PROPOSAL
Do the various Theodicies provide ample reason to support the existence of an all powerful, all knowing and infinitely loving good God in the presence of evil?
This paper is intended to thoroughly and correlatively provide the various Christian responses to the problem of evil. It appears the obvious innumerable evils in the world contradict the various attributes Christians ascribe to God. Many philosophers, especially the atheists find it very difficult reconciling a perfectly good God who created everything to allow evil on even those who put all their hope in him.
It is my aim to try in my own way to address this problem. It is my hope that it will end up clearing up the doubts in people’s minds. Even if there are still doubts, they are because those who hold them seem to have refused to accept the reality of the facts. The fact as I see it is that some philosophers want to make knowledge (of God) relative; i.e., because one is a Christian he accepts anything that has to do with God without first subjecting it to critical analyses. Even those who try to analyse the concept do so with their belief influencing them. All these doubts will be dealt with.
(A) General Critical Questions:
1) What is evil?
2) What is good?
3) How is evil related to the good?
4) What is the origin of evil and good?
5) Why does man undergo all kinds of evils?
6) What is a Theodicy?
7) Is the existence of God, in the midst of evil, logical?
(B) Critical Questions after Reading about the Topic:
1) Is evil realistic in itself?
2) Is it created?
3) Whether the supreme good, God, is the cause of evil
4) Whether there be one supreme evil which is the cause of every evil?
5) Can the theodicies provide adequate solution to the problem?
6) Can God create a world rid of sin or at least of the propensity to sin, if he really is?
7) Does the reality of evil nullify the existence of God?
8) Whether God is good?
OUTLINE
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER ONE
- The Problem of Evil and Nature of God
- Definition of Evil
- Kinds of Evil
- The Relation between Good and Evil
- Reasons for Evil
CHAPTER TWO
(A)The concept of Theodicy
(B)Examples of theodicy
- The Augustinian Theodicy
- The Iranaean Theodicy
- Hick's Reformation of the Iranaen Theodicy
- Process Theodicy
- Leibniz’s Theodicy
- Analysis of these solutions
- The Immorality of Theodicies
- Evidential arguments from evil
- Theodicy in other contexts
BIBLIOGHRAPHY
PRIMARY SOURCES:
Arnold J. Benedetto, The Fundamentals in the Philosophy of God, London, Collier- Macmillan Ltd., 1963.
Etienne, Gilson, Elements of Christian Philosophy, New York, Doubleday &Company, Inc., 1960.
Hick, John, Philosophy of Religion, New Jersey, Prentice- Hall, Inc. 1983
Kolakowski, Leszek, Religion: If There Is No God…on God, the Devil, Sin and Other Worries of the So-Called Philosophy of Religion, South Bend, India, St. Augustine’s Press, 2001.
Mitchell Basil, (Ed.), The Philosophy of Religion, New York, Oxford University Press, 1983.
Rowe, L.William, Wainwrght J. William, Philosophy of Religion, Selected Readings, 2nd Ed. Robert Ferm, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. 1989.
SECONDARY SOURCES:
Chukwudi, Eze Emmanuel, African Philosophy, An Anthology, The Problem of Evil, 2nd Ed, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 1998.
Charlesworth, Max, Philosophy and Religion. Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2002.
Edwards, Paul, Ed. The Encyclopeadia of Philosophy. Vol. 8. New York: Macmillan
Publishing Co., 1967.
_________, Arthur Pap, An Introduction to Modern Philosophy, Reading from Classical and Contemporary Sources, 3rd ed., New York, 1973
Gilson, Etienne, The Christian Philosophy of St Augustine, L. E. M. Lynch, New York: Random House, Inc, 1960.
____________, Ed. Medieval Philosophy. New York: Ransom House, Inc., 1962.
Hildebrand, Alice, Introduction to Philosophy of Religion. Chicago: Franciscan Herald
Press, 1971.
Hopfe, Lewis, Religions of the World. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co. Inc., 1983.
Huston, Smith, The Religions of Man. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc., 1958.
Maritain Jacques, Approach to God, Peter O. Reilly, (trans.), New York, Harper &Bothers Publishers, 1954
Mbiti, S. John, African Religion and Philosophy, Oxford, Heinemann Educational Publishers, 1969
McBrien, P. Richard, The Harper Collins Encyclopedia of Catholicism. New York:
Harper Collins Publishers Inc., 1995.
Messer, Richard, Does God’s Existence Need Proof?, New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1993.
MacGrath, Alister, The Christian Theology Reader. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1995.
Neusuer, Jacob, (Ed), Evil and Suffering, California: University of California Press, 1976
Nigel, Warburton, Philosophy, The Basic Readings, New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 1999
Peterson L. Michael, The Problem of Evil, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992.
______________, God & Evil, An Introduction to the Issue, United Kingdom: Westview Press, 1998.
Pomerleau, Wayne, Western Philosophies of Religion. New York: Ardsley House, 1998.
Portalie, Eugene, A Guide to the Thoughts of St. Augustine. Chicago: Henry Regnery
Company, 1960.
Rahner, Karl (Ed), Encyclopaedia of Theology, A Concise Sacramentum mundi, London: Burns & Oates, 1975.
Ricoeu, Paul,, The symbolism of Evil, Emerson Buchanan, New York: Beacon Press, 1967.
Bruce Reichenbach, Evil and Good, New York, Fordham University Press, 1986
Susan Neiman, Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy with a New Preface by the Author, Oxford, Princeton University Press, 2002.
Ward, Keith, Religion and Human Nature. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998
Wolterstoff, Nicholas. “Faith” The Routledge Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. Vol.3. Ed. E. Craig. London: Routledge, 1998. Pp. 538-544.
.Wolterstoff, Nicholas. “Faith” The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Vol.3. Ed. E. Craig. London: Routledge, 1998. Pp. 538-544.
CHAPTER THREE
- Personal scrutiny on the problem of evil and the existence of a good God.
- CONCLUSION
- BIBLIOGRAPHY
INTRODUCTION
The appalling depth and the extent of human suffering together with the selfishness and greed which produce so much of all this, in its ramifications and make evil a reality, betrays the plausibility of a loving Creator and creates a powerful challenge to the God of theism and the veracity of his attributes[1]
Evil can be variously defined depending on ones outlook. Theologically, evil is “that which is contrary to God’s will”[2]. Oestentively, John Hick defined evil as “physical pain, mental suffering and moral wickedness.”[3] For Hick, the consequence of evil is suffering. Generally, evil can be classified into two broad categories, namely, moral evil and physical evil.
