A Brief History of Theodicies (500BCE-500CE)

1. A Brief History of Theodicies (500BCE-500CE)

2. The “Problem of the Good:” Euthyphro Time: 399 BCE. Place: The porch of the King Archon's Court in Athens. Socrates: Defendantagainst charges of corrupting the youth and failing to worship the state’s gods. Euthyphro: Religious authority, prosecutor in lawsuit against his father for allowing a slave to die from exposure.

3. The Question: “What is piety and what is impiety?” “I should say that what all the gods love is pious and holy, and the opposite which all hate, impious.” That which all gods love=Pious. That which all gods hate=Impious. That which some gods love and some gods hate=Indeterminate.

4. The Euthyphro Dilemma Do the gods love piety because it is pious? or Is it (piety) pious because they love it? Do the gods approve of/like something because it is good? or Is something good because the gods approve of/like it?

5. The Implications of the Question Is piety inherent in an act or thing—that is, an intrinsic aspect of its identity? Or are acts and things valueless until the gods grant them value? Where does value come from? Where does good come from? What makes something good?

6. 1st Possibility: It is Good Because the Gods Like It Nothing is inherently right/wrong or good/bad. Without divinity there would be no right and wrong. Moral values are arbitrary—that is, they depend on the gods’ preferences. Humans are slaves, gods are masters. Humans do good because….. What, in this framework, is the meaning of morality?

7. 2nd Possibility: The Gods Like It Because It Is Good Values of right and wrong are absolute and lie outside of the gods’ command. Values are determined by Natural Law of Reason that even the gods must conform to. The gods are not omnipotent. Morality is accessible to human reason.

8. The “Problem of Evil”

9. Where did evil come from and why is it in the world? Fall of Satan Fall of Man Redemption

10. Why is there suffering in the world? Manichaeism(man-uh-key-ism) @230 CE, Ancient Iran. Christianity + Zoroastrianism. Dualism: Light/Dark, Good/Evil.

11. A Theodicy An attempt to provide a framework in which the existence of God is probable by reconciling the divine characteristics of omnibenevolence, omnipotence, and omniscience with the occurrence of evil or suffering in the world. Different from a defense, which tries to demonstrate that God's existence is logically possible in the light of evil.

12. A Theodicy…. Serves a social function by providing a framework for making sense out of things that don’t otherwise seem to make sense in the world. Protects social orders based on religion by protecting the logic of religion from the phenomena of the world. Anti-Theodicy: God cannot be meaningfully justified.

13. Boethius: God Can Allow Some Evil “Evil desires are due to our natural failings, but that the conceptions of any wicked mind should prevail against innocence while God watches over us seems to me unnatural.” (65) What are these “natural failings?” Why would it be “unnatural” for the wicked to prevail over the innocent?

14. Providence vs. Fate Providence Fate “Fate is that ordering which is a part of all changeable things, and by means of which Providence binds all things together. In their own order.” The unfolding of events in that plan. “Providence is the very divine reason which arranges all things, and rests with the supreme disposer of all.” God’s mind and plan.

15. Fate vs. Freewill “There seems to me to be such incompatibility between the existence of God’s universal foreknowledge and that of any freedom of judgment. For if God foresees all things and cannot be mistaken, that, which His Providence sees will happen, must result.”(66) How do fate and freewill seem to be in conflict here? What does it mean to say that something “must” happen?

16. “A Man Sits Down” vs. “A Man Must be Sitting” “In like manner we must reason of Providence and future events. For even though they are foreseen because they are about to happen, yet they do not happen because they are foreseen. None the less, it is necessary that either what is about to happen should be foreseen of God, or that what has been foreseen should happen; and this alone is enough to destroy all freewill. ” (67) “But he does not sit because the opinion is true, but rather the opinion is true because his sitting down has preceded it…yet there is common necessity in both parts.” (67)

17. Foreknowledge vs. Freewill “For I think not that there is any man who will say this, that things, which are done in the present, were not about to be done in the past, before they are done. Thus, these foreknown events have their own free results.” (67) At what point does one “decide” to do something? Once something has been done, can we trace back the origin point of the decision?

18. The Present vs. Eternity “Eternity is the simultaneous and complete possession of infinite life. What we should rightly call eternal is that which grasps and possesses wholly and simultaneously the fullness of unending life, which lacks naught of the future, and has lost naught of the fleeting past; and such an existence must be ever present in itself….” (67) How is eternity different from “forever?” How would an eternal perceiver (i.e. God) experience the past, present, and future?

19. From the Vantage Point of Eternity How would an eternal perceiver experience the unfolding of an event? How would an eternal perceiver experience freewill in others? How does such an argument provide a framework that allows for both the existence of suffering and an omnibenevolent, omnipotent, omnipresent, all-knowing God?