INVESTIGATING THE PROBLEM OF EVIL AS A PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEM IN THE INTELLECTUAL SYSTEM OF SUHRAWARDI AND JOHN HICK

AbstractThe nature of suffering and the problem of evil have been perennial issues for many of the world’s religious traditions. Each in their own way has sought to address this problem, whether driven by the all too present reality of suffering or from philosophical and religious curiosities. The Christian tradition has offered numerous and diverse responses to the problem of evil. The free-will response to the problem of evil, with its roots in Augustine, has dominated the landscape in its attempt to justify evil and suffering as a result of the greater good of having free will. John Hick offers a ‘soul-making’ response to the problem of evil as an alternative to the free will response. Neither is effective in dealing with two key issues that underpin both responses – omnipotence and omniscience. In what follows I will contrast a process theological response to the problem of evil and suffering, and how it is better placed in dealing with both omnipotence and omniscience. By refashioning God as neither all-knowing nor all-powerful, process theodicy moves beyond the dead ends of both the free will and soul-making theodicy. Indeed, a process theodicy enables us to dismount the omnibus in search of a more holistic, and realistic, alternative to dealing with the problem of evil and suffering.

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Like a Dog’s Curly Tail: Finding Perfection in a World of Imperfection

Comparing Faithfully ◽

10.5422/fordham/9780823274666.003.0006 ◽

2016 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Jeffery D. Long

Keyword(s):

Religious Tradition ◽

Problem Of Evil ◽

Process Theology ◽

Primary Sources ◽

John Hick ◽

The Problem Of Evil ◽

Curly Tail ◽

Swami Vivekananda

Jeffery Long, a Hindu theologian, explores the problem of evil as it is raised and addressed by thinkers in the Ramakrishna Vedanta tradition of Hinduism and by two separate schools of thought from contemporary Christianity. The textual sources used from the Ramakrishna tradition consist of the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna as found in the primary sources on his life, as well as the Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda. From Christianity, Long employs works of John Hick and David Ray Griffin on the topic of theodicy. Despite the fact that the latter two authors hail from the same religious tradition, Long shows that Hick and Ramakrishna are in closer agreement on this topic than either is with Griffin’s process theology. The essay offers a revised version of the Ramakrishna-Hick theodicy that takes Griffin’s objections into account.

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Wright on Theodicy

Essays in Analytic Theology ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198866817.003.0006 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 103-112

Author(s):

Michael C. Rea

Keyword(s):

Problem Of Evil ◽

Philosophical Problem ◽

Philosophical Tradition ◽

Real Problem ◽

The Real ◽

The Problem Of Evil

In Evil and the Justice of God, N. T. Wright suggests that attempting to solve the philosophical problem of evil is an immature response to the existence of evil—one that belittles the real problem, which is just that evil is bad and needs to be dealt with. If he is correct, then the vast majority of work on the problem of evil in the analytic philosophical tradition has been worthless at best, and possibly even pernicious (by virtue of trivializing a serious theological issue). This chapter identifies a kernel of truth in Wright’s objection to philosophical attempts to solve the problem of evil, and goes on to argue that some such attempts avoid Wright’s objection.

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The secular problem of evil: an essay in analytic existentialism

Religious Studies ◽

10.1017/s0034412519000520 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 1-19

Author(s):

PAUL PRESCOTT

Keyword(s):

Actual World ◽

Problem Of Evil ◽

Philosophical Problem ◽

Human Beings ◽

Secular Problem ◽

The Problem Of Evil

Abstract The existence of evil is often held to pose philosophical problems only for theists. I argue that the existence of evil gives rise to a philosophical problem which confronts theist and atheist alike. The problem is constituted by the following claims: (1) Successful human beings (i.e. those meeting their basic prudential interests) are committed to a good-enough world; (2) the actual world is not a good-enough world (i.e. sufficient evil exists). It follows that human beings must either (3a) maintain a state of epistemic ignorance regarding the nature of the actual world or (3b) abandon their basic prudential interests. Theists resolve this problem by rejecting (2), only to confront the problem of evil as it is traditionally understood. Successful atheists also reject (2), but without adequate grounds for doing so.

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The Problem of Suffering in the Qur'an

Religious Studies ◽

10.1017/s0034412500003589 ◽

1969 ◽

Vol 4 (2) ◽

pp. 183-202

Author(s):

John Bowker

Keyword(s):

Problem Of Evil ◽

Recent Book ◽

First Person ◽

John Hick ◽

The Problem Of Evil ◽

Divine Punishment ◽

Christian Thought ◽

Good And Evil ◽

Minority Report ◽

Good Purpose

In his recent book, Evil and the God of Love,1 Dr John Hick examined various Christian responses to the problem of evil. He traced two related, but in important respects different, paths of thought, which correspond to the two main ways in which the genesis or origin of evil have been understood: either as a capacity for goodness which has not yet been realised (with life, therefore, as a ‘vale of soul-making’), or as an original defect which has vitiated all subsequent life. The former is a ‘minority’ report, which Dr Hick called ‘Irenaean’, since the first person of renown to put it forward in reasonably articulate form was Irenaeus. The latter is the dominant, or majority, report, which Dr Hick called ‘Augustinian’, since Augustine's formulation of it became deeply and profoundly influential in subsequent Christian thought. The differences are not absolute, but the contrasts are clear: ‘Instead of the Augustinian view of life's trials as a divine punishment for Adam's sin, Irenaeus sees our world of mingled good and evil as a divinely appointed environment for man's development towards the perfection that represents the fulfillment of God's good purpose for him.’2