“Moral evil is sin, the deliberate violation of God’s law…the absences or lack of the agreement and conformity that should be present between human conduct and the rule or norm of what that conduct ought to be. Physical evil is a defect or privation of a perfection in a being, marring it in its natural integrity or the exercise of its normal activities or in both”[4]
"Natural evil" means the apparent malfunctioning of the natural world e.g. diseases and natural disasters. "Moral evil" means the result of human immorality e.g. genocide. What people consider evil or suffering is an illusion or unimportant. Events thought to be evil are not really so (such as deaths by natural disaster). God's divine plan is good. What we see as evil is not really evil; rather, it is part of a divine design that is actually good. Our limitations prevent us from seeing the big picture.
A related posture holds that no theodicy is needed or even appropriate. God, if he exists, is so far superior to man, that he cannot be judged by man. Man's assumption that he can tell God what a benevolent and all-powerful God can or cannot do, is mere arrogance.
A perfect God is not only good but also evil, since perfection implies no lacking, including not lacking, hence, that which is evil. A lacking of evil would imply that there is something external to his all-encompassing perfection. Evil is the consequence of God giving people free will, or God may intend evil and suffering as a test for humanity. Evil is the consequence, not cause, of people not observing God's revealed will. God created perfect angels and humans with free will. Some of them began to sin and lost their perfection, which resulted in evil doing and death. Without the possibility to choose to do good or evil acts humans would lack moral content. God's ultimate purpose is to glorify himself (which, by definition, he alone is infinitely entitled to, without vanity). He allows evil to exist so that humanity will appreciate goodness all the more, in the same way that the blind man healed by Jesus appreciated his sight more so than those around him who had never experienced blindness. For a while God will allow this to continue, so that it can be shown that his creations can not be happy while independent from God. In due time God will restore the people who choose to depend on God to perfection and so bring an end to sin and with it an end to evil. With universal reciprocated love most of the problems that lead to the evils discussed here would solve be solved and the Devil’s propagation of evil in opposition to God brought to an end.
This goes to affirm that God is a righteous judge; people get what they deserve. If someone suffers or falls ill, that is because they committed a sin that merits such punishment. (This is also known as the just world hypothesis.)
Evil is one way that God tests humanity, to see if we are worthy of His grace.
Evil and pain exist in this world only. This world is only a prelude to the afterlife, where no pain will exist. The scales of justice are balanced in the afterlife. The world is corrupt and of itself shouldn't have been created, but the work of Christ (or some savior figure) redeems the world and thus God's creation of it. Absolute evil is not actually real. Rather, it is only the condition of lack of goodness.
This paper is intended to thoroughly and correlatively present the major Christian responses to the challenge presented by theists against the co-existence of a good God and evil with the aim to clear doubts that pose this challenge in people’s mind. By this I do not intend to give a certain conclusion to the problem but to still open the door for criticisms and modifications.
CHAPTER ONE
THE PROBLEM OF EVIL
The monotheistic God of Christianity, Judaism and Islam supposedly possess divine qualities of omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence. However, the existence of evil and suffering in the world challenges this idea. ` According to J. L. Mackie, the three claims are logically inconsistent. If God is omnipotent, he is aware of the existing evil and suffering and knows how to put a stop to it. If God is omnibenevolent he will want to put a stop to it. Yet evil and suffering do exist. Thus, David Hume argued that either:
1. God is not omnipotent; or
2. God is not omnibenevolents; or
3. Evil does not exist.
It thus seems that, if God exists, there would not be any evil. But there is evil. Shouldn’t we conclude then, that God does not exist? According to Mackie, the acceptance of any of Hume’s propositions solves the problem of evil, but none is orthodox. Since we have sufficient direct experience to support the existence of evil, if God exists he is either an impotent God or a malicious God — not the God of classical theism. Hume and Mackie conclude that God therefore does not exist.
Antony Flew wrote that believers need to acknowledge that the existence of evil and suffering has no consistent solution. He claimed that all the supposedly orthodox "solutions" to the problem of evil qualify the notion of God, i.e., believers arbitrarily change the nature of God to suit different circumstances. “J. L. Mackie and William Rowe contended that the burden of proof is on the theist is to explain the why God does not intervene in suffering in the world.”[5] The challenge, then, is to solve the problem of evil without taking back any of God's supposed divine attributes.
Thomas Aquinas' theodicy exemplifies this "qualifying" approach. For Aquinas, although both God’s goodness and human goodness have points of correspondence, God’s goodness is infinitely different from human goodness. It is, therefore, conceivable that God allows evil and suffering to exist as a part of his greater plan of love. So God's "goodness" and God's "love" are so different from our notions of goodness and love (our notions of goodness and love are so qualified when we discuss God's goodness and love) that these notions become completely unintelligible and meaningless to us: God's "goodness" includes starving innocent children to death, for example.
CHAPTER TWO
THE CONCEPT OF THEODICY
Theodicies are attempts to justify the existence of evil and suffering, and they usually claim that evil and suffering are a necessary condition for the achievement of God’s greater plan. “Some suggest that the goal of theodicy is not to determine the truth, but to convince skeptics by any means possible that a reasonably doubted proposition is, in fact, true.”[6]
The term theodicy comes from the Greek θεός (theós, "God") and δίκη (dÃkÄ“, "justice"), meaning literally "the justice of God," although a more appropriate phrase may be "to justify God" or "the justification of God." It is usually translated to mean an attempt to solve the theological problem of evil. The term was coined in 1710 by the German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz in a work entitled Essais de Théodicée sur la bonté de Die, la liberate de l'homme et l'origine du mal ("Theodicic Essays on the Benevolence of God, the Free will of man, and the Origin of Evil"). The purpose of the essay was to show that the evil in the world does not conflict with the goodness of God and that notwithstanding its many evils; the world is the best of all possible worlds.
