evil discussion questions

• Is Augustine's view of the origins of moral and natural evil enough to spare God from the blame for the evil in the world?

  + doesn't say God tolerates evil

  -evil is more serious than Privatio boni

  -suggests God didn't think ahead

  -Schleiermacher => angels can't have a motive to sin unless created imperfect

  -undermines God's omniscience
• Can the need to create a 'vale of soul - making' justify the existence or the extent of evils?

  • some people suffer more than others but don't benefit from suffering
  • animal suffering is hard to explain as they can't learn from suffering like people can
  • people can be made worse by suffering
  • Hick undermines Jesus suffering
  • if God is inevitable then we are not free and freedom is important
  • Hick = consequentialist
  • God's use of evil might be unpleasant but might be justified
  • D.Z. Phillips -- God would be evil if he made the world
• Which logical or evidential aspects of the problem of evil pose the greatest challenge to belief?

  • premise 1 - omnibenevolent God would eliminate evil
  • assumption that no evil is better, we have free will and therefore we can choose to follow god - 'vale of soul making'
  • premise 2 - omnipotent God has the power to stop evil
  • Swinburne argues that God can do everything that is possible, Free will has to allow evil
  • premise 3 - evil exists
  • highlights the issue of a loving and powerful God, we learn from evil
  • evidential problem - rests on the hypothesis of a good God, we don't know what a loving God would do - this may be loving