Surin's Theodicy As A Problem Of Evil

“It is enough to have understood only that God, the Creator of all things in nature, also governs all things, directing them to good. And, since He carefully preserves everything which He made in his own likeness, He excludes by fatal necessity all evil from the bounds of his state. Therefore, if you fix your attention to Providence as the governor of all things, you will find that the evil which is thought to abound in the world is really nonexistent.” Book 4; Prose 6

The notion of God redeeming evil and or suffering is the motivation behind this concept. God allows evil so that we as humans receive a moral message from the evil/suffering that occurs in our lives. Good cannot exist without evil and vice versa. Good and Evil have become interdependent one each other. If God stands for what is all good and the Devil stands for all that is evil, together unwilling working together but against each other at the same time. These forces can’t be controlled by humans. So, if God stands for all things good, why does he allow suffering? To test us? To keep the balance? To encourage us? Why not all the above? No one knows for sure but one can argue that all those points can be attributed to the allowance of evil. How else would we learn the importance of have the forces fighting for you and against

There is a problem of evil because many believe that if God did exist there would not be evil present in the world because of his power and strength. The textbook presented two specific types of evil which include natural evil and moral evil. Natural evil is associated with natural disasters while moral disasters are associated with adversity cause by another individual purposely. These two types of evil negatively impact a number of people everyday, and it causes some of God’s supporters to question why God would allow it to happen. John Chaffee states that this causes individuals to believe that “God does not exist, at least as a personal Creator involved in human affairs. God is not all-powerful and so is unable to

One of the oldest dilemmas in philosophy is also one of the greatest threats to Christian theology. The problem of evil simultaneously perplexes the world’s greatest minds and yet remains palpably close to the hearts of the most common people. If God is good, then why is there evil? The following essay describes the problem of evil in relation to God, examines Christian responses to the problem, and concludes the existence of God and the existence of evil are fully compatible.

The problem of evil is a highly debated topic among religious and non religious people. The large controversy stems from the Hebrew-Christian definition of an all knowing, all powerful creator known as God, and the presence of evil among mankind in the world, among God’s products of creation. Fyodor Dostoevsky is a philosopher who wrote the piece, Why Is There Evil? This piece explores a man named Ivan’s view on why he can’t fully except God and his world. John Hick wrote a piece named There Is A Reason Why God Allows Evil. Hicks view opposes/ can be seen as a response to Dostoevsky’s, in explaining why God has allowed

“Either we must say that God is not wholly good, and that he permits or is even the author of evil. Or we must say that God is not omnipotent, and although he is wholly good and would prevent evil if he could, he is powerless to stop it.” (Fitzgerald 340).

John Hick discusses in his essay The Problem of Evil, the objections to the belief in the existence of God is the presence of evil in the world. He begins by posing the traditional challenge to theism in the form of the dilemma: That if God was perfectly loving, he must wish to abolish evil, and being all powerful, is able to perfectly do so as he will its. He then proceeds to present some views regarding this issue, giving insights from three point of views, that of contemporary Christian Science, the Boston Personalist school, and the theologian Augustine. The first opinion takes evil as an illusion, as a construct of the human mind. The second confers upon God finity, God as a struggling ruler,

Does the problem of evil pose a challenge for theists and the existence of God? The problem of evil argues that there is so much suffering in the world that an all-good and all powerful God would not allow such suffering to exist. Therefore, a God with those characteristics does not exist. Unless the suffering is necessary for an adequate reason. Some people argue that suffering is necessary for there to be good and for us to able to understand what good is. In this paper, I will argue that suffering does not need to exist in order for good to exist, because the existence of good does not depend on suffering. I will then argue that good and suffering are not logical opposites. Finally, I will conclude that since evil is not justified, then the God that we defined does not exist.

