EVIL AND SUFFERING – PRESENTATION by Revd Jan van der Lely
(Summary of slides)

Evil and Suffering
Why do they exist?
A theodicy attempts to justify God in the face of evil.

The problem of evil and suffering

1. God exists and created the universe from nothing;

2. God is omniscient so he knows suffering happens;

3. God is omnipotent so he is able to stop it;

4. God is benevolent so he wants to prevent suffering;

5. Suffering does exist.

6. Hume said therefore God cannot exist (or else one of the other statements must be untrue).

   
   

   
   

Augustine’s theodicy (354-430 AD) as developed by Aquinas (1225-1274)

1. God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent

2. God created a perfect world

3. Cf Genesis 1: ‘and God saw that it was good’.
   

Where does evil come from?

1. If God originated everything…what about evil?

2. Aquinas defined evil as an ABSENCE OF GOOD, not an independent substance, so God didn’t create it
   

Absence of good

1. Evil is a privation of good.

2. If a person falls short of what it is to be a fully human being, they are evil to the extent that they fall short of their potential.

3. To be evil is to fall short of perfection.

4. Perfection means what it is to be a certain thing (ie its different for agoat, a rabbit or a human).
   

1. Pure evil is not possible. Something cannot fall 100% below its potential – or it would not exist at all.

2. Therefore Satan is not pure evil. He is good in that he exists (existence is a good) but evil in falling short of the nature God wanted for him (as an angel).
   
   

God

1. God cannot be evil as he cannot fall short of God’s perfection; by definition God is good.

2. God is indirectly the cause of evil as God causes all that exists (and existence is a good).

3. Evil cannot exist without the good from which it falls short.
   

Freewill

1. Part of human nature as created by God is freedom, including freedom to fall short

2. Angels and humans brought evil about by abuse of free will

3. Satan was a fallen angel who rebelled against God, refusing to worship him (Islam has a similar story about Shaytan – except he refused to bow down before Adam) based on Ezek 28, Isaiah 14.

4. Satan then led humans astray at the ‘Fall’
   

What about natural evil?

1. Natural evil – eg natural disasters - results from the breakdown of the natural order following moral evil.

2. ‘thorns and thistles it will bear for you’ Gen 3

3. ‘The whole creation has been groaning in travail until now…’ Romans 8.22
   

Innocent suffering

1. Everyone was present in Adam, so everyone deserves to suffer – ‘original sin’

2. Cf Paul’s concept ‘in Adam all die’ 1 Cor 15.22

3. God’s mercy means some will be forgiven and go to heaven.

Criticism of Augustine

1. Logical problem: Evil cannot come out of perfection. The ‘absence’ argument is unconvincing.

2. When we encounter evil it doesn’t feel like an ‘absence’.

3. How can the perfect God not fill everything that he made?

Scientific problem

1. It is not fair for us to suffer, as we were NOT all in Adam.

2. Original sin condemns us all before we even start life; there would be no such thing as ‘innocence’ even in a newborn.

3. Science tells us we were not created in perfection; we are part of a continuous long and slow process of evolution which is unfinished.

Natural ‘disasters’

1. Natural evils are only evil from the human perspective eg volcanoes, earthquakes, tidal waves etc are part of the planet doing what it is supposed to do.

2. From the human perspective they are evil as they destroy humans.

3. The lion that eats the lamb is being a good lion, fulfilling its lion nature.

Moral problem

1. The existence of Hell suggests that evil was part of God’s plan.

2. God is omniscient; he knew the world would go wrong, but he created it anyway. If he accepted that, he is unfair to send some to heaven and some to hell.

Irenaeus’ theodicy
(130-202 AD)
as developed by John Hick today

1. God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent

2. He did NOT make a perfect world; true goodness has to be developed

3. ‘Let us make mankind in our image, according to our likeness’ Gen 1.26.

4. Irenaeus thought this was two stages of creation: image then likeness.

5. We are in God’s image as moral and spiritual beings; we have yet to become like God.
   

1. True goodness requires freewill, which includes the potential for evil

2. Actual evil enables us to develop: the world is a place of ‘soul making’, not a paradise. We only grow through struggle.

3. Perfection is not in the past but in the future.

1. The ‘Fall’ for Irenaeus happens now when we use free choice to act like animals not like spiritual beings.

2. If we use free choice to turn to God we move towards his likeness.

3. Everyone will be rewarded in heaven.
   

Epistemic distance (or: how to impress your friends with your new vocabulary)

1. To be really free, we must be at a distance from God; not geographically but cognitively.

2. Ie it is not obvious that God exists – God is not self-evident. The world can be explained in other ways.

3. If God were obvious we could not believe and love God by a free response.

4. This would take away the purpose of life according to Irenaeus. We would not be independent autonomous persons.
   

Criticisms of Irenaeus

1. It’s unfair for everyone to go to heaven; there would be no point obeying God

2. It doesn’t explain why suffering is so excessive, nor pointless evil, which benefits no-one

3. Would an omnibenevolent God make anyone suffer for any reason?
   

The freewill defence

1. Develops Irenaeus’ point about freewill

2. Could God have created humans who would freely always choose to obey him ?

3. If God could, the freewill defence fails

4. If he couldn’t, is he omnipotent?

5. If the freewill defence fails, so do the theodicies of Augustine and Irenaeus.

Process Theology

1. Developed by David Griffin

2. God is loving but NOT omnipotent

3. God was creator but just set things off at the beginning

4. God cannot prevent evil as the world is out of his control

5. God suffers along with his creation.

Criticism of Process Theology

1. It is not a theodicy - it doesn’t justify God

2. God should not have started evolution if he couldn’t control the process 

3. It is not acceptable to come up with a new definition of God in order to explain evil and suffering.

Conclusions

1. No theodicy entirely works

2. So does evil disprove God?

3. For an atheist, the existence of evil strengthens their views.

4. For a believer, the theodicies will seem more convincing - eg, God is a loving parent who sometimes has to punish his children; life is a test of faith; we are only human and cannot understand the mind of God (cf Job in the Bible).

5. The ‘mystery’ theory is unanswerable; by definition, the divine is utterly other than the human, so our brains cannot contain it.

John Hick

• Modern theologian John Hick reaches this conclusion in ‘Evil and the God of love’;
  
  Suffering remains unjust and inexplicable, haphazard and cruelly excessive.  The mystery of dysteleological suffering is a real mystery, impenetrable to the rationalizing human mind.’

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