Problem of evil and suffering part 2
- Created by: _bella_
- Created on: 28-05-19 13:21
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- Problem of evil and suffering part 2
- Irenaean theodicy
- Used Genesis 1 to base his argument on
- We are made imago dei but God isn't physical therefore we only share similarities
- But we grow into the likeness of God- thus we develop into moral beings
- We aren't made perfect because morality developing through hard work is more valuable than it being already w/i us
- For moral development to occur we must have pain and suffering
- " a world without problems, difficulties, perils and hardships would be morally static"
- Free Will Defence- moral evil
- God created humans to find him so we can chose to worship him or not
- We are free to make this decision
- The consequences are that we have good and evil
- God cannot intervene as it reduces our FW
- Swinburne- " The less (God) allows men to bring about large scale horrors, the less the freedom and responsibility he gives them
- Hick
- Soul making
- If God intervened it would undermine free will
- Epistemic distance- knowledge of God's existence is uncertain purposefully so we don't fear the consequences of not doing what is moral
- Suffering is allowed to cont. in order for there to be moral development
- But he acknowledges suffering can cause moral degradation , thus fro suffering to be morally justified everyone must attain perfection
- Universal salvation- everyone will earn their way into heaven eventually
- Criticisms of FWD
- Mackie- God had a 3rd choice of if He was omnipotent then he could have both freedom and minimal pain
- God had 2 options- maximise pleasure, minimise pain and no free will or free will w/ the consequence of pain and suffering
- Mackie is criticised as he doesn't acknowledge that beings who are made only to do good (God's will) won't have autonomy
- Criticisms
- Ends do not justify the means- if it's not acceptable to do something bad to achieve something good, it should not be acceptable for God to allow suffering for a higher goal.
- Humans do not always develop as a result of suffering, why is suffering a consequence?
- w/ universal salvation it makes it acceptable to act immorally as we can redeem ourselves in the afterlife as we are all saved
- Free Will Defence-- natural evil
- A world w/ death is better than a world w/o it
- It focuses attention onto the limited time we have "If there is always another chance there is no risk"(Swinburne)
- Limits the suffering a person takes however if we ask God for less suffering we make him into "an overprotective parent who will not let his child out of sight for a moment" (Swinburne)
- Hick- our understanding of suffering is subjective to our experiences
- Hick- if some evils are too much where do we draw the line?
- Irenaean theodicy
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