The age old question that is still being debated. In this essay I hope to answer a few of the big questions such as: How can a good God allow suffering? Why does evil exist? Is God like many have attributed to Him, a watchmaker, who winds us up and lets it go until it runs out? How could God allow the Holocaust? The theological field of inquiry called “theodicy”, which investigates the basic question: If God is all powerful (omnipotent), all knowing (omniscient), and all-good, (omni-benevolent) how can evil and injustice exist? Since reading Elie Wiesel’s soul shattering Night, this topic seemed fitting. I will provide rational and logical arguments as to why these things occur and how God can still be who He says He is. I will be stating dispassionately the critics of a free-will defense such as J.L Mackie and B.C Johnson, and then I will proceed to offer my responses. After having read Wiesel’s account, my heart only broke more and my mind was spinning with the question itself of How could God allow this? However, we can be mad at God for the Holocaust or for other human tragedies, but this is like a teenager who begs you to let him drive a car - promising to be responsible -, gets drunk, crashes in to a telephone pole, and then blames you for giving him the keys. If we agree that humanity must have free will, we must accept the consequences of its decisions. As Elie Wiesel wrote, “After the Holocaust I did not loose faith in God. I lost faith in mankind.”

This is considered a theodicy problem, and there are hundreds of different definitions, thoughts, and responses to this question. Our world has suffered great tragedies, just a few are the mass shootings at schools of children, the 9/11 attack on our nation, the multiple World Wars over the centuries. One of the problems that is argues over why God would allow these things to happen and lives be taken in such horrendous ways. That’s where the theodicy problem starts which defines as “a defense of God’s goodness and omnipotence in view of the existence of evil” (Webster, 1828).

Theodicy attempts to explain why evil and suffering persists in the world. There are multiple theodicies ranging, from Augustine’s free will defense to Maimonides rejection of human suffering altogether as a state of mind. However, a simpler and perhaps easier stance to hold is that, evil and suffering exist and that there is no God that responsible for it, since no God exists. Christopher Hitchens would use Occam’s razor and conclude that his answer is most likely to be correct due to its simplicity (Hitchens 87). Theodicies while often eloquent, are often long-winded, complex and always leave some questions unanswered. The Irenaean theodicy as outlined by John Hick explains that suffering experienced by humanity is a way that humanity is molded and shaped towards perfection (Hick 44). The Irenaean theodicy fails at explaining great calamities and assumes too optimistically that humanity can learn from their suffering. In fact, great suffering is perhaps even more capable of destroying character than building it. In times of disaster, desperation sets in and humans act more selfishly, causing looting and crime to skyrocket. In the interest of national security, we have deployed nuclear weapons and napalm and employed torture and extrajudicial executions of US citizens. Sometimes in response to human evil we

I have been asked hundreds of times in my life why God allows tragedy and suffering. I have to confess that I really do not know the answer totally, even to my own satisfaction. I have to accept, by faith, that God is sovereign, and He’s a God of love and mercy and compassion in the midst of suffering. The Bible says that God is not the author of evil. It speaks of evil as a “mystery.” In 2 Thessalonians 2:7 it talks about the mystery of iniquity. The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah said, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” He asked that question, “Who can understand it?” And that’s one reason we each need God in our lives.

William Rowe defines gratuitous evil as an instance of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.(Rowe 335) In a world with so much evil it raises the questions If God is all powerful, all knowing and all good, how can he allow bad things to happen to good people? Can God even exist in a world with so such gratuitous evil? These are questions that has afflicted humanity for a very long time and has been the question to engross theologians for centuries. The existence of evil has been the most influential and powerful reason to disprove the existence of God. It is believed among many theist that God is the creator and caretaker

Does everything happen for a reason? Better question does everything that happens to one person has a reason for happening? Was this meant for someone to learn something out of this situation? Those are questions asked every day by millions of people. People, on a regular basis, are left in thin air trying to figure out why things happen to them, but one just has to realize that everything is in God’s plan. One has to realize there is a devil that is working on destroying people’s lives, especially if they are God’s children. There are many sources telling readers they’re not the only one to go through a difficult time that other people have bigger problems; therefore, the author gives the reader scriptures from the

LEIBNIZ’S CONCEPTION OF THE PROBLEM OF EVIL BY OKOJIE E. PETER epo4escriva@yahoo.com MAY 2013 INTRODUCTION For many centuries, philosophers have been discussing evil, how it exists in the world, and how this relates to God. The discussion on evil and its relations to us is not an easy one though. It is commonly called the problem of evil. The problem of evil in contemporary philosophy is generally regarded as an argument for atheism. The atheist contends that God and evil are incompatible, and given that evil clearly exists, God cannot exist. The problem is generally used to disprove God’s existence by showing an inconsistency between an all-powerful, all-good, and all-knowing God; and the existence of evil. Philosophers over the centuries