Units 5-7 Schaeperkoetter

Theology Semester 1 Review(5-7)

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?

Then he is not omnipotent.

Is he able, but not willing?

Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and winning?

Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able no willing?

Then why call him God?

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?

Then he is not omnipotent.

Is he able, but not willing?

Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and winning?

Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able no willing?

Then why call him God?

Epicurus(341-270 B.C.)

There must be no god as those scales don’t balance:

-Lisbon earthquake

-deist view

Voltaires view about God and evil

Whatever god declares those scales balanced is monstrous:

-Christian view

1. Children are innocent

2. children suffer at the hands of humans

3. These evils are permitted because of the good of human free will

4. Such suffering is not worth the good of humans humans having free will

5. Therefore, God shoulf not have created us humans to have free will.

Ivans view about God and evil(child suffering)

Since terrbile evils occer, I will give up the to heaven because I do not want to be somewhere with a man who permits these evils.

Ivan’s Rebellion(returning of the ticket)

There are instances of intense suffering that an omnipotent(all powerfull and wholly good) and omniscient(all knowing) God could have prevented without losing some greater good or evil

What is the first premise of Rowe:

A wholly good being would prevent the occurence of severe suffering, if he could do so without losing some greater good or allowing some equally bad or worse evil.

Second premise of Rowe:

There does not exist a wholly good being/god

Concluison of Rowe:

The denying of premise 1:

-human suffering is a punishment for sin

-suffering is a test

-this world is a vale soul making

-benefits to the world gollwoing a law-like natural order

How do theists respond to Rowe:

to wrestly with the nature of evil and God’s justice

What is the purpose of the Book of Job?

The devil chalanges God. Saying that eh obedient Job only follows God because he is blessed. God then challanges Job and his friends do not help.

Trial 1: everything is taken from Job: house, animals, family

Job Responds: “The LORD gave and the LORD has teken away; Blessed be the name of the LORD”

Trial 2: severe boils

Job’s Response: “We accept good thins from God; should we not accept evil?”

• he later complains and curses the day he was born

Descibe the Book of Job: (God and Jobs Responses)

Evil is a privation of good:

• evil is a failure in good

• “God permits no evil that is not for good”

What is the argument of Aquinas?

• Original Sin has changed the nature of our will, leading us towards evil

• We therefore need to fix our will in order to finally choose God

• We need to choose to let God fix our defecitve will, requires thinking

• We need to have humility, be aware of our evil, and be dissatisfied with ourselves

The view of Stump

• God is a being of love

• He could not have created evil, which is not a being

Barron’s thoughts:

• these cause someone to doubt whether God is great(Ivan and the suffering of children)

• Christianity offers that teh intimacy of God must engulf and defeat the horrendous evils, and that perhaps this occurs through the evils themselves

Horrendous evils:

• God must remain “hidden” in order to preserve our freedom and free will

• if God weren’t hidden than it would require little will to choose correctly: God could just make us choose correctly

• we wouldn’t be able to grow, and God would risk becoming subservient, if God told us what to do

How does the divine hiddeness of God, contribute to a great evil?

• snuck into russia in late 1930s to be a missionary during WWll

• Arrested in 1941 as a spy, and spent 5 years in solitary confinement

• While being placed in a gulag, he continued to minister to others

• Returns to the US in 1963 during a prisoner exchange

Who was Walter Ciszek?

• Evil comes form sin and death

• Christ conquered sin and death and so he conquered evil

• Christ offers new life to those who have died, those can overcome sin by choosing eternal life

• One can also show love over evil here on earth: overcome evil on earth

What does JPll think about Jesus and suffering:

1. Embarrasing details about themselves(the writers)

2. Embarrasing details about Jesus

3. Demanding sayings of Jesus

4. Distinguishing Jesus’ words from their own

5. Events about the Resurrection that would not be invented

6. 30 Historical figures

7. Divergent details

8. Challenge readers to check facts

9. Miracles are unembellished

10. Abandoned their own beliefs

11. Testiminy of Martyrs

12. Their stories differ

Why are the gospels trustworthy?

