Adopting Augustine’s idea of ‘evil’, we are to say that he is not living up to standards expected of human beings. Privation may also concern itself with things not concerned with morality, such as natural evil. For example, a person may have eyesight that falls shorts of perfect eyesight – his eyesight is therefore ‘evil’. This way, God’s omnipotence is justified because evil is defined as an absence of certain qualities. Hence, it doesn’t exist.
Surely and all loving (omnibenevolent) God wouldn’t allow this. Human Evil is where people cause harm to others and create chaos. Why would God create a world that consists of evil and cruelty? therefore Mill questions the idea of an omnibenevolent God, however if it is disagreed that God isn’t all loving then it could suggest that God doesn’t know of our suffering and could mean that omniscience cannot possibly be an attribute of God. Mill would say that if God is omniscient then surely he is aware of our suffering and would therefore intervene in the evil as he loves us all.
He argues that humans are made in the image of God with the potential to accomplish perfection in the future, and then humans will then grow to become the likeness of God. Hick accepted that if the likeness of God is to be accomplished through experiencing evil then God is partially responsible for evil. However, Hick argues that God is justified in allowing evil because we develop virtues as a result of overcoming life’s challenges. These virtues are “intrinsically more valuable than the virtues created within him ready made without effort on his own part”. Vardy’s example further supports this with the analogy of the king who falls in love with a peasant girl.
Augustine's views seem to come from the concept of "the love of god." His theory starts by him trying to find a solution, the problem being evil. The problem at hand basically is that if god is so infinite in power then evil just can’t is here; but evil exists, therefore god couldn’t possibly. Augustine argues saying that all things start out as good, not perfect, and are like liable to becoming evil. Evil is simply the lack of good.
He suggests that evil has an instrumental value in developing human virtues, he believes that sins are necessary many good things would be taken away if God permitted no evil to exist, ‘for fire would not be generated if air was corrupted’ therefore evil has some sort of good. For Aquinas God is good and knows about evil in the world however does not predetermine it. The world is not perfect but it is the best it can possibly be, God can still be omnipotent, omnibenevolent and omniscient and still
This is done by providing relevant & descriptive information. Another strength is the author’s gripping voice, as well as that the author writes as if he talking to the reader. On the negative side, there is only one major weakness, and its the very abrupt transitions between his topics The author isn’t taking a stance in an argument in this article; it is written with the mindset that being unconventional is good. This mindset is conveyed very well to reader by the end of the article. The data Gladwell presents is credible as it comes from primary sources such as Ranadive himself and quotes from Lawrence’s diary and other reliable sources such as the late general Maurice de Saxe.
‘Is what is pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved?’ In Plato’s Euthyphro dilemma, Plato is asking ‘is x good because God loves it or does God love x because x is good?’ An example of this is murder; is murder wrong because God says it is or is murder wrong because it is wrong morally? If ‘x’ was already good before God commanded it then there would be no purpose to God whereas if God commanded ‘x’ because it’s good, then God would have a purpose as he would have to guide us with what is moral and what isn’t. The view that moral rules are true are good because they were commanded by God is called the divine command theory. ‘The Good consists in always doing what God wills at any particular moment.’ If moral actions are good or bad because they are commanded or forbidden by God, certain things follow such as; if they had not been commanded or forbidden by God then they wouldn’t have been good or bad. Furthermore, if God had said the opposite to what He did say then the things that would have been good is now bad.
This seems almost opposite of what Christianity teaches today. According to predetermination, if Hitler’s soul was predetermined to be saved, none of his horrible actions would have any effect on his fate. This seems ridiculous, and I would have expected Augustine, a true skeptic, to see the holes in this belief. Despite this gaping hole in logic, I find myself agreeing with most of Augustine’s ideas, especially that of obsession and addiction. Often in the modern world, it is obsession and addiction that lead to the most horrible evils.
Emerson’s view on consistency is, once again, completely different form the average view from society. He sees consistency as a bad trait and something that everyone should shy away from. I myself believe that Emerson is right in believing consistency isn’t such a great thing. I believe people should be inconsistent and change their mind if they are given a certain amount of proof to change their mind. This is how Emerson sees consistency; he is very much against it and looks down upon those who do not change their minds.
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?