Infant suffering revisited

Religious Studies

Volumn 37, Issue 4, 2001, Pages 475-484

  Chignell, Andrew ^a  

^a YALE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 32944471284     PISSN: 00344125     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0034412501005844     Document Type: Review

References (26)

1. Andrew Chignell 'The problem of infant suffering', Religious Studies, 34 (1998), 205-217
2. David Basinger 'Infant suffering: a response to Chignell' Religious Studies, 35 (1999), 363-369
3. Nathan Nobis 'Balancing out infant torture and death: a reply to Chignell', Religious Studies, 37 (2001), 103-108.
4. This is Marilyn McCord Adams's definition. See Marilyn McCord Adams Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 1999), 26.
5. Of course, this is not to say that it isn't important for others, apart from the victim herself, to think that God has been good to the victim. But my sense is that the perspective of the victim should be of primary importance for theodicists. For more on the distinctions between different problems of evil and reasons for focusing on the concrete, particularist logical problem, see Adams Horrendous Evils, chs 1-2.
6. The balance off/defeat distinction originates in Roderick Chisholm 'The defeat of good and evil'. Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, 42 (1969), 21-38
7. Chisholm is relying on something like G. E. Moore's Principle of Organic Unity, according to which the overall value of a whole does not necessarily consist in the sum of the values of its parts. Thus, even a negatively-valued part, when put in the right 'organic' relations with other parts, may increase the value of the whole
8. See also G. E. Moore Principia Ethica, Thomas Baldwin (ed.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
9. By 'theologically viable' I mean consistent with the theological assumptions of the theodicist.
10. A state of affairs X is 'included' in another state of affairs Y iff necessarily, if X obtains, then Y obtains
11. Basinger suggests that tills way of construing the project of theodicy is only relevant for ' those who affirm a very specific understanding of God's moral obligation to those who suffer' - i. e. The obligation to defeat horrendous suffering and balance off non-horrendous suffering (367). This may be true, and I affirm that others may want to pursue other types of theodical projects.
12. Eleonore Stump 'The problem of evil', Faith and Philosophy, 2 (1985), 392-435.
13. I set aside Basinger's suggestion that this recognition could come later in life, since I am only concerned with infant suffering that ends in death. I agree with him that infants who survive their suffering may come to see it, later, as balanced off.
14. In her book (which was not published at the time of my original article), Adams briefly discusses the question of children and infants. She notes that children of every age are (except for the severely brain-damaged) 'potential meaning-makers'. Thus, we should 'count them among participants in horrors because childhood traumas significantly damage the individual's powers to make positive sense of his/her existence later on' (28). But what of an infant who dies in her suffering? Does the 'later on' here apply to the post-mortem as well? My suggestion, again, is that such an infant is not a participant in horrors, and that this is fortunate since none of Adams's defeat-scenarios could apply to the infant's ante-mortem suffering to death.
15. For example, Augustine: 'When the last day of his life overtakes someone. . . he will be received by the holy angels to be led into the presence of the God he has worshipped and to be perfected by him and so to get his body back again at the end of the world, not for punishment but for glory. For only when it comes to the perfect vision of God will this image bear God's perfect likeness'; Augustine The Trinity, E. Hill (transl.) (Brooklyn, NY: New City Press, 1991), book 14, ch. 5.
16. Stump 'The problem of evil', 411.
17. I do not mean to suggest that a metaphysics of reincarnation can only be worked out in conjunction with a commitment to substance dualism.
18. See e. g., John Hick Death and Eternal Life (London: Macmillan, 1976)
19. Peter Geach God and the Soul (London: Routledge, 1969)
20. Joseph Prabhu 'The idea of reincarnation', in S T. Davis (ed.) Death and Afterlife (New York NY: St Martin's Press, 1989), 65-80
21. Peter Preuss Reincarnation: A Philosophical and Practical Analysis (Lewiston NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1989)
22. Leslie Weatherhead The Case for Reincarnation (London: City Temple Co., 1957)
23. Geddes MacGregor Reincarnation in Christianity (Wheaton IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1978)
24. and idem Reincarnation as a Christian Hope (London and New York NY: Barnes & Noble, 1983).
25. Nobis writes: 'it seems it would have been better for the infants to enter a blissful existence with God after a full and good life with no loss in post-mortem goods for the infant and less suffering for the parents' (107).
26. Thanks to Nathan Nobis, David Basinger, and B. D. Ackerman for helpful comments on earlier drafts.