Jess has a large back garden, in which she allows her pet rabbits, dogs, cats, owls, and mice to run freely, to maim and kill each other. Sometimes the cats half-kill a mouse and play with it till it dies a slow and painful death. Sometimes the dogs fight with each other, leaving horrific, painful wounds, but Jess never intervenes. She thinks that ultimately, the animals are better off if they suffer somewhat. Is Jess a cruel and barbaric pet owner?

Omniscience Omnipotence Omnibenevolence Eternal / Everlasting Transcendence / Immanence Immutability Moral & Natural evil Cosmological Arguments Ontological Arguments Paradox of the Stone Euthyphro dilemma Teleological Arguments Cognitivism Non-cognitivism Verification / falsification Uses of religious language Religious Language God’s attributes Arguments for God’s existence Problem of evil

If God is so good and powerful, why is there evil in the world?

Can you answer these questions? 1.What is meant by ‘if and only if’? (2 marks) 2.Explain infallibilism (5 marks) 3.Outline and explain whether belief is a necessary condition of knowledge (9 marks) 4.Explain and give one criticism of knowledge empiricism (9 marks) 5.Does the external world exist in the way we perceive it? (15 marks) Plans Full answers

The problem of evil

Today you will learn how to explain the problem of evil: Can we reconcile God’s omnipotence, omniscience and supreme goodness with the existence of physical/moral evil?

1.If God is supremely good, then he has the desire to eliminate evil. 2.If God is omnipotent, then he is able to eliminate evil. 3.If God is omniscient, then he knows that evil exists and knows how to eliminate it. 4.Therefore, if God exists, and is supremely good, omnipotent and omniscient, evil does not exist. 5.Evil exists. Therefore, a supremely good, omnipotent and omniscient God does not exist.

Evil and suffering exist God is benevolent God is omnipotent These three facts are logically inconsistent p.46 God is omniscient Evil exists God is benevolent God is omnipotent Usual formulation Occasionally formulated as:

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Moral Evil The wilful acts of human beings (such as murder, rape, etc.) Natural Evil Natural disasters (such as famines, floods, etc.) and illnesses

In pairs or threes, make a list of 16 evils in the world. 8 moral evils 8 natural evils

MORAL EVILNATURAL EVIL MurderRapeCancerDisease TortureWarFamineTsunamis Child abuseGenocideEarthquakesMudslides MutilationViolenceVolcano eruptions Tornados

In pairs or threes, think of as many possible solutions to the problem of evil as you can 5 minutes

There are five main sorts of responses: 1.Atheists’ response: there is no God 2.Limited God / alternative theologies: God exists but is not omnibenevolent, omniscient and/or omnipotent 3.Afterlife defence: God exists, and the evils of this world are balanced by greater good in the afterlife 4.Free will defence: God exists, and the evils of this world are the consequence of a greater good - free will 5.Soul making defence: God exists, and the evils of this world lead to a greater good – humans fulfilling their potential

The logical problem of evil claims that the existence of evil is logically incompatible with the existence of God In other words, the following claims cannot all be true: God is supremely good God is omnipotent God is omniscient Evil exists If any three of the claims are true, the fourth must be false This is a deductive argument – it claims to show that that logically God cannot exist

The evidential problem of evil makes a weaker claim It claims that the amount and distribution of evil is good evidence that God does not exist This is an inductive argument – it claims to show that it is very unlikely that God exists

Outline the problem of evil (5 marks) 10 minutes

Mackie considers a series of common responses to the logical problem of evil which, he argues, do not solve the problem: Good can’t exist without evil The world is better with some evil in it than it could be if there were no evil Evil is due to human free will TASK: read p47-47 of your booklets and summarise these responses, and problems with them 25 minutes

Good can’t exist without evil The world is better with some evil in it than it could be if there were no evil Evil is due to human free will