Please enable JavaScript.

Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.

The Problem of Evil and Suffering (Hicks soul making theodicy (What is it…

- - - - Mackie proposes the idea of a first-order good as experiancing a life of either happiness or pain, such as enjoying a nice meal or getting stung by a bee -it is at the baisc level of human experiance. Second-order goods are more valuble as we can respond to these life experiances in different ways. It exits to maximise first-order good and minimise first-order evil (likewise, second-order evil maximises first-order evil).
        
        How Mackie uses this to disproove God
        
        Mackie said that it is logically impossible for someone to freely choose good at every point of choice. Because God didn't make people have true free choice and always choose, God must either lack power, love or simply doesn't exist. God didn't make humans that would only make free, good choices.
        
        How Plantinga uses this to prove Gods existence through the use of 'morally sufficient reasons'.
        
        :world_map:In the context of moral evil Platigna gives 3 possible worlds. One world as it is with 'morally significant free will' (one with evil and suffering ebcuase there is no causal determination from God), another without 'morally significant free will' but with God's cuasual determination so that people would always choose good and there is no evil. And finally, a world with both 'morally significant free will' and God's causal determination which would make people choose good meaning that there would be no evil.
        
        Plantinga believes that the first and second worlds are logically possible, but the second would make us into robots. The third world is logically impossible as the two cannot coniside. The libertarian understanding of free will is incompatible with causul determinism. This means that Mackie's argument fails.
        
        In the context of Natural evil Platigna states taht this is our punsihemn for teh Fall and so it is logically possibel for God to create/ allow natural evil because of human sin. This is logically possible.
        
        Plantinga uses libertarianism (Humans have free will so that they can be morally responsible for their actions) in his first argument suggests that God did this for the greater good, so that He could create 'persons with free will with whom he could have relationships and who are able to love one another and do good deeds.
        
        God creates people with morally significant free will.
        
        God does not causally determine people in every situation.
        
        There is evil and suffering.
    - - Second century. St Ireneus believed that humans did not 'fall' from perfection, but where created imperfect which would grant the capacity to become 'children of God'. Gen 1:26
    - - Weaknessess
        
        Even if Plantinga's defence is logically true, it does not mean that it is true. Such as Adam and Eve for natural evil. It is also dependant on libertarian accounts, and this account of free will can only be assumed, not proved. It is not possible to prove that our actions are due to free will.
        
        Compatibilists believe that determanism and free will are compatible. :ice_cream:. determinists deny this.
        
        There is no convincin repsonse to the evidential problem of evil. God must have known the full extent of human evil, so why did he bother to create such a universe. Nor is there to natural evil.
        
        Natual evil brings about second order moral goods, such as love and compassion.
      - Strengths
        
        Plantinga is corect in rejecting Mackies concept that God could have created a world where free will is possible, but that God could have controlled humans to only make good decisions. The world w/ free creatures is better than a world without them. Some humans value the risk of pain, bunjee jumping.
- - - - Evil was not initially part of creation. Evil is not a substance but the absence of good (privatio boni), that arises from the voluntary actions or the wrong moral choices of free and rational beings. Creation was in fact meant to be good to reflect the goodness of the creator, and evil was initially created when finitkey perfet angel stopped doing good, or when Adam turned away from God. Augustine wrote in Enchiridion that "the cuase of evil is the defection of the will of a being who is mutably good from the Good which is immutable".
      - Augustine uses the free will defence. Humans are contingent beings that are 'mutable' (changeable) because we are created out of nothing. Therefore, humans have the possibility of becoming evil. Free will must contain the possibility of turning away from God -that's what free will is all about!
      - Evil is privative and parasitic God couldn't have created evil as it is the absence of good (privative).Aquinas wrote in Enchiridion "There can be no evil where there is no good and "unless they are parasitic on something good, they are nothing at all"
      - Evil is caused by Gods creatures, not God. Aquinas acknowledges sin as the wilful turning of oneself from the highest good (God), to some lesser good. This can happen when a self seeks to replace God in terms of authority. Aquinas calls this 'self-creation evil'. Humans are to blame because they where seminal present in the loins of Adam.
    - - Augustine contradicts religious belief. He does not give a satisfying explanation of human free will. Augustine claims that humans have 'finite perfection'. But because the first human beings did sin, we question weather they actually were perfect. This conflicts scripture. Another point is that Augustine contradicts his belief in predestination. If God has predestined that some humans will be saved, this means that the rest will be damned. If God knew this and still proceeded with creation then God is responsible for evil. Mackie calls this omniscience (because God is all knowing/ powerful he takes responsibility for everything that takes place.
        
        In defence some people state that God has foreknowledge of who will recieve salvation, and only perdestines on the baisi of his foreknowldge. This can also be used to defend the argument taht God knew that Adam would sin when He created him, but Augitsine would reply that God foresaw a greater good of redeption and salvation.
      - Why would God create imperfect creatures? Each creature has its own variations which means they compete (eg race), which could mean that ecah createure is imperfect in some way.
        
        Augustine proposes the principil of plentitude (from Greek philospher Plotinus). This states taht all possible forms of existance should exist. Some creatures are also imperfect due to the ehirtvhy of beings. Another response is that the world is created to be an appropiate ennviornment for humans as moral beings. People claim that Aquinas is insensitive to animal pain.
- - - - Griffin rejects the idea that God create the world form nothing. Griffin insists that this mesienterprentation is due to a mistranslation of the Bible from Hebrew to Greek. "The earth was without form and void" implies that God called the universe into exsitance from nothing. However, "The earth being without form and void" implies that God created order from chaos. This contradict traditional beliufes that God is omnipotent becuase of cretatio ex nihilo (creation out of nothing), or transcendent as he as described as being bound to the universe. Furthernore the world seems to be uncreated and "eternal".