Philosophy Week 7 Notes Arguments for against existence of God Nagel Cosmological Ontological Teleological Argument for against belief in God Pascal s Wager Blackburn s Critique Swinburne The problem of evil is the problem of reconciling the fact that the world contains evil with the existence of an omnipotent perfectly good God Surely such a God would have prevented the evil in our world page 254 Theodicy explanation of why God would allow such evil to occur page 254 Logical Argument not emotional argument most people in deep distress need comfort not argument page 255 Why Theodicy is important There is a problem why God allows evil If Theist does not have satisfactory answer then Belief in God less than rational Atheist has no reason to share belief in God Evil Oxford Dictionary Profoundly immoral and malevolent Embodying or associated with the forces of the devil Harmful or tending to harm Swinburne s two kinds of evil 1 Natural Evil all evil which is not deliberately produced by human beings pages 255 256 E g Physical and mental suffering disease and natural disasters accidents 2 Moral Evil all evil caused deliberately by humans doing what they ought not to do and evil constituted by such deliberate actions or negligent failure page 255 E g sensory pain when parent hits child mental pain of depriving child love starvation in nation due to negligent government Problem of Evil General Problem of Evil Tooley 2015 1 2 If God exists then God is omnipotent omniscient and morally perfect If God is omnipotent then God has the power to eliminate all evil If God is omniscient then God knows when evil exists If God is morally perfect then God has the desire to eliminate all evil 3 4 5 Evil exists 6 If evil exists and God exists then either God doesn t have the power to eliminate all evil or doesn t know when evil exists or doesn t have the desire to eliminate all evil 7 God doesn t exist Logical Problem of Evil Beebe 2015 1 God is Omnipotent i e all powerful 2 God is omniscient i e all knowing 3 God is perfectly good 4 Evil exists Is it a contradictory belief Contradictory Beliefs Set of beliefs is contradictory IFF it is not possible for all of the beliefs to be true together E g Today is Monday and it is not the case that today is Monday What s wrong with having contradictory beliefs It s good to have non contradictory beliefs having contradictory beliefs can get you in trouble e g wall Coherent action is good having contradictory beliefs results in incoherent Action e g dentist appointment on Monday You can t simultaneously act on contradictory beliefs Hanlanger on the problem of evil Swinburne s Theodicy Moral Evil Free will defense page 255 1 Possibility of moral evil follows from God s giving us free will 2 For us to have free choice between good and bad options it must be possible for us to 3 Free will makes for the possibility of evil 4 But the greater good of genuine free will outweighs the limited amount of evil we can choose to do bad bring about in the world 5 God is omnipotent omniscient and perfectly good and evil exists in the world Natural Evil Part of free will defense Swinburne page 255 1 The possibility of natural evil is necessary for the possibility of making free choices and it opens up the possibility especially worthwhile kinds of choices 2 We can study how the mechanisms of nature work to better understand how to cause evil and this makes it possible for us to choose between genuinely good and genially bad courses of action 3 And the existence of natural evils e g pains increases the range of significant choices we can make e g child birth 4 God is omnipotent omniscient and perfectly good and evil exists in the world Read Problem of Hell Adams Adams Marilyn McCord Adams Ordained Minister The Problem of Hell Thinks that it is a bigger challenge than the problem of evil A God that condemns people to hell is cruel and not perfectly good Problem of Hell How could a good God commit some people to hell forever What some people think is contradictory God exists and is essentially omnipotent omniscient and perfectly good Evil exists What Adams thinks is the real problem God exists and is essentially omnipotent omniscient and perfectly good Some create persons will be consigned to hell forever Human Agency Realistic picture of human agency needs to recognize Adams page 275 a Humans start life ignorant weak helpless incapable of choice b Humans learn about to world including self over long period of time and from existence influence of non ideal choosers c Humans develop via combination of nature and nurture we are faced with problems we cannot adequately grasp or cope with and then used insufficient solutions d Human hind forms habits e Habits often unconsciously acted out unless corrected with great effort f Humans develop impaired freedom these strategies become habits that continue as adults g Humans with impaired freedom are responsible for their choices actions and character h Accounts of morals and blame cannot ignore this Humans are not capable of controlling ourselves in a fine turned way i Yet we continue to hold ourselves responsible Adams Conclusion Following the realistic picture of human agency Adams draws three conclusion Conclusion One Impaired adult human agency is no more competent to be entrusted with its eternal destiny than a two year old agency would be to make like or death decisions Conclusion Two The fact that the choices of such impaired agents come between the divine creator of the environment and their infernal outcome no more reduces divine responsibility for the damnation than two year old agency reduces the responsibility of the adult taker Conclusion Three God is not obligated to be responsible for the choices made by impaired agents even if it puts humans in a situation where the decision will decide their eternal destiny God is primarily responsible for a tragic outcome e g eternal damnation Meta Conclusion God would be cruel to create human beings impaired like us in a world with obstacles and opportunities like ours that would decide whether we go to hell or not cruel by virtue of imposing horrendous consequences on our all too likely failures Adams page 276 Read Famine Affluence and Morality by Singer