Hence, it doesn’t exist. Following the above, everything God creates is therefore perfect, hence omnipotent, a quality coherent to the attributes of the god of theism. Again, Augustine attempts to take the blame off God by saying that evil is committed by humanity’s abuse of free will. Yet, God couldn’t have created humans without free will because the point of our existence would be lost, as free will differentiates humans and gives us individuality – it gives our life meaning and purpose. If we were not given free will, the lack of freedom and choice would render us similar to robots.
It is also deductive, so the conclusion is the only possible one that could be deduced give the premises. Therefore, it is theoretically strong. Anselm proposed in the Proslogian that the existence of God was true for him by the virtue of faith and logical necessity. He proposed a reductio ad absurdum argument that aimed to demonstrate he impossibility of denying God’s existence. His first form of the argument runs as follows: (P1) God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived (P2) If God exists in the mind alone (in intellect) then a greater being can be conceived (in re) (P3) God to be the greatest being, has to existing the mind and in reality, otherwise another being would be greater than God.
God being omnipotent means that he can do anything which means he could have created a world free from evil. The idea of God being Omniscient means he has complete knowledge which again suggests that he should know how to stop evil. And God is also seen as Omnibenevolent which means he is all loving, if this is the case how does he allow his creation to suffer, she should desire to stop evil. The evidential problem of evil is the fact that God’s existence is incompatible with Evil. Augustine’s theodicy responds to the evidential problem of evil, it is based on the book ‘Genesis world made perfectly by
Meaning that since good and evil are opposites, since god created good he would have to have created evil. Another response to this is that some theist think something’s cant exist unless their opposites exist so that being thought leads them to believe that since there is good there must be evil. Which I don’t think is true because some things exist because their opposites don’t like having peace. You cant have peace if there’s war. Since peace and war are opposites and one can only exist when the other doesn’t makes some theist response not very accurate.
In this essay I will be explaining the problem of evil, the types of evil, Irenaeus’ idea on immature beings and Augustine’s theodicy of free will. Augustine in his ‘confessions’ defined the problem of evil. ‘Either God cannot abolish evil, or he will not; if he cannot then he is not all-powerful; if he will not then he is not all good’. His assumption is that a good God would eliminate evil as far as it is possible, because if he is omnipotent then all evil should be eliminated, but evil exists so why does God allow it? David hum in ‘Dialogues concerning Natural Religion’ argues that either God is not omnipotent, or God is not omnibenevolent, or evil does not exist.
He said morality was innate; a part of us (a priori), and it was our moral duty to carry it out for good, which must lead to God. Accordingly Kant says good actions should be universalisable and free, so basically when making our ethical decisions we should ask ourselves a simple question "What if everybody did that?" if the answer is no, then the categorical imperative tells us that the action is wrong. So if I cheated on my AS-level exam to pass and be successful in the future, this would be my maxim, however I would not want others to do the same and therefore this action would be wrong according to Kant’s Categorical Imperative. My cheating pre-supposes that most people do not cheat even though they have the same reasons to cheat as I have.
Descartes wonders if God deceives him or not. Which God cannot do because he is the Ultimate and would not do that to something he created. Descartes states “the desire to deceive without doubt testifies to malice or feebleness, and accordingly cannot be found in God” (73). So God does have power and some people believe that a man of power will use his power to deceive, but the fact that something wants to deceive and show God to be a coward. God cannot be a coward because he is the Supreme.
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
The counter argument to this though, is that animals do not fall under his jurisdiction and so the brutality that is nature is out of his control. God can only then make humans all good; which is apparent to be untrue (war, rape, murder.) In effect, Gould has showed that there could very validly be no active god. Whichever way a person’s belief systems lean, this paper by Stephen Jay Gould is a very insightful read into one way of thinking. Whether that means it solely educates those who firmly believe in god that there are other views, or it converts a person to non religious views, it is a worthwhile read.
No red-blooded theist would accept the wimpy moral intuition underlying the Reckless-objection, and would give God's creation of free persons in both versions as a counterexample. The objection also faces an ad hominem type rebuttal in that no existent person, except for a few gripers, are apt to make it; for if God hadn't elected to roll the dice, they wouldn't even exist, and supposedly, they are glad that they do. Although both versions make the same lack of knowledge excuse available to God, they differ significantly in their epistemological and metaphysical underpinnings, and thus require separate consideration. The outcome of our discussion will be that both versions face formidable objections: the first version, because of its denial of I, renders it anomalous how God is able to create any free persons; and the second version waters down God's omniscience in an unacceptably anthropomorphic