The Problem of Evil

Vale of Soul Making
1. States that the world is the best of all possible worlds because it allows humans to fully develop. Also proposes that creation is incomplete, as humans are not yet fully developed, and experiencing evil and suffering is necessary for such development.
2. Irenaeus proposed a two-stage creation process in which humans require free will and the experience of evil to develop. Another early Christian theologian, Origen, presented a response to the problem of evil which cast the world as a schoolroom or hospital for the soul
3. Support
  1. Leibniz; proposed that the world is the best of all possible worlds because it balances all the possible goods the world could contain.
    1. Schleiermacher; argued that God must necessarily create flawlessly, so this world must be the best possible world because it allows God's purposes to be naturally fulfilled.
    2. Plantinga; supported the idea that this world is the best possible world, arguing that the good in the world (including God's infinite goodness) outweighs the evil and proposing that the ultimate good of God's sacrifice when Jesus was crucified necessitated the existence of evil.
  2. Swinburne; proposed that, to make a free moral choice, humans must have experience of the consequences of their own actions and that natural evil must exist to provide such choices.
4. Criticisms
  1. Rowe, D. Z. Phillips and Dostoyevsky; challenged the instrumental use of suffering, suggesting that love cannot be expressed through suffering.
    1. Tooley; argued that the magnitude of suffering is excessive and that, in some cases, cannot lead to moral development.
  2. Blocher; criticised Hick's universalism, arguing that such a view negates free will, which was similarly important to the theodicy.
Free Will Defence
1. Plantinga
  1. God can create free creatures, but He can't cause or determine them to do only what is right. For if He does so, then they aren't significantly free after all; they do not do what is right freely. To create creatures capable of moral good, therefore, He must create creatures capable of moral evil; and He can't give these creatures the freedom to perform evil and at the same time prevent them from doing so.
    1. Plantinga's argument is that even though God is omnipotent, it is possible that it was not in his power to create a world containing moral good but no moral evil; therefore, there is no logical inconsistency involved when God, although wholly good, creates a world of free creatures who chose to do evil.[
2. Criticism
  1. Mackie and Flew; presupposes a libertarian, incompatibilist view of free will (free will and determinism are metaphysically incompatible), while their view is a compatibilist view of free will (free will and determinism, whether physical or divine, are metaphysically compatible).God could have created a world containing moral good but no moral evil. In such a world people could have chosen to only perform good deeds, even though all their choices were predestined
  2. Does not address the problem of natural evil, since natural evil is not brought about by the free choices of creatures. Plantinga's reply is a suggestion that it is at least logically possible that perhaps free, nonhuman persons are responsible for natural evils (e.g. rebellious spirits or fallen angels).[
Augustinian Theodicy
1. Evidential Problem of Evil
  1. Rowe
    1. Syllogism
      1. There exist instances of intense suffering which an omniscient being could have prevented without giving up the greater good or creating more evil. An omniscient, wholly good being would prevent the occurence of any intense suffering it could, unless it would make things worse.
        Therefore, there does not exist a wholly good, all-powerful, all-knowing being.
    2. Human suffering; man attacks woman on two different occasions, finally returning to rape and kill her five year old child.
    3. Animal suffering; Lightning strikes a tree and causes a fawn to burn for days.
    4. No amount of suffering is ever justifiable.
2. Rejects the idea that evil exists in itself, instead regarding it as a corruption of goodness, caused by humanity's abuse of free will. Augustine believed in the existence of a physical Hell as a punishment for sin, but argued that those who choose to accept the salvation of Jesus Christ will go to Heaven.
3. Support
  1. John Calvin; supported Augustine's view that evil is the result of free will and argued that sin corrupts humans, requiring God's grace to give moral guidance.
4. Criticisms
  1. Fortunatus; (a Manichaean) contended that God must still be implicated in evil.
  2. Zaccaria; criticised Augustine's concept of evil for not dealing with human suffering.
  3. John Hick; criticised Augustine's theory for being "implausible" in light of Darwin's theory of evolution, as it would make Augustine's idea of a fall from perfection inaccurate
Process Theory
1. Whitehead/Hartshorne
  1. it is an essential attribute of God to affect and be affected by temporal processes, an idea that conflicts with traditional forms of theism that hold God to be in all respects non-temporal (eternal), unchanging (immutable), and unaffected by the world (impassible).
  2. God is not all powerful, and He did not create the world. He merely developed on what was already there.
    1. When the world suffers, God suffers.
  3. Self-determination characterizes everything in the universe, not just human beings.
Logical Problem of Evil
1. Mackie/Hume/Aquinas
  1. Hume argues that it is not logically possible for all three of God's qualities to exist as well as evil, so only two must exist. (Mackie's Inconsistent Triad).
2. Holds that the existence of evil is incompatible with the existence of the God of Classical Theism. As a result, it is logically inconsistent to accept both can exist together.

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