In this paper, I’m going to argue for the existence of God. I'm going to accomplish this by, proving that God can exist in the world with evil, proving that God is necessary for our world to exist, and finally proving that morality is a result of God. To make this paper clearer, I'm going to define a few terms used in my paper. Evil is the pain and suffering in our world, and I use it in two different ways. First, moral evil, the result of our free will, that allows to treat other humans inhumanely. Secondly, natural evil, suffering in the world that is caused not by human's free will, but by naturally occurring incidents in our world. Next, God is a being that none greater is possible and is that being that has all great-making properties …show more content…
The Logical problem of evil believes that all theist hold a contradiction when they believe that God and evil can exist. Premise one states that God, being omnipotent would be able to prevent or eliminate all the evil and suffering in this world. Premise two follows with, an omniscient god would know about all the evil and suffering in this world, and would know how to prevent or eliminate all the evil and suffering in the world. Premise three says an omnibenevolent God would want to prevent or eliminate all the evil and suffering in this world. Finally, premise four acknowledges that there is evil and suffering in this world, so we are forced to concluded that there is no God. However, the theist has two responses to the logical problem of evil, first the theodicy and also a defence. The theodicy is championed by CS Lewis and gives the reason God exist in the world with evil. God permits it. When God made humanity, he wanted us to love him back and make moral decisions on our own. For humanity to do this, it is required us to have free will. If we didn’t have free will, our thoughts and actions wouldn’t be our own but God’s, and it would make our love a contradiction. Therefore, free will make love possible. However, it also makes evil possible. The possibility for evil is necessary for love. This argument isn’t perfect, though. It fails to answer how also we have …show more content…
He replaced the problem of evil and asked, why is God omnibenevolent yet, permit there to be so much pointless and gratuitous violence in the world. The answer is, God wouldn’t allow that to happen. However, because there is gratuitous evil in our world, then an omnibenevolent God does not exist. Theist and I fail to see the connection between premises one and two in Rowe’s argument. He states that we don’t know of any good that would justify all the gratuitous violence in the world, and God would be unable to create any good from the evil. However, our knowledge is minuscule to that of God. So we are unqualified to make a statement like that about God and his ability to shape evil into good. With that the argument is proven false and non sequitur. However, this brings up one detail that is hard to swallow. It states that because evil a necessary for good, and hating evil would be a contradiction. Some argue that we can hate evil because evil is a parasite of the good that God
J. L. Mackie’s “Evil and Omnipotence” criticizes the argument that God exists by showing that religious beliefs are positively irrational and that parts of the essential theological doctrine are inconsistent with one another. The problem of evil is one of the oldest problems in philosophy. The problem of evil is a logical problem for only the people who believe that there is a God who is both (1) omnipotent and (2) wholly good; yet (3) evil exists in the world. If God is wholly good and omnipotent, then how can there be a presence of evil in the world. Given the presence of evil, we must either conclude that God does not have the power to prevent the suffering that evil causes in which case God is not omnipotent or that God does not wish
Mackie saves the strongest and probably the most popular theistic response to this argument for last. The free will solution claims that the existence of 2nd order evils is not a product of God but of mankind’s own freewill. The supporters of this claim hold that freedom is a good even greater than 2nd order goods and believe that God is justified for letting 2nd order evils exist in exchange for the ultimate good of freedom. This is to say that even though God is omnipotent he chooses not to use his power to control the will of men. In comparison to the first two theistic responses this one seems to be the best. So it is surprising how easily Mackie disproves it. He asks, if God is all good and all powerful, and if free will is good enough to justify 2nd order evils, why didn’t he create men so that they would freely choose to do good? The only possible objection to this is to say that God’s power is limited and that he is not omnipotent. Also if God is omniscient doesn’t he already know the outcomes of the men which he has created? To truly allow man to have free will God would have to restrict his own power in order to be unable to control men and this leads us to the Paradox of omnipotence.
Ernest Nagel identifies that God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and loving. However, if God has all of those traits, then why would He allow evil? This is where the problem of evil comes in. It says that if God exists, he is omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent. Because God is omniscient, He knows when evil occurs. Since He is omnipotent, He has the power to prevent it and his benevolent nature would permit him to stop evil. Yet, evil occurs anyways. Therefore, a God with such traits does not
Elie Wiesel once said , “When human lives are endangered…….at that moment- become the center of the universe. I agree that religion, race, and political view are important because they can show different points of views in other people, make experiences to different people, and show let a lot of emotions to other people. I agree with what he said for it is something that is very true and did happen. For example, when Adolf Hitler took all the jews many people die because of Hitler he had no choices ,however, all of the other countries knew they had them.
