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Class 21: Modern Theodicy

Class 21: Modern Theodicy. Dr. Ann T. Orlando 19 March 2014. Introduction. Thomas Hobbes Pierre Bayle Gottfried Leibnitz Voltaire Twentieth Century successors. Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679). Born in England, connected to Royalist opposition to Cromwell Spent time in exile in Paris

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Class 21: Modern Theodicy

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  1. Class 21: Modern Theodicy Dr. Ann T. Orlando 19 March 2014

  2. Introduction • Thomas Hobbes • Pierre Bayle • Gottfried Leibnitz • Voltaire • Twentieth Century successors

  3. Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) • Born in England, connected to Royalist opposition to Cromwell • Spent time in exile in Paris • A nominalist, empiricist, and materialist, ultimately becoming a skeptic • Believed that all was material • Mind as only computing matter (opposed to Descartes) • Language is merely signification for the purposes of communication, not linked to actual truth of things • Political philosophy of defense and survival: Human life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”

  4. Early Modern Wrestling with Evil: Pierre Bayle (1647-1706) • Pierre Bayle wrote one of the first modern Dictionaries • His Dictionary was the most widely read book in the 18th C; having enormous influence on philosophes. • Voltaire’s Dictionary • Diderot’s Encyclopedia • Bayle was pessimistic about a solution to the theodicy problem • Raised objection to all solutions, including Manichees (2 gods), Plotinus (evil does not exist) and Epicurean (God does not exist) • Like Hobbes, pessimistic about human nature; more evil than good in the world • Usually considered one of the first early modern skeptics

  5. Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716) • Born into a prominent Lutheran family • Studied Church Fathers, ancient history and scholastic theology • Desperately wanted to reconcile Lutheran and Catholic theologies through philosophy • Made original and brilliant contributions to • Mathematics (calculus) • Physics • Logic • German jurisprudence • Philosophy • Metaphysics

  6. Some Principles of Leibniz’s Philosophy • Opposed to materialism and atheism (Epicureanism of Hobbes) • God always acts for the best • Thus we must live in the best world • Nothing happens without a reason or cause • Although we may not know the reason, and see only the effect • All substances are interconnected, even if we cannot know those connections • These connections, past present and future, are contained within each substance • Each substance thus is a ‘mirror’ of the entire universe • The universe was created in and remains in harmony • Body and mind each follows their own laws, but are synchronized through universal harmony • Body subject to efficient causes • Mind to final causes • Mind (soul) has innate ideas based on universal harmony • Note, only about half of Leibniz’s works have been published; the only book he published during his lifetime was Theodicy

  7. Leibniz and Theodicy • Written as a reply to Bayle in 1710 • How can this be the best world when there is evil, when people are unhappy • Leibniz answer: earthly happiness of every individual may not be the right way to judge ‘best’ • God creates limited things which taken in aggregate reflect God’s perfection. • But this implies that individual things may suffer some evil or suffering due to their limitations • Limitations as a type of privation • In other words, Leibniz brings Augustine into the 17th C

  8. Alexander Pope (1688-1744) and Optimism • Cease then, nor order imperfection name:Our proper bliss depends on what we blame.Know thy own point: this kind, this due degreeOf blindness, weakness, Heav'n bestows on thee.Submit. In this, or any other sphere,Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear:Safe in the hand of one disposing pow'r,Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.All nature is but art, unknown to thee;All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;All discord, harmony not understood;All partial evil, universal good.And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,One truth is clear, 'Whatever is, is right.'

  9. Lisbon Earthquake and Voltaire • Crushing earthquake on All Saints Day, 1755 • Resulting fires and tsunami destroy most of Lisbon • Profoundly raises the question of natural evil and human suffering • Voltaire writes his poem to refute Leibniz and Pope, using the Lisbon earthquake suffering as his primary example • See Rousseau reply to Voltaire, http://geophysics.tau.ac.il/personal/shmulik/LisbonEq-letters.htm

  10. The Shoah • Human moral evil on an unprecedented scale • An event in human history that has been documented and reported in detail • How could this happen in the most ‘enlightened’ and scientific country in Europe? • Either ‘proof’ that God does not exist, or that the Enlightenment is a false philosophy, or both

  11. Albert Camus (1913-1960) • Born in North Africa • Wrote doctoral thesis on Augustine and Neoplatonism • Fought in French resistance against Nazis • Evil exists, but God does not

  12. The Plague • Evil is real, God is not • Main character, a doctor (atheist), narrates the story as an objective observer • On of key figures is a priest, Augustinian scholar • Pivotal moment: death of a child • Neither religion nor science can relieve pain • Near end, doctor and mother stare out the window and see…nothing • Hero of story continually asks, without answer from doctor, ‘how can I be a saint without God?’

  13. John Hick (1922 - 2012) • Conscientious objector during WWII in Britain • Studies philosophy after the War, especially Kant • Concerned with real as opposed to counterfeit religious experiences (Faith and Knowledge) • Ultimate Divine cannot be known in the world • Valid religious experience is determined by long-term effect on believer • Both God and evil exist

  14. Evil and the God of Love • Detailed examination of Augustine on evil and the impact of Augustine’s thought • Aquinas • Calvin • Leibniz • Given the reality of evil, a questioning of the privation model • Hick Suggests an ‘Irenaean” approach • Man always learning and moving forward • Read his criticism of Augustine (and Leibniz), Chapter VIII

  15. Assignments • 1. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Chapters XIII, XIV, available at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/hobbes-lev13.html • 2. Leibniz, Summary of the Controversy Reduced to Formal Argument, in Theodicy, trans. E.M. Huggard, La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1985, pp 377-388. Available at http://books.google.com/books?id=VUMgHq9lE2UC&pg=PA5&lpg=PA5&dq=.+Leibniz,+Summary+of+the+Controversy+Reduced+to+Formal+Argument,+in+Theodicy&source=bl&ots=mJrFaz25Hc&sig=OKhA0mqkyT2r9D5cD8JV2EXOhzo&hl=en&ei=R6NmTdKuKsL78AbJwKT4Cw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false (First Appendix) • 3. Voltaire Lisbon Earthquake in The Portable Voltaire. In Paul Hyland. The Enlightenment, A Sourcebook and Reader. London: Routledge, 2003. p 77-82.

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