Why evil and suffering

Likewise, if God is all powerful and knowing but not all good, then perhaps he has a mean streak. However, if God is both good and powerful, then why does evil exist? Strictly speaking, a logical defense is not making claims about how God actually works as much as showing that the atheistic charges can be meet.

Having said this, the insights of the defenders and those of the theodicists often overlap, and the term "theodicy" is often used to describe defenses as well.

The Logical Problem of Evil: The logical problem of evil is a deductive one. Namely, given the above problem God is loving, all powerful and all knowing, yet evil exists , is it rational to believe in the existence of God?

Theists will agree with the first two claims but call into question the third by qualifying it: "A good being will always eliminate all the evil that it can unless it has good reason to allow that evil. The Evidential Problem of Evil : The evidential problem admits that God and the existence of evil are not logically incompatible, yet considers if the amount or kinds of evil in the world count as probable evidence against the existence of God. Often, the existential problem turns from asking why God allow such-and-such an evil to what can humans made in the image of God do to alleviate or make manageable suffering and evil.

Likewise, the focus turns more to how believers should respond to God while suffering. The Free Will Model : God wanted us to freely love him, which meant allowing for the possibility that we might choose against him.

And we have--all of us since Adam and Eve. This is especially true of relationships involving love: such must be entered into freely. Evil is an unfortunate result of human free will. If God were to intervene at every point of our wrongdoing, our free will would be compromised.

So evil in the world is not entirely God's fault; however, this position does not claim that God is not responsible in any way for evil. If you have the power to intervene and do not, that implies choices. The Soul Making Model : We are incomplete souls in need of improvement and growth.

Notice that this model also assumes free-will. Evil is a necessary condition for a world in which we overcome obstacles and struggles in order to develop. This model points out that God often allows the condition of suffering to improve us. We become purified through life's trials. Some versions of this suggest that our purification and growth will continue in the afterlife.

The Great Design Argumen t: This suggests that God designed the world in such a way that it included the possibility of evil, but that if rightly perceived, we would understand that all of it works together for a greater good. Namely, a world with free will and the possibility of soul making is a better world than one with only automatons.

The ease with which Plantinga undermined that formulation of the problem suggests that the logical formulation did not adequately capture the difficult and perplexing issue concerning God and evil that has been so hotly debated by philosophers and theologians. In fact, this is precisely the message that many philosophers took away from the debate between Plantinga and the defenders of the logical problem of evil. They reasoned that there must be more to the problem of evil than what is captured in the logical formulation of the problem.

It is now widely agreed that this intuition is correct. Responding to this formulation of the problem requires much more than simply describing a logically possible scenario in which God and evil co-exist. It has not, however, been the only such response. Hick rejects the traditional view of the Fall, which pictures humans as being created in a finitely perfect and finished state from which they disastrously fell away.

Instead, Hick claims that human beings are unfinished and in the midst of being made all that God intended them to be. A world full of suffering, trials and temptations is more conducive to the process of soul-making than a world full of constant pleasure and the complete absence of pain.

Hick , pp. The value-judgment that is implicitly being invoked here is that one who has attained to goodness by meeting and eventually mastering temptations, and thus by rightly making responsible choices in concrete situations, is good in a richer and more valuable sense than would be one created ab initio in a state either of innocence or of virtue….

I suggest, then, that it is an ethically reasonable judgment… that human goodness slowly built up through personal histories of moral effort has a value in the eyes of the Creator which justifies even the long travail of the soul-making process. Eleonore Stump offers another response to the problem of evil that brings a range of distinctively Christian theological commitments to bear on the issue. She writes,. It tends to humble him, show him his frailty, make him reflect on the transience of temporal goods, and turn his affections towards other-worldly things, away from the things of this world.

No amount of moral or natural evil, of course, can guarantee that a man will [place his faith in God]…. But evil of this sort is the best hope, I think, and maybe the only effective means, for bringing men to such a state.

Stump , p. Stump claims that, although the sin of Adam—and not any act of God—first brought moral and natural evil into this world, God providentially uses both kinds of evil in order to bring about the greatest good that a fallen, sinful human being can experience: a repaired will and eternal union with God. The responses of both Hick and Stump are intended to cover not only the logical problem of evil but also any other formulation of the problem as well.

Regardless of the details of these alternatives, the fact remains that all they need to do in order to rebut the logical problem of evil is to describe a logically possible way that God and evil can co-exist. A variety of morally sufficient reasons can be proposed as possible explanations of why a perfect God might allow evil and suffering to exist.

Because the suggestions of Hick and Stump are clearly logically possible, they, too, succeed in undermining the logical problem of evil. One point of conflict concerns the possibility of human free will in heaven. Plantinga claims that if someone is incapable of doing evil, that person cannot have morally significant free will. He also maintains that part of what makes us the creatures we are is that we possess morally significant freedom.

If that freedom were to be taken away, we might very well cease to be the creatures we are. However, consider the sort of freedom enjoyed by the redeemed in heaven. According to classical theism, believers in heaven will somehow be changed so that they will no longer commit any sins. It is not that they will contingently always do what is right and contingently always avoid what is wrong. They will somehow no longer be capable of doing wrong.

In other words, their good behavior will be necessary rather than contingent. It seems that God could have actualized whatever greater goods are made possible by the existence of persons without allowing horrible instances of evil and suffering to exist in this world. However, they reveal that some of the central claims of his defense conflict with other important theistic doctrines.

