6. Miracles: Problem of evil

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  • Created by: Alasdair
  • Created on: 18-06-17 11:18
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  • 6. Miracles: Problem of evil
    • Dostoyevsky
      • Do miracles solve or add to the problem of evil?
    • Tim Keller
      • Eastern religions
        • Suffering is an illusion, so we should not care much about it
      • Western religions
        • Heaven makes up for suffering
        • The world is important as God resurrected Jesus Christ physically, therefore we should do something about suffering, not God
    • Polkinhorne
      • Unpredictability in physics  means that there is openness in the future
      • "agency"
        • God can change what He has set
      • God acts holistically with the world, can be working at quantum and larger levels
    • Free Will defence
      • Augustine and Irenaeus' theodicies suggest that moral evil is inevitable
      • FWD suggests that a world of free agents is better than a world of 'robots'
      • Seems reasonable that if God is good, He would allow his creations freedom
      • Swinburne
        • Agreed with FWD, if God had stopped evil (Holocaust) then He would be intervening with free will, and prevents genuine human development
        • Strengths
          • Makes logical sense, evil is needed for development
        • Weaknesses
          • Not logical for free agents to have only good options as the world is not like this, so not possible
      • Mackie
        • An omnibenevolent God would have made world containing free agents that could only ever perform/pick from good acts
        • As this is not the case, then God may not be omnibenevolent, which further challenges the existence of  classical mono-theistic deity
        • Strengths
          • Fits with monotheistic notion of God
        • Weaknesses
          • Not logical for free agents to have only good options as the world is not like this, so not possible

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