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Tuesday, 10 February 2015

The Problem of Evil and Suffering


            The existence of evil in the world is the “rock of atheism”, this was famously said by Philosopher David Hume in the 18thCentury. However, many philosophers have put forward their arguments to prove the reality of God despite Evil and Suffering in the world. One of which is the `Existence of God` by Richard Swinburne.  When reading his work, he presents a number of separate arguments but the one that most caught my attention was “How Evils serve Greater Goods”.

Swinburne suggests that sometimes the evil in this world serves a greater good or a greater purpose. He states that “such bad actions, like physical pain, provide opportunities for good actions to be done in response to them”, we could relate this to when a child must go to the dentist to have tooth removed, despite the pain the child will endure, he will benefit from this as it allows another tooth to grow. He also describes the consequences of having a world without pain. He states that we “show courage when threatened by a gunman, as well as when threatened by cancer; and show sympathy to those likely to be killed by gunmen as well as to those likely to die of cancer” However, if we simply imagine what our lives would be like without these emotions then “…merely would none of us have the opportunity to respond with sympathy or courage or reforming zeal…so many of us would have an easy life that we simply would not have much opportunity to show courage or indeed manifest much in the way of goodness at all”. Essentially, Swinburne means that it is vital we are able to express emotions such as courage and sympathy, for in a world without pain we would never be given the opportunity to express this. We can only help people if they are suffering, therefore Swinburne believes that God must allow evil and suffering to occur so that we can use our emotions to know when people need help. However if God was to replace disease by “such an increase of inbuilt depravity” Swinburne states that we would live in “a world in which humans (and animals) lacked much natural affection for parents, children, neighbours, etc. would be a horrible place”

On the other hand, despite this being a good inductive argument for the existence of God although there is suffering and evil in the world, I still feel that there are faults with this argument. When Swinburne suggests that everything serves a greater purpose, I think back to events in history which I am yet to see a greater purpose. The Holocaust, for example, is one of the most infamous example of moral evil to this day. 11 million people died and for what reason? I personally fail to see what goodness came from this immoral act and am sure I am not the only person who has this point of view. However, I do see how good can come out of natural disaster. For instance, the Boxing Day Tsunami in Indonesia which tragically took 230, 000 lives, it gave other people around the world the chance to donate money, provide aid and help those who were suffering. Although, it is still hard to contemplate why God would allow so many people to die and so many more people to suffer because of this event, with only some good actually being derived from it.

 Er.B

 

4 comments:

  1. Indeed evil in the world really is the issue that won't go away! Some good reflection here on the topic, I'm glad you picked one idea to look at: How Evils serve Greater Goods.

    John Hick talks of eschatological verifcation when discussing life after death... one day things will be made clear. Do you think the issue could be that we just don't fully understand the suffering? Some religious believers claim it is simply a 'mystery'. Is this satisfactory?

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  2. Great post considering God's reason behind suffering in our world and yes, some bearable pain is necessary in the world in able to learn from it and overcome it. However, I question whether there is too much unecessary suffering in the world to justify an omnibenelovent God? There is nothing to be learned from dysteleogical suffering, so this raises the question: why does our omniscient God not put an end to this? Mackie presented the Inconsistent Triad which supports that God's omnipotence, omnibenevolence and evil can not co-exist. Hume said in relation to this "Therefore, the God of Classical Theism cannot exist".

    C.H

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  3. Great Work. You have explained both sides well. You can also refer to Hick's vale of soul making theodicy, which argues that both natural and moral evil are essential to "soul-making" so they have a good purpose. As a result an all-loving God is therefore justified in making a world such as this in allowing humanity to perform evil acts. However this raises the question like you said: 'why would God allow so many people to die and so many more people to suffer', if he is supposed to be the God of Classical Theism. Surely it's possible to learn values and virtues without great suffering.

    S.C

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