Vince R. Vitale
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780198864226
- eISBN:
- 9780191896392
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198864226.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
Using an ethical framework constructed out of the two variables of whether an agent causes, permits, or risks horrendous evils, and whether she does so in order to bestow pure benefit or in order to ...
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Using an ethical framework constructed out of the two variables of whether an agent causes, permits, or risks horrendous evils, and whether she does so in order to bestow pure benefit or in order to avert greater harm, some of the major theodicies in contemporary philosophy of religion are categorized. This chapter identifies three theodicies that depict God as causing horrendous evils for pure benefit. This structural approach to theodicy is evaluated and a conclusion is drawn that pure benefits are incapable of justifying the causation of horrendous evils. It is argued that this approach is insensitive to relevant asymmetries in the justificatory demands made by horrendous and non-horrendous evil and in the justificatory work done by averting harm and bestowing pure benefit. When moral constraints on the causing of horrors are considered and the justificatory asymmetry of harm-averting and non-harm-averting benefits brought to bear, pure benefit will not do the justificatory work (on its own) of securing God the status of an ethically perfect being.Less
Using an ethical framework constructed out of the two variables of whether an agent causes, permits, or risks horrendous evils, and whether she does so in order to bestow pure benefit or in order to avert greater harm, some of the major theodicies in contemporary philosophy of religion are categorized. This chapter identifies three theodicies that depict God as causing horrendous evils for pure benefit. This structural approach to theodicy is evaluated and a conclusion is drawn that pure benefits are incapable of justifying the causation of horrendous evils. It is argued that this approach is insensitive to relevant asymmetries in the justificatory demands made by horrendous and non-horrendous evil and in the justificatory work done by averting harm and bestowing pure benefit. When moral constraints on the causing of horrors are considered and the justificatory asymmetry of harm-averting and non-harm-averting benefits brought to bear, pure benefit will not do the justificatory work (on its own) of securing God the status of an ethically perfect being.
