THEODICY: WHY GOD ALLOWS EVIL

Robby LashuaDSCC OasisFeb. 9th, 2014

HUMAN EVIL

The Soviet Union

1917-198920,000,000 to

26,000,000 were killed for political

reasons

Nazi Germany

• 10,005 Nazi Concentraion Camps identified.

• 6,000,000 Jews systematically categorized and killed.

The Rape of Nanking

Dec. 1937• Japanese Army

raped, tortured and killed 300,000 in Nanking, China.

The Rape of NankingDec. 1937

“The Rape of Nanking should be remembered not only for the number of people slaughtered but for the cruel manner in which many met their deaths. Chinese men

were used for bayonet practice and in decapitation contests. An estimated 20,000–80,000 Chinese women

were raped. Many soldiers went beyond rape to disembowel women, slice off their breasts, nail them

alive to walls. Fathers were forced to rape their daughters, and sons their mothers, as other family

members watched. Not only did live burials, castration, the carving of organs, and the roasting of people

become routine, but more diabolical tortures were practiced, such as hanging people by their tongues on

iron hooks or burying people to their waists and watching them get torn apart by German shepherds. So sickening was the spectacle that even the Nazis in the city were horrified, one proclaiming the massacre

to be the work of ‘bestial machinery.’”- Iris Chang

Communist China

• 26,000,000 to 30,000,000 have been killed for being “Counterrevolutionaries”

RwandaApril 6th-July 16th,

1994• An estimated

2,000,000 Tutsis and some moderate Hutus were slaughtered in the genocide.

• That is more than 6 men, women and children being murdered every minute.

America1973-

Present

• 54,559,615 children have been murdered in the name of abortion to fulfill selfishness and convenience.

Paul1st Century

A.D.• “There is no one

who does good, not even one” -Rom. 3:12

• “Their throat is an open grave.” -Rom. 3:13

• “Their feet are swift to shed blood, destruction and misery are in their paths” –Rom. 3:15-16

Cancer• In 2014, it is

estimated that 1,665,540 Americans will receive a diagnosis of cancer

• 585,720 people will die of cancer this year in the U.S.

Natural Disasters

• 55 people in the U.S. died in tornados in 2013

• It is estimated that in 2010, 320,129 people died in earthquakes worldwide

• In the 2004, the Indian Ocean Tsunami killed 169,752 people

Birth Defects

• In 2014, 2,000-4,000 children will be born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome

• 6,000 babies are born with Down Syndrome in the U.S. each year.

God

• Where is God during all this? Why doesn’t He stop such evil?

THE LOGICAL PROBLEM OF EVIL

David Hume

“Is He willing to prevent evil, but not

able? Then He is impotent. Is He able, but not willing? Then

He is malevolent. Is He both able and willing? Whence then is evil?”–

David Hume

God is either:1. All loving/good (omnibenevolent) but not All powerful (Omnipotent)2. All powerful (Omnipotent), but not All loving/good (Omnibenevolent) and therefore doesn’t care to stop it.3. If he was both Omnipotent and Omnibenevolent, evil would not exist.

EVIL

Logical Problem of Evil

1. God is the Creator of all things

2. Evil is a thing3. Therefore God

created Evil

EVIL

What is Evil?

• We can point to examples of evil all around us, but what exactly is “Evil”

• We need to define it

Augustine 354-430 A.D.

“ And I kept seeking for an answer to that question, Whence is evil?.. Where, then, is evil, and whence does it come and how has it crept in?...Has it no being at all? Why, then, do we fear and shun what has no being?

Augustine 354-430 A.D.

Or if we fear it needlessly, then surely that fear is evil by which the heart is unnecessarily stabbed and tortured-and indeed a greater evil since we have nothing real to fear, and yet do fear. Therefore, either that is evil which we fear, or the act of fearing is in itself evil.”

AugustineAnd it was made clear to me

that all things are good even if they are corrupted. They could not be corrupted if they were supremely good; but unless

they were good they could not be corrupted. If they were

supremely good, they would be incorruptible; if they were

not good at all, there would be nothing in them to be

corrupted.

AugustineFor corruption harms; but unless it could diminish

goodness, it could not harm… So long as they are, therefore,

they are good. Therefore, whatsoever is, is good… There

is no sanity in those whom anything in creation

displeases… And I asked what wickedness was, and I found

that it was no substance, but a perversion of the will bent aside from thee, O God…”

EVIL

Augustine on evil• Augustine made the

case that everything that has being is good.

• “Evil has no positive nature; but the loss of good has received the name evil.”

• Evil is the absence of good/the corruption of good.

• Evil can not, then, be chosen, because there is no evil thing to choose.

EVIL

Augustine on evil• A person can only turn

away from the good! (“all we like sheep have gone astray” Isaiah 53:6)

• “For when the will abandons what is above itself, and turns to what is lower, it becomes evil-not because that is evil to which it turns, but because the turning itself is wicked.”

EVIL

Augustine on evil

1. All things that God created are good.

2. Evil is not good3. Therefore, Evil

was not created by God

EVIL

Augustine on evil

1. God created everything

2. God did not create Evil

3. Therefore, Evil is not a thing

EVIL

What is Evil?

•Evil is the absence of Good.•God is the standard of Good.•The Shadow.•A shadow is the lack of light, evil is the lack of good.

ANSWERING THE LOGICAL PROBLEM OF EVIL

Assumptions

•God’s goal should be to make us happy and not suffer from anything•This is not God’s goal

God is either:1. All loving/good (omnibenevolent) but not All powerful (Omnipotent)2. All powerful (Omnipotent), but not All loving/good (Omnibenevolent) and therefore doesn’t care to stop it.3. If he was both Omnipotent and Omnibenevolent, evil would not exist.

Good reason

Assumptions

•God can be both Omnipotent and Omnibenevolent while still allowing evil if He has a good reason to do so.

EVIL

God’s Goal

•He wants to take care of what has caused evil, not merely the resulting evil.•By taking care of the cause of evil, He can truly free some of humanity from the clutches of evil for eternity

TYPES OF EVIL

Types of Evil

Moral Evil: Evil that is committed by free moral agents.

Types of Evil

Natural Evil: Evil that occurs from the natural order and is not brought about by free moral agents

Four Types of Natural Evil

1. Evils that can be attributed to human agency• Forrest fires

started by humans, some birth defects.

Four Types of Natural Evil

2. Disorders caused by genetic malfunction• These do not

happen as a result of the parent’s choices. Blindness, deafness, mental retardation.

Four Types of Natural Evil

As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. 2 And His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?” 3 Jesus answered, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.

-John 9:1-3

Four Types of Natural Evil

3. Natural disasters not produced by free agents• Fires,

earthquakes, droughts, pestilence, famine, tsunamis, etc…

Four Types of Natural Evil

4. Diseases that result from bacteria or virus.• Cancer, leukemia,

the flu, the bubonic plague, etc…