Christians in Science Student Conference 2014 Earthquakes and Evil The problem with theodicy Before Lepsy Fault Kazakhstan and after Lepsy Fault Kazakhstan httpwwwgoogleearthcom ID: 164385
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Slide1
Tim Middleton
Christians in Science Student Conference 2014
Earthquakes and Evil
The problem with theodicySlide2
Before…
Lepsy
Fault, KazakhstanSlide3
… and after
Lepsy
Fault, KazakhstanSlide4
http://www.googleearth.com
40 mm/a
Tibet
BeijingSlide5
Identifying faults from space
Images of the
Daluoshan
Fault in northern China from the Worldview satelliteSlide6
Looking at faults in the field
Liulengshan
Fault, northern ChinaSlide7
Modelling faults on a computer
Greg Houseman, University of LeedsSlide8
12
th
January 2010 Haiti Earthquake
Roger
Bilham
,
Nature
, 18 February 2010Slide9
Fall and Expulsion from Garden of EdenSlide10
Fall and Expulsion from Garden of Eden
Wikimedia CommonsSlide11
Fall and Expulsion from Garden of Eden
Wikimedia CommonsSlide12
What is theodicy?
Justifying GodOmnipotenceOmnibenevolenceOmniscienceSlide13
Leibniz: ‘the best of all possible worlds’Slide14
Shattering the European Enlightenment
The Ruins of Lisbon
– copper engraving - Wikimedia CommonsSlide15
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!”Slide16
Voltaire’s CandideSlide17
A history of “theodicy”
Data from Google
Ngram
1859: publication of
The Origin of Species
?Slide18
Darwin’s
letter
to Asa GraySlide19
Tennyson’s
In MemoriamSlide20
Two types of evil
Moral evilNatural evilSlide21
Four possible theodicies
Evil is necessaryA cosmic fallAn angelic fallKenosis and the price of freedomSlide22
Four possible theodicies
Evil is necessaryA cosmic fallAn angelic fallKenosis and the price of freedomSlide23
The necessity of plate tectonics?Slide24
An
Irenaean
theodicySlide25
What’s wrong with a vale of soul-making?
Death Valley, USASlide26
Four possible theodicies
Evil is necessaryA cosmic fallAn angelic fallKenosis and the price of freedomSlide27
An Augustinian theodicySlide28
Fall and Expulsion from Garden of Eden
Benjamin West’s
The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from ParadiseSlide29
Four possible theodicies
Evil is necessaryA cosmic fallAn angelic fallKenosis and the price of freedomSlide30
Bruegel’s
The Fall of the Rebel AngelsSlide31
Four possible theodicies
Evil is necessaryA cosmic fallAn angelic fallKenosis and the price of freedomSlide32
Questioning omnipotenceSlide33
Epistemic distance—an analogySlide34
Dostoyevsky:
The Brothers KaramazovSlide35
The problem with theodicy
Rational and intellectualNot pastoral and personalSlide36
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.”Slide37
So what are we to do?
CompassionThe example of ChristSlide38
R. S. Thomas:
The PrisonerSlide39
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?