Classical theism provides a depiction of a God that has three main attributes; omnibenevolent, omnipotent and omniscient. A subject that conveys problems for classical theists is that of evil and suffering. It is understood that suffering is a direct consequence of evil. This evil leads to a lot of religious people to question their faith, especially when it comes to natural evil. These issues arise due to the question; if God is all knowing and all loving, should He not then stop suffering from happening?
Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
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.
The issues with this option mainly deal with the definition of a theistic God. If morality is independent of God and God’s commands only exist because the moralities of actions are predetermined, then God is no longer sovereign. If morals are independent of God’s commands then God is not sovereign over morality. This goes against the definition of a theistic God which defines God as the creator and ruler over everything. It also puts limits on God’s power.
PART A: Explain Mill’s challenge to the teleological argument. (25marks) The teleological argument claims that God designed the world with a purpose. God is often described to be omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent. Mill criticises the idea of the teleological argument, he doesn’t believe that the world is designed by a God because within nature there are cruelty and crimes that are unpunished. Mill argues that if God designed the universe he wouldn’t have created something containing any evil at all it wouldn’t fit in with his description.
They say that God does not exist in an objective and real sense; they do not think he is a real human entity existing in the world. For the Deist, God is the creator of the universe. God really exists but he does not and cannot intervene within the world. And lastly, for the Atheist, there is no God to bring about any kind of miracle. I myself am an Atheist, and therefore in my opinion believe miracles are impossible as all miracles are by, definition impossible if they claim to be the action of a deity.
The universe is like the watch in the sense that it has complex features that work together perfectly; therefore the universe like the watch must have been designed. Teleologist’s like Paley would argue that the only one with such power to crate the universe is God. However this argument does not demonstrate empirical evidence to God’s existence, it only concludes that there is a designer, not that he designer is God. Therefore ‘God exists’ is not an empirical hypothesis as there is no known empirical method of proving God’s existence. Secondly ‘God exists’ is not an empirical hypothesis because the knowledge
The issue that arises most commonly comes when all three of God’s characteristics are observed. As an omnibenevolent being, God, in theory, would not allow evil to plague the earth. One might assume God’s omnipotent nature would discount the existence of evil because he is able to stop it. Along with these, God’s omniscient powers would allow him to know of all of the evil. Therefore, believing God to encompass all of these traits would leave anyone in their right mind wondering how anything bad could ever happen in the world.
However since we already have an idea of God as this perfect and infinite being, he must exist. Furthermore, since the natural light clears deception as an imperfection as well as not existing, God is a non-deceiver, he exist and is perfect. After the cogito argument and natural light examination of the deceptive God, Descartes discards the hypothesis that God is a deceiver. Since God is all-good, he would not deceive us. For that reason, Descartes introduces the evil demon/genius instead.
As Dennis McCallum explains in The Problem of Evil, there are more than a few ways to prove or disprove God. The most interesting and well thought out argument is the attack based on the persistence of evil. This attack uses the argument that if God were good and all-powerful he would destroy evil, but since evil still exists, there is no such God. Whether this attack is saying that God is not good or that there is no God at all is unclear, but I see it as saying that there is no God. If there truly were a God who was good, why would he let all the unnecessary pain and suffering happen in the world?