...God and the Problem of Evil Liberty University Bob Cox The debate of whether God exists has been going on for centuries. Atheists and theists have opposing views on how the universe as we know it came in to being. According to atheism, evolution can explain all we see in the universe. The process of evolution which began with the big bang started the universe and all that is within it. Theists see the world full of design and order and believe it came about through an intelligent creator. Atheists do not believe in God because they have not seen clear proof that he exists (McCloskey, 1968). In his article “On Being an Atheist”, H. J. Mccloskey explains why he believes that God does not exist. The theist believes that an intelligent creator is the best explanation for all that we experience in the universe. Personal experience leads many to begin to think about God. Some wonder about the purpose of their life; while others might be struggling reasons for pain and suffering. It helps to believe that our pain and suffering are for some ultimate purpose and that eventually some good can come from it. Faith in God can be arrived at intelligently through reason. We may not be able to prove that God exists but there is convincing evidence to believe he does. We shouldn’t be afraid to ask questions about what we believe and why we believe it. Our answers will help to strengthen our own faith and give others something to think about. If something is worth believing, it is worth...
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...Evil, Christianity, and Saint Augustine Sammy Hoag Philosophy 202 Dr. Ryan Murphy December 2015 What is evil? This ‘problem of evil’ and the existence of evil have plagued the minds of people throughout the centuries. It has been one on the most sought after inquiries and one of the most vexing challenges to Christianity, in explaining the existence of God. Many philosophers and thinkers, both secular and Christian, have endeavored to solve this problem. One of the most notable of whom is Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430). He is perhaps one of the most influential philosophers in the history of the Christian Church. Augustine spent much of his life trying to solve this ‘problem of evil’ and it proved to be quite an undertaking. This paper will explore the problem of evil and argue how Saint Augustine solidified the ways in which philosophy and religion, specifically Christianity, coincide through his work on the concepts of the problem of and the origin of evil. Understanding the problem of evil is essential to everyone because it affects the manner in which life is lived. Whether defending a belief in God or trying to share those beliefs with others everyone will encounter the problem of evil at some point. According to Ed Miller and Jon Jensen, authors of Questions that Matter:...
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...The main big issue which occurs in problem of evil is that how God and evil can exists together, for instance if God exists, then there should be the prevention of evil, and if evil exists in the world that shows that God does not exist. This problem is logically explained by the Augustine in this paragraph. All powerful, all knowing and perfectly nice God would not allow any evil or suffering in the world. Augustine considers God as “completely innocent of evil”, the almighty all powerful God all good wouldn’t create anything evil or do anything evil. Evil is although a corruption in the good created by the God. It is not anything that God created by itself but it is the beings who did corruption in the good, which leads that to evil. Evil and bad deeds...
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...The Problem Of Evil Free Will Defense In this essay I am presenting the Theodicy for the Free Will Defense as an answer to the problem of evil. I will attempt to present answers to the following questions: Why did a good God allow for the presence of evil in the world? What is “evil” and how can we recognize it in day to day life? What resources do we have for dealing with evil? Furthermore, how our ability and gift of free will applies in all areas both good and evil. We must understand that “evil” is a word with broad applications. Webster’s Dictionary defines it as: “morally bad or wrong; wicked. Harmful; injurious. Unlucky; disastrous. Wickedness; sin. And anything causing harm, pain, etc.” However, even this is truly difficult to use as a true definition. In the Bible, evil is anything that brings sorrow, distress, or calamity, including moral wrong doing, where human beings choose to do what hurts other human beings, or any part of creation. Generally, evil works against the life-giving God and to put anything in God's place. There was a time, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, when optimism in human achievement was so strong that evil's existence was associated with ignorance, and its disappearance with greater knowledge. If humankind only knew more; soon would come the end of all evil in the world. Since then, two world wars, and countless smaller ones, combined with growing problems of over-population, racism, ecological...
