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Summary The Problem of Evil Notes
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The Problem of evil Notes Alevel OCR RS
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The Problem of Evil A God who is omnibenevolent will have a motive to get rid of evil.
A God who is omnipotent will have the ability to get rid of evil.
Evil exists in the world.
Therefore, either God does not exist or he is not omnipotent and omnibenevolent.
David Hume argued – If God is willing but not able he is impotent and if god is able
but not willing he is corrupt.
AUGUSTINE: argued that the Bible shows that God is wholly good and that, according to
Genesis 1, created a world perfectly good and free from defect, evil, and suffering: “God
saw all that he had made, and it was very good” (Genesis 1:31).
1)God created all things good.
2)Evil is not good.
3)Therefore, God did not create evil.
1)God created all things good.
2)Evil is not good.
3)Therefore, evil is not a thing.
Evil is the PRIVATION of good, just as darkness is the absence of light. Evil is privation boni
Privative definition makes sense. It represents the only possible account of the status of evil
in a universe that is the creation of an omnipotent and benevolent god.
Augustine said that evil came not from God, whom is all-good, but from those entities which
had free will –angels and humans who turned their backs on God, the supreme good, and
settled for lesser goods.
As a consequence, the state of perfection was ruined by human SIN and the delicate balance
of the world was destroyed.
Augustine is rejecting a cosmic dualism.
Augustine - “Evil has no positive nature; but the loss of good has received the name ‘evil’”
“In animals, for instance, sickness and wounds are nothing but the privation of health. When
a cure is effected, the evils which were presenr do not retreat and go elsewhere. Rather,
they simply do not exist anymore. For such evil is not a substance”
Challenge from Light and Dark, God created light not dark but he did not make light eternal
he separated the light from dark, therefore you can apply this to evil and good. Dark isn’t
necessarily a bad thing. Hume argued that the strength of an argument depends upon the
similarity between the items in the analogy. So the weaker the similarity, the weaker the
argument; but the stronger the similarity, the stronger the argument.
Challenge – if we don’t take a literal reading of Genesis then we don’t believe in the fall and
Augustines whole theodicy falls apart. We can still try and support Augustine through a
, metaphorical fall, it represents the fall of humankind, humans started to make choices that
were not in accordance with Gods will. It is based on revealed theology.
Challenge – Augustine believes that evil exists seminally (in semen), therefore evil must be a
thing if its present in semen. Not biologically. How could a lack of something be present and
passed on?
However God created Mosquitoes that carry Malaria. He created conditions for all diseases.
If he created man technically he created the things man made.
Futhurmore God may not have created moral evil due to free will but he did create natural
evil as all natural substances were created by god.
1. Moral evil is a result of misuse of freewill
2. Natural evil comes as a result of this misuse it is the corruption of the order and
harmony within nature.
It is the fault of humans and therefore God does not stop it as it is punishment.
Augustine believes
1. Evil started from the fall
2. Believes in free will
3. Evil is a privation of goodness
4. Natural and moral evil as a result of misuse
5. Predestination
Challenge – Hick said that to describe the Nazis attempt to exterminate the European
Jews as merely the absence of good is utterly insufficient.
In the inconsistent Triad Augustine takes out the idea that evil exists.
J L MACKIE - The most famous version and clearest version of the Problem of Evil from
recent times was put forward by Mackie.
He was a compatibilist about free will, arguing that we are both determined and have free
will.
He was an outspoken atheist and his Inconsistent Triad was designed show the position of
the main monotheistic position untenable…
God could have given us Free-will and made us morally perfect so that we freely choose
good every time, but he didn’t.
Theodicy - An explanation of how a belief in a good, omnipotent God can be maintained in
the face of all the evil and suffering in the world.
Recapitulation – to bring something back to the beginning. Irenaeus’ theodicy is about
bringing people back into relationship with God, hence it is called a theory of recapitulation.
Epistemic distance- Gods existence is not obvious and thus human beings are not
overwhelmed by Gods prescence into believing in God.
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