1. Explore different ideas about the problem of evil and suffering
Explore different ideas about the problem of evil and suffering. (8 marks)
Explanation of what is evil
Definitions of moral and natural with examples for each
No such thing as evil
Absence of good
Our view of evil is distorted
Evil can be overcome be detaching from the world
Mackie – challenges the characteristics of God
Mackie – explanation of the inconsistent triad.

2. Explore different ideas about the problem of evil and suffering
Explore different ideas about the problem of evil and suffering. (8 marks)
Evil and suffering were defined by John Hick as ‘Physical pain, mental suffering and moral wickedness.’ Within this description we can define two very different types of evil and suffering. The first is moral evil, which arises as a result of human actions that are morally wrong and includes actions such as child abuse and the gratuitous murder of the innocent. The second is non-moral evil which can be explained as the apparent malfunctioning of the natural world which produces natural disasters and illness.
The monist view of evil is that there is no such thing, it is simply an illusion in our minds. Evil causes a feeling of suffering because we cannot see the whole picture; if we could we would understand that evil and suffering are not real.
This can be taken further by those who develop the idea to claim that God did not create evil and that evil is simply the ‘absence of good’, like an eye that is blind.
A second idea concerning evil is that our view of it is distorted. Hindu and Buddhist teachings view evil and suffering as the result of bad karma from a previous life so it is therefore the fault of the individual if they suffer rather than it being imposed upon them by God. These doctrines teach that evil can be overcome by achieving good karma and detaching oneself from the world.
Mackie developed the inconsistent triad to demonstrate his idea that the existence of evil challenged the existence of God.
Mackie argues that the existence of evil is inconsistent with an all loving God as he would not want us to suffer, therefore the conclusion must be that God is not all powerful as despite not wanting us to suffer, he is unable to prevent it. Alternatively we could argue that an all-powerful God could do anything they wanted to and, since evil clearly exists, God must not want to stop it and so is not all loving.