My neighbor Sam was waiting for me outside as I returned home from church one Sunday. He confided in me that he was troubled with many events in the news, such as high school shootings, the tsunami in the Philippines, the civil war in Syria, another pandemic warning in Asia, and so on. Knowing that I am a believer in God, he wanted me to help him square the idea of how the presence of evil in the world exists, if indeed God exists.
Undoubtedly, it appeared to me that his position did not reflect an adequate understanding of the true and living God and therefore was in objection towards the view that God is just, loving, merciful, in controls all things, and that evil exists in a world created by such a God . He stated if God was sovereign, then He must be responsible for the evil in the world, or to a greater degree the author of it. It sounded to me as though he was trying to understand the problem of evil.
Providing my presupposition, I told him that Scripture speaks truthfully of God and affirms that He is holy while also teaching that He is sovereign over all creation . If this is true, then we must conclude that God ordains all things is such a way that does not go against the character of His being nor can He be held blameworthy for evil. I told him that God could not accomplish two ends simultaneously – give humans free will and remove evil from the world – without contradicting His intentions to do one or the other.
I outlined the distinction between moral evil and natural evil, in that moral agents (such as murder or rape) produce moral evil and natural evil occurs in the process of the functioning of the natural order (such as an earthquake, flood or plague). While we can attempt to question the intensity of ...
... middle of paper ...
...His creation even though He knew they could use it for evil. God is still good for giving His creation free will, even though it was abused by man, because a world full of free moral agents is far superior to one populated with automatons. God would not make humanity with free will and force them only to do good, because it would go against His will for creation to perform good acts freely.
In conclusion, we must remember the words of Paul in that, “from Him and through Him and to Him are all things” (Romans 11:36). Not “all things” except free will or evil. Not “all things” on a general scale but not on a personal one. All things come from Him, exist through Him and ultimately exist for His glory, even moral and natural evil.
Works Cited
Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, Second Edition. Edited by Walter A. Elwell. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2001.
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.
His discussion on the Trinity (the Tri-unity) was excellent. He demonstrated that the Hebrew word for one, ‘echad, does not necessarily refer to absolute unity and, in fact, could very well refer to compound unity (Page 4). He provides examples from the Hebrew Bible where ‘echad is used of a compound or complex unity as per the oneness of Adam and Eve, the many components of the tabernacle being one “unified” tabernacle, and the one nation of Israel which is made up of hundreds of thousands of people (5). I loved the way he backed up his discussion of the Shema as referring the concept of uniqueness (Deut. 6:4) by citing the New Jewish Publication Society Version: “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone” (page 6)
The problem of evil is a difficult objection to contend with for theists. Indeed, major crises of faith can occur after observing or experiencing the wide variety and depths of suffering in the world. It also stands that these “evils” of suffering call into question the existence of an omnibenevolent and omnipotent God of the Judeo-Christian tradition. The “greater good defense” tries to account for some of the issues presented, but still has flaws of its own.
There is evil. 3. So, God does not exist”. Since there is evil, then that means God does not exist. So there is no loving and powerful God. However, if there is a God then he is not all loving and powerful. Daniel Howard-Snyder states in his article “God, Evil, And Suffering,”: “We would have to say God lacks power and knowledge to such an extent that He can 't prevent evil. And there lies the trouble. For how could God have enough power and knowledge to create and sustain the physical universe if He can 't even prevent evil? How could He be the providential governor of the world if He is unable to do what even we frequently do, namely prevent evil?” (5). This statement argues that God is not all powerful because he is unable to prevent evil in the world. Daniel Howard-Snyder then argues that: “Would a perfectly good being always prevent evil as far as he can? Suppose he had a reason to permit evil, a reason that was compatible with his never doing wrong and his being perfect in love, what I 'll call a justifying reason. For example, suppose that if he prevented evil completely, then we would miss out on a greater good, a good whose goodness was so great that it far surpassed the badness of evil. In that case, he might not prevent evil as far as he can, for he would have a justifying reason to permit it” (5). Even if God had a reason to allow evil, he who is all loving and powerful would want the least amount of people to suffer and feel pain. Since God knows
The reconciliation of God's nature and Man's free will has long been a subject of debate for philosophers and theologians. Christianity rests upon certain ideas about the nature of God and the universe. The Bible speaks of God as eternal, all-knowing, and as the very author of reality. The concept of God as a benevolent, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent entity is rooted in thousands of years of church tradition. This tradition is so ingrained in Western culture, that, when one mentions "God", these ideas almost invariably come to mind.
