WJEC/Eduqas RS for A2/Yr2: Religion and Ethics (DRAFT)

T4 Determinism and free will

beings imperfect. God did this because the purpose of human being in life was to develop and grow into God’s likeness. Irenaeus supports this view with a quote from Genesis 1:26 in the Judeo-Christian Bible: ‘God said ‘Let us make man in my image and after in my likeness.’ Irenaeus interpreted this as being made in God’s image to mean that God made human beings possessing potential qualities of God’s perfection, e.g. a sense of morality. However, to actualise these qualities, of God’s perfection, human beings must freely make moral decisions. Every moral decision where a human being chooses to do ‘good works’ develops that agent into God’s likeness/perfection. Irenaeus created an analogy to illustrate the above theory, e.g. God is a craftsman working with human beings as his material and suggests that humans should freely allow themselves to be moulded into God’s likeness. Therefore, Irenaeus argues, God had to grant humans genuine and total free will so they could choose to be like God. However, genuine free will opens the possibility of people not only choosing to be good but also choosing to be morally evil. Humans did use their free will to disobey God, causing moral evil in the world to develop, but this is not God’s responsibility. This is because, Irenaeus claims, moral evil is a necessary part of life because it enables humans to develop. Without it, decisions in life would have no real value. Virtues such as courage and perseverance, which Irenaeus called ‘second-order goods’, could never be developed if there were not the challenges in life that tested such ‘second order goods’. Therefore, God can never step in to stop potential moral evil occurring because this would compromise human freedom and stop human beings having the potential to develop in God’s likeness. Therefore, Irenaeus, in his theodicy, is clearly supporting the idea that free will means that human beings are responsible for the moral evil not God. John Hick added to this point by stating that God also has to allow natural evil. He argued the natural world could not be a paradise. This is because in a paradise there would be no chance of ever causing harm and thus human beings would not be truly free to choose to be like God, i.e. it would be too easy to be like God in a paradise. As Hick stated: ‘Our world is not designed to maximise human pleasure but for the purpose of soul making.’ Therefore, for human beings to be completely free to make meaningful moral decisions God must allow natural evil, as well as moral evil. However, the above could be countered, i.e. perhaps God is responsible for all evil even though the actual evil acts are being freely carried out by human beings. This is because even Irenaeus conceded that God created human beings imperfect. Therefore, all sin manifested by an imperfect moral agent is ultimately the responsibility of its creator. Moreover, as was explained earlier, one of God’s other attributes, as stated by the monotheistic religions, is omniscience. Omniscience is the quality of knowing everything, being all-knowing. Therefore, it can be argued that God must have known that human beings would do deeds of great evil, such as the Holocaust, with the free will God allowed all human beings. However, despite this knowledge, God still went ahead and gave human beings free will. AO1 Activity Work in groups of five. Firstly, divide the five implications of predestination between you: e e 1. The implications of libertarianism on God’s omnipotence. 2. The implications of libertarianism on God’s omnibenevolence. 3. The implications of libertarianism on the use of prayer. 4. The implications of libertarianism on the existence of miracles. 5. The implications of libertarianism on evil. Each person then summarises their implication in no more than 50 words. Each person then presents their summary to the other four people in their group.

Key quote Our world is not designed to

maximise human pleasure but for the purpose of soul making. (Hick)

DRAFT

Irenaeus

4.32 Brie y explain why the theory of free will might suggest God is not responsible for evil.

145