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Anselm's Metaphysics of Nonbeing

European Journal for Philosophy of Religion ◽

10.24204/ejpr.v4i4.258 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 4 (4) ◽

pp. 27-48

Author(s):

Dale Jacquette

Keyword(s):

Eleventh Century ◽

Problem Of Evil ◽

Philosophical Problem ◽

General Category ◽

Philosophical Investigation ◽

Pure Reason ◽

Critique Of Pure Reason ◽

The Problem Of Evil ◽

Intended Object

In his eleventh century dialogue De Casu Diaboli, Anselm seeks to avoid the problem of evil for theodicy and explain the fall of Satan as attributable to Satan’s own self-creating wrongful will. It is something, as such, for which God as Satan’s divine Creator cannot be held causally or morally responsible. The distinctions on which Anselm relies presuppose an interesting metaphysics of nonbeing, and of the nonbeing of evil in particular as a privation of good, worthy of critical philosophical investigation in its own right. Anselm’s concept of nonbeing does not resolve the philosophical problem of evil implied by Satan’s fall from grace, but is shown perhaps more unexpectedly to enable Anselm’s proof for the inconceivable nonexistence of God as the greatest conceivable intended object of thought to avoid Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason objection to the general category of ‘ontological’ arguments.

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C. S. Lewis and John Hick: An Interface on Theodicy

Journal of Inklings Studies ◽

10.3366/ink.2014.4.1.3 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

pp. 19-31 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Mark Scott

Keyword(s):

Common Ground ◽

Problem Of Evil ◽

John Hick ◽

Theological Discourse ◽

The Problem Of Evil ◽

The Common ◽

Popular Audience ◽

Scholarly Discourse ◽

Academic Theology

In The Problem of Pain (1940), C. S. Lewis explores the problem of evil for a non-specialist, popular audience. In Evil and the God of Love (1966), John Hick examines the same problem for a specialist, scholarly audience. Whereas Lewis writes self-consciously as a lay theologian, Hick writes authoritatively as an academic theologian. In my essay, I analyze the striking parallels between their theodicies and ask: did Lewis influence Hick? If he did, then Lewis shaped scholarly discourse on theodicy while operating completely outside of it. If he did not, then their structural and stylistic intersections illustrate the possibility of dialogue between two distinct modes of theological discourse that fail to stay in conversation long enough to notice their close substantive affinities. Either way, the surprising and widely unnoticed parallels between C. S. Lewis’s ‘megaphone theodicy’ and John Hick’s ‘soul-making theodicy’ demonstrate the common ground between lay and academic theology, and indicates the potential for mutual enrichment, without eliding their distinctive methodologies, contexts, and audiences.

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Emerson and the Problem of Evil: Paradox and Solution

Harvard Theological Review ◽

10.1017/s0017816000027619 ◽

1969 ◽

Vol 62 (1) ◽

pp. 51-61 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Zacharias Thundyil

Keyword(s):

Problem Of Evil ◽

Philosophical Problem ◽

Personal Problem ◽

The Problem Of Evil

The problem of evil has always been a great enigma. But there is something even more enigmatic about Emerson's handling of the problem. Critics have found that in the writings of Emerson this becomes an enigma shrouded in a mystery. We shall first sum up the important critical opinions about the Emersonian solution of this problem, then elucidate his theory of evil, and finally demonstrate how he overcomes the antinomy between the philosophical problem of evil and the personal problem of evil.

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Psychology and the problem of evil

PsycEXTRA Dataset ◽

10.1037/e677002011-004 ◽

2008 ◽

Author(s):

Ashok Nagpal ◽

Ankur Prahlad Betageri

Keyword(s):

Problem Of Evil ◽

The Problem Of Evil

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The Problem of Evil and Replies to Some Important Responses

European Journal for Philosophy of Religion ◽

10.24204/ejpr.v10i3.2590 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 10 (3) ◽

pp. 105-131

Author(s):

Bruce Russell

Keyword(s):

Problem Of Evil ◽

Existence Of God ◽

Strong Argument ◽

Parallel Argument ◽

The Earth ◽

The Problem Of Evil ◽

Argument From Evil

I begin by distinguishing four different versions of the argument from evil that start from four different moral premises that in various ways link the existence of God to the absence of suffering. The version of the argument from evil that I defend starts from the premise that if God exists, he would not allow excessive, unnecessary suffering. The argument continues by denying the consequent of this conditional to conclude that God does not exist. I defend the argument against Skeptical Theists who say we are in no position to judge that there is excessive, unnecessary suffering by arguing that this defense has absurd consequences. It allows Young Earthers to construct a parallel argument that concludes that we are in no position to judge that God did not create the earth recently. In the last section I consider whether theists can turn the argument from evil on its head by arguing that God exists. I first criticize Alvin Plantinga’s theory of warrant that one might try to use to argue for God’s existence. I then criticize Richard Swinburne’s Bayesian argument to the same conclusion. I conclude that my version of the argument from evil is a strong argument against the existence of God and that several important responses to it do not defeat it.

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