"Religious intolerance is a great evil." Explain
Answers
hii mate
- A religious denomination is a subgroup within a religion that operates under a common name, tradition, and identity.
- The term refers to the various Christian denominations.
- It is also used to describe the four major branches of Judaism
Modern Answers
(1) First there is the position that moral evils result from the human misuse of freedom. Certainly this position has much weight, and cannot be easily cast aside. Nevertheless, human freedom leaves many aspects of evil, even of moral evil, unexplained. With Dr. Brightman we would ahave to raise the following questions. Why are there in the nature of things, independent of human choice, so many temptations and allurements of evil choices? And why are the consequences of some evil choices so utterly debasing and disastrous? Is it just to ascribe all of the sins and vices of poverty-stricken refugees or unemployed families to their own freedom, or even to all human freedom put together?\[Footnote:] Brightman, A Philosophy of Religion, p. 260.\ This seems to be putting too much weight on the back of human freedom. Freedom may explain much of moral evil, but it fails to explain physical evil. Moreover, it does not explain the force of temptation or the debasing consequences of moral evil.4
(2) A second view explains physical evils as a punishment for moral evils.5 Such a view rests in the principle of retribution. This view goes back to the old Deuteronomic idea that prosperity follows piety and righteous, while suffering follows sin. Even in the days of Jesus we find traces of this theory. Hence the question is put to Jesus: “Who sinned, this man, or his parents, that he should be born blind.”\[Footnote:] John 9:2\ The most rigorous expression of this viewpoint is found in India’s ancient doctrine of Karma. Karma means literally deed. Suffering is explained as the consequence of a man’s deeds, whether committed in this present life or in some prevoius existence. Views of this variety continue to exist in the modern world. But such views are repugnant to the ethical sense of modern idealist.6 Does a good God harbor resentment? Does perfect love achieve its purpose in such cruel ways? This crude theory was rejected long ago by the writer of the book of Job and by Jesus (according to John 9:3). The whole theory of punishment as a solution of the problem of evil collapses with a series of ethical objections.7
(3) A third view explains nonmoral evils as disciplinary rather than penal. Here the purpose of evil is to reform or to test rather than to punish. It is quite obvious that this view cannot be totally rejected. Who can deny that many apparent evils turn out in the end to be goods in disquise. Character often develops out of hardship. Unfortunate hereditary and environmental conditions often make for great and noble souls. Suffering teaches sympathy.8 But is this the whole story? We must answer with an emphatic no. Character is not always developed through hardship. Unfortunate hereditary and environmental conditions do not always make for noble spirits, they more frequently make for resentful, depressed ahd hopeless living.
A more serious criticism of this view is pointed out very cogently by Dr. Brightman. He argues that if discipline is the purpose of all evil, and God is both omnipotent and just, then disciplinary evils should meet at least two conditions, viz, (1) they should appear wherever they are needed and only where they are needed and (2) they should be perfectly adapted to their ideal end. It is perfectly clear that neither of these conditions is met.9 Says Brightman: “Diciplinary evil fail to appear for the moral ecucation of the world’s worst characters; and the innocent and already overdiciplined victims of these very characters receive repeated superfluous and unjust diciplines. Even if all evils were wisely and justly disciplinary and none were wasted unjustly, the second condition would remain unsatisfied. When one contemplates the actual evils of a wind storm at sea, the experiences of freezing and starving, or the symptoms of syphilis or arteriosclerosis, it would be most extravagant to assert not only that these experiences may be disciplinary, but also that they are the most perfect means to the ideal ends of personal and social development that an infinitely good and powerful imagination could devise. As a philosophical explanation of evil, the appeal to discipline entails incoherences so far-reaching that it cannot serve its purpose.
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