The Problem of Evil - 7 complete lessons including SOW, Assessment and Marking Guidance

The Big Picture
Summary:
Many people question the existence of God due to the amount of evil and suffering in the world. This is an obvious objection seeing as God is supposed to be all-loving and all-powerful. Surely if he was, he would want to stop; and be able to stop all suffering. Epicures is famous for introducing this argument, and there are many arguments against him in support of God’s existence. Notably those from Augustine and Irenaeus as well as from more modern philosophers such as Leibniz who believed that in his supreme wisdom, God would have only created the best of all possible worlds. These arguments for the existence of God as a response to evil and suffering are called theodicies or apologetics. They can be explored on a basic level and students will have the opportunity to demonstrate understanding of these through assessments, they can also be evaluated and the more able students are likely to be able to form their own views on the existence of God, and in the best cases, write their own version of a theodicy. After students have looked at the intellectual responses to evil and suffering, they will then look at the practical response by religions in the form of mission work and charity. There is a great deal of scope for stretch and challenge during this unit of work.

Subject Specific Concepts/Skills:
Showing understanding of the problem of evil including examples of different types of evil and its distribution. This will involve some independent research. Awareness and evaluation of different theodicies. Creation of new ideas and arguments.