Evil and Suffering

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  • Evil and suffering
    • Natural evil- evil for which “no non-divine agent can be held morally responsible for its occurrence.”
    • Moral evil- caused by human action
    • Logical and Evidential problem
      • Logical - J.L. Mackie
        • Inconsistent triad
        • 'a wholly good being eliminates evil as far as it can'
        • God's existence is impossible
        • Rabeye Greenberg: "No statement theological orotherwise shouldbe made that is not credible in the presence of burning children".
      • Evidential- William Rowe
        • God's existence is improbable
        • Touches on God's omniscience
        • Some E+S unjustifiable
          • Fawn in forest fire
          • Brothers Karamozov - Dostoyevsky's book
            • 5 y/o girl ***** and abused- God doesn't answer her prayers
    • Hick's soul making theodicy 20th century
      • Update of Iraneaus
      • We are all children of God- born in image not in the likeness
        • Godward growth
      • Evil and suffering helps us develop. No E+S= no Godward growth
      • Epistemic distance
      • Universal Salvation
      • Strengths
        • epistemic distance- justifies evil as the ends justify the means (heaven)
        • Being exposed to great evils allows us to experience great goodness
        • compatible with evolution
        • Weaknesses
          • No good explanation for the degree of animal suffering
          • Is the promise of Heaven enough?
          • Universal salvation = unjust
    • Free Will Defence
      • No FW  = robots
      • Genuine FW= genuine possibility of evil
      • Swinburne: if God intervened it would jeopardise human freedom
      • Evil is the result of human action - God isn't accountable
      • The King and Peasant girl
      • Strenghts:
        • Weaknesses:
          • Peter Vardy- it doesn't account for natural evil
          • Mackie- why couldn't a world be created with FW and the choice of always choosing good
          • Predeterministic - God knew about the Holocaust and did nothing - not omnipotent/omnibenevolent
        • explains moral evil
        • worthwhile for those with faith
        • accounts for some natural evil- Swinburne: death
        • Always do good = not truly free -Hick + Plantinga
    • Process theology
      • Arose from Alfred Whitehead, forwaded by David Griffin in God, Power and Evil
      • God is part of the world that develops through natural laws
      • Not transcendent/omnipotent
      • Persuaded the matter of the universe into an ordered state
      • Pantheistic relationship
      • Roman God- Janus
      • Partially responsible for evil, like a mother giving birth to a murdered
      • Strengths
        • Weaknesses
          • John Roth- a God of such weakness is unworthy of worship
          • Why did God create a world that's out of his control?
          • The risk was not worth taking
        • evidence for the world being in a state of constant flux = God shaped the world
        • explains bothnatural+moral evil- bc God  lacks omnipotence
        • Pantheism- God is suffering with us

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