• “Father and I are on”

• “Heaven adn earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away”

• Miracles: physical event with not scientific explanation

• He rose from the dead!!!!

• Many of them(the disciples) died for their faith

• If the claims of jesus weren’t true, he was a fool or a lunatic, but his claims were true and so he must be the Lord

• he doesn’t act like a liar, so he must be Lord

Why is Jesus divine?

• The tomb was most certainly empty; the gov’t officials of Jerusalem could have easily disproved the ressurection if it weren’t empty

• The disciples did not lie: some died for this truth, the disciples also went around proclaiming he has risen

  • why would they do this if it weren’t true?

• The hallucination theory: impossible for this many people(11) to have the same hallucination at the same time

• Jesus died: historically accurate

Did Jesus actually Resurrect?

• Reparation: removing of former harm

• Repentance: distance from former action and resolve to amend

• Apology: public repentance to the wronged party

• Penance: costly act that expresses/is equal to previous wrong

Atonement is about changing something within us

What is atonement?

• Guilt: failing to do something in the past, owing atonement

• Atonement

• forgiveness

Thought Experiment

• If i am sorry, I should have to embody my sorrow into concrete representation

• Show my love/sacrifice/and growth

• Otherwise it is meaningless and no one should accept it

Why is repentance not good enough?

He must accept Jesus’ passion and death as making satisfaction for his sin and unite himself to Christ in love

• Atonement changes us

How is a person redeemed from sin?

• answers the question of who someone is

• Three persons of the trinity share a single divine nature

• Each person can address the other as thou and possesses the entirety of the divine nature

• They only differ with the relationships they have with each other

What does persons mean(3 persons in one God)?

Answers the question of what someone is

• the three persons share in a divine nature: each possess it entirely

What does nature mean: divine nature?

Purgatory between heaven and hell, if you stay in grey town it is hell, if you leave grey town it is purgatory

What is gray town?

• argues that all true pleasures come from God, however those who take part in sinful pleasures, have deluded themselves into thinking they are getting pleasure from sin.

• Also argues that heaven is a reality of itself

• He is the discussion partner to the narrator who analyzes the principles of Christianity

Who is Macdonald?

They are humans who died, and went to Grey Town, then traveled to Heaven, and choose to stay there. They become bright/solid because they have traveled to the mountains and chosen to relinquish their sinful nature.

Who are the bright people in the GD?

• He’s committed suicide, and was a young pretentious man

• He believes that he is better than everyone around him, and loves to complain about others

What keeps the Tousle headed poet from heaven?

• a large aggressive man, who argues, gets into fights, and ultimately refuses to believe that he can go to heaven by exercising humility

Who is the Big Ghost and what keeps him from heaven?

• the wife of Robert who is a lazy and negligent husband

• She does not reflect on her own flaws, but is always persistent to point out those of her husband

• She sees others negatively if they don’t listen to her advice, and live how she wants them to

Who is Robert’s wife in GD?

• mother of Michael

• Knows Reginald

• She is not able to let go of the loss of her son

• She only uses God as the means to Michael

• “The sooner I begin it, the sooner they’ll let me see my boy.”

• When her son died, she didn’t love her son anymore. She loved herself: she was feeding her rage and grief. She couldn’t grow because she was leaving herself in the past.

Who is Pam in GD?

• the lizard represents the mans lust(outward manifestation of sin)

• Once the lizard is killed, it becomes a stallion; which could represent freedom and a new relationship with God

• The man then grows into heaven

Who are the Man and Lizard of lust in GD?

Frank is divided amongst a dwarf and a tragedian

• The dwarf: his inner self; self hatred and manipulation

• Tragedian: represents the tragedy that Frank has faced when his wife Sarah Smith died. It is the sadness and pain that Frank feels and tries to protect in order to make others feel guilty.

Who are the Dwarf and Tragedian in GD?

• a vain and pretentious painter who refuses Heaven because he feels there would be no paintings there, and therefore no need for his art

• Art can be both a link to God, and a distraction from him; depending how its used

Who is the artist in GD?

Prepare us to be strong enough for the light in heaven

Role of Purgatory

Our choice

Is Heaven/Hell our choice, or God’s predestined choice?