Theodicy: God and the Problem of Suffering
Hosted by Victoria Philosophy Salon
Details
Topic:
Theodicy: God and the Problem of Suffering.
Chairperson:
Mary Kennedy
Moderator:
Spencer Sinclare
Meetup Date:
Wednesday, September 17th. 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., with a 15 minute break at 8:00 p.m.
Meetup Location:
Upstairs at The Bent Mast, 512 Simcoe St. Victoria, BC, V8V 1L8
Members:
If you plan to attend, please take a moment and RSVP. If your plans change and you cannot attend, to the right of your name there are three dots. Please click on them and move yourself to "Not Going."
Thank you :)
Quotes:
"The world is in greater peril from those who tolerate or encourage evil than from those who actually commit it."
~ Albert Einstein
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
~ Epicurus
Synopsis:
Stemming from theos (God) and dike (justice), a theodicy is an attempt to show how the justice, goodness and other features of God can be upheld in light of the evils in our world.
As such, theodicies suggest reasons for which God would cause or allow the suffering, premature death, loss, and harm we experience and observe, including genocides, illnesses, persistent pain, grief, natural disasters, and assaults.
Instances of suffering that seem to many people to be pointless (that is, which seem as if there could be no God-justifying reason for permitting them to occur), as well as the general facts about evil in our world—including its vast amount, its uneven distribution, and the intensity of suffering in truly horrid cases—pose a powerful theoretical challenge to a theistic worldview. The divine attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, and perfect goodness, in particular, seem to indicate that there would not be any pointless evils in the world, and they also seem to indicate that the facts of evil would not be what they are.
Providing an explanation of the reasons that justify God in permitting the instances of evil in our world would enable the theodicist to counter the claim that there are evils in the world for which there is no God-justifying reason and so to block an influential argument from pointless evils for atheism. And articulating God’s reasons for causing or allowing the facts of evil in our world would empower the theodicist to counter the claim that, if God were to exist, then the facts about evil in our world would not be what they are and, thus, to block an argument from the facts about evil against the existence of God.
Watch:
"What Is A Theodicy? - Philosophy Beyond" on YouTube.