This essay examines a paper by Peter Van Inwagen, “The Argument from Evil”. Inwagen’s paper attempts to give a possible reason for why there is evil in this world. However, this essay will attempt to give reasons for why Inwagen’s reason for evil does not explain evil without compromising God’s essential quality of moral perfection.
Inwagen sets the basic format for the problem of evil as thus: God has “non-negotiable” properties of omnipotence and moral perfection, there is evil in this world, if an omnipotent and morally perfect being created this world there shouldn’t be evil in it, therefore, there is no God. (Reason and Responsibility, 108) Omnipotence meaning able to bring about anything that is not a contradiction and moral perfection meaning never – not even once- doing something that is morally unacceptable. (Reason and Responsibility, 108) Inwagen’s objective in the essay, The Argument from Evil, is to present a “defense” against the problem of evil. Inwagen’s defense is not trying to prove he knows the reason why evil exists; rather, only to show that there may be “a very real possibility” that God has a morally acceptable reason for allowing evil to exist. (Reason and Responsibility, 109) Inwagen’s reasoning behind this is as follows; from the premises of the problem of evil the conclusion, God does not exist, does not necessary follow because He may have a morally acceptable reason for allowing evil to exist. Inwagen makes a case for the above reasoning by using an analogy that shows human do not always act on their wants, that they are able to bring about, because they have reasons not to and this can be extrapolated to God. (Reason and Responsibility, 109) The next question then is: what this reason, or reasons, to ...
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...table to punish Hitler’s son for his father’s crimes? No it’s not morally acceptable because he was simply not responsible for them. Then, how can God inflict humans with evils today for what human ancestors did? There is no morally acceptable reason to do this. A person that commits a crime is punished not his friend or son who was not involved. This violates God’s quality of moral perfection. Inwagen’s reply to this is that humans are inflicted with evils because humans today are separated from God. However, even a person that is not separated from God and loves Him can experience great evil through no fault of his own, for instance cancer. A fairly easy investigation into this matter would likely reveal a person who loved God and still experienced a great evil. Therefore, Inwagen’s defense is not possible because it fails to account for God’s moral perfection.
It is perhaps the most difficult intellectual challenge to a Christian how God and evil can both exist. Many of the greatest minds of the Christian church and intellects such as Augustine and Thomas Aquinas spent their entire lives trying to solve this problem, and were unsuccessful (Erickson, 2009, p.439). However, this dilemma is not only an intellectual challenge, but it is emotional. Man feels it, lives it. Failing to identify the religious form of the problem of evil will appear insensitive; failure to address the theological form will seem intellectually insulting. This conundrum will never be completely met during our earthly life, but there are many biblical and philosophical resources that help mitigate it.
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. As Inwagen argues, not even an omnipotent being can ensure that "a creature who has a free choice between x and y choose x rather than y" (197)1. (X in Inwagen’s story is ‘to turn its love to God’ and y is ‘to turn its love away from God,’ towards itself or other things.) So it happened that humans did in fact rebel and turn away from God. The first instance of this turning away is referred to as "the Fall." The ruin of the Fall was inherited by all humans to follow and is the source of evil in the world. But God did not leave humans without hope. He has a plan "whose working will one day eventuate in the Atonement (at-one-ment) of His human creatures with Himself," or at least some of His human creatures (198). This plan somehow involves humans realizing the wretchedness of a world without God and turning to God for help.
Claudia Card begins by questioning the difference between wrong and evil. How do we know when something crosses the line between being just wrong, to being an evil act? How does hatred and motive play a part in this? How can people psychologically maintain a sense of who they are when they have been the victims of evil? Card attempts to explain these fundamental questions using her theory of evil; the Atrocity Paradigm (Card, pg.3).
The Consequence Argument is an argument that concludes a hypothesis to be true or false based on whether the premise leads to desirable or undesirable consequences. This is based on an appeal to emotion, or a manipulation of one’s emotion in order to win an argument, especially in the absence of factual evidence. There are two sides in the Consequence Argument, compatibilism and determinism. Free will is the ability to either perform or restrain from actions based upon one’s decision. In the free will debate, Peter van Inwagen, a professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, takes on a compatibilist view by establishing that freedom can be present or absent in situations for any reasons, and that if determinism is true than one’s
Carus, Paul. "The Philosophical Problem of Good and Evil." The History of the Devil: With 350
Could you imagine a cold breeze that just cuts you up left and right? Or perhaps long days of starvation, with the sight of grass pleasing your stomach. For Elie Wiesel this was no imagination, nor a dream, this was in fact reality. Such a horrifying experience in his life he felt he had to share in a book called Night. Gertrude Samuels, who wrote the review, "When Evil Closed In," tries to help you depict on what devastating situations Elie was put through.
