Monday, May 17, 2021

PhD: Twitter quote 82

PhD: Twitter quote 82

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Edited from PhD

John S. Feinberg Sovereignty Theodicy/Defence: Eight Ways God Could Eliminate Evil (PhD Edit) 

Twitter version I

Eight Ways God Could Eliminate Evil: First, God could eliminate the problem of evil by annihilating humankind. Feinberg (1994: 130). 

Twitter version II

Feinberg points out that this would contradict God’s intention to create humanity. Feinberg (1994: 131).

Twitter version III 

Re: criticisms of Flew & Mackie, a critic could suggest that God need not annihilate humanity but could have simply created it differently or caused persons to act differently as in a far more moral fashion, more of the time.

Twitter version IV

From a Reformed, Calvinistic perspective for this Kingdom to be inhabited by human beings as God created them there is first a period of time, the duration only known by God, for which the problem of evil exists. 

Twitter version V

To destroy humanity would also end all of God’s plans for a completed Kingdom of God. Feinberg (1994: 131).

2010 Theodicy and Practical Theology: PhD thesis, the University of Wales, Trinity Saint David, Lampeter 


May 17, 2021 

My PhD theory and conclusion, which offered a bit of thesis originality, is that human beings in Jesus Christ with the use of compatibilism will eventually have greater spiritual maturity than Adam and Eve did prior to a fall from God (Genesis 1-3). It would also appear that God ultimately prefers human beings, as they will be in the culminated Kingdom (Revelation 20-22), over persons in a different scenario that would have never freely chosen to disobey God. Perhaps in that case as well, fallen human beings, with the applied atoning work of Jesus Christ that are justified (imputed righteousness) and sanctified, and in Christ's resurrection, eventually resurrected to perfection (1 Corinthians 15, 1 Thessalonians 4, connects to 2 Thessalonians 2, Revelation 20-22), would have the type of spiritual maturity God requires within his culminated Kingdom of God.


ERICKSON, MILLARD (1994) Christian Theology, Grand Rapids, Baker Book House. 

FEINBERG, JOHN S. (1994) The Many Faces of Evil, Grand Rapids, Zondervan Publishing House. 

FLEW, ANTONY (1955) ‘Divine Omnipotence and Human Freedom’, in Antony Flew and A. MacIntrye (eds.), New Essays in Philosophical Theology, London, SCM, in Paul Edwards and Arthur Pap (eds.), A Modern Introduction To Philosophy, New York, The Free Press.

FLEW, ANTONY (1955) ‘Theology and Falsification’, in Antony Flew and A. MacIntrye (eds.), New Essays in Philosophical Theology, London, SCM, in Paul Edwards and Arthur Pap (eds.), A Modern Introduction To Philosophy, New York, The Free Press. 

FLEW, ANTONY (1983)(1996) ‘The Falsification Challenge’, in Antony Flew and A. MacIntrye (eds.), New Essays in Philosophical Theology, in Michael Peterson, William Hasker, Bruce Reichenbach, and David Basinger (eds.), Philosophy of Religion, Oxford, Oxford University Press. 

FLEW, ANTONY, R.M. HARE, AND BASIL MITCHELL (1996) ‘The Debate on the Rationality of Religious Belief’, in L.P. Pojman (ed.), Philosophy, The Quest for Truth, New York, Wadsworth Publishing Company. 

FLEW, ANTONY AND A.MACINTRYE (1999) ‘Philosophy of Religion’, in Alan Richardson and John Bowden (eds.), A New Dictionary of Christian Theology, Kent, SCM Press Ltd.

MACKIE, J.L. (1955)(1996) ‘Evil and Omnipotence’, in Mind, in Michael Peterson, William Hasker, Bruce Reichenbach, and David Basinger (eds.), Philosophy of Religion, Oxford, Oxford University Press. 

MACKIE, J.L. (1971)(1977)(2002) ‘Evil and Omnipotence’, in The Philosophy of Religion, in Alvin C. Plantinga, God, Freedom, and Evil, Grand Rapids. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.