Simon Blackburn God Summary

How do human beings talk about God in the face of poverty and suffering? This is the question the Book of Job raises for us. A moral and honorable man lives a prosperous, happy and fruitful life. As a wager between God and Satan on the issue of disinterested religion, they test to see if his faith and religion are actually disinterested. This leads to another question of whether human beings are capable of asserting their faith and talking about God in the face of suffering in a disinterested way. In his book “On Job: God-Talk and the Suffering of the Innocent” Gustavo Gutierrez makes the point that human beings, especially the poor, are capable of a disinterested faith and knowledge of God in the face of suffering. His application of liberation theology, way of talking about God, and interest in the poor allow Gutierrez to assert that human beings are capable of a disinterested religion in the face of poverty and suffering.

In his essay, "The Magnitude, Duration, and Distribution of Evil: a Theodicy," Peter van Inwagen alleges a set of reasons that God may have for allowing evil to exist on earth. Inwagen proposes the following story – throughout which there is an implicit assumption that God is all-good (perfectly benevolent, omnipotent, and omniscient) and deserving of all our love. God created humans in his own likeness and fit for His love. In order to enable humans to return this love, He had to give them the ability to freely choose. That is, Inwagen holds that the ability to love implies free will. By giving humans free will, God was taking a risk.

He had claimed that if God was to be all good yet does not possess the power to vanquish evil then logically God can-not be all powerful, similarly if he is indeed all powerful and possess the ability to eliminate all evil then he indeed cannot be all good. Blackburn uses the analogy of a university to explain the claim of the implausibility of God in a more relatable sense. In the university, students live in poor conditions such as leaky roofs and food that is inedible. The university management sits behind a closed office door yet never emerges and as such it would not be logical to assume that the management knows, cares and can do anything about the issues affecting the students. In a logical sense one must come to the same conclusion about such a god – such a being simply can not exist. It would be ignorant to believe so. Blackburn also addresses the claim that God has a different sense of what is good and what is evil by claiming that if the suffering of many around the world for any purpose, such as to test his, hers or its followers then this god is not suitable for moral guidance. However it is important to note that Blackburn does not refute the idea of a god existing, and goes as far as stating that a god may exist but not in a traditional Judeo-Christian form of understanding.

On the topic of the existence of God, Ernest Nagel and Richard Swinburne have construct arguments that challenge one another. In Nagel’s article, “Does God Exist?” he argues that if God is all-powerful, omniscient, and benevolent; he would know when evil occurs and has the power to prevent it. Because evil occurs, God does not exist. This is the problem of evil. Challenging Nagel, the article by Swinburne, “Why God Allows Evil,” argues that God has the right to allow moral and natural evils to occur because those evils reap greater goods that make the lives of human-beings meaningful. He extends his argument to the idea that God seeks to provide human beings with goods such as freewill and responsibility of not only ourselves, but of the world and others. While Nagel utilizes the problem of evil as an objection to the existence of God, Swinburne employs it to show that God allows evil to occur to provide human beings with goods that go beyond moments of pleasure and joys of happiness.

He states that many people die from disease or starvation and nothing is being done by God to stop this. Blackburn asserts that if there is a God who is all-powerful (can do anything), all-knowing (aware of the situations present) and all-caring (sympathetic for humans) then he/she would not allow any of this to happen. Blackburn

If god was all good, all powerful and all knowing, he would not allow the existence of evil.

He argues that God allows some disasters to occur in order to “encourage the creation of moral urgency”(122). This is like saying that God has some sort of quota to meet in order to create the perfect balance between disasters and moral urgency. Johnson connects this back to the burning building example by saying that if he had the “opportunity to create otherwise nonexistent opportunities for moral urgency by burning an infant or two, then [he] should not do so” (122). If it were good to maximize our moral urgency, then, Johnson argues, it would be necessary to create such phenomena. And we can see that it is therefore not good to create the most moral

John Hick discusses in his essay The Problem of Evil, the objections to the belief in the existence of God is the presence of evil in the world. He begins by posing the traditional challenge to theism in the form of the dilemma: That if God was perfectly loving, he must wish to abolish evil, and being all powerful, is able to perfectly do so as he will its. He then proceeds to present some views regarding this issue, giving insights from three point of views, that of contemporary Christian Science, the Boston Personalist school, and the theologian Augustine. The first opinion takes evil as an illusion, as a construct of the human mind. The second confers upon God finity, God as a struggling ruler,

Thus, this brings him to the final conclusion that “God should govern the world” (24), boldly claiming that a country centred on God’s laws would face changes he has – one that is liberating and

One of the oldest dilemmas in philosophy is also one of the greatest threats to Christian theology. The problem of evil simultaneously perplexes the world’s greatest minds and yet remains palpably close to the hearts of the most common people. If God is good, then why is there evil? The following essay describes the problem of evil in relation to God, examines Christian responses to the problem, and concludes the existence of God and the existence of evil are fully compatible.

"The existence of natural evil in the world makes it impossible to believe in a God who is all-loving and all-powerful." Assess this view

This is a great blow against classic theology that describes God as all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good, ect… However, the process theologians argue that God is the most-powerful being, the most-knowing being, and the most-good being that could exist. This slight change in thinking complete attacks the view of the classical theologian’s views in their perfect God. In process theology many arguments are made to fight the “all” standing of the classical Theologians. Arguments that point the inconsistency of an all-powerful and all-good God that allows evil to exist in the world. A popular response to the existence of evil is that God graced humanity with the gift of free will. However, the process theologians have asked how an all knowing God can allow free will, if he knows what everyone will choose. These two arguments against that “all” God have allowed the process to take a slightly weaker stance, the “most” God. This allows God to know the most possible, but not necessarily all future events. And therefore free will is plausible and evil can exist in a world where an extremely good and extremely powerful God also

J. Eckleburg and God exists only in George Wilson’s grief-stricken mind – in Chapter 8: ‘You may fool me, but you can’t fool God!’”

While atheists do not believe in God, it does not mean that they do not serve a god and religion. Capitalism, at least in America, is everyone’s religion. It is served each and every day as millions make the pilgrimage to work, to gain the capacities to tithe into the economy by following the ever present sermon of buy, buy, buy. The sermon is far greater than any religion of God, for it is sought out daily by various means such as the television, radio, and advertisements on clothes that society themselves perpetuate. Martin Luther once stated that “one’s religion is whatever one is willing to sacrifice his children for is his religion and God”. Millions are being sacrificed by their economies today; workers are working 12 hour days for less than 2 dollars. Governments are doing all in their powers to keep unions from forming all in the name of capitalism. Therefore if Harris’ argument is that only morality can be accomplished by atheism, and there is no true form of Atheism, then there can be no true form of morality(religion of the market 67-70).

I hadn’t been speaking to God long when Father Callahan came up from the food pantry having finished his inventory. “Father Callahan, thank God you’re still here!” I told him. “Evil is among us and we have to prepare for a battle.”