I believe in an all mighty, all knowing creator. It is easiest to comprehend this being as a man or other human like form, but I do not believe this to be the case. God is perfect. God is perfect because he created perfection. This leaves only two options; 1. Everything is perfect because God created it. 2. Every thing is imperfect in comparison to God.
Man is far from perfect, and is in fact the most imperfect being in Gods kingdom. Man is the only living creature capable of intentional sin, by this I mean no other creature on the earth is capable of committing acts and understanding that they are wrong, but rather they commit them as an act of instinct rather than reason like the sins of man. When man commits an act of evil ( in the majority of cases ) he knows very well that he is acting against Gods wishes, and since we are the most intelligent of species ( in a rational sense ) it can be said that these sins are of an intentional type, and that we are the least Godliness of all creatures, yet we are the only species that comprehend a God. So how can it be true that a God exists? Man is only a small percentage of all the creatures or “gods children” that exist on this earth and yet we are the only ones that understand the idea of an all knowing creator. By all laws of democracy God does not exist, it is a good thing he does not have to run for office every 4 years. All though God is not comprehended rationally by the majority of his creations (all non humans), the majority of his creations are those who act in the most pious of fashions. Can it be that these actions are led by the truest of all faiths, allthough this faith in God is not even recognized by those who the acts belong to?
If all those who believe and understand rationally that a God exists even though they are the least Godly in their actions (all humans), and those who fail to comprehend the
There is a lot of evil in the world, and much of it happens unexplainably. In the history of life on Earth bad things have happened and evil has caused problems. In relation to some world wide events, 6 million people died in the holocaust, 65 million people died in the war, 800 thousand died in the Rwanda genocide and 230 thousand people died in the 2004 boxing day tsunami. There is a lot of human suffering in the world, but there is also suffering of animals too. A lot of suffering in humans is due to other humans, however some of it can be caused by non-human causes, such as natural disasters etc. Under religious beliefs god was the creator of life on Earth, so if he was all good, powerful and knowing then he would be capable of at least preventing natural disasters from erupting as they cause life to undergo suffering. Likewise, capable of preventing human suffering from natural disasters, i.e. saving people from hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes etc…
The problem of reconciling an omnipotent, perfectly just, perfectly benevolent god with a world full of evil and suffering has plagued believers since the beginning of religious thought. Atheists often site this paradox in order to demonstrate that such a god cannot exist and, therefore, that theism is an invalid position. Theodicy is a branch of philosophy that seeks to defend religion by reconciling the supposed existence of an omnipotent, perfectly just God with the presence of evil and suffering in the world. In fact, the word “theodicy” consists of the Greek words “theos,” or God, and “dike,” or justice (Knox 1981, 1). Thus, theodicy seeks to find a sense of divine justice in a world filled with suffering.
have an idea of a perfect being then it must exist. A cause, he argues
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
In our thoughts we apprehend ideas of things. These ideas may reside entirely within our thoughts or they may exist independent of our considerations of them (Descartes 143). Descartes argues that the idea of God is that He is infinite substance "[eternal, immutable], independent, all-knowing, all-powerful" to which nothing more perfect can be imagined (Descartes 149; 151). Descartes defines the more perfect as "that which contains in itself more reality" (Descartes 146), so that there are gradations of perfection beginning with the subjective phantasms, such as a chimera, and culminating with the most perfect being in God Himself. Thus, because our idea of God is one of absolute perfection, and existence contains more reality than nonexistent thoughts alone, God exists. Descartes's argument can be represented logically as:
“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world” (Lewis, 1994, p. 91). Throughout history man has had to struggle with the problem of evil. It is one of the greatest problems of the world. Unquestionably, there is no greater challenge to man’s faith then the existence of evil and a suffering world. The problem can be stated simply: If God is an all-knowing and all-loving God, how can He allow evil? If God is so good, how can He allow such bad things to happen?Why does He allow bad things to happen to good people? These are fundamental questions that many Christians and non-Christians set out to answer.
There is a distinction, a type of separation that exists between God and all other beings. God is unlimited and infinite, where as all other things are limited and finite. Man exists somewhere in between a state of creatureliness and Godliness. Similar to the way that God has given commands to other creatures, he tells man that he should be "fruitful and multiply," (Pagels, xii). Man's purpose is to procreate, according to Genesis. Yet man's function is uniq...
The fourth Meditations of Descartes show that God cannot be a deceiver at all, as God is infinitely good. To judge something it is required to have understanding and will and we should know that the understanding is infinite or in other words it is the faculty, which brings us very close to God. Errors occur when will assents though it does not understand or perceive distinctly. So from this fact we can understand that error is ours and it is not committed by God. He also cannot be blamed for giving us an infinite will, as the will is nothing but a simple infinite entity. How can we perceive something distinctly and clearly? According to Descartes it was possible for God to create him with an insurmountable inclination to assent only to those things, which were distinctly and clearly perceived by him, but God is infinite and His ways are inscrutable. Descartes writes in his Meditation IV that when he tries to find out about God, he feels that in reality a positive idea of God is already present in his mind and it is a supremely perfect being. But at the same time he encounters with a negative idea which gives him a since of nothingness. This image is infinitely removed from perfection of all kinds. Then Descartes disclosed his feelings and said that due to his own experience he knew that he has some ability to judge and this ability came from God. There is no doubt that all the qualities have come from God and this quality was also from God. He was certain that God would never deceive him and thus no such ability was given to him, which may ever put him in the wrong direction. So after all these experiences he evidently concluded that there existed a God and his existence depended entirely on Him. In fact every moment of his lif...
