The Problem of Evil

• Natural evil- suffering caused by nature e.g. earthquakes
• Moral evil- suffering cause by people e.g. genocide

The Epicurean Problem:

• 1) If God is omnipotent then God can stop suffering
• 2) If God is omnibenevolent then God should want to stop suffering
• 3) But suffering exists
• 4) Therefore either: God isn't omnipotent, God isn't omnibenevolent or God doesn't exist

Mackie's Inconsistent Triad:

• J.L. Mackie put forward the problem in the form of an inconsistent triad
• An inconsistent triad is a group of three statements, of which the truth of any two would make the third necessarily false
• Mackie's three premises are; God is all-loving, God is all-powerful and God exists

Put forward by St Augustine 4th C. and has wide Christian acceptance

Nature of Evil:

• If evil were a thing then we would have to say that God created it
• However evil is actually the 'privation of good', so it is not a thing but a malfunction of good
• For example blindness is not a thing but the malfunction of something good, the eye
• So if evil is the absence of good then it is not a thing and we can still say that 'everything God created was good' (Genesis 1)

Source of Evil:

• God created humans and angels with free will
• However some of them misused this free will, turning their backs on God and losing their places in creation (the Fall)
• The 'Original Sin' of these angels and humans caused creation to go wrong (malfunction) resulting in moral and natural evil

Role and Purpose of Evil:

• "all evil is either sin or punishment for sin"
• Adam and Eve were the first humans
• Since all humans were seminally present in Adam we share responsibility for Original Sin
• However, since He is all-loving, God saved us with the life, death and resurrection of Jesus

Criticisms:

• Logical error- Schleimacher said that it is logically impossible that evil simply created itself out of nothing
• Moral error- Hell appears to be part of the design of the Universe, this would suggest that God anticipated evil
• Scientific error- relies heavily on Genesis and the Fall, these are not opinions that are generally considered to be accurate these days

Put forward by St Iranaeus 2nd C.

Nature of Evil:

• True goodness must be freely chosen
• Genuine free wil requires a choice, so for free will to truly exist, so must the choice between good and evil
• Therefore evil is actually instrumental to humans attaining God's likeness

Source of Evil:

• All humans were created at an epistemic distance (distance of knowledge) from God
• This is because if we were fully aware of God observing us all the time then we would choose good because he wants us to, not because we want to

Role of Evil:

• God created humans in his image
• However we must develop into his likeness
• Evil is essential to this as there are obstacles for us to overcome to achieve God's likeness, also we must choose goodness to be like God
• The World is a 'vale of soul-making'

Criticisms:

• Jesus seemed to go out of his way to stop suffering
• Many develop good qualities without suffering and many are made worse as a result of suffering
• Does the suffering have to be so extreme?
• Why does the process of development take so long?
• Evil seems to be a random occurence