Leibniz's Theodicy : The Good Nature Of God

For centuries, arguments for and against the existence of God have dominated the philosophical world. Whenever brought up, philosophers are eager and passionate to discuss this eternal topic. Those in favor of arguing for the existence of God have not yet been able to provide the necessary evidence to persuade those against the existence of God. The opposite is also true. The believers of God have yet to be persuaded by the scientific and logical observations proposed by the nonbelievers. An Australian philosopher, John Leslie Mackie, published the article “Evil and Omnipotence” in 1955 which is considered a classical philosophical statement of the problem of evil. Many people, including J.L. Mackie considered the problem of evil as the most

Some Abrahamic theists claim that the harmony of the universe is proof of an intelligent designer. This argument is known as the teleological argument and has evolved from classical philosophy to modern theology. In addition, subscribers of the Abrahamic religions also hold that God has attributes that include omniscience, omnipotence, and benevolence. Fundamentally, God is all knowing, all-powerful, and all good. In contrast, God created a perfect universe that is in harmony, but occasionally practices miracles. Can the teleological argument, miracles, and God’s attributes coexist in a rational universe? This essay’s goal is to demonstrate that

Most religious zealots have no doubt about who created and the source of the origin of the universe. The same is true of the existence of the omnipotent, omniscience and omnipresent God. Although God may not be seen or heard or touched, however; by faith, we believe of his majestic existence. His existence as God cannot be measured in terms of Gallup surveys or scientific proofs to show otherwise but “religious thinkers” according to James and Stuart Rachels have offered numerous thesis for the for the existence of God, starting with the argument from design, with its subtitles such as the wonders of nature; the “best-explanation arguments and the same-evidenced argument” (Rachels). In either of the cases, the conclusions drawn were similar in the sense that the universe was created by an intelligent designer.

For him to say that there could possibly be more good than evil in absurd because how could he know this. Then to assume that the goodness will be infinite we have to assume there is an afterlife that we will be conscious for. These arguments are based on the fact that someone already believes in god so they do work in favor of the argument he is trying to provide. Both Leibniz and Anselm offer arguments that only work if you already believe and do nothing for people who do not believe in the

The following is a response to H.J. McCloskey’s article, On Being an Atheist. This paper will argue against some of the main points that McCloskey presents, as well as showing strong evidence to refute the claims that God doesn’t exist. The following will challenge McCloskey’s cosmological and teleological arguments, and it will challenge McCloskey’s view that God cannot exist because evil is present in the world. The first argument that this paper will challenge, however, is McCloskey’s statement of theists trying to prove the case for God.

Leibniz’s system demands there be a best possible world. In this world, it is necessary for there to be both good and evil. While the intricacies of this theory are not internally inconsistent, there is a weakness. If sin is necessary it negates man’s responsibility to be pure before God. Another well-known theory is “Sin as pride”. Calvin and Barth assert all sin originates from pride. However, this cannot be true as Towns states, “Something else must precede pride, to stimulate the feelings of

The question about the existence of God or, more generally speaking, of a supernatural entity that steers the course of the world, is probably as old as humanity itself. Many great philosophers were concerned with this basic and yet so important question which remains to be a controversial issue to this day! In the following I will commit myself to the above-mentioned question by firstly reconstructing Anselm´s proof of God´s existence and secondly considering his position in the light of the critique put forward by Gaunilo, Aquinas and Kant.

J. L. Mackie critiqued the traditional theistic view of an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God. He addressed this issue in his article Evil and Omnipotence. Mackie stated that the problem of evil, “is a problem only for someone who believes that there is a God who is both omnipotent and wholly good” (Peterson 289). In other words, according to Mackie, we cannot rationally accept God as having both omnipotence and omnibenevolence insofar as evil exists. According to Mackie, we cannot accept the three theistic propositions as true collectively.

(Mackie, 1955)The claim that ‘evil is necessary as a counterpart to good’ (Mackie, 1955, p.203) errs, indeed we can again assert that as God made the laws of logic it would be possible for only good to exist in the world.

In today’s society there is a lot of skepticism regarding the belief in God and his existence. There has been and will always be the question of whether or not we have a God who is all seeing and all knowing. In the article “On Being an Aetheist” by H J McCloskey the existence of God is challenged through dismissing the arguments of cosmological and teological evidence. McClosky’s main objective in the article is to give an account that if God existed then how are there so many evil and unfathomable issues happening around the world?

Throughout this essay I will be assessing the question “Does the problem of evil argument show that God Does not exist” and I aim to show how it proves that god Does not exist. I aim to do so by analyzing the problem of evil arguments premises and conclusion as well as assessing the following arguments and objections: Necessary evil; The free will defense; the problem of natural evil, logical argument and the evidential argument.

The question I know of you have asked yourself at some point; Does God exist? Well this question opens the door to bigger questions of life: Where did we come from? Why are we here? Do we serve a true purpose? What happens after we die? The question of the existence of god is fundamental, but truly is something that has been misconstrued. Through the duration of this paper I will discuss two arguments on the existence of God, and the premises and versions that follow both of these arguments.

Leibniz’s position does seem plausible; however, it also has some major difficulties. The consequence of his view is that there is some standard of goodness outside of God that God must follow if He is to be called good. The first difficulty is that, if there is an external moral standard that God must follow, it means that something distinct from God does not depend on Him for its existence, which directly violates the sovereignty-aseity

The problem of evil has been around since the beginning. How could God allow such suffering of his “chosen people”? God is supposedly all loving (omni-benevolent) and all powerful (omnipotent) and yet He allows His creations to live in a world of danger and pain. Two philosophers this class has discussed pertaining to this problem is B.C. Johnson and John Hick. Johnson provides the theists’ defense of God and he argues them. These include free will, moral urgency, the laws of nature, and God’s “higher morality”. Hick examines two types of theodicies – the Augustinian position and the Irenaeus position. These positions also deal with free will, virtue (or moral urgency), and the laws of nature. Johnson

The English philosopher Stephen Law’s “The evil-god challenge” is a retort against the arguments raised in favour of the theistic belief that the world was created and is governed by an all knowing, supremely benevolent being. In order to refute the existence of the notion of a “good-god” as constructed in the arguments of theists, law has constructed his own hypothetical entity the “evil-god”. Law’s challenge stems from the logical and evidentiary problems that the concept of evil presents to the conception that there exists a supremely benevolent god. These problems are justifying the supreme goodness propagated as being part of the classical monotheistic understanding of god in a world where evil undeniably exists. Supporters of classical monotheism have created theodicies that justify why a wholly benevolent being would allow evil and suffering in a world fully under his control. In response Law suggests that the duty of, “those who believe in the god of classical monotheism, then, is to explain why, if belief in an evil god is highly unreasonable, should we consider belief in a good god significantly more reasonable?” (Law 360). Even if evil and good can coexist in the world, is not the former evidence against an all-encompassing god only interested in the ensuring of the latter?