Philosophy

Philosophy Study Guide

hurricanes, tornadoes, disease, starvation, and other aspects of the natural order that end up destroying lives). ● Moral evil: The pain and suffering and death inflicted by humans on humans through evil actions (murder, rape, physical abuse, theft, psychological torture, child abuse, and warfare). Thinkers who have tried to construct alternative metaphysical/theological frameworks that will reconcile the existence of God with the existence of evil in the universe have created a field of inquiry called theodicy. Theodicy means the justification of God’s goodness in the face of the fact of evil. Another definition is that it is a defense of the justice or goodness of God in the face of doubts or objections arising from the phenomena of evil in the world. There are many thinkers who believe that these efforts to rescue the existence of God from the threat posed by evil in the universe are destined to fail which is the stand that the philosopher J.L. Mackie takes in his writings Evil Shows That There Is No God . He states the problem with evil is a problem only for someone who believes that there is a God who is both invincible and wholly good. He believes there is an adequate solution that once the problem is stated clearly it can be solved stating there is a number of solutions to the problem of evil and some of these have been adopted. Some have said that evil is an illusion, while others believe that God is not invincible. Still, others have said that evil is a positive sense, but each gives an adequate solution to the problem of evil in the sense that if you accept it this problem does not arise for you, though you may have other problems to face. There are also fallacious solutions such as good cannot exist without evil or evil is necessary as a counterpart to good; evil is necessary as a means to good; and the universe is better with some evil in it than it could be if there was no evil. These fallacious solutions usually start from the assumption that the evil whose existence gives rise to the problem of evil is primarily what is called physical evil, that is to say pain. The most important proposed solution is that evil is due to human free will. Evil is not ascribed to God at all but to the independent actions of human beings, supposed to be endowed by God with freedom of the will and that God cannot be held responsible for it. This all leads to his last thought of Paradox of Omnipotence, which asks the question “Can an omnipotent being make things which he cannot subsequently control?” This also leads to the question “Can an omnipotent being make rules which then bind himself?” This leads to the belief that an invincible God creates the rules of logic or casual laws and is then bound by them suggesting that God’s omnipotence must be in any case restricted in one way or another, that unqualified omnipotence cannot ascribe to any being that continues through time. 3.9 John Hick: Philosophy of Religion John Hick presents his own approach to the complex and disturbing issue of evil in his writing from Philosophy of Religion. Hick states that if God formed our characters in the process of creating us to ensure that we always chose the morally right alternative, we could not be considered genuinely free. Even though we might not be limited by external constraints, our actions would have already been limited by God through internal constraints. Genuine freedom means making choices that are truly autonomous, independent of both internal and external constraints. Hick maintains that God interfaced with the creation or development of people that we would be like helpless puppets acting out a series of posthypnotic suggestions because it would undetermined free choice. He maintains that if God prevented natural disasters from occurring, it would mean negating all of the laws of science and that the sorrows, tragedies, and disappointments of this world are necessary ingredients

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