The Argument of Evil for the Existence of God

Philo claims that it is inconceivable that the planet was made by a being both omnipotent and omnibenevolent. That God is the maker and He is wholly moral, he can't be answerable for the presence of evil in the planet. Evil, indeed, does not exist as an unrelated substance: it is noticeably a nonappearance of great similarly as difficulty seeing is the nonattendance of sight. This unlucky deficiency emerges through the activities of people who hold unrestrained choice. The God of Christian belief in higher powers might be guarded against the above charge in light of the fact that people must have free will in mind to be human.

Both moral and natural evil exist in the world. If God is all loving and all powerful, why does he allow moral evils, such as humans committing evil act... ... middle of paper ... ...of evil in which we are and aren’t held accountable for. It is God who is accountable for our actions for he is the one who granted us with the power. With that being said, I argue that there is an inconsistency between the three tenets that intelligence and rational Christians affirm. Based on my belief, we cannot label God as all-powerful and loving considering that he has allowed the existence of evil not only to be welcomed into society but also to let it continue.

If you do, there is no way to prove the existence of a higher power. The primary argument against the existence of a Judeo-Christian all- knowing, all-powerful, righteous God is the argument from evil. This argument argues against the presence of a higher power using facts of ordinary life. This argument states that most would agree that some of the pain and suffering (evil) in this world is unnecessary. To be considered a necessary evil, the occurrence must be the only way to produce something good, which outweighs the evil.

Namely, what follows from this argument is that humans in reality are not free because every action that they will is necessary, thus already pre-determined by God. What Augustine does not realize is that his argument actually proves that humans have no knowledge of being determined—but they are determined! Therefore, as I shall point out, God could have created a determined world, without evil, where beings act freely not knowing that they in fact are determined. I would like now to turn to my first ch... ... middle of paper ... ...y in question is able to do anything that it chooses to do. The second point is that the idea that God cannot create a world with free beings that never choose to do evil is contradictory if we consider the existence of Heaven, which allegedly is an evil-free place where beings are free to exercise their will and apparently never choose to do evil.

He explains that the only way to defend divine benevolence is to oppose the evils that are sent upon us humans. Demea attempts to prove that good occurs more than the bad but we tend to focus and put emphasis on the evil more. Philo comes back saying if he allows what Cleanthes said to be true with their being less bad than good than Cleanthes must also admit that the evils that humans suffer through is still forevermore worse than the good. It is much... ... middle of paper ... ...no cause to believe that one could. If the character chooses to believe that a God exists than they are only creating an irrational and inconsistent argument.

In monotheistic faith God is defined with a triad of attributes as being all good, all powerful and all knowing. This triad is what is empirically derived from God being the prime mover. The fact of evil, or theodicy, possess that there exists evil in this world and that this triad cannot exist through that evil conflicts with all three existing at once. The presence of evil means that God lacks one of these attributes because if he had them all, he would not allow evil to exist. If God and evil are to coexist then God must be: all knowing, all powerful, but good enough to want to stop it, lacking the knowledge to know how to stop it, or lacking the power to be able to stop it.

In the excerpt from Philosophy of Religion, John Hicks outlines the problem of evil as such: (a) If God were truly omnibenevolent, he would then wish to eliminate all evil; (b) If God is were truly omnipotent, he would then be capable of eliminating evil; (c) Evil exists in the world. Therefore: (d) God is not omnibenevolent or He is not omnipotent. Either element of the conclusion is damaging to the traditional understanding of a Judeo-Christian God. It seems simple enough. A benevolent Creator appears incompatible with what we understand to be the existence of evil.

The God and Evil Problem A strong argument against the existence of a Christian God is contained in the theodicy problem. The existence of suffering is not compatible with an omniscient, omnipotent, omni benevolent superior being. An all-knowing being would be aware that suffering is and always will be in existence; an all-powerful being would be able to prevent suffering; and a perfectly good being would desire to end suffering. Many Christian thinkers have sought to justify this contradiction, and one of the most common counterarguments to the theodicy problem is contained in the free-will defense. Through interpretations of St. Augustine, J.L.

Moreover, God could have made other worlds; though, the extent to which he could make these worlds is limited. For example, God could not create a world in which evil prospers because He cares about goodness, benevolence etc., but the point remains that God could have created things differently; God could have created other worlds. Spinoza, however, strongly disagrees with this position. In 1p33s2 of the Ethics, Spinoza puts forth a couple of arguments that separate him from the tradition. Spinoza’s best argument against the traditional view in this scholium is that “All things depend on God’s power.

Is there any satisfactory way of reconciling the existence of an omnipotent and all-loving God with the existence of natural evil (i.e. evil not due to the misuse of human free will)? One of the central claims of the Judaeo-Christian tradition is the existence of an omnipotent and all-loving God. Against this is the observation that people and animals suffer evil. By common sense, we would infer from this observation that God, as conceived in this tradition, does not exist - for, if He did, He would prevent the evil.