'A belief in the life after death solves the problem of evil' Discuss

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Louise Hempton                Religious Studies

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‘A belief in the life after death solves the problem of evil’ Discuss

The word evil has a broad definition. There are two main types of evil; Moral evil and Natural evil. Moral evil covers the willful acts of human beings such as murder and rape. Natural evil refers to natural disasters such as famines and floods. We can divide these two types further into another two types of evil; Physical evil and metaphysical evil. Physical evil means bodily pain or mental anguish for example fear, illness, grief and war. Metaphysical evil refers to such things as imperfection and chance for instance criminals going unpunished and deformities. But how does this problem get solved by a belief in the life after death. The problem of evil comes about because of certain qualities that religious people believe God to have. A religious believer would not want to deny God of being Omni benevolent, omnipotent and omniscient. To say that there is evil in the world is to doubt that God is Omni benevolent; omnipotent and omniscient as God create the world.

Irenaeus proposed that God did not create a perfect world. He chose not to create a perfect world because he knew we had to choose to do good in order to become a flawless human being. He had to give us the potential to disobey him. Evil is only temporary. God is using evil as a teaching tool until humanity is perfect. God cannot logically compromise our freedom in order to get rid of evil. The Irenaen Theodicy relies heavily on the importance of human freedom. Irenaeus suggests that human goodness comes from it’s response to moral decisions made in an imperfect world, when temptation is resisted it is a great deal more valuable a lesson learnt than if it had been an inherent part of the being. The idea being that the human race was not created in a state of perfection but in a state of imperfection but leading to a state of perfection. In order for us to develop morally toward God we had to be created and exist at a distance from him, therefore there had to be horrid things in the world.

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We know need to concentrate on the problem of pain and suffering in the world. The normal assumption is that God has supposedly created a perfect world and that if there is suffering in it which must mean that God is either a nasty or weak character or God does not exist. For Irenaeus this problem is overcome by the idea that the world is not finished, we are moving towards perfect but we are not there yet. God’s purpose was not to construct a paradise where the world was free of pain and suffering, but as a place where ...

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