The Problem of Evil

Key words & concepts:

• Theodicy – an attempt to justify God in the face of evil
• Eschatological verification – when a statement can be verifiable if true but not falsifiable if false
• Dysteleological suffering – pointless/purposeless suffering
• Omniscience
• Omnipotence
• Omnipresence
• Omnibenevolence 

 <- J. L. Mackie's inconsistent triad 

• God has the above characteristics but evil and suffering exist
• If God is perfectly good, He/She must want to abolish all evil. If God is ultimately powerful, He/She must be able to abolish evil. But evil does exist therefore either God is not perfectly good or He/She is not ultimately powerful
• Theodicies were created because theists refused to accept that God was not all-loving, all-powerful, all-knowing and everywhere
• For atheists, there is no problem because there is no God 

• Soul-deciding
• Man is created in the perfect likeness of God (Genesis 1) - all creation is good
• Man is created with true moral autonomy – freedom to make choices
• This freedom leads to man’s fall from grace and perfection
• Augustine sees the Fall of man in Genesis 3 as a disaster and the first evidence of man’s faults
• God foresaw man’s fall and predestined some for salvation and others for condemnation
• There is a hierarchy of beings (Principle of Plenitude)
• Leaving the hierarchy will lead to evil as it is turning away from God (pride)
• Evil is a privation of good (privatio boni)
• Evil is not God’s fault. The misuse of free will leads to sin and its consequences of evil and suffering
• Natural evil is caused by Satan and his works
• Man can only be redeemed through Jesus

• Biblically based – appeals to conservative beliefs in creation and the Fall
• Values free well as the best choice God could have made for mankind
• God is not responsible for man’s evil choices
• Evil is not originally part of God’s creative work 

• May be considered outdated by an evolutionary view of man’s development
• Begs the question whether God could have created free beings who always choose what is morally right
• Salvation is only reserved for the few who accept Jesus
• If God foresaw man’s fall, He should have prevented it
• Lacks optimism 

• Originally created by Irenaeus but expanded upon by John Hick
• Soul-making
• Hick uses eschatological verification to say that certain ideas may be explained after death, thus supporting the idea that soul making continues in the afterlife
• Man is created imperfectly in an infantile state
• We are made in the image but not the likeness of God – ‘imago dei’
• Man is created with true moral autonomy – freedom to make choices
• Freedom gives man the potential to grow into the likeness of God through responsible choices 
• The Fall in Genesis 3 is our first childish mistake
• Free will enables us to make a difference to our environment
• God remains at an ‘epistemic distance’ so as to not be overwhelmingly obvious to man as we make our own choices
• Evil can lead to good or redemption
• Evil and suffering are necessary to learn virtue and grow in knowledge, freedom and power
• The work of Jesus on the cross does not facilitate man’s redemption 

• Evolutionary rather than dependant on conservative Biblical views of humanity
• Values free will as the means by which man develops morally and spiritually
• Evil is teleological – it facilitates growth
• God is not responsible for man’s evil choices
• Epistemic distance explains God’s absence 

• Suggests God’s creative work was imperfect
• Man’s free choices do not always lead to growth in power, freedom or knowledge
• Salvation is universal and based on man’s own striving
• Why face trials in this life is the completions of man’s soul is after death?
• Does the end justify the means? The theodicy does not justify dysteleological suffering
• Can suffering experienced be justified by ultimate joy? E.g. the Holocaust
• Quantity of suffering – is God just?
• If we are going to be rewarded in Heaven, where is the incentive to achieve God’s likeness?