Christian theologians have long claimed
three things of God. He is :
ALMIGHTY
PERRFECTLY GOOD
OMNISCIENT
(knows everything)
Many other
(but not all) religions affirm the same characteristics of God.
And yet it appears that EVIL exists – that is, there is suffering. We have discussed suffering in the last two sessions and no one in the group denied that it was real. The existence of evil has often been used as one of the strongest arguments against the existence of God.
If evil does exist, then either God does not want to get rid of it, or he does not know how to, or he cannot because he is not powerful enough.
If he does not want to then he is not perfectly good. Surely a 100% loving God would not tolerate even the smallest amount of suffering in his world?
If he does not know how to, then he is not omniscient.
If he cannot, then he is not omnipotent.
THEODICY is the name given to attempts
to solve this problem whilst defending the full characteristics of God. It comes
from the Greek ‘theos’ (qeoV),
God + ‘dike’ (dikh),
justice – so it is really ‘justifying God’. Many theologians and
philosophers have sought to tackle this problem. There are several possible
solutions.
1
God does not exist
This is the simplest solution. There is no God, so there is no problem of evil.
This approach characterizes many Buddhist schools, which teach suffering (duhkha)
as the first Noble Truth and teach a purely human path to its avoidance. In the
end, though, many of these schools are optimistic, as they assert that the end
of suffering (nirodha or nirvana) is possible. Later schools teach that this
world, samsara, with its evils, is not different from the attainment of the end
of the path, nirvana. This topic is too big to summarise well here.
2
God exists but he does not have the
properties ascribed to him
i)
God is not almighty. He loves all his creatures and would wish to help
them all but he cannot take away their suffering or create a world in which
they did not suffer because he is not powerful enough.
ii) God is
not perfectly good. He could take away the suffering of all
creatures but he does not want to.
iii) God
is not omniscient. He can do all things and loves all his creatures but
does not know how to solve all the problems – or he does not know all
the
parameters which cause suffering in the world.
3
A world as good as this one but without
suffering is logically impossible
If it were logically possible to create a world
better than this, with less suffering, God would do it. But not even he can do
the logically impossible. This is the best of all possible worlds. This was the
solution adopted by the famous philosopher Leibnitz, who is caricatured as
‘Pangloss’ in Voltaire’s famous book, ‘Candide’.
4
Suffering is an illusion
We think there is suffering in the world but this
is due to our ignorance or misconception rather than to do with the world as it
really is. This is a solution offered by many Indian philosophies, particularly
some Hindu vedantic philosophies. Clearly, since we at least think we suffer,
and since thinking one is suffering is the same thing as suffering, these depend
on there being some absolute, global view of things which transcends our
temporal view.
Does any of these four suggestions seem right to you? How does the existence of suffering or evil affect your own faith?
I look forward to seeing you on Thursday or Tuesday.
GP
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