1Lord Tennyson on natural evil
Nature, red in tooth and claw
2Thomas Hobbes on natural evil
Life is nasty, brutish and short
3John Stuart Mill on natural evil
Nearly all the things that men are hanged or imprisoned for doing to one another is nature's everyday performances
4Epicurus on the logical problem of evil in Lactantius' 'Evil and the Treatsie on the Anger of God'
Is God willing to prevent evil but is unable to? Then he is not omnipotent. Is God able to prevent evil but unwilling to? Then he is malevolent. Is God willing to and able to prevent evil? Then why is there evil?
5John Mackie on the logical problem
Calls it an inconsistent triad
6John Stuart Mill on the Evidential problem of evil in 'Nature and the Utility of Religion'
The order of things in this life is often an example of injustice and not justice
7William Rowe on the Evidential problem of evil
Calls his argument the "argument from atheism" because based on Hume's statement that the problem of evil is the "rock of athesim" and Rowe calls attention to the "intense human and animal suffering" and uses the exampe of the fawn
8Alfred North Whitehead in Process Theodicy states how evil is brought about by destruction in his book "Adventures of Ideas"
"Destruction as a dominant fact in the experience is the correct definition of evil" and God is a "co-sufferer who understands"
9David Griffin in Process Theodicy definition of evil in his book 'Creation out of Chaos and the Problem of Evil
Evil is anything which makes the earth worse than it otherwise could have been
10Griffin's interpretation of God creating the earth in his book "God, Power and Evil"
When God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was without form or void
11Griffin states how evil is a necessary thing
The correlation between the capacity to enjoy and the capacity to suffer is a necessary metaphysical correlation inherent to the nature of things
12Griffin states how evil is always the absence of good
Any absence of good that could have been realized is evil even if no suffering is involved
13Griffin states how God can only persuade us in the right direction
God cannot control but can only persuade what we become and how we affect others
14Griffin states how we have free will
God cannot coerce worldly beings for the power they possess cannot be overridden
15Griffin admits that God is ultimately responsible for evil
God is responsible for evil in the sense that he urged creation forward to those states where discordant feelings can be felt with greater intensity
16God is a co-sufferer according to Griffin
God is the only being who has experienced every single evil that has occurred in creation
17Griffin rejects God's omnipotence and uses evolution to help him do this in order to avoid the question of
why would a being whose power is essentially unlimited use such a long and pain-filled method of creating the world and everything in it
18Peter Hare criticizes Griffin in his book 'Evil and Persuasive Power'
Queried why so many people were left unpersuaded
19Barbara Ward and Rene Dubos criticized Griffin in their book 'Only One Earth'
Argued about the extent of evil and how the world is "filled with fear and ignorance which breeds more fear" and "at the end, for everyone, stands the dreaded unknown"
20Brian Davis criticizes Griffin in his book 'The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil'
God's suffering is different because there is a difference between choosing to suffer and a God who understands because he is "in the soup"
21Augustine's definition of evil
Evil is nothing but the corruption of natural measure. What we call an evil nature is a corrupt nature, it is only bad in so far as it has been corrupted
22Augustine does not believe that evil is a thing
Evil is not a substance
23Evil depends on the way things harmonize
In parts of creation, somethings, because they harmonize with others, are considered evil. Yet the same things harmonize with others and are good
24Herbert McCabe supports Augustine's view of evil as a privation
Evil is when something does not live up to expectations. The example of bad grapes or a bad deckchair. Not bad in themselves but simply do not fulfill their function (Aristotle)
25Augustine argues that everything does have some good in it in his book 'Confessions'
If there is no good in them there is nothing capable of corruption
26Augustine supports the Aesthetic principle
The world is beautified even by sinner
27Augustine states how all evil is due to original sin
All evil is sin or the punishment for sin
28Augustine talks about the principle of plentitude and is supported by John Hick
Why is there a world rather than the highest of heavens? Because the whole range of eternal ideas should become incarnated in the world of sense
29Augustine believes that all those who do not accept God will go to hell but this does not impact the the universe was made perfectly
Since there is happiness for those who do not sin, the universe is perfect; and it is no less perfect because there is misery for sinners
30Schleiermacher criticizes Augustine's theodicy
Stating how there is a logical contradiction in a God who made a perfect world that was later made imperfect. Plantinga argues as a counter response to this that without the possibility of being morally wrong, there is no genuine freedom
31Nancey Murphy and George Francis Rayner Ellis criticize Augustine's idea of seminal presence
Stating how there must be some biological explanation for Adam transmitting original sin
32Professor Arvind Sharma argued against the idea of the connection of moral and natural evil
Stating that natural evil cannot be the cause of moral evil because scientific consensus shows how the presence of diseases and natural disasters occurred before human existence
33Mackie criticizes Augustine's theodicy
Stating how there was open to him the possibility of making a being who would act freely but always choose right (Plantinga rejects this) and if he is unable to highlight goodness without evil the this undermines his omnipotence
34The key Biblical quote that Irenaeus focuses on
Let us make man in our image, after our likeness
35Irenaeus demonstrating how evil will form our characters and is part of our development towards being made in God's likeness
Offer to God your heart in a soft and malleable state, preserving the form in which the creator first made you... by keeping the structure you will rise to perfection
36Lance Armstrong on his cancer taught him that suffering is necessary
Cancer has taught me that pain has a reason. Pain and loss are great enhancers
37Irenaeus emphasizes how Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden of eden but they were not the perfect creatures of the Augustinian theodicy
They were expelled due to an understandable lapse due to weakness and immaturity
38Irenaeus argues how evil is necessary in order for us to become this
Heirs of Eternal life and children of God
39The purpose of this life, Irenaeus states
Is the moral and spiritual growth of humans into perfect beings who are "capable of a personal relationship with their maker"
40Irenaeus states that if we had no knowledge of evil, good will have no meaning
How, if we had no knowledge of the contrary, could we have instruction in that which is good?
41John Hick calls the world a
vale of soul-making
42There needs to be an epistemic distance between humanity and god, as if there were no God
Etsi Deus non daretur and he outlines how the world is "systematically ambiguous, capable of being interpreted either theistically or naturalistically"
43Gil Edwards in 'Stepping into the Magic' highlights the importance of evil in the world in support of Hick
It is only through suffering that qualities such as tolerance, trust, courage and integrity can develop
44Vardy's analogy in support of Hick notion of epistemic distance
The king and the peasant girl. The king disguises himself as a peasant and it is only through doing so that the girl can love him freely
45Peter Manning supports the use of natural evil in Hick's theodicy
Within this approach, natural evil provides opportunities to exercise morally good behaviour