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Hamartiology

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Hamartiology: The Problem of Evil (Theodicy) – Your neighbor Sam greets you outside as you return home from church one Sunday. After the usual chitchat, he confides in you that he has been troubled with the news, recent reports of natural catastrophes, wars, disease, and so on. He asks if you could help him make sense of the presence of evil in the world - if indeed God exists.



Keeping this scenario in mind, answer the following questions in your essay:
• What is the problem of evil?
• Define moral evil and natural evil, and illustrate them with examples.
• Seek to explain why there is sin among mankind (the philosophical problem of moral evil) and why bad things happen in nature (the philosophical problem of natural evil). Consider the various theodicies presented in the reading, and address the merits and faults of each one.
• Briefly explain why a theodicy must be internally consistent, and defend the internal consistency of your explanation of evil’s existence.
• Consider how personal experience of evil may affect one’s relationship with God (the religious problem of evil). Do you believe someone can dispute a certain belief about God without actually attacking God Himself?

Sam, evil in the world is a problem that exists. Even someone, like yourself, who is unsure of the existence of God recognizes a problem with a blemish in what seems to be an otherwise perfect world. I think you could agree that if evil was removed from the world, it would be near perfect. I believe it would be a completely perfect world, less evil. There are so many types of evil we deal with also. It is not that we are just fighting one type of evil; if we were, I think the battle would be easier. To put it in earthly terms, it is a lot like a skilled athlete. The toughest athletes to beat are the ones who bring a lot of different skills to the table. In high school and college, there are a lot of good athletes, but sometimes they are just skilled at one thing. If you can find a way to beat a specific athlete, or team, by hitting on their weak points, you are more assured victory. That is what separates the professional athletes from the college and high school athletes. A large majority of professional athletes bring more than one skill to the table. They are tough to beat, because they are multifaceted. I feel evils and sins are the same way. There are different types of evil; when we think we have figured out how to stop one, another arises. That’s what is so hard about beating and defeating evil; it comes to us on different fronts. We face two main evils. Moral evils are evils committed by human choice and decision. Inside our free will, which God gave to us, we choose to do the wrong thing. Natural evils are the evils that happen around us forced by nature or the supernatural. This type of evil is not based upon human decision. An example of moral evil is a child stealing a cookie from a cookie jar, when their mother told them not to. Natural evil occurs when a natural disaster such as a tornado wrecks, kills, and destroys. We always hear, “how could a good God let that happen?” First we must answer the reason for sin among man. I believe God gave man free will. Inside this free will we were given the decision and choice to sin. God saw it better for us to have a choice to do evil, then for Him to force us to do good always. This is the free will defense of theodicy, which is just a big, theological word for explaining the ways of God to man. I tend to side with the ideas of a free will path that God gave us. Another popular view of mans evil in the world is called the soul building theodicy. This states that God put man in a world of evil, to give them a free choice. With this choice, they are being built into better people, who follow God, by choosing not to sin. If God had put them in a world of no evil, then they could not make an effort to do the right thing. The problem is, evil is the easier choice, and thus a world with evil in it does not accomplish the task God had intended of positively building souls through evil. This is what shuts down the defenses of this view. Again, I believe God lets these things happen, because He wants conscious decisions made with freedom, instead of having a bunch of God worshiping robots. Leibniz’s theodicy, another view, states that God chose to create how he did, because He can do that, being God. I agree with this idea essentially, but it is lacking. Leibniz states that God willed the best, because He would be obligated to do so, but that essentially is not the end result we see. There is apparent evil in this world. According to this, God let a world happen that is less that what the best thing for man is. That is not a loving and righteous God. The whole point of a theodicy viewpoint is to present a consistent stance on the existence of evil, then internal consistency is very important. I believe the free will viewpoint carries the most consistency to scripture. The problem is, like you stated, these ideas rely a whole lot on God himself. Someone who does not believe in God, and does not trust God, cannot agree with a theodicy viewpoint, unless they are looking objectively at the data given. If you look objectively, and line up what scripture says, with the points laid out in a theodicy viewpoint, you may be able to find an answer to your question. I believe that you can disagree on topics of theodicy, as a believer or non-believer, without saying that God was wrong in what He at creation did. There can be disagreement between finite man on the infinite creation of good and evil by God, without God losing his infinite power, wisdom, and nature.

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