Good and Evil

• Free will


  A gift from God that allows humans to choose between good and evil
• Humans choose the wrong thing

  Causes suffering
• Humans are to blame for the suffering, not God
• Original sin


  The first (original) sin, sometimes known as the Fall, is a symbol that we all share some responsibility for the evil and suffering in the world
• Speaker: 'Quote'
• St Augustine's answers to the question of suffering

  • The existence of evil helps people to appreciate the good in the world
  • Evil is just the absence of good things (privation). God does not cause or permit evil because evil isn’t even a thing
  • God allows suffering because he is omnipotent and good. He is always able to bring a greater good out of suffering
• Liberal Christian response to the problem of evil and suffering

  John Hick’s Soul Making
• John Hick developed the ideas of St. Irenaeus
• Humans


  Made in the image of God, but they and the world itself were not made perfect
• Soul making


  The process of humans growing and developing in response to suffering and evil
• Suffering and evil is the best way for humans to develop
• Soul making


  • God allows evil and suffering to happen so that people can grow and develop in how they respond to it
• Natural evil

  Part of God’s creation which allows humans to respond and grow spiritually
• Hick calls this the process of ‘soul making’
• Jews do not believe that people are born evil
• Jews do not share the Christian concept of Original Sin
• Jews believe they are born free with the feeling to do good or to do evil
• Torah teaches

  God has given human beings choices and that it is important to struggle against the feeling to do evil actions by obeying to God
• Torah and mitzvot


  Actions that Jewish people should perform or avoid
• Obedience to the Torah and mitzvot

  Avoid evil
• Jews believe it is not possible to hide evil actions from God
• During the festivals of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur

  Jews apologise (make up for or make good) for the times when they have followed their feeling to do evil
• Suffering for Catholics

  A way to bring them closer to an understanding of Jesus and a way to bring about a greater good
• Catholics suffer

  A way to share their suffering with God in prayer
• During Mass

  1. Catholics pray for the sick, dying and those who are suffering

  2. Catholics ask God to help those in need
• Catholics help those who are suffering by giving to charity
• Some Catholics feel it is their vocation to be doctors or nurses and fight against suffering
• Suffering servant

  Acceptance of suffering somehow brought about salvation (being saved)
• Catholics use Isaiah 53 to understand Jesus’ suffering


  Describes how the acceptance of suffering by the 'suffering servant' somehow brought about salvation (being saved)
• Catholics believe that God understands human suffering because God the Son in Jesus died a horrible death
• Suffering is a mystery

  For all Catholics suffering is a mystery and God uses suffering to bring about good. In the Book of Job, God tells the suffering Job that

  he is just not capable of understanding the reasons why God chooses to do, or not do, certain things. Catholics must trust that God

  understands the reasons for suffering. Therefore, suffering is a mystery that we may not be able to fully understand in this life.
• Salvifici Doloris is a document written by Pope John Paul II
• Salvifici Doloris

  The Beauty of Suffering
• If Christians willingly ‘offer up’ their own suffering in prayer for the sake of others, they can share in the saving suffering of Jesus
• Pope John Paul II believes that if we try and bear our suffering patiently and offer it to God in prayer, God will somehow be able to use it to bring about good for others
• Pope John Paul II believes that love comes from suffering
• Suffering leads people to respond with kindness
• Jewish beliefs about the Trinity

  Jews do not accept any belief in the Trinity as they do not accept Jesus as the Son of God. There are different qualities of God such as ‘lawgiver’, 'judge'

  and creator’ but these are only characteristics of the one God. These attributes of God are not separate persons, but are just the different ways in which

  human beings experience God. Orthodox Jews may argue that the belief in the Trinity challenges the first commandment “You shall have no gods before

  me”. A belief in the Trinity would break the covenant that God made with Abraham and Moses.
• Catholics

  Believe in one single God, who made himself known to the world (revelation) as three separate persons: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus) and God the Holy Spirit
• Doctrine of the Trinity

  Fundamental belief for all Catholics