Soul-making theodicies (Hick) presuppose that epistemic and moral development justifies suffering, yet natural evils predate any rational agent capable of such development by millions of years.

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1 reason against

Reasons For

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Reason for

1.Pre-human suffering created conditions (natural laws, stable universe) necessary for eventual rational agents to exist and develop morally.
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2.Soul-making applies to humanity's response to natural evil inherited from evolutionary history, not requiring agents present during its origin.
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3.A universe without deep time suffering couldn't produce beings capable of genuine moral growth through confronting real hardship.
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Reasons Against

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Reason against

1.Millions of years of animal suffering served no soul-making purpose for those creatures, making their pain gratuitous on Hick's own criteria.
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2.An omnipotent deity could instantiate morally developed agents directly or via brief, minimal suffering rather than eons of needless pain.
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3.Justifying present human suffering by past conditions doesn't explain why those initial conditions required suffering in the first place.
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Key Terms

Epistemic: "Epistemic" relates to knowledge—how we know things, what counts as knowledge, and whether we can trust what we believe to be true. It comes from the Greek word for knowledge and is used to describe questions about the reliability and validity of our beliefs and understanding. For example, "epistemic humility" means acknowledging the limits of what you can actually know for certain.
Hick(refers to the philosopher whose theory is being discussed): John Hick was a 20th-century philosopher of religion who developed an influential theory about why suffering exists in the world.
Natural evils(in philosophy of religion): Bad things that happen in nature and aren't caused by human choices, like diseases, earthquakes, or suffering from accidents.
Rational agent(as used in epistemology and philosophy of mind): A person or being that makes decisions by thinking logically and consistently, rather than acting on emotion or instinct.
Soul-making theodicy(the specific theory being critiqued in the statement): A philosophical explanation for why suffering exists that argues God allows pain and hardship because going through difficulties helps people develop morally and spiritually—like how muscles grow stronger through exercise.
moral development(Mencius's conception): The process of extending the natural beginnings of virtue to situations where they ought to extend but do not currently extend.
theodicy(Central concern of Plutarch's era): The philosophical problem of reconciling the existence of evil and unpunished wrongdoing with the existence and goodness of divine providence.

Connections

2 topics

Problem of Evil1 linked Natural Theology1 linked

A universe without deep time suffering couldn't produce beings capable of genuin...An omnipotent deity could instantiate morally developed agents directly or via b...

Details

Type: claim
Perspectives: 2 (1 for, 1 against)
Edits: 1 edit