Philosophy - Evil and Suffering

The 2 types of evil:

Moral Evil - acts committed by Human beings - evil that comes from human interaction -              e.g. Adultery, Bullying, Torture, Genocide - Holocaust

Christians can accept that this can be put down to free will - if God interacts we will be like robots - we wouldn't be able to make moral free choices. Humans are 'moral agents' - capable of acting with what is right and wrong. 

Natural Evil - enviromental acts, what the world does - Disease, Earthquakes, Tsunami

Natural disasters is the most difficult form of evil for religious people to accept. It's easy to blame God, as it should be easy for an omnipotent God to control the forces of nature. In scripture God uses natural evil to punish people - However, how we should understand these acts is debatable

God's Omnipotence and Omnibenevolence - The Inconsistent Triad - surely and all powerfull, loving and knowing God knows all about the suffering of humans - why doesn't God intervene - why doesn't God control evil.

Responses

• Denying God's omnipotence - if He's not omnipotent therefore he is not able to control evil, so cannot be blamed for its continued existence. 
• If this is the case a God who is not omnipotent would be unworthy of worship.

• Denying God's Omnibenevolence - God is both good and loving supports those who experience evil - it is the basis for a future hope in Heaven with God
• For most Christians this is unthinkable

• Denying evil exists - Augustine - evil is 'privatio boni' - absence of good - evil does not exist in its own right but an absence of good e.g darkness is an absence of light. 
• If this is the case there is no loigcal problem of evil to solve

The Free Will Defence 

• God has to allow evil in order to preserve free will. Good has to be freely chosen. If God controlled evil there would be no freedom. Humans are morally responsible for moral evil and God is not.

John Hick's eschatological solution 

• This is the theology about what will happen at the end of the universe - the last days of Judgement - Heaven and Hell.
• God has all the time He needs - he wants everyone to be good and end up in his Kingdom.

There is so much evidence, to show that evil exists, as we observe evil on a daily basis.

Natural Evil - The Permian-Triassic extinction

• The death of the Dinosaurs 66 million years ago. The evil caused was not human's doing, as humans didn't exist.
• God must be responsible for the evolution of life on Earth - Evolution is a natural process governed by the Laws of nature - why did God not programme those laws to be less distructive or intervene to stop the extinction?

Moral Evil - The Brothers Karamazov

• 1 brother challenges the other brother's faith with a heart-rendering story of evil
• 'There was a girl who was tortured by her Mother and Father - they beat, kicked, tortured her for no reason, they locked her outside in the cold, they covered her and fed her excrement. - She asked God to help and protect her - but He didn't - Why didn't your God help that child.

Pointless Evil - A fawn trapped in a forest fire, it suffers and dies alone - no good comes from it

If God is omniscient - He knows about all events that will happen - why does God create a universe where there is an overwhelming amount of Pointless evil - Why did God bother, if He knew that we would suffer.

Response

God has a plan by which all suffering will eventually lead to the perfect harmony of life in Heaven.

• If that is the case - where is God's love for all creation?- if He is allowing so much evil now - Is there any atonement that could have made the suffering of children alright?
• In the Brothers Karamazov - Ivan says that God is asking for too much and puts too much on the line for harmony of heaven in the future.

Is suffering ever good & Does it bring out the best in people?

When somone suffers we can sympathise with them - we feel compassion and empathy - people will freely give their money and time to help victims - This may be what God is looking for?

God has given up control over human actions in order to bring about a greater good - He has given us Free Will - we are responsible for our own moral actions.

We experience and see other people's pain, so we develop and choose qualities - compassion, courage, patience,  generosity. However as well as developing positive qualities, we also develop negative ones. 

Moral Evil is the price for Free Will 

Response

Are the results of having free will worth the price.

John Mackie - Atheist - 'God does not exist because of evil' - The free will defence does & doesn't work

For - Free Will will explain why God allows evil to exist

• Happiness and pleasure - 1st order goods, unhappiness and pain - 1st order evils
• Every situation has 2 reactions - reduce evil or increase evil, the same with being good, we can increase pleasure or remove pleasure.
• Therefore if we have 2nd order goods are there to maximise 1st - order goods and minimise 1st order evils 
• We therefore have a choice to make things better or worse - we have free choice over our actions. Freedom is the 3rd order good.
• The Free Will defence is there to teach us to be morally responsible.

Mackie - Questions God's Omnipotence, God should have created beings who were free but always do good - but are they then really free? - Look at exterenal debate sheet.

• 1. It is logically possible for a person to make free, good choices, all of the time
• 2. God could have created humans so that they wold only make free good choices
• 3. But God didnt

Therefore

• 4. Either God lacks the power for is not loving enough to do sso
• 5. Either way the Free Will Defence fails 
• God doesn't exist

Response

Mackie claims that God could have craeted humans so they always make free, good choices - according to Plantaigna this is impossible - as you would not be free at all. Being made sothat you only choose the good is not a free choice. God can only do what is logically possible - this is logically impossible.

He provides a Logically possible reason why God allows free will. He comes up with 2 Morally Sufficient Reasons.

MSR 1 - God coudn't eliminate much of the evil and suffering in this world without eliminating the greater good of having created free will. e.g. small amount of pain brings about greater goods.

