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The Problem of EvilGod is OMNIPOTENT
God is ALL LOVING
EVIL EXISTS
What is the problem?Be quite clear: The problem of evil is a
serious challenge to the Christian faith and its concept of
God.There are two main types of evil in the world. What are they?An
answer to the problem of evil/a justification of God in the face of
evil is called a Theodicy.You have 15 minutes to create a Theodicy.
5 minutes to prepare your presentation.
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Based on Philosophy of Religion. By John HickWith a tiny bit of
help from Mr. CThe problem of evil.The Augustinian Theodicy 354-430
AD
The universe is good, the creation of a good God for a good
purpose:Everything that has being is good in its own way and
degree, except insofar as it has been spoiled or corrupted.
Therefore evil; Moral evil and natural evil, decay and disorder,
has not been set there by God but represents the going wrong of
something that is inherently good.
I am blind, but my eye is good! The evil of blindness consists
of the lack of a proper functioning of the EYE.
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AugustineOriginally the universe was a perfect harmony
expressing the Creators divine intention.How did evil come
about?From those levels of the universe that involved free will,
the free will of angels and humans.Some angels turned from good,
from God.They tempted the first man.The fall of angelic and human
beings was the origin of Moral evil and sin.Natural evils and
disasters like earthquakes, storms etc are the consequences of sin.
Man was guardian of the Earth, but his sin has set nature awry.We
did this, not God!All evil is either sin or the punishment for sin.
Augustine.
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The Augustinian TheodicyAt the end of history there will come a
judgment when Many will enter into eternal life and others into
eternal torment.This theodicy clears God of any responsibility for
the existence of evil by putting the responsibility upon the
creation of free will.Evil all stems from the culpable misuse of
creative freedom in a tragic act of cosmic significance, in the
prehistory of the human race.
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Criticisms:
If God is omnipotent, and the universe was wholly good, how
could it go wrong?How could free creatures without trace of evil,
fall into sin? How could creation go wrong spontaneously and
without cause? There is a contradiction here. It amounts to the
self-creation of evil out of nothing. Augustine suggests that
perhaps some Angels received less grace or received less assistance
from God! A flawless creation would never go wrong and if it did,
then responsibility is with the creator. God it is guilty!
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Criticism:Can we accept: Human species as having been once
morally and spiritually perfect and then falling into a state of
self-centredness which we have today.Evidence suggests that
humanity gradually emerged out of the lower forms of life with
limited moral awareness.Are earthquakes, floods, disease, really
the result of the fall of humanity? Can we accept this? What about
the idea of eternal torment in hell? The fate of many human beings.
The punishment would serve no constructive purpose. Evil and
punishment would have a permanent structure in the universe.
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The Iranaean Theodicy 130-202AD
Two stages in the creation of the human race.We were brought
into existence as intelligent animals endowed with immense moral
and spiritual capacity. Not the perfect Adam and Eve's of
Augustine. But immature creatures at the beginning of a long
process of growth.This second stage is now taking place. We are
gradually being transformed through freewill from human animals
into children of God.Why were we created immature?Iranaeus suggests
the value of human freedom.Ready made goodness verses goodness
derived from moral choices and freewill and situations of
difficulty and temptation.Which of these is the more valuable?An
imperfect humanity morally struggling moving towards complete
humanization?
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Humans are formed within and as part of an autonomous universe
within which God it is not overwhelmingly evident. In which God may
become known by the free response of faith.The Human Condition
involves the tension between selfishness and the call of morality/
religion to transcend self-centredness.Moral will evil is a
necessary condition of humanity in a state of genuine freedom,
where humanity can freely develop in response to God's non coercive
presence.
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OK! The bulk of human pain is traceable to moral evil i e men
and women acting sinfully.But what about natural
disasters?Sometimes human wickedness and folly is intermingled with
disasters. Humans caused the pain. i.e. poor housing in an
earthquake zone humans are to blame!ButNatural disasters do exist
and are part of the nature of the world.Iranaeus: The divine
purpose; to become children of God, could not be served in a
paradise!
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Can we blame God for our imperfect world, for disasters?
Iranaeus: God's purpose was not to create a paradise. A maximum
place of pleasure and minimum paying. The world is a place of soul
making. Free beings grapple with the tasks and challenges of their
existence to become children of God.
Iranaeus uses a counterfactual hypotheses to support the
argument:Imagine a paradise with no pain or sin. You could not
murder. There would be no need to work. Everything is on a plate.
You jump off a building and feathers would appear to gently stopped
you.ORThe real earth. Pain and suffering and love and happiness and
joy and hunger and greed and achievement.Which would you choose? In
Paradise to live a childish dreamlike existence. Or on Earth to
live a life of challenge and become a child of God.In relation to
God's purpose, Paradise would be the worst option!Free growth can
only come in a world of dependable laws, real dangers, frustration,
pain, obstacles etc. A good place for soul making. That is why
there are natural disasters. We have got the best of possible
worlds.
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Points of interest
Good can triumph over evil through a person's reaction:their
courage, character etc. But the opposite is true also: fear,
selfishness, destruction.Is the ultimate good worthwhile? To become
children of God whilst some people suffer pain/ fear/ anger/ death/
upset/torture /suicide/abortion/crime/war/disease/cancer /storms.
The answer must be in terms of a future good great enough to
justify all that has happened on the way to it.Heaven will render
worthwhile all the pain and travail of the long journey of human
life.Pain/joy/upset/happiness/defeat lead to heaven.All human
beings shall in the end attain the ultimate heavenly state.
