PoEE

Question 1

A defence to God

Answer 1

Only intended as a logically possible explanation as to why God permits evil.

It explains a way in which God’s existence might be compatible with the existence of evil.

Question 2

Theodicy for God

Answer 2

A theodicy is intended to be a plausible or reasonable explanation as to why God permits evil.

Question 3

The logical problem of evil

Answer 3

P1: If God exists then God is omnibenevolent and so would be opposed to evil and would eliminate evil as far as it could.

P2: If God exists, then God is omnipotent and so would be able to eliminate evil

P3: If God exists then God is omniscient and so would know that evil exists and/or that it is about to come into existence.

C1: Therefore, if God exists then evil would not exist

P4: But evil exists.

C2: Therefore, God does not exist.

Question 4

The “free will” defence

Answer 4

Evil is the result of the free will of human beings.

God creates creatures with free will because free will is so morally valuable that it is worth giving no matter how much evil it might lead to.

Thus God has done the morally right thing in giving us free will, and we are to blame for the existence of evil.

This is how God can be omnibenevolent even though evil exists.

Question 5

Counter response to free will defence

Answer 5

P1)There is a possible world where all free choices are good

P2) For any possible world, an omnipotent God could have created it

P3) A world where there is free will and no evil is morally better than a world where there is free will and evil and so should be preferred by a wholly good God.

C1) Therefore, God’s existence is logically incompatible with the existence of evil

Question 6

Plantinga’s response: The world Mackie describes might not be a possible world

Answer 6

Every free person created by God would misuse their free will on at least one occasion, no matter which world they were placed in.

This may be highly implausible, or even downright false – but it is logically possible.

And if (A) is possible, then so is the following proposition: (B) It was not within God’s power to create a world containing moral good but no moral evil.

Question 7

Counter response to plantingas response

Answer 7

If a theist who uses the Free Will Defence claims that there cannot be morally significant freedom AND a guarantee of all choices being morally good, then they will struggle to explain what heaven is.

Heaven is meant to be a ‘place’ where God’s creatures freely always do good for eternity and this is in some way ‘guaranteed’

If this is possible in heaven, then why couldn’t this world exist? It is either impossible, and so then heaven is impossible; or it is possible, in which case God could have made earth like this.

Question 8

Response: It is a possible world, but not one that God can guarantee

Answer 8

it is possible for all free choices by all human beings to be good choice but God can’t ensure that this will happen

Question 9

Counter response to God can’t guarantee humans will make only good decisions

Answer 9

Now God doesn’t know what will happen, this means he can’t be omniscient.

Question 10

Counter-response (2) of the LPoE

Answer 10

FW is not a possible theistic explanation of evil since it cannot possibly explain natural evil

Question 11

Evidential problem of evil

Answer 11

P1: If God exists then God is omnibenevolent.

P2: If an omnibenevolent being exists, then any evil that exists must exist for a morally good reason.

P3: We do not know of any morally good reason that would justify the existence of certain kinds of evil events that exist.

P4: If we do not know of any morally good reason for many evil events, then there probably isn’t a morally good reason for at least some of these events.

C1: Therefore, for at least some evil events, there probably isn’t a morally good reason that would justify them.

C2: Therefore, God probably doesn’t exist.

Question 12

The “soul-making theodicy”

Answer 12

There’s a plausible explanation of evil which is compatible with theism: evil is required for moral/ spiritual development

God creates evil because this chance for moral development is so morally valuable that it is worth the existence of the evil that enables it.

Thus God has done the morally right thing in creating evil.

This is how God can be omnibenevolent even though evil exists.

Question 13

Counter response to the soul making theodicy

Answer 13

The “soul-making” theodicy doesn’t satisfactorily account for all suffering

1.Suffering is not fairly distributed

2.Some suffering occurs without any soul-development: e.g. suffering of animals, young children, those that die young

Question 14

Hick’s response to ‘The “soul-making” theodicy doesn’t satisfactorily account for all suffering’

Answer 14

1.It is important that we cannot explain all suffering, since this means that it is not obvious that there is a God, and therefore makes our faith in God more meaningful. This is what he meant by the idea that God is deliberately “hidden” from us

2.He agrees that some evil seems dysteleological (i.e. pointless) but it will ultimately be justified since the soul-making process continues after death and all people will be reconciled with God eventually. This means that we cannot make judgements just on the basis of what we observe on earth.

Question 15

Counter response to Hick’s response

Answer 15

not only is it “obvious to us that evil occurs far in excess of what an omnipotent being would have to permit for soul-making” it is also obvious that there is more evil than God would actually need there to be in order to stay “hidden” from us.

In other words, even if God was aiming to stay hidden, He still could have made a world with less evil than there currently is.

In relation to point B above, this doesn’t seem to explain animal suffering given that animals don’t (for most thesists) have souls.

Question 16

Sceptical theism

Answer 16

the fact that we think evil can’t be (or is not) morally justified is not a good reason to conclude that it actually is not.

Question 17

Issues with sceptical theism

Answer 17

(1) Implications for the Divine-Human Relationship

(2) Implications for Moral Living