Augustine defends the god of theism by rejecting the existence of evil as a force or power opposed to god as it would reject the premise that god is omnipotent. Below are the ways in which he justifies moral and natural evil, which respectively mean evil caused by human acts, and evil events caused by the processes of nature. To justify evil, he solves the problem by defining evil as a ‘privation’ – which means when something is ‘evil’, it is not defined to contain bad qualities but is seen to be falling short of perfection, or what it is expected to be. Take a rapist as an example. Adopting Augustine’s idea of ‘evil’, we are to say that he is not living up to standards expected of human beings.
Explain the term evil (30m) There are 2 different types of evil moral (caused by human beings) and natural (caused by nature). There is a logical problem of evil which is called the inconsistent triad; this is the argument that God cannot possess all the Omni characteristics with the existence of evil. This is a logical inconsistency. The existence of evil is incompatible with the existence of God; it is logically incoherent to accept that both exist together. God being omnipotent means that he can do anything which means he could have created a world free from evil.
This raises problems for Boethius' argument, however he addresses this and creates a counter assertment. As argued above free will is needed for just rewards/punishments, some people say this because it would be unfair to punish people who could not choose to do otherwise. Others such as Augustine believe that free will is necessary because without free will there should be no evil in the world as there is no choice to create evil where as evil does exist, without free will this must have been created by God, contradicting God's omnibenevolence. Irenaeus' view is simelar to Augustine however he adds that human beings could not be perfect, God is all that is perfect so we were given an imperfect world and free will, so that we would be a reflection of God but not perfect. Hick's approach to the necessity of free will grows from the idea that God wants humans to genuinly love him and show faith, without free will we could not make a decision as to whether or not we had faith, belief or even love for God, we would merely be robots designed to love him.
This does not convince however that God does not exist because evil is necessary for the good. This means evil is needed in a perfect universe. The combination of the convincing arguments for God’s
So, oppressed people can not win the respect of oppressor. He believes in this way the oppressed become as evil as the oppressor because acquiescence is the easier way to encounter oppression, also it is not the moral way. In Dr. King’s opinion, the second way is resorting to physical violence and corroding hatred. He believes violence not only brings impermanent results, but also is impractical and immoral. According to King, it is impractical because it slows the process of ending the oppression for all, and it is immoral because it seeks humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding.
In response to the option in which God creates a world with free agents and no evil, a world with no evil would mean a world with no good, so it would be impossible for God to create a free agents that only choose good, since evil does not exist. It would limit free will, and limited free will is not free will. The reason why it would be impossible for good to exist without evil existing is that we need evil to exist so that we can define it and understand what it is and how it works. After we find out that information, we could base what good is off of what evil is not, which is what we do now with
Augustine believed that addiction was excessively evil, and as well as being a sin, conflicted with the process of free will. If someone addicted to alcohol or gambling whishes to exercise their free will and stop drinking or betting they often times cannot. This is, in effect, taking away their God given free will. Addiction today is deemed “evil” and accepting a higher power is often a step in overcoming addiction, showing testament to Augustine’s belief that an absence of God is what caused evil. Furthermore, Augustine believed that any misuse of free will was also inherently evil, the good use of free will is often called good will by
He says that “ The things and the men that are pleasing to the gods are pious, and the things and the men that are displeasing to the gods are impious.” Socrates approves of this definition because it is of a very generalization. But he also states that Euthyphro’s definition has flaws because the gods would disagree on what is considered pleasing. Socrates’ case is that the gods are very irrational when it comes to arguments and disagreements. Normal rational people would find answers and come to a settlement on the correct answer, but when it comes to the gods any slight disagreement causes them to become enemies and angry towards each other. Socrates goes on to
Therefore, Wiles comes to the conclusion that God's goodness and the concept of miracles are two incompatible ideas. When discussing God's omnibenevolemce, Wiles introduces the nature of God and its impact on miracles. However, this also anthropomorphises him. As humans, with a limited knowledge of what the word 'good' means, Maimonedes states that it would be disrespectful to attribute this equivocal concept to an unlimited God. We cannot judge God, nor his actions because he is a non cognitive being.
For religious believers, the Irenaean theodicy would solve the problem of evil as it explains how both evil and suffering co-exist with God. However, there may be too many underlying problems with the theodicy, making it hard to convince some religious believers. For example, if God is said to be omnibenevolent, then surely he couldn’t have made such moral spiritual virtues inbuilt in his creation. Even if the Irenaean theodicy is believable, it can’t justify why God would allow such suffering in his world, and surely, he would enable his creations to learn such lessons in a far easier way. Additionally, it’s never justifiable to hurt anyone in order to help them, and so the Irenaean theodicy fails to defend God in the presence of evil.