McCloskey is reminding atheists the ways theists argue for their belief in God. He is reminding atheists the reasons they believe that there is no God. He feels atheism is superior to theism; however; I find that his opinions only strengthen my belief that there is a God. Proof, as he states, carries no weight for a theist. He is half correct in his statement as a theist does not believe in the proofs individually, but finds enough evidence in them to form the belief that God does exist; He is the creator of the universe, and He is morally perfect.
If God is all knowing and all powerful and all good, therefore god would not want us to suffer and not put evil on earth. I believe that evil and suffering does exist because of the simple fact that we wouldn’t know the difference between good and bad, sad and happiness, love and hate. We wouldn’t know to appreciate god and everything he does for us. God being an all tri-omni god would not put anything on earth that he knew we couldn’t handle. There are two varieties of evil, moral and natural evil.
Dewey felt that only scientific method could reliably increase human good. With being said we can assume that Dewey did not believe in God or Jesus Christ. Because Dewey’s views are the way they are it would be easy to point out the differences in his Ideas and those of Jesus Christ. Dewey believed that schooling should be humanistic instead of Christian. Of the idea of God, Dewey said, "it denotes the unity of all ideal ends arousing us to desire and actions.” Jesus Christ had a different belief when it came to the existence of God and the increase of “human good”.
He also has some strong opinion on the solutions that the theists have on the resolution to the problem of evil. He states that "If we use the cosmological argument at all, all we are entitled to infer is the existence of a cause commensurate with the effect to be explained, the universe, and this does not entitle us to postulate an all powerful, all perfect, uncaused cause." He also states that theists come up with what he believes is "unintelligent" instances of how we find reasons to believe in God and how he can exist in a world that has evil involved in people's lives. These instances of how evil can exist while GOd can to at the same time include, being punishment for people's wrongs or the consequence of having free will. But here I would like to put in my own opinion much like McCloskey has throughout his article.
All human beings seek to be rational in what they do. Yes, science does provide a method of justifying rationality but God is the other part of the spectrum that science cannot explain. God is also another figure that provides rationality to someone who does not understand science the only path to salvation and to rationality is through religion. If this form of God takes 1000 different shapes across many religions, it does not make God untrue, it is just a manifestation. The biggest contradictory idea against the motion would be that of whether God can be proven empirically.
The Question of Identity – Is there any difference in me and an animal? Naturalists believe that man is just a more sophisticated animal while Pantheists believe all life is sacred. The real truth comes from Theism. Theists believe God is infinite and man is God’s special creation. Scripture confirms this truth in Psalm 8:5 and Genesis 2:15.
Truth is an elusive concept, one which relies less on fact than it does on individual perception; as such, it is evident to see that scientific criticisms of religious creation theories are without substance. These theories were simply perceived by the world of science to be physically impossible to support their own beliefs, whereas religious criticisms of the Big Bang theory are based on proven fact, rather than interpretation. In addition to this scientific bias, the Big Bang Theory is greatly flawed in its inability to explain proven scientific ideas about our universe which contradict the theory in its entirety. Yet still, the most conclusive proof of the supremacy of the idea of God as the creator is the singularity in the Big Bang theory that cannot be proven: everything with a beginning in time must have a beginner, one not accounted for in this scientific theory. Information pertaining to the creation of the universe, or lack thereof, suggests that the idea of a Divine Creator, as opposed to the Big Bang Theory, is the most reasonable premise regarding how our universe came to exist.
When it come free will God cannot make anything happen but he can influence it to happen. Process theology believes that the world is not identical with God even though God contains the world; God is changeable because he owns a changeable universe and the final belief is that mankind is not immortal but they can be immortal in God (Grenz, Olson, 1992). The core of Tillich’s theology is reason, revelation, symbol and Being and God, existence of Christ. The final concepts of Tillich’s theology are life in the Spirit, history and the Kingdom. When these two theologies are dissected one will realize that they have some connections.
This turns out to be a logical contradiction, as stated previously, evil does exist in this world in many different forms, so this being of which no greater can be conceived must not exist. Epicurus’ questions or paradox, as it has come to be known, goes as follows, “If God is willing to prevent evil, but is not able to? Then he is not omnipotent. If He is able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
If God is assumed to be good, then all of his actions are good, and this would include the creation of right and wrong. The idea of “wrong” would never exist in this case as God only does and creates things that are good. While the author never gives up the idea of God being good, as he states that all theologians also believe this and then proceeds to brainstorm potential reasoning for the creation of “wrong.” He suggests that a deity, more superior than God, gave him orders to do so. This is a plausible conclusion to the premise of God being good, but also creating right and wrong. But he seems more certain about the idea of the devil creating this