The Problem of Evil Chapters 14, 15. B. C. Johnson & John Hick Introduction to Philosophy Professor Doug Olena

Transcription

1 The Problem of Evil Chapters 14, 15 B. C. Johnson & John Hick Introduction to Philosophy Professor Doug Olena

2 The Problem Stated If God is perfectly loving, he must wish to abolish evil; and if he is allpowerful, he must be able to abolish evil. But evil exists; therefore God cannot be both omnipotent and perfectly loving. 143

3 The Problem Stated If the bystander who refuses to rescue the small child in the burning building is not considered good, how can an all-powerful God who does nothing for the child be considered good? 138

4 The Problem Stated If the evil in the world is considered a method of growing moral goodness and the urgency to moral goodness, would God be justified in setting a certain number of fires, killing innocent children, to maintain a certain level of evil? 140 Absurd! 141

5 The Problem Explained Three Possibilities: God is more likely to be all evil than he is to be all good God is less likely to be all evil than he is to be all good. God is equally likely to be all evil as he is to be all good. 141

6 The Problem Explained In the first case: It would be admitted that God is unlikely to be all good. The second case: Cannot be true at all as we have seen the belief that God is all evil can be justified to precisely the same extent as the belief that God is all good. 141

7 The Problem Explained The third case: Leaves us with no reasonable excuses for a good God to permit evil. 141 [T]here is no escape from the conclusion that it is unlikely that God is all good. Thus the problem of evil triumphs over the traditional theism.

8 Explain the reasons given by John Hick for the existence of evil in the world. Moral evil, evil human behavior. Natural evil, earthquakes, etc. 144

9 Moral evil is explained by the mystery of human freedom. For we can never provide a complete causal explanation of a free act; if we could, it would not be a free act. The origin of moral evil lies forever concealed within the mystery of human freedom. 145

10 The various explanations for the irresponsibility of God to permit this evil: First, they accuse God of being impotent, not quite strong enough to prevent evil. This is not God in any sense that would be worth believing in.

11 By definition, persons as we commonly take them to be are invested with freedom that is paradoxically outside the control of God and even as people are made in the image of God. Second, God could have made people without freedom, or with freedom that always chose to do right.

12 Third, could God have made people free from the risks inherent in personal freedom? Answer, that would be logically impossible. It is no limitation on God s power that he cannot accomplish the logically impossible.

13 Answer: God is able to create beings of any and every conceivable kind; but creatures who lack moral freedom, however superior they might be to human beings in other respects, would not be what we mean by persons. 145

14 The second issue, natural evil. The skeptic s assumption is that man is to be viewed as a completed creation and that God s purpose in making the workd was to provide a suitable dwelling-place for this fully-formed creature.

15 Since God is good and loving, the environment which he has created for human life to inhabit is naturally as pleasant and comfortable as possible. Since our world contains much that contradicts this, it could not have been made by a perfectly benevolent and allpowerful deity. 146

16 Christianity has claimed that there is a second purpose to creating the world, soul-making. Irenaeus suggested that this is the second and more difficult part of creation. 146

17 Negative theodicy (justification of God s goodness in the face of evil) supposes the contrary to prove the current state of affairs. 147

18 Suppose that the world was a hedonistic paradise where no one could be hurt by their own actions or the actions of others, where the laws of nature were easily suspended when they endangered human happiness.

19 The world would have to work by special providence, not by general laws of nature. There could be no science, no ethical or rational systems. The world would be like a dream. 147

20 That world would be ill adapted for the development of the moral qualities of human personality. It would be the worst possible world.

21 The real world, in contrast, would be full of opportunities to develop character, knowledge and wisdom, full of trouble of all kinds, conflict and natural danger. Our world is not designed for the maximization of human happiness. It is, however, suited for soul-making. 147