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Preface
I am working on Chapter One from my PhD for a potential journal article. This struck me as most interesting from today's monotonous 'torture' while dealing with MS Word and the turning of United Kingdom style footnotes into Harvard style in-notes, among other things. If you appreciate my theological, Biblical Studies posts such as the James and Matthew posts, my previous two articles, please comment on them and this is an indicator besides pageviews. Yes, I intend to present both articles related to theodicy/the problem of evil and other on this blog.
Thank you very much.
I am primarily researching and writing on
the logical and not the evidential, gratuitous problem of evil, since although
I can accept that Plantinga has primarily successfully dealt with the logical
problem of evil, as described within his system and assumptions,[1] I reason that Plantinga’s free will approach is not the best and
most effective system within Christian theism for dealing with the issue.[2] A well-constructed sovereignty approach,[3]
such as will be presented by John S. Feinberg in Chapter Three: Sovereignty
Theodicy, is better equipped at dealing with both the logical and gratuitous
problem. I also embed my own sovereignty
theodicy throughout this thesis, particularly in Chapter Three.[4] Within this thesis my own
concepts of sovereignty theodicy are discussed in contrast to the approaches
reviewed.[5] Plantinga’s (1982) approach
is problematic due largely to his support of the idea that God could not create
significantly free, good creatures that would only commit good acts at all
times.[6] Welty rejects Plantinga’s
idea that God cannot create a world containing moral good and no moral evil,[7] and raises the objection that God brought Christ into the world as
a sinless human being.[8] Welty’s point here is that
every human being could have therefore been sinless[9] and the world could contain good and no evil with significantly free
human beings that would not commit wrong actions.[10] I have a similar objection to Welty’s,[11] which shall be discussed in Chapters Two and Three. Within my theodicy, I reason that God could
have, if he wished, made significantly free human beings, or human like beings
who would have been perfectly morally good and would not commit wrong actions.[12] God’s choice not to create
such beings, in my mind is not a sign of a lack of power, or moral failure, but
rather the use of his own perfect and significantly free will for good
purposes. In Chapter Four, with my
discussion on the evidential, gratuitous problem of evil, it shall be seen that
a sovereignty theodicy can reasonably and successfully deal with both the
logical and evidential problem of evil, and therefore the evidential problem is
not a greater difficulty for theists than the logical one, rather it is simply
a newer type of criticism since theism has been able to defend itself
substantially through the use of free will approaches.[13] However, I can agree with
Durston that even if there is no such thing as gratuitous evil,[14]
which is my position, large amounts of evil that appear gratuitous will exist.[15] This would be evil that I would consider
unexplainable, humanly speaking, but would not be gratuitous from God’s
perspective. God can use evil for his
greater purposes, but this does not mean that any person will completely
understand why certain evils exist.[16] God’s attribute of omniscience provides him
knowledge in order to work his plans for the greater good within creation that
no other being can possess without God revealing this information.
[1] Primarily from Plantinga’s book, God,
Freedom, and Evil (1977).
[4] It is similar, but not identical to
Feinberg’s approach, which I shall point out.
[5] It is not necessary for me to present my
own theodicy Chapter within this work, as my views shall be explained
throughout this thesis.
[6] Plantinga (1982: 166-167). This is an aspect of incompatibilism, which
shall be primarily defined and discussed in Chapter Two.
[7] Plantinga (1977)(2002: 30). Welty (1999: 1).
[8] Welty (1999: 1).
[9] Welty (1999: 1).
[11] Welty (1999: 1).
[12] This is an aspect of compatibilism, which
shall be primarily defined and discussed in Chapters Two and Three.
[13] Freewill approaches can be logically
coherent, although not necessarily true.
[15] Durston (2000: 79).
DURSTON, KIRK
(2000) ‘The Consequential Complexity of History and Gratuitous Evil’, in Religious Studies, Volume 36, pp. 65-80.
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
PLANTINGA, ALVIN
C. (1977)(2002) God, Freedom, and Evil,
Grand Rapids, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
PLANTINGA, ALVIN
C. (1982) The Nature of Necessity,
Oxford, Clarendon Press.
WELTY, GREG
(1999) ‘The Problem of Evil’, in Greg
Welty PhD, Fort Worth, Texas.
Philosophy Department, Southwestern Baptist
Theological Seminary.
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Further comments
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Further comments
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