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...The Problem of Evil (Theodicy) An age-old question that has been and is being asked from various religions, cultures, and socioeconomic backgrounds is how can a loving and good God allow evil to come into the world? It is a problem that has come up several times by mostly atheists and non-believers, but few Christians are asking it as well. This paper is going to address the problem of evil, why bad things happen to good people, and state the theodicies that explain and answer the problem. The problem of evil has been brought up and used as an argument by non-believers for a long time. How can a loving and good God allow evil to come into the world? They claim that these two Christian beliefs are self-contradictory and that nothing can make sense of it. They state that Christians believe that God is all-powerful, that God is good and loves His people, and that an all-powerful God is capable of doing anything and everything. They say that This question has been used to unjustifiably contradict the Christian worldview in its attempt to prove that it is flawed. They are biased and desire to convince other people and themselves that their worldview is correct by discrediting the Christian religion and/or the Bible. (Feinberg, 414). The deductive reasoning that atheists have are that if God is all powerful, kind and generous, humans are the cause of evil, an all powerful God is fully capable of doing anything and everything, then God should be able to remove evil and...
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...The most weighty of the arguments against God’s existence is the problem of evil. Of all the atheistic arguments, this is the one that has been around for longest, that has had the most words written about it, and that draws the most diverse responses from Christians. In brief, the problem is this: The traditional conception of God is as omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-powerful), and benevolent. This implies that if God exists then he knows how to, wants to, and is able to prevent all suffering. If such a God existed, though, then he actually would prevent all suffering. Suffering, though, is a familiar part of the world around us; it has not been prevented. There is, therefore, no omniscient, omnipotent, and benevolent God. There are many different responses to the problem of evil. None of them is entirely satisfactory alone, but together they do cast doubt on whether the existence of evil disproves the claim that God exists. The first response to the problem of evil is the free-will defense. Much of the evil in the world occurs only because we choose to create it. The greatest evils in the world are those inflicted by man upon man. In making the world, God faced a choice: he could create free agents like us, or he could create automata, robots, without the ability to make choices of their own. God chose to create free agents, and he made the right choice; a world containing free agents is clearly more valuable than a world of robots. The pay-off...
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...Running Head:PROBLEM OF EVIL Problem of Evil and God's Existence Ammar Ather Roll#:14-10556, Sec:B Forman Christian College (A Chartered University) Problem of Evil and God's Existence The existence of God and questions pertinent to it, has been discussed for centuries predating Biblical documentation and golden Greek philosophical era of Aristotle and Plato. Thus a supernatural identity has always been the centre of attention among people, Empire, states, ever since man has been derived by intuition of knowing certain things. God has been called by people at times of distress and reassurance. The ancient Egyptians and civilizations called gods when shaken by ordeal. Christians remember God as the embodiment of salvation. People offered god with festivals, coronation ceremonies and even blood sacrifices. The identity of God is perceived differently by people of different beliefs, times and areas. The image of God ranges from Pantheism in the Vedic references to strict Monotheism in Islamic scriptures. This idea is imperative for proceeding and constructing research based on pure rational and Philosophical grounds. The objectivity demands reviewing God and existence within the context of a specific frame of thought and then appropriate approach is utilized to construct an argument. Thesis statement:The belief in God is a cardinal question in dealing with the soteriological and moral implication of mankind which is better contemplated by reviewing theodicy...
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...The Problem of Evil William Lane Craig Examines both the logical and probabilistic arguments against God from suffering and evil. The problem of evil is certainly the greatest obstacle to belief in the existence of God. When I ponder both the extent and depth of suffering in the world, whether due to man’s inhumanity to man or to natural disasters, then I must confess that I find it hard to believe that God exists. No doubt many of you have felt the same way. Perhaps we should all become atheists. But that’s a pretty big step to take. How can we be sure that God does not exist? Perhaps there’s a reason why God permits all the evil in the world. Perhaps it somehow all fits into the grand scheme of things, which we can only dimly discern, if at all. How do we know? As a Christian theist, I’m persuaded that the problem of evil, terrible as it is, does not in the end constitute a disproof of the existence of God. On the contrary, in fact, I think that Christian theism is man’s last best hope of solving the problem of evil. In order to explain why I feel this way, it will be helpful to draw some distinctions to keep our thinking clear. First, we must distinguish between the intellectual problem of evil and the emotional problem of evil. The intellectual problem of evil concerns how to give a rational explanation of how God and evil can co-exist. The emotional problem of evil concerns how to dissolve people’s emotional dislike of a God who would permit suffering. Now...
