Simon Blackburn's Argument Analysis

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There are those who believe wholeheartedly in an all-powerful, benevolent, creator God, and those that believe putting one’s faith in such a thing is ludicrous. Simon Blackburn questions the existence of such a God with “the problem of evil.” Essentially, it means since there is evil, pain and strife in the world it would be illogical to believe in an infallible, benevolent God. Why would God create a world with so much evil? If this God exists, then the world would be perfect. The world is not perfect. Therefore, there can be no such God. Blackburn confronts many possible criticisms to his argument. He attacks the idea of the world being a test for who goes to heaven or hell, our misunderstanding of God’s morality as human morality and the free-will argument. I believe he successfully debunks these criticisms, but he does not address the issue of dichotomy. Everything in the world is relative, and things are defined by their opposites. …show more content…

Everything in the world has meaning, and this meaning is defined by its relation to other things. Often, things, especially concepts, are meaningless without their opposite. This holds true for things as simple as north and south but can be extended to complex things such as good and evil. Creation and destruction. Love and hate. Hope and despair. The list goes on, but the point is things cannot exist without their opposites. If God created the universe, it is true to say he created both good and evil. And Blackburn believes there lie the problem. A benevolent God would only want the best of qualities, but to create good one must also create evil. What does it mean to be good if everyone is? It would lose all meaning, it would become one’s state of being more akin to being alive than being morally altruistic. Villains need to exist, so heroes can rise against them. Evil is not a problem, but a necessity, and when creating the universe, it cannot be

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