RE: Good and Evil - Sources of Authority

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  • Sources of Authority
    • St Augustine of Hippo
      • 1 - evil helps us appreciate good
        • if evil and suffering weren't in the world then we wouldn't be able to appreciate good in the same way
      • 2 - evil is not a thing
        • there is no such thing as evil, only an absence of good, referred to as a privation
      • 3 - evil makes us better
        • sometimes we reach a greater outcome through suffering, so suffering may be good for us
    • Irenaeus
      • we were made with the potential to be perfect (in God's image and likeness)
      • we have to grow towards perfection and undergoing suffering helps that
      • suffering is part of God's plan as it perfects the soul
    • Jewish views
      • Jews do not believe in the concept of 'Original Sin' or that guilt of moral weakness is inherited from Adam and Eve
      • all humans are born facing temptation and the ability to make decisions about this
      • there are two inclinations 'yetzer ha tov' (good) and 'yetzer ha ra' (evil)
      • it is important to struggle against the inclination to do evil as God sees all
      • the Ten Days of Awe there is an opportunity to atone for any evil
      • Jews see evil and suffering as a consequence of humanity's wrong choices
    • John Hick
      • God deliberately made an imperfect world  so that we could learn and grow
      • God values our freedom
      • we are made with the potential to grow in God's likeness; we come to perfection through suffering
    • David Hume
      • the inconsistent triad:
    • John Mackie
      • 1 - we can recognise good without ever witnessing evil
      • 2 - sometimes suffering makes people bitter and resentful instead of better
      • 3 - evil and suffering is too high a price to pay for free will
      • argues directly against St Augustine
    • Thomas Aquinas
      • Natural Law is God-given
      • certain things are always good
      • to preserve life
      • to reproduce
      • to educate / nurture children
      • to live in ordered society
      • to worship God
    • Marilyn McCord Adams
      • we shouldn't ask why but instead trust God
      • a child having heart surgery doesn't understand why but trusts her mother to want the best for us
  • evil exists
    • God is omnipotent
    • God is omnibenevolent
      • God is omnipotent

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