Theodicy pt. 2:

Guide to app usage

4 Responses to the Problem of Evil

1. Karma
2. Consolation of Promise
3. Appeal to Sovereignty
4. Dualism

Karma

• Karma presumes a close relationship between cause and effect in human decision-making
• Karma balances the sum total of a human's actions and decisions
• Cause and effect is understood as a part of a cosmic cycle
• With Karma, what happens to a person, happens because they caused it with their actions
• This response emphasizes justice – perhaps at the expense of mercy?

Karma & the Indian Context

• Karma, signifies the moral weight of one's actions
• people get what they deserve (at least over the long haul)

Karma & the Buddhist Perspective

• Evil is located in the self, with its passions and desires.
• cruelty & pain are not simply luck of the draw
• not the will of God
• solution to the problem of evil depends on each individual

The Consolation of Promise

The Promise of this response to evil:

• the point of suffering will be made clear in the future
• evil will be overcome in the future
• justice will prevail in the future
• this response delays justice perhaps for the sake of mercy

Consolation of Promise: Jewish

• Jews wait for a Messiah who is yet to come.
• When the anointed one arrives, he will reestablish the nation of Israel and will rule the other nations with a rod of iron.
• some Orthodox groups oppose the nation of Israel because the Messiah has not yet come.

Consolation of Promise: Christian

• Christianity holds that the Messiah has come: Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah.
• His life, death, and resurrection manifest the promise of God to bring about a peaceable kingdom.
• The work of Jesus is not yet complete, however. For, he will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead; and his reign will have no end.
• The doctrine of the parousia or the second coming of Christ indicates that the fulfillment of the promise is yet to come.

Consolation of Promise: Muslim

• Islam shares a sense of the Consolation of Promise with both Judaism and Christianity
• the figure of mahdi bears similarities with the expectation of a messiah to come
• each of the 3 religions share a conception of afterlife and a Day of Resurrection & Judgment

Appeal to Sovereignty

• the appeal to sovereignty proclaims that for human beings there is not resolution to the tension of the problem of evil
• The book of Job in the Hebrew Scriptures is the epitome of the appeal to sovereignty
• this response emphasizes transcendence but perhaps minimizes human accountability

Job 38

And now, finally, God answered Job from the eye of a violent storm. He said:

2-11 “Why do you confuse the issue?
    Why do you talk without knowing what you’re talking about?
Pull yourself together, Job!
    Up on your feet! Stand tall!
I have some questions for you,
    and I want some straight answers.
Where were you when I created the earth?

Appeal to Sovereignty: Story of Job

• God tests Jobs faith to see if his obedience to God is motivated by his own integrity or desire for personal gain.
• Job rejects the idea that his suffering is for his education or to make him better
• Job also rejects the idea that his suffering is in proportion to some sin he has committed.
• In the end, God claims the wisdom of the creator of all things and Job accepts the finitude of human understanding and the sovereignty of the maker of heaven and earth.

Dualism

• personification of dualism: God vs. Satan
• in Dualism both good and evil share characteristics of the sacred
• in Dualism God's power is not absolute
• this response reduces the power of good by shifting some of it to evil

Dualism: Zoroastrian

• Zoroastrianism began in what is today Iran under the leadership of the teacher Zarathustra
• historically it began ca. 5th c. BCE, though its roots may go back much further
• the conflict between good (Spenta Mainyu) and evil (Angra Mainyu) is built into the foundation of the religion
• evil comes into the world as a result of wrong choices

Free will

• some have developed another response to the problem of evil based on our experience of free will
• usually this "solution" requires separate treatment of human-caused evil and natural-caused evil
• this response emphasizes the virtue of freedom perhaps at the expense of mercy and justice

Evaluating Responses to the Problem of Evil

• Are the answers adequate?
• Are the answers logical?
• Are the answers coherent?
• Are the answers psychologically satisfying?
• What are the moral consequences?