Although Plantinga claimed that his Free Will Defense offered merely possible and not necessarily actual reasons God might have for allowing evil and suffering, it may be difficult for other theists to embrace his defense if it runs contrary to what theism says is actually the case in heaven. God, it seems, is incapable of doing anything wrong.

Thus, it does not appear that, with respect to any choice of morally good and morally bad options, God is free to choose a bad option. He seems constitutionally incapable of choosing or even wanting to do what is wrong. They could never be praiseworthy. That certainly runs contrary to central doctrines of theism.

If, as theists must surely maintain, God does possess morally significant freedom, then perhaps this sort of freedom does not preclude an inability to choose what is wrong. But if it is possible for God to possess morally significant freedom and for him to be unable to do wrong, then W 3 once again appears to be possible after all.

Originally, Plantinga claimed that W 3 is not a logically possible world because the description of that world is logically inconsistent. If W 3 is possible, then the complaint lodged by Flew and Mackie above that God could and therefore should have created a world full of creatures who always did what is right is not answered.

There may be ways for Plantinga to resolve the difficulties sketched above, so that the Free Will Defense can be shown to be compatible with theistic doctrines about heaven and divine freedom. As it stands, however, some important challenges to the Free Will Defense remain unanswered. James R. Logical Problem of Evil The existence of evil and suffering in our world seems to pose a serious challenge to belief in the existence of a perfect God. Introducing the Problem Journalist and best-selling author Lee Strobel commissioned George Barna, the public-opinion pollster, to conduct a nationwide survey.

McCloskey , p. Mackie and McCloskey can be understood as claiming that it is impossible for all of the following statements to be true at the same time: 1 God is omnipotent that is, all-powerful.

They reason as follows: 6 If God is omnipotent, he would be able to prevent all of the evil and suffering in the world. Atheologians claim that, if we reflect upon 6 through 8 in light of the fact of evil and suffering in our world, we should be led to the following conclusions: 9 If God knows about all of the evil and suffering in the world, knows how to eliminate or prevent it, is powerful enough to prevent it, and yet does not prevent it, he must not be perfectly good. From 9 through 11 we can infer: 12 If evil and suffering exist, then God is either not omnipotent, not omniscient, or not perfectly good.

Since evil and suffering obviously do exist, we get: 13 God is either not omnipotent, not omniscient, or not perfectly good. Logical Consistency Theists who want to rebut the logical problem of evil need to find a way to show that 1 through 4 —perhaps despite initial appearances—are consistent after all. In other words, 15 A set of statements is logically consistent if and only if it is possible for all of them to be true at the same time.

In other words, 16 It is not possible for God and evil to co-exist. Logical Consistency and the Logical Problem of Evil How might a theist go about demonstrating that 16 is false?

An implicit assumption behind this part of the debate over the logical problem of evil is the following: 18 It is not morally permissible for God to allow evil and suffering to occur unless he has a morally sufficient reason for doing so. If 19 and 20 are true, then the God of orthodox theism does not exist. W 1 : a God creates persons with morally significant free will; b God does not causally determine people in every situation to choose what is right and to avoid what is wrong; and c There is evil and suffering in W 1.

W 2 : a God does not create persons with morally significant free will; b God causally determines people in every situation to choose what is right and to avoid what is wrong; and c There is no evil or suffering in W 2. W 3 : a God creates persons with morally significant free will; b God causally determines people in every situation to choose what is right and to avoid what is wrong; and c There is no evil or suffering in W 3.

W 4 : a God creates persons with morally significant free will; b God does not causally determine people in every situation to choose what is right and to avoid what is wrong; and c There is no evil or suffering in W 4.

Plantinga concurs. He writes, A world containing creatures who are sometimes significantly free and freely perform more good than evil actions is more valuable, all else being equal, than a world containing no free creatures at all. Divine Omnipotence and the Free Will Defense Some scholars maintain that Plantinga has rejected the idea of an omnipotent God because he claims there are some things God cannot do—namely, logically impossible things.

According to Edward Madden and Peter Hare , p. Moral evil, they continue, includes both moral wrong-doing such as lying, cheating, stealing, torturing, and murdering and character defects like greed, deceit, cruelty, wantonness, cowardice, and selfishness.

In the description of the sixth day of creation God says to Adam and Eve, I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. Recall that the logical problem of evil can be summarized as the following claim: 16 It is not possible for God and evil to co-exist. When someone claims 40 Situation x is impossible, what is the least that you would have to prove in order to show that 40 is false?

The claim 41 Situation x is possible is the contradictory of It was, after all, Mackie himself who characterized the problem of evil as one of logical inconsistency: Here it can be shown, not that religious beliefs lack rational support, but that they are positively irrational, that several parts of the essential theological doctrine are inconsistent with one another.

Problems with the Free Will Defense A. References and Further Reading a. References Clark, Kelly James. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Flew, Anthony. New Essays in Philosophical Theology. New York: Macmillan. Hick, John. Evil and the God of Love , revised ed. On Being a Christian , trans. Edward Quinn. Garden City, New York: Doubleday. Kushner, Harold S. New York: Schocken Books. Lewis, C.

Mere Christianity. Mackie, J. The Miracle of Theism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. One day, in the presence of a man who was born blind, the disciples asked Jesus: « Who sinned, this man or his parents?

Whatever has to be said about the origin and nature of evil, however serious its meaning for us, one thing is certain: in Jesus Christ, God destroyed evil and its empire. So Christians must continue the struggle of the Gospel by following Jesus, who healed the sick and forgave sins. The life of Jesus motivates Christians, nourishes their hope and gives meaning to their lives, even as they must continually confront the absurdity of evil.

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