Since God made us in His image, shouldn’t we have some part of us, however small, that is incorruptibly good? He puts the blame of evil on our free will. This means that God was not the creator of evil and could be both wholly good and omnipotent. Augustine also addresses the problem of bad things happening to innocent people. All of his arguments seem valid to me.
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.
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.
Some believe that evil is caused by Satan and not humanity, such as the Manichaeanists and Bogomilists, and some believe that humans are the cause of evil, rather than God, such as Augustine, Peter Kreefe, and myself. While God is aware that a lack of goodness could occur, he is not the cause of it. He is omniscient, omnipotent, and all-loving and creates human beings with absolute goodness; however, with that that absolute goodness comes free will. With free will, humans have the ability to choose wrongly and therefore experience evil or a lack of goodness. God has given us that right because it is the only way to become happy.
Satan being the evil, deceitful, manipulating, and pride filled fallen angel from grace. Milton’s Paradise Lost hints at how Satan’s fall from heaven was the perfect situation, because without his fall, Jesus Christ would not have had a purpose on earth. Others have commented on his fall and actions in Paradise Lost as that of heroic in a way. Satan is not a hero. Satan is necessary for man
They have raised questions like ‘How can there be a God if there is evil?' These questions were raised due to God's nature: he is said to be all-powerful, all- knowing and all-good. If this is the case, why doesn't he stop evil? And, since people are supposed to be created in God's image, why are they capable of moral evil? If one believes that God exists, there can only be one answer: evil exists because God allows it, and moral evil exists because God has given us freedom of choice.
Evil only comes into play when a member of God's world renounces his/her role in the proper scheme of things. Evil has no positive nature; but instead the loss of good is what constitutes evil. It is because of his definition of evil that Augustine buys into the free will defense. Augustine attributes all evil, both moral and natural, to the free actions of human beings created by God with the capacity to do either good or evil. While God is the embodiment of goodness and cannot make the decision to be anything but good, other members in the Great Chain of Being do have the ability to willfully alter their predisposition... ... middle of paper ... ...l, and knowing, suffering should not exist in the world.
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.
If God is omnipotent then He would be able to stop any evil from occurring. Either way, God would not be what Christianity makes him out to be. Swinburne argues that the theodicist, one who believes that it is not wrong for God to create a world in which there is evil, can logically explain the existence of evil in the world. The main argument that the theodicist uses is the free-will defense, which claims that God gave humans the freedom to choose between doing acts of good and acts of evil. The theodicist argues that the good person could do is greater if it is chosen instead of doing evil.
Moral evil occurs when a person makes a choice as to how he will act in a certain situation. Everyday moral decisions are made. People decide whether to steal, give in to anger and harm another, falsify information, and behave in a way unacceptable to society. The problem of evil is this; If God is loving, then he would want to end evil; and if he is all-powerful he would be able to do just that. Since evil exists, how can God be both omnipotent and loving?