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...Is God Evil? Alan Gleisinger Walden University Is God Evil? “God either cannot or will not prevent evil. If God cannot prevent evil, then God is limited in power. If God will not prevent evil, then God is limited in benevolence. But if God is not limited in power or benevolence, why is there evil in the world?” Epicurus (Chaffee, 2013) Have you ever heard someone say, “I don’t understand why people believe in God when there is so much pain and suffering in the world?” This question, and others similar in it’s message are becoming more and more reasonable things to be asked. If God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and if God is good as he is believed to be in the traditional Western conception of God, then why would he allow evil to be such a prominent force in the lives of all of mankind (Soloman & Higgins, 2014)? In this paper I will show how the various arguments regarding the existence of God relates to the problem of evil in our world today. I will also show how these arguments relate to the different theories that try to answer questions about the problem of evil. With any attempt to answer the question of how can God exist with so much evil in the world, one must first have a clear understanding of what the problem of evil is. Simply stated, the problem of evil is: God is omnipotent (all-poweful), God is good, and evil still exists. Evil has two general categories, natural evil and moral evil. (Chaffee, 2013). Natural evil consists human suffering...
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...The problem of Evil is an argument that seeks to disprove God’s existence. In this paper, I will iterate and elaborate on the problem of Evil and deliver critical points that question the soundness and the strength of the argument so as to assess the argument from a critique’s standpoint. The problem of evil is based on the personalities of God, such that God is omnipotent, omnibenevolent and omniscient. So, if such a perfect being with all the personalities were to exist, there would be no evil. However, evil does exist. Hence, God does not (sober, 119). The argument takes the logical form, if X then Not-Y. Y, hence not-X. In my opinion, this form is not prone to any counter-example, nor does it beg the question, suggesting that it is deductively...
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...Style THEO 202-B17 Hamartiology: The Problem of Evil (Theodicy) You would have to ask yourself, why does a God who is all-loving and all-powerful, allow evil to exist in a world that was divinely created by Him? Because when you ponder the problem of evil, it is the most obvious and serious challenge to belief (Faith) in God and His existence, which is why religious scholars have dedicated so much effort towards resolving it. Elwell states, “The phrase ‘the problem of evil’ is a label for a series of such problems involving good and evil.”[1] But the problem with evil is if an omnipotent and omniscient God exists, then there should be no reason God would tolerate such pain and suffering. Evil acts, thoughts, and words will always separate us from God, which was established from the beginning with Adam and Eve. Isaiah 59:2 says “your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.”[2] This is the only thing that separates us from God and causes Him to turn His face away from men. However, evil would have never existed had Adam and Eve not sinned and opened the door for it to enter the world upon all men (Romans 5:12).[3] The resolution then is to be united back to God, who is the source of eternal life, through His Son Jesus, (1 Jn.5:20; Jn.17:2-3). The biggest problem today, among believers and non-believers, is that they are blinded to what evil is and what it does (2 Cor.4:4). And according...
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...The Problem of Evil McCayley Hendricks MWF-2pm #3564 November 17, 2014 One of the most prominent arguments against the existence of God today would be the problem of evil. Not only is it a problem for Christians, who want to provide a defense for their faith, but it is also a problem for Christians, who being faced with suffering and pain on account of evil, and without knowing the thoughts or intentions of God, wish to reconcile the two ideas together. In spite of Mackie’s Logical Argument of Evil proving, some would say, that it is not possible for both God and evil to exist, I believe that it is in fact possible that they exist simultaneously. My reason for believing so stems from the Free-Will Defense, coupled with a deeper understanding and more clearly defined description of the attributes of God and how they work together. I will also highlight scripture that incorporates both the existence of evil as well as the existence of God, who remedies the evil into a greater good, reiterating a point made in premise 4 of Plantinga’s Free Will Defense. In order to walk you through my thought process, I will start with a basic outline of Mackie’s Logical Argument, as well as include why this is a problem for theists. I will then define some ambiguous terms in his argument, and shed some light on the culture-saturated definitions of Christian lingo used in the argument. And finally, I will present the Free-Will Defense and show how this paired with the previous information...