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Some criticisms
Rejects the fall of humanity and damnation of some.Why cannot
God create a person making world without these mega evils. Evil and
suffering - some statistics:An estimated 3500 people die of hunger
every day. About 1 billion people or 1/6 of the human race suffer
from malnutrition. 400,000 children die every year in Brazil from
hunger related diseases. 1,211,285 Iraqi children died of embargo
related causes between 1990 and 1997. An estimated 1645 women die
of pregnancy and child birth every day. An estimated 9.3% of all
children born in the southern hemisphere die before their first
birthday.Explains the need for a person making environment but it
does not justify the actual extent of human suffering.
Auschwitz!
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Process TheologyProcess Thought restates the problem of
Evil.
God is Powerful.
God is All Loving.
Evil Exists.Read the Statements carefully. What has Process
thinking done?
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Hick: Process Theodicy.
Process thought: God cannot to be unlimited in power, but
interacts with a universe which God has not created, but can
influence.Process thought it is influenced by the thinking of A N
Whitehead.The Christian tradition: God is creator and Sustainer of
the universe ex nihilo. His power is unlimited. Due to human
freedom God withholds his unlimited power. We become autonomous
creatures in a realm in which God acts non coercively.Process
Thinking: Yes, God Acts non-coercively by persuasion and lure. This
is because he is limited by the structure of reality. God is
subject to limitations imposed by basic laws of nature and the
Universe.The universe is an uncreated process which includes Deity.
Wow!Griffin States: God cannot completely control creatures.God's
power over each occasion, and in directing the stream of occasions
as a whole, is necessarily limited, and the reality of evil in the
world is the measure of the extent to which God's will is thwarted.
Thwarted by a war, disasters, death, violence etc.God continually
offers the best possibility to each occasion but the successive
occasions are free not to conform to the divine plan.
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Evil 1: Discord, the failure to attain harmony. Whitehead
states: discord is the feeling of evil in the most general sense,
physical pain or mental evil, such as horror, sorrow, dislike.
Evil 2: When each moment fails to retain the highest appropriate
intensity and allows for triviality.The evolution of the universe
and life on earth is due to the continual divine impetus to
maximize harmony and intensity.The good produced i e greater and
greater harmony and intensity outweighs and makes worthwhile the
evil produced.God's could have left a primal chaos, but create an
ordered universe evolving ever higher forms of actuality.
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God in the dock:
Why evil?Order- complexity- evil -suffering.OrchaosWhich of
these would be better?God is a limited Deity creating goodness in
the face of the fact of evil.God's goodness is vindicated in that
the risk taking venture in the evolution of the universe was
calculated to produce... a sufficient quality and quantity of good
to outweigh all the evils that have in fact been involved .
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You choose:
Hitler/Auschwitz OR Jesus- Socrates and Gandhi- Einstein
Lincoln- El Greco. Millions of marvellous human beings.Griffin: ...
for the sake of avoiding a mans inhumanity to man... should God
have avoided humanity altogether?Only if your answer is yes, Can
you indict the God of process theology on the basis of evil in the
world.
God shares are human joy, and the pain etc. the whole weight of
earthly sorrow and agony, wickedness and stupidity, passes into the
divine consciousness, together with the glory of all earthly
happiness, and ecstasy, saintliness and a genius.Wow! A God who
suffers With us!
Only God knows the total balance between good and evil. He finds
that the risk is worth taking. This should help us to accept that
the good does indeed outweigh the evil
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The appeal of process Theodicy:
Avoids the problem arising from belief in an omnipotent God. God
does not need to be justified for permitting evil, since it is not
within God's power to prevent it.The appeal of the challenge. The
call to engage on God side in the struggle against evil.
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Mr. Cs Chess AnalogyLet us imagine that creation, as we have it,
is a kind of game of chess (game is obviously too light a word but
is needed for the analogy).God is the greatest ever player, whilst
Evil is very good, but not as good.God will inevitably win the
game, but at a cost; pieces will be lost in the process of winning;
a knight here, a pawn there=evil!We have three responses to the
game:Stand back and just watchWork for EvilParticipate on Gods
behalf
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Criticisms
Can we accept?:The Actual life of most of mankind has being
cramped with back-breaking work, exposed to deadly or debilitating
disease, prey to wars and famines... Barbara Ward.Can we
accept?:... for each one such marvellous human being, perhaps tens
of thousands of others have existed... their lives... spent in a
desperate and often degrading struggle to survive.Third-world
poverty sickness and death and disaster verses Einstein et alCan we
accept?:Mass suffering that God might create an elite?In order and
to create good, there must be the possibility of creating evil i e
human evil. Suffering/evil does not occur in order that there be an
elite.
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Hick:... the starving and the oppressed, the victims of
Auschwitz, the human wrecks who are irreparably brain damaged. can
hardly be expected to share the process God's point of view or to
regard such a God as worthy of their worship and praise.
It would help if process theodicy could affirm the eventual
completion of the creative process in a future heavenly fulfilment
in which all are eventually to participate. The tragedy of human
life would not then be ultimate.
Griffin:While not excluding life after death, we cannot draw
from this possibility the hope of a limitless final good to justify
all evil.
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A Process Thought Story from Mr. C:Concentration camp and
prisoners watch the execution/hanging of several prisoners.They
walk away into their hut and one prisoner says to another: Where is
God now?The other looks back at the dead and says: There is
God.
A God who suffers with us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1