However, if he were to be all three of these things, then why does he allow evil to occur? There are two kinds of evil in the world: moral and natural. Moral evils, by definition, are those evils that are freely inflicted upon humankind by humankind. Moral evils include deceit, murder, and theft. The main argument against the existence of God comes from the belief that God would not allow moral evil to occur.
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.
Naturalist do not believe in more than just matter, they look at things as if I cannot see it then it is not there. However, as a Christians, I believe in more and I know our God is out there helping us through our lives. Naturalist look at us as machines that all of our emotions and such are just reactions in our brains, but Christians believe that everything we do is the creation of God. Secular humanist and Christians are so different I use my religion to help stay in line. Secular humanist feel that religion is really a negative thing because it gives you rules to follow therefore you never really follow your deepest desires.
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 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
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.
On the other hand, Boethius also states that humans do not have free will. If God is omniscient then he already knows all of our choices, past, present and future regardless of whether we have even thought about them yet. This concept would suggest that human’s do not have a choice in their actions or the consequences of them, as, as some philosophers believes out future has already been predetermined. If this is correct and humans have no control over their actions then it would be wrong and unfair for God to punish someone, who had no choice but to do what God had already predetermined. If the Calvinist approach to predestination is true then there would be no need to hope of pray for anything as you cannot change your position, and God has already chosen who he will save before you are born.
If the teleological argument is correct in saying that God created humans like a machine, then you would expect humans to be perfect creations, but we are not. Humans are flawed in many ways including the fact that we have extra organs, and that our skeletons are not created properly for the way we walk. Humans are not machines in any way, and the fact that we are not perfect machines is explained by the theory of evolution. Therefore the theory of evolution is proof against the teleological argument and that God is the creator of the human race and the earth. I feel that this argument fails to prove the existence of God.
So anything that is done is by Gods will as he wanted that to be done. For example Liebniz would say that God willed me to write this essay to this standard this is why I am writing it at this level of quality, and not on the bases of my own essay writing skills. However this ideology can be directly criticised by highlighting the fact that this theory shows God to be evil as he allows evil to happen. For example one can say God is evil as he lets the world to have poverty and allows wars to happen. Satre would also criticise this as he has that it is our choice to write a good essay or not as we have the choice to learn how to write a good essay, if we don’t take the opportunity then it is our loss.
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.