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45 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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What is the internal problem of the intellectual problem of evil?
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The problem may be presented as arising from certain beliefs to which Christians are committed in vritue of being Christians, so that the Christian worlview seems to be at odds with itself (inner tension)
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What is the external problem of the intellectual problem of evil?
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The problem may be presented in terms of truths to which Christinas are not committed as Christians but which we nonetheless have good reason to believe (evidence against the truth of the Christian worldview)
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What is the probabilistic and logical version of the internal problem of evil?
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Logical - argument against God is that evil and God cannot coexist
Probabilistic - possible that God and evil coexist, but very improbable |
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If God is all-powerful, then He can create any world he chooses
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It is not necessarily true that an all-powerful God can create just any possible world, like he can't make a round square. So if you give a person a choice, A FREE CHOICE, then there must be the possibility of evil. If you give choice but cause person to make a specific choice, then they aren't free.
Natural evils - maybe not caused by God, but by demon activity; though not necessarily true b/c of the porbabilistic problem Not puppets, but that people would choose good, or else say sin is necessary. |
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2) If God is all-good, then He would prefer a world without evil over a world with evil.
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Well no--b/c in some cases, pain is necessary (like for learning)
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Not compatible with the fact that so many people are murdered
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Good deal more good than evil--or else commit suicide
Maybe world present has the most good God could get for least amount of evil (probabilistic) Or that... 5,999,999 but not 6 milion...there is no dividing line |
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Counter of logical
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Suggest a possible one, not likely or plausible one
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Amount and kind of evil in the world
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Maybe God puts such a premium on freedom that rather than remove free will of ppl or demons, keeps it...if do remove, less evil and less good
Love - true love--involves a choice. |
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God would not allow pointless evil
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Is it truly pointless? "No-see-ums" illustration of Platinga
Or anthropomorphism |
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Suffering is unjust
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Where got this idea of "just or unjust"? If say, "it's just a private idea of my own", then argument against God collapsed too--for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not that it just didn't happen to please my private fancies
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Evolution and No God
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Evoluton - depends on death, destruction, and violence of strong against weak
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God doesn't understand suffering
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Jesus deliberately put himself on the hook of human suffering. in Jesus, God experienced the greatest depths of pain
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Did Jesus renounce God?
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No--still said, "My God", even as he experiences infinite separation from Father...knows firsthand despair, rejection, loneliness, poverty, bereavement, torture, imprisonment
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God doesn't take evil seriously
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God takes our misery and suffering so seriously that he was willing to takei t on himself
Immanuel - God with us even in our worst sufferings |
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Injustice is useless
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injustice sometimes leads to greater justice
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Atheism - no better way to deal with suffering, either
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Heaven - restoration of life, where every horrible thing that ever happened will be undone and repaired and will make eventual glory and joy even greater
Greater for having once been lost and broken |
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3) A perfect creature cannot do evil.
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False - perfect archangel, Lucifer, sinned and became the devil bc of free will.
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Who caused Lucifer to sin?
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Himself--free actions must be self-caused.
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How did evil arise?
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1) A good creature (Lucifer)
2) With the good power of free will 3) Willed the finite good of the creature (himself) 4) Over the infinite good of the Creator |
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God can destroy evil
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Then he will have to destroy our free will. "How, if they will not give in?"
"You were not willing" |
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If God is all-good, He would defeat evil.
If God is all-powerful, He could defeat evil. But evil is not yet defeated. Therefore, no such God exists. |
Evil may yet be defeated in the future.
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Evil will never be defeated
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You need to know the future--then you must be God--but you are saying there is no God
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1) All good: want to defeat evil.
2) All powerful: He can defeat evil. 3) Evil is not yet defeated** 4) Evil will 1 day be defeated Has it already been defeated? |
1) Involves calling evil good
2 Current world not best of all possible worlds 3) Morally, world lacks qualities necessary to qualify for the word "defeat" |
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Explain human evil.
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A tree, cow, without love is no less a tree, cow...but a human being whose heart is filled with the intent to harm rather than to seek another's good is disordered and decisively less of a human being. Being informed is not enough--being transformed is what we need.
It's abnormal. ultimate problem (unlike Eastern and secularist, which see evil as the very essence of existence), problem is not with our existence but in our disobedience. |
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What is the 2-edged character?
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Perspective of creation (evil need not have been) and fall (world should have been otherwise).
Openly affirms world and denies world. |
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Jesus' response to evil
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Anger - world that God created good and beautiful and whoel was now broken and in ruins
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Philosopher Peter Kreeft
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"Jesus is the tears of God"
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If there is a God, why is there so much evil?
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If there is no God, why is there so much good?
Then how on earth did human beings ever come to attribute the creation of the universe to a wise and good Creator? IDea of evil, thus of goodness and of God as the origin and standard of goodness--needs to be accounted for |
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If there is no Creator and no moment of creation, then everything is the result of evolution
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Yet universe must be inifinite, and by now everything should already be perfect. Would have been plenty of time for evolution to have finished and for evil to have been vaniquished
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90% of people believe in God
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Faith and hope
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Atheism robs death of meaning
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Death has no meaning - how can life have meaning?
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If God is not all-powerful, then how are we to treat God?
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1) Rely on yourself first, and then maybe God, maybe not...
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Example of very worst thing -> good thing
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Death of God on the cross
Holocaust -> restore Jews to ancient homeland Blood of martrys was seed of church |
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What is learned through suffering?
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Obedience
Moral character Suffering produces preserverance; preservereance, character; and character, hope. |
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Criticizing God for doing away with evil is like
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reading half the novel and criticizing the author for not resolving the plot
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How to approach suffering, in light of the cross?
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If we want to be with God, we have to be with suffering, we have to not avoid the cross, thank him for everything. Thine is the glory and the honor, not "deliver us from evil".
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Emotional problem of evil
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Listen to her, be aware of her, see her pain, feel her pain, enter it, be one with her
Sometimes I wonder why there is so much suffering, and I'm afraid God might ask me the same question. Terrified of being alone more than anything else. So God has not left us alone. |
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Job
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Sees God. God is essentially 3 persons who are present to each other in perfect knowledge and love. God is infinite joy.
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Jesus and our sufferings
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Are we broken? He was broken, like bread for us. Are we despised? He was despised and rejected of men. DO we cry out that we can't take any more? He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Do people betray us? He was sold out himself. Are our tenderest relationships broken? He too loved and was rejected. Do people turn from us? They hid their faces from him as from a leper.
"No matter how deep our darkness, he is deeper still." Cross is the only justification of what happens in our world. |
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What Jesus will do with our sufferings
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He wants to redeem it. Bring about healing possible, and his healing strength is in his vulnerability to pain, and begun to bring about healing in life.
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Sliding doors
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Hopeless it is for limited observers to speculate on the probability of God's having morally sufficient resasons for the evil that we see.
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The chief purpose of life is not happiness, but __
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Knowledge of God.
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Mankind is in a state of rebellion against God
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Heighten our responsibility before God, as well as our wickedness and our need of forgiveness and moral cleansing
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Paul
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"So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed every day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, because we look not to the things that are seen but to the things taht are unseen; for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
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Conclusion
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Even if evil + God's existence improbable together, does not make it improbable for you have to balance other evidence.
Probabilistic version - no more decisive than logical version, because of a) Morally sufficient reasons b) Purpose of life is knowledge of God. c) We're rebelling against God. d) Knowledge of God is an incommensurable good. |
