1. What brief argument does PHILO give to CLEANTHES about Deity's infnite power not willing human happiness?
2. What argument does CLEANTHES give about Deity's wisdom not establishing nature as a suitable means to human happiness?
3. What are EPICURUS's old yet still unanswered questions?
4. CLEANTHES affirms, "The only method of supporting Divine benevolence, and it is what I willingly embrace, is to deny absolutely the misery and wickedness of man." What is his argument about human happiness being stronger than human suffering?
5. Discuss whether you agree with CLEANTHES or with PHILO.
6. PHILO affirms, " I will allow, that pain or misery in man is compatible with infinite power and goodness in the Deity, even in your sense of these attributes: What are you advanced by all these concessions? A mere possible compatibility is not sufficient." Why is a mere possible compatibility not sufficient in the view of PHILO?
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume, 1779, PART 10
Part 11 of Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
1. PHILO, who probably represents the views of David Hume in the reading, affirms "that if a very limited intelligence, whom we shall suppose utterly unacquainted with the universe, were assured, that it were the production of a very good, wise, and powerful Being, however finite, he would, from his conjectures, form beforehand a different notion of it from what we find it to be by experience…." Do you agree or disagree? Why?
2. PHILO affirms, "You are obliged, therefore, to reason with him merely from the known phenomena, and to drop every arbitrary supposition or conjecture." Why does PHILO reject any assumptions about Deity's goodness?
3. PHILO affirms, "If you find any inconveniences and deformities in the building, you will always, without entering into any detail, condemn the architect." Do you agree with this statement? Explain. Do you agree that Deity is an architect whose building, the universe, have inconveniences and deformities? Explain.
4. What are the four circumstances upon which all or most of the evils that affect sensible creatures?
5. What could Deity have done about each of these four circumstances to reduce many evils and sufferings?
6. The MANICHEAN Theory of the universe held that one Divine principle which was the source of good and another Divine Principle which was the source of evil? Why is this theory rejected in the dialogue?
7. What are the four hypotheses that may be framed about the universe? Which three are rejected, and why? Which one is accepted, and why?
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume, 1779, PART 11
Questions and Lecture on Response to David Hume
1. What are the four ways in which Aristotle and Aquinas answer the question, Why is there a sentence on the blackboard?
2. Answer for the theist as to the efficient cause for why does the suffering that comes from human action (from moral evil) occur?
3. If God is almighty, can God make a being free who is not free to do moral evil? Discuss.
4. Answer for the theist as to the final cause for why does the suffering that comes from human action (from moral evil) occur?
5. Answer for the theist as to the efficient cause for why does the suffering that comes from natural causes such as hurricanes and cancers occur?
6. Answer for the theist as to the final cause for why does the suffering that comes from natural causes occur? What is wrong with the theory that natural evils are the result of the first sin of Adam and Eve?
7. What is a fifth meaning of the question "Why?" as in "Why me? Why, Why, Why?"
8. Explain how this fifth meaning of why is a problem for which both the theist and the atheist need to develop an answer?
9. Answer for the atheist as to the efficient cause for why does the suffering that comes from human action (from moral evil) occur?
10. If God is almighty, can God make a being free who is not free to do moral evil? Discuss.
11. Answer for the atheist as to the final cause for why does the suffering that comes from human action (from moral evil) occur?
12. Answer for the atheist as to the efficient cause for why does the suffering that comes from natural causes such as hurricanes and cancers occur?
13. Answer for the atheist as to the final cause for why does the suffering that comes from natural causes occur?
"Response to David Hume" based on John Hick, C.S. Lewis, Thomas Aquinas, & Augustine
We wish to understand why suffering that comes from human action (moral evil) occurs and why suffering that comes from natural causes occurs, if one believes that God is both good and almighty.
There are four ways in which Aristotle and Aquinas answer the question "Why?" For example, why is there writing on the blackboard?
First, we need a material cause, the matter of which the sentence is made, namely, the chalk. Second, we need a formal cause, the shape of that matter into English letters and words according to the principles of English grammar. Third, we need an efficient cause, the active agent who takes the chalk in hand and shapes the markings into the appropriate form. Fourth, we need, at least for intelligent agents, a final cause, a purpose or end in view. For example, the teacher puts an English sentence on the blackboard in order to give an example which needs to be analyze with the four causes of Aristotle.
So we turn to the suffering that occurs from human actions. Why in the sense of the efficient cause does this suffering exist? It exists, not because God is the agent, but because people have chosen to do things which harm other people. Don't blame God, blame people as the cause. But if we were to ask if god's almighty power can stop this human action, the answer is both no and yes. God's almighty power cannot do the impossible. God cannot make a square which is simultaneously a circle. So, God cannot make a free being who is at the same time and in the same respect not free to do evil. That would be a contradiction. But if God does not make us free, then the divine power could stop the suffering that comes from human action. But why does Deity not do so?
