God, Evil and Mystery

Abstract

Can a loving God exist, in view of the reality of sin and suffering? In response to this challenge the Irenaean theodicy offers the limited and negative conclusion that the world’s evil does not rationally require one to renounce belief in God. Nor on the other hand, needless to say, does the fact of evil lead one towards belief in God. The positive grounds of belief are not an inference from the world to God. We cannot argue from ‘the appearances of nature’ — which include all sorts of cases of unmerited suffering — to the existence of a good and loving creator. The positive grounds of theistic belief are, I believe, experiential rather than inferential. But our question now is whether the reality of evil, particularly in the forms of wickedness and suffering, renders it unreasonable to retain a belief in God which has arisen from other grounds. And I want to suggest, in the light of the considerations which constitute the Irenaean theodicy, that whilst the reality of evil undoubtedly challenges christian faith and sets it under a severe strain, it does not finally render that faith untenable by a rational person.KeywordsMoral JudgementChristian FaithMoral ChoicePresent LifeTheistic BeliefThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.