Humans can think, feel, and reason which differentiate them from the rest of God’s creation. The ability to reason enables human beings to think and reflect on their own nature and the nature of God. The bible teaches us that God created man in his image and likeness. In the beginning of creation human nature was perfect because we were created by God. Genesis 1:31 describes Human beings were created very good by a loving God”. God created humans to operate their lives according to wisdom under God’s kingly reign (Diffey, 2014). God’s purpose in creating mankind was to work and serve (Genesis 2:15), and have dominion over earth (Genesis 1:26-28) The fall of Adam and Eve separated humanity from God and wisdom. This act plunged all of humanity into a history characterized by idolatry (Diffey, 2014), and is the root cause of all human
In the construction of the Large Hardon Collider, physicists seek and hope to unlock the mysteries of the universe by analyzing the attributes of the most miniscule particles known to man. In the same way, theologians have argued back and forth over the course of human history with regards to the divine attributes of God, seeking and hoping to unlock the mysteries of the metaphysical universe. Although these many attributes, for example omnipresence, could be debated and dissected ad nauseum, it is within the scope of this research paper to focus but on one of them. Of these many divine attributes of God, nothing strikes me as more intriguing than that of God’s omnipotence. It is intriguing to me because the exploration of this subject not only promises an exhilarating exercise in the human faculties of logic, it also offers an explanation into the practical, such as that of the existence of evil, which we live amidst every day. So with both of these elements in hand, I am going to take on the task of digging deeper into the divine attribute of omnipotence in hopes of revealing more of the glory of God, and simultaneously bringing greater humility to the human thinker. In order to gain a better understanding on the subject of divine omnipotence, I am going to analyze four aspects of it. First, I am going to build a working definition of what we mean when we say that God is omnipotent. Second, I am going to discuss the relationship between divine omnipotence and logic. Third, I am going to discuss the relationship between God’s omnipotence and God’s timelessness. Last, I am going to analyze God’s omnipotence in relation to the existence of evil in the world. Through the analysis of these four topics in relation to om...
...ip with God we are still built with infirmities that are temptations for sin, and with that we are no longer perfect.
Perfect not only means that God is infinite in power and presence, but also in compassion and good-will. In order for something to be perfect, then something must be better than all the rest, and a completely good God would be better than an evil or even somewhat good God. Following this sentiment, if God is perfect in all of these ways, then this means God would not allow for any other malevolent beings to exist. Also central to his argument for the existence of God is that this idea of God being perfect means that he must exist, since an existent God would be better than one that is nonexistent, and therefore the very thought of God is interlocked with the idea that he
This essay is a conclusive look at the problems and contradictions underlying a belief in God and the observable traits of the world. This problem is traditionally labelled The Problem of Evil. This essay will be an analysis into the Problem of Evil and a counter rebuttal to objections levied against the Problem of Evil. This analysis will be on the nature of god and the world of evil, the world as a mixed creation, ‘sorting’ into heaven and hell objection, God’s ‘mysterious ways’ objection, the inscrutability of god objection, values presupposing pain objection, inherent contradictions in ‘God’s freewill’ and finally non-human
Many people state that they do not believe in any kind of god, that the world simply came into existence. However, this belief cannot hold true. Simply by examining nature and all of its intricate details, people stand unable to deny the presence of a Creator. Deep down, people cannot help but to feel that something greater than themselves exists. A Supreme Being- a god, but what kind of god exists? A god similar to Ares, the war-god of the Greeks? One who lusts for blood and destruction? Or a placid god, one parallel to Eirene, the Greek goddess of peace? Fabricated by mankind, these so called “gods” all bear flaws. The Bible, the Word of the Lord, remains the only book on earth that gives an account of the true God and His attributes. Through examination of the Word, readers will come to the realization that a just God exists, that He sends trials to his followers to develop their faith, and that He remains sovereign.
When you read chapter one of Genesis you have the feeling that God is perfect. God holds all power and control. God turns chaos into order. "God said 'Let there be light.' And there was light, And God saw the light, that it was good" (Gen 1. 3). God's word is action, God's word is law in the universe. When God creates something, he ends it with God seeing that's its good. This is in effect giving support to the perfect nature that is God and the creations God has made. "God does not play dice" (Armstrong 9), God has order and a purpose for what he makes. An important aspect to God is seen while he is creating the world. He separates water from land. Light from Darkens, Day and Night, Male and Female. This shows that boundaries are important to God. We see examples where God put boundaries on mankind with their language by mixing the language up so confuse man and killing off the evil from the good.