Karma comes in two ways, good karma or bad karma. However Miss Strangeworth got the worst kind ever, revenge karma. In the short story, The Possibility of Evil by Shirley Jackson, it is clear that judging others can result to bad karma, because she judges her town, and consequences return the favor. She is shallow and has too much power, however it starts with judgement. The Possibility of Evil takes us through a journey of a selfish woman and her consequences.
A second and stronger objection to Mackie’s version of the problem of evil is explained to us using the terms 1st and 2nd order goods and evils. 1st order goods/evils are purely physical. Examples are pleasure and pain, happiness and misery. It is claimed by many theists that 1st order evils such as pain and suffering are necessary for 2nd order goods like courage and charity. However there exists what Mackie calls a “fatal objection” to this claim and that is that along with 2nd order goods there must also exist 2nd order evil...
The problem of evil is inescapable in this fallen world. From worldwide terror like the Holocaust to individual evils like abuse, evil touches every life. However, evil is not a creation of God, nor was it in His perfect will. As Aleksandr
Shirley Jackson’s short story “ The Possibility of Evil” is about a little old lady named Miss Strangeworth. She thinks she’s in charge of the town and to make sure it’s free from all evil because her grandfather built the first house on Pleasant Street. At first Miss Strangeworth is a nice little old lady, worrying about people and wondering what others are up to. Then in the middle of the story she becomes a little rude to a few of the townspeople. In the end Miss Strangeworth thought she was getting rid of the evil in the town, but in reality she was causing evil in the town by showing her true colors and being extremely mean and cruel to others. Don’t judge a book by it’s cover because people aren’t always what they seem to be.
In, “The Problem of Evil,” Eleonore Stump holds the belief that the existence of evil in our world does not automatically disprove God’s existence. The belief that God cannot live alongside evil is considered to be the Evidential Problem of evil and this is what Stump is arguing against in her paper. Stump argues, the ability to fix our defective free will makes Union with God possible, which overwrites all the un-absorbable evils in the world, showing both God and un-absorbable evils can coexist. In this paper I hope to show that God can exist, but also show that human free will is limited.
“…And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” (Matthew 6:9-13) As it says in the Bible, we wish to be led astray from evil. However, evil is a very curious subject. For most intensive purposes, evil can be described as cruel, heinous, and unnecessary punishment. Evil is a relatively accepted concept in the world today, although it is not completely understood. Evil is supposedly all around us, and at all times. It is more often than not associated with a figure we deem Satan. Satan is said to be a fallen angel, at one point God’s favorite. Supposedly Satan tries to spite God by influencing our choices, and therefore our lives. However, this presents a problem: The Problem of Evil. This argues against the existence of God. Can God and evil coexist?
A foundational belief in Christianity is the idea that God is perfectly good. God is unable to do anything evil and all his actions are motives are completely pure. This principle, however, leads to many questions concerning the apparent suffering and wrong-doing that is prevalent in the world that this perfect being created. Where did evil come from? Also, how can evil exist when the only eternal entity is the perfect, sinless, ultimately good God? This question with the principle of God's sovereignty leads to even more difficult problems, including human responsibility and free will. These problems are not limited to our setting, as church fathers and Christian philosophers are the ones who proposed some of the solutions people believe today. As Christianity begins to spread and establish itself across Europe in the centuries after Jesus' resurrection, Augustine and Boethius provide answers, although wordy and complex, to this problem of evil and exactly how humans are responsible in the midst of God's sovereignty and Providence.
If evil cannot be accounted for, then belief in the traditional Western concept of God is absurd” (Weisberger 166). At the end of the day, everyone can come up with all these numerous counter arguments and responses to the Problem of Evil but no one can be entirely responsible or accountable for the evil and suffering in a world where there is the existence of a “omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent God.” Does the argument of the Problem of Evil or even the counter arguments help the evil and suffering of innocent human beings across this world? No. However, the Problem of Evil is most successful in recognizing the evil and suffering of the world but not presenting a God that is said to be wholly good and perfect to be blamed and as a valid excuse for the deaths and evil wrongdoings of this world.
The problem of evil has been a huge debate between atheists and theists. The problem of evil is how can evil occur in the world if God, a perfect being, created the world, and why do bad things happen to good people if God is in charge. Used to critique theism, the problem of evil questions God’s perfection and his existence. It questions God’s perfection by saying, “Whoever does not chose the best is lacking in power, or in knowledge, or in goodness” (Leibniz 89). This means that people do not think that God can be all powerful or perfect because they do not think that this world was the best possible choice. The problem of evil also critiques the question of God’s existence by saying, “If there is more evil than