Transcript Earthquakes and Evil The problem with theodicy Tim Middleton Christians in Science Student Conference 2014

Earthquakes and Evil
The problem with theodicy
Tim Middleton
Christians in Science Student Conference 2014
Before…
Lepsy Fault, Kazakhstan
… and after
Lepsy Fault, Kazakhstan
Beijing
Tibet
40 mm/a
http://www.googleearth.com
Identifying faults from space
Images of the Daluoshan Fault in northern China from the Worldview satellite
Looking at faults in the field
Liulengshan Fault, northern China
Modelling faults on a computer
Greg Houseman, University of Leeds
12th January 2010 Haiti Earthquake
Roger Bilham, Nature , 18 February 2010
Fall and Expulsion from Garden of Eden
Fall and Expulsion from Garden of Eden
Wikimedia Commons
Fall and Expulsion from Garden of Eden
Wikimedia Commons
What is theodicy?
• Justifying God
• Omnipotence
• Omnibenevolence
• Omniscience
Leibniz: ‘the best of all possible worlds’
Shattering the European Enlightenment
The Ruins of Lisbon – copper engraving - Wikimedia Commons
Voltaire: ‘Poem on the Lisbon Disaster’
“These women, these infants heaped one upon
the other, these limbs scattered beneath
marbles; the hundred thousand unfortunates
whom the earth devours, who—bleeding and
torn, still palpitating, interred beneath their
roots—end their lamentable days without
comfort, amid the horror of their torment!”
Voltaire’s Candide
A history of “theodicy”
1859: publication of The Origin of Species?
Data from Google Ngram
Darwin’s letter to Asa Gray
Tennyson’s In Memoriam
Two types of evil
• Moral evil
• Natural evil
Four possible theodicies
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•
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Evil is necessary
A cosmic fall
An angelic fall
Kenosis and the price of freedom
Four possible theodicies
•
•
•
•
Evil is necessary
A cosmic fall
An angelic fall
Kenosis and the price of freedom
The necessity of plate tectonics?
An Irenaean theodicy
What’s wrong with a vale of soul-making?
Death Valley, USA
Four possible theodicies
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•
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•
Evil is necessary
A cosmic fall
An angelic fall
Kenosis and the price of freedom
An Augustinian theodicy
Fall and Expulsion from Garden of Eden
Benjamin West’s The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise
Four possible theodicies
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•
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Evil is necessary
A cosmic fall
An angelic fall
Kenosis and the price of freedom
Bruegel’s The Fall of the Rebel Angels
Four possible theodicies
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•
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Evil is necessary
A cosmic fall
An angelic fall
Kenosis and the price of freedom
Questioning omnipotence
Epistemic distance—an analogy
Dostoyevsky: The Brothers Karamazov
The problem with theodicy
• Rational and intellectual
• Not pastoral and personal
Gabriel Marcel: the problem with theodicy
“But evil which is only
stated or observed is no
longer evil which is
suffered: in fact, it ceases to
be evil. In reality, I can only
grasp evil in the measure in
which it touches me—that
is to say, in the measure in
which I am involved, as one
is involved in a lawsuit.”
So what are we to do?
• Compassion
• The example of Christ
R. S. Thomas: The Prisoner
Questions for discussion
• Do you find any of the theodicies I’ve
outlined convincing?
• Do you agree with Ivan Karamazov?
• Is theodicy just an intellectual anaesthetic?
• To what extent is a rational defence of evil
important to Christian living?