Good and evil

• Moral decision


  A choice much based on a person's ethics, manners, character, and what they believe is proper behavior
• Making a moral decision isn't a straightforward, risk-free process
• Conscience


  Helps us to assess the right choice
• Our past experiences allow us to learn the rightness and wrongness of our actions
• The law


  Offers strict guidance for our behavior
• Religious believer


  • Consults religious leaders or community elders for advice and guidance
  • Also looks to religious teachings
• Absolutism


  When only right and wrong rules matter and the rules don't change with the circumstances
• Absolutism


  • It is wrong to kill, as the 10 commandments say "thou shalt not kill"
• Relativism


  Moral relativism, a way of making more flexible decisions where the rules can change depending on the circumstances
• Relativism


  • Stealing if it is for a just cause
• Crime


  Any act punishable by law, a rule/law that has been put in place by the government
• Crimes


  • Drink driving, arson, speeding, theft, criminal damage
• Reasons why people commit crimes

  • Justice
  • Poor education
  • Exclusion from school
  • Mental health issues
  • Peer pressure
  • Abusive, broken home, poor parenting
• Sin


  An act committed against religious rules (the 10 commandments)
• Crime


  An act committed against the law, involving breaking a rule put in place by the government
• Acts that are both sin and crime

  • Murder
  • Stealing
  • Gambling
  • Racism
  • Domestic abuse
  • Adultery/affairs
  • Lying in court
  • Worshipping more than one God
• Aims of punishment


  • Protection
  • Retribution
  • Deterrence
  • Reformation
  • Vindication
  • Reparation
• Christianity


  • A religion of forgiveness, but also believes in justice, with forgiveness and punishment going together
  • Christians should try to follow the example of Jesus, who forgave those who betrayed him
  • Many support practices that lead to forgiveness, e.g. restorative justice
• Islam


  • Teaches that every person's life is predestined, so criminals are still responsible for their actions
  • Different opinions about what prisons should achieve - some believe it should be a place of isolation and punishment, others see it as a place of rehabilitation or reform
  • Prisoners are entitled to humane treatment that shows respect for human rights
• John Howard, a committed Christian, reported on prison conditions in 1777 and recommended changes like running water, clean and hygienic conditions, and visits from church ministers
• Elizabeth Fry, a Quaker, was outraged at the conditions for female prisoners in London's Newgate prison and worked to provide them with clothes, bedding, and teaching skills like knitting
• The Howard League for Penal Reform was founded in 1981 with the main goal of reducing unnecessary imprisonment and promoting community solutions to crime, improving treatment and conditions for prisoners, and promoting equality and human rights in justice systems
• Prison chaplain


  A minister (priest, rabbi, etc.) attached to non-religious institutions who provides counselling to inmates, supports them through rehabilitation, and attends to their spiritual needs
• Capital punishment


  The most severe form of punishment that involves an individual dying for a crime, used to deter people
• Arguments for and against capital punishment

  • Agree: Excellent deterrent, stops serial killers, cheaper than life imprisonment, life is sacred
  • Disagree: Jesus teaches to love your enemies, the Old Testament is not the only source, it can be used by repressive powers to attack the vulnerable, it denies the possibility of reform
• When God created the earth, he said it was good, and gave people free will, leading to the story of humanity's battle with good and evil as told in the story of Adam and Eve
• Religions like Christianity and Islam place good qualities at their core, such as tolerance, compassion, and love
• Everyone is born with a natural instinct to understand the difference between right and wrong, and they have free will to choose the right path and resist temptations
• Soul-making


  Some Christians believe that God allows evil to exist because suffering through evil is necessary for individuals to develop or complete their moral souls
• Soul-making


  • Suffering through evil is essential for individuals to learn lessons about morality and virtue
  • Without the opportunities offered by suffering and evil, people would not have the chance to develop or demonstrate moral virtues, like compassion or courage
• St Irenaeus


  A Father of the early Christian Church who believed that humankind was not created perfect, but that they required growth in order to become spiritually perfect and moral
• Irenaean Theodicy


  The theory that God does not necessarily intend evil to provide the only opportunity for spiritual growth, as a person could grow to spiritual perfection simply by obeying God's laws
• John Hick


  Agrees with Irenaeus' Irenaean Theodicy, believing that God created humans with the potential for spiritual growth, and the process of 'soul-making' is a response to the evil in the world
• If murder, cancer and natural evil did not exist, we would not have the means to develop and perfect ourselves spiritually
• There is some suffering in the world that we can never understand or rationalise, which simply proves to us that we can never truly understand God's reason or plan
• Humans are born with an immense distance between themselves and God, and the process of soul-making involves the struggle to find religious faith
• Original Sin


  Catholics believe that evil comes from human beings, when Adam and Eve introduced sin to the world by disobeying God and eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
• Life as a test

  Many Christians believe that life is a test, and the way people react to suffering and evil determines whether they go to heaven or hell in the afterlife
• The story of Job

  • An example of how suffering can come to anyone, even the most holy and good-living, and that we will be judged on how we behaved throughout our suffering
• Christians should not question why we suffer, but simply accept that we do, as 'God works in mysterious ways' and has reasons for letting evil and suffering happen that humans will never be able to understand