The Existence Of God. Throughout The Years As Human Beings

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.

In the course of this essay I will argue that evil is not compatible with the existence of god. This means that evil and God cannot coexist because if god were present, the existence of evil would contradict all that god is believed to be. Abrahamic religions insist that God both created the world and that he preserves and maintains it. Christianity claims that God is all knowing and is boundless in his abilities. Religions claim that God is benevolent, and only wants the best for humanity and the universe, as his creations. If all of the above statements be true, then it is hard to understand why god would allow evil to thrive right from the beginning of time.

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

The two solutions to what we call the problem of evil are: the free will defense and the Supralapsarian theodicy. The free will defense argues that evil and God are not incompatible because God didn’t create evil. According to this defense, human beings create evil with the free will that God given them. Since free will must be totally free, God cannot guide us to do what is good only since he wants his creatures to have complete freedom over their lives and what they do. So, by proving that God and evil can coexist logically, the free will defense is a path out of the problem of evil.

When we are discussing the problem of evil, we are specifically discussing a God that is omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly good. A God that is perfectly good would not allow suffering to exist, and any minute amount of suffering that exists disproves God’s existence. Unless, the suffering is justified with an adequate reason. However, even then there seems to be large amounts of evil in the world that seems unnecessary for any good reason. By evil and suffering I mean death, pain, and disease. I will be using these terms interchangeably. In the problem of evil, many arguments are placed in order to find a justification for the evil that exists. However,

An argument against the existence of God is based on the presence of evil in the world. This deductively valid argument is divided into two categories; human action and natural evil (Sober, 2005, p. 120). Human action discusses how experiences makes us better people, while natural evil are tragic events that are not under the control of humans. Each category is used as evidence to refute God as an all-powerful omniscient, omnibenevolent, or omnipotent being. In order to understand the strengths of this argument, it is important for an overall assessment of how the presence of evil questions if a Supreme Being actually exists, by arguing why a being of all-good would allow evil, importance of evil in a good world, and questioning God’s intervention in evil.

Firstly, Inwagen examines a theist’s reply that God brings a greater good out of the evils in the world. However, the problem with this reply, Inwagen notes, is that it does not take into account God’s omnipotence. In other words, God could have brought out a greater good from evil than He has. This implies either God is not omnipotent and so is unable to bring about the greater good or if He is omnipotent then this reply implies a moral imperfection. Therefore, Inwagen admits, his defense must include “…the proposition that God was unable bring about the greater goods without allowing evils…” (Reason and Responsibility, 110). Secondly, a theist may reply that there is evil in this world because it allows for an understanding of good. However, Inwagen again notes God’s omnipotence which could teach this contrast through something less evil, such as vivid nightmares. (Reason and Responsibility, 110) Lastly, Inwagen believes, a theist may reply using free will. Inwagen defines free will as a free choice between different options, for example A or B, where God cannot make a person choose A over B because it is a contradiction to the definition of free will. Moreover, humans abuse free will which causes or “produces a certain amount of evil”. Nonetheless, free will is good that outweighs its evil affects, so, that is why God has allowed it. (Reason and Responsibility, 111) Inwagen notes the objections to this solution as well: (i) the good from free will

According to Tom Morris who wrote “Philosophy for Dummies”, He says that evil is like a very dark shadow that hides and prevents many modern day intellectuals from being and to see and embrace any version or idea of the theistic vision as a whole. The idea of evil creates the knowledge that there is no God that can possibly exists out there in the world but contrary to that belief Theists claim there is a God that created the world and that perfect being is not only watching over us but has full control and rule over the universe. There is much expectation for theists to uphold this believe of the existence of God. Naturalist constantly question and test with these solid arguments against it. We know that God is there and that he exists but we need to learn to have strong argument to defend against these claims. Stronger questions of why bad things happen in the world can test and we question how we are supposed to explain it and why they happen. There are other claims against theism that Morris spoke of. “If there is a God why is there evil in the world?” “Since there is evil there is no God.” These are strong arguments in the opinion of the naturalists and can be hard questions to answer but God is the ruler over everything and has control over all things. Like the saying goes no pain no gain. Morris gave some important points and answers referring to

Bad things happen all around us all the time, we, as humans, classify these bad things as Evil, and the presence of this evil gives rise to the philosophical question; If there is an omnipotent, omniscient, and all-good God how can there exist a thing that is not good, that

Carolina Ornelas Professor P Essay #4 18 May 2015 Problem of Evil In this dialogue of Concerning Natural Religion, there is an argument that concerns many as to why there is still evil in the world when God is supposed to be infinitely powerful, good, and wise. In order to understand Hume's philosophy of religion, it was crucial to understand the basic beliefs of his theory of knowledge. It was believed that all knowledge of matters of fact come through experience because you had to go out and investigate the world in order to understand it instead of hoping to come up with really great knowledge on your own. I will explain in detail the problem of error considered in this argument and its solution to it.

We as humans have the choice of free will and we do not come to know evil. Evil

One of the main arguments that I’ve heard for the problem of evil is free will. To simply put it, evil exists because we have free will. God wants us to have free will so he doesn’t do anything to impede it. Therefore, we are the cause of evil. This argument is usually broken into moral and natural evil (Tooley, 2015). The moral evil is the common reference when

Indeed, atheists will attempt to argue that if there is a perfect being or a God, He could have prevented evil while preserving free will. However, it is of vital importance that if preserving free will exists; then on the other hand, prevention of evil must not exist. Free will is defined as the ability to act or the discretion to choose in correspondence with an individual’s feelings and choices with no outside interference such as natural causality, predestined by divine will, or fate. An individual’s loss of personal freedom places hindrances on an outside force from determining an individual’s behavior but contrarily not the individual themselves.

Everyday it is possible to read a newspaper, or turn on TV or radio news and learn about evil going on in our world. Banks are robbed, cars are stolen, violent murders and rapes are committed. Somewhere in the world the aftershock of an earthquake is being felt. Cancer is killing millions of people each year, while other debilitating conditions continue to affect many with no cure to end their suffering. President Bush said that our country is fighting a war against evil. We all agree that evil is real and cannot be ignored; the problem comes when we try and rationalize the concept of God and evil coexisting.

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