The Many Faces of Evil (Revised and Expanded Edition): Theological Systems and the Problems of Evil - Softcover

Feinberg, John S.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1581345674 ISBN 13: 9781581345674

Verlag: Crossway, 2004

Inhaltsangabe

In this revision of the classic text, John Feinberg examines questions posed by the problem of evil.

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John S. Feinberg (PhD, University of Chicago) is department chair and professor of biblical and systematic theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He is the author of Ethics for a Brave New World (with Paul D. Feinberg) and is general editor of Crossway’s Foundations of Evangelical Theology series.

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The Many Faces of Evil

Theological Systems and the Problems of Evil

By John S. Feinberg

Good News Publishers

Copyright © 2004 John S. Feinberg
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-58134-567-4

Contents

Preface to the First Edition, 
Preface to the Revised Edition, 
Preface to the Third (Revised and Expanded) Edition, 
1 Introduction, 
Section I The Logical Problem of Evil, 
2 Theonomy and the Problem of Evil, 
3 Leibniz and the Problem of Evil, 
4 The Free Will Defense, 
5 Several Contemporary Modified Rationalist Theologies, 
6 God and Moral Evil, 
7 God and Natural Evil, 
Section II The Evidential Problem of Evil, 
8 Evil as Evidence, 
9 Atheistic Arguments from Evil, 
10 Theists and the Evidential Argument from Evil, 
11 Theists and Evil as Evidence (II), 
12 Evil and Evidence, 
Section III The Problem of Hell, 
13 Hell and the Problem of Evil, 
Section IV The Religious Problem of Evil, 
14 The Religious Problem of Evil, 
15 The Religious Problem: Uses of Suffering, 
Appendix — Strategy of Theodicy and Defense-Making, 
Notes, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

God said that Job was a righteous and blameless man, but he suffered anyway. He lost his children, his possessions, and ultimately his health. Job's friends believed that a loving, powerful, and righteous God would never punish a blameless man, so they urged Job to repent and make peace with God. Job maintained his innocence, but like his friends, he knew that God punishes the wicked, so he couldn't understand why he was suffering. Wracked by intellectual and spiritual questions and besieged by emotional and physical pain, Job wanted an opportunity to plead his case in God's courtroom. Eventually God spoke to Job out of the whirlwind and overwhelmed him with a sense of his power and grandeur. But he never explained why he hadn't used some of that power to protect Job from the evil that befell him, nor why once beset by tragedy upon tragedy, Job wasn't released from it by this omnipotent God who seemingly could do anything. Though God had bestowed his love upon Job bountifully before the affliction came and did so even more abundantly when he finally released Job from the evils he endured, he never explained how allowing those evils into Job's life squared with his love and benevolence.

Job's experience is a paradigm case for the riddle of God and evil, but it isn't the only instance of horrendous suffering and evil. And so, professional philosophers and theologians along with ordinary people wonder how God could allow such horrible things to happen and why he wouldn't stop them from taking such a heavy toll upon mankind. Doesn't he love us enough to remove these evils? Or, is the problem that he just isn't powerful enough to do so? Who hasn't asked such questions?

The problem of evil as traditionally understood in philosophical discussion and debate is stated succinctly in David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion:

Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?

In his article "Evil and Omnipotence," written some years ago, J. L. Mackie concurred with this traditional understanding of the problem. He claimed that though traditional arguments for God's existence don't work, theists can accept the criticisms against those arguments and still maintain that God's existence can be known in some nonrational way. Perhaps they have experienced God in a vivid way, so no amount of rational argument to the contrary will likely dissuade them from their belief in God. However, Mackie argued that there is a far more devastating objection to theism. All forms of theism, he argued, which hold that God is omnipotent and benevolent succumb before the Epicurean trilemma stated in the portion cited from Hume. Mackie wrote:

Here it can be shown, not that religious beliefs lack rational support, but that they are positively irrational, that the several parts of the essential theological doctrine are inconsistent with one another, so that the theologian can maintain his position as a whole only by a much more extreme rejection of reason than in the former case. He must now be prepared to believe, not merely what cannot be proved, but what can be disproved from other beliefs that he also holds.

Mackie believed the traditional problem of evil deals a devastating blow to all theistic positions committed to God's omnipotence and benevolence and evil's existence. Later in life he modified his views somewhat, but he maintained to the end that the existence of evil poses an unresolvable problem for traditional theism. I believe these claims are mistaken and that it is possible to demonstrate so. That is the major burden of this book.

Many things can and will be said about why and how Mackie's and other atheists' claims err. However, I begin by pointing out that Mackie's critique ultimately rests on two false assumptions. The first is that all forms of theism that hold to God's omnipotence (in some sense of "omnipotence") entail that an omnipotent being can eliminate all forms of evil. Of course, if one defines divine omnipotence so as to allow God to actualize logically contradictory states of affairs, then God can eliminate all forms of evil. My point is that not all forms of theism understand omnipotence that way. Hence, not all theistic systems entail that God can remove all kinds of evil.

Mackie's second erroneous assumption is that conditions in our world which he considers evil are evil according to all forms of theism that hold that God is omnipotent. As we shall see, theistic systems incorporate different notions of evil. This is even true of systems committed to divine omnipotence. Moreover, it is simply wrong for Mackie, an atheist, to assume that all theological positions committed to God as omnipotent hold his views on the meaning and nature of evil.

These complaints about Mackie must not be misunderstood. They don't mean that the existence of evil poses no problem for theistic systems committed to divine omnipotence and benevolence. As we shall see, evil's existence poses a variety of problems for any number of theistic positions. Moreover, if a theology has an unacceptable view of divine omnipotence and/or an untenable account of evil, then the system is untenable, regardless of any alleged inconsistency between God's attributes and evil's existence as the system understands them. As Peter Geach says, any critic who attacks a theological position on the grounds of a problem of evil and any apologist who defends the system against a problem of evil are simply wasting their time, if the theology's notions of divine omnipotence and/or evil have already been shown to be untenable. There is simply no need to beat a dead horse, so to speak. Nonetheless, inadequacy of a theology because it holds unacceptable notions of omnipotence and/or evil isn't the same thing as untenability for failure to solve its problem of evil.

My complaints about Mackie's view, then, don't mean that evil poses no problem for theistic belief, but rather that one must understand more accurately than Mackie has the nature of this problem and the "ground rules" for dealing with it. There are a number of theological positions with doctrines of divine omnipotence and benevolence, and the existence of evil poses a variety of serious and significant problems for...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Crossway
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2004
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1581345674
• ISBN 13: 9781581345674
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 544
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Buchbär; info@buchbaer.de; ; Weberstr. 67; Osnabrück; 49084; Deutschland