Imitating the example of Leibniz, other philosophers also called their treatises on the problem of evil theodicies. “Many types of theodicy have been proposed and vigorously debated; only “few can be sketched her””[7]. In a thorough treatment of the question, the proofs both of the existence and of the attributes of God could not be disregarded, and the knowledge of God was gradually brought within the domain of theodicy. Theodicy came to be synonymous with natural theology (theologia naturalis), that is, the department of metaphysics which presents the positive proofs for the existence and attributes of God and solves the opposing difficulties. Theodicy, therefore, may be defined as an attempt to explain the nature of God through the exercise of reason alone. With the aim to show that there are convincing reasons why a just, compassionate and omnipotent being would permit debilitating suffering to flourish. But any method of inquiry that begins with a predetermined conclusion is not rational and scientific, as one point of view suggests.
Others can argue that theodicy is more logical in nature. These people assert theodicy has an epistemological character as it begins with a hypothesis and then tests that hypothesis to see if it can be reconciled with experience and reason. These theodiceans assert that just as the existence of God may be reasonably doubted, it may also be reasonably believed, because the existence or non-existence of God is, by its very nature, beyond the realm of observable and verifiable phenomena with which science concerns itself. I would like to stress here that while theodicy cannot prove the existence of God, theodiceans assert that it can make belief in God reasonable, by showing that the existence of God is not necessarily incompatible with the existence of evil. On the other hand, unlike in mathematics, in a philosophical project like a theodicy it is difficult to say what precisely constitutes a valid logical step. Though one proponent of a theodicy may be convinced of its rigour, another person may find it logically weak. For this reason, theodicies tend to be controversial, even among theists.
EXAMPLES OF THEODICY
There are three main Christian responses to the problem of evil: the Augustinian response, hinging upon the concept of the fall of man from an original state of righteousness\ the Irenaean response, with the idea of gradual creation of a perfected humanity through life in a highly imperfect world; and the response of modern process theology, hinging upon the idea of a God who is not all-powerful and not in fact able to prevent the evils arising either in human beings or in the processes of nature.[8]
The Augustinian theodicy
“The main traditional Christian response to the problem of evil was first formulated by St. Augustine (354-430).”[9] He holds firmly to the conviction that the universe is good, that is to say, it is the creation of a good God for a good purpose. God creates only good things and thus every created thing is good in its essence. There are higher and lower, greater and lesser goods in immense abundance and variety; however, everything that has being is good in its own way and degree. Evil, then, has not been set there by God but represents the going wrong of something that is inherently good. It is not a thing, not an entity. Evil does not, at least metaphysically speaking, represent the positive existence of anything; rather, it is the lack of good, the privation of goodness. Unlike God, who is absolute and unchangeable, the universe was created out of nothing (ex nihilo) and is thus mutable or changeable.
The Augustinian theodicy assumes that both God and Man possess ultimate free will. Now, why should free will lead to evil? The traditional answer is that humans are corrupt at heart, and they consequently choose to harm their fellows, but that would assume a will that is evil rather than free. It is said to be true that, in order to be free, we must do evil, for God is traditionally said to be both free and morally perfect. Rather, as a matter of contingent fact, humans happen to choose evil by their exercise of freedom. And if God were to 'get involved' and start influencing human actions for the better, then the actions wouldn't be free any longer. Human freedom means that God cannot guarantee human perfection.
The Augustinian theodicy includes both philosophical and theological strands. The main philosophical position is the idea of the negative or privative nature of evil. Augustine holds firmly to the Hebrew-Christian conviction that the universe is good-that is to say, it is the creation of a good God for a good purpose. However, everything that has being is good in its own way and degree, except insofar as it has become spoiled or corrupted. Evil then has not been set there by God but is the going wrong of something that is inherently good. For example blindness is not a thing. It is the lack of or the privation of a perfection called sight generalizing the principle, “Augustine holds that evil always consists of the malfunctioning of something that is in itself good.”[10]
To expatiate the above point further, Augustine holds and teaches that evil came from those levels that involve free will: the levels of the angels and of human beings. Some angels turned from the supreme God, to lesser goods, thereby rebelling against their creator; the devil in turn tempted the first man and woman to fall. The natural evils of earthquakes, disease and storm are the penal consequences of sin, for humanity was intended to be the lord of the earth, and this human defection has set all nature off its course. Thus Augustine could say, “all evil is either sin or the punishment for sin”[11]
Besides since with freedom come responsibility, Augustine adds that at the end of history there will come the judgment, when many will enter into eternal life and many others (who in their freedom have rejected God’s offer of salvation) into eternal torment. For him, “since there is happiness for those who do not sin, the universe is perfect; and it is less perfect because there is misery for sinners … the penalty of sin corrects the dishonour of sin”[12]
The up and short of the matter is this that the free will theodicy argues that if God were to 'get involved' and start influencing human actions for the better, then human actions wouldn't be free any longer. Human freedom means that God cannot guarantee human. This requires that free will be a good in itself, greater than the evil it costs to allow such freedom. Why should it be better for God to respect human freedom? What's so great about free will? The response is that free will is what makes us valuable moral agents, and that, if God were to deny us our freedom, human society would be in a deep sense like an assemblage of robots: not only incapable of evil, but incapable of moral choice in general. Though value would exist in such a world, the free moral agency possessed by God and actual humans is argued to be far greater. I may not be far from true to say that there would not be anything called moral or immoral, since there will be no alternative course of action to make man responsible for his actions, but performed every act mechanically. This kind of world therefore cannot be suited for God’s wish to create children for Himself rather than robots, hence His respect for human freedom through the will.
All the cruelty that we humans freely perform is indeed regrettable, but it is the price of freedom.
God created perfect angels and humans with free will. Some of them began to sin and lost their perfection, which resulted in evil doing and death. For a while God will allow this to continue, so that it can be shown that his creations can not be happy while independent from God. In due time God will restore the people who choose to depend on God to perfection and so bring an end to sin and with it an end to evil. God is a righteous judge; people get what they deserve. If someone suffers or falls ill, that is because they committed a sin that merits such punishment. (This is also known as the just world hypothesis.)[13]
From this view point it is clear as noted in his book Philosophy of Religion third edition John Hick that the creator is cleared of any responsibility for existence of evil by loading that responsibility without remainder upon the creature.
