The religious believer may find it hard to argue the case for the existence of a good and powerful God in the light of the sometimes-overwhelming scale and depth of suffering apparent in the world. The philosophical argument runs as follows:
- If God is omnipotent then he can prevent suffering.
- If God is benevolent he will not want people to suffer.
- Suffering exists in the world.
- Therefore God is neither omnipotent nor benevolent.
For some this leads to a situation where belief in God becomes untenable and an atheistic position is reached. This has long been the basis for questioning the existence of God, but David Hume, the eighteenth century philosopher, first stated it, as a defined argument. He used a triangular shape on which to base his argument.
HUME’S TRIANGLE
Hume stated that only two of the statements could exist. The existence of evil is an obvious fact; therefore one of the other two statements must be untrue. Either God is all-powerful but not loving, or he is all loving, but unable to control the world. This contention meant that Hume concluded that God does not exist.
Many modern believers have struggled with this problem right up to the present time when the Archbishop of Canterbury, when asked to talk about the recent terrorist atrocity at Beslan, admitted that the event had led him to momentarily doubt his faith in God. He said, “I think it is probably the suffering of children that most deeply challenges anybody’s personal faith. When you see the depth of energy that people can put into such evil… It would be inhuman not to react in that way.”
Explain 2 theodicies giving their strengths and weaknesses.
A number of theologians have tried to explain away the problems of evil by constructing theodicies that explain
The Augustinian theodicy, created by Augustine of Hippo (354-430) used as its starting point, the creation story in Genesis. Augustine maintained that God is perfect and made the perfect world out of nothing ‘ex-nihilo’; he did not create anything evil. In his terms, evil is a lack of goodness in something. As God did not create evil, there cannot be a completely evil being or thing in existence. Extending this, there is always the possibility of evil in the world since only God is perfect. Augustine’s explanation of evil would be that it came from angels, created before humanity, or humans who deliberately turned away from God. This is because God, in his wisdom decided to give humanity the gift of freewill. This, for Augustine, absolved God from having caused the evil because it had resulted from humanity’s choosing. This is known as the Freewill Defence. However, God was not uncaring about the existence of evil and therefore sent Jesus Christ