In J. L. Mackie’s “Evil and Omnipotence,” the author presents an argument detailing why belief in a both omnipotent and wholly good God is contradictory to a God who allows evil to exist. He utilizes this philosophy to show that God doesn’t exist due to the problem of evil. As Mackie’s delineates in his first paragraph, “I think, however, that a more telling criticism can be made by way of the traditional problem of evil. Here it can be shown, not only that religious beliefs lack rational support, but that they are positively irrational, that the several parts of the essential theological doctrine are inconsistent with one another.” (p. 100) Mackie discusses
Out of all the different choices human’s have to make not all of them are made using freewill, for example someone’s choice may me chosen by something or someone else and thus any evil that is caused from that choice was not chosen via freewill. If evil is created this way then it is not supporting the existence of god. There are many examples of this like how suffering (evil) may be created from a natural disaster, which was not an option someone had chosen via freewill, this creates a problem for the free will defence. Not all evil is due to choices human’s have made. In response to this problem for the free will defence, if god was all good, powerful and knowing then he would have been able to prevent and stop natural disasters as the evil they create is not due to freewill. However, this is evidently not true as natural disasters have
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,
Stephen Law conducted a thought experiment with a purpose of establishing the existence of an evil God, whereby he challenged those who believed in the presence of a kind and good God, doing nothing evil, and argued that the existent God is wicked indeed. The hypothesis developed into the challenge based on the argument that, if an omnibenevolent God is said to exist, yet there is so much evil in the world, then there is as well a possibility that an evil God exists, yet there is so much good. Law aimed to doubt not the fact of the existence of God, but the generally accepted assumption that the existing God is benevolent. Another researcher, Rowe, refutes this approach, arguing that the existence of a Supreme Being, who created people and hence cares for them, cannot be associated with evil. In fact, the presence of evil is a clear sign of the absence of a God. This paper seeks to take a position opposing to Law’s theory and prove that, despite the presence of evil, an omnibenevolent God still exists.
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.
Important point: Evil does not mean God does NOT exist, but only implies that God’s probably has a lesser chance of existing.
William Rowe defines gratuitous evil as an instance of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.(Rowe 335) In a world with so much evil it raises the questions If God is all powerful, all knowing and all good, how can he allow bad things to happen to good people? Can God even exist in a world with so such gratuitous evil? These are questions that has afflicted humanity for a very long time and has been the question to engross theologians for centuries. The existence of evil has been the most influential and powerful reason to disprove the existence of God. It is believed among many theist that God is the creator and caretaker
Before we can dive into the problem of evil, we must define a term. Whenever the word “God” is used in this paper, it is referring to the classical theistic conception of God. In this view of God, God is that, “than which nothing greater can be conceived” in your mind. Any attributes or qualities that make a being great, God has to the maximum. This means that, among many other qualities, God is benevolent(all good), omnipotent(all powerful), and omniscient(all knowing). Furthermore, God is the creator of the universe and is personally connected to the human race.
God cannot determine the outcome of our free choice. So either there is no omniscient god or we are created without free will and therefore are forced/unable to avoid doing evil. Again this shows that god is not benevolent, nor omniscient, therefore he is non-existent. Theists may argue the following reason for god to have granted humans free will. It is possible that god raised homo sapiens to rationality giving the gift of abstract thought, language and disinterested love. And so it is arguable that god gave us free will to allow for love, as free will is necessary for love. Although this may be one of many reasons that god granted us free will, it is one that we may understand. Free will is necessary for both erotic and platonic love. One may argue that evil is only trumped by love. And that the existence of evil, although in its masses is worth it for the sake of
As I entered high school, I began thinking seriously about what I wanted to do. One of my early curiosities was in public service, sparked by watching the entirety of The West Wing during my freshman year. This interest was solidified into a passion when I began an internship for a New York City Council campaign in the summer of 2017. Throughout the campaign, I learned about the political and campaigning process, but I also learned something much more important: what a community is. One of my key roles as a junior intern was standing on the streets convincing potential voters to vote for our candidate. Because the election was so local, it involved hearing personal stories of constituents’ concerns, fears, and hopes. It dawned on me then that
The problem of evil is as ancient as humanity itself. Since the dawn of man, thinkers, philosophers, religionists and practically every human being who have suffered at the hands of evil have pondered this enigma, either as a logical-intellectual-philosophical or emotional-religious-existential problem. The preponderance of evil as a reality in human existence, and