“Evil stems from the culpable misuse of creaturely freedom in a tragic act, of cosmic significance, in the prehistory of the human race- an act that was prefigured in the heavenly realms by the incomprehensible fall of some of the angels, the chief of whom is now Satan, God’s Enemy.”[14]
The Irenaean Theodicy
Directly opposed to the above theodicy is the Irenaean theodicy. Even from before the time of Augustine another response to the problem of evil had already been present within the developing Christian tradition. This has it basis kin the thought the early Greek-speaking Fathers of the church, perhaps the most important of whom was St. Irenaeus (c.130-c202). He distinguished two stages of the creation of the human race. In the first stage, all human beings are created in the ‘image of God’, that is human beings were brought into existence as intelligent animals endowed with the capacity for immerse moral and spiritual development. They were not perfect pre-fallen Adam and Eve of the Augustinian tradition, but immature creatures, at the beginning of a long process of growth. The second touch upon the fact that human beings are now undergoing the process of attaining perfection through their own free responses from human animals to ““become the children of God”. (Irenaeus… described the two stages as humanity being made first in the ‘image of God’ and then into ‘the likeness of God’ referring to Gen 1:26.)”[15]
Answering the question why human beings were created as immature and imperfect beings his answer centers upon the positive value of human freedom. Firstly, it depends on the intuitive judgment that a human goodness that has come about through the making of free and responsible moral choices, in situation of real difficulty and temptation, is intrinsically more valuable than a goodness that has been crated already-made, without the free participation of the human agent. This is to say that humanity was not created perfect as Augustine noted in his theodicy but from a state of imperfection, from which it is nevertheless possible to move through moral struggle toward eventual completed humanization.
The other point hinges on the axiom as a matter of fact that if men and women had been created in the direct presence of God, who is infinite in life and power, goodness and knowledge, they would have had no genuine freedom in relation to their Maker. In order to be fully personal and therefore morally free beings they, they have accordingly (it is suggested) been created at a distance from God—not a spatial but an epistemic distance in the dimension of knowledge. They are formed within and as part of an autonomous universe within which God is not overwhelmingly evident but in which God may become known by the free interpretative responses of faith. Thus when the Augustinian theodicy sees our perfection as lying in the distant past, in an original state long since forfeited by the primordial calamity of the fall, the Irenaean theodicy sees our perfection as lying before us in the future, at the end of a lengthy and arduous process of further creation through time. In both the Augustinian and the Iranaean ‘theodicies’ much emphasis is placed upon the notion of human free will. According to Augustine, human freedom results in the fall. According Iraneaus, human freedom is necessary if human beings are to become the creatures God intends them to be. The blame for evil is thus removed from God by focusing on the willful turning away from good to evil by free human agents.
Thus the answer of the Irenaean theodicy to the question of the origin of moral evil is that it is a necessary condition of the creation of humanity at an epistemic distance from God, in state in which one has a genuine freedom in relation to one’s maker and can freely develop, in response to God’s non-coercive presence toward one’s own fulfillment as a child of God.
According to Irenaean theodicy, God’s purpose was not to construct a paradise whose inhabitants would experience a maximum of pleasure and a minimum of pain. The world is seen instead, as a place of “soul-making” or person-making in which free beings, grappling with the tasks and challenges of their existence in common environment may become “children of God” and “heirs of eternal life”. An environment conducive to personal growth must be one in which there are real challenges, real opportunities for the display of moral virtues, and real possibilities of expressing faith in God. A major component of this environment is a community of moral agents who interact in special ways and even a natural order of impersonal objects that operate independent of our wills. Obviously, in such conditions there is the genuine risk of evil – of failure and ruin, suffering and injustice. Our world, with all its rough edges, is the sphere in which this second and other state in the creative process is taking place. Natural evil therefore exist because only a world that has this general character could constitute an effective environment for the second state of God’s creative work, whereby human animals are being gradually transformed through own free responses into “children of God”
For Iranaean theodicy, God’s ultimate plan is the universal salvation of all persons, a process that extends beyond earthly existence and into the life after death. Fro those people who, for whatever reasons, depart mortal; life without having achieved the proper degree of moral maturity, God pursues this same objective for them in the life to come. God continues his effort in the afterlife, providing occasions for exercising love and trust, until all persons are brought into the heavenly kingdom. This affirmation of divine persistence completes the progressive, developmental and eschatological orientation of Iranaean theodicy.
Hick's Reformation of the Irenaen Theodicy
In The Problem of Evil, Selected Reading, edited by Michael L. Peterson, Roland Puccetti observed that, Hick’s in his theodicy:
“wisely abandons…fortifications and falls back on highly mobile reserve….besides, Mr. Hick lumps together under what he called the “the major report” in Christian theodicy:…In place of these vulnerable ramparts Hick elects the more fluid defense afforded, he thinks, by Irenaeus, Eastern Christianity and, in modern times Schleiermacher and a few contemporary thinkers.[16]
John Hick highlighted the importance of God allowing humans to develop themselves. He reasoned that if God made us perfect, then we would have the goodness of robots, which would love God automatically without any further deliberation. God wants humans to be genuinely loving and therefore gives them free will. If God interfered or became too close, humans would be unable to make a free choice and thus would not benefit from the developmental process. This is known as the counterfactual hypothesis. Therefore God created humans at an epistemic distance from himself, a distance of knowledge.
Process theodicy
Process theodicy is a modern theodicy that stems from the line of thinking of A.N. Whitehead, developed by David Griffin. It holds that “God cannot be unlimited in power but interacts with the process of the universe, which God has not created but nevertheless able to influence.”[17] Process theologians argue that God is not omnipotent and he did not create the universe; instead, the universe is uncreated and he is a part of it. According to process theology, God is responsible for starting the evolutionary process which eventually led to the development of humans, and is thus partly responsible for the existence of evil and suffering.
God does not have control over humans and they are free to ignore him, but he does do everything in his power to ensure the universe produces enough goodness to outweigh evil, although he is restricted by the laws of nature. Moreover, he suffers with humans when evil occurs.
