Transcript THE PROBLEM OF EVIL & SUFFERING

THE PROBLEM OF EVIL & SUFFERING
A great problem for Christian
theism, arising from an
interpretation of human
experience.
Hume called it ‘ the rock of atheism’.
Now called the problem of evil and
suffering
Put simply:
There is so much apparently random evil and
suffering in the world, from natural evil and moral
evil (human ill- will and wickedness), makes the
idea of an all powerful and good loving God who
cares for his creatures difficult to believe in.
Epicurus (342-270BC) earliest classical
formulation of the problem.
Repeated by Augustine (354-430AD) and
Hume (1711-76AD)
Called the ‘Inconsistent Triad’:• ‘Is God willing but not able to prevent evil?
Then He is impotent
• Is He able but not willing?
Then He is malevolent
• If He is both able and willing?
Whence then is evil?
Put differently:If God is all powerful He can stop evil and
suffering.
If He is all loving He will stop evil and suffering
But evil and suffering exist.
Therefore . . . ?
The traditional Christian response to evil
and suffering has not been to lose faith but
to put forward answers about evil and
suffering that would still preserve the
‘righteousness’ and love of God.
These responses are called ‘theodicy’- GK
‘Theos’= God
‘Dike’ = Just
Term first used by Leibniz
Purpose is to demonstrate that in spite of evil
and suffering God is just and righteous.
Leibniz believed that God created the best of all
possible worlds ‘for the realisation of His
purposes.’
This idea seems to be central to most
theodicies.
Even supported by Peter Vardy in The Puzzle of
Evil, 1992.
There are two traditional
theodicies
• St Irenaeus (150AD)
• St Augustine (354-430AD)
The Augustinian Theodicy
 Based on an understanding of The Fall – Genesis 3
 Borrowing St Paul’s interpretation of The Fall in
Romans 5:12-20
 Augustine argues that sin and death entered the
world through the disobedience of our first parents
 This brought about a disorder in our nature and a
disorder in Creation
The fault was not God’s but man’s
It became a ‘happy’ fault in the end because it
caused the bringing about of a great
redeemer, Christ
From the original disorder caused by man’s
sin God brings about a new order made
possible by the grace of Christ
Closely allied to the Augustinian
Theodicy is the ‘Free Will Defence’
• This is the view that evil is the result of man’s
misuse of his free will beginning with Adam and
continuing ever since
• Evil is traceable to man, not to God
• However, the ultimate origin of evil can be traced
to the misuse of free will by Satan, an angel who
rebelled against God in heaven
• This act of disobedience and pride led to the
infection of Creation with all sorts of evil
• God could have prevented this evil by creating
human beings and angels without free will
• This would also mean that they would not be free
to choose to love Him and be in a relationship with
Him
• No choice = No real relationship
• It becomes nothing but a relationship of a puppet maker and
his puppets who can only ‘live’ when he moves the strings
• God did not want to do this and risks the potential of evil due
to free will
• He tries to ‘redeem’ the situation by offering a rescue
package and by bringing good out of evil in His own
mysterious way
This has given rise to a debate about
whether free will necessarily involved its
misuse
Antony Flew and JL Mackie have tried to
argue that God could have created beings
whose natures were such that they would
always freely choose good
This raises the obvious question that if
people are programmed always to choose
good, how can they be genuinely free?
John Hick and Richard Swinburne:
• Evil and suffering are necessary elements of the world
for people to develop the higher virtues of courage, selfgiving (the giving of the self and not giving to the self),
love and compassion
• Seems to fit in more with the Irenaean Theodicy but
• Offers a second perspective on the Free Will Defence
• In this view the genuine freedom to choose between
good and evil is a requirement for the development of
moral virtue and therefore forms a justifiable ‘defence’ of
the existence of evil
Weakness of the Free Will Defenceignores the following facts:
• So much evil is often unjustifiably caused to others
through one person’s misuse of free will
• The misuse of free will by our first parents, or rebellious
angels, in the absense of a ‘sinful nature’ cannot easily be
explained
• If God is omniscient He can hardly be excused
responsibility from knowing the consequences of how His
creatures would act
• Huw Parri Owen (Christian Theism, 1984)- Free will
defence is unable to offer much comfort to the people
who are most involved in the problem of evil, those who
suffer
Does Augustine’s theodicy work?