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...What is the “Problem of Evil”? What is the difference, if there is a difference, between so-called “moral evil” and “natural evil”? How exactly does John Hick, in his essay “Problem of Evil”, solve the problem of both “Moral evil” and “natural evil”? Do you think that either or both, of Hick’s solutions is really able to solve what appears to be a unique problem of evil in Arthur C. Clarke’s short story, “The Star”? Unhappiness, as a whole, is a challenge to the idea of good. When one hears or discovers about the disasters or the pain and suffering of wars, violence, earthquakes and killings it is safe to ask one’s self, what the problem of evil is. Investigating the short story “Problem of Evil” written by John Hick the author talks about the differences in “moral evil” and “natural evil” while defining the main question with god and evil. Furthermore in “moral evil” and “natural evil” John Hicks explanations are studied throughout the short story titled The Star by Arthur C. Clark. The problem that is most debated among believers and non-believers of God is the problem of evil. This debate is due to the belief of the omnipotence of God, saying how he is all loving, all powerful and all knowing. For all these meanings of God, there is a major defect, if the almighty is capable of revealing these abilities then how could he let evil enter into the world. If he is all- loving, then why is there so much hatred revolving around us and ultimately, If he is all-powerful, then should...
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...seen as a problem for a religious believer? Give an account of two solutions to this problem. (21) (ii) To what extent is one of these solutions more convincing than the other? (9) i) Suffering may be seen as a problem for religious believers because it may make them question the existence or qualities of the God of classical theism. For example, the inconsistent triad as proposed by J.L. Mackie has three different corners, where it is impossible for all three corners to be true at the same time. The corners of the triangle are “god is omnibenevolent”, “God is omnipotent” and “evil exists”. If God was omnibenevolent he would not want evil to happen, and if he was omnipotent he would have the power to stop evil from happening. Therefore, as evil exists, one of these qualities must be false which means the God of classical theism cannot exist. This is known as the theological problem. If God is not all powerful or perfectly good, it forces the question of whether he is worthy of worship. If God does not possess the qualities that define him as God what is the purpose of worshipping him as a God. Another problem for religious believers is that if God is omniscient he knows everything that has happened and that will happen. Therefore, he knows when evil is about to happen and yet does not do anything to prevent it. This presents another problem that God may also not be omniscient, which again, brings us to question whether he should be worshipped at all. Evil and suffering...
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...CRITIQUING THEODICES: THE PROBLEM OF EVIL ____________________ A Paper Submitted to Prof. Scott Henderson Luther Rice University ____________________ In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Course TH 536 – Seminar in Apologetics ____________________ By Mark Reid JC 1866 August 24, 2012 OUTLINE I. INTRODUCTION II. EVALUATING THE TYPES OF EVIL III. ATHEISTIC AND SKEPTICAL ARGUMENT IV. FREE-WILL THEODICY V. POSSIBLE WORLDS VI. THE ALTERNATIVE APPROACH VII. CONCLUSION VIII. BIBLIOGRAPHY INTRODUCTION Evil is a universal problem with many categories. Philosophers like David Hume and Alvin Plantinga have attempted to explain the presence of evil despite there being a God. One can choose from many theodicies on moral and natural evil. Lately work has shifted to the notion of gratuitous evil. If gratuitous evils exist, is God morally responsible? Gratuitous evil and natural evil appears to bring the most plausible charge that something malevolent has occurred. This paper will critique various arguments concerning evil. Biblical Theology will show that the arguments are missing a key to understanding evil. EVALUATING THE TYPES OF EVIL The complexity involved in addressing evil persuades us to define what is meant by natural and moral evil. It is noted, by Steven Layman, that the distinction between natural and moral evil is not always sharp. It is Erickson who provides very distinctive...
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