[Music] hello I'm Mr McMillan and welcome to the third part of this series on the problem of evil in this video we will look at the Iran theodicy just a quick reminder a theodicy is an attempt to justify God's existence to put it another way it's a way of trying to show how the existence of evil and suffering is compatible with the existence of an all loving all powerful God the Iran theology is named after the second century Christian philosopher and theolog ST irus which is always a struggle to remember how to spell in an exam despite living at least a couple of centuries before St Augustine he always seems to come second in the textbooks which seems to me a bit unfair but as irus would probably say life isn't fair in more recent years the theodicy has been developed by the 20th century philosopher John hick like Augustine after him St irenaeus draws inspiration for his theodicy from The Book of Genesis and the creation of man but in contrast to Augustine he draw some significantly different conclusions erus focuses on chapter 1: 26 where the author writes then God said let us make Mankind in our image in our likeness irenaeus interprets this to mean that there are in fact two stages to the creation of human beings firstly humans are created in the image of God this does not mean a physical image since God is Not physical but rather means that humans share certain characteristics with God namely that they are personal beings with Consciousness intelligence and a moral nature the second stage of creation is that human beings begin at Birth a process of growing or developing into the likeness of God which means Transforming Our moral Natures to be like him in other words humans are not created perfect but rather are created with the potential to become perfect this begs a rather obvious question why didn't God just make us perfect in the first place well irenaeus believes that although God could have created us perfect that morality that has been developed through hard work and the use of Free Will is intrinsically more valuable than a morality that has been already made or pre-programmed a already-made morality would effectively make us robots programmed to do God's will so unlike Augustine IRAs does not believe humans were made perfect furthermore he does not believe that the world was made perfect either irenaeus believes that for humans to genuinely exercise their Free Will in the pursuit of moral development then they need to live in a world where pain and suffering are real for in a world where pain and suffering were not possible then our actions could have no real moral consequence for example greeting someone by slapping them in the face would be no different to greeting them with a high five since neither could cause any pain distress or upset as irus said a world without problems difficulties perils and hardships would be morally static for moral and spiritual growth comes through response to challenges and in a paradise there would be no challenges the Christian philosopher Richard swinburn has developed this idea trying to demonstrate that many of the moral virtues that we admire most as humans such as compassion generosity and selflessness are only necessary or even possible in a world with things like pain poverty and Corruption furthermore the value of these virtues is in equal proportion to the severity of the suffering real compassion is only possible when there is real pain real generosity is only possible when there is real poverty and real selflessness is only possible when there is the real possibility for corruption and self-interest the philosopher John hick also developed the Iran theodicy and he coined the term Soul making to describe the process of moral growth for hick God could intervene to prevent suffering but this would undermine human freedom and would leave a world where there was not consistent laws of nature furthermore God creates the world with himself at an epistemic distance this rather fancy phrase just means a distance in knowledge what he means is that God deliberately makes it so that his existence is not certain if the opposite was true if we could see God looking down on us at all times without any doubt of his reality we would act morally out of a fear of judgment or punishment rather than seing virtue for the sake of moral growth it would be like we were living under 24-hour constant CCTV surveillance for both irus and hick God allows suffering in order to lead to the higher goal of moral development or Soul making however it is clear that not everyone does develop morally from suffering in fact some people go in the opposite direction where suffering leads not to development but moral degradation and they become less kind less generous less compassionate irenaeus argues then in order for the evil and suffering to be morally Justified ifed then it must be that everyone achieves moral perfection and therefore since not everyone achieves it in this life it must be the case that this process of Soul making continues after death this is sometimes called the belief in Universal salvation in other words everyone eventually makes it to heaven so what are the criticisms of the Iran theoy again I will consider four main criticisms although more could be offered firstly do the ends justify the means in ethics we are often told two wrongs don't make a right or put it formally the ends do not justify the means in other words it is not acceptable to do something good by doing something bad but the Iran theology claims that this is exactly what God does he deliberately creates an imperfect world with suffering so that humans May morally develop secondly does all suffering result in moral growth Ira seems to have an overly optimistic view of the role of suffering yes some people do become better people after some period of suffering but suffering often leads to moral degradation as often as moral development how often do serious criminals claim that their descent into crime could be blamed on some childhood trauma also can examples of indiscriminate suffering really lead to moral development does the still birth of a baby or a high school shooting really end up making the world a better place in the long run thirdly is suffering the only way to create moral development irus appears to assume that only suffering can lead to moral growth however there are other examples of events that could lead to an improvement in someone's character for example the discipline of preparing for an exam or participating in a team sport or learning a new skill can help develop important and valuable moral virtues could not God have created a world with no evil but lots of other challenges that don't involve suffering finally is universal salvation Fair irus believes that the process of Soul making continues in the afterlife and eventually all people will make it to Heaven if this is the case then what is the point in me being moral right now if I can assume my soul will achieve Grace in the afterlife do my actions now really have any conse quence am I in fact really free to do what I want if I will eventually be forced into heaven anyway thanks for watching that's the end of part three of this series on the problem of evil please make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel follow me on Twitter and download the podcast from iTunes [Music]