Here we are asking the purpose of human freedom. Why, in the sense of final cause, does God give humans freedom? An argument by analogy could help here. Just as we would not compel a person to love us, because a freely given love is qualitatively better than a forced love, so also God does not compel people to love divine Beauty because a freely given love is qualitatively better than a forced love. This answer to the purpose of freedom is not an answer to what is the purpose of a drive-by killing of a child. First of all, god didn't do this action. God did not intend to kill a child. There is a reason why the child died; there is a material cause, the bullet; a formal cause, the velocity of the bullet; and an efficient cause, the reckless person in the drive-by who pulled the trigger. But the killing of the child was not purposed by anyone. It is a category mistake to say that God has a specific reason for every thing that happens. There are specific causes on the level of material, formal, and efficient cause for everything that happens, but God is not a cruel tyrant who purposefully picks out who is to die in a drive-by shooting.
Next we turn to the suffering that comes from natural causes. Why in the sense of the efficient cause does suffering from nature occur such as hurricanes, cancers, tornadoes, heart attacks, earthquakes, forest fires, and starvation from famine occur. The efficient cause of this suffering is not God but natural events. The Atlantic simply heats up in the summer, and that tremendous build up of heat mixed with certain air currents creates hurricanes. Can God's almighty power stop such events from happening? In one sense, no, because if God gives nature autonomy to run according to the laws of nature, then even the almighty power of God cannot both give nature autonomy and take it away in the same respect and at the same time. But in another sense, God's power could stop these events from happening by taking away the autonomy of nature. But why does God not take nature's autonomy away?
Here we are seeking the purpose of God in giving nature (and human nature) autonomy? The purpose of God in general is so that human beings will be free to develop their wisdom and their love. If God were always modifying nature anytime that people would be hurt, nature would turn into an unpredictable mess. We could never know regular laws of nature which would be the basis of science. Nor would we need to care for ourselves or other people when hurricanes, cancers, floods, or famines occurred because God simply wouldn't let these events hurt people. Life would be a perpetual childhood. Like the song Big Rock Candy Mountain. The autonomy of nature is the condition which permits human growth in knowledge and love to occur through our own freely accepted responsibility. Sometimes, people say that these natural events are a test that God gives people. I don't like such language. It assumes that God is picking out specific tests to give to specific people. And it's not true that God doesn't give more than people can bear. Many people shatter and break under the burden of natural evils. The language would be much better if were to say that the autonomy of nature is the condition of effective human freedom which can choose to grow in knowledge, wisdom, and love.
Sometimes people seek a specific purpose for why cancer comes to them or why the flood destroyed their house. There is a specific reason or cause on the level of material, formal and efficient causes. Cells get old, and the immune system fails. Too much rain falls, and the river overflows. But God is not acting through natural events for specific purposes to be realized through suffering. God is not a cruel tyrant who gives people burdens that shatter and break them. In general, God's purpose in giving natural events their autonomy is that God desires that humans grow in knowledge, wisdom, and love. But there is no specific purpose for Hurricane Andrew or someone's cancer. It is a cruel mental torture to search one's mind for an inscrutable purpose that isn't even there. God never wants anyone to suffer. The insight of Euripedes remains true, if God does anything that is malicious or cruel, then that being is not really God.
But sometimes people say that God is punishing people for the sin of Adam and Eve and that this punishment is justified. But such a theory is wrong on both counts. It ignores the tremendous evidence for the evolution of the human species and the serious scholarship on the book of Genesis which now recognizes the mythological nature of the story of creation and the first sin. Humans are mammals, and mammals were suffering from nature's mishaps and were dying long before humans ever evolved. Death is not the result of sin, nor is the pain of childbirth and the need to work the result of sin. Women have labor because of the evolution of the human skull in the forebrain, and men and women have to labor upon the earth just as any other mammals have to work for their food and shelter. Robins and beavers and wolves all have to work, or they die. Furthermore, the punishment for Adam's sin is so out of proportion that a divinity who exacted such a cruel revenge would not be worthy of being worshipped as God.
We have examined two of the four causes for suffering's occurrence both from human nature and from nature. But sometimes people ask a fifth meaning of "Why?" They ask, "Why me? Why am I suffering? Why, Why, Why?" Take, for example, the newYork Times News Service article of august 21, 1997, about the ex-Buffalo Bills' quarterback, Jim Kelly. His young son is suffering from a severe form of leukodystrophy, named Krabbe's. Only one child with disease has lived to the age of four years. The child has already had one bone-marrow transplant and one blood infusion. Kelly is quoted as saying:
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