Process theodicy is based on a view of reality as becoming rather than being, which is a direct reversal of the traditional approach centered around the theme based on the concept of change, development, evolution both in God and finite creatures. Christian tradition sees God as the creator of the universe who has infinite power, but for us to exist and grow he does not exercise His divine unlimited power. He, therefore, acts non-coercively seeking the creature’s free response. Process theodicy holds likewise that God acts non-coercively but rejects the classic concept of God’s divine omnipotence. To the process thinker, because finite creatures have freedom they can bring about new state of affairs. They see freedom as rooted in the very structure of reality. Creatures therefore have the power to choose good or evil possibilities for their lives. God can therefore meet resistance from creatures. According to process thought, God’s power is persuasive and not coercive. God can try to lure us to good and from evil but cannot force us to choose the good. God cannot therefore eliminate evil because he cannot single handedly effect any change. He needs the consent of creatures. According to process thinkers, all positive and negative experiences are reconciled in God’s nature. They hold that the good in the world could not have resulted without evil. God is thus seen as good because all the risk takings in the world are to bring goodness which will outweigh the evil was or might be involved. God therefore shares in our human joys and sufferings. This theodicy is appealing because if God is not omnipotent, he needs not be justified for permitting evil since it is not in his power to do so. It thus avoids the traditional problem arising from the belief in divine omnipotence.
CHAPTER THREE
CRITICISM OF AND RESPONSES TO THEODICY
The veracity of theodicy in general is disputed. An argument that has been raised against theodicies is that, if a theodicy were true, it would completely nullify morality. If a theodicy were true, then ‘all kinds’ of evil can be somehow rationalized as permitted or affected by God, and therefore there can no longer be such a thing as "evil" values, even for a murderer. Hence, the acceptance of any perfect solution for the problem of evil will not be less redundant, for there will be no evil, because every suffering could be justified. Worse of all, it would be impossible to act evil. I could torture and murder a young child, but this would be justified for a higher good (whatever the perfect solution is, it could be something else than free will) but reliance on free will would be the end of all moral, which clearly is absurd. The theist could not point to the Ten Commandments and claim that they are necessary, because one goal of morals – to prevent evil – would be granted no matter how I behave, if he is right with his perfect solution to the problem of evil.
The late Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder wrote an unfinished essay entitled "Trinity Versus Theodicy: Hebraic Realism And The Temptation To Judge God" (1996). Yoder argues that "if God be God" then theodicy is an oxymoron and idolatry. Yoder is not opposed to attempts to reconcile the existence of a God with the existence of evil; rather, he is against a particular approach to the problem. He does not "deny that there are ways in which forms of discourse in the mode of theodicy may have a function, subject to the discipline of a wider setting.[18]
This is the narrow sense mentions Zachary Braiterman writes, in his book God, After Auschwitz: Tradition and Change in Post-Holocaust Jewish Thought published 1998, "Theodicy is a familiar technical term, coined by the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz to mean 'the justification of God.' “In his book, Braiterman coins the term "antitheodicy" meaning "refusing to justify, explain, or accept [the relationship between] God (or some other form of ultimate reality), evil, and suffering." Braiterman uses the term "in order to account for a particular religious sensibility, based (in part) on fragments selectively culled from classical Jewish texts, that dominates post-Holocaust Jewish thought." Braiterman asserts, "Although it often borders on blasphemy, antitheodicy does not constitute atheism; it might even express stubborn love that human persons have for God. After all, the author of a genuine antitheodic statement must believe that an actual relationship subsists between God and evil in order to reject it; and they must love God in order to be offended by that relationship.…[19]
The retrospective theodicies which explain evil in terms of its cause and have been challenged with the question: “If all evil is due an original sin, what caused that sin? Either God cold not or would not make man capable of being enticed or attracted by less than the best, or the first “evil will” had transcended the knowledge of God and hence, ‘undercut the explanation of this theodicies.’”[20]
The Augustinian theodicy has been subjected to scrutiny.
“The basic criticism is directed at the idea that a universe which God has created with absolute power, so as to be exactly as God wishes it to be, containing no evil of any kind, has nevertheless gone wrong. It is true that the free creatures are free to fall. However since they finitely perfect, without taint or trace of evil in them, and since they dwell in a finitely perfect environment, they will never in fact fall into sin. Thus the very idea of a perfect creation’s going wrong spontaneously and without cause is self-contradictory. It amount to self-contradictory of evil out of nothing…. The basic criticism, then, is that a flawless creation would never go wrong and if the creation does in fact the go wrong, then the ultimate responsibility for this must be with its creator: for “There stops the buck”!
A second criticism, made in the light of modern knowledge, is that we cannot today realistically think of the human species as having been once morally and spiritually perfect and then falling from that state into the chronic self-centeredness which is the human condition as we now know it. All evidence suggests that humanity gradually emerged out of lower forms of life with a very limited moral awareness and with very crude religious conceptions. Again, it is no longer possible to regard the natural evils of disease, earthquakes and the likes as consequences of the fall of humanity, for we know that they existed long before the human beings came upon the scene. [21] .
One salient theistic reply is that our corrupt nature is due to the Original Sin of the first human couple. Their free choice changed us for the worse, and for God to change us for the better would be to disrespect their free choice. But this reply raises too many troubling issues of its own. First, the wholesale corruption of mankind was, for Adam and Eve anyway, an unforeseeable consequence of Original Sin; one can no more allege that they truly chose human corruption than that Gavrilo Princip truly chose to plunge Europe into war. Big mistakes don't count as freely chosen outcomes. Second, even if Adam and Eve really did choose human nature for the rest of us, why should their choice count for so much? Don't the rest of us have a say? Invoking Original Sin only makes God look more and more morally confused.[22]
Moreover, if they did make the choice for our present nature, they had already had a nature with a bundle of tendencies that influenced their choice. Though human nature alone does not determine our choices, our choices are significantly influenced by our natures even if we ultimately have final say on our decisions. However, the flawed nature of our human nature disposes him to be cruel and callous in many ways. “The world might be a better place if humans shared a more virtuous and generous nature."[23] Perhaps if God had given us a better nature, it would not violate our freedom. “We might choose a kinder nature, if, for example, virtue came in pill form. We might wish it were easier for us to do good.” And our improved nature may be in accordance with our free will and not contrary to it and if God exists, then surely he had a large hand in crafting human nature. However, as long as he's giving us some nature or another, why not shoot for a virtuous nature? If it's wrong to make humans virtuous, then why should it be less wrong to make humans corrupt?