Libertarianism - Although some aspects of human existence are determined by Science, humans have a degree of free will and so can be held morally responsible for their actions. 

Causal Determinism - everything is already mapped out, based on previous events - so Humans don't have free will 

MSR 2 - an explanation of natural evil - God allowed natural evil to enter the world as part of Adam and Eve's punishment.

People say this is ludicrous, unscientific and relies on scripture - However MSR2 is logically possible that natural evil was created and allowed by God

Plantinga has proven that Mackies claim about the Free Will Defence is incoherent.

Plantingas MSR 1 & 2 are both logically possible

The Free Will Defence can't explain natural evil, as natural evil wasn't caused by free will - Natural evils do bring about second order moral goods, which do bring about  happiness - Mackie

Without Freedom, there is no achievement and no real happpiness. This might be a reason why God allows evil.

The risk of pain - can increase pleasure and enjoyment 

Although Plantinga's MSR 1 & 2 are logically coherent - it doesn't prove that they are true.

The Free Will Defence relies on a Libertarian view - this view can't be proved, only assumed.

There are no convincing responses to the evidential problem of evil - it becomes very difficult to explain, if God is omnipotent why is there so much evil.

Dostoyevsky's - Freedom is not worth its price-tag - why did God bother creating such a universe

• Augustines theodicy is no longer Credible - the Adam and Eve story is 'utterly unacceptable' when referring to evil. Hick believes that the last judgement is a 'product of religious imagination'. Hick goes on to say that Augustine's view of wholly good beings is incoherent - God is a flawed designer.

• Hick believes that humans were created as imperfect beings who nevertheless have the capability to become morally good, children of God.

• If God is the parent, humans strive to have a loving relationship with God. No Father can force a child to love them, it is a free response - parents develop their child's character by teaching them how to live responsibly. Eventually the Human race will mature and respond to God freely and lovingly - everyone is capable of having a relationship with God, it takes time.

• The world is a place of soul-making - no loving God would commit any of his children to hell. Evil can only be overcome if there is some future good.

• Humans have to exist at an 'epistemic distance' from God - a distance of knowledge. If humans knew that God existed then freedom would be lost.

We are created at an epistemic distance from God - this can be used to justify any form of evil including animal suffering and pointless evils. 'the end justifies the means'

Evil is justified because it is necessary for soul making - the soul can't develop without a challenge - suffering develops character.

If the doctrine of Hell is true, then the kind of God that sends people there wouldn't be very loving - Hicks says we therefore will experience many levels of existence after this one, before we reach Heaven - this is very coherent.

Hicks theodicy fits with general scientific evidence - evolution is the first stage of human development.

Animal Suffering

• There is no explanation for the degree of animal suffering. Even if there was an epistemic distance with God, this doesn't apply or benefit the animals.
• Evolution - what separates man from animal - following the arrival of man, animal suffering has increased.

• The ends do not justify the means - animals are not rewarded with the promise of going to Heaven, why should they suffer. 
• Is the promise of Heaven enough to make up for the amount of suffering in the world.

Christian Responses

Hicks theodicy doesn't match up with some christian teachings - if humans are saved, what was the point in Jesus' atonement and crucifixion

Hicks argument points towards 'universal salvation' - everyone will eventually reach Heaven, how long will this take - what is the point of Pilgrimage?

• Rejects 'creation from nothing' - The way God created the universe is a mistranslation of text.

• If you interpret the text as if the universe already existed - God's creative role was to develop what was already there.

• Griffin rejects God's omnipotence - creation from chaos and nothing supports God's omnipotence - but it is likely that these chaotic materials would have a power of their own which God could have controlled, not the other way around - God is not omnipotent. Chaos theory makes more sense.

• God and the universe exists Necessarily, Panentheistically & Eternally - there has to be something to explain why we are here. Griffen says it doesnt make sense why God is Transcendent. Rather the universe and God exist Panentheistic - the universe is in God and God is in the universe.

• God is not transcendent and cannot intervene to eliminate evil - God must exist transcendently in order to create things from nothing, also possess the power to break the laws of the universe e.g. miracles. But if God intervenes to restrict both moral and natural evil, why does he not intervene to eliminate them completely. Fail to answer the evidential problem of evil.

Strengths 

• Griffin's conclusion that God is not omnipotent can be seen as a realistic answer to the problem of evil - God doesn't have the power to control it.
• The discovery of the Quantum level, and sub-atomic particles has shown that reality is full of chaotic matter, which is ever changing, highlighting that Griffin's view that God didn't create the universe from nothing but by ordering pre existent chaotic material, may be a sound approach.
• If God is Panentheistic (in the world) then He is suffering with us, so knows our everyday torment - still doesnt explain animal suffering.

Weaknesses

• If God isn't omnipotent, is he really worthy of worship, if He isn't all powerful, who is?
• God can't be blamed for bringing about the universe from chaos - better a universe with evil than no universe at all. Even if God was not omnipotent, why did He start a process He couldn't control
• If God can't control evil - for Process Theologens - God may try, but there is no guarantee that God will succeed and overcome evil.
• Simply, nobody knows whether God is omnipotent or not, or whether He created the Universe.