• Appears to be noticeably impersonal
• Emphasis is on justice, the restoration of a balance
• Evil = something which man deservedly brings on
himself and can therefore be seen as punishment
by God
• Leaves a number of big questions unanswered
• Why is there an imbalance of evil?
• Why do some have to bear a larger share than
others for no apparent reason?
• It fails to account for the origin of evil at the
beginning of man’s life in the world
• Evolutionary history says that evil precedes man
therefore the Fall is not a satisfactory explanation
• If God created man perfect at the beginning of his history
and then falls from perfection, why in the redeeming work
of Christ didn’t God restore man to perfection to eliminate
evil and suffering this side of heaven?
• Perfect redemption would mean the now and not just that
which is to come
The Irenaean Theodicy
• Revived by John Hick in ‘Evil and the God of Love’, 1966
• The world is the way it is to achieve God’s plan and
purpose
• i.e. to test man so that he develops the qualities
necessary to be a noble soul
• The world is therefore seen as ‘a veil of soul-making
where physical and moral evil play their part in enabling
man to grow into the sort of creature fit for his salvation’
• Irenaeus said that man was first made in God’s imageGenesis 1:26, but it was God’s plan to make him grow
into God’s likeness- Genesis 1:26
• For this to happen man had to be tested
• This life provides the ideal conditions for this to happen
• Man is given evil and suffering to enable him to develop
the character qualities that will enoble him: courage,
generosity, kindness, and love
• Part of this test is the ‘epistemic’ distance that evil
creates between man and God
• This means that man lives in a kind of fog which makes
God’s presence difficult to see and therefore makes faith
more virtuous
• The story of the Fall is a mythological account of man’s
testing
• Its outcome made it necessary for Christ to come
• In order to set an example that man to follow
• To show him how to find his true salvation with the help
of grace
Does Irenaeus’ Theodicy work?
• Has the advantage that it works better than the
Augustinian theodicy with the facts of evolution
• It allows for the idea of growth and development to
achieve moral virtue
• But it does not easily explain why Adam and Eve
failed when they were not at an epistemic distance
from God
• Why they were held fully responsible by God even
though they were supposedly at an immature stage
of moral development and might therefore be
excused for their fall
•
Another problem is that it’s not only saying that
suffering is ‘good for you’ ! ! ! ! !
•
But without suffering great virtue cannot be achieved
•
This is often put forward to justify physical evilearthquakes, famine, disease, and so on
•
Richard Swinburne in ‘The Existence of God’, 1979,
argues that the world needs to have evil in it for man to
develop morally
•
This overlooks three awkward facts
1. That many people can claim to have lived moral
lives without having suffered
2. Many who have suffered have been dehumanised
by it
3. The view that suffering is good is difficult to square
with Jesus’ attitude towards suffering (in Luke 4:18f
shows Jesus trying to eliminate suffering as a
fulfilment of one of the signs of the messianic age.