This Irenaean theodicy has been criticized from a variety of point of view. Some have problem with its rejection of the fall and final damnation of many. “The idea that everyone goes to heaven is not just, and it is inconsistent with Orthodox Christianity and ‘The Fall’ of Genesis 3. It also demotes Jesus’ role from ‘saviour’ to ‘moral role model.’[24] Philosophical critics have argued that, though this theodicy has shown an environment possible for person making, the theory does not justify the extent of human suffering; and also that there enough failures in life which make us doubt this process of soul making as really good e.g. the Holocaust, the tsunami. Is the magnitude of suffering really necessary for soul making? D.Z. Phillips in ‘The Concept of Prayer’ argued that ‘the continuation of evil and suffering is not a demonstration of love from an omnibenevolent God’. Even if the soul making process succeeds it cannot indisputably justify the means by which it is achieved. It is highly difficult to accept that a good God can use such a painful creative process to achieve goodness.
Despite its appeal, process theodicy has been severely criticized. In the first place it involves morally and religiously unacceptable elitism. It portrays God as content with the high intensity of physical and mental sufferings that are possibly experiential at the human level, since all these are considered as part and parcel of the actual process of the universe.
If the final good makes worthwhile the pain, suffering endured then can we say as is the case that God is loving? It will be absurd and in a way make room for non-judgmental attitude towards moral issues. The God of process then will be a God of elites, of the great, and of the success. The weak, the poor and the oppressed can hardly regard such God as worthy of their praise since it is partly from him that they are in such states. If the aim of the process God is to make humans good even at the cost of pain and suffering, then many moral principles will be violated. God will therefore not be morally perfect if it is so.
Evidential arguments from evil
While most agree that belief in a good and powerful God is rationally possible, nonetheless many contend that the existence of such a God is improbable due to the nature of the evil which we see in the world about us. They conclude that if such a God existed it is highly unlikely that He would allow the amount and intensity of evil which we see in our world. Evil which frequently seems to be of such a purposeless nature?
This charge is not to be taken lightly, for evidence abounds in our world of evil of such a horrendous nature that it is difficult at times to fathom what possible purpose it could serve. However, difficult as this aspect of the problem of evil is, careful thinking will show that there are reasonable responses to this challenge.[25]
Evidential arguments from evil seek to show that the existence of evil provides evidence for God's nonexistence, rather than implying the logical impossibility of God. Philosophers arguing against this point of view often believe that deductively valid arguments based on assumptions of evil will not succeed or must rest on "dead" hypotheses. Such philosophers frequently argue that it is simply impossible for one to know for sure which things are evil because of man's limited foresight.
A Theist position may always postulate some unknown, distant good that cannot be seen, and this will always be possible since there will always theoretically be something that God can know that we cannot. For instance, although improbable, there could be some natural law in virtue of which any instance of suffering could cause some distant, unforeseeable good to occur. Hence, such philosophers focus instead on whether evil provides evidence for or against the existence of God.
Their line of argument is: the existence of God may be logically compatible with the existence of evil, but the logical possibility of his existence does not mean that we are justified in believing that he does in fact exist. For such a belief to be justified, evidence is needed, and in the balance of evidence for and against the existence of God, the facts about evil weigh heavily on the negative side of the scales. The classic proponent of this line of argument is William Rowe. The traditional argument in support of theodicy can only explain evil traceable, however indirectly, to free will. It does not explain other phenomena which are often classified as "evil," but have nothing to do with human choices, or possibly the choices of other free beings.
Theodicy in other contexts
The concept of theodicy had been used in the 19th century to extend to broader philosophical contexts than the existence of good and evil, as God was used as an analogy to other philosophical problems. As thinkers such as Georg WF Hegel tried to argue that there was an absolute truth that reconciled different contradictory truths, other philosophers were interested in the same idea from the perspective that Eclecticism was the way to organize and develop philosophical thought. Victor Cousin, for instance, believed that the Christian idea of God was very similar to the Platonic concept of "the Good," in that God represented the principle behind all other principles. Like the ideal of Good, Cousin also believed the ideal of Truth and of Beauty were analogous to the position of God, in that they were principles of principles. Using this way of framing the issue, Cousin stridently argued that different competing philosophical ideologies all had some claim on truth, as they all had arisen in defense of some truth. He however argued that there was a theodicy which united them, and that one should be free in quoting competing and sometimes contradictory ideologies in order to gain a greater understanding of truth through their reconciliation.
In this argument, Cousin frequently quotes philosophers who used the concept of theodicy to specifically reference to issues about God and evil. For instance: "The intelligence of God is the region of eternal truths, and the ideas that depend upon them."
Replies to the criticism
Compatibilists attack the essential premise that God cannot influence our choices without thereby cancelling our freedom. After all, compatibilists believe that determinism is consistent with human freedom. And if determinism can allow for freedom, perhaps so can appropriate divine meddling with our decisions. Thus the question of exactly how God's intervention would undermine free moral agency is crucial. We need a reason to think that there are at least some, perhaps many, ways that God really couldn't override our choices without cancelling our freedom. The customary appeal is to a strong construal of free will.
Another challenge focuses on different ways to interfere with freedom. One way is to 'jump in' and take control of the agent, dictating its every movement and thought. This is the kind of coercion we envision in mad scientist stories. But it might also be the kind of coercion that motivates our above intuition that if God got involved, we would all be 'robots'. Perhaps not in the same way as the real robot but we would be citizens of a divine nation-state, and a very safe and reliable nation-state at that. But then the moral claim that God should hold back must be more refined: To just what extent could God (consistently) intervene, without abridging free will?
