Religious responses to the problem of evil
In response to arguments concerning natural evil and the suffering of animals, Christopher Southgate has developed a “compound evolutionary theodicy.”[35]: 711 Robert John Russell summarizes it as beginning with an assertion of the goodness of creation and all sentient creatures.
[20]: 42–44 Alvin Plantinga, Richard Swinburne, and Eleonore Stump have markedly different theodicies but all have their primary focus on "God as maker of Heaven and earth" doing the best, most loving thing by creating humans and the world as it exists.
[20]: 44 Jürgen Moltmann, René Girard, Pope John Paul II, Marilyn McCord Adams, and James Cone all have versions of the traditional Christological (aka cruciform) approach to the problem of evil.
[40]: 77–78 René Girard's "unique claim is that Christ’s death has once-and-for-all unmasked the cycle of violence and victimization that has existed 'since the foundation of the world'.
[42] The enestological solution is based in process theology, stresses the ongoing presence of God as a benevolent providence who constantly works to persuade human beings to choose good, but does not unilaterally intervene to force them as a despot would.
[43] It has become a particularly influential view in the contemporary period through the work of a number of feminist and womanist theologians, such as Wendy Farley and Cheryl Kirk-Duggan, as well as to the majority of those who hold to the “anti-theodicy” position such as Sarah Pinnock.
[20]: 132, 138 Universal salvation/reconciliation has long been a heavily debated minority view in the West, but it was the common soteriology until Augustine's competing theory of eternal damnation of the fourth century.
Hick references the earlier view found in the writings of Irenaeus,[48]: 2 and in other Eastern writers including Origen[49] and Gregory of Nyssa,[50] arguing that “eternal pain [and] unending torment” would render any “Christian theodicy impossible" as it would instantiate an evil that was able to thwart God's benevolence and power.
Cone and Soelle correct this tendency of Hick’s, but have their own reverse omissions, as they both find the Divine first and foremost in the person of Jesus, and secondarily in the ongoing struggle against injustice he inspires, yet they bypass serious consideration of creation and an afterlife.
"When one considers human lives that have been shattered to the core, and, in the face of these tragedies [addresses] the question “Where is God?” ... we would do well to stand with [poet and Holocaust survivor] Nelly Sachs as she says, 'We really don't know'.”[51] Contemporary theodiceans, such as Alvin Plantinga, describe having doubts about the enterprise of theodicy, "in the sense of providing an explanation of precise reasons why there is evil in the world".
[20]: 29 For example, Sarah Pinnock asserts that: "Direct contact with God does not answer Job's questions, but it makes meaning, and the acceptance of suffering, possible".
This view has been questioned, aside from the general criticisms of the concept of evil as an illusion discussed earlier, since the presumably correct understanding by Christian Science members, including the founder, has not prevented illness and death.
[61] In this respect, Latter-day Saints do not regard the fall of Adam and Eve as a tragic, unplanned cancellation of an eternal paradise; rather they see it as an essential element of God's plan.
By allowing opposition and temptations in mortality, God created an environment for people to learn, to develop their freedom to choose, and to appreciate and understand the light, with a comparison to darkness[62][63] This is a departure from the mainstream Christian definition of omnipotence and omniscience, which Latter-day Saints believe was changed by post-apostolic theologians in the centuries after Christ.
The writings of Justin Martyr, Origen, Augustine, and others indicate a merging of Christian principles with Greek metaphysical philosophies such as Neoplatonism, which described divinity as an utterly simple, immaterial, formless substance/essence (ousia) that was the absolute causality and creative source of all that existed.
[64] Latter-day Saints believe that through modern day revelation, God restored the truth about his nature, which eliminated the speculative metaphysical elements that had been incorporated after the Apostolic era.
So, fairly, logically and empirically, humans themselves create their actions and behavior consciously through free will which is formulated and carried out by the brain and nervous system.
[101] Theodicy in the Hebrew Bible almost universally looks "beyond the concerns of the historical present to posit an eschatological salvation" at that future time when God restores all things.
[104]: 137 The earliest awareness of the problem of evil in Jewish tradition is evidenced in extra- and post-biblical sources such as early Apocrypha (secret texts by unknown authors, which were not considered mainstream at the time they were written).
[107] Suffering suggested Saadia, in a manner similar to Babylonian Talmud Berakhot 5, should be considered as a gift from God because it leads to an eternity of heaven in afterlife.
[111] The Holocaust experience and other episodes of mass extermination such as the Gulag and the Killing Fields where millions of people experienced torture and died, however, brought into focus the visceral nature of the evidential version of the problem of evil.
[111][112] Jewish theodicy continues to experience extensive revision while continuing to assert the difference between the human and divine perspective of evil; it remains rooted in the nature of creation itself and the limitation inherent in matter's capacity to be perfected; and the action of freewill includes the potential for perfection from individual effort and leaves evil in human hands.
Starting at least with Plato, philosophers tended to reject or de-emphasize literal interpretations of mythology in favor of a more pantheistic, natural theology based on reasoned arguments.
Evil as well as good, along with suffering is considered real and caused by human free will,[126] its source and consequences explained through the karma doctrine of Hinduism, as in other Indian religions.
[127][128][129] A version of the problem of evil appears in the ancient Brahma Sutras, probably composed between 200 BCE and 200 CE,[130] a foundational text of the Vedanta tradition of Hinduism.
[132] According to Swami Gambhirananda of Ramakrishna Mission, Sankara's commentary explains that God cannot be charged with partiality or cruelty (i.e. injustice) on account of his taking the factors of virtuous and vicious actions (Karma) performed by an individual in previous lives.
[139]: 266 [140]: 19–21 Madhvacharya was challenged by Hindu scholars on the problem of evil, given his dualistic Tattvavada theory that proposed God and living beings along with universe as separate realities.
Madhvacharya asserted, Yathecchasi tatha kuru, which Sharma translates and explains as "one has the right to choose between right and wrong, a choice each individual makes out of his own responsibility and his own risk".
[145] The problem of evil, in the context of karma, has been long discussed in Indian religions including Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism, both in its theistic and non-theistic schools; for example, in Uttara Mīmāṃsā Sutras Book 2 Chapter 1;[146][147] the 8th-century arguments by Adi Sankara in Brahmasutrabhasya where he posits that God cannot reasonably be the cause of the world because there exists moral evil, inequality, cruelty and suffering in the world;[148][149] and the 11th-century theodicy discussion by Ramanuja in Sribhasya.
[155] According to Arthur Herman, karma-transmigration theory solves all three historical formulations to the problem of evil while acknowledging the theodicy insights of Sankara and Ramanuja.
