Problem of Evil

What is The Logical Argument for the PoE

• Evil exists

• God is omnipotent

• God is perfectly good

• This cannot logically work

A priori argument

Epicurus’ Inconsistent Triad (term is Mackie’s)

• God willing but not able to prevent = X omnipotent

• God able but not willing = X omnibenevolent

• Able and willing = where does evil come from?

• Not able or willing = why call him God?

JL Mackie: The Logical PoE

1. If there was an omniscient God, he would know about all preventable evil

2. If omnipotent, would be able to prevent all preventable evil if he wanted

3. If omnibenvolent, would want to prevent all preventable evil

4. Preventable evil exists because we experience it in the world

C: God is either not omniscient/potent/benevolent or non-existent

(Ways to challenge PoE)

1. Finding a fauly in the logic

2. Prove flawed/misunderstood evidence- trying to find a logical example/explanation for co-existence

Possible challenges/ solutions

• Deny a personal and caring deity (not Xian)

• Deny evil’s existence (not possible + not Xian)

• Claim God’s knowledge/power/love limited (not Xian)

• Appeal to the idea of human free will

• Claim evil has a purpose- survival/character building

JS Mill: The Evidential PoE

• evil is evidence against God’s existence

Hume’s evidential problem of evil

• approaches PoE through empiricism- a posteriori evidence of evil’s existence

1. Animal suffering- nature could be created for animals to feel less/no pain

2. Creatures are limited in ability to ensure survival/happiness

3. Nature’s extremes making survival/happiness harder

4. God doesn’t intervene to prevent individual natural disasters

• no evidence that God has omnibenevolent reasons for evil’s existence- “you can surely never prove these attributes”

• we are only justified to believe what evidence suggests- only evidence of imperfection- no justification for belief in a perfectly good being

Natural vs moral evil

NATURAL

• results from workings of natural world- disease, natural disaster

• God created and designed natural world so surely responsible> could have designed without

MORAL

• caused by huan action e.g. murder, torture, holocaust

• why doesn’t God intervene

• could be defended through free will

Augustine quote analysis

Augustine’s Theodicy: Summary

• The world reflects God’s perfection
  Humans were created with free will

• Sin and death are a result of Adam and Eve’s disobedience

• This disobedience created ‘disharmony’ in Creation/humanity

• All humans experience this because we were all “seminally present in the loins of Adam”

• Natural evil is a result of the Fall and disharmony

• God shouldn’t have to intervene- suffering is a consequence of human action

Augustine’s Theodicy: God’s perfection

• God’s world “very good”- Adam and Eve in the “image and likeness” of God

• 3 harmonious Eden relationships- A+E, A+E+G, A+E+Creation

• Adam and Eve have freewill and ability not to sin, blessed with immediate knowledge of God- like the angels

• Angels creared with duffering levels of grace- less grace = rebelling because of pride

Augustine’s Theodicy: Good and Evil

• Evil is privatio boni- privation/absence of good

• “A perversion of the will, turned aside from God”- does not exist as its own entity but is our WILLINGNESS TO DO THINGS OPPOSED TO GOOD

• Then how come natural evil? That has no human intent or willingness

Augustine’s Theodicy: misuse of free will

• Misusing free will is source of all evil

• Death → losing gift of immorality

• Ignorance → losing knowledge and intimacy with G

• Corrupted moral nature

• Loss of harmony between reason and passions- concupiscence

• Inability not to sin (???)

• Image of God in Adam and Eve damaged (so not damaged during eating of apple???)

• Human nature transmitted through sex, which is now lustful- Original Sin

Augustine’s Theodicy: Pre-fall body and soul

• body and soul together in harmony, soul can control body

• Humans have the Will- cupiditas and caritas

• Adam and Eve love each other as friends,physical but not lutful, sex a rational act

Augustine’s Theodicy: Post-Fall Pride

• caused humanity to turn away from God- A + E wanted to be like God

• “For ‘pride is the start of every kind of sin’”

Augustine’s Theodicy: Natural evil’s cause

• the result of fallen angels e.g. Lucifer misusing their free will

Augustine’s Theodicy: Human aim

• to achieve a life of goodness following the will of God

• reason for why they were created

Augustine’s Theodicy: Principle of Plenitude

• variety of creatures results in inequalities in beauty, strngth, intelligence- each creature is imperfect

• all possible forms of existence should exist- God created a hierarchy of beings so there must be imperfection and inequality

• appropriate for humans to be moral beings

Augustine’s Theodicy: Schleiermacher

• logical contradiction that God’s perfectly created world went wrong

• Evil would have to be ‘ex nihilo’- impossible

• God either accidentally or purposely allowed evil and for his world to go wrong

Augustine’s Theodicy: evolution

• humans emerged from lower forms of life and had no moral awareness

• Schoonenberg- “there would seem to have been a higher form of humanity at the wrong end of man’s evolution”

• wrong direction of moral deevelopment

• Tennyson- never any Eden-like perfection, but instead increased civlisation- nature formerly “red in tooth and claw”

• Pinker- increased reason and security

Augustine’s Theodicy: Problem of Hell

• existence of Hell- Hick- would put “nonmoral evil of their pains and sufferings into the permanent strcuture of the universe”

Augustine: Plantinga

• ‘Free will defence’- God and evil co-exist- response to Mackie- evil is the result of free will

Logically possible for natural evil to come from:

1. Free will of Satan/demons

2. Free will of Adam and Eve justifies God ALLOWING natural evil as punishment (double punishment cruel)

• why would God give us free will then?- UNIVERSE WOULD HAVE NO VALUE WITHOUT FREE WILL

1. Evil is the result of free will

2. God cannot remove evil without removing free will

3. Life would be valueless without free will

4. It is thereore better to exist than not to

5. Ben+pot would therefore allow evil

Augustine and Plantinga: moral responsibility

• logically possible taht evil is sin/punishment for sin/ work of satanic entities

• BUT Pelagius- Adam’s crime only affected himself- w are not responsible- incompatible with omnibenevolence- what about children with cancer? logically inconsistent to say that is God’s justice- children are too young to choose to sin

• BUT could be work of demons? why would God allow that, OR it is impossible for us to understand- not loving- we can’t try and change our ways to stop it

Augustine: evidence of original sin

• G.K. Chesterton- see evidence “in the street”, Reinhold Niebuhr OS is the one “empirically verifiable” Xian doctrine

• BUT Dawkins- impossible that we all descended from two people, plus evolution

• Augustine scientific flaw- homunculus theory

• BUT Augustine- we all have an inclination towards self-love- scientific evidence of human corruption

• People are likely to sin when they have the power/opportunity to do so- does not empirically prove original sin- diff. people diff. levels, also dependent on experiences

• BUT Pelagious- the way we are raised- “educated in evil”- MLK- “arc of the”, Stephen Pinker- huamsn developing in reaon and conscience? or at least not devolving and getting further from God