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. This inference is called the Problem of Evil by those who profess one of the religions in the Judaeo-Christian tradition, and their attempts to 'solve' the problem have given rise to a labyrinth of sophistry.
Put briefly, the solution most commonly espoused to the Problem of Evil is
* Some suffering is caused by others' misuse of their own free-will (as in murder).
* God does not intervene to stop people freely choosing evil because:
o people can be virtuous only if they freely choose between good and evil;
o having virtuous people in the world is a greater good than eradicating evil;
o therefore God must allow people to be free;
o therefore evil inflicted by other people is the price that God demands that we pay to enable some people to be virtuous.
* Some suffering is caused by natural phenomena (as in earthquakes). Such occurrences enable people to be virtuous through:
o heroics, such as rescuing those in danger;
o strong faith in God, as it is harder to believe in God in the midst of grief;
o humility, as people realise they are powerless against the whim of God.
* Again, God does not intervene because he is using the natural disasters to engender virtue.
I shall examine a number of such arguments, but first it is useful to clarify the nature of such debate.
The nature of theological debate
One difficulty that arises in writing about this subject is that the traditional view of God is ridiculous - as Hume's Philo says, it is fixed only "by the utmost licence of fancy and hypothesis", and the arguments put forward for it are transparently fallacious. In order to proceed with the debate at all, one must feign a deficit in the application of one's powers of reason, for if one relied exclusively on reason for deciding what to believe, then one would dismiss religion out of hand. It is well known that people hold their...
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...answers here. First, although the discharge of benevolent deeds is a good thing, it is not such a great thing that it is worth inflicting war, pestilence, and old age on mankind. Second, there are ample opportunities for people to do great works that do not involve other people's suffering. For instance, they could build concert halls, or run marathons, or make scientific discoverie, or write novels. The claim that great human achievements can be secured only through other people's misery is an expression of pure evil, and not an argument for a benevolent God.
Conclusion
The existence of evil (natural or otherwise) in the world cannot possibly be reconciled with the existence of an omnipotent and all-loving God. If such a God existed, He would prevent the occurrence of such evil. This is therefore a definitive proof of atheism, in the sense of denying the existence of God as He is conceived in the Judaeo-Christian tradition. It must be admitted, though, that this conception of God is a sharply-delineated and simplistic one, whereas many people nowadays have a 'soft-focus' God. It is harder work for the atheist to refute the soft-focus God, although it can still be done.
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.
It also follows that God, not as benevolent as could be hoped, prefers the maximization of good (2) as opposed to the minimization of evil (1). This is disquieting for the individual who might be the victim of suffering a “greater good.”
After reviewing the work of David Hume, the idea of a God existing in a world filled with so much pain and suffering is not so hard to understand. Humes’ work highlights some interesting points which allowed me to reach the conclusion that suffering is perhaps a part of God’s divine plan for humans. Our morals and values allow us to operate and live our daily lives in conjunction with a set of standards that help us to better understand our world around us and essentially allows us to better prepare for the potential life after life. For each and every day we get closer to our impending deaths and possibly closer to meeting the grand orchestrator of our universe.
This thesis is shown by John Hick in his article Evil and Soul-Making. As Hick explains, humans already exist in God’s image but have “not yet been formed into the finite likeness of God . . . Man is in the process of becoming the perfected being whom God is seeking to create. However, this is not taking place – it is important to add – by a natural and inevitable evolution, but through a hazardous adventure in individual freedom . . . this involves an accumulation of evil as well as good” (Hick 1-2). In other words, humanity is slowly progressing toward a world in which evil does not exist, as implied by the term “finite likeness of God,” but in order to reach that state, we must first deal with acts of evil, in order to learn what good truly is. On a personal level, this is known as soul-builder
In today’s culture, the idea of there is perfect and divine designer that made the earth and everything that entails with it, really pushes people away. Not only has this idea been conflicted about in today’s culture. It has been especially trivial in past decades, an example of this is seen by H.J. McCloskey. McCloskey wrote an article about it called “On Being an Atheist”, which attempts to defeat the notion that there is a God. McCloskey first addresses the reader of the article and says these arguments he is about to address are only “proofs”, which should not be trusted by any theist. He then goes and unpacks the two arguments that he believes can actually be addressed, the cosmological and teleological argument. McCloskey also addresses the problem of evil, free will, and why atheism is more comforting than theism.
I don’t see this being true of all moral virtue. For example, the virtue of independence is not created through suffering: its created by the need of relying on your own judgment and action. Along with that, there are a lot of evil and suffering that we see on a daily basis that does not teach us lessons, for example, a two year old dying from cancer or a hurricane destroying homes and lives; showing compassion can be praiseworthy. It may be argue, well supported by the evidence of post-Holocaust genocides, that mankind has not taken this lesson to heart. God’s goal is to create moral individuals and he allows evil to teach us moral lessons that we are supposed to learn from. Suffering and evil are not necessary conditions for moral development. We can learn morality without being subjected to evil. Likewise, purposely exposing one to evil in order to teach them a lesson seems outrageous. Another important problem with this theodicy is that it makes an image out of suffering. If morality depends on the existence of suffering, then if there was no suffering, then suffering would be solely around to have morality or teach a moral
The existence of god has been relentlessly debated with many strong arguments. This essay will primarily discuss the most prevalent arguments for and against the existence of a higher being. Although there are many strong arguments for both atheism and theism, ultimately the theist point of view is greater justified morally and logically.
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.
For the author the goodness of God remains despite the reality and face of evil in the world because evil is the result of man’s weakness, of man using his free will to veer away from the laws and opt to live in sin. God in all his power shows the utmost respect on man’s freedom by not imposing his will on men but by respecting his choice – to be good or to be evil.
All in all, the problem of evil has been debated for thousands of years. 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. God cannot make one happy. The individual is the cause for their own happiness.
to be able to stop the suffering in the world, he would be able to
Natural evil is associated with natural occurrences including catastrophes, or calamities. These catastrophes include droughts, famines, floods, thunderstorms, and earthquakes. Sometimes natural calamities are considered as punishment from God for the sins that man has committed. I am in agreement with the claim and it is justified in Hebrews 12:5-14. It says sometimes God al...
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.
Suffering can be defined as an experience of discomfort suffered by a person during his life. The New York Times published an article entitled what suffering does, by David Brooks (2014). In this article, Brooks explains how suffering plays an important role in our pursuit of happiness. He explains firstly that happiness is found through experiences and then, suffering can also be a motivation in our pursuit of happiness. In other words, suffering is a fearful but necessary gift to acquire happiness. This paper is related to motivation and emotion, two keys words to the pursuit of happiness (King, 2010).
God is good and evil is rampant; both of these are true. Theodicy questions how both statements are true; there couldn’t be a just God and evil in the same world. My logic is that since we know what good and evil is, that proves the existence of God. God created an instinctive sense of right and wrong in our minds from our birth that goes deep into our nature as humans. C.S. Lewis calls this the “Law of Human Nature” since, like gravity, “the subject is governed by the law.” So I believe that God exists, and evil is a result of our free will which is given to us by God.