earthquakes and evil the problem with theodicy
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Earthquakes and Evil The problem with theodicy. Tim Middleton Christians in Science Student Conference 2014. Before…. Lepsy Fault, Kazakhstan. … and after. Lepsy Fault, Kazakhstan. Beijing. Tibet. 40 mm/a. http://www.googleearth.com. Identifying faults from space. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
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Tim MiddletonChristians in Science Student Conference 2014
Earthquakes and EvilThe problem with theodicy
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Before…
Lepsy Fault, Kazakhstan
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… and after
Lepsy Fault, Kazakhstan
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http://www.googleearth.com
40 mm/a
Tibet
Beijing
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Identifying faults from space
Images of the Daluoshan Fault in northern China from the Worldview satellite
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Looking at faults in the field
Liulengshan Fault, northern China
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Modelling faults on a computer
Greg Houseman, University of Leeds
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12th January 2010 Haiti Earthquake
Roger Bilham, Nature , 18 February 2010
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Fall and Expulsion from Garden of Eden
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Fall and Expulsion from Garden of Eden
Wikimedia Commons
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Fall and Expulsion from Garden of Eden
Wikimedia Commons
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What is theodicy?
• Justifying God
• Omnipotence• Omnibenevolence• Omniscience
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Leibniz: ‘the best of all possible worlds’
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Shattering the European Enlightenment
The Ruins of Lisbon – copper engraving - Wikimedia Commons
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Voltaire: ‘Poem on the Lisbon Disaster’
“These women, these infants heaped one upon the other, these limbs scattered beneath marbles; the hundred thousand unfortunates whom the earth devours, who—bleeding and torn, still palpitating, interred beneath their roots—end their lamentable days without comfort, amid the horror of their torment!”
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Voltaire’s Candide
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A history of “theodicy”
Data from Google Ngram
1859: publication of The Origin of Species?
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Darwin’s letter to Asa Gray
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Tennyson’s In Memoriam
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Two types of evil
• Moral evil• Natural evil
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Four possible theodicies
• Evil is necessary• A cosmic fall• An angelic fall• Kenosis and the price of freedom
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Four possible theodicies
• Evil is necessary• A cosmic fall• An angelic fall• Kenosis and the price of freedom
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The necessity of plate tectonics?
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An Irenaean theodicy
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What’s wrong with a vale of soul-making?
Death Valley, USA
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Four possible theodicies
• Evil is necessary• A cosmic fall• An angelic fall• Kenosis and the price of freedom
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An Augustinian theodicy
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Fall and Expulsion from Garden of Eden
Benjamin West’s The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise
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Four possible theodicies
• Evil is necessary• A cosmic fall• An angelic fall• Kenosis and the price of freedom
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Bruegel’s The Fall of the Rebel Angels
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Four possible theodicies
• Evil is necessary• A cosmic fall• An angelic fall• Kenosis and the price of freedom
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Questioning omnipotence
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Epistemic distance—an analogy
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Dostoyevsky: The Brothers Karamazov
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The problem with theodicy
• Rational and intellectual• Not pastoral and personal
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Gabriel Marcel: the problem with theodicy
“But evil which is only stated or observed is no longer evil which is suffered: in fact, it ceases to be evil. In reality, I can only grasp evil in the measure in which it touches me—that is to say, in the measure in which I am involved, as one is involved in a lawsuit.”
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So what are we to do?
• Compassion• The example of Christ
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R. S. Thomas: The Prisoner
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Questions for discussion
• Do you find any of the theodicies I’ve outlined convincing?
• Do you agree with Ivan Karamazov?• Is theodicy just an intellectual anaesthetic?• To what extent is a rational defence of evil
important to Christian living?