QUESTIONS

● How do I feel about Hick's point, that the creator does not intervene in human affairs
as an affirmation of authentic human autonomy, and yet evil and suffering exist?
● Personally, how much do I value my autonomy?

OUTLINE

● Life getting harder as we get older

○ Child - controlled by parents, life was easy and ideal, we are saved from our
mess, the elders clean it up
■ Remain childish, lost without knowing anything
○ Adult - we have control over our life, life is harder, we face the consequences
of our own faults
■ Life is harder but we can say that we developed into mature persons
● Intervention undermines autonomy
● Sufferings are random, they are not programmatic = proves that God does not
intervene, He takes a step back for human condition of free will to be genuine
○ Sufferings still exist
■ Remember that we have free will - our actions can contribute to the
pain and suffering we are feeling BUT this does not mean that man is
naturally evil - again it is random because we have free will - some
people do evil while some don't, some people’s actions can be a mix
of both good and evil
● That God can still exist amidst the pain and suffering of this
world
○ His job - give us autonomy
○ Our job - to make good use of that autonomy
● Its genuine freedom and not abandonment
○ We kind of need to be on our own to
● We are created to be free beings and to be part of a community
● Autonomy can contribute to the moral state of the world (VALUED)
○ We have the ability to indeed make the world a better place to live in
○ Since we have the free will
Personally, I think that the notion about “the creator does not intervene in human affairs as
an affirmation of authentic human autonomy and yet evil and suffering exists” centers on the
idea and/or nature of autonomy itself. Evil and suffering still exists because of this autonomy
we humans have.

I’d like to associate the idea of the correlation of autonomy and the existence of evil with the
stages of our life: childhood and adulthood.

As a child, our autonomy is undermined since we were controlled by our parents who
intervene with our lives. They dictate what should be done, where to go, or who to follow.
Since we have our parents to shelter us from possible hurtful situations and to clean up after
every mess we can make (literally and figuratively), we can say that life as a child was
generally good or even idyllic. There were no bills to pay for, no big nerve-wracking life
decisions, no heartbreaks, nothing too drastic or too evil—just a few knocked-out teeth and
perhaps a scraped knee.

As children grow into adults, they acquire more autonomy for themselves. Parental
intervention is reduced, so decision making is something adults have to personally and
independently deal with. As adults going through the “real world” as they say, life gets
tougher. It gets tough because there is no parental intervention that would clean up every
mess we make or shield us from harm. As grown ups, we have to face the consequences of
how we use our autonomy. Hence, we say that whatever happens in our lives is caused by
our own actions. For instance, adults become bankrupt because they do not manage their
finances well. However, this is not to say that adults are reckless people who are incapable
of doing nothing good. The practice of autonomy implies that adults are free beings who
have a choice of whether to do good or not. More importantly, as we live through the random
mix of the good and bad decisions and circumstances we find ourselves in, we grow. We
develop into more knowledgeable beings. It is this personal, soul-making kind of growth
through adversity due to our autonomy that differentiates children and adults.

The difference between the effect of the lack and presence of autonomy discussed above is
the elucidation of my view on Hick’s point. Evil and suffering can still exist in the midst of the
lack of Divine intervention because of humanity’s autonomy; particularly, the random nature
of it. Here we note that autonomy does not deny the good nor the bad; it only supports the
idea that either the good or bad can freely exist at our own free will. As free beings, we are
capable of doing good or bad, and this capacity to do either good or bad or to even be good
or bad is something random and not programmatic. Nobody dictates to us—not even
God—what should be done, who to follow, or how to live. Therefore, we cannot truly say that
when God steps back from unfavorable circumstances, He does not mean to abandon us;
He only respects our genuine free will or freedom for He would like us to grow and learn
from our seemingly self-inflicted mistakes.

Being created by God and being given this autonomy, I would say that I greatly value my
freedom. Aside from being created by God, I believe that we are all made to be in a
community. As members of a community, our actions would in a way affect each other. Thus,
I would agree with the concept that we can indeed make the world a better place since we
are decision-makers not only for ourselves but for others too. In other words, we have the
capacity, autonomy, and freedom to determine and shape the world we live in—with moral
choices, chances are, evil and suffering can be reduced; with cruel acts, pain and suffering
would circulate in our world.