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PREPARATION
You may want to brush up on your reading on the various arguments for and against the problem of evil. The A-level course in philosophy and ethics requires students to be aware of the ‘Inconsistent Triad,’ the theodicies of Augustine and Irenaeus, as well as the free will defence; these will be the focus of this lesson. You will need: board pens, big paper for group work, handouts on the theodicies (available on the links section), some post-it notes and any costume that you’d like the teacher to wear when portraying God. This lesson is aimed at sixth form although would work well with some adaptation with KS4 where these topics are covered in OCR and AQA syllabuses.
WHO IS GOD?
10 mins
This activity is designed to engage your students, create initial debate, as well as giving you an insight into your class and their prior knowledge. The rest of the lesson can be tailored to suit. Ask students to describe the Christian concept of God. Remind them that this is not a task on whether God exists or not, so set the following tasks to be completed either individually or in groups. Reveal each task after two minutes have passed:
• Brainstorm words associated with God (e.g. omnipotent). Challenge them to use key vocabulary and come up with more than ten.
• What examples exist in the Bible of God acting in a loving / good way?
• What do Christians believe God has the right to do?
• What do Christians believe God cannot do?
• Create a tweet of no more than 140 characters that sums up everything they’ve got down onto paper so far.
IS EVERYTHING OK?
10 mins
You should now have an idea of how good the group’s knowledge of the Christian God is. Ask each group to feed back to the class their answers and challenge them on any assumptions or suggestions that you may not agree with. Allow one other group in the room to ask a question on the information provided. Ask the class, ‘From the information provided so far, is this a fair image of God or is there any information left out?’ Take any responses.
Ask students to create a table of two columns. On the left side ask them to write down any compelling evidence for the existence of God (either their opinion or other people’s) and on the right any evidence against. Allow them to do this in their groups or individually. Feedback from this and create a summary grid on the board. Hopefully someone will mention the existence of evil in the world - either moral or natural evil. If not then add it up to the board as your example.
AN INCONSISTENT TRIAD?
10 mins
Introduce to the class the concept of the inconsistent triad (there are various versions attributed to Hume and Mackie among others). Draw a triangle onto the board and write on each point one of the following three propositions (you may want to define what a proposition is to the class as well as the meaning of ‘omnipotent’ ad ‘omnibenevolent’): ‘God is omnipotent,’ ‘God is omnibenevolent,’ ‘Evil exists’. Explain that Mackie argued that these propositions were inconsistent, and thus, that at least one of these propositions must be false. Either: God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent and evil does not exist; God is omnipotent, but not omnibenevolent, thus, evil exists by God’s will; God is omnibenevolent, but not omnipotent, thus, evil exists, but it is not within God’s power to stop it (at least not instantaneously).
After presenting this idea (and leaving it on the board for the class to see) set them the task of solving the problem in just two minutes - does this triad prove that God is either bad or non-existent? Allow them to brainstorm some quick responses in pairs, sharing their opinion, what they think other people would suggest, and deciding whether this does indeed disprove the existence of God. Ask them to write down their initial thoughts onto a post-it note and keep it for later.
PRESENTATION PREPARATION
15 mins
Set up the concept that at the end of the lesson you’ll be putting God on trial and deciding whether, if he exists, he is responsible for evil in the world. In order to do that you’ll need a prosecution and a defence. Assign the usual class teacher the role of ‘God’ (some comedy costumes may come in handy here) and explain that they will be deciding on the verdict later. Split the class into two and set the prosecution the task of creating a persuasive case as to why if God exists that he is responsible for evil. Encourage the use of examples of philosophers’ arguments. Ask the defence to provide a counter to any potential arguments that may be presented. To help both teams, provide the hand-outs on Augustine, Irenaeus and the free will defence to help both teams prepare their arguments.
GOD ON TRIAL
10 mins
After their research, set up the class with each group on opposing sides of the room. Ask the prosecution to present their case as to why God is either evil or non-existent (they can choose either or both) and ask them to summarise their reasons for their point of view. After they have presented their case, allow the other side to present their defence for God. Once both sides have presented their cases, ask ‘God’ to ask questions to both teams and allow them to respond. Allow each side to ask one question to the opposing team as well. After hearing the presentations in full, ask ‘God’ to make a ruling on who has presented the most coherent arguments in the lesson and declare that team the winner of the lesson.
PLENARY
5 mins
Ask students to refer to the post-it they had written earlier. Ask them to reflect on the theodicies and the free-will defence that they heard and researched in the lesson. Get students to now turn over the post-it note and summarise how someone could approach the problem of evil now. Ask students to discuss with each other the progress their answers have made from earlier.-USE