An important type of theodicy traces some or all evils to sinful free actions of humans or other beings (such as angels) created by God. Proponents of this approach assume that free action in creatures is a great value and is logically impossible with divine causal control over the creatures’ actions. It follows that God’s not intervening to prevent sins necessary, though the sins themselves are not, to the good of created freedom. This is proposed as morally sufficient reason for God’s not preventing them. It is a major task for this type of theodicy to explain why God would permit those evils that are not themselves free choices of creatures but are at most consequences of such choices.[26]
Other challenges attack the idea that evil-eliminating divine interventions must cancel human freedom. These challenges suggest different ways for God to eliminate evil, all the while leaving our free will untouched—"innocent interventions." One proposal is for God to fortify humans as to render us less vulnerable to the sins of our fellows. We could be bullet-proof, invulnerable to poison, etc. That way, humans would retain the capacity for evil choices and activities; it's just that such evil behavior would be harmless to the 'victims' and futile for the evildoers. On the other hand, it is not obvious that such a system could be constructed. If people cannot do harm, then they are not free moral agents, though they may be free agents in some very restricted sense. Most supporters of a free will theodicy would argue that it is moral free agency, not a vacuous freedom that has no moral consequences, which is essential to making us truly different from automata. In this view the free will theodiceans argued:
… that evils are logically necessary for greater goods (e.g. hardship for the full exemplification of certain virtues), so that even an omnipotent being (roughly, one whose power has no logical contingent limits) would have morally sufficient reason to cause or permit evils in order to obtain the goods. Leibniz, in his Theodicy (1710) proposed a particular comprehensive theodicy of this type. On his view, God had adequate reason to bring into existence the actual world, despite all its evils, because it is the best of all possible worlds, all actual evils are essential ingredients in it, so that omitting any of them would spoil the design of the whole. Aside an issue about whether actual evils are in fact necessary for greater goods, this approach faces the question whether it assumes wrongly that the end justifies the means[27].
A similar proposal is that God could allow sinful acts, but stop their evil consequences. So if I fire a rifle at your head, God allows me to make the decision, but then makes the trigger stick, or the rifle misfire, or the bullet pop out of existence. Such interventions would, happily, divorce evil choices from the subsequent suffering. An objection to this solution is that without observing the evil consequences of our actions we would not truly be making moral choices at all. In other words it is not only important for us to have freedom to choose our actions but also to have freedom with consequences. Presumably, a world where guns only fired when aimed at just targets would not truly present us the option to choose evil since it would be apparent that no harm comes from our actions; and a world where all evil choices were grossly unattractive would likewise not leave us truly free moral agents.
An entirely different approach (not precisely a free will theodicy) is to claim that suffering is merely an appearance, similar to the Buddhist teaching that suffering is illusion. Presumably an omnipotent God could isolate each of us in a 'virtual' world where others appear to suffer but in reality are soulless, experience-free imitations of life, i.e., each soul could inhabit its own universe filled entirely with non-sentient beings who imitate human suffering but do not actually experience it. Admittedly, nothing prevents one from believing this is actually the case and it does appear to solve the dilemma. However, a theology which rests on a huge deception orchestrated by the Supreme Being (namely, the false appearance that our acts can do evil), is unattractive to those concerned with knowledge of the deity, which requires revelation and the veracity of God.
The scientist-theologian John Polkinghorne suggests that, in addition to free will, God has created the universe in such a way that it is, to a significant extent, allowed to make itself, and that such a world "is better than the puppet theatre of a Cosmic Tyrant." Combining free will with free process, which he sees as "two sides of the same coin," deals with the fact that some evil is not a direct consequence of human action, but it is a direct consequence of the working out of the same laws of physics, chemistry and biology which allow intelligent freewill beings to evolve. In common with many physicists such as Martin Rees and Paul Davies, Polkinghorne is very impressed by the fine-tuning of the Universe and suspects that there are very tight limits on the fundamental laws and constants of physics if intelligent life is to evolve anywhere in a universe.
For, since God is the supreme existence, that is to say, supremely is, and is therefore unchangeable, the things that He made, He empowered to be, but not to be supremely like himself. To some He communicated a more ample; to others a more limited existence, and thus arranged the nature’s beings in ranks. For as from sapere comes sapientia so from esse comes essentia[28].
No one can be completely ignorant of God: God is hidden everywhere; He is manifest everywhere. No one can know Him as He is, but no one is permitted not to know Him. Even atheists refuse to believe only because of passion in their hearts. Moreover, there are very few of them, a rare type of men, for it is really a kind of insanity: that madness belongs to only a few[29].
CONCLUSION
The difficulty posed by the problem of evil to stunt faith in classic theistic God of monotheistic religions seems formidable and irreconcilable, especially when evil before the just and the innocent, but a closer look at case in point will prove that, despite the apparent evidence of evil there is on many occasions a hidden goodness inherent in such evils. As regards the question whether there is no other way God could use to create children and correct them if they live below his standard without pain and stress? I would support the view that God could have done so if such ‘imaginary lands’ could makes responsible sons and daughters for him. But those options will not make us moral free agents different from automata.
The existence of evil in the world and the possibility of not creating it at all cannot be disputed since “creation depends on God’s freewill.”[30] Following the line of thought of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Leibniz seems to show that an imperfection in the part may be required for a greater perfection in the whole. He added that it was consistent with order and the general good for God to grant certain of his creatures to exercise freedom even when he foresaw that they will turn to evil: for God could easily correct the evil and it was not fitting that in other to prevent sin he should always act in an extra ordinary way. This universe must be indeed better than any other possible universe. We must not forget that the good act must necessarily be without pain. Therefore, we must not regard anything unpleasant or an object of obversion as evil itself.
As such we must not imagine that there is more evil than good in all God’s work because there is more evil than good in intelligent creatures; because this supposes inference from the part to the whole, from intelligent creatures to all creatures, assumes tacitly and without proof that creatures devoid of reason cannot be compared or taken into account with those that have reason. Even should one consent that there is more evil than good in man one still has every reason for not admitting that there is more evil than good in all intelligent creatures. For there is an inconceivable number of spirits and perhaps of other rational creatures besides: and the opponent cannot prove that in the whole city of God, composed of spirits as of rational animals without number and endless different kinds, the evil exceeds the good.
We noted that when suffering strikes it is neither unnatural to experience emotional pain, nor unspiritual to express it. But we also noted that when suffering strikes, we must be quick to reflect on the character of God and on the promises He gives to those who are enduring great trial. Now we want to focus on one of the great truths of God's Word--that even in severe trial God is working all things together for the good of those who love Him (Rom. 8:28). This is not at all to imply that evil is somehow good. But it does mean that we are to recognize that even in what is evil God is at work to bring about his good purposes in our lives. Joseph’s story in the Bible is a lucid example (Gen. 50:20).
This is the great hope we have in the midst of suffering, that in a way beyond our comprehension, God is able to turn evil against itself. And it is because of this truth that we can find joy even in the midst of sorrow and pain. The apostle Paul described himself as "sorrowful, yet always rejoicing" (2 Cor. 6:10). And we are counseled to rejoice in trial, not because the affliction itself is a cause for joy (it is not), but because in it God can find an occasion for producing what is good.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
PRIMARY SOURCES
Benedetto, J. Arnold, The Fundamentals in the Philosophy of God, London: Collier- Macmillan Ltd., 1963.
