preview

Atheism: The Argument From Evil

Decent Essays
Open Document

The Argument from evil is an issue that many regard as providing an issue for atheism. It uses the fact that since there is evil in the world, and so much of it, that there cannot be a God. There are four forms this argument might take, however, I do not think any of them successfully proves that there is no God.
The first form the Argument from evil goes as follows:
1. If God were to exist, then that being would be all-powerful, all-knowing, and all good. (All PKG, for short)
2. If an all-PGK being existed, then there would be no evil.
3. There is evil.
So therefor, there is no God.
By looking at the arguments logical form, you can see that this argument is deductively valid. In the first premise, one would say that it is the definition …show more content…

The first is evil that is brought into the world by humans, such as, the pain we inflict on each other. The second is evil that humans have no control over, such, as natural disasters. Since the argument is valid, one would have to reject one of the premises in order to reject the conclusion. So what options do we have? You could reject premise (1). You could use evil to show that there is a God, he just isn’t an all-PKG. Premises (2) and (3) would still be valid, however, it would conclude that God can’t be the way that one religious tradition says that he is. The fact that you can reject premise (1) shows that it isn’t a true definition of what “God” means, it is just one theory among …show more content…

Many theists think that premises (1) and (3) are true, they simply try to show how God’s being all-PKG doesn’t mean that there should be no evil in the world. “Theodicy” in traditional Christian theology, tries to explain why an all-PKG God would allow evil into the world. Here, we could look at what traditional theodicy claim is “soul-building” evil. Soul-building evils are the evils that make us better people. However, it would be a gross exaggeration to say that all evils are soul-building. Sometimes, pain and hardship destroys a person and they survive as mere shells of the people they were before. Is the fact that some evils are soul-building enough to refute premise (2)? If we needed to be strong, why would God not just make us that way? Why put us through hardships and pain? Defenders of the soul-building idea say that God wants us to be proud of everything we have achieved ourselves. If a person is put through an adversity, but comes out the other side stronger, they will get credit for the strength that they must have had to endure. Whereas if God just gave us strong souls, we would just be grateful to a higher being. I’ll concede that you can reject premise (2) because an all-PKG would allow some soul-building evils to

Get Access
Related
Get Access