We hear about the murders, assaults, robberies, natural disasters and all other evil or natural destructive events in the world, we have to ask the question, how could God let such bad things happen to good people or to let these disastrous events happen at all. Now think about the world and its population if evil or natural disasters did not exist; the world population would be unimaginable. Natural disasters are beyond human control, but murders, assaults, robberies and all other evil or bad deeds committed by human beings is a matter of exercising bad choice or misuse of free will.
also insisted that he wished to save mankind by giving them gifts. The gift of fire he gave mankind was not only good but also evil. It was evil in that mankind now...
In order to understand The Problem of Evil, we must first understand the concept of God. The God that this problem addresses is what we call a PKM god. This god is accepted in multiple religions, such as Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Over half of the world population claims to be followers of any of
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.
Richardson, William E., and Dave Kidd. “Articles.” Pentecostal Evangel. General Council of the Assemblies of God. Web. 13 Nov. 2011.
middle of paper ... ... Alister, McGrath. Christian Theology: An Introduction, 2nd ed. (Blackwell, 1997): 407-408.
Since the time that we as humans believed in God/an omnipotent power that rules over the universe, we have raised many questions about this God. One of the most recurring questions was, is it reasonable to believe in an all-powerful and all-loving God? There are many reasons to believe either side. On one side people do believe in a benevolent omnipotent God because of the way the world is, how beautiful our earth is, and how it was created among various other things. On the other side people are not willing to believe in an all-loving and all-powerful God because of all the evil in the world, how corrupt it is, and the injustice going on in the world. I am going to show the argument for both sides and why they think that way and will back it up with textual evidence from a philosopher. But the side that I think is the most logical and makes the most sense would be that God cannot be all-loving and all-powerful, if there is so much evil currently going on in the
God is the source of evil. He created natural evil, and gave humans the ability to do moral evil by giving them a free will. However, had he not given people free will, then their actions would not be good or evil; nor could God reward or punish man for his actions since they had no choice in what to do. Therefore, by giving humans choice and free will, God allowed humanity to decide whether to reward themselves with temporary physical goods, and suffer in the long run from unhappiness, or forsake bodily pleasures for eternal happiness.
He takes a very logical and easy to understand approach of understanding how God and sinning works. God is all good, therefore anything that is not God must be evil. However, I do have some arguments with some of his ideas on the world and human nature. Augustine often cites the creation story in his arguments, claiming that God created the world and it was good. He then says the fall of Adam is what created the initial problem of evil, “if Adam had not fallen away from thee, that brackish sea--the human race--so deeply prying, so boisterously swelling, so restlessly moving, would never have flowed forth from his belly.” (Confessions 8.10.22)” This implies that Augustine believes the Orthodox Christian teaching that humans were created in the image of an all good being, therefore it must mean that they started off good and then fell. St. Irenaeus claims that if both humans and the world were naturally good, then it would remain in a static state, for if evil did not exist then suffering would not exist as well. If suffering does not exist then how can humans things like compassion? Humans can express goodness if there is no evil to dispell, therefor humans were never actually created in an all-good state. If there was no evil then how could they fall? St. Irenaeus instead proposes that the creation of humans is a two step process; we are initially created in the image of God, but only have to potential to strive for the
...lways act according to their wish. In regard to this argument, it is clear that god cannot control human action. This is because if he could, he would have stopped them from committing evil. Therefore, it is absurd that despite being omnipotent god created beings that he cannot control (Perry 34). According to belief, it cannot be realistic because god has power over everything in the world. However, using the theory of free will, god cannot control human actions. This contradicts the belief that god has total control over everything. Therefore, it disregards god’s powerful nature.