The seemingly senseless and random
occurrence of evil causes a real difficulty
with a theist definition of God
For many, neither of these theodicies on
their own have much practical value in
helping a person to cope with evil
For believers, much of the theodicies are
blended together to help answer the
mystery of evil and suffering
New Testament Theodicy
• It could be argued that the A and I theodicies are too
theoretical
• They offer rational accounts of why loving, all powerful
God must be right to allow evil
• But they offer cold comfort to believers who have to cope
with the reality of evil in everyday life
• The Free Will Defence is often accepted
• St Paul and other writers of the NT have put forward their
own theodicies
• They are based on God’s future promises (eschatological
in nature)
• Paul’s approach is to contrast the present world
sufferings and misfortunes with the rewards and glories
to come
‘I consider that our present sufferings
are not worth comparing with the glory
that will be revealed in us.’ Romans 8:18
‘Who shall separate us from the
love of Christ? Shall trouble or
hardship or persecution or
famine? . . . No, in all these things
we are more than conquerors
through Him who loved us . . . I am
convinced that neither death nor
life . . . will be able to separate us
from the love of God in Christ
Jesus our Lord.’ Romans 8:35f
‘Never again will they hunger, never
again will they thirst, they will never
again be scorched by the heat of the
sun. God will lead them to springs of
life-giving water and God will wipe
every tear from their eyes.’ Revelation 7:15f
Process Theodicy
• Distinctive religious world view developed by A.N.
Whitehead (1861-1947)
• David Griffin developed the Process Theodicy from this
world view
• Different to the others
• Accepts David Hume’s view that evil is incompatible with
the existence of an omnipotent, all loving God
• It starts from the assumption that God is NOT omnipotent
• Since God is not omnipotent, He did not create the
universe
• The universe is an ‘uncreated process which includes the
deity’
• I.e. God is part of the world and bound by natural laws
• God’s role in creation was limited to starting off the
evolutionary process
• This process has led to the development of humans to
exert their own influence on the world
• God no longer has total control since humans are free to
ignore God
• They have very limited knowledge of God’s will since He
did not fashion them after His own likeness
• God suffers when evil is committed
• Follows naturally from the fact that God is part of the
world, affected by it, yet unable to control it
• Whitehead describes God as ‘fellow sufferer who
understands’
• Although God is not powerful enough to stop evil He
must bear some responsibility for it since it was God who
started off the process of evolution that He knew He
would be unable to control
• The theodicy needs to explain why God took such a risk
• Does this by arguing that the universe has produced
enough quantity and quality of good to outweigh evil
• i.e. given a choice between the universe we live in and
no universe at all the former is preferable
• This, it is argued, justifies God’s work
Does Process Theodicy work?
• For those who like this theodicy it has several
advantages
 It removes the stumbling block of why an all loving
and omnipotent God doesn’t stop suffering by saying
that He can’t
 For many the fact that God suffers may be
encouraging because it means that God can
personally experience what they’re going through
 Within the process scheme there is no certainty that
God will triumph in the end. It may encourage others
then to join in the fight against evil and secure
victory. To do nothing would result in disaster for all
There are also severe criticisms
• This is not a theodicy at all
• Theodicy = a justification of God in the face of evil
• Since PT takes away the concept of omnipotence it does
not justify Him at all
• It denies the God of classical theism
• This conclusion is simply unacceptable to many on
religious and philosophical grounds
• Would a being with such limited power be worthy of
worship?
• While for some the uncertainty of the future could
encourage a fight to overcome evil, for others it may
simply fill them with despair
• If God cannot guarantee anything, what is the point of
human effort?
So . . . ?
• No universally accepted solution to the problem of evil
• Two sharply contrasting responses to the problem of evil
and suffering: faith and atheism
• For some, evil and suffering is a denial of the existence
of God, compels the rejection of a God who they cannot
exonerate for allowing some evils to happen
• For others, they have managed to retain their faith and
even found their faith strengthened through theodicies
and an acceptance of an element of mystery. ‘Eye has
not seen, ear has not heard, nor has it entered into the
heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love
Him.’ -St Paul
Christian ‘Theological’ Theodicy
• Embraces the idea of an:
• All loving
• All knowing
• All powerful
• Free will giving
• Consequence of free will = character-building and glorymaking despite evil and suffering (not so much Irenaean)
• Wounded Healer, Suffering Servant God (not Process T
where God is unable to do anything)
• Redemption/saving God from death, sin and hell
He was despised and rejected.
A man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest
grief.
He was pierced and crushed, beaten and
suffered.
By His wounds the world was healed.
Isaiah 53