Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God

Adams, Marilyn McCord

doi:10.7591/9781501735929

Cited by 99 publications

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“…Indeed, for Arendt evil is able to flourish because of the kind of thoughtlessness demanded by specific working practices. In terms of how we proceed in our discussions of evil, there may be dangers for the theodicist who wishes to resist engaging with the problem of Auschwitz; 16 but what Arendt suggests is that it is no less problematic to focus exclusively on "horrendous evils" (Adams 1999). To locate evil outside the realm of day-to-day activities runs the risk of divorcing it from the petty actions and failures that allow hideous acts of wickedness and injustice to flourish.…”

Section: Social Structures Evils and Human Sufferingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evil, Feminism, and a Philosophy of Transformation

Clack¹

2018

Oxford Scholarship Online

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Rather than offering another ‘solution’ to the problem of evil, in the form of, say, a theodicy, the discussion of this chapter is situated within an ethical framework concerned with unmasking the enactment and perpetuation of ‘structural evils’ on the political and social levels. Indebted to the insights of feminist philosophers such as Michèle Le Doeuff, but also Hannah Arendt’s analysis of evil, the novelist Muriel Spark, and Pierre Bourdieu’s work on social suffering, the chapter seeks, not to justify the ways of God, but to critique and transform unjust structures, and to pave the way for alternatives that might best support human flourishing. This necessitates attempting to identify and understand the sources of human wickedness—social and individual—while contending that, ultimately, the only appropriate response to evil and suffering is to commit to a reorientation of the self towards others and the world.

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Section: Social Structures Evils and Human Sufferingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evil, Feminism, and a Philosophy of Transformation

Clack¹

2018

Oxford Scholarship Online

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“…Marilyn Adams has made this point as eloquently as anyone in the analytical philosophy of religion. In the book, Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God , the major thesis is that for God to be good in relation to some person, God must be good to that person, on the whole (Adams 1999). A complete treatment of Supralapsarian goodness and purpose would include an account of how the Incarnation and the Atonement achieved goodness for all creatures and things, not least for human persons.…”

Section: “Supralapsarian” Goodnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Fall of “Augustinian Adam”: Original Fragility and Supralapsarian Purpose

Schneider

2012

Zygon

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This essay is framed by conflict between Christianity and Darwinian science over the history of the world and the nature of original human personhood. Evolutionary science narrates a long prehuman geological and biological history filled with vast amounts, kinds, and distributions of apparently random brutal and pointless suffering. It has also unveiled an original human person with animal psychosomatic heredity. This narrative seems to discredit Christianity's (Augustinian) metanarrative of the Fall—Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. The author contends that the Augustinian story and its character of Adam are implausible, anyway, for reasons of theology and apologetics. He proposes that Christians adopt instead a Supralapsarian metaphysics of original human personhood and existence that grows from the intuitions of Irenaeus. The outcome will be improved Christian theology, more persuasive theodicy, and, above all, peace with Darwinian science

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“…The Failure to Pay Proper Attention to the Children Major modern theodistic works, such as Adams 1999, Hick 1966, John Paul II 1984, Lewis 1957, Plantinga 1974, Swinburne 1998, and van Inwagen 2006 do not adequately treat the theological consequences of the Holocaust of the Children. Aimed primarily at the problem of moral evil, some of these works direct considerably more text to that aspect of natural evil that concerns the suffering of animals than that of young Homo sapiens, which often receives no direct consideration.…”

Section: Theological and Atheological Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As far as can be told from the statistical evidence the PSCI has washed his hands of the fate of the immature, and has shown no particular concern over the matter. Adams (1999) tenders that it is not possible for a perfect creator to produce a perfect world in the sense that it is always possible that there is something better, so a world that makes life worth living is adequate. But earthly circumstances are so maximally bad that the creator has not made a serious effort to produce a safe residence for its most vulnerable and innocent inhabitants.…”

Section: The Example Of the First Worldmentioning

confidence: 99%

Theodicy’s Problem

Paul¹

2007

Philosophy and Theology

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The full extent of the anguish and death suffered by immature humans is scientifically and statistically documented for the first time. Probably hundreds of billions of human conceptions and at least fifty billion children have died, the great majority from nonhuman causes, before reaching the age of mature consent. Adults who have heard the word of Christ number in the lower billions. If immature deceased humans are allowed into heaven, then the latter is inhabited predominantly by automatons. Because the Holocaust of the Children bars an enormous portion of humans from making a decision about their eternal fate while maximizing the suffering of children, the classic Christian "free will" and "best of all possible worlds" hypotheses are falsified.

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Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God

Cited by 99 publications

References 0 publications

Evil, Feminism, and a Philosophy of Transformation

Evil, Feminism, and a Philosophy of Transformation

The Fall of “Augustinian Adam”: Original Fragility and Supralapsarian Purpose

Theodicy’s Problem

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