to the theodicy?


  •Said that goodness that has been developed by free choice is infinitely better than the ready-made ‘goodness’ of robots.•If God wanted humans to be genuinely loving, he had to give them the opportunity to develop this quality for themselves.•Were we to have been created in such a way that we would automatically always love God and obey him, we could been automatons and our love would have been valueless.
• What is the criticism of heaven being unjust?

  •This does not seem fair and God’s justice is put into question.•It contradicts the religious texts which promise punishment for the unrighteous.•It also makes moral behaviour pointless. If everyone is going to be rewarded in Heaven, then what is the point of doing good at all?•Therefore, there is no incentive to want to do good or to make this development that Irenaeus regards as so important. 
• What was the Augustinian theodicy?

  Augustine (354-430 CE)Soul Deciding Theodicy Based on 2 sources –Genesis 1-3 Creation and Fall; Romans 5.12-20 Jesus’ sacrifice wiping out sin of Adam and Eve.)
• What does the Augustinian theodicy state?


  •God exists and he is omnipotent and omnibenevolent. •God created a perfect world without flaws and he created man in the perfect likeness of God. •Evil did not come from God.
• How does the Augustinian theodicy address the problem of evil.

  •God created ex nihilo or out of nothing. God is therefore not to blame for evil since evil is not a substance. Evil is a privation (absence of something which should be there), a privation of good, e.g. blindness is not an entity but an absence of sight.

  •To say that God made a privation or absence of something makes no sense.
• How was evil brought to this world?

  Evil was brought into the world by angels who followed Satan in his Fall from grace and human beings who abused their free will and turned away from God (their fall from grace and perfection).
• How was evil brought from Adam and Eve?

  •God allows evil and suffering to stay as a punishment for the sin of Adam and Eve. Since we were all seminally present in Adam, we are all guilty and deserve to share his punishment.
• What is the difference between natural and moral evil?

  Natural evil results from the breakdown of the natural order following on from moral evil. Moral evil are human actions which destroy the natural order. Natural evil is a fitting punishment for us.
• What is the fall argument?


  God foresaw the Fall from the beginning and planned our redemption and salvation. God sent his son, Jesus Christ, who was essential for mankind’s redemption. Some will be saved and will see God’s mercy (those who accept Christ).
• How did Brian Davies support the Augustinian theodicy?

  He supports the claim that evil cannot properly be called a substance, rather, it is ‘a gap between what there is and what there ought to be' and that any criticism of God would need to be based along the lines that God should somehow have created more that He has – which seems rather strange
• what was the criticism of schleiermacher?

  He argued that there was a logical contradiction in holding that a perfect world had gone wrong, since this would mean that evil created itself out of nothing, which is logically impossible.
• What is the argument that evil is somehow attributed to God?

  Whether or not evil is a deprivation, it is still a real feature of the world, as is the suffering that it produces. Either the world was not perfect to begin with or God enabled it to go wrong.
• How does Augustine’s Free Will Defence poses a logical difficulty?

  It is hard to see how, in a perfect world where there was no knowledge of good and evil, there could possibly be freedom to obey or disobey God, since good and evil would be unknown. The fact that God’s creatures chose to disobey Him seems to suggest that there was already a knowledge of evil, which could only have come from God.
• How does his theory contradict science?

  Augustine’s idea that the world was made perfect by God and then damaged by humans is contradictory to evolutionary theory.
• what did J.L Mackie say?

  Either God lacks omnipotence, or he lack goodness, or evil does not exist, or God does not exist.
• What did Aquinas say?

  God’s existence in the face of evil is logically impossible. However, God’s goodness is different from ours and he allows evil and suffering because he has a Divine Master Plan.
• What is the free will defence?

  •evil is a tragic consequence of human free will.
• What did Swinburne say?

  Swinburne is essentially saying is that a God who intervenes compromises the gift of freedom which removes human responsibility. This prevents human development.
• What did Mackie say?

  God’s gift of freewill is in no way an excuse for the existence of evil. God should simply have made free beings who would never in fact have chosen sin.
• What was John hicks first modern idea?

  The problem to be solved – The story of Adam and Eve is a myth which attempts to explore the existence of evil and suffering in the world.
• what his second modern idea?

  2. Human beings – Human beings are not created perfectly by God:

  Image. We are created to evolve into rational, “intelligent and religious animals” (“Encountering Evil” in Live Options in Theodicy).                                                                   Human beings are spiritually immature and are on Earth to grow.

  Likeness. This is when human beings have attained spiritual maturity and are one with God. It is for this reason that there is suffering, so that we may grow into God’s likeness.
• what was his third idea?

  The Fall – The Fall is not as significant for the Irenaean theodicy as it is for the Augustinian theodicy, as it is merely the act of spiritually immature people. The term “the Fall” can only be used to describe the epistemic distance between God and man
• what is the fourth idea?

  . Soul-making – The existence of evil is part of the nature of the world as an arena in which we can develop a sense of charity, compassion and goodness. Life is about soul-making, about developing into good people; that can only happen in a world where evil is possible.
• what is the fifth idea?

  .Natural disasters – The existence of natural evil is part of the test of life. If there is no danger there is no sense of achievement. In a world devoid both of dangers to be avoided and rewards to be won we may assume that there would have been virtually no moral development of the human intellect and imagination, and hence of either the science or the arts, and hence of human civilisation or culture.                        
• what is the last idea?

  The eschatological answer – Hick argues that clearly not all who have died were in the likeness of God, which must mean that post-mortem there is an additional form of soul-making, a purgatorial stage where the incomplete soul is made suitable for the presence of God.