Etienne, Gilson, Elements of Christian Philosophy, New York: Doubleday &Company, Inc., 1960.
Hick, John, Philosophy of Religion, New Jersey: Prentice- Hall, Inc. 1983.
Rowe, L.William, Wainwrght J. William, Philosophy of Religion, Selected Readings, (2nd ed.) Robert Ferm (ed.), New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. 1989.
SECONDARY SOURCES
Audi, Robert, (ed.), The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, (2nd ed.) New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Charlesworth, Max, Philosophy and Religion. Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2002.
Chukwudi, Eze, Emmanuel, African Philosophy, An Anthology, The Problem of Evil, (2nd ed.), Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 1998.
Edwards, Paul, (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (Vol. 8) New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1967.
_________, Arthur Pap, A Introduction to Modern Philosophy, Reading from Classical and Contemporary Sources, (3rd ed.), New York: 1973.
Gilson, Etienne, The Christian Philosophy of St Augustine, L. E. M. Lynch, New York: Random House, Inc, 1960.
____________, (ed.) Medieval Philosophy. New York: Ransom House, Inc., 1962.
Hildebrand, Alice, Introduction to Philosophy of Religion. Chicago: Franciscan Herald
Press, 1971.
Hopfe, Lewis, Religions of the World. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co. Inc., 1983.
Huston, Smith, The Religions of Man. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc., 1958.
Koinonchak A. Joseph, Mary Collins & Dermot A. Lane (eds), New Dictionary of Theology, United States: Liturgical Press, 1987.
Kolakowski, Leszek, Religion: If There Is No God…on God, the Devil, Sin and Other Worries of the So-Called Philosophy of Religion, India: St. Augustine’s Press, 2001.
MacGrath, Alister, The Christian Theology Reader. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1995.
Maritain Jacques, Approach to God, Peter O. Reilly, (trans.), New York, Harper &Bothers Publishers, 1954.
Mbiti, S. John, African Religion and Philosophy, Oxford, Heinemann Educational Publishers, 1969.
McBrien, P. Richard, The Harper Collins Encyclopedia of Catholicism. New York:
Harper Collins Publishers Inc., 1995.
Messe, Richard, Does God’s Existence Need Proof?, New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1993.
Mitchell Basil, (Ed.), The Philosophy of Religion, New York, Oxford University Press, 1983.
Neusuer, Jacob, (Ed), Evil and Suffering, California: University of California Press, 1976
Nigel, Warburton, Philosophy, The Basic Readings, New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 1999.
Peterson L. Michael, The Problem of Evil, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992.
_________, God & Evil, An Introduction to the Issue, United Kingdom: Westview Press, 1998.
Pojman, P., Louis, Philosophy, The Pursuit of Wisdom 4th ed., Canada, Thomson Wadsworth, 2004.
Pomerleau, Wayne, Western Philosophies of Religion. New York: Ardsley House, 1998.
.Portalie, Eugene, A Guide to the Thoughts of St. Augustine. Chicago: Henry Regnery
Company, 1960.
Pucctti, Roland, “The Loving God: Some Observations on Hick’s Theodicy, in, The Problem of Evil, Michael Peterson (ed.), Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992.
Rahner, Karl (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Theology, A Concise Sacramentum mundi, London: Burns & Oates, 1975.
Ricoeu, Paul, The symbolism of Evil, Emerson Buchanan, New York: Beacon Press, 1967.
Bruce, Reichenbach, Evil and Good, New York: Fordham University Press, 1986.
Rood, Rick, The Problem of Evil, from Probe Ministries1996-2009, 15 January 2009. http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/evil.html
St. Augustine, The City of God, Translated by Marcus Dods, D.D., New York: Morden Library, 1950, p. 382.
Susan Neiman, Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy with a New Preface by the Author, Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2002.
Theodicy, in Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 13 January 2009."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodicy"
Ward, Keith, Religion and Human Nature. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998.
Wolterstoff, Nicholas, “Faith” The Routledge Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. (Vol.3) E. Craig. (ed.), London: Routledge, 1998.
[1] John Hick, Philosophy of Religion, New Jersey, Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1983, p.40.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Arnold J. Benedetto, The Fundamentals in the Philosophy of God, London, Collier- Macmillan Ltd., 1963, p.292.
[5] Louis P. Pojman, Philosophy, The Pursuit of Wisdom 4th ed., Canada, Thomson Wadsworth, 2004. p.113
[7] Robert Audi, Ed., The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy (2nd ed.), New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999, p910.
[8] John Hick, Op. cit. p.41.
[9] Ibid. p.42.
[11] Ibid, p.43.
[12] Ibid,
[13] Theodicy, Op. Cit. 6.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Ibid, p.47.
[16] Roland Pucctti, “the Loving God: Some Observation Hick’s Theodicy, pp.231-246”, in, The Problem of Evil, Michael Peterson (ed.), Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame Press, 1992.
[17] John Hick, p.49
[18] Theodicy, Op. Cit. p11
[19] Cf. Ibid.
[20] Joseph A. Komanchhhak, Mary Collins, Dermot A. Lane, “The Problem of Evil”, The New Dictionary of Theology, Collegeville, Minnesota, Liturgical Press, 1987, p.361.
[21] John Hick, Op. Cit., p.44.
[22] Theodicy, Op. Cit. p 19.
[23] Ibid.
[25] Rood, Rick, The Problem of Evil, from Probe Ministries1996-2009, 15 January 2009. http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/evil.html
[26] Robert Audi, Op. Cit.
[27] Joseph A. Komanchhhak, et al., Op. Cit.
[28] Saint Augustine, The City of God, Translated by Marcus Dods, D.D., Morden Library, New York, 1950,
P 382.
[29] Eugene Portalie, S. J., A Guide to the Thought of St. Augustine, Translated by Ralph J. Bastian, S.J., Henry Regnery Company, Chicago, 1960, P125.
[30] Rowe, L.William, Wainwrght J. William, Philosophy of Religion, Selected Readings, 2nd Ed. Robert Ferm,
New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. 1989, p 198.
